TOUCH

Chapter 43

Pain is a weird thing. Whether it's your own or someone else's, it hits you like waves, clogging your every senses and washing over you again and again till you are breathing and living it.

I see no hint of life in Barbie. She lay here motionless, her entire body swollen from whatever she consumed. An eerie thought makes it's way in my mind and before I can second guess, I blurt. "She'll... She'll be..." Nothing makes past my throat beyond that. Sourness erupts low in my stomach.

"She'll be okay," Silas answers my unspoken question. I meet his gaze, his own eyes glassy.

"I need you all to leave please." A mechanical voice says. A little bitterness leaked through it.

Despite the request, I am frozen on the spot, my eyes wandering back and forth from Silas to Barbie.

The nurse's words are laced with harshness. "Miss, please, I need you to leave. But her presence and voice is obliterated by the continued beeping of machines around Barbie and my own thoughts.

"C'mon Aura, we'll come back again," Silas says and I tilt my head , regarding him for a moment.

He grasp my arm and give it a slight jerk to make me move towards the door. The movement brings me out of my dazed state and I walk out of the room, following others.

"Did you know why she...?" I sigh, exhausted from the situation. My knees feel like buckling under its weight.

Silas turns me around so that I face him. He levels his gaze on mine and I get a feeling that I won't be liking the answer to that question. He keeps his words deep and smooth, " She was fooling around with Zayn again and apparently when he rejected her again, she couldn't stand it." His words are short, pissed.

I shake my head to get rid of what I just heard. The conversation is chafing me with anger and sadness at the same time.

Looking around my eyes land on my hand intertwined with Silas's. He is tracing patterns on my arms, a whisper of a touch trailing behind. But this is a sensation  so deep in my skin it's like it has always been there, lying dormant. I curiously look at it as if its the most wondrous thing in the world. It is - because I don't know how long has he been doing that from and yet. Yet I didn't shy away from his touch.

"Aura?" he calls but then perhaps follows my line of sight and untangles his hand from mine quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize. Wasn't intentional..."

"I know," I say looking at him so that he knows I mean it. "It's okay. I think I am okay with it now."

"Yeah?" A small grin tug at his lips that has nothing to do with his flirtatious personality. This one is genuine.

"Yeah." I can't help a corner of my lips from lifting.

"I'll see you later." He takes out his phone and moves towards the door.

I pivot to go and meet Anne when I spot Zayn. His condescending stare burns me.

What the fuck is he mad about?

"Aura!"

I flick my gaze away from Zayn's ticking jaw and find Cassian pointing me to come towards the canteen. He turns to walk there himself and before I can think too much about Zayn's many moods, I follow Cassian.

"Hey," he says cocking his eyebrow at the door we just came from. "That was intense."

I swallow and shake my head. "Forget it."

"Not Zayn, the girl." He pass a cup of cold coffee towards me. We are the only idiots drinking cold coffee in this weather.

"Any idea why she did that?"