The Piano || 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘣𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘬

|37| It's okay to need help.

The first thing Ashley noticed when she woke up was that her throat had gotten worse again. Swallowing hurt so badly that she tried to avoid it as much as she could while lying in the bed.

The second thing was that this was, in fact, not her bed. She was not buried in her own covers, but instead in black ones that smelled like someone she knew all too well. Frowning, she sat up and looked around the room. Yes, this was Colby's room. The blinds were closed but the little bit of light they let through indicated that it was already noon.

Groggily, she brushed a hand over her hair and chest. Her jewellery was gone and her braid open, probably because she hadn't redone it in a long time. Her hair tie was lost somewhere, either at her place or here in the bed. She didn't have the energy to start looking for it.

Colby was nowhere to be seen, which made her sigh and want to fall back in the pillows to wait for him, for some reason. But she got out of the bed and walked to his bathroom, nonetheless. God, she looked miserable. The rings under her eyes were dark and her skin was even paler than yesterday. Traces of makeup were smeared all over her face, so she quickly washed her face, hoping that most of it would come off. She wasn't in the mood to look for makeup wipes.

Getting the mascara away definitely helped, but her hair looked just as dull and tangled as before. After separating it into three strands, she quickly braided it. Without motivation for anything more, she walked out of Colby's room in the living room, pulling the hoodie's sleeves down until they reached her hands. At least she had been wearing comfortable clothes the day before, so it didn't matter that she hadn't changed at night.

"Hi," she muttered in a raspy voice as she saw Sam sitting on the couch, scrolling on his phone. He looked up immediately.

"Wow, Ashley, you ok?" he asked. She shook her head and sat down on the other end of the couch.

"I have a cold," she said, her voice raspy, not wanting to speak too much. Damn it, her throat hurt.

"Shit, can I get you anything?" he asked. She waved it off and shook her head. She didn't feel like eating right now, especially not drinking. Not even warm things. Jerry would probably force her to eat some soup, but he wasn't here right now.

When she thought of Jerry, she felt the need to cry again. She forced the tears down and took a deep breath instead.

"So, um," she said, her voice cracking. She needed to distract herself. "... Hoffman Hotel?"

"We thought we should go as soon as possible," Sam said, immediately going with the change of topic. "But, of course, that won't be too soon. There will be more planning this time, and, you know..." He cleared his throat. "We'll wait for Jerry to be okay."

"You guys are too nice," Ashley said, her voice muffled because she pressed her face in a yellow star pillow that had been next to her. Sam chuckled.

"Everyone would do that," he disagreed.

"But still," she whined, "I'm making all this trouble all the damn time and you're just smiling about it and telling me what you're going to do to make my problems your problems and then fix them." Did that make sense? It probably didn't. But Ashley didn't care.

"Ashley. You don't need to deal with your problems alone," he said. "There are a lot more people here for you than you think. Even Kris would do this for you, you know that?"

"We met once," Ashley stated.

"I bet you a hundred dollars that you could message her right now and ask her if you could crash at her place for a while and she would immediately agree."