Accidental Housemate

15: panicking

“Perrie, Perrie!” I heard a voice calling me distantly.

I opened my eyes slowly, but the light right above them was blinding. I closed them and then retried, that time bringing my hand up slowly to shield them from the excessive light. Eyes half-open, I saw Dave’s head hovering above me, and it took me a moment to realise my head was on his lap. When he felt me trying to get up, he helped me by supporting my shoulders. My head swirled, and I rubbed it again.

“What… happened?” I asked, voice hoarse.

“You fainted.”

I finally noticed Melissa when I heard her voice.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised, acknowledging it was her deed. What she and Dave didn’t know was that I hadn’t had a proper meal ever since I woke up because of the rollercoaster of recent events.

Instinctively, I crawled away from her, only to collide with her brother. “What do you want?” I glared at her.

“Perrie, absolutely nothing. This… wasn’t my intention.” She looked away from me, rubbing her arm. If only she knew she was a small spot in my sea of issues that day.

Dave butted in, “What’s going on?”

“Can I have time alone?” I requested, ignoring his curiosity and holding onto the hope Melissa would be empathetic enough not to tell him my truth yet.

She got up and left while Dave helped me to my bed before he left.

Melissa felt embarrassed about staying in my room anymore, so she took her belongings later and moved them to her brother’s room. At nine in the evening, she was already knocked out and snoring softly when I passed by Dave’s door.

As I sat in my room alone, I thought about what the next day would be like, and how I’d survive Hannah’s death grip from then on. I sensed she planned on torturing me further than what she had done back in the dirty toilet, and the thought caused me to cry even harder.

I should quit.

Modelling agencies weren’t limited to that one, and I could find a better one that didn’t employ creepy, assaultive photographers. I was the type of person who stuck so hard to her comfort zone, though. If I tried to find another agency, I could only hope my past wouldn’t follow and haunt me. Or I could try to report Hannah, but that wasn’t a preferred option, considering she wouldn’t hesitate to expose my past, and then I’d be back to square one. That could affect my future applications.

The feeling of her filthy, rough hands didn’t leave, even after my hard scrubbing. My skin tingled while the memory replayed vividly in my head, refusing to leave me alone and let me sleep in peace. I tried hard to pull myself out of the darkness by looking out the window.

I concluded I wouldn’t be sleeping and accepted it.

The door was ajar, and it opened wider when Dave knocked, revealing me wiping my face with my sleeve’s edge.

“Perrie?”

“Hmm,” I hummed, not looking his way but rather at the floor.

“Were you crying?” he asked as he walked closer.

“What do you want?”

Dave sighed and sat beside me on my bed, keeping a reasonable distance. “Something happened to you today; I can tell.”

I stayed silent.

“Don’t think for a second I couldn’t see the bruises on your wrists too,” he added, triggering me further. He tried to touch my hands, but I rejected the skin contact and pulled my sleeves further on my hands. “Did you have a physical fight?” he inquired.

“Sort of,” I mumbled. I wasn’t entirely lying; I hoped he’d take the answer and leave.

“Perrie, I worry.”

Then he didn’t believe me.

That… That made me finally look up at him. In his eyes was a look I wasn’t familiar with. His lips’ corners tugged downwards in a frown, and his shoulders were slumped. I looked him up and down.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my housemate, and we’re… close? I can’t see you in trouble and just watch.”

Again, he tried to touch my hands, and I refused.

Tell him? Don’t tell him?

“I think I’m sick,” I admitted. I felt fatigued, and my headache wouldn’t go away. I also felt shaky and unbalanced.

Dave’s hand automatically touched my forehead, and I flinched. “You have a slight fever.”

I gently pushed his hand back. “Tell me something I don’t know. That must be the cause of my headache. Now, can you leave?”

He ignored what I requested and added, “Lemme see what meds I’ve got for this.”

Dave left the room, but I knew that comfort would be short-lived. I sat on the floor by the bed, hugging my knees to myself and burying my head between them and my chest.

The events from earlier in the day replayed, and I groaned in frustration. I hugged myself tighter until my bones strained and hurt in the hopes I’d stop shaking. I cried again, feeling her hand brush the side of my face. My nails instantly dug in where her fingers had once been and made a scratch, making me wail harder, but not from the physical pain. A little blood came out. I squeezed my nails inside my palm, fisting my hand, not wanting to see the result of my harshness.

He came back. “I hope these help—your face! What happened?”

Dave rushed to my side as I cried, and he laid what he’d brought on the floor. I hid my hands in my sleeves again as I caved myself in, but the guy insisted on holding my forearms with a firm grip and making me face him. I looked away, not daring to show him my wounded face.

“Perrie, it’s fine,” he started. “Think with me. Five things you can see.”

Five things I could see… I couldn’t. My eyes were closed, so the only thing I could see was darkness.

“Four things you can feel.”

His firm yet unharming grip on me, Hannah’s touch lingering on my skin, the hard floor underneath me, and the restriction of my clothes.

“Three things you can hear. C’mon, you can do this,” he whispered.

His words, my cries, and the friction between me and the rug.

“Two things you smell.”

His faint cologne. That was all I smelt.

“One thing you taste.”

“Nothing…” I mumbled. The only feeling in my mouth was dryness.

He reached for the bottled water and gave it to me after he opened it. I took a big gulp, wetting all of my mouth in the process. I mumbled a faint thank you.

“Let’s count to five, then you say the first thing that bothers you, yeah?”

I didn’t agree, but he started, nonetheless.

“One.”

The gleam in his eyes locked my gaze on him. Focusing on his face, on his eyes, felt a million times better than letting my worries consume me.

“Two.”

Dave’s thumbs brushed my forearms through the fabric in circles to comfort me.

“Three.”

His hands slid carefully from my forearm to my hands. I recoiled, causing him to go even slower, but he didn’t stop. Our hands touched, and he squeezed mine. When he felt I didn’t mind the movement anymore, he intertwined our fingers as well.

“Four.”

Hesitatingly, he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear to have a better look at the burning scratch.

“Five.”

With the last number, we hugged. I cried some more, holding onto his shirt. That time, it was less strained and fearful.

. . .

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