Wings

Chapter 10: In the Morning

The stairwell just sat in silence, stunned in my case, as I stared back at Harry. After several moments, Nessa broke in. “Kari, are you okay?” she asked again.

            “What happened?” I asked, finally pulling my gaze from Harry to her, turning my back to the boys.

            “Well Perrie woke up and you weren’t in the room and we were debating looking for you when we heard you yelling.”

            “I was yelling?”

            “Yes,” Perrie said, moving up next to Nessa. “Kari, who’s Ian?”

            I gulped, my eyes stinging at the sound of his name. I averted my gaze from them, quickly sneaking a glance over my shoulder again to check the landing. I was hoping the boys would all be gone; I didn’t want them to see me cry. It was hard to hear my brothers’ names. Even after six years. But they were still there.

            “No one, I just had a bad dream,” I said quickly.

            Perrie looked like she wanted to push it but Nessa shot her a look and they both backed off a bit. “Okay well why don’t you come back and sleep in a bed,” Nessa suggested with a smile. I was grateful for their kindness up to this point but it was aggravating me that they seemed to be treating me like a child right now.

            I stood up anyways, wanting to go sleep in the bed as lumpy and old as the mattress may be. Perrie cleared her throat as I turned and was met by the wall of people in the doorway.

            “Oh yah so we’ll be back off to bed,” Louis announced loudly, picking up on her hint. He turned, ushering the other boys out before him. I didn’t get another look at Harry, he was out of sight too quickly but somehow I knew he still was wearing the same expression.

            The boys went to their rooms, muttering sleepy goodnights as they returned to the sleeping quarters. We made our way back to ours, my stomach knotting when I saw the door thrown open, the room obviously left in quite the hurry.

            “How loud was I?”

            “Booming loud, we heard you no problem from our room and as you saw you woke other people up,” Perrie told me. “But seriously, who is Ian?”

            I guess she thought now that we were alone I would share. Too bad for her I still wasn’t. I just shook my head as I peeled back the blanket, tossing myself down and pulling the quilt over my legs, my back to my roomates.

Perrie and Nessa woke early, needing to be down to the kitchens to make breakfast. I woke with them, seeing no reason I couldn’t get up and start helping at an early time too although I was completely exhausted. My nightmare had stolen any restfulness from my first bought of sleep and the second had only been a few hours long.

            “Do you think I should try and help in the kitchens again?” I asked Nessa as she laced up her boots. Seeing her doing so reminded me that I still needed new ones, mine falling apart worse now than the day I had gone searching for some and ended up here.

            “If you want or you could go talk to Simon and figure out what he actually wants to assign you to do, like once you’re settled in and healed up.”

            I decided to go see Simon, not wanting to spend a ton of time with Perrie and Nessa looking out for me. Just in the room this morning it seemed like they had been watching me closely, seeming to think I would begin yelling or crying at a moment’s notice. Why couldn’t they just pass of the incident as a bad nightmare? People had those all the time and brushed them off upon awaking, why weren’t they assuming I would be the same way?