✔ | PAINTED IN CRIMSON | T. SHARPE

FIFTEEN | LACHRYMOSE

❝Take me home.❞

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FIFTEEN | LACHRYMOSE

"You're going straight to bed," I said to Josh as we climbed up the stairs to the flat, I was checking the bills I took from the small table in the entrance, "I don't believe for a second that you're 'perfectly fine' I know when you lie."

We got in the flat and I took Josh to his bedroom; he'd look a little spaced out sometimes. My fingers made contact with his hand and I noticed how warm it was, therefore I led the back of my hand to his cheeks and forehead, "I need you to lie down for a while, you're warm." I said to him as I made my was to his bathroom and took a wet towel to put it on his forehead and make his temperature go down. He had been complaining about a cold the whole week, add some hours in a freezing house and the fact of seeing a ghost and being thrown against a wall, I was slightly surprised Josh wasn't worse. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him taking off his shirt and keeping the vest he was wearing underneath it and then he crawled into bed.

"Did you see the look in her eyes?" I heard him asking when I walked out of the bathroom. I quickened my pace towards him and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Josh, stop thinking about it, you're safe now," I combed back his hair with my fingers and then I put the wet towel on his forehead and he tried to put it away by saying he was fine. I had to stop myself from telling him 'I told you not to come', I kept caressing his hair instead, "You just need to sleep, you'll feel better afterwards." I said softly and he slowly began to drift off.

He was okay, except for a sore arm, a headache and well, he was in some kind of shock, but nothing he couldn't recover from. I was as tired as him, I had to drive all the way back to London in Josh's car and left mine in Allerdale Hall, which made me a little worried, but deep down I knew that being in that cursed place nobody would go and try to steal it.

I went to the bathroom like a million times to refresh the towel and put it back on Josh's forehead and he'd open his eyes every time. I was really having a hard time to make him sleep. After a while, I felt myself nodding off, I was so tired, but I didn't want to leave him alone.

Some minutes passed by and he had already fallen asleep by the time the doorbell rang, making him jerk half awake, but this time he rolled on his side and groaned a bit, "I'll get that, just go back to sleep." I said softly as I got up from bed.

I heard my own footsteps on the wooden floor and I jogged to the door, trying to comb my hair with my fingers at the same time so I wouldn't look like a mad woman.

I opened the door and the expression on my face darkened. Before me, stood the man I thought I had left behind in my little trip to Spain. My eyes glared at him and he avoided them. His jacket hung from his arm and he held a book in his hands; I waited for him to speak but he only stood there.

"What do you want, what are you doing here?" I shot and he looked up at me.

"I need to tell you something." He said in that perfectly articulated voice of his and I narrowed my eyes at him.

"And you couldn't tell me so in the hotel? How did you know I live here?"

"Same way you knew where I live," he said, "do you think you're the only one who can track down a person?" I ignored him.

"You've come to take me to a psychiatric hospital, don't you?" Nicholas shut his eyes for a second.

"Listen," he said, "I know you're angry with me and it's understandable, I want to apologise for everything I said, for everything I implied, I'm sorry, Adeline, I mean it," he had come to say sorry, I opened my mouth to utter the most sarcastic response I could formulate, yet he interrupted and spoke first, "Please, I want to have a civilised conversation with you, I didn't take a plane to have a silly argument with you, none of us will solve anything with an argument." I thought twice before stepping on a side and opening wide the door, indicating him to go into the flat. He dedicated me a small smile and I shut the door.