Awake | Wattys Winner!

FOUR: awareness

PICTURED: Isaac Mikhailov

"Gia, I-I'm calling an ambulance," I mumbled, my lips ice cold as I fumbled with my thumbs to unlock my phone screen.

"No!" she shrieked, the first sound to leave her mouth in the long few minutes I stood in the doorway. She leapt forward and knocked the phone from my frozen fingers, leaving a trail of scarlet over my pale skin and the echo of a shattering sound against the tile.

"Gia," I cried, and then the sobs started shaking my chest, shock overtaking my body as I stared between where my phone had landed and where my best friend stood. "Gia we need to get help - look at you! Oh god, Gia are you hurt? Where is - there's so much blood!"

"You can't tell anyone," she said, her voice a quiet whisper. "Nobody. Not even Bel."

"Are you crazy?" My knees felt as if they would collapse at any moment. "Why can't I tell them? What happened?"

She blinked, even her eyelashes sticking together with moisture. She was an absolute mess, dirt caking the skin which wasn't already covered in blood. "I don't know."

"We need to talk to someone," I said, my words slow, trying to make her understand. I reached out, taking her arm in some show of comfort.

"I just have to clean up," she muttered, and then she pulled her wrist from my grip and reached for the shower tap, turning on the hot water and igniting the sizzling sound of water in our silence.

"Gia," I repeated, as she started peeling off her shirt, tossing it to the ground. Her movements were robotic and quick as she shed her clothing. Underneath, her skin was smooth and clean. It wasn't her blood.

She stepped into the shower, as if I weren't there, and the water ran a tinted red as it ran down her naked body.

I stepped backwards, almost slipping on the wet tile. When I spoke, my voice was a plea, as if desperate for my only explanation to be validated. "Was it an animal? Is it animal blood?"

Gia tilted her head. She was facing away from me, and I couldn't read her expression. Her voice was clipped. "Yeah. An animal. We hit an animal with a car."

"Who's car?" I asked.

She was quiet.

"I'll go get some clothes for you," I said, my stomach knotting so tightly I thought I was going to throw up.

I waited outside of the bathroom for her to finish cleaning up. I should have called security. But she had been so intent on me not contacting them. What if she was in trouble, and she thought telling them would be dangerous? Gia was smart. I needed to trust her, at least for now.

But she took so long. I was sure at least an hour past as I sat outside of the door, guarding it in waiting, listening to the distant pattering of water droplets against the floor of the shower. Every other noise in the apartment had me jumping, and I kept rubbing at the place where Gia had spread blood across my wrist. Someone's blood.

Somewhere between stressing out about my best friend's horrific state and theorizing that the shadows around me from the furniture in the hallway were growing, I fell into a sleep filled with nightmares. Gia running through the forest, her clothes bloody and her hair matted.

I shouldn't have been able to fall asleep. I should have been so terrified and on edge that I checked on her, or called Isobel and confessed everything. Found someone to help. But I fell into a deep slumber, my body waking to find my cheek pressed against the carpet, sun streaming through the entrance to our kitchen.