Hollows In Time (✔️) | 'Hollows' Book Ⅱ

Chapter Five

^ Alexi Abbot (looking frickin gorgeous) and there's a video if you swipe ;)^
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H o l l o w s I n
T I M E
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23/08/16–24/08/16
Twelve months and two weeks ago

Alexi asked to sleep round. Well, she didn't really ask—it sounded more like a requirement as she got permission from both her parents and mine. Now, laying in the dark with her next to me on the decorative couch in my room, I realised why she had been persistent about the idea. She was worried about me.

I sat up, "I'm fine, you know." I told her, not even sure if she was still awake.

But, she was. "Hmm?" She hummed into the darkness, and I heard her shift in her makeshift bed.

"You staying here—you're trying to keep me company or something." I spoke again, then, being fed up of not being able to see her, I switched on the lamp next to me. Honestly, being back in my bed was a peculiar feeling—I felt relaxed yet uncomfortable. It felt right, somewhere in the very back of my mind, but all I could think about was everything that I had lost to get here. And it hurt—it hurt so damn much. I feel empty. I feel incomplete. I feel destroyed.

Alexi peered at me, then she pushed herself up onto her elbows. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm happy you're alive and I want to spend more than hour with you." She shrugged, her flippant mood back intact with her quipped response.

It grew silent, then Alexi sighed, sitting up cross-legged. "You were missing for a while, I'm keeping you company, sure. But I experienced the pain of losing two friends for three months, I'm not going to go and experience it permanently." She explained, her lip twitching slightly—she was on edge, how could Lexi ever be on edge?

I scoffed, copying her and sitting upright too. "Yeah because I'm going to get killed overnight." I retorted but Lexi raised her eyebrow at me, unconvinced.

"You were kidnapped, and in daylight; worse things happen at nighttime." She told me, with a strange morbid edge that I couldn't shake off. But I was concerned by something else.

"You feel guilty," I analysed—Alexi shifted under my mind-reading eyes, "Because of what happened, because you were there before it happened," Lexi turned away from my stare, and she seemed to slouch over—was she ashamed too? It was crazy how deep I could read into this girl's every word and action since I hadn't seen her in five months.

"Because you walked away." I finished, and Lexi flinched. She didn't respond. I pushed the covers off me, quietly and stealthily padding over to where Alexi sat, her eyes on me the whole time.

I sat beside her and picked up her hand, threading my fingers through hers. "Can I tell you something crazy?" I whispered. But after watching her expression change from confused to interested and then to curious and then back around the cycle again, I mentally slapped myself. Was I actually considering telling her my biggest secret? The secret that is five months big? Sky, are you crazy?

I struggled for a phrase to fill in the gap, and Alexi's awaiting eyes were making me feel awkward. "All my life has been a series of doors in my face.." I trailed off uneasily, avoiding Lexi's stare and scratching the side of my face.

But it was okay. Alexi burst into a thundering laugh, her eruption of giggles probably waking up millions of households. "I missed you, Sky-Fly, you really are my only source of entertainment." She spoke through her chuckles and pulled me into her side, using the nickname I had hated for ten years, yet, in this moment, it was the only thing I wanted to hear.