Burn With Me (updating slowly)

Chapter 7

Waking up with a pounding headache is never the best way to start your day. But knowing that you didn't drink that much the night before, that should be your first red flag. Your second next red flag is not being able to recall what happened to you, up until a certain point. And the final red flag should be why there is a big red bruise in the shape of a hand printed onto your hand, swollen and sore.

But because I'm me, and how my life works ever since I started working for Craig, there has always been more to those red flags.

And this was no exception.

Because at the tips of my fingers on my right hand, the tips were blue.

Now I wasn't all that good in school, but I'm pretty sure that once you come back from drinking, your fingers don't turn blue.

So as I sat up in my head, staring dumbly at my fingers, ignoring Craig who was watching from the shadows of my room in the corner, nestled in my bean bag, staring at my own hands in puzzlement I knew he wasn't going to comment because he too, would have spotted them and was trying to work out what it was the same as me.

But as I locked eyes with him across the room and observed as he squirmed uncomfortably in my hot pink bean bag, I couldn't help but grin his way. His long legs seemed as though they were supposed to be proportioned higher than the rest of his body, and his arms freakishly large as the rest of his body looked startling smaller. But I knew that because of how he was sat, it was just the bean bag adjusting to his weight, to hold him properly. The frown on his face didn't help my situation either as I grinned from my bed to him.

"Never speak of this again," he spoke, his gaze full of annoyance.

My grin only widened and I shook my head.

"I'll only mention it when you bring around your girlfriend, then." I teased.

Before he could move off the bean bag, I swiped my phone which was conveniently nestled on the side table next to me, opened my camera and took a picture of him, laughing loudly as I did.

"I can see you feel fine then," he practically waved off my teasing as he rose from the bean bag and crossed his arms, making his biceps stick out beautifully.

"Eh, if you count this raging headache and weird mark on my arm as feeling fine, then I'm as fine as the Road Runner."

"Shake it off, Blue."

His tone turned stronger as he said that, more commanding.

"I know." I matched his stare as we both recounted the meaning behind those words. Craig had always said that to me during our time in the orphanage. Let's say the kids weren't the most welcoming of people when I arrived and because of my parent's death recent and fresh in my mind, the other kids saw this as a sign of weakness and constantly teased me because of it. There was no remorse because my parents had died. They all had their own nightmares, they all suffered, I was just another load to their chores that they had to do in the orphanage. But Craig, he saw something in me there and with him being a few years older than me, he took me under his wing and whenever he found me crying in the corner of the room from when the kids were bullying me and the death of my parents, he grabbed me by the arm and sent me back to finish my chores, telling me to "shake it off, Blue" as he walked away, leaving me to my chores.

A harsh way of learning at that age, but an effective one nevertheless.

Craig is a man of few words when it comes to compassion and understanding, so with him watching me sleep, no matter how creepy that is, him staying in the room until I was awake speaks more to me than he could ever say.