Piece By Piece | ✓

13 | vanessa

     Vanessa was the first one to wake up the next morning.

     With furrowed eyebrows, she glanced down at her duvet-covered body as she scratched the sleep out of her hazy eyes, a subtle yawn tumbling out of her lips.

     For once, her nightmares subsided and let her sleep peacefully. Vanessa remembered that she downed two sleeping pills before surrendering to the tempting arms of sleep, and she was thankful for having a less disturbing dream last night.

     Her brown eyes widened in surprise when she saw several pillows beside her, her eyebrows scrunching up in confusion as she struggled to figure out why she would need a barricade of pillows of her own bed.

     Her confused thoughts were immediately answered when her gaze lifted up to see lime-colored walls surrounding her instead of the usual beige ones—she wasn't in her room.

     Vanessa blinked several times as she threaded her fingers through her nest of messy dark hair, still trying to piece together the events that lead to her waking up in a different bedroom. Memories swirled in her mind, vague shapes merging together, becoming more discernible.

     The diner. Working at a graveyard shift. Running water from the bathroom sink. She nodded mentally, slowly recalling what had happened the night before.

     Another crease formed between her eyebrows as she concentrated on remembering again. Cruel smiling lips with crooked teeth. Cracking sounds. Frantic screams slipping out of her mouth. Pelts of light rain staining her clothes as she pushed her legs to run away, to escape from Phil.

     Okay, so that made sense, but why was she in a room and lying on a bed that wasn't hers?

     More memories materialized, adding more clues to the unsolved puzzle she was trying to figure out. It had been drizzling when she got out of the diner, and as she neared the coffee shop, her shaky legs finally gave up on her and she almost crashed into the soft carpet of grass at the park.

     Vanessa let out a gasp, instantly covering her mouth with her hands upon realizing the most crucial events of last night. When she noticed that another person was lying right beside the barricade of pillows beteeen them, she bit the insides of her cheeks to keep herself from screaming.

     Now she knew why she was in this room, and why she was sharing the same bed with him.

     Tristan had caught her when she almost fell face first on the grass, drove her back home after they were both interrogated by the police, and he woke her up from another horrendous nightmare.

     Vanessa thought that he was going to exit the room after she snapped out of the nightmare, but he didn't—he stayed with her, watched her down her sleeping pills, and then he plopped himself beside her because she told him to.

     Well, she didn't exactly want to stay in a room with him, much less share a bed, but she saw how sleepy and tired his eyes were, so she just let him—and besides, this was his apartment, after all.

     She couldn't recall gathering enough pillows and making them into a barricade, though. He must've woken up in the middle of the night and made them while she was fast asleep. In a way, she was grateful that he did—if she woke up and saw that she was pressed up against him, then she definitely would've screamed bloody murder and slapped him in the face.

     Carefully, she slipped out of the bed and quickly took a step back when Tristan shifted and turned to face her side of the bed, his right arm plopping on the barricade of pillows, his mouth slightly agape as he snored peacefully.