Enough | ✔️

+ 42 +

The rest of the trip passes uneventfully, but with my mind working in overdrive - a default setting, unfortunately - it simultaneously becomes stressful. Thus, once my two feet are finally atop the carpeted corridor in front of room H2, I am more than relieved - as well as more than exhausted.

I roll my suitcase in and slide off my shoes with a sigh. Quorra walks in behind me, lugging her bag which sporadically tangles itself between her legs due to its rather awkward height setting.

Hang on.

"Quorra, is that my bag?" I question, turning my head to the side as her body hides it from view.

She seems confounded, "No, it's- oh...

Hey, is this your bag?"

Fatigue withering my attention span down, I brush the matter aside and sit down on the foot of my bed, falling back on the covers and welcoming the comfort of the airy duvet. It's as if stress has become more of an energy sink than physical activity. I should feel guilty after demanding improvement in Quorra's lifestyle and then being a total hypocrite, but I'm just relieved that she's at least enjoying a better quality of life.

Well, she was until he came and fucked things up. Ever since his arrest, she's been desperately projecting an image of plastic glee: as if my ears stop functioning at night and I can't hear her when the lights are out. As ironic as it is, she's just pretending to be a happy camper - and everyone believes her but me. Can no-one else see the fragility in her gaze?

I glance over at my duplicitous angel, who sits on the side of my bed and has fallen quiet. She fiddles with her fingers in her lap, eyes full of nothing and the whole world at the same time. With half-closed eyes, I watch her for a moment.

I take note of the unpredictable rhythm of her breathing and the nervous fidgeting she does without realising, the flutter of her eyelashes and the tongue which darts out every two seconds to wet her bottom lip, her upturned eyebrows as she ponders over her latest source of suffering.

She catches me a second later, the turmoil in her eyes melting away and her hands pausing their fiddling. A soft pink hue dusts itself across her cheeks.

"Sorry," she mumbles, as if she's committed a crime.

Feet completely dead, I settle for leaning up on my elbows to get closer to her.

If only it were that easy.

"You are undeniably difficult to figure out, Quorra Neversea," I state, only deepening the confused expression worn by the broken girl in front of me, "But not quite undecipherable."

She smiles, as if catching onto a joke, "Oh, so you have me all figured out, do you, Professor Hartley?" she questions, "So what fascinating conclusion have you come to?"

I pretend to ponder deeply over my reply, "You're delusional."

Her smile drops in synchronisation with her eyebrow raising.

"Excuse me, mister? If you think that's earning you anything tonight, you're sorely mistaken."

Immediately, I can't help the surprised, breathy laugh from escaping me. She never fails to shock me with her antics.

"What on earth are you insinuating, Quorra?" I ask rhetorically, before turning serious, "And I mean that you're delusional if you think a few sheets of polyester and the air of the campsite will stop me from hearing you in your tent at night."

I catch the one-shade difference in her skin tone as she swallows before slapping on a half-hearted smile, "Well, that seems more an innuendo than mine."