Pathways // Gawsten [Book 2]

13 - Homie or Homo

Grace's eyes shot open, and the first thing she saw was the swinging light shade above her. The entire room was pitch black, the only sliver of light coming in through the gap in the curtains. Her breathing was heavy and erratic, and the image of her nightmare swam around her head. 

Sleeping had been difficult for all of them, but since Otto had returned, Grace had found it harder and harder to sleep peacefully. Her sleep was filled with images of Otto's funeral, and what she thought his dead body would look like. She thought of Geoff dying, and watched her friends reacted. Worst of all, she couldn't shake the image her brain had created of Otto getting killed.

At one point, she was so desperate to discover the truth about what had happened. But now, she struggled to cope with it. She found herself haunted by images that weren't real, caused by a situation which was.

Grace closed her eyes again and rolled over slightly to curl up to Otto more, but her hand fell limp onto an empty space. Immediately, her eyes shot open again to look upon the place in the bed where Otto was only hours before. The sight of the empty bed made her heart race even quicker and it felt like the oxygen in the room was becoming less and less. Waking up from a nightmare about your boyfriend dying to find your boyfriend not in the room anymore was the worst possible case scenario.

"Otto?" She whispered, hoping by some logic he could hear her and reply. She knew he wasn't in the room. It was obvious by the fact the door was open and letting in a minuscule amount of light from the hallway. 

Without thinking, she pulled the sheets away from her body and pushed herself up from the bed. The only sound in the room was her feet padding against the floor towards the door. She opened the door as slowly as she could, trying not to disturb Jawn who was asleep across the hall.

She looked both ways down the hallway, seeing if any light was coming from downstairs. She couldn't see anything or any light, and sighed disappointedly. That meant he wasn't down there, if he was even still in the house. 

Grace looked up the stairs  to Geoff's room and saw light poking out from underneath the door, and the quickly walked up the stairs to his room but stopped before she could knock on the door, hearing voices on the inside.

"We--talk--this." She heard Geoff's hushed voice say to someone, and it was then she realised someone else was in the room.

"You're right." The other person said, slightly louder than Geoff, and Grace released a silent sigh of relief. The voice was undeniably Otto, which meant he was still in the house, and he was fine, and was with Geoff.

Happy with what she found, she was about to walk back down the stairs when she stopped in her tracks, listening to the next sentence Geoff said,

"Awsten can't find out about this."

She turned around on the spot and tip toed so she was stood against the wall next to Geoff's bedroom. Her head was next to the door so she could hear what they were saying. Deep down, she knew this was wrong, but she was convinced from the moment Geoff and Otto got back that they were hiding something, and this was confirmation that she was right.

"Neither can Grace." Otto agreed, 

"I can't even think about how they'd react." Geoff responded.

They were hiding something, and they weren't going to tell her or Awsten. Her mind instantly went to the letters. What's something they'd react badly to. She immediately thought that they'd started again and her heart began to pound and tears filled her eyes. 

"What happens in Houston, stays in Houston." Otto said,
"Even if neither of us entirely want it to stay there."

Now, Grace was confused. Maybe this wasn't about the letters, but what could have happened in Houston that was bad enough for them to hide? She didn't like the fact they were hiding new things from her.