In the Shadows

VII

I threw myself face first on my pillow and groaned. It was one of those nights where you could feel the exhaustion through your skin pores yet you were fully awake and seemingly unable to fall asleep. Some called it insomnia but for me it didn't happen as often to give it a proper title. It had more to do with the fact that I was stressed or that my father's death anniversary was coming up. Same happened when it was my brother's. In this case, it was the stress of the semester's end and the festival coming up next week.

I tossed and turned around and sighed as I looked at my ceiling childishly splattered with small glow-in-the-dark stars. I stared at them until the first rays of light started peeking out from behind my curtains; I couldn't recall if I had gotten some sleep in the meantime but when the light was enough for my eyes to adapt to the remaining darkness and distinguish the silhouette of the objects scattered around my room I jumped out of my bed and put on my jogging clothes.

I needed some fresh air to clear my mind.

After the jog, I ran a bath – which was something I rarely did – and finally finished my portfolio before going to the store. Everything was fine until noon, when the sleep I hadn't got last night started to kick in my system.

"Annie?" I felt Luca's voice as if it was far away from me "wake up"

I stretched out and I couldn't contain the big yawn from escaping my lips. I was doing the inventory and had fallen asleep in the back store for a few minutes while leaning against some boxes of vinyl's that needed to be re-stocked.

"The inventory won't make itself alone" he chuckled as he tied his apron around his waist "I'll prepare you an espresso"

"Thanks" I stood on my tiptoes and patted his shoulder awkwardly since his head was way too high for me and he chuckled again.

I moved the pile of boxes one by one and put them next to their respective shelves where I needed to re-stock them. Determined not to fall asleep I put my headphones on and played my music on my phone in a random order. I hummed along the music and after a few minutes I started dancing and singing to Girls Just Want to Have Fun around the isles.

As I was attempting to moon walk I collided hard into someone's back and lost my balance, falling knees first to the ground with a groan – knowing they would most probably bruise in a few minutes –. The vinyl's I had had on my hands a few seconds ago where now scattered around the floor and out of the corner of my eye I saw the movement of a black boot inches away from crushing one of the vinyl's with a step.

"DON'T!" I exclaimed in a high-pitched voice "TAKE A STEP BACK!"

"What the f-"

I sighed in relief as I quickly recovered the vinyl and hugged it against my chest. If whoever I had collided into had crushed the vinyl I would have had to pay it from my own salary and I wasn't about to spend who knew how many pounds in a Justin Bieber one. I pushed my hair out of my face and I turned bright red as I realized my face was at the same height of a crotch.

How embarrassing.

"You look good down there, Foster" the voice sounded familiar but I couldn't decipher who it was since I still had my headphones on.

I took them off and as I looked up, my blood boiled on my veins as my eyes intertwined with a pair of bright mischievous blue ones. For a few seconds, I hated being small because even standing up I needed to look up at him.

"Reeve!" I exclaimed surprised.

"Hey" he half-smiled.

"Are you okay?" I looked at him from head to toe and frowned "you look..."