Why Me? *DISCONTINUED*

Chapter Twenty-Two: Please Believe Me

When we finally got back to Soul's apartment he opened the door for me and nodded for me to go in. I stepped inside and heard him close the door gently behind me. The lock clicked and he walked in front of me towards the kitchen.

"Do you remember where I told you the guest room was?" He turned his head slightly to look at me as he walked to the fridge. "U-Uh, yeah. Thanks." "Yah."

He pointed down the hall to the bathroom a couple seconds later. "You can go dry off in there if you want. I'll find something of mine that you can wear for the night so you don't catch a cold." I followed his finger and watched him walk off to his room, probably to get me a change of clothes and change out of his own sopping wet jacket and pants. "Um, yeah, sure. That would be great, thanks." Soul grunted to say you're welcome and disappeared into his room.

I walked over to the couch and took to looking around. He didn't have much in the apartment from what I could see. No family photos, though he had a couple of pictures hanging of him and some friends. One photo made me giggle a bit when I saw that his friend had signed it: "To my most loyal and coolest #1 fan! Love ya dude! - Black*Star"

Turning in a slow circle, I saw that there was a piano shoved into the far corner of the room. How did I miss that before?

Walking over to it and running my fingers gently across the pearly white ivory keys, I gazed at the magnificence of the grand piano. It was beautiful. Black as night and looking as if it were brand new. Almost as if it had never before been played, yet not having a speck of dust anywhere on its surface. My eyes lingered in the keys before lifting at the sound of Soul's bedroom door closing.

I stepped away from the instrument and watched him come in the living room once again, now wearing a clean and dry white cotton long-sleeve shirt and a new pair of faded jeans. "Here. This should fit you for tonight." Soul handed me a large black shirt that also had long-sleeves, as well as a pair of somewhat baggy red pajama pants

"Thank you." He nodded at me and left me to go into the kitchen. I watched him for a couple seconds before heading to to the bathroom. "Soul..." I called out after opening the door. "Mm?" He hummed back. "Thank you. ... For everything." I smiled at the ground and didn't wait for his response, shutting the door and locking it quietly behind me.

After changing and finger combing through my hair for a while to painfully get out most of the tangles from the rain, I decided to let my hair stay down so I wouldn't make anymore awful snarls by trying to put it up. I sighed and rubbed my throbbing temples. "Well that was unpleasant." I said quietly under my breath. Pulling the black strings of the pajama bottoms as tight as they would go and tying them in a double bow, I looked myself over once in the large bathroom mirror. "I don't look that bad, at least. Though I wish I had my own clothes to wear." Blushing I decided it would be better if I just didn't think about the fact that I was going to be staying in a boy's apartment and wearing his clothing tonight, so I shook my head a couple of times to dispel the embarrassing truths. I had let my bra and underwear sit out for a bit and had used a towel I found folded in the closet to ring them as dry as possible before putting them back on so as not to leave any embarrassing wet marks on his shirt or pants. I briefly held the collar of the coal black shirt up to my nose and inhaled softly. It smelled like him, which for some odd reason was comforting to me and made me feel safe and calm. I didn't dwell on the feeling and decided I was ready to walk out.

I slowly entered the living room, slash kitchen space, and watched Soul making what I guessed to be spaghetti. At some point he must have sensed my presence in the room because he turned around. I must have looked like a bit of a mess because when he saw me it looked like his body froze and I could see a slight pink coloration walk across his cheeks.