Where Love Resides

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

It was the first time I woke up and it was actually a normal silent house. No one was awake yet and everything in the house was in its rightful place. Even William was still asleep when I got up this morning. Sighing, I settled down on a chair in the dining room and stared out the window across the table.

I still need to make a decision on what I want to do next but the decision was getting exceedingly difficult by the minute. The complications were also building up with my family and then there was William.

No matter how much I try to force myself not to care, I am becoming very conscious of the fact that I might be developing feelings for the man. He was making it difficult to keep him at arms length. Just the fact that we're sharing a room was making me want to be closer to him. Its part of the reason I'm already up this early in the morning. How do you sleep when you miss the person you had in your arms just the night before? Ugh, relationships were becoming difficult and too serious for what I've heard from other girls. Last time I heard anything about it, the girl was talking about leaving a guy like it was nothing, and they were dating for six months. Why am I struggling with the mere thought of leaving William's side by the end of the month?

"Hope?"

I looked up at the sound of my name and saw Anthony, Eric and Suzanne all gathered at the door or the living room. I might have been surprised by the fact that they were up this early, if I didn't spend so much time with them before I left for London. Suzanne was practically living in my house those years and we were awake at the same time every morning.

"Morning." I muttered and lowered my eyes to the table in front of me.

"Look, we're sorry about last night, its' just that..." Eric trailed off and I smiled.

"I've changed, I get it." I shrugged one shoulder and looked up to see the three of them taking a seat at the table. "I spoke to Will last night and he suggested that I should tell you more about my life in London." I sighed and rubbed at my temples. "It's been a while since I spoke to anyone about that place but I guess it's the only way you would understand." I said, more to myself than to them.

"You make it sound like it's a miserable story." Suzanne tried laughing it off but sounded nervous. Even she knew that I was holding out on her weeks ago when we made contact for the first time since I got back. I never told anyone everything, it just felt so strange.

"Not miserable, just not exactly normal for a teenager." I offered a reassuring smile before taking a deep breath and focusing on the table again. "Okay, so firstly, I should probably tell you more about my roommate, or rather my guardian. Suzanne already got a few of those details." I shifted in my seat a little, trying to get comfortable. "Her name is Phoebe and though she wasn't a great guardian, I'm finding her to be a good friend now that we're not sharing the same apartment anymore. Anyway, she was a little loose when I was still sharing the apartment with her; she went out every night and got hammered, wasted all her money and never came home alone. She never brought home the same guy and a few of them did try to take advantage of the fact that I shared the apartment with her." A shudder ran through me at the mere thought of all the suggestions that were made throughout the time. "It didn't take more than a month for me to realize I needed a job if I was intending to still have a home. Phoebe barely paid anything in the house other than rent so there was nothing to live off of until I started helping out with the bills. As I already told Suzanne, I barely had time to sleep between classes, extra classes and work. When I did sleep, I didn't sleep deeply in fear of being taken advantage of or Phoebe ending up coming home with a murderer."

By this time, I could tell that my brothers were fighting hard against losing their cool. I couldn't blame them, if the situation was reversed; I'd have been killing people to keep my family safe.