Of Stalking and Tomatoes

Chapter 12

Nyx was woken up in a way he'd never had expected. He was expecting to wake up to the sun blinding his eyes and the smell of toast, just like he was used to. But no. What he got was a full view of fur. Butt fur from Ren's Labrador, specifically. The dog's tail was hitting his face and he just slapped it away, effectively getting the dog off of him. He could hear it barking up a storm beside him. He reckoned that that was his cue to get up. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. He was still on the couch bed that he pulled last night. It was still next to Ren's bed, which was clearly empty but not made. He heard the door open and saw golden fur disappearing through it. He decided that he should go down. He went down the stairs, still a little out of it, and just noticed that the sun was out. The storm had passed. He got to the living room and heard the sound of someone furiously sketching. Ren was furiously going at it on her sketchpad as her little dog nibbled on a chew toy. There some papers scattered all over the floor and Nyx moved to grab one.

"Fuck!" Ren said and Nyx stopped mid bend to get a discarded sketch, "Say something when you get here. Are you fucking ghost?"

She held her head and shook her head. Nyx just smiled sheepishly at her, silently apologizing. Now that he's looking at her, he made sure to check if she looked better than last night. Ren was wearing a large white shirt and gray sweatpants. Her hair was loosely tied, a few strands hanging over her face. Her hands were swiftly flying on her sketchpad, drawing up shapes and figures Nyx couldn't understand. She sat cross-legged on the couch and seemed to be relaxed.

She's okay, now.

Nyx smiled to himself and continued what he was doing, picking up that paper. He looked at it and saw circles upon circles on it. He knew it was supposed to be something, he just didn't know what.

"There's...uh...food. In the kitchen." Ren said as she placed down her pencil, "It's not much but it's food. If you want...food..."

Nyx noticed that she was trying hard not to look at him but placed that aside for now. He figured that she still needed time to relax.

"Thanks." He said.

He went to the kitchenand was surprised to see it cleaned. He remembered the wet floor and the cups on the floor the night before. That mess unnerved him. Something definitely happen for those to end up on the floor. He saw a plate of sandwiches on one of the side tables and grabbed one. It was a ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich. The bread was cut perfectly and Nyx narrowed his eyes on it. This was definitely not a 'not much'. He walked out of the kitchen, sandwich on a plate, went to the couch, and sat on the floor near it. He placed his plate on the coffee table and started eating.

He had a lot of questions in his mind. He wanted to know what happened last night, first and foremost. The way Ren had acted a few hours ago was not something one would call normal. The emotions that he saw in those eyes told more stories than he would ever know. It seemed like a defense mechanism. A coping action. And that's fine. What he wanted to know was why it was there in the first place. What happened to her that made her so small, so fragile, so scared. But he knew that it wasn't his place to ask questions. Everyone has secrets and this seems like something that Ren was keeping to herself. If she wasn't, then the others wouldn't have left, seeing how close the group was.

"About last night..." Ren started as Nyx bit into his sandwich.

Ren was looking at anything but him, mainly down on her sketchpad. The light from the glass doors illuminated her. Color was back on her face and her eyes shimmered in the sunlight. Nyx could see the flame burning in those auburns and he had to sigh in relief. She was hugging her legs close to her body. In Nyx's eyes, it made her seem like a child.

He swallowed his sandwich, "You don't need to tell me."

"No...no..." she took a deep breath, "You had to go through all that, and you deserve an explanation."