Her Abyss | Completed

Six

My fingertips ached with raw satisfaction.

The more I pressed against the strings of my cello without proper downtime, the more this raw feeling took over. I had Noah make me a sandwich with two slices of cheese that had been microwaved by his small hands. He'd been bringing me the majority of my meals because I refused to leave the four suffocating walls of my bedroom.

I resorted to sitting on the balcony, reading up on my music theory.

When I got to Juilliard, I wanted to impress with more than just my hands. So I learned things about composers like where they were raised and what inspired them to compose. Most of their motivations were depressing and I could see myself becoming a composer because my mother cheats and my father destroys rainforests.

From the few times that I did leave my bedroom, my mother had unpacked the entire downstairs. There would be no obstacle course through the living room or playing ninja with Noah while we waited for dinner. It also caught my attention that she'd hung my acceptance letter up in the living room for the whole world to see. She was so proud when I got in, and obviously, that hadn't changed.

But everything else had. Because I couldn't look her in the eye, nevertheless myself. It was becoming harder and harder to ignore her while she hummed and remodeled the place. Occasionally she would crack my door to make sure that I was okay and I locked it every time after that.

A few times, just like this one, Noah's soft voice echoed from behind the door and I let him in immediately. Tears fell from his green eyes and my heart throbbed with concern. I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong but the words never came out. Because I noticed his wonderful locks were mussing from a fresh haircut that gave a full display of his head.

He hiccuped and I pulled him into my arms and shielded him from the world, "She cut it, Tori. I told her not to,"

His sobs died down as I held him tightly against me. It wasn't a bad haircut for a boy but it was a bad haircut for Noah. He loved his hair when I gave it the occasional trim and often wore my old headbands to prevent it from covering his eyes.

He wiped his eyes and folded his arms, "Why did she have to come back?"

My heart ached for him because he didn't even know the half of it. To make him feel better, we played Mario Kart on my bean bag chairs and I let him win. That goofy smile was on his face in no time and eventually, he was running around the house looking for his frisbee to play with at the beach. I hadn't been outside in a little over a week and Dad was in charge of watching him while I crammed for Juilliard.

Dad knocked on my door, which was still unlocked from when I let Noah into my room. He entered only a moment after I responded and his eyes lit up with curiosity, "You have a friend here. Her name is Paris or something."

"London," I corrected him, "tell her I'm sick with appendicitis or better yet, tell her I moved back to Scotland."

My father frowned slightly, "It's too late. Noah already let her inside so unless you want me to be the awkward Dad and tell her your embarrassing childhood moments," His voice trailed off lightly and I groaned with frustration.

"Send her up." I pouted and he nodded lightly. Once my door was closed, I raced to my bathroom where I actually took the time to look at myself. My features were pretty damn gloomy and there was nothing that I could do about it in the few seconds I had before London would push my door open.

She did, right on cue too. The first thing I noticed was her fingertips and how they were now painted a light pinkish colour that correlated with her vans. She wore high waisted shorts and a button-up floral shirt that was missing one too many buttons because I could see the hot pink bra she wore underneath.