The Last of the Pure

Twenty-one

I think I spent the next week waiting to find out it wasn’t true. Like I was waiting for the twist in the plot where I found out they’ve spent the last week looking for me and they sweep back in for our happy reunion or Cyril pops in carrying them on his back in true heroic fashion.

It never came though.

And I spent the entire week in Samuel’s bed, waking up every few hours just to cry myself back to sleep.

It was all my fault.

And it wasn’t one of those instances where I was blaming myself because it was kind of my fault and I felt guilty—this was literally my fault without blame to be put on anyone except that psycho, Jacob.

Even then the blame falls back on me.

I kept waiting for something to happen, to bring them back to me, to let this all be some sort of sick alternate reality or a big excruciating dream.

But every time I woke up, I was still alone with stale tears in my eyes.

Thomas and Serena came on the fourth day. They took turns sitting on the edge of Samuel’s bed, trying to talk me out of the stupor I was in.

“They didn’t deserve it,” Thomas told me, rubbing my back softly. I couldn’t look at him and kept my eyes close and my head facing away the entire time.

While this worked on Serena, she thought I’d been sleeping and just murmured a few things to be before kissing my forehead and walking off, Thomas knew me better.

“But you don’t deserve this,” he stopped rubbing my back then and stood up.

He walked around the side of the bed and I heard movement closer to me this time. When I opened my eyes, Thomas was knelt down beside me, his fingers running gently through my hair with a sad smile on his face.

“Fight back,” he whispered. His eyes bore into mine with more seriousness than I’d ever seen on Thomas’s playful face. “Don’t let them win like this, Nora.”

I closed my eyes then, feeling myself start to cry like I did every time I woke up, but this time it was with different reasoning.

He was right.

Lucas had forced me to be orphaned in the first place, and then he goes and knocks out the only two people in the world that have always been there for me.

Thomas kissed me on the forehead and stood up, the soft smile never leaving his face.

“Call me when you’re ready and we’ll take care of this,” he said, standing in the doorway.

He closed the door behind him when he left. As soon as I was alone in the darkness, I let myself cry until I’d fallen back asleep and didn’t wake again until there was no light coming through the windows and Samuel was moving into the bed beside me.

After ten days of only leaving bed to use the bathroom—literally only eating and drinking anything when Samuel brought me crackers or broth or even once he went out and got ingredients to make me spinach lasagna, something I’d made for him once and told him was my favorite—I got out of bed.

I walked into the kitchen Monday morning where Samuel sat at the little booth in the corner, drinking a cup of coffee and staring at the top of the table, drawing little circles on the wood with his index finger and this miserable expression.

He didn’t hear me come in. He didn’t even look up until I slid in across the table from him. When he did though, his eyes focused on me and I could see how tired he looked. His usually bright teal eyes were sullen and drown in an ashy grey.