Kate Hopper's life had seemingly fallen back into place.
After a year, her relationship with her family, new and old, had developed into something that truly mattered, and she had made a couple new friends since the catastrophe of last year.
Since t...
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WHEN KATE HAD woken up the next morning, she'd decided it was time for her to go home.
She'd woken up much before Steve had, to her surprise. When she'd finally been awake enough to try to move out of bed, she realized he had one arm linked around her tightly, just like a child would hold their favorite stuffed animal. Whenever she'd tried to move, his grip tightened around her, and he exhaled sharply, flipping his head in the other direction.
She tried her best to peel him off of her without waking him up. She took the pillow that she'd been laying her head on out from underneath her, carefully peeling Steve's arms off of her and wrapping them around the pillow instead. She sighed of relief whenever he buried his face inside of it, acting as if nothing had changed.
As quickly and as quietly as possible, Kate changed out of the pajamas of his that she'd borrowed to a sweatshirt of his and a pair of her jeans. She felt bad taking something else of his, but she didn't have any other clean clothes to wear, and she didn't really think he would mind all that much. Before she could leave, she took a pen and a piece of paper out of her tote bag, leaving a note on the kitchen counter for him. She didn't want him to panic when he woke up and she was gone.
When she left the house, she made sure to be as silent as humanly possible. She didn't want to wake him up as she was leaving, mostly because she knew he would hit her with those damn puppy dog eyes she couldn't say no to. Even if she didn't want to, she needed to go back home to make sure El and her father hadn't killed each other, and she knew Steve would somehow convince her to stay again if she stayed around for him to wake up.
