The Prep and Moi

Chapter 7 - Hypersensitive Feelings and Ruined Incidents

A sudden noise in the night frightened me into waking up. My hand slammed down on the wire of my earphones, yanking them out of my ears in the process after I'd fallen asleep with them.

"What the-" I exhaled out in thought that we were being burgled, but then my delayed memory kicked in and remembered it wasn't that much of a possibility in a grand hotel.

Reaching for my phone on the nightstand, I looked at the time.

04:37.

"What in the absolute heck?" I angrily whispered out my frustration when I followed the sound and pinpointed the location; Ash's mouth.

He was deeply snoring, in and out, and pause, then restarted. A constant cycle of doom for my hypersensitive hearing.

Trying to ignore it, I turned around to face the balcony, flapping around on my bed, letting the other, lesser sounds take away my focus from Ash. The mattress was springy enough to make my body feel like it was jumping on a trampoline, but even through that, Ash's snoring was bugging the heck out of me. The more the sound echoed off the walls, the more I was getting irate.

"Oh, just shut it, will you!" I hissed over my shoulder at Ash.

And as if it was a reaction to the thoughts rushing through my muddled mind, I grabbed an extra pillow that was beside me and threw it in Ash's general direction.

Score!

Successfully hitting part of his face, I eagerly waited for a disgruntled sound to escape him, or even some kind of movement to ultimately force him into silence, but same loud sound proved my plan to be unsuccessful.

Shucks.

The twitching of my eye meant enough of enough. As a reminder of the ticking time weighed on my mind, I scrambled out of my duvet and into the cool temperature of the room, readying to silence Ash myself. But once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a faint light seeping in through the curtains was lighting up some of the key features of Ash's face.

As he slept with his cheek plastered against the palm of his hand, the squished side of his face was different to the sharp jawline that I'd gotten used to looking at. His long, thick eyelashes ever so slightly moved as his eyes roamed his dream land behind his eyelids.

I was prepared to grab a chair, sit there and watch him all night - except, that was creepy and I could never actually do that.

It made me contemplate my options. Go ahead with the tempting idea of ruining his sleep to get him to be quiet, or just return to my bed in defeat and try to sleep with the noise?

I couldn't be the one to ruin his peaceful sleep, could I?

Frustrated with my limited choices, I stomped my bare feet on the carpet seeing it as the only way to release some of my pent-up irritation. I wouldn't particularly like someone waking me from a deep sleep, so I accepted the latter option.

Tip-toeing closer to Ash, I carefully retrieved my discarded pillow to disappear the evidence of my failed mission and nimbly headed back to my bed. Using that same pillow, I placed it over my head to cover my ears and try to drown out all of the heightened sounds around me.

Soon, the sun had arrived, entering in through the gap in between the curtains, lighting up most of the room. The calming sounds of birds chirping and the leaves of nearby trees rustling had woken me. As most Parisians had already resumed their daily journeys, I pried my eyes open and softly yawned, finishing with a sniffle. The morning felt dewy and stuffy, and in return, my body was forcing me to close my eyes and go back to sleep in the warmth of my duvet.