Gypsy

Chapter 16

·Zara·

I wake in the morning to the cusp of sunrise and the sound of more rain; I don't think it's let up since it started last night. I'm not one of those kinds of people who wakes to a strange place confused about where they are. I always know exactly where I am. Honestly, I think that's only the kind of thing that happens in movies ... or in books. But even though I know where I am, I still can't understand why, or how.

I open my eyes and look at the ceiling above me. A real ceiling. The first I've slept under in a very long time. There are lights hanging there in a clear glass fixture, though they are dark now, and I stare at them a while to assure myself I'm not hallucinating.

I am not.

A thick comforter is draped over me and a real mattress is beneath my back. They are both soft and warm, and they smell amazing. Heat passes through the registers in the baseboards, a soft breeze that tickles the fine hairs around my face.

I am in Micah and Adam's apartment. In another room, my friends are deeply asleep in a temporary bed of their own. For a moment, I consider just closing my eyes again, reveling in the luxury of this unforeseen comfort. It would be so easy. Instead, I sit up slowly and let the blankets fall to pool around my legs.

I focus on the deafening sound of nothing surrounding me. No one coughs in the shadows. No cars backfire or peel out beyond where I sit. There is no banging of corrugated metal flapping in the wind.

There is no gunfire, no crying, no murmurs of bad dreams. Here, there is nothing but the inaudible whisper of warm air and the soft sound of rain tapping against the window.

I slip from the bed then pad quietly across the room, the hardwood beneath my bare feet cool and smooth. I stop before the window and look out at the low black sky, with it's tinge of grey at the furthest edge of the horizon. The lights of the city are blurred by the rain on the glass, and I watch as rivulets run down its outer surface, making them weave slightly, as if gently swaying to a tune I can not hear.

I close my eyes, wanting to commit every sight, every sound, every smell of this morning to my memory. I don't know when I'll have another one like it, so I refuse to take even a second of it for granted.

When a soft tap sounds on the door, I sigh lightly, open my eyes, then turn my back to the rain washed view outside. I cross the room silently, then open the door just enough to look out into the hall. Looking back at me is a familiar set of blue eyes beneath a slightly pinched brow.

"I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, I was already up."

His brow smooths and I nearly smile. Had he actually been concerned about that? It seems like a silly thing to worry over to me, but who am I to judge?

"Thought you might like to take the first shower. We have two, so there's no rush or anything. Just wanted to give you first dibs on the hot water, if you wanted it."

A shower, I think to myself. When was the last time I had one of those? Usually I wash up at the filling station a few blocks down from the warehouse. There's no hot water, but you don't have to ask for a key to unlock the restroom outside. Hot water. My mind sings with those words.

"Zara?"

I come back to myself with a start. He is staring at me with an uncertain smile, and I realize I have yet to answer him.

"Sorry. Yeah, a shower would be fantastic."

"I left some stuff for you on the counter in there. Our friend Livia stays over sometimes and keeps a few things here. I'm sure she wouldn't mind your using them."