If She Knew

Chapter-17

I didn't even fully regain consciousness when I began to sense a bolt of pain soaring across my forehead. Each lobe of my brain seemed to throb along, and I jostled up from the lying position with an involuntary forward thrust. It took me a while to balance my nervous coordination and steady myself. I scanned my vicinity to realize that I was in Xaviers' room. Bruno was snoozing peacefully beside me.

What had happened last night?

I rested my forehead on my palms as I tried to recollect last night's incidents. The forest. Uncle Nick. The man in the hoodie. The gunshots. The blow against the tree.

While the remembrances flashed across my mind, my eyes fell on my right palm. I jerked from my position in terror. There was blood. Did I get injured?

I hastily got up from the bed and hurried to check myself in the washroom mirror. Apart from a purplish-blue bruise on the right side of my forehead, there was no trace of any other possible wound.

Where did the blood come from-?

His arm. Someone had carried me till here.

My brain suddenly clicked and I recalled the whole thing. I had clutched his arm with my right hand last night and I did feel a warm liquid oozing out.

Who was he again?

I closed my eyes and strained my brain to remember. The tattoo.

"Xaviers," I mumbled, opening my eyes abruptly.

Xaviers brought me back home, on his shoulders. That means he was also in the forest. How did he get there? Was he following me?

I hassled out of the room to get the answers to my questions. Xaviers was brewing coffee next to the table near his small gym corner. He looked up at my arrival and examined my forehead as I got there.

"Was it you who saved me last night-?" the words took some time to come out.

"Save you? From what?" he merely questioned back with a puzzled face that I doubt was intentionally crafted.

Or didn't he actually remember?

"Where were you last night?" I tried to get things out from him in a different way.

"In my room, sleeping," he shrugged as he took a sip from the coffee.

"Jonas' room I mean, since a certain someone has taken control over my room now"

It couldn't be. It had to be him.

I stared at him, not knowing how to make him say it.

"What? Did you see a nightmare or something?"

I didn't respond.

"Or was it your fantasy where I came to save you like a hero?" he said with an annoying chuckle.

He took another sip from his coffee before continuing, "How did you injure your head that badly from a walk though?"

His eyes were on my forehead.

EXACTLY. The wound ascertains that it wasn't a nightmare or any dream.

I hated the fact that I had no way to prove that it was him though. Or maybe I did-

His arm, it must be injured too. I surreptitiously glanced at his left arm which was obscured from view due to his tilted position. He understood it instantaneously and moved his arm away from my vision.

But too late. I had already seen it. His left arm was wrapped imprudently in gauze from which blood was still leaking out.

So Mr. Angry Young Man was lying.