the girl with all of the choices

s i x t y - s e v e n

**TW: Mentions of suicide, self-harm, insinuation of sexual assault**

5164 words

december twenty-fifth- normalcy

~ Addison ~

I hadn't talked to him since the twenty-second.

Since right before we fell asleep.

Tangled in each other's arms.

I hadn't been ignoring him, not exactly. His presence, no matter how unsettling from the words left unsaid, was comforting. I just didn't want to speak to him.

I couldn't speak to him.

I didn't know what I would say.

We would go through our tasks as usual, peacefully coexisting. The ignorance only existed to shroud the topic of conversation that had made me go mute in the first place.

Breakfast was his thing. He would fix us bowls of cereal in the morning, coffee, and a plate of sliced apples to share on the counter. He always woke up first, and the first thing I would be greeted with was the smell of roasting coffee beans and sugar from the Pixie Puffs.

Dinner was my thing. Not because of some old traditional rule that instructed women to cook or anything, but because he, quite frankly, had no idea how to. His expertise as a chef was limited to arranging bowls of cereal, cooking pasta, making his lemon tarts, and the little knowledge he shared as a result of baking cookies with me last Christmas.

Lunch was a free for all. He would usually find sweets somewhere in a cabinet and just have those. His sweet tooth had been running wild since we arrived here. Merlin knew it was bad, to begin with, but it looked like he would combust if he didn't get his hands on at least a chocolate frog with each meal. I usually made myself a sandwich or ate one of the random foods that were left in the refrigerator, but it varied with the day.

The rest of our days had been spent doing anything to pass the time. Well, anything but talking. He would still talk, mumbling to me about random thoughts or questions that would shoot across his brain. He was very unfiltered in this environment. Every thought he had seemed to roll off of his tongue with complete ease.

Except for thoughts about me.

I could see them festering behind his eyes while he was distracted by other things. Those were the only moments I dared to find his eyes. When he wasn't looking back.

He looked a lot, so I didn't have many chances to examine his locked-away perceptions.

Other than that, we both read a lot. He also had taken up drawing. I glanced at a few of his sketches whenever I would walk past his seat. They were extraordinarily good. Exquisite, even. He had real talent. Some of his drawings were of random objects, an apple here, a book there, a few windows. But there were at least five rough sketches of me.

Me.

He drew sketches of me.

He had positioned himself on the couch, having slept there since the night we spent together in the bedroom. He insisted that I take the bed.

I was already sitting on the couch, on the twenty-third day of December. It was maybe eleven pm. The light from outside had far faded into shadows and moonlight. I had the blankets from our first night wrapped around me to siphon the chill, but it wasn't really working, so I muttered a quick warming charm.

He had just emerged from the bedroom, standing in different clothes than he was wearing five minutes ago.

"Why don't you take the bed tonight?" he suggested quietly, crossing over to stand in front of the couch, in front of me.