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“You didn’t touch your food,” Trystan said when he collected Iris’s breakfast tray on Wednesday morning.
She was sitting on the sofa, her back to him, staring out of the window at yet another gray morning. She was beginning to actively hate this place where the sun never shone and the wind was always howling.
“Iris?” Trystan’s sharp voice penetrated her funk and she gave him her profile.
“Yes?”
“I said you didn’t eat your food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You have to be hungry, you didn’t eat your dinner last night.”
“I wasn’t hungry then either.”
Trystan made a gruff, annoyed sound and he was kneeling in front of her before she’d even registered that he’d moved. He was staring into her face, and she listlessly turned her head to avoid his eyes, but this time he caught her jaw in a firm but gentle grip and kept her face still for his probing gaze to thoroughly inspect.
“You’ve been crying.”
Her lips quivered before she pinched them between her teeth.
“No.” She still had some pride and it stung that he could so easily tell that she’d shed tears. “I just… I can’t sleep. I’m tired.”
“Okay. But you’ve also been crying.”
She hated feeling so nakedly vulnerable in front of him and dragged her feet up onto the couch to hug her knees to her chest with one arm. She tugged her chin out of his grasp and buried her face in her knees. She curled her other arm over the top of her head, folding herself into a protective little ball, away from those silver eyes that missed no detail.
“Come on, Hughes,” he whispered, and she felt the light touch of his fingers on her hair. “You’ve got more spunk than this.”
“You don’t know me,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from the tears she’d already spilled.
“Of course I know you. You’re the woman who walked away from the relative safety of her car in gale force winds, through dark, unfamiliar woods. You fought a wolf, bested a beast, broke into a house and fought your way to safety against all odds. You can brave anything.”
Not this.
Iris had always believed she was brave. Despite not standing up to her high school bullies, or to her parents about working at the catering business. Despite her phobias, and her uneasy concern that her lifelong dream of pursuing a career in journalism was the wrong one for her, she’d always possessed an innate belief that she was a strong person. A woman of conviction.
But she’d never been tested like this before. So much for immersion therapy, because facing her worst fear day after day did not make it conquerable. It just made her weaker, more frightened, and unable to function.
Every day was a little worse than the last. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to cling to her sanity. She’d tried writing, but couldn’t concentrate. She spent hours staring blankly at the screen. She dreaded sleeping because the nightmares were terrifying. In the end all she could do was stay awake, staring into the dark, the locked door looming bigger and bigger in her mind until it was all she could think about. All she could focus on. Daylight brought no relief. She frequently opened the window and leaned out as far as she could, desperate for fresh air, until the cold drove her to close it again.
But she continued to open it every half hour—despite the iciness—just to breathe. It was the only thing keeping her sane right now. The knowledge that she could leave through that window if she became desperate enough. That she could walk away and maybe find her way to town.
It was mad, but it was fast becoming the only viable option available to her.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she wasn’t initially aware that Trystan was talking, but his voice gradually penetrated her self-imposed huddle of solitude.
“—raining, so we can’t really go for a walk today, but I thought you might want to see the cinema room. We could watch a movie? Have some popcorn?”
His hand was buried in her curls by now, his fingers stroking her scalp. His other hand was flat on her back, moving in soothing circles.
“Iris? Would you like that?”
She lifted her head and his hand fell away, but the other one continued to rub her back gently.
“Why would you…” She wasn’t sure how to finish the question. And in the end, stared at him mutely. He seemed to understand though, and his shoulders lifted.
“I don’t like watching movies alone. So, what do you say? You wanna join Luna and me for a movie day?”
