Other Side

15 | Murphy's Law

For a moment, Talia stopped breathing.

She paused to gauge the cause of her impeded lung capacity until she realized she was the cause. During the last six hours of her unconsciousness, she'd rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face into Zaid's gray sweatshirt. She bashfully removed the arm draped over his torso and pulled out the other from under her pillow, immediately feeling a chill on her exposed hand.

Her deft and gentle movements went unnoticed by a deeply asleep Zaid. He lay much like a crooked starfish, one arm hanging over the edge of the mattress and the other bent over the pillow space above his head. As she tried to pull herself out of his bed, the heel of her hand dug into his forearm. Muttering several apologies, she staggered off the mattress and then knocked into the tall lamp in the corner of his room. It swayed from side to side for a few seconds and then began crashing to the floor. Lunging forward, she saved the bulb from shattering with one shaky hand and breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Uff, Talia, be quiet," Zaid grumbled, rolling over to the other side of the bed.

"Sorry," she hissed and darted out of his room. She regretted the departure in an instant, as the rest of the top floor felt a good ten degrees colder than Zaid's corner of the house.

Peeking back through his doorway, she noticed he'd yanked his covers over his head, body taking up twice as much space now. Crawling back into his bed wasn't an option unless she wanted to be met with a string of multilingual curses.

A lukewarm shower later, Talia dragged herself to the even colder downstairs in her sole cashmere turtleneck. She busied herself with her phone as she heated some water on the stove and then surveyed the dark interior of the fridge. Pulling out the carton of almond milk, she paused on a text from her father earlier this morning.

Been keeping up with the weather back in the US and noticed there was a crazy storm in the North. You OK? I can't seem to reach either of your grandparents. Call me when you can, sweetheart.

She didn't hesitate, needing a little taste of home. After two rings, he picked up, and a commotion met her ears before the sound of his voice did. She could only imagine what kind of family gathering Calvin had been roped into for the umpteenth time, preparing herself for a barrage of texts later in the day.

"Oh, thank God, you called," he breathed. "I was getting worried, Talia. Anything up with your grandparents?"

Oh, so he definitely doesn't know. She cleared her throat and hopped up onto the kitchen island, preparing herself for a long conversation. "Well, the thing is...they're at a funeral right now, so the circumstances could be better to start with, with the whole massive rainstorm that barreled through this town and all. The power's been out since last night, and last I checked, the downstairs floor is a solid fifty-nine degrees and only getting colder." She flickered her eyes to the glass back door, and they turned to saucers. "Oh, and there may or may not be a giant tree branch lying smack-dab in the middle of the deck."

"Wait, what?" She expected the stunned reaction, but he focused on her first point. "Do you know who passed away?" She steeled herself and explained a little more, hoping he didn't know him that well. He paused for a moment before speaking, "Oh, I have a few memories of him from when I was a child, but Tony was your grandfather's friend. But he wasn't that old, Talia... I can't even imagine how his wife feels right now."

She attempted to steer the conversation away from death, her heart still aching for Zaid. "I'm sure Teta and Sido will answer you when they can. I last heard from them yesterday evening, for what it's worth."

"So, are you all by yourself now? In the cold?"

"No," she said, pausing before throwing in an unnecessary question. "You remember who Zaid is, right?"