EMBRACE winrina

CHAPTER NINE

I stirred the next morning, pulling the sheets on the bed farther over top of my body. I couldn't help but notice that they smelled vaguely like the woman in the next room- fresh, although the scent itself was unplaceable. I didn't want to get up, but I found myself groaning as the sunlight leaking in through the windows begged me to open my eyes.

And then I realized something.

I was waking up to sunlight.

My eyes shot open, and I glanced out the window to see the intensity of the light shining back at me. Not only was it day, but the sun had traveled much farther past the horizon, leading me to wonder just how long I had slept for. I couldn't understand my mind or my body, and I honestly thought that one day I would need to hire a professional to help me figure them out. Why was it that I was able to fall asleep and stay asleep in someone else's apartment or during school, but it was rare in my own bed?

It couldn't be simply because of the fact that Leo wasn't present here, because another huge reason that I never slept the night away was because of the nightmares. When I finally did manage to fall asleep, I never failed to wake up sweating, screaming, or crying with the thought of my past in my mind. I only ever woke up crying if the nightmare was from the fire, because it was my only mentally scarring memory that my parents were present in.

But I couldn't remember waking at all throughout the night, and I had a high suspicion that I had slept through the morning too.

I finally decided to get up, pushing the bed sheets off of me and swinging my legs to the side. The sudden movement caused my head to spin and I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to block out the dizziness. When the room stopped spinning, I stood on the hard wood floor of Ms. Yu's apartment. Unsure of what to find when I exited the bedroom, I combed through my hair with my fingers and tugged on the shorts I was wearing. They rode up my ass and I struggled to picture how they would fit her in any situation, considering the fact that her legs were much longer than mine.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped out of the room and into living room. I half-expected her to be sleeping on the couch, her pillows thrown on the floor and the blanket scrunched into a ball at the end of the couch, but I probably should have known better. She wasn't on the furniture and the pillows were all in their respective places, the blanket that I assumed she had used the night before folded neatly on the edge of the couch.

Much like her physical appearance, nothing seemed to be out of place in her apartment, and I shouldn't have expected there to be.

I re-directed my gaze toward the kitchen, where I noticed her sitting at the kitchen counter. She was facing me but her eyes were entranced by the laptop in front of her, clearly paying no attention to the fact that I was awake. She wore a plain white tank top and her long, toned legs were exposed by a small pair of black shorts resembling the ones I was wearing. I wondered when and how she had the time to change, taking it upon myself to assume that she had slipped into her bedroom while I was sleeping.

She separated herself from her laptop and walked around the counter to pick up her phone, her expression shifting into obvious frustration at whatever was on the screen. Her eyes lifted and she saw me loitering in the living room, immediately putting her phone away. Maybe a little too fast.

"Uh.. morning," I said, scratching the back of my head. I had absolutely no fucking clue how to go about this situation and I couldn't pretend that I was comfortable. It wasn't anything about her specifically that was putting me off, but thinking about the reality of my situation, I had actually just slept in my teacher's bed, who I had known for maybe a total of two and a half, three weeks tops.