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It smelled wrong.
I fucking hated that.
But I’d slept in dozens of beds that smelled wrong, so I ignored my emotions for the umpteenth time, and shoved my body under the blankets.
Sleep.
Sleep would be good.
It took way longer than I wanted it to, but I finally managed to drift off.
When I woke up,I felt physically fine but mentally and emotionally exhausted.
I stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen, even though I wasn’t really hungry.
Dots and Mare were sitting at our dinner table, playing a game that looked like Scrabble. I was shitty at Scrabble, and grumpy enough that seeing them play it made me scowl.
“Don’t go outside. Looks like a fucking crime scene out there,” Dots murmured to me. “I didn’t see any bodies, at least.”
My chest tightened painfully, and I muttered a thanks as I grabbed some kind of weird-ass fruit. I’d seen the other girls eat it like an apple, even though the shape was like a pear and a star had a love-child and the skin looked like a fucking lizard’s.
I bit into it, and glared at the damn thing when it tasted fucking incredible.
My back rested against one of the cabinets, and I stared daggers at the fridge while I ate. The girls behind me finished their game and then cleaned up and headed to their rooms, saying something about showering.
After a few minutes, North stalked out of her room. Almost all of her skin was still covered, and she glared at me like always.
This time, I glared back.
Neither of us said a word to each other as she grabbed a pear-star thing for herself.
She headed back toward her room, but stopped halfway. I didn’t glance over when she returned, her fist wrapped around her alien pear.
“You’re not the only one who’s had a hard fucking life,” she snarled at me. Fire danced in the orbs of her eyes, and I fought to keep my shock off my face. “If you’re going to be a fucking bitch, stay in your room.”
With that, she stormed back across the living area. Her bedroom door slammed behind her.
There was a long moment of silence before I finally sighed to myself.
Iwasbeing a bitch.
Being in a shitty mood and questioning every fucking thing I knew and felt didn’t mean I had to act like a fucking storm cloud.
Was that why North stayed inherroom?
Because she’d had a hard life and didn’t want to make everyone else as miserable as she was?
I didn’t know if we’d ever be friends, but that short interaction already made me see her differently.
I shuffled over to one of the couches and took a seat, tucking my legs up onto the couch next to me and then tugging a blanket over them. My anger chilled a little as I worked on my lizard-fruit, staring at one of the bookshelves like it held the answers to everything.
Though I knew it didn’t have a damn thing for me, it felt good to hope.
Mare came back out of her room a bit later, wearing a clean pair of clothes and smelling kind of like the fruit I was eating. She flashed me a quick, small smile as she pulled a book off the shelf. It looked well-loved, and I wondered how many times she had read it. Or, had it been one of the previous women’s favorites?
“You okay?” she asked me, distracting me from my thoughts.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
