Chapter 11: Trip Got Cancelled

Iris's POV

"There's some leftovers in the fridge,"

Chloe said as she held one bag in her hand.

"You should eat it, not just look at it." She dragged the bag to the door.

"I'll eat it," I said.

"Okay, call me if anything feels wrong." She said.

"Chloe, I'll be fine." I touched her shoulders.

"Okay," she sighed. "You know this is the longest I'm going away, and dad's not going to be home."

"You don't have to worry about me." I took her bag from her hand and put it outside the door. "You should go, your mom is waiting."

"Okay." She grabbed my face in both hands and kissed my forehead. "I'll call tonight."

"I know you will." I said.

Rafael was at the bottom of the stairs with her other bag already in his hand, car keys ready. He'd offered to drive to the station without being asked.

"You ready?" He asked.

"Yep." Chloe turned back to me. "You take care."

She kissed my cheek, grabbed her coat, and walked out into the Sunday morning with her father behind her carrying her bag like it weighed nothing.

I stood in the open doorway and watched them go.

The car reversed down the drive. Chloe's hand appeared out the window in a wave. Then they were gone and the house was quiet and I was alone in it.

I closed the door.

The click of it was loud in a way it had never been before, maybe because it was the first time I was going to be alone in the mansion for a whole week.

I stood in the entrance hall for a moment, hand still on the knob, listening to the car fade down the road until there was nothing, just the house. Just the particular silence of a large space with only one person breathing in it.

It was going to be fine. I told myself and went to the kitchen.

The soup was good. I ate it at the counter standing up because sitting at the table alone felt too awkward, scrolling through social media with one hand.

I finished it, washed the bowl, dried it and kept it back where it was before.

I went upstairs and opened my textbook on the bed and read the same paragraph three times before giving up and switching to lecture slides, which I also didn't get anything.

My skin felt warmer than the room temperature explained. I'd taken my suppressant at noon and it was doing something, just not enough, the pre-heat sitting at a low steady hum underneath everything I tried to concentrate on.

By eight I gave up on studying entirely.

I watched something on my laptop. Two episodes of a show I'd seen before, which helped because it had no new information to track, just familiar noise. Outside the window the sky went from grey to dark and the house stayed quiet and I told myself I was completely fine and almost believed it.

My throat felt dry, I needed water.

I came downstairs in my oversized shirt and bare feet.

The living room light was on.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Rafael was on the sofa, laptop open on his knee, still in his work shirt with the sleeves rolled, a glass of whiskey on the table beside him. He looked up the moment I appeared. We looked at each other.

"You didn't go?" I asked.

"Trip got cancelled." He held my gaze. "This afternoon. The client pushed everything to next month."

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and felt my chest tightened.

"That's nice," I said carefully.

"Chloe doesn't know about it," He said. "She just arrived at her mom's, she would have come back if she knew."

"Yeah she would have," I said. "It's best to not stress her out."

He nodded and I moved to the kitchen. I filled a glass with water, stood at the counter with my back to him and drank half of it, trying to focus on the water and nothing else.

I refilled it and walked back.

"Goodnight," I said, not looking at him.

"Goodnight," he said.

I went upstairs and locked the door.

I lay on top of my bed covers and stared at the ceiling.

My skin was warmer than when I'd come downstairs. That was the heat, I knew, the suppressants levelling off at the end of the day. I'd deal with it. I'd take my morning pill and drink water and it would be fine.

The cedarwood scent drifting up from the floor below was not helping.

My phone lit up on the nightstand. It was ringing, Chloe was calling. I picked up on the second ring.

"Hello," I said in a completely normal tone.

"Hey!" She sounded better already, lighter, the way she got when she was at her mother's. "How are you? Have you eaten?"

"I already ate, Mom." I rolled my eyes.

"That's good to hear." I could hear her chuckled softly from the phone. "Is it quiet there?"

"Very quiet," I said.

"You're okay though?"

"I'm fine." I said, which was partly true. "How's your mom?"

She exhaled. "She looked tired when I got here. But she smiled properly when she saw me. I think she just needed someone here." She paused. "Sometimes that's all it is, right? Someone just being there."

"Yeah," I said. "Sometimes that's all it is."

"Okay." She was smiling, I could hear it. "Get some sleep. You sounded tired this morning."

"I'm fine." I said. "Goodnight, Chloe."

"Goodnight." She laughed softly. "Call me tomorrow."

"I will."

The line clicked.

I put my phone face down on the nightstand and looked at the ceiling.

He was one floor below me.

His trip was cancelled, which meant one week, just the two of us in this house and the heat building steadily under my skin and the suppressants doing half of what they were supposed to do and the smell of cedarwood coming up through the floor like the house itself was working against me.

"I can handle this," I said to myself.