Sharp

I woke up shivering and feeling ice cold deep within my skin.

“Sorry,” a guy said, pulling up the sheets and wrapping them around me. It helped but I wanted to be warmer. He placed another blanket on top that helped.

I heard a door close quietly and I realized I was left in the room all alone. Now I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got out of bed and looked through Nathan’s stuff. I know I’m being a snoop, but I am going to be living with him, plus when he was being all cuddly with me last night helped worsen any suspicions I already had about him.

He had normal guy stuff. Nothing special, but I found it strange he didn’t have any family photos. Or any photos for that matter. Also I’m very glad he didn’t have any porn magazines lying around, but it did concern me a bit. I didn’t think much of it.

I exited the room with tons of blankets wrapped around me to keep me toasty since I was still freezing cold. I entered the living room and saw no one around. I started making myself a PBJ sandwich for breakfast because I was starving for one.

After opening many drawers and shelves, I got everything I needed and finished my sandwich and ate it joyfully. Then I grew tired so I fell asleep on the couch watching Spongebob.

"Vicky? Do you want to go back to bed?" Donny asked me after waking me up.

"Nah. I'm good." I sat up and wrapped myself with the blanket and took up only the left side of the couch. Donny sat on the right side and started playing some XBOX game. Nathan came through the front door about an hour later to see us.

"Hey," he said and walked past us to his room immediately. Now I'm curious as to what is in the bag he was carrying.

I got up and walked into his room to see him pull out a teddy bear and some chocolates.

"Who's that for?" I asked, which made him jump.

"My mother. She's pretty stressed out so I decided if I give her something, she wouldn't be so mad at me."

"Why is she mad at you?"

"I don't know. She won't tell me," he said. He sat down on his bed and sighed, running his fingers through his hair. I checked out the chocolates and teddy bear to see them as a pretty good Please Don't Be Mad At Me present. "I'm sorry I weirded you out last night. I'm a very touchy kind of person."

"It's alright. I didn't mind. I'll admit I got pretty cold after you left though. I'm still freezing actually. What's the temperature in this place?" I asked him. He got up and checked the thermostat in the hallway and came back.

"It's 74. Do you want a hat to borrow? And some warm socks? It'll help keep the heat inside your body."

"Sure. That would be great." I smiled at him and he smiled back softly and searched his room. He gave me his beanie and some snowboarding socks. I was pretty warm after that, but my fingers were still pretty cold. I didn't mind that too much.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent playing Risk with those two after I took a shower. Donny ended up with only one country left over with my army threatening him from the right and Nathan's army threatening him from the left. Nathan threatened him that if he attacked him, he wouldn't talk to him for a week. So I threatened Donny that if he attacked my army, I would punch him in the face. He attacked Nathan's army. I feel like I won the game ultimately after that, but Nathan still beat me to a pulp.

I went to bed after that and fell asleep. I had a dream about something involving pancake cakes and a birthday and something about Nathan and Diana, but I don't know how any of that was linked to another. I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard footsteps throughout the apartment. I didn't know why I woke up. It's probably Donny, but I felt so frightened.

"Nathan. Nathan, wake up," I whispered into his ear. He had his arms wrapped around me again. He smiled and snuggled his face into my neck. "Nathaniel, I think there's someone in the apartment."

"What?" he asked and lifted up his head to look at me. I motioned my eyes to the door and then we heard the footsteps again. He glanced at the door and back to me and got up. "Stay here," he whispered and slowly and quietly opened and shut his door.

I heard a gasp, a sigh and footsteps loudly walking back to the room. Nathan opened the door and threw on a shirt. He walked over to me and guided me out of the bed. "I'll warn you it's my mother, so please don't be scared."

"What's your mother doing in your apartment?"

"She was having another fight with my dad and ended up storming out of the house. So she came to me since my sister is out of town to stay the night. I want you two to meet so she doesn't think you're some random girl."

"Okay." We walked into the living room to see an average height woman wearing a tight, navy blue dress with black stilettos and long, black, curly hair.

"Mom, this is Victoria. And this is Lona, my mother," he said. She turned around with a beautiful face that had some features of Nathan's.

"She's so cute!" Lona said and wrapped me up in a very bone-crushing hug. "I never knew Nathan got a girlfriend!"

"I'm not his girlfriend," I said, but she didn't seem to hear. I'm more annoyed at the fact Nathan didn't deny it. Possibly because Lona doesn't listen to words but rather believes her eyes. I am wearing his shirt, and I am sleeping in his bed with him. Oh. My. God. I have seriously lost some sight of reality with this whole scene.

"Why are you here this late in the fucking night?" Donny asked who looked crazy with his bed hair and deeply bagged eyes.

"Donny! What a delight to see you again!" she said and hugged him. He hugged her back quickly and let go of her and went back to bed. "Man, is that boy cranky! Anyways, how long have you two been together?" she asked us. I gave Nathan a look and he just looked away.

"We aren't dating Mom. She's just staying here for the time being."

"What? Oh! Don't try to trick me! I see the shirt she's wearing! And she did come out of your bedroom! And the way you're acting around her, it just speaks of young love! Oh it really does bring me back to the days when your father wasn't such an asshole." She smiled and sat down on the couch, motioning for us to sit with her.

Nathan mouthed an I'm sorry and sat down on the other end, leaving me to sit in the middle. I sighed quietly and sat down, waiting for her to go on a spill about all of her relationship problems with Nathan's father.

By the time she was almost finished, I was leaned up again Nathan with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. He only did that because he saw that I was shivering, but I'm starting to think it was a bit more than that. Also he made a good cushion to rest on.

Finally she finished her spill and I told her that she should just talk to her husband about all this and they both should work it out together. She still said that he never listens and tried to dodge the way to save their marriage. Nathan eventually told her to grow some balls and just force him to listen. She ended up criticizing Nathan about how he is living in this dimension. He ended up criticizing the Otherworld. And it turned into a normal family bickering session. I left the room and went back to bed with a pillow over my head to drone out the noise.

The front door eventually slammed some time after wards, waking me back up. I groaned and Nathan came back into the room and crawled back into bed.

"Your mother seems nice," I said. He started laughing and I turned around to face him. He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head. I took a better look at him. He had his dark hair, tan skin, toned and lean muscles with a nice, brilliant smile on his face. He turned his head to look at me with the moonlight shining through the window making his handsome skin glow. His smile faded but the happy glint in his eyes was still there, staring through me.

Suddenly I felt all the scars that were on my body and felt like I was flawed, especially compared to him. I avoided eye contact and stared at a poster in his bedroom.