— My clothes stuck to my skin as my breath grew more and more labored. The dorm hallway was devoid of any light, except for one door, the one leading up the staircase to the upper floor, from which an orange light filtered through. My shoes sloshed on the wooden floorboards that creaked under my weight as I walked toward that hint of light. My chin trembled and many small shivers made me curl into myself. Then, when I finally reached the wooden door, i opened it slowly. As if I expected to find Ellie sleeping. But instead, all I saw was her back. A white shirt with some blue stripes adorned her thin back. Her arms were flexed against the small table while she was tinkering with her gun and wiped it with a clean cloth. The air split. My legs trembled when I didn’t hear even a single word leave her lips. What made nausea rise in my throat was the dull sound of the gun being emptied of its bullets and then the barrel being placed onto the wooden surface.

“Where have you been?” And I slowly approached my bed on the left side of hers, while placing my soaked backpack on the floor. My cheeks burned from the pain. A small cherry-colored spot decorated the left one with a few small, fresh scratches. Ellie quickly put the gun in her pocket.

“There was something I needed to take care of.”

But Ellie didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. Not at all. She stepped toward me and her fingers pressed against my jaw to inspect the wounded cheek.

“Do you have any idea what could’ve happened if they’d seen you breaking curfew?” In her tone I noticed a certain urgency as she sat on my bed with slow movements while pulling me closer to her to treat my injuries. Some ice pressed against my cheek, and I flinched instinctively. Her lips tightened into a hard line. I noticed it in the way her face looked harsh under the orange light of the bedside lamp on the table, making her green eyes shine in the darkness, eyes that stared at me the whole time with a reproachful gaze. My hand grabbed her wrist in a spontaneous gesture and I saw her stopping the movement of the small ice pack right on the sore spot, slightly parting her lips, confused.

“You were an idiot. You know that, right? No matter how hard we try to be normal, we never will be.” She began to speak again, but I didn’t respond even once. My thin and pale phalanges brushed against her wrist once more. They touched the pulsing spot with her thumb and I could feel her heart slowing down. Her eyebrows becoming less and less threatening and her nose inhaling air without any rush. So I let her go. The shivers still attacking my whole body. I had to get rid of those clothes. Then I saw her stand up from the bed. Her arm brushed against mine as she bent down to throw me a towel and a clean shirt. She sniffed and quickly got back to work. The gun that had been in her pants was now in the old training backpack. The other one half-open on the floor overflowing with her old notebook with some ruined pages, a pencil case, an old mp3 player, and some cigarettes. The rain split the air and hammered violently against the windows. The old roofs seemed ready to collapse with every drop, and the noise echoed through the entire school. I gave her one last look. I made my way to the bathroom, but I remembered I had broken the rules for a reason: that reason hung from the half-open zipper of the backpack I had thrown on the floor. I brushed my fingers over the top pages, feeling them wet to the touch. No no no… I pulled it out quickly and placed it on the couch. Fortunately, the plastic cover was still intact, as well as the other internal pages. I turned it in my hands, as some strands of hair dripped water onto the cover.

“Savage Starlight. The edition you were missing.”

I left it on the couch. I didn’t even notice if Ellie cared at all or if she had turned to look when i locked myself inside the bathroom. But when I turned on the hot shower water, I heard footsteps growing heavier along what I knew was the main dorm door and then the couch. Pages being flipped and then… total silence.