Chapter 23
Auggie
When I opened my eyes, a strange weight on my chest nearly made me jump out of the bed.
My instincts were on high alert, and I was ready to fight whatever had attacked me while I was asleep, my hand already slipping toward the knife I kept tucked into the side of the mattress.
It was only by sheer luck, and the whisper of a small voice in the back of my mind, that I looked down at my chest before acting.
I had to thank whatever lucky star I was born under for that moment of insight. Just before I shot into action, my gaze landed on Mia’s familiar face and I breathed a sigh of relief as I lay back against the bed.
That was a close call. If I’d woken him up by attacking him, I probably would have undone all the progress I’d made in bringing him out of his shell and he’d probably never trust me again.
I needed to be more careful from now on, especially if waking up to find him in my bed was going to become a normal occurrence.
Maybe inviting a grown man to sleep beside me wasn’t the most appropriate thing, but when I saw him lying on my floor, terrified from a nightmare, I couldn’t just leave him there.
Now, in the light of morning, with his warmth pressed against my side and his head pillowed on my chest like it belonged there, I still didn’t regret it.
With a careful hand, I ran my fingers through his newly trimmed hair as I listened to his even breathing.
He hadn’t worn the wig to bed, but I still remembered what it looked like when he returned to the apartment yesterday.
The long hair had been a surprise, but it seemed so natural on him, like his hair was always supposed to be long and I hadn’t seen the real Mia until that moment.
The dress he wore when he returned from shopping wasn’t a surprise.
I knew what Chantal had taken him out to buy.
What I hadn’t expected was what a difference it would really make.
As far as I was concerned, clothes were clothes.
People had preferences, of course, and different clothes suited some people better than others, but in the end it was all surface decoration.
Until I saw Mia spinning in the middle of my living room to show off the way the skirt of the dress twirled around his waist when he moved, I never understood how clothing could be tied to a person’s very soul.
Melody ended up joining him, and together, the two of them put on a little fashion show to display the new clothes they’d found. I should have been watching my daughter and reveling in the joy on her face, but I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of Mia.
Like a butterfly without its wings, he’d just been a caterpillar crawling along until now, but with his colors restored, he had learned to fly again.
He was practically glowing, and his feet barely seemed to touch the ground when he moved.
The marks of his past trauma still remained, but somehow the lingering bandages no longer stood out as starkly as before, and the burn scars on his skin seemed to fade into obscurity.
Now, just a few hours later, he lay comfortably in my arms. When he’d joined me in bed after his nightmare, I’d made sure to keep plenty of distance between us, but the mattress was only so big, and we must have drifted together while we slept.
One of my arms was trapped under his weight, but with the one that was still free, I reached over to carefully trace the edge of a burn scar that had come precariously close to the corner of his eye.
It was a miracle that his face had been left mostly undamaged, but it was such a close call.
Another inch or two and he could have lost his sight or worse.
Small blessing, I guess. In the absence of a large blessing, we could only be thankful for the small ones.
The burned skin near Mia’s face was healed, but still tender.
I brushed my fingers over the uneven texture as gently as possible, to the point that I barely made contact with his skin, but his expression still furrowed in discomfort.
I quickly shifted my touch away from the scars before I woke him up, but I accidentally found myself brushing over his lips instead.
Mia had a very pronounced cupid’s bow. The two little peaks poked at my fingertips like they were trying to get my attention. His lips were surprisingly pink. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was wearing makeup.
Actually, makeup would suit him. He already had the dresses and long hair. I wondered if he’d be interested in makeup as well. I didn’t know anything about all that stuff, but maybe Chantal would be willing to help out again.
I sighed and my breath ruffled Mia’s bangs. By the end of this, I was practically going to owe Chantal my soul, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
On the table beside the bed, my phone started beeping, altering me to the fact that I needed to get up.
I grabbed it as quickly as possible, but there was no way to keep the noise from disturbing Mia.
His eyes opened, blurring at first but clearly comfortable and content.
Then, after a moment, he seemed to realize where he was and his whole body stiffened.
“It’s okay,” I said before he could panic any more. “You’re safe. Everything’s fine.”
His eyes bore into mine, holding my gaze as he judged the truth of my words. I didn’t move as I waited for him to realize that my arms truly were a safe place for him.
The last dregs of panic left Mia’s eyes, and with a half-hearted smile, he patted the spot on my chest that had just been acting as his pillow.
“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to invade your personal space, but you’re just too comfortable.”
He sat up, looking ridiculously sweet and rumbled with the after effects of sleep. With one hand, he instinctively pushed back long hair that wasn’t there. It was as if, after only a day of wearing a wig, he’d gotten so used to the long hair that he’d forgotten it wasn’t natural.
I laughed as I sat up as well. “It’s all right. You can’t invade a place where you’re already welcome.”
Mia froze, his hands in his hair like he was trying to gather up long strands that weren’t there.
I’d only meant to offer him comfort, but I realized that I’d accidentally admitted a little more than I meant.
Now, the two of us were suddenly balanced on the edge of something we weren’t quite ready to handle.
Luckily, before any more accidental words could slip out of my mouth, we were interrupted by the wailing of my alarm again, warning me that I really needed to get up now. Mia and I both started moving, happy to leave the conversation behind us and get back to some semblance of normalcy.
Half an hour later, we were in the kitchen and Mia was sitting at the table while I made us breakfast. As I cooked, I heard an odd clicking sound behind me and I looked over to see Mia typing away at the spare laptop I’d loaned him.
The bacon in the skillet sizzled and I flipped it over. “What are you working on?”
Mia’s words were distracted as he refused to look up from the screen.
“When I was talking to Chantal earlier, she recommended that I try making something called a fashion blog. I like talking about clothing and fashion and stuff, and she says I would have a unique perspective. Plus, it would give me something to do with my time, assuming I can figure out how this whole social media thing works.”
As I listened to him, I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and only remembered our breakfast when the smell of burned bacon reached my nose.
Cursing under my breath, I snatched the pan off the fire, glad to find that it wasn’t too badly burned.
A few of the pieces were a little darker than they should be, so I slid those onto my own plate as punishment for my inattention.
Mia did probably have a lot of free time to kill now that I was back at work.
He wasn’t yet comfortable or healed enough to go out unaccompanied, but I was away for long stretches of time and Chantal wasn’t always going to be available.
Mia needed something to keep him occupied, but I was worried.
There was a lot of hate on the Internet.
Social media could be cruel even to those who stuck to the most traditional content, and Mia’s style was anything but traditional.
However, when I warned him about this, he just laughed.
“Yeah, Chantal said the same thing. Based on her warnings, I was prepared for the worst, but you know, the insults people throw around on here are… well, they’re actually pretty weak. Even the death threats are honestly kinda pathetic.”
I placed his plate with his mostly unburned bacon in front of him. “Death threats? Are people really sending you death threats just because of your clothing?”
I knew social media could be bad, but that was mostly through my job. I’d never dabbled in it much myself. I thought that meant I was prepared for how vile people could be, especially when they had anonymity to hide behind, but apparently I was wrong.
Mia looked up from where he was poking at his breakfast and gave me a crooked smile.
“It’s cute that you’re surprised by this. Of course, people are sending me death threats. My very existence makes them uncomfortable, and when people are uncomfortable with something, they want it to go away.”
Ignoring the breakfast I no longer had an appetite for, I reached for my coffee instead. “Still, they shouldn’t be sending you death threats. That’s just… that’s just too much.”
Between the two of us, I seemed like the only one upset. Mia just glanced at the laptop screen for a moment before shrugging and going back to his food.
“Well, like I said, most of these insults are pretty weak. Between living on the street and Camp Green Hill, I’ve heard so much worse, it’s almost funny. So, don’t worry. I promise, I’m not bothered by it.”
I wanted to keep arguing. Mia shouldn’t have to put up with insults at all, no matter how weak they were. However, something else caught my attention.
Camp Green Hill?
Mia had spoken the name so casually, it didn’t seem like he’d even noticed it. I’d gone over plenty of Mia’s memories before, but that specific name had never come up.
There were two possible options for that.
The first option was that the memory of this “Camp” had returned and slipped back into his brain without him even noticing.
It was possible. Even the memories that Mia could recall were a jumbled mess and he sometimes struggled to keep things in order.
If a new one resurfaced it could easily get lost among the chaos, like a single piece of hay rolled up inside a haystack.
The second option was that the memory had returned a while ago and Mia knew about it, but he specifically hadn’t told me until his accidental slip of the tongue just now.
I wasn’t sure which option I hated more.
Both had their downsides. If Mia was getting memories back without realizing, that was going to make his recovery a lot harder.
However, if he was intentionally keeping secrets from me…
Well, I really didn’t like that. Of course, Mia had a right to his secrets. He didn’t have to tell me things if he didn’t want to, but I hated the idea that he had to hide things from me. I wanted to be a safe place for him. Not another threat he had to hide parts of himself from.
Based on the very brief context of the conversation, this Camp Green Hill didn’t sound like a good place.
I wouldn’t mention it to Mia since he either wanted to keep it a secret or didn’t consciously remember it.
However, once I was in the office, I would do some research into this camp, at least for my own peace of mind.
If Camp Green Hill was dangerous, then I needed to know, and if I could find information about it, then maybe it could lead me to Mia’s true identity.