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 himcomfort, 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 goout 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.