Chapter 11

                                    

                                          
I get so high on feeling low
love running with the sicker things
and sleeping with my ghosts
- Wicked Ways by Halestorm

I stretched out my hand and traced my fingernail over Demis' spine, feeling her shiver under my touch.
"You could've just told me that you were awake, you know?" she turned around to face me.
"It was more fun this way" I smiled. Demis' alarm had gone off a couple of minutes ago and she had been scrolling through Instagram since then but now she slowly sat up.
"I'm gonna go get ready for the gym, so don't stay in bed for too long" She kissed my forehead and left to go to the bathroom. I closed my eyes for a moment, basking in the feeling of complete and utter comfort before I let reality catch up with me.
While trying to get dressed I realized that I didn't have that many clean clothes left. I would have to ask Demi if I could do laundry at her place but I also desperately needed to go out and get some essentials to replace everything Xav had broken. 
Mentally cringing at the memory of my destroyed apartment I pulled an oversized hoodie over my head, the perfect 24/7 hiding place.
I didn't have any clean leggings so I would have to go with bike shorts even though I didn't really like showing my legs, they were the body part if was the least confident about. Demi had returned from the bathroom in booty shorts and a longline sports bra and I caught myself looking at her for a little too long.
 She caught me too. With a sinister grin she took a pair of sweatpants she had already laid out on a chair next to her bed and pulled them over the shorts.
"Sorry love, as much as I know you like these shorts they are a little bit cold," she said in a mocking tone. When had we started to switch from our normal conversation style to pretty much flirting all the time? 
I couldn't remember but I also wasn't complaining. 
We gathered our things, said goodbye to the dogs, and drove to the gym. It felt surreal that the last time I had been here I had only just met Demi for the first time. Somehow it felt like that was years ago. 
I watched (and filmed) as Demi suffered through a particularly brutal leg day (she ended up taking off the sweatpants soon after starting her warmup) and scrolled through my phone as I waited for her to get changed for the podcast. 
The place where it was being recorded was directly next to a mall. After a little bit of convincing, I left Demi at the studio and went over there to buy some things I needed.
I had about an hour and a half before she would be done and she made sure I knew that she would send out a search party immediately if I wasn't back by then. I had been to a drugstore and a shop for activewear and was now browsing through the mall when something caught my attention. It was a small news stand in the middle of the hallway and it was selling lottery tickets.
Every fiber of my being knew that it was a stupid idea. There was no point in this, it wouldn't even give me the same satisfaction as an actual game. But before I could really think it through, I had gone over there.
The cashier was eyeing me suspiciously, probably because I looked at the scratch-off tickets like a predator looking at its prey.
"I would like to buy five of those" I pointed at the tickets and he hesitated for a moment but then he just shrugged and handed them to me. I took them and left, sitting down on a bench nearby.
The tickets felt like they were burning in my hands, daring me to use them. But I also knew how dangerous the game I was playing was.
If I won literally anything I would go back and buy his entire inventory because that meant I was potentially having a lucky streak.
If I lost I would try again and again.
A look at my phone told me that I didn't have time to think about this anymore anyway because I had to go back to the studio to meet Demi.
I shoved the tickets into the side pocket of my shorts with my phone and got up as fast as I could, hurrying out of the mall as if my life depended on it.
Demi greeted me with a big smile, leaving me feeling even more guilty than I had before. But this wasn't new to me. As much as I hated pretending, I had done this a million times before and it was something I excelled at.
So I smiled back and gave her a hug, asking how the podcast went and listening to her answer while she was driving us home.
We decided to order some lunch before we would take the dogs out.
 Waiting for it to arrive, Demi was lying on the floor on her back, Barry draped over her stomach while she tried to keep Luna from rolling up on her face. I started filming her, using my phone because this was way too adorable to miss and I was worried that if I went to get my camera they would stop before I got back.
Lunch went by without any special occurrences apart from me getting dirty looks for "secretly" feeding Barry a piece of chicken under the table.
Earlier, Demi had picked out a dog park we would go to that she hadn't visited before and the dogs were ecstatic when we got there. God only knows how these little creatures had room in their body for so much energy, but the second they were off leash and saw the little doggy pool that was standing in the shade of a big tree they were gone, running and jumping around like little bouncing balls.
Demi stood behind me and had her arms wrapped around my body as we watched the two of them. It was a perfect moment. If it had been up to me, we wouldn't have left this place ever, but it was slowly getting dark out so we dried off the by now very tired dogs and took them back home where I took dibs on the first shower.
I had bought a very cute pajama set at the mall and I couldn't wait to see Demis' reaction to it.
But when I came out of the bathroom, the atmosphere had changed drastically. She was sitting crosslegged on her bed, holding a piece of paper.
"Alexandria, what the fuck is this?" she held up her hand. 
It was a lottery ticket.