The Unfolding 4

When Risa woke up the next morning, all she could feel was a heavy, warm weight on top of her. Blinking tiredly, she opened her eyes just to be greeted with sight of a bunch of soft black hair. Shida. No "Meisie". Slowly, the memory of what had happened the previous evening came back to Risa. The urge to wake Meisie up and get up slowly vanished, so Risa relaxed a little and watched the younger woman sleep for a while. Eventually, though, she noticed that it was getting late. ‘Meisie,’ she said quietly, shaking Meisie’s shoulder gently. ‘You should get up, it’s getting late.’ Meisie groaned tiredly and her expression changed from cute to unwilling, but then she finally opened her eyes. ‘Hmmm?’ Then she realized that she was lying on top of Risa, and she quickly tried to move away. ‘Oh, sorry ----” ‘It’s alright,’ Risa tried to calm her down, feeling just ever so slightly sad about the loss of warmth and comfort that came with Meisie’s movements. ‘I don’t mind.’ Meisie relaxed a bit when she heard that, but she still averted her eyes. ‘You could just have gone to bed and left me here.’ ‘No, I fell asleep myself. It’s fine, really. I think…’ After hesitating for a moment, she continued, ‘I think I slept better this night than I did last night.’ ‘….anyways, I’ll go and make us breakfast!’ Meisie jumped to her feet and hurried to the kitchen, looking a bit embarrassed. The creaking of the floorboards reminded Risa of how she had heard that exact same sound the previous evening after her phone call. I still need to talk to her about that. ‘Meisie’ she called out, following the younger woman into the kitchen. ‘About last night….!’ ‘So you hated it after all…’ ‘That’s not it,’ Risa cut in. ‘It was nice. But there’s something else we have to talk about.’ Meisie raised an eyebrow. ‘What is it, then?’ ‘During that call I made with the police station, you were eavesdropping, weren’t you?’ The mayor’s daughter visibly tensed up, but she shook her head. ‘….no, I didn’t.’ Risa’s heart clenched a little. She had thought that after "that" last night, they might be close enough to stop lying to each other, but apparently Meisie didn’t think the same way. ‘I heard you walk away afterwards, though, You were…’ ‘I wasn’t!’ Meisie blurted out instinctively, like she had lost control over her feelings for a moment. ‘Why? Why were you eavesdropping, why are you lying now…’ ‘Risa, shut up!’ Meisie had paused in her movement of cutting some vegetables, now she spun on her heels and started at Risa, obviously upset. ‘It’s for your own safety!’ Risa fell silent, surprised. ‘For my own safety…?’ Only now did Meisie seem to realize what she had just said. She bit her lip and turned back to the food she had been preparing. ‘You already know too much, even if you feel like you don’t know anything.’ She said bitterly. ‘Taking you to Katy’s house was already something I shouldn’t have done.’ ‘Then why did you do it?’ ‘You’re a nice person, I like you. You said you couldn’t go home without any information, so I tried to give you some…but I realized that I’m just putting you into danger.’ That was the explanation she stuck with for the next few days. Those days passed with Meisie refusing to let Risa find out anything else. Eventually, Risa had enough of it. For days after their fight, she waited until she was sure that Meisie was asleep; then she headed to the stairs that led down to the basement - one of the places that Meisie had avoided during their tour around the house. The door was locked, but Risa found the key hanging on a nail in the wall, hidden behind a tapestry near the door.