Polaris comes from here: Confrontations and Complications.
Lorna managed to fumble her way through the motions of opening the front door of the Mansion and into the entrance hall. The room was entirely empty and for that she was extremely grateful for. The Mansion was extremely quiet and the only sound was her gasping breath echoing around the high ceiling of the entrance hall. She was tired and tense from holding in her tears until she had arrived somewhere safe. The whole of the Mansion came under that umbrella and even though she wasn’t in a private place, she couldn’t contain her grief anymore.
The look of hurt on Alex’s face stayed with her as she leant against the wall and sank down to the floor, legs curling under her, hands over her face, sobbing uncontrollably. A part of her knew she should get up and go to her room to do this but her body wouldn’t obey her commands anymore. Her grief was, selfishly, for herself as well as Alex, thinking about what she’d lost, about what an awful person she was. She had left him in his vulnerability and for that she despised herself.
As the storm of her tears began to subside, Lorna drew her knees up to her chin and rested her forehead on them, wrapping her arms around her legs. She felt like a teenager again, crying in her bedroom over some stupid insult. But then she’d stopped crying and started digging blades into her skin instead. It was so tempting to slip back into that, right now. Though she’d moved past those issues, there was always that chance, when she felt this low, of falling back into old habits.
She closed her eyes and let out a shuddering sigh, wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her jacket. Lorna knew she should get up before one of the students saw her but she simply couldn’t move.
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