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“You want cash for this right now or you good for me to add it onto the tab for next week?”
“The tab is fine,” I mutter, scooping up my stuff to carry everything to my room.
But my hands are too full, so I can’t quite open my door. Ugh.
I squat to set my food down on the floor, but something goes catastrophically wrong and the lid falls off my soup, scalding my wrist, making me lose balance on everything in my arms and doesn’t my entire thing of soup fall? The soup sloshes down the hall, across the baseboard, all over my foot and it’s hot so it burns.
“Fuck!” I shout, yanking my foot back.
And then I fall down onto my ass and I’m bawling.
Like… really bawling.
18
Austin
I scoop her up and take her back into the kitchen, putting her on the island. She startles for a split second and then she stares at me, her already huge eyes bigger. She’s embarrassed. And having some sort of meltdown, and for some reason I don’t feel annoyed like I generally do when I see a girl cry.
Seeing that she’s scalded herself, without thinking I yank her shoe and sock off and in a few quick moves I’ve got ice wrapped up in a tea towel and cooling the burn on her skin.
She’s still crying, audibly, and I know this is about more than soup.
Her wrist is pink and wet, too, so I grab a wet paper towel and dab it on her wrist. She pulls her hand back and holds the paper towel herself, so I lean down and roll her jeans leg up into a cuff and examine her leg, then put the ice pack over the top of her foot.
A couple days ago, I’d probably have figured she was a drama queen with this, but something about her today, something about the way she came in, put stuff down, wouldn’t look at me, wasn’t throwing sass, and looked like the weight of the planet was on her small shoulders, it sparked something in me, something that’s making me react like this.
She’s got her hands over her face now and I’m holding the cloth to her ankle, so I swivel her sideways so that her feet are now on the island. I lay the ice-filled towel over her ankle and grab a roll of paper towel and head for the mess.
Yeah, if she were sensible about this, she’d have made two trips, but clearly the girl has a lot going on. And if I wasn’t an asshole making her spend all her time in her room, she wouldn’t have hurt herself trying to carry her food in there as fast as possible.
And she came in here carrying a giant bag of food and bought herself a small order, me a large one of soup and she’s probably not feeling great either today after last night’s food poisoning.
She sits there sniffling while I clean the mess off the floor. I look over at her. She’s holding the cloth to her ankle now and staring at me with her lips pulled tight, her big eyes filled with sadness.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” Her gaze darts away.
“It’s okay,” I say, shrugging casually while bringing the bundle of wet paper towels over with the empty Styrofoam and dropping them all in the sink for now.
I reach down and gently take the makeshift ice pack. Her skin is just pink. No blistering yet.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods, not looking at me.
“Want ice for your wrist?”
She shakes her head. “It’s okay.”
I place the ice bundle over her ankle again, then rescue the food that hasn’t toppled out of its containers outside her room. More rice paper noodle rolls and an order of spring rolls. Half an order, because some fell out and wound up in the sink with the paper towels.
I set them down on the island beside her, lean over and pull two bowls out of the cupboard and split up the large soup she bought for me. I then open the next container with the noodles and meat and split it between the two bowls before I set the container filled with the sprouts, lime, mint, and other toppings in between and then open the fridge.
“What do you want to drink?” I ask.
When she doesn’t answer me, I look over my shoulder at her and she looks confused.
“Beer?” I ask.
“Ginger ale, please,” she replies softly.
I grab one for me, too. Normally I’d have a beer with takeout like this, but not tonight; my gut isn’t up for it.
I move our food around to the other side of the island and gesture. She stares at me blankly and without thinking, I lift her by her hips and set her on one of the stools.
She bristles and looks at me like she’s never seen me before.
