Page 34 of Rock Me

CHAPTER NINE

Noémie

"Are you done?" Paige asks me, holding her hand out for my plate.

"Yeah, thanks for dinner, it was delicious." I say, handing it to her and giving her a grateful smile. As hard as it is to deal with the energy of her visits, she's really the only regular outside contact that I have. I'd go crazy if it weren't for her.

"No problem. So, this place gets a tick from us?" She waves a napkin at me, pointing to the logo of the café the food came from.

"Definitely, but would it matter? Don't you go there for the hot barista anyway? Isn't that how we pick most take-out places?"

"Seems your memory is working just fine," she says, poking her tongue out at me, and bundles up the used plates into the trash can.

"Speaking of which, can you help me with some of my memory exercises?"

She smiles and fusses with the bed, straightening out the sheets and fluffing the pillow.

"Sure, but not tonight, yeah? You look a little tired. You shouldn't be pushing yourself."

"I haven't been sleeping really well."

"Oh, do you need something to help with that?" She looks instantly concerned.

"I do, sometimes. Mostly when my head hurts though."

She comes over and sits down next to me on the couch, gently stroking my hair. "Is it getting better?"

"The pain? Yeah, almost all gone now. And the doctor says I'm pretty healed up otherwise. It's just that my brain is still a little foggy. Who knows when that will clear up?"

"Well, no rush, you just let your body recover at its own time."

"I can't stay here forever. I can't afford that."

"How many times am I going to have to tell you? Would you just let me worry about that? My Dad is cool with it, okay? Like he'd ever miss the money." And as true as that is, it’s not my money to spend. I don’t tell her that the concept of paying her back is partly what keeps me up at night.

"It’s so much though."

"Shush.” She makes a zipping movement across her lips.

"I'm shushing."

She rolls her eyes at me, gets up and resumes fussing with the blankets.

"You going to put a mint on the pillow?" I tease her. She makes a face but doesn’t stop, pouring water into my glass and tidying up around the bedside table.

I take advantage of her not talking for once to ask her what's been on my mind since that afternoon.

"Hey, do we, do I know someone called Jez?"

Her hands instantly stop moving and turns back to face me. "What?"

"Jez. Does that name sound familiar to you."

She pauses and thinks, "Um, no. Should it?"

"I don't know."

"Then why do you ask?"