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"Oh, I'm sorry Jolie. I didn't know you were here. Let me get you a plate."
"If you didn't make enough, it's okay," I hurry to say.
"One thing I have never been accused of is making too little food." She chuckles.
She makes me a plate of spaghetti while Elijah gets us all drinks.
"You're on spring break, right?" Louise asks.
I nod. "Until Monday."
"Got any big plans?"
"She's chosen to bless me with her presence during spring break," Elijah tells her, saving me from giving an awkward answer.
She grins at him. "Hmm, nice choose of words." She looks back at me. "It's always good for a man to know his place."
I smirk. "I agree."
"Wow, this week should be...fun." Elijah deadpans.
"Well you can come with me to the store, if you want, tomorrow while Elijah goes to work." Louise offers.
"Just let me know when and I'll be ready."
"See." Elijah nudges my shoulder as we walk back to his bedroom. "Told you she'd be glad for the company."
"Oh, so you're always right, huh?"
"Well I was most certainly right about you."
The next day, I'm waiting by the door when Louise comes downstairs to go to the store. She links her arm with mine when we get out of the car.
"I'm so happy I get to do this with you," she says. "I'm looking for Elijah's birthday present."
My eyes widen. "I wanted to talk to you about that actually. Did you have anything planned yet?"
"We usually go to dinner, and I give him the gift there. He doesn't like a lot of fuss around his birthday. Another side effect of Ben."
I stumble in my steps at her words. A side effect of Ben. After what Elijah told me about their former joint birthday parties and being cast in the shadows of Ben's friends and family at the parties, I know that Louise is right about why Elijah doesn't want to do much for his birthday. But to hear her phrase it that way, to clearly state that she knows and realizes Elijah doesn't want to do much because of the effect of Ben, is startling.
And leaves me wondering what I have as a side effect of Callie. Already Elijah has pointed out how I always try to bring things back to a happy place, even if I don't feel an ounce of that happiness within me. How I apologize for how I feel. Because, in being honest with myself now, I know that with how big and deep and desperate Callie's emotions always seemed, mine weren't as important, as significant, as warranted.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you," she says.
"Oh no. You didn't. I just... I can see the way that Elijah being there for Ben affected him. And it makes me wonder how it has affected me, what ways I don't even really see yet?"
She looks over at me with sad eyes. "Who did you lose, honey?"
"My sister."
"Oh. I'm so sorry."
I look away and nod because I never know how to respond to that.
"Are you angry too?"
My eyes snap back to her, not expecting that question at all.
