AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"He just asked that I check in—" Then she grins candidly, figurately dropping her doctor's hat for me. "And has asked that we make sure you eat something."
"Shosh," Cassidy reprimands, turning to me with a cheerful appeasing kind of smile. "He cares. That's all. These boys just have a…funnyway of showing it."
"A funny way?" Shoshanna questions. "A primitive way." She laughs as she lifts the hotel phone and begins talking to a person on the other end. The words 'steak' and 'cake' seeps into my ears.I could definitely eat.
As always, with my limited girl-to-girl social skills, I come back blank with what to say. Agree with them.
Fit in.
Are his ways primitive?
Maybe… but I'm not like these girls. I didn’t have the luxury of learning independence, of proving I was ready and then fighting a guardian tooth-and-nail for the freedom to do what I wanted, ready to be pushed from the nest—I was abandoned in the damn nest.'Alone and surviving'is my standard. That condition was all I'd known.
Taking care of myself feels a lot like being a child in a caravan with nothing but a promise that the moon can heal, and the world is beautiful, and I'll be a butterfly one day. Nothing but hippy bullshit, two-minute noodles, and peanut butter sandwiches. It's not refreshing to make my own decisions or rely on myself—it's brutal.
Clay sees that.
But I don't argue or try to explain. I simply say, "Are Max and Bronson the same then? About eating and stuff?"
"Ah," Shoshanna drawls, hanging up the phone. And the two women share a meaningful glance in contemplation while I join them on the opposite sofa.
"Different," Cassidy finally says.
"How so?" I ask, watching her pull her legs up and cross them on the sofa.
"Well, Max won't directly say anything," Cassidy offers brightly, "unless I press for it. I just know when there is something wrong."
Shoshanna laughs, a deep husky sound that is confident and full of unapologetic truth. "I've known these boys for most of my life, and what Cassidy means is, he's a grumpy arse, and she has to find out why he looks like he wants to snap something or someone in half."
"No," Cassidy insists through a smile that defies that word. Clearly, Shoshanna is right. "He is just not a big talker. If he thought that I wasn't eating enough, he'd probably take me out for lunch and then watch every mouthful I take until he's happy with the amount. And I'd see right through it." Then she bursts into giggles because she must find that as endearing and as strange as I do. It makes my heart warm for her.
"And Cassidy will never say a bad word about her Max," Shoshanna quips but seems pleased that it's true.
"And Bronson?" Cassidy eggs Shoshanna on, righting herself from her small fit of laughter.
"Well…" She leans back, settling in. "Bronson would probably tie me up and force feed me or make a joke about providing adequate nutrients by shoving—" She stammers, and Cassidy's eyes widen above an excited beam. "Byothermeans…"
I smile at them.
Girlie banter.
I can do this…
We spend the night talking, and Shoshanna trims my hair because she can't seem to stop. She's an overachiever. Well, both she and Cassidy are, really.
I recall comparing them to cultivated roses, and me to a grass flower. I'm not sure if I feel like a rose just yet, but I also… I don't feel like a grass flower anymore. I reach up and touch the butterfly pendant hanging over my heart.
"You're my pretty little queen."
A monarch.
"I cut Bronson's hair too," Shoshanna says, pulling the strands taut down my back so she can trim the ends, redirecting my attention away from butterflies and roses. "I'll just take a few inches off the bottom." The blunt end of the scissor glides along my lower back as she talks. "It makes sense that I'd be good at this, being a surgeon. Usually, I'm cutting through tissue though." She pauses, and I hear her smile as she says, "And there is more blood."More?
"I've got litres of blood. It's all good."
I look at Cassidy as she fills her mouth with a burger bigger than my palm and definitely bigger than her trim stomach that must be a black hole. "You like food. Where do you put it?" I ask.
"In. Ma.Belly," Cassidy croons around the food while gazing at the beef burger with adoration.
