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His eyes go over me. "You're wearing my hoodie."
The first hoodie he gave me.
"Of course. Gotta make good on our deal." I smile. "Are you doing anything now?"
"No. Got anything in mind?"
"I'm actually pretty hungry. But I also know from experience that barely anything is open at this time."
"I could cook you something," he offers and my eyes widen. "Not asking you to spend the night or something. Just a meal. I am a pretty decent cook, if I do say so myself."
Butterflies take flight in my stomach at the thought of being so alone with him. But I don't even need to think of the answer.
"I'll follow you there."
He opens my door for me before going to his own car. I follow him through the streets until we pull up to a two story townhouse. Suddenly, I'm nervous for another reason as I get out of the car.
"Won't we wake up your grandma?" I whisper to Elijah. "Being in the kitchen, walking around?"
"Why are you whispering like she can hear you outside?" I smack his arm and he continues. "My grandma's room is on the second floor, so she won't hear us at all. Plus she sleeps like she's hibernating."
"Oh, if I ever meet her, I am definitely telling her you said that."
"She knows it's true." He chuckles.
He leads me up the steps and opens the door for me to walk in front. We walk into the living room, and I immediately notice the difference between this home and the one I left earlier. How this house actually feels lived in, the throw blankets on the couch that speak of people falling asleep in front of the TV. The books on the coffee table that look well read. The smell of something that's recently been baked in the air. There is an...aliveness to this house that only makes my house feel so much more dead.
I push those thoughts aside as Elijah leads me past the living room to the kitchen. And if the living room felt alive, this room feels like where all the life in this house comes from. There are pictures all over the refrigerator, a woman and clearly Elijah throughout the years, Elijah and who I can guess is Ben, Elijah in a graduation gown, smile on his face. There are muffins and a cake in covered containers on the counter, and colorful cushions on the chairs at the table.
"Any requests?" he asks.
"Anything you make is fine. I'm not picky."
He begins moving around the kitchen, getting a pan and going into the refrigerator to get some items. When I stop trying to figure out what he's making, I go look at the pictures held up by so many magnets. Elijah blowing out candles on a cake, competing in a track and field race, him looking at the camera but clearly not wanting to take the picture. I stop when I get to a picture with two women beside him and Ben.
"Are these your sisters?" I ask.
He looks over his shoulder from the stove. "No. Ben's older sisters. Denise and Mikaela. I'm an only child. I think."
"You think?"
He turns back around before he starts talking, but I can see the tension that's entered his shoulders. I would think it had something to do with Ben if it weren't for the subject.
"My mom has never really been…my mom. My grandma's raised me since before I can remember, always been the one there morning and night. When I was five and having some trouble at school, they demanded my mother come in for a meeting. In walked this lady I couldn’t remembering seeing except for in a few pictures, talking to the teachers and principal like she knew anything about me, or me her. When she came back to this house after the meeting, my grandma told me that was my mother. And she was gone as quickly as she'd come, leaving me to wonder what the hell it all meant. Although I knew my grandma was my grandma, I guess I never really wondered why I had no mom until that point. Then it was kind of all I could think about."
"Did you ever see her again?" I ask low.
"When I was ten, she came back. Or came around maybe sounds more accurate. I can't tell you why she suddenly wanted to be in my life, maybe done fighting whatever demon had driven her away in the first place, I don't know. But my grandma wasn't about to trust her with her grandma's boy." He looks over his shoulder and smiles then. "That's what she's always called me."
I chuckle as he turns back around. "I can't wait to hear that for the first time."
"My grandma let her move in here so I wouldn't be out of her house. She asked me to give my mom a chance, to try and forgive her, but I just...couldn't. She'd left me, and I didn't have any type of bad life with my grandma, but she left me nonetheless. I didn't think she deserved to just show up and get to try and earn my love. I guess she eventually got tired of trying because she left a few months later. Haven't seen her since."
He turns with the pan in his hand, sliding food onto the two plates on the counter. "I say all this to say I don't know where she is now, or if I have any siblings out there. So, until I know otherwise, I'm an only child."
"This looks delicious," I say, not really sure what else to say about the rest of it.
I'm sorry doesn't seem appropriate because like he said, he didn't have a bad life. He seems content to let the subject drop too when he nods towards the table as he carries the plates over.
