“How about I go heat it up and you get back in bed,” she said in a tone that left no room for argument. “The last thing we need right now is for your shaky legs not to make it down the stairs and you end up falling and breaking your neck.”
She had a point there.
“I could always scoot down them on my ass.”
“Oh, my God, you are…” her words trailed off as she shook her head. Hey, she was laughing and that was all that mattered. “In the bed!”
“I’m going to shower first. Think I’ve got enough energy in me to do that.”
“Fine, I’ll clean up the blood if you fall and crack your head open, but I draw the line at giving you stitches.” Her hand went to her hips as she smiled.
“So you’ll just let me keep bleeding? Doesn’t that make more work for you in the long run? Seems like it would make sense to close the wound, you know, for your sake.”
In a blink, her arms were wrapped around my neck. My body twitched with pain but I ignored it as I let my arms snake around her waist. She held me in the tightest hug that I’d had in a long time. I craved for it to never end. Something about her was familiar and comforting. Another part was something else, but it wasn’t something I wanted to let go of either.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed you until now.” Her voice was soft and muffled against my shoulder. “I have so many questions but it’s almost like they don’t matter. I’m just glad we’ve found each other again.”
She stepped back, wiped her eyes, then turned to leave.
I only let her go because I knew she wouldn’t be far.
She had stayed and it didn’t seem like she was ready to run away any time soon.
I didn’t doubt that she had questions. Hell, I had a million of them too. As much as I was excited to find out about all the years I’d missed, I was also afraid of it all as well.
Showering was a pain in the ass. I would have said fuck it but I could smell how badly I needed one.
By the time I was done and dressed, which took me way longer than it should have, Jessica was knocking on my door.
She came in and placed a bowl of hot soup on the table next to the bed.
“Where’s yours?” I asked as I got comfortable on the bed and rested my back against the headboard.
“Oh, I was going to eat downstairs, but I guess I can… I’ll be right back.” She turned and darted out of the room.
A few moments later, she was settled in on the other end of the bed, facing me. She blew on the steaming bowl of soup like she needed something to do and it made me wonder if she was nervous for some reason.
“I’m an okay cook so don’t expect too much,” she told me with a small smile.
“I’m sure it’s perfect.”
We ate in silence for a few moments. It wasn’t bad, just a little on the bland side but I wasn’t about to complain.
“Remember that time Irenna and I tried to make a cake for your mom?” Her voice was soft, her eyes looking a bit blank as if she were lost in the memory. “We burnt it so bad. Like the top wasn’t even eatable. Then we thought we could cover it up with frosting. Your poor mom, she ate it anyway.”
She was laughing now.
I remembered that night vividly. I’d been at work and so had Mom. I got home a few minutes before she had. The kitchen was a mess but the girls had tried to clean it up. They were too worried about holding the cake together because the frosting seemed to be melting like the cake had been still warm when they put it on. Irenna had globs of batter in her hair and Jessica was covered head-to-toe in flour.
Bakers they were not.
But it was so sweet that neither Mom nor I could be mad.
Mom and I ate that cake, pretending like it was the best thing we’d ever tasted.
“You guys couldn’t find any candles,” I said, smiling at the memory. “So you stuck crayons all over it.”
“Hey, it was a cute idea,” she proudly said. “We made due.”
