Chào các bạn! Vì nhiều lý do từ nay Truyen2U chính thức đổi tên là Truyen247.Pro. Mong các bạn tiếp tục ủng hộ truy cập tên miền mới này nhé! Mãi yêu... ♥

23

I wake the next day fully rested. The fire has burnt low to I grab the matches off the fireplace and light both of the lamps.

Once the room is illuminated, I cross to the dresser and search through it. I find a cool looking T-Shirt, a V-neck that looks as if someone had splashed lines of white paint over a pale blue surface. I also find a pair of the foreign underwear and a pair of jeans. I get dressed quickly and go downstairs, following the aroma of food that has wafted throughout the house.

Kalin is in the kitchen with the door propped open. Smoke rolls from the kitchen into the dining room.

Two plates have been set up at the heads of the table. In the center of the table is a stack of two glasses next to a glass bottle of orange liquid. Orange juice.

I take a glass and pour myself a cup of the mysterious, bright juice, and take a sip.

My eyes widen at the delicious taste of the juice, tangy and sweet. My tastebuds sizzle with happiness.

Kalin comes out of the kitchen with a large pan full of fluffy white-yellow stuff. He sets the pan atop a cloth on the table.

He looks at my face and chuckle. "I see you've found the Orange juice."

I set my cup down and walk up next to him, gesturing the the gross looking yellow substance. "What is this?" I ask, since the word didn't come to me when I first saw it.

"These are scrambled eggs," he says, grabbing a spatula next to the pan. "Hand me your plate."

I reach Over and grab my plate, made from fine chine, with swirly designs of lyres and the sun adorned on the surface.

He scoops up some of the scrambled eggs with the spatula and slaps it down on my plate.

I reach down to pinch of piece of it between my fingers, but he swats my hand. "There's more."

He goes back into the kitchen and comes out with two more pans, one with weird strips of meat, a mixtures of reds, and pinks, and browns (bacon). The other pan has meats that look like severed fingers the he scrounged from a bonfire (sausage) I decide to stay away from the sausage.

He goes back into the kitchen again and comes out with a small bowl full of squares of pink meat (ham), and a plate full of hundred to thousands of tiny strips of golden-brown potato (hash browns).

It gets a bit exhausting watching him set the table with his endless supply of food, so I decide to sit down.

There is a bowl of thick red sauce (ketchup), a bowl of shredded yellow stuff (cheese) a plate with bread on it, but the bread has weird swirls of brown on it (French toast). Next to that is set a bowl of white powder (powdered sugar) and a cup of thin brown liquid (syrup)

He looks at me about halfway through is table setting frenzy. "You know," he says, "this would go a lot faster if I had some extra hands."

I get the hint and feel embarrassed that I hadn't though of helping him before. I jump to my feet and stand just outside the kitchen as he hands me stuff.

Flat, circular cakes that look particularly boring (pancakes), a basket of rolls of bread, a cup of sticky red jelly (jam), and lastly, a plate of yellow circles with hollowed out checks across the front and back (waffles).

"Are you planning to feed an army?" I ask.

"You could say that. Dax and your friends are joining us for breakfast."

"Oh," is all I say. I'm not sure I can face Cicada right now.

"It's alright, Alaric. I'm sure they've forgiven you by now."

I almost scoff. I know Cicada, she was truly angry last night, and when she's truly angry she's not very forgiving.

As if on cue, there is a knock on the front door.

"Answer that will you," Kalin asks, setting glasses out at each of the plates.

Dax is at the door, wearing black jeans, a white long sleeve, and a vest. The others are still wearing what we did when we escaped the palace yesterday.

They file in as I hold the door open for them. Cicada doesn't meet my eyes and she walks past me.

"Good day," Dax says to Kalin as he enters the dining room.

Jonah and Joss claim their chairs before anyone, so Cicada and I are forced to sit next to each other because Dax and Kalin take the heads.

I reach for the glass of orange juice to refill my cup, but right as I grab the bottleneck, Cicada does too, and her hand wraps around mine.

In a normal moment, we would've laughed together, we would not let go until the other gave up, served each other drinks without moving, maybe even kissed right here at the table. But this is anything but a normal moment. She glares at me with venom seeping from her eyes, wiggles her fingers under mine and steals the bottle from my grasp

I want to say something. I want to apologize a million times until she can't stand me anymore, not that she doesn't now, and forgive me. I want to say something incredibly romantic so her heart will force her brain so swag in my direction.

But I say nothing. I am mute in fear that I'll upset her more. I feel like such a coward.

Cicada sets the bottle down after pouring herself a meager drink. I'm not in the mood for juice anymore.

"Alaric," Kalin says over everyone's side conversations, hushing them, "can I get your help in the kitchen. Dax has requested crepes."

"Kalin," Dax chides, "do not ask Alaric Constantine himself to help you with a chore!"

"No it's alright, he knows I don't mind," I say sliding out of my chair and following him into the kitchen.

He shuts the door right behind him, and then turns to my and glares.

"What?" I demand.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"How could you not talk to her?"

"If I talk to her I'll just make her even more angry with me."

"You do not know that? Don't be a coward Alaric, don't second-guess yourself."

He moves to one of the cabinets and pulls out a assortment of ingredients. He dumps them into a bowl and mixes them together until no one thing can be distinguished from the next.

"I've never been good at talking to girls, people actually, and I do not want to mess things up with her."

"If she truly loves you, and you truly love her, than you shouldn't be so afraid that you'll ruin everything."

He has a point. He grabs a metal pan from on of the cabinets and pours the mixture into the pan. He slip into a slot beneath the counter where there is a fire that can cook it.

"Go talk to her," he says. "After the crepes are done breakfast will be done. You need to talk to her before she leaves"

"Fine," I breathe. I exit the kitchen and return to my seat. I dig into my eggs for a minute and then turn to Cicada.

"Can we talk upstairs?"

"What's there too talk about?"

"Everything."

"Fine," she says, and follows me up to my room on the third floor.

She slams the door behind herself. I can tell she's fuming. "Why did you go back to the palace and fight right after we narrowly escaped?"

"I had to-."

"Why? Was it your overpowering need to feel like you have a purpose, Al? You have a purpose, and it's not to die in some battle that had nothing to do with you!"

"No!" I shout back. "I had to because those people believed in me, they believed I could help them so I had to try!"

"No! No you didn't, though! You could've simply refused to fight, and we could be back on a quest by now!"

"I couldn't let them down," I say, cooling off. "I'm not just going to leave them hanging like that."

"Sometimes, Al, you need to make the choice to save the people you love or the people you do not know."

"Kal is like a father to me," I say quietly. Kal? Where'd that come from?

Not until I spoke it out loud did I realize how true the words were. Kalin had freshened me up, cut my hair, rescued me from Aroculan, stood by my side in battle, took me into his home, given me advice for this very moment. He was truly like the father I'd never had.

"Al," she breathes. We both know the impact being fatherless has left on me, my lack of courage to stand up to Carter, my inability to talk to girls, I'd always thought it was because my mother had always put me down, but it was truly because my father was never there to teach me those things.

"I'm sorry," I say, "I don't even know where that came from."

"It's okay," she says, "I would never let my father ride into battle alone either."

All I can do is nod. The realization of how much I'd needed a father all these years has lifted a weight off my heart, but now the weight is coming out my eyes. Tears stream down my face before I can stop them. It's humiliating to cry in front of Cicada, but the sobs are stronger than my will.

She wraps me in her and and hold me tight, soothing me like I'm a baby. I should be the one holding her when she cries. Not vice versa.

"I forgive you," she says. In that moment I realize how much I love her. Even after barely a full day, it was killing me to know she was angry.

"I love you," I respond.

"I love you too," she says.

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro