Chapter 19 (post three)

Pre-read note: This may be the last post for a while. I'm starting to catch up with my blogging and my writing so I'm basically posting just-written stuff (like the last section and this one are from only a couple days ago). The thing is, though, I feel like I need to stay ahead! And I also need to edit the next chapter before posting it, but we'll see when I get around to that.

Let me know if you feel like this section makes you feel like you're being thrown around or if I transition easily enough. Thanks!

Chapter nineteen, section three:

I woke up to white sheets. They were clean, crisp and pure: homey. Then I looked about and realized I had no idea where I was.

I was in a double bed with white duvet, pillows and sheets. The room was matching white, quite large for a bedroom, with a long, pale wood dresser in a contemporary style to the left of the bed. Above it hung a rectangular mirror. The window to the right was open, with white curtains blowing in the breeze and the sun streaking in like long fingers running across the wooden floors.

I remembered crying in that library-like place the night before, then laying across Jake’s lap. It had grown darker and darker, but we hadn’t moved. I must have fallen asleep, and he’d must have taken me here.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up, taking in my surroundings. Even though I had never seen this place before, it had a calmness to it that I soaked in.

I got up slowly, stretching my toes before placing them on the golden-brown floor. I tiptoe to the closed door and opened it quietly.

It opened into a bright room, also white. There was a kitchen on side and a living room with white couches on the other, separated by an island with four stools. Huge windows covered two of the four walls, showing a vivid blue sky. I walked around the room, running my hand over the simple furniture and noticing sheets and a pillow on one of the couches.

I looked up where I heard a noise, and Jake stepped into the apartment through a door by the kitchen. He was carrying brown bags of groceries and jingling keys.

“New Wings, you’re up!” He said with his usual grin.

He shut the door with his foot and placed the groceries on kitchen counter as I wandered over.

“This is your place?” I asked.

He nodded. “Like it?”

“It’s lovely.” I smiled, circling around the island towards the groceries. I pass him eggs and vegetables as he placed them in the fridge.

“I realized I had no food and decided to run out and get some. I didn’t think you’d be up so early. Have you been up long?” He asked.

“No, not at all.” I passed him a jug of 2% milk.

“I was going to make omelettes, does that sound good?”

“I didn’t know you could cook.” I grinned, passing him orange juice.

“Not too much, but I make amazing omelettes.” He smiled, putting the last of the groceries in the fridge and opening cupboards.

“I can’t wait.” I laughed. I watched him pull a frying pan and cutting board out of a cupboard. “Can I help?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He darted back and forth from the fridge to the counter, lining up brightly colour sweet peppers.

I headed around the island and sat one of the stools, watching him dice and cut.

“Did I really fall asleep at that library place?” I asked, placing my hand on my hands.

“Yeah,” he laughed, “You fell right asleep in my lap. I had to carry you to the car.”

Things were frying in the pan now, filling the room with sweetness.

He turned and looked at me, “Do you not remember anything?”

“No, not after laying in the couch. Why?”

He smiled again, pouring whipped eggs into the pan. It complained loudly for a moment then fell silent, bubbling. “You must have been talking in your sleep then.”

My mouth dropped open. “What? What did I say?”

He looked at me and laughed. “Nothing too bad, don’t worry. You were just mumbling about colours and pastels. Something about an art show and a drawing of a dress?”

He tilted the pan, filling every edge with egg, and I watched. “Yeah...” He added pinches of salt and pepper, my eyes never leaving the colours swirling in the pale yellow of the egg. “There was an art show my art teacher wanted to display one of the drawings in. She was asking me about it the day I.... fell. I never gave her an answer.”

Silence fell over the kitchen as Jake froze. “Oh,” he finally said, folding the omelette over. It was a perfect golden yellow. He placed two pieces of white toast in a black toaster, the only black in the room.

I sighed, running my fingers through my hair. “It was a just a sketch, a rough sketch compared to some of my other drawings. It was a 1800s ball-gown, with lace up the front. The girl wearing it was a brunette. The dress moved in a sweeping motion as though she’d suddenly turned towards you. I’d sketched it at a Chapters, based off the cover of a book I’d seen. Only parts of it was in colour because I hadn’t completely finished it. The only reason my art teacher saw it was because I was short a figure sketch and decided to use it.”

The toast popped. Jake placed them on plates and put half the omelette beside each piece. I watched as he passed me forks and knives, then butter. Finally he carried the plates around to my side of the island, placing one in front of me.

“Thank you, Jake,” I said, “It looks amazing.”

“Of course.” He paused as he sat down beside me. “Do you wish you’d finished it?”

I stopped  buttering my toast. “Yeah. It could have been so much better, you know? The way my teacher gushed over it even though it wasn’t complete bothered me a little. It was as though she was giving me credit I didn’t deserve, in a way. I don’t think I can really explain it.”

Jake nodded, cutting his omelette into pieces although he didn’t lift them to his mouth. Then he stopped and just sat watching me, me with my buttered knife in one hand and my toast in the other.

“What?” I asked.

“I wish you didn’t remember. It would all be so much easier if you didn’t remember it all.”

I pulled the knife across my toast, spreading the butter thickly, nodding as I did so. “But then I wouldn’t be sitting here, in your kitchen, after having stolen your bed for the night.”

This made him smile. “You’re right.”

“Jake...” I started.

“Yeah?”

“I know you can’t tell me a lot of things,” I said to my toast, avoiding his eyes, “But yesterday, when you...” I trailed off, unable to finish my thought.

“When I kissed you?”

“What did that mean?” I glanced over at him and he was smiling. He tucked stray hair behind my ear before answering me.

“I honestly don’t know. It just felt right.”

“And that?” I asked, watching his hand falling away from my hair.

“That also felt right.” He was still smiling.

I shook my head and squished my eggs beneath my fork.

“Listen,” he said, placing his hand on my knee again, his voice serious, “I don’t know what it meant. But I’m not trying to confuse you.”

“You are though,” I sighed, my eyes never leaving my breakfast.

“I know I said no before, but what I’m trying to say is that I’m saying yes now.”

I didn’t look up from my plate, processing this. I wanted to ask him why, I wanted to know what had made him change his mind, I wanted to know why I should trust him this time. He’d said it’d felt right, though, and I was afraid to break that, because although I had this urge to push him away, I had this bigger urge to tell him that I was saying yes too.

When I looked over at him, he still hadn’t touched his food and was watching me. His patience with me nearly broke my heart.

“I just...” I paused, searching for the words.

“Yeah?”

“Can I just say... that I’ve been saying yes all along?” With this I looked him in the eye. His smile spread slowly across his handsome face. Then he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. My smile was ear to ear as I leaned towards him and our lips met.