Page 17 of Dream Girl

“Hello?”

The man on the other line sounds nervous as he clears his throat. He repeats my greeting while asking if there was anything he can help me with.

That formal speech is unlike him. He’s the type of person who screams out ‘Aloha’ over the phone just because he has been watching Hawaiian movies.

“Is Milo with you?”

Denial, denial, and more denial. He says that Milo isn’t with him, but Eddie is a bad liar. I don’t know the reason for this mysteriousness, and I want to know about it, but if Milo had dragged Eddie into lying for him, then it’s a reason that I don’t want to know.

A bitter hiss pierces through my head, a strong pulse similar to a pinch of a starting headache. I don’t like this feeling of inadequacy. I’m jealous—envious of the trust Milo puts in Eddie to lie for him, to be there for him when it took him a year to let me in.

Eddie took four days.

He trusts Eddie to be there for him, to lie for him to his girlfriend.

“What is going on…” I laugh bitterly under my breath.

I snap out of my stupor, blinking and disappointed at myself for thinking this way. I shake my head, laughing more genuinely when the innocent question is being communicated through the phone. Eddie asks what I had said and if I was alright because I sounded gloomy. He’s a pure soul, and I thought I was one too until this happened.

I’m a selfish girl for wanting to keep Milo to myself. A part of me didn’t want him to have Eddie as a friend because he had me, and I’m so ashamed to think like that. Milo deserves a friend who will be there for him no matter what happens, and even if Eddie had known Milo for four days, he’s still the most genuine person I have ever met.

I feel threatened.

“Sorry!” I push back the quivering tone in my voice. “I just stubbed my toe. If you see Milo, tell him—”

A sudden pause and another ache in my throat swallow my voice. I lick my lips, glancing down on my fuzzy socks as I curl them into the carpet. The phone in my hand relays the confused voice of Eddie as the pinch in my palm hurts from the edge of my phone case.

Does Milo not want to see me?

“Ah,” I utter lifelessly. “Another call is coming in. Talk to you later.”

I end the call before I hear his goodbye, but I don’t think my mind is capable of listening to Eddie’s voice any longer.

My throat is aching again. It’s worse than before, and the first thing I want to do before I let my mind dive into a rabbit hole, I want to soothe the soreness there.

I have honey and lemon at home. It’s going to be the best that I can do because the storm raging outside is getting worse by the minute. I don’t think Milo will be able to make it through the thick snow coming down at a terrifying rate.

It’s fine. He’s not hurt; he’s at Eddie’s place until the storm calms down. I’m overthinking this whole thing, and I’m just a bit impatient because it’s close to Christmas and I want to spend more time with him.

Holidays, to me, are more fun when spent with someone. Milo has been the one I spent all my holidays with when we met, and it’s a tradition for us to spend all the holidays with each other. We have been going strong, and I don’t want to break it, every Christmas we spent was under the low flickering lights of candles and a movie.

The water rumbles in the pot, and I shut the flames off, letting the steam cloud my vision for a moment. The thick honey in my cup pools on the bottom while the halved lemon lays on the counter, dripping in condensation from being in the refrigerator.

The cold eats away the warmth of my palm, but the coldness lingers in my heart more prominently. Milo had previously said that I was too dramatic and being emotional is the baseline of my character.

He wasn't mean as he was more observant than many. I don’t disagree with him. I have always been that one kid at school that cries over a broken crayon. It resulted from my need to have all of my crayons perfectly in shape, and a broken one disrupts the peacefulness in me when I looked at them.

The scent of honey shifts to a light sweetness with the lemon cutting away the tooth-aching smell. Speaking of aching, my throat needs this as soon as possible. I never liked sore throats, but I don’t think anyone is rather fond of a raspy voice combined with hacking coughs that changes with every stinging breath.

It sucks that I have to wait a couple of minutes for the hotness to be suitable for my tongue. I did add room temperature water in, but the hot water is still quite hot. When it’s warm, I let the water coat my dried throat. The instant soothing comes with the regretful twinge of stinging. I can’t get better if I don’t ease the pain way. A new set of determination flickers through me. I have decided to sleep early tonight although I like to stay up at night and scroll through social media despite the tiredness in my eyes.

It’s a terrible habit, but I can’t stop myself until Milo physically removes the phone away from me.

Closing my eyes, I let the magic of my honied drink do its trick. It’s not necessarily a cold if I can treat this soreness with a bit of honey and lemon. It’s not the first time I woke up with achiness in my throat, and it goes away during the day. It comes from the dried air that’s worsened by the heater blowing hot wind into a confined room where I have Milo as another heater next to me.

Today is the worst of all the days.

I don’t fancy the taste of honey, but it’ll have to do if I want to spend Christmas without being stuffed in bed with a thermometer.

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