Page 23 of Unlikely You

Bren

Did…didshe just kiss my finger? I couldn’t believe that was a thing that had actually happened until her eyes went wide, her face turned a shade of red I’d never seen on a human face before and she literally ran away.

The whole situation was bizarre. She’d just…bullied her way in and tended my (very minor) wound as if that was a thing we did. As if we weren’t pretty much strangers. As if I wasn’t still annoyed at her for the whole drink thing at Sapph from last night.

It was my own fault for cutting myself while using the scissors. I’d been unable to get my mind to relax last night and as a result, had only slept for a few hours. My patience was already on thin ice, as well as my attention. I hadn’t been careful, and I’d paid the price for it. At least the cut was minor. It would heal in a few days.

Honey had treated it as if it was serious. I’d watched her in shock as she’d bent over my hand and had tended to me with both competence and efficiency. Something told me she’d handled a few wounds before from her siblings. For a moment, I imagined her patching up a skinned knee with that little kiss.

My finger tingled. Definitely from the antiseptic spray. Definitely just that.

When was the last time someone had touched me like that? I had absolutely no idea. As a general rule, people didn’t touch me. I tried to recall a single time my parents had hugged me and couldn’t. Friends? Not really. Sexual partners were more for quickies and less for holding and comforting. I’d never needed all of that.

Still, I flexed my finger with the bandage and tried to shake myself out of whatever trance that Honey had put me into when she’d barged into my space.

“Ohhh, these are so cute!” a voice said. Looking up, I saw three girls who were in their late teens admiring my book sleeves. Time to go back to work.

I wasreluctant to peel off the band aid when I got home that night. It had been easy to avoid Honey the rest of the day becausesheavoidedme. That was a first. I could almost feel her doing her best not to give me any kind of attention. She was working so hard so not notice me that it gave me a chance to study her. Give myself a chance to appreciate her body and the way she moved. The way she gave each person her full attention, as if they were the most important person in the world. Something about those eyes and her smile that just… Sunshine. She was human sunshine and you wanted to bask beneath her rays.

Not me, but someone else. Anyone else. I didn’t want to linger in her light. I was just forced to be blinded by her every now and then.

Shaking my head at myself, I peeled off the band aid and got into the shower. The hot water made the cut twinge a little bit, but it wasn’t a big deal. So minor. I’d had harsher menstrual cramps.

Arson stood outside the shower curtain and cried, like she sometimes did when I bathed. I reassured her that I was okay and I wasn’t going to die.

With the band aid thing, I’d completely forgotten about what she’d done that morning. How dare she just send me money? I hadn’t accepted it yet. I wanted to send it right back to her, but then she might try and do something else to get the money to me. The easiest way to put an end to it was to accept the money and then…I didn’t know yet. Maybe I’d buy some honey or something.

I finished up in the shower and carefully brushed out my dark hair. It had always been wispy and straight. My mother had always complained about it not curling or always hanging in my face, as if it was my fault for my hair texture. I avoided my reflection as I rubbed moisturizer into my skin and brushed my teeth before heading to my room. I grabbed my phone to see if there were any messages from Melliferal, but there weren’t. She’d been scarce today.

I looked up the Holloway Apiary online while Arson situated herself in my lap and looked for something that was twenty dollars. I was a sucker for a good tote bag and theirs were just about the right price with shipping. Perfect.

I added it to my cart, put in my information, and clicked the buy link before I could second guess myself.

Honey would know it was my order seeing as how my name was on it. I guess she’d know my address now, but that didn’t matter so much, as long as she knew I was giving the money back.

There. Now she’d have to drop it.

MondayI accidentally slept in and got myself all off my schedule. It was a sewing and printing day, so while I gulped down coffee and begged my brain to wake up, I got the printers going and started cutting and pinning fabric. I paused for breakfast only to quiet my stomach and give me enough energy for the rest of the day. I threw a bunch of ingredients, protein powder, and some strawberries and frozen bananas in the blender and made myself a gorgeous smoothie that I sucked down so fast I got a headache.

“Get it together,” I told myself and went back to pinning and printing and then sewing, the rumble of the machine a comforting heartbeat. My alarms told me when to switch projects and when to eat and even when to drink water.

I kept my mind as busy as my hands so I wouldn’t have time to think about things like what Honey Holloway was doing today. Had anyone told her about my order? Something told me she might be the one who packed them up and shipped them out. I hope she was. I wanted her to see.

Melliferal was still quiet, but when I took an afternoon break to do my wrist stretches, I saw a new email from Melliferal.

Biblio,

I feel as if we haven’t talked for a thousand years, but it hasn’t even been a day. Anyway, I’ve been busy and I kept thinking about writing you something but then I didn’t know what to say. So here I am, rambling away on my keyboard when I should be doing a million other things. I tried to do something nice for someone after messing up and they don’t seem to want to accept either my apology or my attempted reparations. For some reason, this won’t stop bothering me. Has something like that ever happened to you? Normally I have endless patience and give the people around me all kinds of grace, but this person? Just makes me want to yell and stamp my feet and say “what the hell is WRONG with you?”

That doesn’t make any sense, I know, but sometimes I just need to type these things out to get them out of my brain. You just happen to be the one who gets to read all of it. You don’t have to, you know, but it’s nice to think that someone out there in the world is listening to me.

You don’t have to answer this. I should just delete it. I really should. Instead I’m still rambling just to hear the sounds of my keyboard and because I feel like you’re out there listening. Okay, I’m going to stop before this gets too sappy. Please forgive me for all of this.

-Melliferal

I found myself touched and amused by the email. She was having a day and that meant it was my responsibility to get her out of it as best I could. The two of us had done this routine enough times before that I immediately went looking in my phone for saved jokes and memes and videos that I kept for situations just like this. Every time I saw something I thought would make her smile (or at least tell me that it made her smile), I saved it and now I had a whole file full of them.

I picked a bunch of them, maybe even some I’d sent before that I knew she liked and sent them rapid fire in private messages.

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