Sour Candy | T. Drake ✔

[12] Words of Wisdom

After lunch, all of them picked up the dishes to take inside and later on Luke offered to show Tim the basketball court in the back of the house while Dora followed her mother to the kitchen.

"How have you been, sweetheart?"

"I'm good," she replied, a soft smile playing upon her lips as she helped Camille with the dishes, "Alex is doing fine too, the coffee shop's back on track and all's well for now."

"You look... Paler," Camille remarked cautiously, honey shaded eyes flickering towards her in concern.

However, Dora shrugged it off casually, "probably because I'd been overworking myself since the last few weeks, I guess Al's habits are starting to rub off on me too. But now I'm here on a break so that would sort out itself."

Her mother nodded but still seemed worried, "you do eat and sleep on time, right? No skipping meals and no staying up too late?"

"Well..."

She sighed, making her sit down on the stool by the counter and fetched a carton of milk from the refrigerator, "I see. You've not been taking care of yourself at all."

"But Mum, I'm okay... It's not like I'm sick or anything, I just get tired sometimes but other than that, I'm perfectly alright."

"No excuses, Isadora," she had warmed up a whole cup of milk for her and placed if in front of her, "now finish it."

Dora deadpanned, seeing the large cup of milk, "I just had lunch. I can't."

"You barely ate a thing," Camille remarked though her tone was soft and concerned, "I noticed, you kept forking around with your food and had put it back in the dish when you thought we weren't watching."

A guilty look crossed her features, "Mum..."

Camille left her work and came towards Dora, her hand gently resting on her shoulder, "is anything wrong, dear?"

"No. Not at all."

Honey irises narrowed slightly, "I don't think so. Have you been feeling sick since the last few days? Losing appetite, slight fever, tiredness? Anything else even?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. And it's nothing to worry about either. Now you're scaring me as well."

"I'm not scaring you, I just want to know what's going on."

Dora looked down at her hand that was gently held in her mother's, a soft sigh escaping her, "I don't know. Really."

Camille decided that she had to talk to Dora about it because she could see that the girl wasn't taking it seriously at all which could affect her adversely. So she wrapped up her work as quickly as she could then told Dora to come to her room.

The girl was slightly nervous, not knowing what her mother wanted to talk about.

"And please bring the milk up too. You will be drinking it in a while."

"Mum, no..."

"No objections, Dora."

Dora gave in at that remark, picking up the cup of milk and followed her mother to her room. Camille gestured her to sit across from her on the bed and placed the cup on the bedside table. Her eyes were observing her carefully, taking in the fact that she was not as pale as she had been when Shadow Walker had almost killed her but she had lost the rosy tinge she had in her complexion.

Other than that, to her Dora seemed weaker, as if the girl had been too busy in taking care of the people around her that she overlooked herself entirely.