July Apple Pies

Chapter Twelve

Banner on the side by lovely thelessthanthreegirl

Chapter Twelve

THE LIGHTS WERE TOO BRIGHT. The noise was too loud. The smell too strong. The taste in her mouth too disgusting. The only thing that wasn’t unpleasant was the warm hand that Nora could feel playing with her fingers.

She tried to open her eyes, see whose hand was moving so softly and cautiously her motionless fingers. But her head hurt too much and she felt too tired.

“Come on, Nora,” a raspy masculine voice whispered in her ear. “Wake up.”

She wanted to tell whomever it was that she was trying. That she was trying really hard. But her lips wouldn’t open and her voice wouldn’t work.

“Come on, Nora,” the voice said again and this time she could feel the warm breath that came with it, tickling the skin close to her ear. If she had been capable of moving, she probably would have shivered.

“The goat,” she heard a strange, gruff, and exhausted voice say. Just as she heard it, she felt something raspy in her throat and she had to wonder if she had been the one who said it.

“The goat is fine. They took it back home,” the first voice said. It sounded tired, like its owner had spent way too much time awake or maybe saying the exact same thing. “Nora. You are killing me. Please. Wake up,” the voice pleaded.

It sounded so sad, so desperate and scared, that she did all she could to do what the voice asked her.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing Nora saw was Ryder’s hair. His head was resting beside hers in the bed she was laying in. He was sitting uncomfortably in a white plastic chair, but he still managed to have his arm in an awkward position to intertwine his fingers with hers and have his head laid next to hers. She could tell he was falling asleep, and that was probably the reason his voice sounded so raspy.

She moved her left hand slowly, not wanting to pull the right one away from Ryder’s. When she managed to take full control of it, she placed it on top of Ryder’s hair. It was soft. And she had no idea of what she was doing, but she began playing with it.

Ryder, not yet realizing what was happening, let out a relaxing breath and let his eyes close. A soft moan escaped his lips. He heard the girl laying beside him laugh lightly.

That was when he realized her hand was on his hair.

Ryder immediately tensed and sat back up, straight. He didn’t pull his hand away from hers, though, and Nora was thankful for that. She felt so weak, and she needed his hand to know she wasn’t alone in that horrible hospital room.

“Hey,” she said, a teasing smile on her lips. Technically, she should have been the blushing one; after all it was her who had started stroking Ryder’s hair. But it had been him who had moaned at her touch, so that kind of made them even.

“Hey,” he said back, a groggy and slightly ashamed smile on his lips.

“Well, you look tired,” she whispered.

He chuckled. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve had quite the eventful night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Enlighten me, please.”

“Well, let me see. I encountered a black murderous beast and discovered that this girl that happens to be wearing almost the same dress my mom is wearing is my best friend’s ex-girlfriend. I also charmed the most uncharmable woman in all of Pallow, saw a girl run away like a fugitive even when she had already stolen something much more valuable than pies–let me tell you, animals are much more expensive than food. Later on, I found said girl sleeping in said best friend’s car and talking about flying bunnies. We took her to a hospital where she began crying like a scared five year old while she screamed that doctors were aliens that wanted to eat her brains, plural. Then, a nurse saw how desperately worried my best friend and I were while said girl was being looked at by a doctor and she gave us pies out of pity. After that, I sent my best friend to deliver the not-twenty pies we gathered through the night and then home while I sat waiting for said girl to not die and wake up while I heard her mutter things about goats and busses and zookeepers.”

It had been quite a long speech, but all the while Nora hadn’t been able to stop smiling.

“Did I really say they where aliens?” she asked.

Ryder chuckled at the memory. “Yes, yes you did.”

“And did you really get more pies?”

“That is true, too.”

“Was the nurse cute?” she was teasing him, but she really wanted to know what he would answer. There was something in the way he was looking at her that made her think he didn’t care she had a purple stain in the middle of her forehead. He was looking at her like he had, all those years ago, in the bus during their second grade field trip. Like her eyes were cool. Like he wanted to get to know her. Like he thought she was pretty.

“Not really,” he said, but she could tell he was lying. “Okay, maybe she was. But she’s not my type.”

“So you don’t like girls who give you pies?”

Ryder’s smile softened and Nora couldn’t stop the blush that crept through her cheeks. Her face was turning into a color palette by the second.

“I think it’s more like I have a soft spot for girls who go crazy while they help me get them,” he said.

Nora smiled widely, but everything was just too overwhelming and her head was still killing her, so she had to look away.

“So how many pies did you end up getting?” she asked as he helped her sit back up in the stiff hospital bed.

“Seventeen,” he said.

Nora raised her eyebrows. “Quite impressive. Almost twenty.”

“Yep.”

“And to think I didn’t have faith in your quest.”

Ryder chuckled. “I wouldn’t really call it a quest,” he said.

“I would.”

“Apparently.”

They were relieving the conversation they had had a few hours ago. But to Nora and her injured head, and Ryder and his stressed-out and sleepy mind, it felt like ages ago. But, mostly, it felt that way because many things had changed in a matter of hours.

He liked her. He had just told her he liked her.

And the truth was, she liked him, too.

She had liked him since the day he had volunteered to help her in what she thought back then was stopping animal cruelty but in reality was her first–and certainly not last–robbery. She had liked him since he had defended her in front of all of their teachers and even their parents, telling them how she had just wanted to help The Sad Goat. And even after so much time had gone and past since then, Nora still liked him. And now she was certain he liked her, too.