Bittersweet Moments

12 | Peanut Butter Muffins

12 | Peanut Butter Muffins

These sheets smell salty.

Snuggling deeper into my covers, I resisted the impulse to lick the white cloth. The laptop perched beside my head, which I was facing now and on the screen was Mitch, who also had her head flopped down on a pillow. She was staring at a printed photo in her hands while her camera rested not far from her. I rubbed my legs together underneath the sheets as I waited for her to say something.

Saturday was equivalent to my day-off. That gave me the opportunity to finally rest my overwhelmed self and not see any of the Dales for twenty-four hours. Each day with them just felt like a reminder of the real reason why I was around. It constantly made me confused if I should entertain the fear of Jackson's lingering threat or the guilt slowly eating me up inside.

This is what you get for eating chips on the bed, I told myself when I took a whiff of my sheets again. My inner self was right; I should eat sweets on my bed so it will smell like cake.

Ah, but the ants.

Right again. My inner self was such a downer.

Mitch budged finally. She flipped the picture so that it faced me. "This one looks like a cat's ass."

I squinted at the photo of a cloud, round with a curved tail that seemingly jutted out of it. "Why were you taking pictures of cat butts?" I asked. "Which, don't really look like cat butts?"

"Ollie, I have played enough Neko Atsume to know what a cat butt looks like." Mitch went back to staring at the picture dreamily. But in my opinion, dog butts were better. "I was trying to get license plates yesterday."

"None?"

"They were too fast," she said with her stare flickering at the camera, "The other cars parked were nowhere near amusing."

"But anyway –" she began but stopped short and looked intently at me. "Why are you smelling your sheets?" By reflex, I pulled the sheets far from my nose and gave her a slight shake of my head.

"I bet they smell like food," she said, "But that's not what we're going to talk about. Are you back on your old job?"

"Just a pinch, actually," I brought my index finger and thumb together and showed it to her, "I miss it. But don't tell Mom that. She might drag my unconscious body to the bathrooms and tell me to scrub when I wake up."

"And no," I told her, "I'm not back yet. I told Mom I needed to rest and do homework." And by that, I meant rest and do nothing.

"Then what about Jackson Da – "

"No, no, don't mention his name!" I hissed, covering both my ears. For the rest of the work week, Jackson and I had avoided each other effectively and we barely spoke a word to each other. Most of the time, when Maira was busy and Walter wasn't around, Brennan fooled around with me while Jackson would be off reading or studying. Today, I just wanted a break from the loudest silence I have ever heard from him. Although he hasn't done anything, his presence was unnerving.

"From now on," I told her determinedly, "He shall be our 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. Until this weekend is over."

Our last 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named', or the person we mutually agreed to remain silent about, had been Mitch's uncle, who she claimed to smell of cigarettes and was a messy and wasteful pig. Ever since I told her about this boy who turned me down because he said he was gay – and I knew he wasn't – we initiated this tradition.