After ✔

28 | Dani

"What did you want to be as a child?" She asks, resting her head on the windowsill and looking at me with a lazy smile.

"A painter." I state. It's what I always wanted to be.

"Besides that," she yawns. "Didn't you ever wanted to be like, superman or something?"

I shrug. Superman? He was so bloody generic.

"No." I frown. "Are we done asking each other silly questions?"

"I like it when you say 'silly' in that accent. Say it again."

Her eyes are heavy with sleep but she says she's not tired. It was her idea to play twenty question in the car, and at first it was a way to get me to calm down, and then it just sort of escalated from 'your favourite color.'

"You're tired." I say to her. "Go to sleep."

"One more." She rubs her eyes and leans the other way, closer to me. "It's your turn."

I pretend to think.

"What did it feel like at the hospital?"

She blinks. She wasn't expecting that.

"The first time?" She asks, and I nod.

She pretends to pick at her nails carelessly. "Like my soul was getting sucked out of my body."

"Was it that bad?" I tilt my head. Outside, the fields that have been passing by are slowly morphing into a more urban area, and while there haven't been any high rise buildings yet, I see a bunch of coffee shops and old-style houses.

"Bad?" She splutters. "Your ruined Christmas!"

So the first time I was admitted in the hopital was during Christmas?

Man, sucks to be me.

"What did you get me?" I ask cheekily, trying to liven up her mood.

"Dirt." She replies monotonously.

"I can see why the old Dani liked you." I mutter under my breath.

Don't. I tell myself almost immediately. Don't talk like their are two of you, when you're the same person. Don't differentiate, it won't do you any good. 

Her eye catches something in the window. I follow her gaze to an an ancient shop standing in the middle of a cobblestoned pathway.

I read the name. Giovanni's Whisky Shop. It looks like it was constructed in the 60s, and it's a miracle it's still standing.

"The oldest shop in town." Valencia tells me. "Owned by a third generation Giovanni, who turned 70 last year."

"The place looks charming." I observe.

"It is. His wife used to sneak Cayden and I second helpings of double-chocolate cookies as kids." She laughs at the memory. "I'm gonna visit her sometime this week."

"Cayden, that's your brother, right?" All these names were always swirling above my head.

"Yeah." She answers. "You'll meet him soon, he and the others wanted to see you, well, right now."

I look at her suspiciously. "Meet me where?"

"At my house, in," she checks her watch. "Exactly twenty minutes."

I sit back and groan. "Tell me it's not some crazy American welcome-home party."

"It's not, and I had nothing to do with it." She says. "It was all them."