Wished

6. Cooking

For lunch, Newal and I were just going to make spaghetti. It's easy, quick and cheap.

I put a put of boiling water on the stove and then Newal hands me the noodles. I put them in and then turn to Newal.

"Do you like to cook?" I ask him

"Well, it's not one of my favorite things to do but I can and will help. I'd rather be the one picking vegetables and fruits from the garden at my house and then give them to my dad for him to cook with." He responds and I smile.

"I'm basically the same way, except I like to cook. And my garden is really small." I laugh. The fear from the diary is already wearing off thankfully.

Toby enters the kitchen, looking at me. He approaches me, looking worried.

"Are you alright? When we were looking at the diary you seemed really disturbed." Toby asks.

"Yeah, I'm okay now. The diary was just creepy, that's all." I say, waving him off.

"Okay." He says, then walks out of the kitchen.

"Are you together?" Newal asks me, a hint of curiosity and...jealously?...in his voice.

"No, we're just friends. He likes Ruth, he told me once. Honestly." I answer.

"Okay, just wondering." He says but he sounds like he doesn't belive me. I turn back to the noodles and realize they're done so I turn off the stove and dump out the water, leaving only the noodles. I set the pot on then get the tomato sauce to put on top. Newal goes into the living room to get the others and then we all sit around the table.

At this point, it's linner, a mix of lunch and dinner, since it's nearly three. I twirl the spaghetti around my fork, thinking about how at home, I'd make spaghetti with my mom every Wednesday.

The seven of us finish up, then set our plates in the sink. Newal says he'll take care of the dishes and I thank him, then run upstairs. I decide I'll take the middle room, then set my duffel bag down on the mattress. There are no pillows, but I could use my bag as a pillow. I look through my stuff and arrange it. I put the matches, paper and hairbrush at the bottom, then my clothes, band-aids, tylenol and flashlight. Then, I look at my phone. It's completely charged and, just as I suspected, there is loads of texts from my mom. Twenty four texts. Wow.

Mom, I'm okay. I need to do this. I'll text you every morning, okay? Love you.

I send the text and she agrees. I turn off my phone to save the battery and go back downstairs. Newal has just finished the dishes and is going through the bags, putting stuff away. I help him, putting food in the refrigerator and in the cabniets.

"How long do you think we'll be here?" I ask him and he shrugs.

"At least a week. I'm not sure we'll have enough money and food though." He frowns.

"I could go home and get some more." I offer.

"No. Atleast, not while our family is there. They're after us Arabella. I may not know much about this situation but I know that. And we don't want to put our families in danger." Newal says. "I'll go to my house. It's empty during the day. I'll go later this week."

"Okay." I say, turning back to the refrigerator.

After we put away the food, Newal gets the lightbulbs and curtains. Since we only have four lightbulbs, we decide to put two upstairs and two downstairs. Newal gives two of the lightbulbs to Ruth to put in the upstairs hallway and bathroom and then puts the remaining two in the living room and kitchen. Meanwhile, I put the curtains in the front and right side house windows since we don't have enough curtains for all of the windows and those are the two sides of the house that aren't completely covered by trees.

Now, the house is in much better shape than this morning and I look around, at the house, at my friends. And, even in this situation, I find myself distracted by Newal. The way he smiles and how his brown eyes sparkle...I shake my head and walk into the living room. Get it together Arabella.

. . .

A/N: Sorry this ending was so weak and not very good. I'm not the best at writing the end of a chapter and this one was certainly hard, so the result wasn't the best. Also, if you find any mistakes or suggestions for this book, feel free to comment or message me! I hope you are enjoying the book and have fun reading!