Crumbling Cakes

Part IV

A decade passed before my mouth started working.

"So...ahem...interesting..." He glanced at me. "That why you always have long sleeves on?" I nodded at his arms. He looked at them then relocked his eyes on mine.

"Does it bother you?" There was no emotion in his voice. He was asking but he didn't actually give a fuck if it did bother me. I suppressed a grin, that was more like him.

"No, not at all. Just surprised." I answered truthfully. It was nice to have a question where I didn't have to lie through my teeth. "I think they're neat." He smirked at my statement.

Neat. NEAT. Who was I, Marcia Brady? That doesn't even deserve a response. I looked toward the heavens, please someone save me. As luck would have it, I remained stewing in my lack-luster comment.

The sounds of scraping brought me back to the present.

"You don't have to help me." I went back to my own scrubbing.

"No shit."

"Then why are you?" Scrub, scrub.

"The faster you're done, the sooner I can go home." Ah, well, right. That does make sense. I mean it's not like it's because he likes me or anything. I'm just the a-hole who destroyed his immaculate kitchen.

"Why were you even here this late?" Someone give this girl a hand, I had balls of steel! For a nanosecond that is until he answered.

"Not that it's any of your business, or that you're in any position to ask any brazen questions given your current situation, but in case you didn't notice this is my bakery. I own it." He glared at me. "And everything in it. I belong here any hour of the day."

I swallowed and went back to scrubbing. Stupid, stupid Dalia. Why must you poke the bear? So what if he gave you his pants and he's helping you finish. And maybe he seemed like he cared about the bruises from his deathtrap kitchen. Fine, that last one is false. It's not a deathtrap, I'm the deathtrap.

The point is he doesn't care. He doesn't care and you are indebted to him for a sum of money that makes you cry. You should just shut your mouth and finish cleaning so you can go back to your hole in the shit part of town. 

I kept to my resolution. 

Half an hour later we were done. I was putting the bucket away when Sebastian came from the back room and handed me my warm clothes. They smelled like Downy. I couldn't remember the last time any of my clothes smelled like softener. I was surprised at the lump that formed in my throat.

I darted around him to get to the bathroom before he could see any of it. It's stupid really. I was used to my pitiful existence, but this small luxury and act of kindness made me ache for a life I would never have, one I didn't even know. Even if this was just something he did on autopilot and nothing more, to me it was a thing that was unattainable.

I'm used to my place in the world. I was a nobody who had nothing and I would die that way. It's like my name was a self-fulfilling prophecy. All I could hope for is that I wasn't brutally murdered. I was no longer certain if that was me talking or her. 

Stop it, Dalia. I berated myself. Just stop it. Put your clothes back on. Walkout that door. Say your goodbyes and mosey on home.

Right home, I sneered at my reflection. Some home, a concrete slab with a couple of blankets as a bed. A 10'x10' with natural cooling and heating, only mother earth's AC here, when my dual-purpose fan didn't crap out. It might as well be a prison cell. Who was I kidding, prison cells at least had a real mattress.