"This is what she had become."
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Cleopatra Banks' last week in the small town of New Chelsea is nothing like she would have imagined it, but nothing could have prepared her for the stinging betrayal she's faced with and suddenly the prospect of...
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Never in my life did I think I'd end up of as one of those people.
I could never quite believe it when I heard about such a thing happening to someone, yet here I am.
I'm too young to be going mad.
Crazy scientists, sure. Overachieving academics with absolutely no lives outside their books, yes.
They're allowed to lose their marbles because their brains have actually been working. Their thought processes are heightened as they come up with a cure for some unheard of disease, extra brain cells developing from all the thought they put into a single theory that's the length of a gigantic textbook and while all this is happening, some super bug (attracted to heightened mental activity of course) interferes with their nerves and they turn into mad scientists –I'm pretty confident that's how it works.
There is no way I could have caught the super bug.
I can't even get past the first paragraph of my Biology notes.
So what else can explain my current predicament? Who in the world wakes up in the middle of the night and randomly starts baking chocolate chip cookies?
I sigh, quite exasperated at myself as I slide a tray of the gooey chocolate goodness into the oven.
Mom would be so proud. She's the one who always says the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but that statement is very debatable. I'm not so sure that Ethan has a heart. Maybe a shriveled dried up raisin on a good day but not a heart.
Someone with a heart would have attended their own family brunch and let their next door neighbor explain why she's been behaving like a lunatic. It should have been a simple "Hi Ethan, sorry for my bad behavior Ethan." And then Ethan would have replied with "Its okay Cleo, I totally forgive you. And I'm totally not gonna kill you."
But when the person you're trying to apologize to doesn't show up after you've been absolutely rude to him, you kind of start thinking that maybe you went just a little too far. The only excuse Susan could come up with was "He went to see a friend, it was urgent." She was totally fibbing.
Maybe it's just guilt.
Searing. Hot. Guilt.
It's the only thing that'll have you tossing and turning in your bed in the middle of the night. Guilt will have you reading the same paragraph ten times over without a single thing sinking in and guilt will have you baking at two in the morning while the world is asleep.
Woe is me.
"What are you doing up so late?" The sound of a disembodied voice questions and I'm left flying in the air, nearly knocking the rest of the dough to the floor.
"Dad? You scared me," I place a hand on my chest and try to steady my breathing. "Sorry princess," he whispers, walking into the kitchen.
"Well, if you must know. I'm making cookies," I nudge my head in the direction of the oven. He steps back, scratching his scalp through his short black curls.
