i don't feel safe anymore

Part 11

"Nadine!" Sebastian called out at lunch.

She hesitantly came around the corner and quietly made her way to the table. Her chestnut hair split into two high buns; soft strands framed her angelic face. She wore a baby blue summer dress with white socks, one was pulled up her small ankle higher than the other. She was visibly upset, and Sebastian could see it. But part of him felt intrusive for asking. So instead he remained silent as he put her plate of grilled cheese and bowl of tomato soup in front of her.

Patiently, she waited until he settled at the table with his lunch and a work file before dipping a corner of her grilled cheese into the soup and biting into it. A smile crept on her lips, and Sebastian's shoulders seemed to visibly relax as he moved the folder on the table so he wouldn't stain it from his soup.

"It's good?" He asked, and she nodded as she chewed. Sebastian tried to stifle the grin from the way she filled her cheeks whenever she ate, like a small chipmunk or a squirrel. Before he took a bite of his food, he faintly heard the sound of Nadine's bird chirping. "How's the little guy?" He honestly didn't think she'd keep the bird as a pet for as long as she did, or alive for that matter. But the determination the little one felt toward getting the bird better was great.

"He's fine," she said and took another big bite. "I've named him Benjamin!"

"You named the bird?" Her head bobbed again. He shook his head but said nothing and a silence fell over the room as they ate.

Nadine peeked up at Sebastian through her lashes. He was quietly eating his lunch as he read and flipped through the file, a muscle in his jaw would constantly flex with every chew. Her gaze flickered over his straight black hair tucked behind his ears and his deep hazel eyes that scanned over the papers.

Nadine chewed as she gingerly put the grilled cheese half back on the plate. Curious, and with a small voice, she asked, "What was your childhood like?"

Sebastian barely gave it thought. With a careless shrug, he grabbed his drink. "I don't know. Normal just like any others?"

"Did you always have money?"

"No." He shook his head. "Well, my family did have a lot, but my parents wanted to work for everything they got." He added, "Which in hindsight is good because it always taught me to work for what I wanted." Maybe he'd teach her one day, perhaps when they found her a job in the distant future.

With a mouth full, she asked, "Did you have any brothers or sister?"

"No, I was an only child."

"That must be so lonely," she whispered in the softest tone with a pout. Her emerald eyes were beginning to gloss over, and Sebastian found himself uncomfortable again.

"It was fine, really," He tried to explain to make Nadine feel better. With a lopsided grin, he said, "I got most of the attention, so I was fine with it."

With her asking all sorts of questions, he must've seen his window of opportunity to get to know her because sooner, he too was asking her questions. "What was your childhood like?" (Or is like, he should have said.)

Nadine swallowed and folded her hands in her lap underneath the table. "We weren't rich . . . But we weren't exactly poor. My parents didn't have much so growing up I never had much." She said shamefully.

"What were your parents like?"

Nadine shrugged. "Mom was always off cleaning something. It was how she dealt with . . . Stress. And dad," she swallowed as she swirled her spoon on the table. "I don't think he ever wanted me."

Speaking absently as though recalling a memory, she murmured, "He was always so . . . cold toward me."

Nadine peeked at Sebastian through her lashes. He was staring into his glass, visibly stiff. Sometimes, she'd wonder what her life would have been like if he were her father. She imagined he would be amazing at it.

"I had a little brother—his name was Tobias." Nadine suddenly said with a wide smile as she grabbed her grill cheese and dunked it into the tomato soup. "He was small and quiet. Sometimes I used to call him my little shadow."

Only a bite of her sandwich remained, and she eyed it thoughtfully as she held it up, her small elbow propped on the table unmannerly-like. "Tobias and I use to steal cans of food from a nearby gas station so that we could have something to eat. We'd almost always get caught and then have to find different stores to steal from."

She dipped it in the soup and tossed it into her mouth. One side of her cheek bulged as she chewed and spoke again. "I actually stole this pendant once." She said with a nervous chuckle as she gripped her necklace. She swallowed the grilled cheese down and let the memory wash over to her. "We always had a rule, only food, but . . . It looked so pretty—and the little old gypsy women selling them wasn't looking so, I thought I could grab it and run." Her smile fell. "I was wrong," she murmured. "and when she caught me, she just looked me in the eyes with her milky white ones and said that my life would be filled with dread, and then she laughed as we ran away."

Her gaze flicked back to the table. "A few nights later, a fire broke out, and I tried to find my brother." She swallowed, her eyes tear-filled as she murmured, "But the house was filled with so much smoke . . . "

She could still feel the smoke suffocating her lungs. The smell of the flames that lingered on her long after she got out of the burning house . . . The distant sound of burned wood cracking and falling into itself. She shook her head and brushed the hair out of her face in a childlike manner. Going on as though she had told him a simple story, she put her spoon on the table and lifted the bowl. She drank the rest of the soup down in gulps. Unaware of the small red droplet that ran down her delicate chin.

"Can we go outside now?"