Most Lovely Words

Chapter 16: Home

I sat in my car, a pile of paperwork on the passenger seat after an hour of working things out at the station. I fiddled with my car keys, oddly satisfied to have my wheels back. I started the car, and Delina followed behind me as I drove home. When we pulled into the parking lot, she was the first to stop her car and get out.

"Beat you," She said, smirking.

I got out, rolling my eyes. "I didn't realize it was a competition."

"Oh, it was," She stated. "And, you lost."

"Ok, sass," I shook my head, leading her up to my apartment.

"Hey, when's the last time you cleaned this place?" Delina asked when we walked in.

"Uh, two weeks. After Bry got sick, everything changed. He took top priority. When he died..."

"You didn't do anything," She said, understanding.

"Yeah," I took a deep breath, frowning. "Anyway, make yourself comfortable. I'll... make you something to eat."

"Sure," She smiled, walking over to the couch and sitting down. "So, what kind of movies do you have?"

"I've got some horror," I said as I scanned my fridge for something to cook. "Do you mind cereal?"

"No, that's fine," She said politely.

"Ok, perfect. Cereal it is," I grabbed the milk from the fridge and set it on the counter. My hands started tingling as I reached for the cereal box, and I sighed. At least she isn't picky.

I held the box in my hands, trying to hide the pain as I filled the bowls and walked back to Delina. Sitting beside her, I handed her a bowl and grabbed the remote for the TV on the table next to me. I turned it on, flicking to a section that had the digital movies I owned.

"Oh, fancy," She mused, eyeing the movies. "Oh, wow. Is that Space Odyssey?"

"Bry bought that. He was a sucker for those old sci-fi movies." I told her, flinching inside. "This one time, he tried to get me to watch Alien. I accidentally punched him halfway through when he jump-scared me."

"Sounds fun. He seems like a good guy." Delina said, watching me.

"Yeah. He was..." I looked down. When I felt Delina still staring at me, I frowned and looked up at her. "What?"

"Nothing. This is just... the first time I've heard you talk about him." She said somberly. "Like, really talk about him."

"We had tons of stories." I admitted. "Sometimes, we would just stare out my window and look at the stars, pretend we could see the next space movie being filmed."

"Wow. Amateur. I used to climb up my treehouse and pretend it had been built with magic and shit. Until I was 14." She laughed. "Ah, my parents did not appreciate that one. I thought it was fun, though."

"Heh. Bry used to have this thing he'd do where he'd come up with like childish ass code words for stuff. We had code words for trouble, code words for almost everything." I reminisced.

"Did you have anything for 'I think that's adorable and funny'?" She asked with amusement.

"Ha. No, we didn't." I turned to the TV. "Should we put on a movie?"

"Oh... yeah. Hm, let's see," She scanned the screen, looking at the movies I had. "How about... oh. Zombies. We should definitely do zombies."

"Ok, zombies it is." I picked the one zombie movie I had, some old 1960's film, and wrapped the blanket I had on the couch around me.