Watching Her

chapter 32: an eventful night

I felt somebody waking me up, so I tried to ignore their poor attempts and turn around. Just, that my body ached with every movement, the pain jolting me awake from my nonexistent dreams. I opened my eyes, seeing Mateo again. He was wearing a black polo shirt and some straight - leg jeans, I saw that, as he kneeled down to face me again. 

He had a plate in his hand, there was steaming coming from it, and a soup was lying next to my head on the couch. I blinked a few times to see his figure clearer. 

"The cook made egg - drop soup." Egg what now? You drop a hard boiled egg into water and call it soup? I don't think so, Sir. I scrunched up my noise, I could not deny the fact that it did smell delicious, so there had to be something with water and a hard boiled egg, right? 

I did not feel like eating though. My body felt weak. There was not even enough strength in my arms to take the plate from him. There was not enough of it in my hands to lift the spoon. There was not enough for me to chew it. 

And I did not want to eat either. I knew I had not exercised enough, and even though my body was screaming at me, I was scared. I had probably gained so much during my time here, I did not want to face the consequences. I did not want to eat that soup. 

I turned my head away, looking at the wall. 

"I used to eat it all the time when I was sick. I swear, it's good." His tone was softer now than before. Was he actually being nice to me? I did not turn back to him, wanting to be left alone. I wanted to rest, to sleep through this entire sickness. 

"Just try it." He nudged the plate towards me once I accidentally faced him again, but I shook my head. I was scared to say something, what if my throat made me sound weird? I tried swallowing, but even that hurt. 

"I can't." I choked out, wanting him to leave. There was a plead in his eyes, I saw it. 

"Please." He whispered. The word coming from his mouth surprised me, as if he was somebody begging me to save his life or something. Like a little puppy whimpering for his owner to give him a treat. But it was not that. He only wanted me to eat that soup so desperately, it was almost cute. Mentally, I took a step back to look at the situation. Something inside of me softened as well as I watched his eyes. 

I bit my lip, not wanting to say anything. I was mentally scared of it, and I hated every part of that. My eyes fluttered slightly as he waited for me.

He took the spoon and and stirred the soup with it, more heat coming from the plate. I watched him do so, and it did look good and smelled like that as well. 

He filled the spoon with a bit of the soup, a few bits of yellow egg in it as well. Okay, so it had not been a hard boiled egg in plain water, my mistake. It rather looked like scrambled egg in bone broth, but way better. There were green small things swimming around as well. 

He lead the spoon to my mouth, the plate still in his other hand as I wondered how it did not possibly burn his hand. It did taste good and had the perfect temperature. Hot, but not burning my tongue hot. The egg melted in my mouth as I swallowed the broth, wanting to keep every spice and flavor in my mouth.

Now I was lying here on this ridiculously comfortable couch, getting spoon fed by one of the most ruthless and feared gang leaders in America and probably Italy as well, just because I had the honor to get sick in his house. 

Mateo managed to get me to eat half of the soup, while neither of us tried to talk or look into the others eyes. It felt uncomfortable, to say the least, but also new, that somebody like him cared for me. Maybe even cared about me. I did not know what to think. I did not know why he was even trying to get me to eat, but something inside me was thankful for it.