Gifteds: And Then There Were None

Chapter 14. V

Angela knew there was something wrong with Nico. He wasn't eating anything and he had quieted down. He hadn't told puns since... since before Henry died. Salwa and Mitchell's death had it the all hard, but Nico had changed drastically. She decided to do something good for him.

"Hmm, he said he had kale and other leafy greens. If he ate everything he got his hands on, there is bound to be some scraps." She thought out loud. Angela was actually a pretty good cook. Vegetables were her specialty as there was barely anything else in her diet. She tied her hair back and went over to Nico's room. She knocked five times before he answered.

"Oh, hi?" He said.

"Hi, can I take a look at your kitchen for a sec?" Angela replied.

"Um, yea, sure but like I said, there isn't much in there." He said, scratching his head. Angela smiled at him.

"Not much is enough for me." She walked past him into his room and went into his kitchen.

She opened up the refrigerator door to find vegetables, mainly leafy greens, only a tiny bit of butter, half an apple and one egg. She snapped her fingers and quickly got to work. Nico came up behind her and stared at her while she cooked. She used the butter to fry the egg and decided to make a salad with the vegetables and the apple.

"Do you have any salt?" She asked while cutting up the apple.

"Umm, not really" Nico said and went to the cupboard and brought her a salt shaker with only enough salt to barely cover the bottom of the shaker. Angela took it and used it for the egg. Once she was done with everything, she put it on a platter and put it on Nico's desk.

"OH WAIT! Salad dressing!" Angela exclaimed.

"Oh, you don't have to, I mean-" She ran past Nico and out the door. She ran all the way to Max's room and prayed he was in. Thankfully, he was.

"Max! I need soy sauce!" She said, huffing out of breath. Max, though bewildered at this seemingly random request, looked dazed. Finally snapping into reality, he searched around and found some soy sauce packets from the sushi place near his home. Angela took it and ran back to Nico's. She checked all of his cupboards and thankfully found some lemon juice which she used with the soy sauce to make a dressing. Setting it down on Nico's desk beside his meal, she smiled.

"Eat!" She ordered, and went out of his room.

Nico stared at the food. Probably his first home cooked meal that wasn't cooked by him in a month. He looked down at it and saw an edible olive branch. A "hey we're stuck on this island and I don't hate you" salad. An "I care about you" salad. He practically inhaled the first few bites. He had forgotten how good it felt to be eating something made from someone else's hands. Something made that was more about the gesture than the food itself. Max used to cook for me every other day he thought.

The salad was a little low on salt but Nico didn't mind.

It was deliciously perfect.