Dust

XXIV

         

I enter the kitchen in the morning to find that Mother has made a frittata, Finn already seated at the breakfast bar as he devours his slice. As I enter the room, he looks up and gives me a wide grin, spinach in his teeth. I pat him on the top of his head as I come and grab a seat on the stool, Mother already sliding my breakfast onto a plate for me.

    "Sleep well?" she asks me.

    I shrug, looking towards the couch in search of Gael, but he's not there—the only evidence he ever was is the blankets, tossed haphazardly aside. Hazy sunlight washes through the room, lending a warm glow to everything it touches, and increasing my good mood, despite my sleep deprivation. "Well, but not nearly enough."

    "It's not your fault you had to go running after Gael," my mother says with a snort, giving a small grin and leaning her elbows onto the kitchen island. The strands of silver in her hair catch in the light, the dark freckles underneath her eyes lifting with her cheeks when she smiles.

    "Where is he, anyway?" I ask, slicing into the egg pie before me with the side of my fork. Steam rises into my face, and I breathe it in, sensing that today is going to be a good day. It has to be—with Gael's confession, with mine, has come a new feeling in my heart, one that can never be replaced. I have awoken feeling like a different person, a better person.

    Finn sets his plate down with a twang, and after Mother scolds him for it, she mutters to me, "Bathroom, probably."

    "Oh," I reply, nodding. "Yeah. That makes sense."

    Silence follows, save for the polite clanking of my fork against my plate, the birds singing somewhere outside—morning sounds, so dissonant from the ones of night, which caused everything inside of me to go stiff. The sounds of a new day were pleasing and comfortable.

    I hear my mother chuckle, and look up from eating. "Gemma, you're not worried he's going to run off again, are you?"

    I shake my head. "No—"

    "You are," she says, then narrows her eyes and peers at me, her smile turning to a sly one. I hate this look, and I get it too often: It's the look that tells me she thinks she has me figured out, but she can't possibly, because it's been a while since she was sixteen. I admit my mother is wiser than I am, but that doesn't mean she's always right. "You care about that boy, don't you?"

    My cheeks warm. "Mother—"

    "You're blushing! Did something happen that I don't know about?"

    "Yes," comes Gael's voice as he strides into the kitchen. Mother, eyeing him, straightens to begin slicing frittata, but doesn't remove her gaze from him. "Yes, something did happen."

    I look at him with wide eyes, snapping at him. "Gael—"

    He just laughs, crouching down and kissing me on the cheek. "Morning, Gem," he says, then stands back up again to accept his breakfast. Now my mother is blushing, her mouth half-open.

    "That was—"

    "—a kiss on the cheek," I interject. "It was a kiss on the cheek, a friendly one."

    Gael smirks down at his plate. "Our kiss last night was more than friendly, though, wasn't it?"

    I throw my arms up in the air, my fork rattling as I nudge the plate. At the same time that Finn makes a signature "yuck" face, I yelp, "Gael!"

    He laughs again, enjoying this, and eats his frittata innocently. "What? I said Damien couldn't know about this, because he'll kill me. I didn't say your mother couldn't."