If You Miss It

29. friend in me

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

FRIEND IN ME

—

Dmitri had missed spending time with Eden.

It was understandable that they hadn't been spending time together as often, though. They were both extremely busy, Eden more than him.

She was busy with school, teaching, setting papers for students, all the shit that Dmitri would have been doing if he hadn't gotten fired for the most ridiculous reason he had heard of.

He was busy with... surviving. Getting through each day.

As much as he hated to admit it, it was mostly his fault that the two of them hadn't spent any time together as of late. Whenever Eden had been free, he had either been falling apart, in a depressive episode, or both.

Now, however, he was actually spending quality time with Eden by making cookies with her, or to put it simply, she was making cookies while he worked, his history textbooks scattered around the dining table to use as reference.

"Did you ever get your eyes checked?" Eden questioned, singing softly along to the music that he was playing from his phone, Hozier since the both of them were painfully queer.

Dmitri shook his head, having to strain his eyes as he continued to type on his laptop, the increased font doing nothing but stressing him out even more, with the way each word was glaring at him.

It was times like these that he missed being a teacher. He didn't have to stare at a laptop for over four hours at a stretch, didn't have to smell coffee every waking moment of his day.

In fact, he was so tired of the smell that he had stopped drinking it altogether. Though that was mostly a joint effort between him and Tariq, because Tariq was the one who had admitted that he was becoming dependent on coffee.

"Nope!" Dmitri chirped in response, hastily typing out on his keyboard, his nails making a clicking sound every time they came in contact with the keys. "I will. Soon. I booked an appointment the other day, but then, I couldn't get out of bed, so I couldn't go. Wild. We love it when we're too depressed to move."

Eden just hummed at that, she was never really fazed by anything he said anymore, one of the things that he loved about her. Also, one of the things that he had missed in the last few weeks.

"Book another appointment," she instructed as she rolled out her cookie dough into flat circles, or ovals, more like. I should help. "Or I can do it for you, if you want. Book the appointment, I mean. Ooh, or Tariq could do it? He's been around so fuckin' often, it's so wild to think about," she rambled, nearly dropping the tray of unbaked cookies because of how clumsy she was.

Then, right as she was reaching up into the top shelves, she actually dropped the steel bowl which she was using to mix her dough.

Lord, help her. "Just—" Pushing the chair out of the table, Dmitri stood up, making his way over to Eden and picking up the bowl, placing it in the top shelf with ease. "What else goes up there? I'll do it," he muttered.

But Eden didn't hand him any of the things that needed to be shoved into the shelf. She didn't do anything other than reach up and smack him on his head, letting out a vicious cackle at the dramatic cry of pain that left his mouth.

"What the fuck was that for?" he exclaimed, only slightly serious.

Eden just shrugged, handing him the rest of the vessels. "Don't mutter at me, stupid. I haven't properly spoken to you in weeks, I don't wanna hear any of that mutterin' bullshit. Lemme hear your voice. You have a nice voice. Generic voice, but still nice. Very—"