Page 25 of Sublimate
Finally, I arrived in the kitchen. The house was so old but this room was fresh and bright, and it did seem like it got more use than the other spaces. There was some mail on the counter, a glass next to the sink, and Nolan sitting at a round table next to more big windows.
“Hello,” he said. “Good morning.”
“Hello,” I answered. I stood there awkwardly and found that I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands. Cadence’s pajama pants, the ones I was still wearing, didn’t have pockets. I ended up covering my mouth with one of them, because it felt like it had been forever since I’d brushed my teeth. I wasn’t going to do that anytime soon, either, due to how my jaw felt. I held myother arm over my chest because she hadn’t loaned me a bra. I didn’t have a ton going on in terms of breasts, but it felt weird to be standing in his kitchen without some kind of support there.
“Do you drink coffee? You had it when we met last winter.”
No, I had drunk water disguised in a coffee cup due to my cheapness and lack of funds. “I do like it. I’ll get it,” I said, but he had to make it for me because the machine was fancy and complicated.
“Milk?Sugar?”
I shook my head. I would have taken both but I felt like I was taking so much already, like space in this pretty house and time out of his day. But he didn’t actually seem to be doing much at the moment. There was nothing on the table except his own coffee cup, not even a phone.
That reminded me of my belongings and that I wondered if they were still intact. “I have to get my car,” I said.
“Your keys weren’t in that bag from the hospital. Your wallet is gone, too.” He pulled out another chair. “Why don’t you sit down?”
I knew that I did look bad enough to make people afraid that I would fall over. “Nolan, thank you so much. I really appreciate this, but I’m going to get out of here today. Like, within the next five minutes.”
“To do what? Where are you going to go?”
“I’ll figure something out. I always have,” I said.
“Or you could stay for a while.” He looked around. “A few years ago, I had a guy live with me from September to June and I hardly ever saw him. I don’t care if you do the same thing.”
“Did he pay you rent?”
“Rent?” he echoed. “No.” Then he repeated the same words. “I don’t care.”
“It really wouldn’t make a difference to you?” I asked, but he was already shaking his head before I finished the question. “Are you sure? You wouldn’t mind having a stranger in your house?”
“You’re not a stranger. I know you better than I did the guy who stayed before. I wasn’t ever sure of his real name.” He pointed at me. “Vivienne O’Keeffe. By the way, your mother was wrong. ‘O’Keeffe’ is Irish, not French.”
“Nolan…”
“Here you go,” he said, and he put a cup of coffee in front of me. He rummaged around in a drawer and pulled out a straw wrapped in paper, like it was left over from a fast-food run. He set it on the table next to the coffee and walked through a door. I heard him going upstairs and I thought of how he’d said that he never went into the other part of the house. He didn’t even use the nice staircase that I had found when I’d hunted down the bathroom.
If he didn’t care that I was here, why should I have? I unwrapped the straw and looked around the kitchen. Those two ovens probably worked.
He didn’t care about that, either, but I did. And I cared that he was doing this for me.
Chapter 6
Itried not to notice what she was doing but really…
“Cadence, can you stop staring at me like that?” It made me feel like I was in a police lineup, which wasn’t something I ever wanted for myself.
“Oh, sorry,” she apologized. “I was just trying to figure out why you look different.”
“Well, I’ve healed a lot,” I said. “The bruises are almost all gone. The fractures are better.” I touched my jaw, which felt much improved. My ribs were still sore but they were also getting back to normal.
“That’s a relief.” She reached for a tissue and shook her head. “I still cry when I think about seeing you in the hospital. I also still believe that you should have Kolter arrested.”
“Try to put it out of your mind,” I urged. I was also trying to, and I had made some great strides since that night. The most important thing was me healing, but I had been actively workingon other stuff, too. I’d gotten back my car, which had been such a relief. Nolan had driven me to the hotel where everything had happened. It was still there and we’d found it untouched. I had planned to break in and get it started (one of my mom’s exes had shown me a few tricks for that).
But then he had called, “Are these yours?” He had been scouting around the area and had found the keys! He’d also found some bloodstains on the pavement and had stood staring at them, and then he’d turned to look at me.
“I’m ok,” I had assured him. I told Cadence the same thing now and she nodded and blew her nose.
