With Crayons and Love (Romantic Suspense) [COMPLETED]

Chapter 14 - Give

It was the last day before I would return to work. A pretty Sunday that boasted of a lack of clouds and of moderate heat.

I thought baking a cake with Stella as a farewell to my little vacation would be in order. It was odd, but I couldn't find myself the least bit eager for work, or for an escape, as I had expected to. It was precisely a week since I had taken Stella to my home, and I struggled to envision life without her. For some reason I couldn't think of the time before her without a haziness in my memory, as if it didn't matter as much anymore.

The lines were no longer as clean cut as they had been. I couldn't think of the past or the future with the certainty I had carried before these past days. Before Stella, before him.

It still hurt me to say his name in my head, where just the mere mention of him would remind me of last night; of what he had said. And of how my heart had reacted, breaking and falling to the gallows of my stomach without warning.

I looked at Stella from beside her spot on the couch, where we ate our slice of vanilla cake as a film played. The Princess Bride, she said, had been her mother's favorite.

She didn't look at me with anger or contempt, only with a peaceful sadness that proved all the more heartbreaking.

I excused myself and went to the bathroom for a good cry.

When I returned she patted the couch and gave me a wide smile.

"This is the best part!"

I hugged her to me and watched the rest of the film in peace.

At twilight I helped her shower and dress, drying her hair so that she wouldn't go to sleep with the long tresses wet. I wouldn't have her getting a cold if I could help it.

My own shower was quicker, the water steaming, but I took my time in applying lotion to my skin. I dried my hair with the blow-dryer for the first time in weeks, and found the softness to be a luxury, the scent of peaches to be a sweetness.

It was the best I could do to initiate a good night's rest, and I was in dire need of one. I couldn't afford to have two consecutive nights with the poorest rest I had endured in years, and I most definitely could not afford to walk into the Tribune tomorrow with bags under my eyes and a poor work ethic. Not after I had been gone for a week.

So I put on my softest fleece pajamas and brewed myself a cup of chamomile tea. I drank it slowly, inhaling the scent, and read a few more chapters of Stella's book to her.

She stopped me halfway with a light tap on the wrist.

"Tessa, why don't you have a prince like Princess Anna?" her eyes were serious; inquiring.

I pretended to contemplate her question, before answering with truth. "Well, because I haven't found one."

"Never? But- But you're like a princess!"

I looked at her softly, a smile forming on my lips. "Thank you, sweetheart. Maybe someday."

She nodded and fell into silence, and I took it as my cue to continue reading aloud to her. I was thankful, because the reading kept my mind afar from what troubled me.

"Where's Grant?"

The abrupt mention of his name brought my heart to a skid.

"I-I don't know, Stell."

"I hope he's okay." She said, and quieted again, innocently failing to noticed how her simple questions were killing me.

"Me too," I murmured.