poison - lrh

two

The apartment was oddly silent as Cameron sat down on the comfortable worn leather sofa with a hot chocolate in hand. She switched on the TV, absentmindedly flicking through channels. A page of hastily scribbled notes balanced on her lap, and she tapped her knee with a blunt pencil. She decided to watch an easygoing sitcom, some episode on the comedy channel that looked familiar.

A small figure with ruffled hair tottered in, wearing spiderman pyjamas and clinging onto a worse for wear teddy bear.

"Ace, go back to bed."

He ran up to his sisters lap and climbed up like the superhero on his top. His hazel eyes bore into her chestnut ones, and she raised her eyebrows at him.

"I had a nightmare."

She hugged him, asking him if he wanted to talk about it. To that he responded by shaking his head profusely, so she reassured him that it was just a bad dream, and carried him like a koala back to his bed in the only other room apart from Cameron's. Since Agatha had decided to stay, Cameron and her shared a room, the pair of them complaining about each other's messes, although both enjoying their extended sleepover as such. 

Smoothing down his hair, Cameron turned out the light and closed the door until only a crack of light spilled onto the beige carpet. She remembered when she first bought the flat a little more than a year before, and furnished it to her own liking, enjoying the idea of having her own space to herself. Until then she had been sleeping at her mom's, but going round to Jessica and her dad's house often to take care of her younger brother.

When Cameron's dad started travelling more for work, and Jessica barely had the time to cook ready made meals for herself between shifts, Cameron bought a kids bed and took Ace's favourite toys into what was her spare room. It became his after school hideout, his bedroom for most nights, and Cameron slowly got used to looking after him. 

She peered through the space between the door and the frame and watched him close his eyes and eventually listen to his breathing slip into the steady rhythm of sleep. Sipping her hot chocolate, she watched the show, heard the cheesy jokes and equally cheesy laugh tracks afterwards. Staring back at her notebook as the credit rolled, Cameron wondered how she was going to put together her new idea, her new play.

By the time the buzzer sounded, Cameron had finished a cup of hot chocolate, a cookie and had two trips from Ace declaring he couldn't sleep. She got up quickly, and her notebook fell on the floor, the pages splaying across the floorboards. 

"Took your sweet time," Cameron sighs, picking up her notebook. Agatha snatches it out of her hands.

"Aggie-"

She pulls a face, and opens it on the first page. Skimming through the pages, Cameron watches her read her story, what she's been working on for weeks now. She looks her friend up and down, smiling slightly at her trademark style, as if she had gone into a shop and let the shop assistant have the time of her life.

"What did you buy then?"

"Sugar, milk and chocolate chips."

Cameron stared at her blankly.

"Cookies."
"Ace is asleep."

"And? You don't have to share everything with him."
"He's five. And loves cookies."

Regardless, Agatha began tipping out various ingredients onto the kitchen worktop, managing to spill flour everywhere, as if she was 5 years old too.

"I figured-" she stirred the cookie mix violently, "You could tell me about your play - whilst we made cookies."