Summer Sunshine (bxb)

Chapter 11. Birthday Cake Breakfast

Summer's birthday had drained Caleb more than he expected. He sleeps through every single one of his alarms and it's past noon before he has enough energy to get out of bed.

"I guess I'm just really not used to doing things," he grumbles to himself as he gets ready for the day.

His life had a certain routine to it at college. A routine which has been abandoned this summer.
Usually he rarely went out except to classes or his part time job. He never went anywhere with people because it was loud and chaotic and he just wasn't that social. He liked to do his own thing in his own space. He liked the quiet.
Even at home he used to stay in his room a lot unless one of his siblings dragged him out to do something.

He always seems to get tired so fast. He doesn't ever bring it up to other people because he was young and strong and healthy, so shouldn't he be fine? But the world seems to spin around him at a dizzying speed.

Summer's bedroom door is open and he and Eve are sitting on the bed talking. Summer looks up when Caleb passes the door and his face lights up. "Caleb! I wondered when you'd wake up."

Caleb obeys his beckoning hand and comes over to the bed. Summer grabs the edge of his shirt and tugs until he sits down next to him.

"You look tired," Summer says. His fingers remain tangled in the hem of Caleb's shirt.

"I am," Caleb slumps against him and Summer pats his arm consolingly.

"Do you want some cake?" he asks.

"For breakfast?"

"That's what Eve and I had."

Caleb is too tired to lecture about a healthy breakfast like he usually would. "Sounds good."

"I'll go get it."

Summer goes to the kitchen and Caleb is left with Eve. She gets up from the bed and picks up a paintbrush lying on Summer's desk. Caleb notices there are a few tiny buckets of paint sitting open on the desk.

"He has been talking about you all morning," Eve says.

"He's been talking about me?"

She dips her paint brush in a can of yellow paint. "You are the only Caleb he knows."

Caleb doesn't know what to say to that. He doesn't get a chance to say anything because Summer comes back into the room carrying a yellow bowl containing a generous slice of cake. He hands the bowl to Caleb and sits down crosslegged next to him reaching for his own plate of cake.

"How is it coming along?" Summer asks Eve between bites of cake.

"We'll see," she says. "I'm almost done."

"What are you painting?" Caleb asks. "I didn't think there was any space left on Summer's walls."

"There wasn't," Summer says. "We cleaned off an area which didn't really go with the rest of the room. It was kind of dark."

When Eve had seen the painting he had done just before his and Caleb's trip to his house she hadn't said anything right away. Like she did with all of Summer's art she had just studied it in silence.

She took in each detail. The sharp toothed mercreatures, the cold moon, the dark waves, the figure being dragged beneath the surface by cruel claws.

"What were you thinking about when you painted this?" She had asked.

"Drowning."

She had looked at him in a way that always make Summer a little uneasy. It was like she could see into his soul. "Did it help?"