Nothing More

Chapter Thirteen.

"I don't," she sighs and licks her lips with her tongue, wetting them. "I'm just saying, I needed a break from you, from us," she moves her hand and mine between us.

She's speaking in past tense like our break up is something that we are moving by, forgetting about. I lean down to catch her eyes.

"What are you trying to say? That you don't need a break anymore?"

She tucks her bottom teeth between her lip as she takes my question in. The weirdest part of this is that I don't know how I feel about it. One week ago, if this conversation played out the exact same way, I would have felt differently. I wouldn't have been so reluctant. I would have been excited, grateful, happy. Now it feels weird, it doesn't quite settle the way that it should. She hasn't answered me yet, and her response already feels forced because of the way her eyes scan the room and the way her shoulders fill with a breath too deep to hold good news.

"Can I have some water?" Dakota asks, keeping her response to herself.

I nod, meeting her eyes one more time in hopes for an answer. Half of my brain tells me that I should ask again, that I should make sure she doesn't want to change the status of our relationship. Would we fall back into place easily? How many days would it take until she's effortlessly falling back into my arms, forgetting about her need for adventure.

I stand up from my knees and walk into the kitchen. First, I open the small drawer next to the fridge and grab the Tylenol. If her hiccups and fumbled steps were any indication of how much she drank, she will be feeling this in the morning. I open the bottle and dump three into my hand. I grab an empty glass from the cabinet and fill it with water. 

On the counter is a cake pan, the purple and white flowered cake. Nora has left traces of herself all over my apartment. I debate whether it would be worth it to cut a piece off and eat it before I go back into the living room with Dakota. Or I could cut one for each of us, I doubt she would eat it though. With her strict diet and all. I lift up the corner of the plastic wrap and dip my finger into the icing.

Dakota walks into the kitchen just as I shove my finger between my lips.

Shit.

"Really Landon?" Her lips lift into a smile and I lean against the counter and face her. She looks at the cake, then back at me. I could have done a better job wrapping the corners of the glass pan, that's for sure.

I grab the glass of water and hold it out to her. She inspects it for a moment, thinking of something to say, I'm sure. Dakota's lips press to the side of the glass and I move back toward the delicious cake.

"You always had a sweet tooth you couldn't resist," her voice is warm and sweet like the icing on my tongue.

"There are a lot of things I never could resist," I look at Dakota and she looks down at her bare feet.

I use my fingers to tear off a small corner of the cake. Little pieces of cake break off and a chunk of icing drops onto the countertop. I look at Dakota and lighten up the conversation. "At least now I work out too," I joke.

I was a pudgy kid, always a little more round than most growing up. I blame my mom's baking and my own lack of wanting to go outside and play. I remember wanting to stay home, like actually wanting to be inside my house on the weekends with my mom. I ate a lot of sweets and I wasn't as active as I should have been for my age, and when my doctor talked to my mom about my weight I was so embarrassed, that I knew I never wanted to overhear a conversation like that again.

I still ate what I wanted to, I just became more active than before. I was a little embarrassed to ask my Aunt Reese for help, but the next day she came over with an exercise bike in her trunk and little weights in her hands. I remember laughing at her eighties style pink and yellow workout outfit. She even had matching arm warmers.