pseudon't

day 9

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September 9.

I woke up heavy today. That's no surprise, though, as I found it hard to sleep last night—more than usual. I didn't know how much I was grieving until I actually talked about it for the first time. In a way, it's stupid how I tell Hallie all these advice about life but I'm not doing good at it myself. It's like, we, as humans, always put others before ourselves because we don't want seeing pain, not knowing we're already deep in pain ourselves.

That's a good way to start the morning.

I check the time and it's already past breakfast. Shoot, I slept through all my alarms? I quickly get up. As soon as I did, the world spinned and took a while before I got steady. Damn. I hate it when these things happen. On a monday, even.

I first went to Hallie's room and check up on her. I greet morning and apparently, she's already had breakfast. I apologize and tell her I'm gonna check up again soon. 

I take another warm bath and somehow soothes all my thinking away. Because of my lingering tiredness, I even almost slept in the bath tub. Later on, I did check up on her again, but she didn't seem to like talking right now so I just gave her some space. I used an hour up to just rest.

Around lunch time, I go to the chef's headquarters to start on her meal. Great, he's here.

"Uh, hello." I greet awkwardly.

He looks up from his phone but remains with the platonic face, "Sup?" His voice was so deep.

"I'm going to, uh, cook my food again."

He smirked, "You're not really cooking for yourself, are you?"

Embarrased, I confessed, "Yeah, you caught me. I just wanted to try to do something myself for Hallie. I didn't want to disgrace your job."

"It's cool, man. I get it."

"Thanks." Thus, I started. But, it was different than usual because he's still just sitting there, using his phone very silently. It took me a few minutes to feel the peak of my discomfort, "I never actually got your name. My name is—"

"Tom." he looks at me, "I'm Allen Mondue," his face becomes more serious, "Or just Al Mondue."

"Oh, like the nut!"

Al pauses, "I like nuts."

"Yeah, me too." I sounded unsure, and I frankly am. After that it was just quiet again. I sped up my work to just get out of this awkard and silent situation. I grab the platter and bid, "Well, it's nice meeting you, Al Mondue."

"Have a good one, Tom-boy."

My eyebrows curved as I laugh nervously. Then I head out. When I finally escaped, I could breathe fresh air again. I know Hallie still feels upset because of what happened two days ago, so I actually tried making this good: pasta.

I slide it and wait for her to say something. For the first time, she gave me an emoji picture of a chef's kiss. I laugh and say, "Thanks, Hallie. Hope you'll get pumped up after this because today we'll finally follow the schedule, okay?"

"Can I do it next time? I want to pass."

"Are you sick?"

"I'm just tired."

"Okay, well, just tell me if you need anything."

Out of nowhere, I suddenly heard loud screams. I figured it was happy squeals, but it might just be someone getting murdered. It went from the other end of the hallway. I run towards the source and see Jess and Suzie. They notice me but acted like I wasn't there.