Page 56 of All That We Never Were

“Spinach egg scramble?”

I nodded, and a little later, we were eating on the porch. The afternoon was calm, and since it was a Friday, I put off my homework for the next day and fell asleep in Axel’s hammock. I didn’t really know how I felt. Sometimes good. Sometimes horrible. I could change from one mood to another in the blink of an eye.

In the evening, while Axel was cooking, I painted awhile. Brush in hand, I hesitated and looked over at the little suitcase full of colored paints, all of them still unopened except for the red from the other day, all of them so pretty, so impossible to reach…

“The tacos are ready,” Axel said.

“Okay. Coming.”

I cleaned my brushes and helped him get the dishes out.

When he finished, instead of making tea, he told me to come inside and he brought down the bottles from the cabinets. Rum. Gin. Tequila. He leaned on the bar in the kitchen and raised an eyebrow mirthfully. “What are you in the mood for?”

“A mojito?”

“Done. Crush some ice.”

Axel grabbed sugar and a couple of limes from the fridge, then went outside to pick some of the mint growing near the porch. We made a pitcher and he shook it to mix the ingredients.

“I present you with the finest mojito in the world.”

“Let’s see if it’s true…”

He watched me go out onto the porch with a grin. “If at any point I see you’re about to wind up stripping naked in the middle of the living room, I’m stopping you, okay?”

I could feel my cheeks burning. “You said it never happened.”

“And it never did. I’m just giving an example.” He took a sip and licked his lips without taking his eyes off me. I felt a shiver. “Be good and satisfy my curiosity. Did you used to get drunk a lot? Is that why you put it on the list?”

“No way. Just a couple of times.”

“So what happened at the festival?” he asked, serious.

“Nothing. I drank three beers and obviously I didn’t digest them very well.”

“Okay, well, take it easy. Little sips, like a baby.”

That hurt, and I tried to strike him dead with my stare. It seemed like he was constantly pointing out I was just a girl to him on purpose. And this wasn’t the best time to show him he was wrong, not when I was so dependent, when I hadn’t been able to get over losing my parents the way everyone else does.

I drank half my mojito in one sip.

“I wasn’t kidding, damn it. Baby sips.”

“I didn’t ask for your advice,” I replied.

“Still, I’m going to give it to you: don’t disobey me.”

I finished the rest. Axel clenched his jaw while I went and served myself a second one. I came back a few minutes later. He was standing up with a cigarette in his hand, leaning on the porch railing.

He turned around and crossed his arms. “What’s with you? Come on, spit it out.”

I took a nervous breath. We were close. “I hate you treating me like a child. I know sometimes I might seem like one and you think I am one, but I’m not. I didn’t feel that way before, and I don’t like feeling that way now.”

“All right.”

Axel snuffed out his cigarette and went for another mojito. We sat together on the cushions and talked without stopping for more than an hour. About him, about me, about things that didn’t matter and others that did.

“You think I should go to college, then…”

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