Athena
"What happened to you, little one? Why do you look so tired?" Shelly asked, lightly nudging my arm whilst she knead the dough for the Croissants with gentle hands and smooth motions.
My eyes flicked to her, diverting from the nearly finished task, decorate a birthday cake.
"Nothing, love. I just couldn't sleep well last night," I shrugged it off with a skimpy, crackling laughter that did partly nothing to disguise my discomfort.
Well, Shelly actually did know nothing about my past. In the first month when I'd met her, she'd asked me throughout the days to spare her a few details of where I used to live and questions similar to that. At first, I'd thought it was solely out of her curiosity but the day she'd seen accidentally seen some of my marks and asked me if I had gone through anything terrific and if there was anyone who'd hurt me, I saw the truth that the whole time all she was trying to do was to make sure I was not a victim of any sort of abuse or gone through the things I'd actually gone.
I couldn't really disclose the truth after seeing the deep concern in her eyes.
So what I did was to give her a false narration that was only a few fragments of the reality— Telling her that I was an orphan and, was recently kicked out of my apartment because of losing my job and not having the money to pay the rent, seemed like the best choice.
And the reason for the scars on my hands? That was because of the accident in my childhood where I lost my parents. It did not take much effort to make her believe it since she'd only noticed the marks on my arms, not the ones that covered my whole body and especially the name that was still carved on my skin and would remain till the day my body melts into the ground and soul vanishes into the air.
How beautiful it could have been if this false narration would have been the reality instead of a lie to cover up the actual truth of my life.
"Young lady, why does it seem like you are hiding something from me?" She squinted her eyes at me, wrinkles making their way to the corner of her eyes, her measly attempt to appear suspicious did fall flat, however, it went without saying she was more proud of her acting than her talent in baking.
"Trust me, Shelly. I have got nothing to hide from you," I let out a laugh, forced yet somehow I managed to make it sound natural.
It was a relief that I was good at multitasking which allowed me to pay equal attention to Shelly and decorate this cake at the same time. With the white melted chocolate, I slowly wrote down the name and the birthday wish on the Cake— Happy Birthday, Yolanda.
As I worked on the cake, the vision of the middle-aged man coming here to order this cake for his wife flashed in front of my eyes. He'd specifically given the details of how he wanted the cake to look. This was an incident from a few days ago—I and Eliot both had seen, how excited he was to surprise his wife. Not everyone has the fortune of having such a caring partner but at least, a few had and this proved that the world wasn't really that bad of a place.
Indeed, Yolanda was a lucky woman.
Alas! If only all women were that lucky.
"Good for you, 'cause you should know I have got good relations with plenty of detectives. And this might turn out to be the perfect time to get my connections in some actions," Her lilting voice was intended to threaten me, I supposed, "They would get your secrets out of your den."
Despite everything, it took everything I had not to laugh at her. All she wanted to do was to portend threats yet all she ended up doing was basically nothing except for one part--Claiming the worst actor award for herself.
"Oh Shelly you are so silly," I laughed, the words magically falling into a rhythm on their own.
Her face was shrewd with confusion, and a frown settled on her forehead.
"Wait, why did you just call me that?" Suddenly her strong, untamable want to act tough flew out of the window. She was now, fortunately, free from her momentary passion for acting.
"Because you are silly," I leaned in placing a smooch on her cheek, "My Silly Oldie."
"You did not just call me that, Athena," She groaned, frustration was the only thing perceivable on her face that shrunk like a parrot as she glared at me with all force in my body.
"Well, I actually did," I chuckled, unable to hold my laughter anymore.
This was what I really liked about being around Shelly. No matter what, whether it was me, whose mind often begins to loop around the ideas of pissing her off and earning some outlandish reaction from her or it could be Shelly simply being herself— Eitherway, Somehow despite everything and all of the mess that remained scattered in my head since a very long time, because of her, my mood would always get better.
"You know, fine," She huffed, a sort of aggression spoke through her movements as her fingers now harshly plunged into the poor dough that she had been kneading with hands full of gentle care and love until now and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find her pitiful display of expressing her anger funny, "One day, you'll get old too and then when you'll get called old, I'll watch from up there and laugh at you— Only then my revenge will be successful. So it's your time now, enjoy while it lasts."
"Oh my sweet honey-bun," I cooed and hugged her from the side, "Okay, I won't call you old even though...."
Her hardened stare landed at me, a frown settling on her forehead causing me to leave my sentence unfinished and stifle the laugh on the verge of falling off of my lips.
"You really hate being called old, don't you?" I eventually ended up snickering.
"Yes, I do and I'd very much appreciate it if you stop calling me old all the time!" She rolled her eyes, drawing out a sigh.
"Okay, so what do you want me to call you?"
"Anything, or just my name but not that word." She pretended to shiver— A unique way for her to express her disgust.
"Then, how about Sexy? Does that sound good to you?"
She grimaced at the word, I could tell in that one second that at least a thousand different thoughts crossed her mind, "That's even worse. What's wrong with you, Athena?"
"What's wrong with you, Shelly?" I imitated her voice, wholly focused on my mission to irritate her and judging by the way her face changed into different colours, I knew I wasn't far from my victory.
"Athena, I'm gonna whip your arse today," She scolded me like a grandma lecturing her grandchild for stealing chocolates even after being given a bunch only an hour ago.
"Oh really? Do you think you are that strong? I must praise your confidence," I judgementally stared her up and down and this triggered her frustration furthermore than prior.
God! I knew it was evil but I loved irritating Shelly— No matter what, this would always be the best part of my days.
It was evident that Shelly was on the way to opening her mouth and putting up an argument, but before she could do so or I could say something more to bring more colour to this situation, we were interrupted by Georgia.
"Athena, there's someone asking for you."
"What?" Confusion drew upon me, "For me?"
"Yeah."
"A man?" Suddenly every single particle of Shelly's anger was a raging fire even a few seconds ago, faded like a blow of autumn wind.
Now, her expression said something else— She was excited, curious and somewhat optimistic. In short, she was now anything but angry.
"Shelly, stop it!" I exclaimed in disbelief.
"Yeah, a very handsome man indeed," Georgia's voice was laced with mischief, and I couldn't help but notice that even though she was seemingly trying to pull my leg, there was a bit of honesty when she praised that unknown man.
"What the hell, you are getting into this as well? I can't believe you guys!"
"He's handsome? Then you must go see him, Athena. Go, right now." Completely ignoring my statement, Shelly got determined in pushing me out of the kitchen and her hands were full cause she already got a task to finish. So guess what? She was using her butt to literally shove me out of the kitchen.
"Wait, what are you two doing? I don't even know who the man is."
"Then go and know," Georgia interjected, giving me a sly wink.
Okay, they were crazy. Completely, utterly, out of their mind.
"But the cake..."
"It's almost done, I'll give it the finishing touches. Don't worry about that." Shelly said loud and clear and with that, she successfully shoved me out of the kitchen.
Shaking my head, I took the gloves off of my hand and threw them into the bin and walked towards the small, neatly decorated waiting room of our bakery but to my surprise, I found it empty.
Did he leave? Perhaps.
I proceeded to head back to the kitchen, however, for some reason, my eyes took a glance outside— At the view of the tables set outside of our bakery beside the spacious roads; With red patio umbrellas for shade from the scorching sun. Though these days, the sun was barely seen at all, the weather of nature was varying a lot and the state of my heart could be declared the same—From cold to warm, sometimes in the midst of nowhere and abruptly, void of anything at all— But nothing was more bewildering than the scene my eyes caught— Sight of a familiar yet unfamiliar man, sitting at one of the many tables set outside, anxiously waiting, rubbing his hands and looking at his watch every few seconds.
Why wouldn't he just let me stay on my own?
And curse my damn luck, despite having a good number of customers out there, he appeared to be the sole one my eyes chose to spot; Unfortunately, I couldn't even tear my gaze away until his eyes locked with mine leaving me with no other option than going out and facing him once again regardless of the truth that it was the last thing I wanted to do.