Honey

“Honey! Honey! Here Honey! Where are you?!” My voice echoed back to me from the bleak buildings. “Where the hell did you get to?” It was infuriating me. Leave the gate open for one second and she runs out. What a way to learn a lesson. As much as I hated it, it looked like my only answer was to go door to door, hoping someone had seen my precious Honey.
I started knocking on doors, repeating the same question over and over again. My question changed from hopeful to desperate to doubtful over an hour of questioning these strangers. I feared never seeing my Honey again. There were three houses left on this strip and I decided that after I’d cleared this strip I’d call it quits for the day.
I knocked on my last door of the day. I fumbled through my bag for a copy of my phone number to hand to yet another person. As soon as I heard the catch on the door I started my hopeless speech. “Hi, my dog got out of the yard and I was wondering if you’d seen her…” I looked up and did a double take. “Oh! Hello!”
“Hello Anne. How are you going?” Turned out I’d knocked on the door of my current chemistry teacher, Mr. Forrester.
“Yeah not too bad. Actually, no, that’s a lie. Honey got out when I brought in the shopping and I’ve been looking all afternoon and no one can help and she doesn’t get out often and I’m really worried about her.” Without even realizing I’d started crying. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize how much this was affecting me.”
“It’s ok. Come on in and we’ll see what we can do about this.” His house was nice. Simplistic in its’ furnishings and decorations, yet there was a charming air about it. “Coffee?” He asked, leading me to the living room.
“Only if you’re having one too.” I was trying to wipe all the tears from my face when a tissue was placed in my hand. I smiled gratefully at him and dried my face properly.
“White and two, right?” I nodded at him and he moved to the kitchen to make us coffee.
Simple landscape paintings and photographs hung off the plain walls. The only photos featuring people that I could see seemed to be of his parents and grandparents. I had to smile to myself at the simple show of family love. He walked back in with two mugs of coffee and placed them on the glass table between myself and where he sat down. I thanked him and took a sip. “So what happened?”
“Like I said, I left the gate open to bring in the shopping and she ran out and no one I’ve asked has seen her. I was going home after I checked here.” I looked at the clock above the doorway. “I’ve been searching for about two hours now. When I realized she’d gone I went straight away.”
I took another sip of my coffee and saw that I’d had almost all of it without noticing. “When was the last time you ate something?”
After a moment to think I replied hesitantly “Probably lunch?”
“Well, it’s six now, no one should go that long without eating. Will you stay for a bite to eat?”
“Uhm, yeah that sounds pretty good. As long as I can help you get everything ready. I’d feel bad if I let you do everything.”
“Deal. Come into the kitchen.”
I grabbed our empty cups and followed him into the kitchen. I put the cups in the sink and he started looking for something to eat. “How do you feel about pasta and home-made sauce?” I replied that it sounded great and he proceeded to pull out the ingredients. “How are you at chopping onions? I’m a disaster zone.”
I laughed. “Probably a lot better than you then.” I took the onions from him and searched through the drawers until I found a suitable knife and started to peel them.
“You look like an expert at that.” He’d stopped cutting the tomatoes to watch me work for a moment.
“When you have an expert cook for a Mum, you can’t help but pick up a few things here and there.” I’d peeled all the onions and started dicing them as fast as I could. It didn’t stop the tears as I’d hoped it would and my eyes were soon too blurry to keep going. I leant back from the bench, sniffling like a child as I attempted to clear up my eyes.
Mr. Forrester laughed and started wiping away the tears with a tea towel. “You’re laughing at me!” I acted hurt but soon lost it and joined his laughing.
“I’m sorry, but it just shocked me for a moment that you who were so confident just a moment ago could actually be affected by onions. Is it that sad to be cutting them up?” He beamed at me. I stuck my tongue out in reply. “Childishness!” Then he stuck his tongue out too.
“Hypocrite.” And we lost ourselves to another bout of laughter.
He dried the last of the tears from my face. “Thanks Mr. Forrester.”
“Tim.” He corrected.
I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
We turned back to our work in silence, comfortable working next to each other. “Done! Want me to throw them in the pot?”
“Please. You seem to know what you’re doing. Nice to see a girl who can look after herself.”
I threw the chopped onions into the pot. I turned around and smiled to him “You learn what you have to, to get you through.”
He chuckled gently, “The onions got you again.” He moved closer to wipe away the fresh tears.
I smiled and murmured “Thanks.” I started to lean into him. He wrapped his arms around me and I rested my head against his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head and patted me on the back and told me I’d be ok. I pulled back and forced a smile, trying to control the tears of loss building up. “Yeah I know it’s just hard right now.”
I sniffed back my tears and composed myself. “Got any garlic? I’ll be sorely disappointed if you don’t.”
“In with the evil onions.” And he pointed me in the right direction. I found them, peeled and crushed them and threw them in with the onions. I started stirring the onions and garlic around, waiting for them to cook up.
“You done with the tomatoes? It’s ready for them.” I felt him walk up behind me and he tipped them gently into the pot while I stirred. He stood behind me and I sagged against him. “It’s starting to smell really good. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
He reached an arm around me and held me closer. “Maybe you should go sit down. You look ready to faint.” I shook my head and lingered only a moment before moving to put the pasta in the pot of boiling water. “You’re a strong girl Anne. But I think you push yourself too far sometimes. Go sit down. I can finish off in here.”
“Nah, I’m right.” And in silence we finished everything. I noticed he was moving a lot faster, as if to get us out of the kitchen as soon as possible, get me to sit down as soon as possible.
“We’re done!” I protested that I had to stir the sauce. He whirled around, stirred the sauce, turned down the heat, put on the lid and turned back to me. “Done!” When he saw I was about to protest again he picked me up and carried me to the couch where he sat me down.
“That was cheating! You’re not allowed to do that! I’m fine, really I am.” I slumped on the couch and had to close my eyes from the now spinning room.
He pulled me against him, stroking my hair gently. “Anne? What’s wrong?”
“Hypoglycemic. Should eat regularly. That’s all, nothing to worry about, I’ll be right in a tick.” I snuggled closer to him.
“That looks uncomfortable. Here.” He helped me lay along the couch and took off my boots for me. I laughed at him.
“You’re babying me.” I accused him. He sat me up so he could sit where I’d been laying and lay me back down so I rested across his lap. I curled up more to him. “This is nice. It’s comfy. Thank you.” He was playing with my hair. It felt incredible. Before I knew it I’d started to doze off.

***