•Chapter 10•
"What do you do after you add the eggs?!" Ryder yells in frustration.
I slam my hands down on the kitchen counter and glare at Ryder. "Do you know how to read?! There are directions on the box!" I yell, picking up the cake mix box and shoving it in Ryder's face, giving him a clear view of the directions.
Ryder snatches the box from my hands and begins reading the next step. "Add a cup of flour."
"So do it," I demand, picking up a measuring cup and shoving it in his hands.
"You make baking so difficult," Ryder argues, walking off to go pour flour in the cup.
"No, you do..." I mumble, looking around at Ryder's house.
I was in Ryder's kitchen...helping him bake a cake...
That's a sentence I never thought I'd ever say.
Ryder's house was fairly big, I'd say... Not that my house was gigantic.
In the kitchen, you could see a view of the living room, which contained a black leather couch like I had in my house, and a fairly large flat screen TV. Then their were stairs that of course led to the second floor.
After I I'm done observing the house, I notice that there was absolutely no one in the house but us. I furrow my eyebrows and turn towards Ryder, who was adding the flour to the rest of our ingredients. "Where's your mom?" I ask curiously, leaning my back on the counter behind me.
Ryder shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know." He mumbles.
I look at Ryder while he mixes up all the ingredients before sighing and turning back around.
After we were done adding everything, we mixed everything up, spread it into a pan, and stuck it in the oven.
While we we're waiting for the cake to bake, Ryder and I awkwardly sit in silence at the dining table in his kitchen. There was literally no sound in the room except for the sounds of our breathing. The atmosphere was becoming just too awkward, so I had to break the ice in some form.
"So...you never told me why your sister was actually in the hospital," I mention, looking at Ryder from across the table.
I know I said I was just gonna butt out of Ryder's personal life, but it was the first thing that popped into my head at the moment.
Ryder sighs and leans back in his chair. "I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you because I feel like you're not gonna let this go until I do."
I put a small smile on my face and shrug my shoulders.
Ryder looks down at the table for a few seconds before speaking. "You know how some people say 'this is gonna be easier than breathing'?" I slowly nod my head and look at Ryder intently as he continues his story.
"Well, breathing isn't so easy for some people... And my sister is one of those people. She had...and still does have really really bad asthma. She would get asthma attacks way more than any usual kid with asthma would have. We would always have to take her to new doctors to get new ways for her to have oxygen and all that stuff..." I notice how Ryder's hazel-blue eyes get even darker as he speaks. His tone is soft and quite, yet I can here the despondency coming from his tone.
"So, back when our dad used to live this us, he used to smoke around us...a lot, which just made her breathing worse. She would get asthma attack after asthma attack, and the smoking was just making her sicker. So we took her to another doctor one day, and they said she had one of the most severe cases of asthma they've ever seen and that she...might have a high risk of getting cancer."
I look at Ryder for a few more following seconds, taking in the story he just told me. "Wow...I'm sorry." I mumble.
Ryder shrugs his shoulders in reply.
"What's her name?" I ask curiously.
"Callie...she's turning six tomorrow,"
I put a small smile on my face and nod my head. I was actually glad I helped Ryder with this. But for some reason, I still can't fathom why Ryder would do such a nice thing. I mean, I know it's for his little sister, but I've known Ryder since kindergarten and my first impression of him was asshole. How can someone go from asshole to sweet?
Dismissing the topic from my mind, I bring myself back to reality. After Ryder was done with his story, we went back to the eerily silent state we were in before.
I rest my right elbow on the wooden dining table and use my hand to cradle my face. It was currently six o'clock p.m. and I'd just noticed it'd gotten dark outside. I look out the huge window in Ryder's kitchen and notice how the street lights illuminated the dark streets of Ryder's small neighborhood.
Geez, how long is this cake gonna take? I suddenly think as I count down the minutes. We'd literally just put the cake in the oven, but it felt as if we'd put it in hours ago.
I let out a huge sigh and get up from the chair I was sitting in. I walked over to the counter with all the stuff we used to bake the cake. "I'm gonna clean this stuff up," I state as I pick things up one by one and put them back in their correct places, or throwing stuff in the trash. I decide to clean up all the stuff because the awkward silence between Ryder and I just wasn't cutting it, and I needed something to do to kill time.
"Fine by me," Ryder mumbles, sliding down in his chair.
I nod before I continuing to clean everything up. As I clean, my mind engaged back to the story Ryder just told me about his sister. That must've been a pretty hard thing to deal with, knowing that your sister had to go from doctor to doctor just so she could breath correctly. And the fact his dad just made her health worse... Imperiling her of cancer... It just kind of sickened me.
And thinking about Ryder's dad brought me back to the time we saw him outside that time a couple weeks ago. It was just so weird how Ryder wanted to get away from him. I'm starting to think his dad is pretty dangerous...
Just stop thinking about it, I say to myself, continuing my job of cleaning up the kitchen. I grab the bag of flour and walk to the storage closet which I remembered to be next to the refrigerator. On my way to the closet, being my clumsy self, I accidentally trip on my own foot, falling to the floor, and dropping the bag of flour.
"Ow," I mumble, getting up from the floor and looking at all the flour that I dropped on the white tiled kitchen floor. I lift my head up into mid air and look at all the rest of the flour which was floating into the atmosphere of the room.
Ryder is calm, simply giving me a blank stare with a slight glare. I purse my lips and cross my arms over my chest. "Sorry..." I trail, mortification slipping from my tone.
"It's... okay, I'll just—" Ryder stops mid sentence when we both hear the from door open.
Ryder and I both snap our heads to the front door to see a lady coming inside the house. She looked like a middle aged lady with long, black hair.
She vigorously slams the door behind herself and leans her back against the door. She holds her cell phone up against her ear and I watch as her face consorts. "Well can't you find another doctor that can help?!... Okay but this girl is only five years old; if her lungs are that damaged, there's gotta be some medications you can put her on... Okay... Yes... Goodbye," the lady ends her conversation with whoever she was speaking with and tosses her cell phone on the couch in the living room.
"Mom," Ryder calls, getting up from the chair.
The lady who was now identified as Ryder's mom turns her head to the right and the immensely stressed look on her face then dropped to a calmer state. "Hey, Ryder..." She trails, walking into the kitchen. "I was caught up at the hospital." She mentions before turning her head towards me. "Uh, hi... May I ask who you are?" She asks in a way nicer and calmer manner than I expected she would.
"Oh, sorry, I'm Riley, Riley Simmons." I greet with a small and warm, yet terrified smile.
"Riley Simmons..." Ryder's mom trails, switching her gaze back to Ryder. "Didn't you shove dirt up her mouth in the first grade?"
"Does everyone know about that?" I mumble under my breath.
"Anyway... I'm Vanessa, Ryder's mom," she greets in a welcoming matter, although I could clearly see the stressed out look on her face. "Why do I smell chocolate, and what's all this mess on the floor?" Ryder's mom asks, sniffing the air and looking down at the kitchen floor.
"We were... baking a cake for Callie's birthday and she was being clumsy and dropped the flour." Ryder mentions, eyeing me.
"Oh... well that's nice. Just be sure to clean it up." She says before walking up the stairs. We both watch her until she's out of sight before turning to look at each other.
"I have no idea why she was being so nice." Ryder mentions, walking to the closet and grabbing a broom and dust pan to clean up the flour.
I simply shrug my shoulders, not knowing what to say next, before I help Ryder clean the rest of the flour.
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