Chapter 80 Ice Cream Fight
ADRIANA
“Where’s Elijah? Is he coming for practice?” I asked Hazel as we walked together to get water.
She shook her head while taking a long drink from her bottle.
“He’s traveled. He had some work in another pack and he had to leave yesterday.”
My mood fell when I realized that he actually hadn’t said anything to me and just left without a word.
But I had another fear entirely.
“No, he didn’t take Leo with him.” Hazel read my mind and answered before I could ask.
I just nodded and acted like it didn’t bother me, but it did. When was he going to be back?
We got back to practice and I didn’t feel like doing anything anymore. It had been almost two weeks and he still hadn’t spoken to me directly. I was very anxious about him saying something to me because I needed him to speak to me.
After practice ended, I bumped into Aiden on my way back to the room.
“Adriana, wait up. Elijah said I should give you this.”
He stretched out a small gift bag and I wondered what it could possibly be. Elijah gave me a gift?
I thought he was mad at me.
It was a phone.
“To be used only for emergencies. He’s really busy over there and he doesn’t really have time for chit chat.”
I gave him a look and he shrugged apologetically.
“His words, not mine.”
So he thought of me. I thought he’d left without even bothering about me at all.
“He was really hurt about that day with Luke.” Aiden continued seriously.
I know he was. He barely got mad at me going out but that day, he had been livid and I felt truly terrible. To make matters worse, Luke was not able to read the room at all.
Now, I understand that just because people are friendly to you, doesn’t mean they’re friendly to other people too. Especially when they were Hazel and Elijah.
Like two peas in a pod.
“I know he is and I’ve tried to apologize but he’s not listening to me.”
“The fact that he bought this himself, put in his number personally and asked me to give it to you shows that he still cares and he thought about you. He’s just mad right now, give him some time.”
Time… I could give him time but for how long?
“Is everything okay though? The trip seems rushed and it’s unlike him to be impulsive like this.”
He looked like he wanted to say something but some maids passed by and he just swallowed whatever it was and smiled.
“Yes, everything is fine. He just had some official business to take care of urgently.”
Official business? Did it have to do with my father?
Or maybe he had gone to confront my father and that was why Aiden was acting this weird.
Was my father still making trouble? I didn’t know anything about what was going on. It had been a while since I spoke about my father with Elijah.
All I knew was that he said he had caught the people responsible for the attack. I wonder what he was going to do to Lisa but whatever it was, I wanted to be a part of it.
I wanted to be there to witness it and give her more punishments because she deserved every single one of them.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Not exactly, he didn’t say a specific date.”
His answers were very short and straight to the point. Very unlike Aiden who usually talked a lot.
It was clear he had been asked to give me as little information as possible. Now, I didn’t know if it was because Elijah was mad at me or because I wasn’t supposed to know the details.
After breakfast, I spent some quality time with Leo before going back to my room.
He gave me a letter that Elijah had written to me. Wow, so he really didn’t want to speak to me at all.
“Adriana,
I’ll be going on a trip for a while and I’ll need you to take care of Leo.
There’s a certain way he likes things as you may know. I don’t know for how long I’ll be gone but I hope that it takes shorter than expected.
Leo’s daily schedule is on the shelf by the bed. He’ll show you everything. He’s allergic to chocolate, don’t give it to him no matter how much he asks for it.
Most of the things he needs to do, he’s used to already but you just need to watch him closely.
The doctor would be coming by on Wednesday for another visit. Please be there. And make sure his toy train is also with him.
He’s very prone to catching the flu so always make sure that he sleeps with his blanket even though he may not want to. If he asks for ice cream, don’t give him more than two scoops even if he does the puppy eyes.
I think that’s all.
Take care of yourself.
Elijah.”
Everything was about Leo. This boy was really lucky to have Elijah as a father.
When I looked up, I saw Leo looking at me with the exact eyes Elijah had just spoken about in the letter.
“Can I have ice cream?” He signed.
I had to laugh out loud.
“You read the letter, didn’t you?”
He shrugged innocently and got off the bed, dragging me downstairs by the hand.
“Okay, what flavor do you want?”
I picked him up so he could see into the fridge. Elijah had really thought this through. He had bought every flavor there was except for chocolate and mint chocolate.
Mint chocolate tasted like toothpaste with chocolate bits in it so I didn’t really mind that absence.
He finally decided to go for strawberries and I sat him down at the table and watched him eat. I wonder what his biological father was like.
I’m sure that he had received a lot of love from Liam. I wonder if Elijah had told him about his father or if Leo just didn’t want to know at all.
Surely, he knew about his mother. That was why he still had her picture under his pillow. It’s like he hopes that she will return someday but from what I hear, she never will.
Elijah had only spoken about her once and that was it. I didn’t want to bring it up again after how he reacted the last time.
Elijah was enough for Leo and Leo was enough for him too.
“What’s your favorite thing about your dad, Leo?”
He paused with the spoon already in his mouth.
“He’s my best friend. He doesn’t get mad at me, no matter what I do. Most people stop trying to speak to me when they notice I can’t talk but not him. He keeps trying,” he signed.
He does, doesn’t he? One thing that would make Elijah the happiest man in the world is to hear him speak again.
“Leo, can you remember yourself ever speaking?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Do you want to talk again?”
He smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
“How about we give your dad a surprise? When he comes back home, you’ll be there to call him dad.”
He dropped his spoon suddenly.
“But I can’t talk.”
“But you can try, right? For your dad?”
He looked so unsure so I pulled my chair closer to him.
“You know, I didn’t like my dad because he wasn’t like yours. He didn’t care about me, he didn’t know anything about me and he surely didn’t know about my allergies. And all I wanted to do was just get away from him but I couldn’t. Until your dad came and helped me. So nothing is impossible, pumpkin. You just have to keep trying and see, okay?”
He slowly nodded, immediately going back to the ice cream like I didn’t just give my first inspirational speech.
Of course, the good moment had to be ruined. In this house, peace of mind was an enemy for me.
Hannah came down the stairs at that moment and she saw the both of us and of course, instead of walking by like any other normal person, she just had to walk up to us.
“What a lovely moment between dumb and dumber. Guess which one you are?”
Leo may not be able to speak but he can surely hear and he heard her clearly.
He turned pale and I wondered what exactly it was that made him so scared of Hannah.
“You know, if there’s anything that’s more pathetic than you, it’s you. Picking on a child eating ice cream. How do you live with yourself?”
She went over to the side of the table and stopped beside Leo who had visibly shrunken.
She picked up his spoon, licked it, dropped it back on the plate, making some of the melted ice cream splash on his face.
This boy was shaking so much.
Out of anger, I picked up the plate and threw its contents directly in her face. I didn’t mind that some got on me, she took most of the hit.
“How dare you? Why would you do that to him?!”
“You bitch!”
She made a move to grab me but I grabbed the spoon and held it in front of me threateningly.
“Come at me, I dare you and I’ll shove this spoon so far up your ass, it’ll scoop all the dead brain matter out of your fat head.”
“You will pay for this! I swear, you will pay for this!”
There was ice cream in her hair, clothes, mouth, eyes and basically everywhere on her top half.
As she stormed away angrily, I grabbed the napkin and wiped Leo’s body clean, pulling him in for a tight hug.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. She’s not here anymore.”
He was still shaking so I had to take him to the room. I saw someone standing there watching as I picked him up.
Betty was staring at me with a strange look.