"Coconut, come here!" I heard Sophie call me from the kitchen at Angel's.

I shook my head at the nickname but didn't bother pointing it out.

"What's up?" I asked, entering the busy kitchen.

"Do you have time to help out? We've got an hour before closing." She said, looking very tired.

"Oh, of course." I said, going towards the sink and washing my hands.

I put an apron on and I joined her.

"What do you need?" I asked her.

"Uhm... five servings of rice and lamb." She sighed.

"Perfect. Done." I said, walking over to the counter beside her and quickly preparing five plates of the delicious rice and lamb. All the rice was already cooked and the lamb was in the oven, ready to be served. I plated the food and sent it off with one of the waiters.

"What now, Soph?" I asked.

"Salad. The stuff is all washed, you just have to chop and dress." She said to me.

"Alright." I smiled, walking over to the fresh vegetables. I cut them all, combining them and putting Sophie's special salad dressing on it. I made ten plates out of it all, and the waiters took them all.

I basically just kept plating things for her until the restaurant finally closed. I helped Sophie with preparing some things, but the thing about this food is that, most of it is usually ready in large amounts before people order it.

After an hour of work, we were finally done cooking.

"Alright, short break please, then let's pack it up for the kitchen." Sophie said to me.

I nodded, collapsing beside her in the comfortable booth out back in the lounge.

"You didn't go to the hospital today?" Sophie asked me.

"No." I chuckled.

"What about Ava? You gave up?" Sophie asked, her eyes widening sadly.

"No, no. I definitely didn't give up." I chuckled. "Ava isn't there, she took two days off to attend a friend's wedding apparently."

"Oh. I see. Any progress or is she still ignoring you?" Sophie asked me.

"She at least talks to me for more than one moment before she rejects me. She's just afraid to trust me." I said.

"Be patient. And don't be too pushy." Sophie told me.

"I'll try. I just really like her. Sophie, she's so smart. I mean she's a doctor so that's a given. But like... I feel like she's extra smart. She's gorgeous, she's very kind and caring. She's amazing at what she does. She's strong and isn't afraid to take charge if she needs to. But at the same time, she's human. She still has feelings and she shows them. She's just... she's really special. I've never met a girl like her before." I sighed.

"She'll realize that you're worth trusting eventually. Right now, all you can do is try to prove to her that you're loyal, caring, sweet. She just needs to see that you aren't who she's afraid you are." Sophie told me.

"I'll try. If only she'd talk to me and maybe tell me what she's afraid of." I sighed.

"It's ok, Gabriel. If you're really serious about her. You just be patient and eventually I think this girl is going to fall hard." Sophie smiled.

"We'll see I guess." I said, kissing my sister on her cheek and we both went back to the kitchen to clean.

After we were done, we packed up all the warm, leftover food and drove it over to the little kitchen Sophie had opened up where people could get a warm meal at the end of the day, without paying a single penny.

We got lots of people who couldn't really afford a good meal like that who came to eat at the kitchen. There were lots of university students who were all drowning in their student debt and couldn't pay for a good meal like this. We got some people who were just walking by and decided to pick up a good meal.

Working with Sophie in the kitchen always seemed to remind me how lucky I was. The number of things that could've gone terribly wrong in my family was scary. But, here I was, both of my parents had overcome their problems, and they were happy with one another. I had an amazing older sister who had escaped her nightmare of a life and built a happy life with a good man. I had a family who was well off, but still remembered how lucky they were and tried their hardest to help those who weren't so lucky. I had a really big family too, and every single one of them was supportive.

After helping Sophie serve all the leftover food, I drove her back to the kitchen to drop off the empty pots and pans, and then we went to the hospital to pick Rico up. They sat in the back together, cuddling and trying their best to control themselves in my presence. I drove us all back to the mansion and they immediately disappeared to their room.

The next few days, I spent focused on work and I didn't bother going to the hospital to see Ava. I felt like giving her some time would help. I didn't want to push it too much. And like Sophie said, I didn't need to ask her out every day, some days I could just leave her be. I wasn't losing interest, I would make that clear, but I wouldn't be super pushy anymore.

The nest day, I went over to Arabella's place to talk to her about making little story books. Auntie Isabella was there too, which was incredibly convenient. I sat down with Arabella and I explained some stuff to her.

"There's this little girl in my class who really struggles to sit with the rest of us and participate. She's always sitting alone with her books. I was thinking to make her some little storybooks, they'd be pretty short, but they'd have stuff related to my lessons in them so that she'd still get the information I need her to get." I explained.

"Oh, cool! Can I help?!" Arabella asked me.

"I can help with the illustrations." Auntie smiled.

"That's perfect! Thanks guys!" I smiled.

We sat down and we were able to complete three whole stories, I then took them somewhere where I could get them printed and make them look like actual stories.

The next day, I went to class with the books, and I saw Lily's eyes catch sight of them. She was officially intrigued. As soon as I sat down at my desk, I saw her run towards me.

"Good morning, Lily. What's going on?" I asked her.

"I'm starting the project?" She asked, seeming excited.

"Yes, you are. I have three books for you to start with. I need your help, Lily. I don't know if they're good enough to put on the shelf in the class. So I need your amazing reading skills. I want you to read through them and put some notes about what the books can teach you, and if the books were good, what was the most interesting part and any questions you have about the books." I told her.

"I wanna start. Give them." She said, putting her hands out.

"Not yet. First, we're gonna have breakfast, then you're going to sit down with everyone in the talking circle and you're going to say just one little thing, and then you can start, alright?" I asked her.

She pouted at me.

"I know it's hard, Lily. But sometimes we have to do hard things. I'll bring even more books for you tomorrow, and you can read those too." I said to her.

"I can sit beside you?" She asked me.

"Yes." I said to her, tucking strands of her hair behind her ear.

"Ok. Start." She said to me, pulling me to the front of the class and rushing back to her seat. She was very eager to start reading her books. She didn't realize that they were made specifically for her though.

"Alright guys, you know the drill, breakfast and then talking circle." I said to everyone.

The students all sprung up and ran to the breakfast table. They all picked out some amount of food, some people just had a few strawberries, some took lots of food. Some didn't have anything. I just liked to have that as an option for them in case some of them didn't have a good breakfast.

They all sat down around in the circle and Lily's spot beside me was taken. She was too shy of a little girl to come take her spot, so she just stood beside me, looking stressed out.

"Hey, Kevin, can we let Lily sit here for today, please?" I asked Kevin.

"Yes, come sit, Lily!" The little boy said, scooching over so that Lily could sit between us.

Lily sat incredibly close to me, seeming very scared to speak.

"Alright. Who remembers what we talked about yesterday?" I asked them.

"Uhm... we talked about words." Riley answered me.

"What kind of words?" I asked them.

"Uhm... verbs." Jayden said.

"Alright. Who remembers what we add at the end of a verb if it's happening now?" I asked them.

"I do! I-N-G!" Finn said.

"Wow! Great job!" I smiled.

"What about if it already happened?" I asked them.

"E-D." Lily said softly.

"What was that Lily?" I asked.

"You add E-D to the end of the verb." She told me.

"That's right! Amazing, Lily!" I smiled, making her turn pink in embarrassment.

I finished going over verb conjugation with them and then Lily tugged on my sleeve and asked if she could start her project. I nodded and she went to my chair. She decided to stay there and take over my desk again. She really liked sitting up there for some reason, and if I had a sweater or a jacket, she would put it on and curl up with her books.

Lily felt special to me. I wished that I knew what was going on at home, because the poor girl was hungry every morning, and I couldn't recall a day where she didn't fall asleep at her desk or mine. She was sensitive, shy and she didn't seem to trust anyone. I'd like to think I was an exception, but I didn't really know if she trusted me.

After school, I took her to the gym where the after-school program was going to be. She had fallen asleep in my chair. So I picked her up and carried her to the gym. I set her down on one of the big bean bags that were set out everywhere. I sat beside her and started drafting some more story ideas for her and helping some of the kids colour and read their stories.

After a while, they all started playing dodgeball and it woke Lily up.

She jumped up in fear when a dodgeball smashed near her. She looked around with tears in her eyes and when she saw me she burst into tears.

"Hey. What's wrong?" I asked her.

"What was the scary sound?" She asked.

"They're playing dodgeball." I said to her. "See, a ball just fell right here."

I pointed to the wall a few meters away where a ball was rolling away. She nodded and then climbed into my lap.

"Where's my book?" She asked me.

"Right here." I said, picking it up from beside me and handing it to her. It was a lot longer than the ones she usually read, and it had some words that I knew she would struggle with, but she sat there reading silently, very content with the book.

"Mister Morelli." I heard her say quietly a few minutes later.

"Yeah?" I asked her.

"What does catastrophe mean?" She asked me.

"It's like a different word for disaster." I told her.

"Mr. Morelli. Do you have a wife?" Lily asked me.

"No." I chuckled.

"Do you live by yourself?" She asked me.

"I have my own little apartment, but I go to my family's house sometimes to sleep there some nights." I told her.

"Oh. Do you like them?" She asked me.

"Yes." I nodded my head with a smile.

She nodded and looked up at me.

"I like you." She said to me.

"You do?" I asked her.

She nodded her head.

"Well, you're not too bad yourself, Lily." I chuckled.

She smiled and she rested against me while she read the book. She seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it which was a good sign.

After she was done, she went and she grabbed a paper from one of the colouring stations, and she started writing stuff down.

Then she came back to me and she gave me the paper telling me not to look at it yet because she wasn't finished. But she said I should keep it in her desk for her. I did exactly that, and then I went to the hospital for the first time in a while.

It had been a week since I'd seen Ava. I wondered if she'd be mad at me for being gone so long or relieved that I'd left her alone. She had no right to be mad, really. But maybe she'd think my feelings weren't genuine.