I migrated from my bed to the couch when I woke up at about half past 10, feeling better than I did yesterday. I do feel all achy and drained, though. I have a bit of a headache, too. That's the aftermath of being sick, I suppose.

"Quick, Eve, what's the date today?" Gee asks frantically, joining me in the living room.

"Um, November 18th?" I answer slowly, pausing the movie I have playing on the TV. I'm about halfway through and I still don't know what's going on.

"Shit. I'm supposed to be at an interview thing in, like, twenty minutes from now."

"Then go, man! Get outta here!"

"I can't just leave you here! I don't know how long I'll be gone."

"I'm thirteen, Gee," I whine. I'm sure I'd be fine here by myself, but he doesn't seem to hear my complaint, or he just ignores it. Probably the latter.

"I'll call Frank."

I guess I'm okay with that, then. It would be more fun than being here by myself all day, at least. And we haven't really hung out just the two of us much, so it's not a bad idea.

Sure enough, no more than five minutes later Frank is walking through the front door. I don't run up to him like I usually do, though, and stay curled up under a blanket on the couch.

"Call me if it's an emergency. You know, if you get sick again or something." Gee kisses the top of my head then dashes off to wherever it is he's going.

"What's this about being sick?" Frank asks, plopping onto the couch next to me, giving me a side hug.

"Oh, I threw up about seven thousand times yesterday," I say casually, un-pausing the TV.

He backs away a little, "You're not gonna get me sick, are you?"

"Well, I don't know... I don't think so. Just, um, don't lick my face or anything."

Frank laughs, "Why would I— you know what? Never mind. How're you feeling now?"

"Better, mostly. Head's hurting a bit."

"I bet I can find some Advil or something, if you want?"

"Um, no thanks," I shake my head lightly. "I'll be fine."

I almost did take him up on his offer, but thought better of it when I remembered I wasn't able to eat anything yesterday. I think I heard that you're not supposed to take medicine on an empty stomach.

"If you say so."

I look up at the TV, not really watching it. My mind is preoccupied, filled with this sick, but satisfying pride at the fact I haven't eaten a thing in about a day and a half.

It's becoming something of a game to me— or, to the voice in my head, rather. "How long can you go until Gerard gets you to eat something because he's a good parent?"

Not a fun game, in my opinion, but I'm forced to play it anyway.

"What are we even watching?" Frank pulls me from my thoughts.

"Um, I don't actually know."

"Well, it's boring. I wanna talk to you, anyway."

"What about?" I ask, even though I have an inkling as to what it is he wants to talk about. I stop the TV.

"Well, how are things with Emerald?"

"It's been over two weeks and she still hasn't spoken to me since... you know."

"I'm sorry, Evie, that really sucks." Then he gives me a little smile, "But, hey, you can find someone better than her, right?"

"That's the thing; I don't want to find anyone else. I want her. I want her to talk to me again, I wanna hang out again like nothing ever happened. This isn't her, I know it."

"Aw, she must really be a gem," he says sympathetically and I nod sadly, but when I look up at him he has a smile on his face.

"What— oh. I see what you did there." I roll my eyes.

"I couldn't pass it up," he laughs. "But, what do you mean when you say 'this isn't her'?"

"I mean, she can't be the one choosing not to speak to me. She wouldn't do that. I'm guessing her dad forbade her from associating with me, or something."

"That's cruel," he says under his breath. I hum in agreement.

We sit in silence for a few moments, neither of us really knowing what to say, before he speaks up again, thankfully changing the subject. I really don't want to talk about Emerald anymore, I think about her on my own time enough.

"I'm not here to be all sad, alright? Let's do something fun!"

I roll my eyes again, "Like what, Frankie?"

He has a wide, child-like grin on his face when he replies excitedly, "We could make cookies!"

"Okay, I like that idea," I smile. And I really do.

"Rad! Let's go." He hops up off the couch and goes to the kitchen, I'm right behind him.

"I've never done this before so I can't promise I'll do anything right," I say, taking ingredients out of the cabinet.

"Don't worry, I'm no expert either."

Once we have everything we'll need out on the counter, Frank preheats the oven, we wash our hands, then start mixing ingredients in a big bowl without even looking at a recipe, because, in his words, "Fuck recipes!"

"Okay, now add the chocolate chips!" He tells me.

I start to pour them into the mixture, "How much?"

He just shrugs, so I dump the whole bag.

"Eve!" He laughs.

"What? They're chocolate chip cookies, aren't they?"

"Well, if they weren't before, they definitely are now."

Once the pan is in the oven, he sets a timer for eight minutes and we go back to the living room to wait.

"Now all we have to do is not burn the house down," Frank says.

"Could you imagine? Gee gets home and we're sitting in a pile of ashes," I giggle.

"But, hey, at least we'd have cookies," Frank adds.

At the end of the eight minutes Frank gets up happily, and I do the same. But, before I can even stand completely upright, a wave of dizziness comes over me and my vision darkens. My knees buckle a little.

It's like I could physically feel my blood pressure drop.

Instinctively, I reach out and grab his arm to keep me from falling down. He stumbles a little, not expecting it, but manages to keep me standing.

"Woah— what? You okay?" He asks, worried and confused about what just happened.

"Yeah, fine. Just... dizzy."

"You should sit down," he tells me, lowering me back onto the couch.

"No, I'm fine. I want to help get the cookies!" I protest, trying to stand up.

"No, Evelyn it only takes one person to get a pan out of the oven. Sit down," he says sternly.

I flinch at his sudden seriousness and sit, Frank going off to the kitchen before we manage to burn the house down for real.

Nice one, Evelyn. I always find some way to ruin everything, don't I? Everything was going so well. I was happy, Frank was happy, now I've managed to worry him. For no reason, might I add. This happens all the time; these dizzy spells and brief black-outs. It's nothing.

When he comes back he's holding a glass of water with three ice cubes in it, which he hands to me.

As I take a sip of water, Frank asks, "You eaten anything yet today?"

Somehow I find it harder to lie to him than I do when it comes to my own father, so I just shake my head.

"Well, that's probably why that happened. Why not?"

I shrug, "I still felt pretty sick this morning so I didn't have breakfast. And then, I don't know, I just didn't end up making myself something."

"I'm gonna be responsible and make us lunch now, okay?" But it's not really a question. He's going to be responsible and make us lunch and that's final, so I simply nod.

He makes us salads, which I didn't even know we had the ingredients for, and let's me eat it on the couch. As I eat slowly, he starts a conversation, "So, your birthday is in three days."

"Yeah. It is."

"Is there anything you want?"

"Um, I don't know."

"C'mon, Eve," he smiles, "There's gotta be something."

"Well, I guess a ukulele would be pretty cool." I confess. I've been wanting one since Emerald played hers for me.

"Yeah?" Frank asks enthusiastically.

I nod.

"I'll see what I can do," he says with a wink.

Gerard got home not too long later and Frank hung around a while. They tried the cookies and I took one too, hesitantly, but we had to spit them out.

We'd used salt instead of sugar.

• • •

yo this is wild... it's Saturday, November 18th for this chapter and I was like "idc if that's not accurate" but I checked anyway just to see what day of the week it really was cause I was curious and... get this... November 18th was actually on a Saturday in 2006

the more you know