Chapter 6

• I've never been good at cooking. However, here I am, trying to make a recipe I saw on the internet.
• For many months now, I've been obsessed with the delicacies prepared by Asians, not necessarily when it comes to raw fish, but cakes and especially pancakes. They make them so fluffy it hurts to look at them and not be able to touch them. God, I swear I'll make one and squeeze it all day until it becomes inedible... That is, if I don't set the stove on fire first.
• I need to separate the yolk from the egg white... Beat... What else?
• I never had time to dedicate myself to this when I was at home, but now that I have nothing else to do but be on my phone and watch TV, I could find out if I have any culinary skills.
• Olivia's kitchen was enormous; it could easily be on some TV show teaching people how to make these pancakes. She had two microwaves, a fridge bigger than four of mine put together, a kind of black marble countertop in the center of the space where you could eat if there were chairs, and around it, it was filled with cabinets with food, utensils, and other things I've never seen in my life and wouldn't be able to tell you what they were.
• Once the batter had a liquid consistency, I took some butter to put it in the frying pan, not knowing if it was to give it a special flavor or to prevent it from sticking, or maybe a little of both. When the butter spread all over the non-stick pan and heated up, I scooped a good portion of my creation with a soup spoon and tried to place it gently on the pan... And I say "tried" because I did it from a height that not even a shepherd praising the Lord could reach.
• I don't know if it was nerves from making the recipe for the first time or what went through my head to try to place the batter from such a tremendous height with the boiling butter waiting for it. Needless to say, the scorching contents of the pan splashed everywhere, including my hands and feet. I don't need to mention that I screamed a lot because I was very scared; nor do I need to say that I turned off the burners and threw away what I had in my hand because I'm not good at this.
• It was a hasty conclusion, I knew that, but right now, all I was focused on was finding ice or something cold enough for my skin to stop burning so much.
• Why did I think it would be a good idea to use much more butter than the recipe indicated?
• "What's going on?" I startled. Nick was entering the kitchen, looking at me, then at the mess I had made in the kitchen, and then back at me.
• Did he fly in? I didn't hear any noise.
• "What were you doing?" he asked, approaching to inspect me.
• "Nothing special, just messing up the kitchen so you'd want to kill me," I replied, smiling and squeezing my hand without showing any signs of the pain I was feeling.
• Nick frowned and narrowed his eyes slightly, proving my point further: "Exactly, that look is what I was going for."
• He turned around and started leaving the kitchen. "Clean everything up later."
• I turned around as well, imitating his last words as if I were a child.
• He was an idiot.
• When he was out of my field of vision, I ran to the fridge looking for some miraculous ice that would take me out of this torture. Running wasn't a great idea either; the floor was full of melted butter. Let's guess what happened.
• I think my fall could be heard all the way in China, and my butt hurt much more than the burns, but I stayed still on the floor, hoping not to hear footsteps in my direction. At that moment, I prayed to Allah not to have heard me.
• I suppose Allah isn't a merciful being either, because Nick was in my field of vision again, inspecting me from above, with a smirk on his face. He was clearly laughing at my situation.
• "Do you need help?" he asked, extending his hand for me to take, to which I decided to respond by taking it out of sight and pulling myself up on my own.
• "How did you fall?" I was going to answer him sarcastically, but I was so tired that I just said nothing and started cleaning, ignoring him. At that moment, my burning skin had gotten used to the feeling.
• Since I didn't respond, he grabbed my wrist and forced me to look at him. "What's wrong, does something hurt?"
• I had never been so aware of human touch before. My skin burned under his hand, and it wasn't like my previous burns; it was a pleasant burn. We stared at each other for a few seconds; my heart skipped a beat, and my stomach began to tremble with nerves. I pulled away from his grip and distanced myself from him as much as possible.
• "Relax, I'll clean everything up. I just slipped," I said nonchalantly, but it seemed that my response wasn't enough for him because he stood there for a little while longer. "What do you want, Nick?"
• "What are you doing?" he questioned, his eyes scanning me from top to bottom, pausing for a moment on my foot and then on my hand. He walked towards the fridge "without tripping," and took the ice tray I was looking for. What was he doing?
• He grabbed a kitchen towel from one of the cabinets and returned to my side, taking my hand and placing a cold ice cube on it, covering it with the cloth. "You should have told me you were burned, Samantha."
• It was the first time my name came out of his lips.
• I liked hearing it from him.
• He took my other hand and had me put it on the ice to hold it. As he grabbed another ice cube and another towel, he placed it on my foot. "Don't rest it on the floor! It's all dirty, and it's going to ruin your pants."
• "It's just a pair of pants, Samantha," he said again. "Does it feel better?"
• I didn't know if he was referring to the burn or to us, but in both cases, the answer is yes.
• "Yes, I mean, it still burns, but it's fine," he nodded and kept looking at my foot, as if he was angry at it for allowing itself to get burned or something like that. "Are you going to stay there until it gets better? Don't you think it's wiser to go to the couch? I can handle the ice alone over there."
• He simply nodded several times like a child and followed me to the couch.
• We sat together, and then Nick grabbed my ankle for me to lift the burnt foot and rest it on his leg. At this moment, I feel that the burn isn't as serious; what's serious is the heart palpitations his behavior is causing me.
• I find myself in a mix of emotions, including anger and gratitude. This concern and interest in what happened to me is totally unexpected, too sweet, and I'm literally baffled. I don't understand if he's playing with me.
• "Thanks for helping me, but I think I can manage on my own," I warn as I remove my foot from his leg and reach for the ice he was holding between his hands.
• Nick seems to understand what I'm asking; he doesn't protest or show any sign of irritation. It was clear that I wasn't mistaken; nobody goes from being a jerk to a good Samaritan in two seconds, and he knew that.
• Taking advantage of him behaving like a normal person, I decided to bring up yesterday's topic. "I know I was wrong to enter your room. I don't know what came over me; I'm not nosy at all. It's just that sometimes I feel so lonely here that... I miss being home, with John, my friend, and my boyfriend."
• When I finished talking, he looked at me with a certain curiosity, as if I had awakened a question in him.
• He cleared his throat and nodded. "How's John doing? I haven't heard from him in a long time."
• This guy just keeps surprising me today. Each action, one after the other, surprises me; now, it's his strange curiosity about my family, which neither his aunt, nor his father, and not even him have shown any interest in all these years.
• As kids, he and John were best friends, always together. When I grew up a little, they let me hang out with them, and we became very close friends. I remember that we promised to keep seeing each other even when his father decided to move here, but it's clear that we didn't keep that promise. We were kids; we had no sense of distance, time, or reality.
• "Well, they're more or less the same," I let him know, and he gave me a half-smile.
• "And you, how are you? Is your mother still crazy?"
• "Yes."
• "She's not crazy; she was worried about us..." I started to say when he threw himself on the couch again and burst out laughing. "And yes, I'm fine, counting the days until I start university and don't have to be locked up here."
• "We can go out if you want-" He cut himself off abruptly, shook his head, and looked at me. "Forget it."
• He got up and practically ran to his room.
• What just happened?