How She Likes It Ficlets
So I woke up this morning with the urge to write little ficlets, and I asked Twitter what they wanted. I didn’t get to finish all three ficlets before lunch, but this was a fun thing! Thank you to the friends who prompted this. <3
Breakfast
Isabel Alfonso was not a morning person. On weekends, she would be absolutely useless for anything until 9:30, and only after a cup of coffee. She would be blinking, bleary-eyed in the breakfast nook when Adam jogged in with a bright smile on his face and a sheen of sweat on his brow. Because even young dads made Dad jokes, he would pretend to want to kiss her while sweaty, and she would laugh and swat him with a towel until he went back upstairs to shower.
Ever since Manila was placed on lockdown, the routine had changed. Adam didn’t run in the mornings, This time, Isabel was the one up before anyone else, checking on her staff in the morning, asking if they needed anything, tracking world news, making sure they still had supplies. On the first day of the lockdown, she cleaned the entire house. On the second day, she made starter dough. On the third day, she planted a succulent. On the fourth day, she coordinated a fleet of vans as a pickup/drop off service for front liners, was on the phone with contacts in China for PPE sets, and paid her staff their salary.
On the fifth day, she cried. She was sitting on the bed, scrolling the news when she just felt tears well in her eyes, and her entire facade just…broke down. Torn between stemming the flow of tears and letting her emotions (ugh) out, Isabel ended up sounding like she was drowning, and Adam shot out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still messy and wet to see what was going on.
“Yes, I am having a panic attack!” She told him before he could say anything. “You’re dripping on the floor!”
“I am,” he said, and he knelt on the floor in front of her, his hair dripping on to her knees, her clenched fists. He took her hand in hers and kissed the back of her palm.
“Adam, what happens if one of your sisters get sick? Or we can’t run out to get groceries? What if we run out of toilet paper?”
“Weren’t we just saying the other day that we’re in good hands?” That was true. They lived in Pasig, after all. “The rest of it, we’ll just have to deal with. One day at a time, baby. We got this.”
“Do we?” She asked. He kissed her instead. “We do.”
On the sixth day, she and Adam went to the grocery store, but that was another story for another time. It was fine, she was fine, things were fine. Isabel made bread. In fairness, it was really good.
On the seventh day, Adam and Leia attempted Kumon. It was…a battle.
“Daaaaaaaaaaadddyyyy,” Leia whined, her feet dangling over her chair, her dark messy hair following as she shook her head vehemently. The poor kid was in full on vacation mode already—her schoolyear had been abruptly cut short, so she was taking this whole lockdown a lot better than her father and his girlfriend were. “Why do I have to do Kumon?”
“Um,” Was Adam’s brilliant response, and Isabel highly doubted that his brilliant, sharp as a tack daughter would readily accept the answer, because your Mom wants to torture you the way my mother tortured me with it. “It’s just so you don’t forget everything you learned in school while the lockdown’s going on.”
Isabel laughed quietly behind her coffee cup. There was very little in her life at the moment that she was happy about, but sitting in the breakfast nook with her two favorite people in the world helped calm her.
And because Leia was sharper than both adults in the house, she narrowed her eyes at Isabel the way the Princess of Alderaan had glared down Darth Vader.
“Come on, Honey Star, it’s just four exercises, and you’ve been doing really good on the time, it will be quick,” Adam asked, and Isabel didn’t know who dreaded this more, father or daughter.
“It will not!” Leia exclaimed, hopping out of her seat, eyes wide. “Kumon is bad for the environment, it’s a waste of paper! And, I can do all twelve times tables, okay! If I finish this one today, it means I’ll have to do the next one tomorrow, and this will last…FOR-EVER. You moon jockeys will never get me!”
Then she swiped a piece of bread from the table, and ran back upstairs to her room. All six foot two of Adam slumped, defeated as he groaned over the breakfast table. Isabel continued laughing and rubbed reassuring circles on his back.
“In fairness to her,” She told him, her eyebrow raised. “Her logic made perfect sense to me. Kumon sucks.”
“The rebellion has started,” He whispered. “I should talk to her, shouldn’t I. She doesn’t have to do Kumon if she doesn’t want to. I mean, the world’s on fire outside!”
Isabel placed a hand over his clenched fist. She knew that she was worrying enough for all three of them, but it was completely fair that Adam’s anxiety over this whole situation hadn’t eased. One of his sisters was a frontliner in California, his parents were by themselves in Batangas. This Kumon thing felt tiny compared to everything else.
“One day at a time,” she reminded him gently. “We can do this.”
“Titaaaa Isa!” Leia called from upstairs. “Can I borrow your lipstick!”
“We can do this,” she repeated, making Adam smile as she kissed him before going upstairs.
Birthday
Isabel never gave much importance to birthdays. She felt she was too old to still be celebrating them in any big way. She liked shopping for herself on her birthday, but that was something she did on any day of the week. She liked eating at her favorite restaurant on her birthday, but again, she could do that anytime.
So it just didn’t matter that much.
But on the night before her birthday, she was alone in the house. Leia was at Beth’s tonight, where they had gone out to watch a musical. Adam was in Ilocos, working on some furniture restoration for a client, and wasn’t due home until after Isabel’s birthday. Regina and Enzo were doing…whatever it was married couples did when they didn’t pick up their phones. But Isabel wasn’t lonely. Not at all. It didn’t help that the Sevilla’s house (it still felt like the Sevilla’s house, not really hers, or his) was made for at least six people, and was deathly quiet, even with the busy street outside.
Maybe she should just go to sleep.
“I used to be lone wolf,” she told the empty room, throwing off the covers in irritation. She glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to midnight. Knowing Regina, she was going to call. Knowing Adam, he was going to call. Knowing Leia, she would probably sneak out of bed to call. Hilariously, the only person who wouldn’t call was Enzo, and therefore, he was the only one Isabel appreciated in that moment.
“You’re such a Capricorn, sweetheart,” She could practically hear Adam laugh. “You’re annoyed that you’re lonely, but you want us not to do anything to make you feel less lonely.”
And because Isabel was a petty bitch and that was true, she turned off her phone and closed her eyes. Eventually she felt herself drift to sleep.
“Happy birthday to you,” a low, familiar and all too warm voice snuck into her empty dreams. She settled deeper into the bed. “Happy birthday to you.”
The voice sounded like it was close. But she could see nothing.
“Happy birthday dearest Isabel,” her ears tingled, and her body moved as someone’s enormous frame settled into the bed beside her. She felt hot, sticky heat from outside against her side, could smell him. If this was a dream, it was a really good one. “Happy birthday to you.”
She opened one eye.
“And with a minute to spare,” she smiled, because there he was, his hair sticking up in every direction because he’d probably gotten stressed trying to get to her, his clothes a little rumpled. He had a convenience store baked good in his hand with a too big birthday candle, the white one with red lining that had ‘1’ on it. “You’re home.”
“I told them I would fly back Monday morning,” he said. “I wanted to spend your birthday with you.”