Her Strawberry Cookies

Ava's best idea she finally came up with was rejected by Blake, she frowned unconsciously. But she knew that things were unlikely to change, so she did not try to persuade again, but turned back to the back room. She took out a summer quilt and put it on the empty single sofa.

"Cover with it if you feel cold at night." After saying that, Ava put her thick padded jacket on the summer quilt.

Blake didn't think it would be cold at night. It was already the spring. Although the temperature had cooled down a little in the past two days, it was still around 15 degrees at night. Sometimes he felt hot in the middle of the night and sticked his feet out of the quilt.

"Thank you. Sorry I will bother you for two days." He said, glancing at his watch, "Take a rest first. My friend will probably take a while to be here."

Ava nodded, put her keychain on the coffee table, and told him which one was for the corridor and which one was for her apartment.

"There are no lights on the platform outside. It's very dark at night. Be careful when you go out."

After the instructions, Ava went into the bathroom to wash. When she came out, she saw Blake looking at his phone on the sofa. She was so drunk and very sleepy at the moment, so she rubbed her eyes and went back to the bedroom to sleep.

It had been a long time since Ava dreamed of what happened in high school last time. Maybe because of those high school classmates today, she had a dream of going back to the high school class at night.

Her parents died in a tragic car accident at her childhood. In her memory, her parents were two vague figures with halo. Throughout her growing up, it was her grandfather and grandmother who really acted as her "parents".

she was incompatible with peers. They thought she was weird and gloomy, laughed at her birthmarks, and didn't want to make friends with her. What was worse, some took pleasure in bullying her. This situation improved since she went to high school, at least no one would write the vicious word "go to hell" on her desk anymore. But she still had no friends.

It didn't really matter for her not having friends. For she never had a friend, so she didn't realize what "loneliness" was.

She walked alone, had dinner alone, and quietly watched others laughing and having fun, and she didn't feel that she was missing anything.

Until... Blake appeared.

A basketball smashed on the wall close to Ava. She was leaning against the wall and buried her face in her knees. She raised her head when she heard the bang.

"Sorry, did it hit you?" The boy in sportswear wiped his sweat and ran near.

His facial features had both the softness of a teenager and the depth of an adult. This combination entitled him outstanding handsome even among the vast crowd.

When he ran to ten meters from her, Ava recognized it was Blake.

"No," she said weakly, shrinking her feet.

Blake picked up the basketball from the ground and looked at Ava cautiously. Seeing her face was pale and her forehead was covered in fine sweat, he asked, "Do you feel uncomfortable?"

Ava shook her head: "I'm fine."

Thinking that it would affect Blake and the others playing basketball, she staggered and stood up against the wall, trying to squat in another place.

"Hey, wait!" Blake called her from behind.

Ava hunched her body and turned around hesitantly, just in time to catch the jacket thrown by Blake.

"Go to the infirmary if you're not feeling well, don't force yourself." Blake pointedly glanced at the place where Ava had just sat, then returned to the court with the basketball.

Ava hugged his coat confused. Following his sight, she saw a faint crimson blood mark on the ground. She suddenly understood why Blake gave her the coat and felt extremely embarrassed. She looked behind and found that her trousers had been smeared with a large area of ​​red.

That whole afternoon, she hid in the infirmary and did not dare to see anyone. After school, she waited until everyone was gone before her going home. Thanks to Blake's coat, her dirty trousers were not seen by others.

When she got home, grandma saw at a glance that the overly loose coat on Ava was not hers.

Ava explained what happened. While complaining about Ava's carelessness, her grandmother carefully washed Blake's coat and dried it on the terrace where the sunshine was most.

"He is a good boy. My dearest Ava, remember to thank him when you go to school tomorrow."

The next day, grandma put the dry coat into a bag and handed it to Ava, together with a box of strawberry cookies before she went for school.

"I made these cookies in the morning. Take it to the little boy to eat."

Ava took over the bag and the strawberry cookies, and nodded. But he didn't think Blake would accept her thank gift.

Although Blake didn't avoid her like others, he didn't have much interaction with her either. It was the first time they talked to each other since they became classmates for six months.

He lent her clothe to her didn't mean he would accept her snack. If others saw her giving gift to him and gossip around, that could trouble him.

For fairness, the classmates need to change their seats regularly. Students sitting in the front and rear rows will be exchanged. In addition, Mrs. Well would change some students' seats after some consideration.

Blake and Ava sat far from each other before that day, but he was asked to change to the seat behind Ava, while Emma the class monitor was asked to change to the seat next to Ava.

After changing seats, Mrs. Well specially said to the Blake and Emma: "Your study performance rank the first and second in the class. In daily study you shall help other students who have difficulties in learning, and take the initiative to lend a helping hand to them. Okay?"

Although Mrs. Well didn't say who they need to help clearly, everyone's eyes were on the seat next to the two. Ava felt the attention of everyone and lowered her head to cover her embarrassment.

After the morning exercise, they returned to the classroom. Ava looked around and wait when no one was paying attention, she took out the clothes bag and handed it to Blake under the desk like a thief.

Blake was taking a nap with hie hands and head on the desk when he felt something touched his leg. He opened his eyes and found that it was a bag of clothes. There was also a disposable lunch box on the clothes bag, with a few colored balls.

"What are they?" He took the clothes from below and looked up at Ava.

Ava thought he was drowsy, and reminded, "Your clothes."

"I know, I'm asking..." Blake picked up the box of strawberry cookies and shook it at Ava, "What is this?"

Only then did Ava realize that she forgot to take out the strawberry cookies in the bag, she quickly explained in a low voice, "Ah, this is... This is the strawberry cookies that my grandma made specially to thank you."

"Strawberry cookies?" Blake seemed to have heard of this for the first time, and when he pronounced these three words, he was a little unfamiliar.

Blake did not treat this small gift as lightly as Ava imagined, neither showed any disgust. He naturally opened the plastic cover, picked up a piece of it and took a big bite.

"I got up late today and didn't have breakfast. Thank your grandma for it."

Blake ate one and put the rest into the desk drawer. Ava actually knew that this cake was not to his taste. The moment he bit on the cookie, she saw him a quick and natural frown. But he quickly covered the expression and still ate the whole cookie with pretending appetite and praised her grandmother for making it delicious.

Ava knew that this gift needed not to be "thankful" from him. But at that moment, what rose from the bottom of her heart was indeed a stronger gratitude than Blake giving coat to her when she was in embarrassment.

Although it was a weekend, Ava woke up at 6 o'clock on time and quietly went to the bathroom to wash up. When she passed the living room, she saw Blake's tall body curled up on the sofa, her brows wrinkled uncomfortably, looking like he was rather restless in sleep.

The cotton-padded coat fell to the ground. Ava walked over and carefully picked it up, trying to cover it again, but it woke up him who was not asleep at all.

"What time is it?" Blake opened his eyes sleepy, his voice still hoarse.

"Six o'clock. It's still early, take a sleep." Ava lifted the part of quilt that had fallen down and tucked it under him.

Blake waited until two o'clock in the morning till his luggage arrived. After washing up, it was already three o'clock when he lay on the sofa. And because of this terrible sleeping "bed", he kept waking up and falling asleep. The only 3 hours' sleep was not even useless than his half an hour snap at noon.

He turned over and planned to sleep again, but at this moment there were loud knocks and shouts in the corridor outside the door.

"It's time to have nucleic acid test. Everybody please goes downstairs and line up to do test! Everyone please put on masks, stand two meters apart, all go down and line up!"

Ava straightened up, glanced at the door, and said to Blake, "Shall we do the test first and then come back to sleep?"

Is there any other choice?

Blake sighed and removed the quilt. He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees, covered his face for a while and then walked into the bathroom with a tired movement.

The test team was orderly and stretched like a long wandering river.

Residents were notified one building after another with time interval, so the queue was not very long. The progress was fast, only took less than ten minutes for them to go downstairs and finish the tests.

Blake was so sleepy that his head was stuffy. As soon as he entered the door, he threw himself into the sofa. Ava asked him if he wanted to have breakfast and waited his answer for a long time. When she looked on the sofa, she found Blake had already fallen asleep.

She boiled two eggs and warmed up a glass of milk. After breakfast, Ava planned to do a regular weekend cleaning. But her washing machine was on the balcony which was next to the living room. If she wanted to do laundry, she would definitely wake up Blake. After thinking about it, she decided to wash by hand.

When Blake was taking a shower last night, he left his dirty clothes in the bathroom. Ava thought over and brought them as well. She simply stuffed them all into the laundry tub and took them to the outside terrace to wash.

The weather was great and the sunshine was just right. Last night it was so cold that she had to wear a cotton coat, but today was like the warm spring.

The breeze blew up the hair on Ava's cheek, making her black hair swayed around, tickling her cheek like a naughty child.

Her hands were full of foam so she could neither grasp the hair nor tie it up. She could only use her wrist to rub her hair away with difficulty. She kept doing this for about ten minutes, and then felt it was too annoying. So she washed away the foam on her hands, took off the hair band on her hand, tucked the hair on her forehead into a bunch, and made a small braid.

Her birthmark was fully exposed. Its color seemed deeper than that when she was a child, probably because of Ava's getting elder or exposing to too much sunshine over the years. The light pink birthmark stood out on her skin.

After washing all the clothes, Ava shook them off and dried them in a row on the clothesline. Looking at the clothes that were washed clean as new by herself, she put on a relieved expression.