Christmas and Wrapping Paper

"Ok we are making pancakes." He said this really slowly as if he was talking to a toddler.

"Why are you talking to me like that?" I said, exasperation filled me.

"Because I bet you've never cooked anything before, you probably have five chefs waiting for you at home."

"Oh please! I only have two!" Then it hit me that he was just joking with me and I told him just what he wanted to hear.

The look Nick gave me made heat rise to my cheeks. He looked so disappointed that he had so much less than me. "What are you doing here?" He asked me and I think he already knew the answer.

"I'm here to help the kids." Doubt filled my tone, I knew I was only here because my dad had bribed me.

"No I mean what are you really doing here? A girl like you wouldn't just show up and decide to help charity."

"What do you mean a girl like me?" As I said it, it became obvious: a spoiled rich kid. That was the kind of girl I was. When my father had said it, I had felt mad, he was the one that had spoiled me. But listening to Nick say it, I just felt hollow inside. He was absolutely right, he had almost nothing. I had everything and I felt bad for myself.

"Huh." Nick wouldn't even look at me, he just cracked an egg and beat it into the flour.

"Look, Nick, I'm sorry."

He put the whisk in the bowl and looked me in the eyes with his intimidating amber irises. "You pretend like your life is so bad," he poured milk into the bowl, "but these kids have nothing." A shiver went down my spine, he was one of those people that get really calm when they're mad.
I opened my mouth to speak, to defend myself, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Kennedy's words hit me 'Your like the least spoiled person I know.' I had believed her but in the past two days, the truth had hit me like a bus.

Nick continued, "I'm stuck here, because of my mother and you feel bad for yourself for not knowing your mother. I wish I didn't know mine."

Curiosity overwhelmed me. "Why don't you want to know your mother."

He sighed and spooned some batter into a frying pan. "I don't know her but I've heard stories. She was an orphan her mother left her just like she left me and Sam." I nudged him encouraging him to continue.

"Go on."

"She was a stripper." Pain filled his eyes, "She grew up here she didn't get an education, it was that or prostitution. She couldn't even get a job at McDonalds, she could barely read." He couldn't look me in the eye he was so ashamed.

"So? You got to do what you got to do." I remembered a girl who lived down the street from me, she was about to go off to college when her parents died in a car accident. She couldn't afford to do anything after that so she had turned to stripping. I never judged her for it.

"She go involved with some not so great men." He flipped him pancake, the bottom perfectly bronzed, he had been doing it for a while. "Some beat her, some were criminals, anything really, except a good guy. One got her pregnant and she just couldn't afford me on her own, when she told the guy he packed up and left. She never found out where he went, he had cleared out by the next time she came to see him." Sadness was in his gorgeous eyes. "She dropped me off here and left, she wanted to keep me. I know it. She wrote a letter for me and there were dried tear drops all over the paper."

"What about Sam?" Suddenly I felt even more cold inside.

"Same thing, I guess. His note identified him as my brother."

I wanted to throw my arms around him and comfort him, I wanted to cry for him. I was about to say something when the clock hand jumped to eight o'clock.

"Go wake up the kids." Nick said, turning towards the stove to finish breakfast.

I wanted to say something, but I decided against it. I exited the kitchen and left nick to think.