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Wednesday, May 19

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     Wednesday morning felt relatively uneventful for Reese. Another morning just like the last few: Olivia came down and snuggled her short brother in a hug, he made coffee for her and their dad, and then they sat down and had breakfast. But this time, he had remembered what Olivia had suggested the night before, and he HAD made extra coffee. So when he went to put away his dishes, he proudly grabbed the pot and went over to refill his sister’s cup. She paused for a moment, realizing she hadn’t asked as she watched him pour, then looked at him with a wide smile as yesterday's comment dawned on her. “Thanks, Reese! You made more this morning!” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then brought the warm brew up to her lips and sipped it gladly. Then he went and gave his dad his refill too, who thanked him. Small price to pay to make people seem so happy, he thought. They’ll probably take it for granted if I keep this up. But for now it’s nice to see. Their gratitude was encouraging, and boosted his confidence in continuing his act.

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     Reese had just gotten home from school and gone to his room when Tracy passed by the upstairs hallway with a laundry basket full of clothes, and dropped it into Olivia’s room with a huff. “Now that you don’t live alone anymore, you can’t just get around to finishing your laundry whenever you feel like it. There’s other people who are waiting on you to finish up your loads.”

     Olivia, laying on her bed, looked from her mom to the laundry basket. “OK. Sorry, I’ll try to remember in the future.” Relatively satisfied with her response, her mom nodded approvingly and left to head back downstairs. With a huff, Olivia got up, dumped her clothes on the floor, and went back downstairs with the laundry basket to transfer her tops from the washer to the dryer.

     An hour later, Olivia was back in her room when she heard the dryer buzzer go off, and went back down to fetch her last load of dry clothes. After returning with them in the basket, she dumped them on the floor with the rest of her clothes and sighed, hands on her hips as she gazed at the mountain of laundry. Folding clothes was one of her least favorite chores, especially if she didn’t have the luxury of a TV in her room to at least watch while she folded. Back at college, she hung a lot of her clothes up instead of folding them, which was both less work and better for picking out what she’d wear every morning. But her old home just didn’t have the same closet space she was used to from her college apartment, and she sat on the ground with her back against her bed as she begrudgingly started at the top of the pile.

     After a few minutes, Reese came out of the bathroom and passed by Olivia's room. "Reese!" she called out, and he backtracked, standing in her doorway. "What are you doing right now?"

     "Nothing really, why?"

     She paused for a moment, biting her lip as she contemplated whether it was even worth asking him. Of course he'd say no. "Can you help me fold my clothes?" she asked, earnesty in her eyes. "You can say no, I'm not like trying to trick you or anything, I just forgot to wash my clothes before I left on Sunday so I have a lot, and I hate how mundane it is, I'm not like asking you to do all of them but like maybe just my tops or something, like it's just like my least favorite--"

     "Sure," he said, cutting her off with a simple smile.

     She grinned widely back in return, unable to believe he would even say yes, and Reese's heart sped up a little at the pure satisfaction that came just from seeing him make someone so genuinely happy for such a simple thing. She wasn't lying, it really wasn't a trick or anything, she was just hoping that his behavior lately might mean he'd be willing to help her out if he didn't have anything going on. And she was right. She hopped her butt over a few times, and patted the spot next to her, where she had been sitting against her bed. "I can't believe you actually said yes!" she said, laughing with bewilderment as her brother joined her spot on her bedroom floor. "I mean, I figured like, why would you ever help me? Not that you're mean or anything, just... you know... helping out with each other's chores isn't really a thing that siblings do."

     "Well it is now," he replied, beating himself over the head for how cheesy he felt saying that. "You said tops right?" he asked, grabbing a blouse from the top of the stack.

     "Yeah, and then I'll do all my pants and bottoms and stuff. Obviously I wouldn't make you do everything, like it's my clothes so I should do at least half." She pushed the top half of the pile over, closer to him. "I wash my tops and bottoms separately, so that should roughly be your half." Even with the pile split into two, Reese's half was still more clothes than he typically had after doing his laundry. And he knew that altogether their stacks didn't even account for half of all of Olivia's clothes. This is probably just her spring outfits or something, if she even sorts them like that. He grabbed a simple white v-neck, and an image of her wearing it popped in his mind. Her generous cleavage was clearly visible, and he shook the thought off. Probably summer anyways.

     "Sounds good," he finally replied, setting the folded shirt aside and grabbing the next one. Olivia asked some things about her old high school, and they got to talking about some of their shared teachers. While Reese was going on about their new vice principal, Olivia stole a glance at her brother as he dutifully folded her clothes side by side with her. She wondered if something was up, or if he really just had had a change in demeanor. Since Olivia hadn't seen him since before his height loss, it just looked to her like his loss of a few inches had simply made him into a nicer guy. She might not have understood it, but she certainly wasn't gonna complain.