“Here!” Rosie announced, chucking a thin bag to the floor. Small and square rectangle objects, wrapped with a delicate material, scattered across the carpet. Chocolate. “Who’s hungry?”

Everyone gaped, Jack and Zackary did a double take. Chocolate? There’s no way, Yazmin thought. She’d hear tales of this elusive food known as chocolate — they all had — but the only times Yazmin ever saw any were in shop windows, a gigantic price tag stood arm in arm with the sweet. They were so expensive, Rosie definitely couldn’t afford them.

“How did you get them?” Yazmin wondered.

“Yeah,” Zackary added, eyeing the chocolate, “mum always says chocolate is way too expensive!”

Rosie grinned a wicked smile and laughed. “Nothing is too expensive for you guys.”

The words touched Yazmin’s heart. She accepted that answer, after all, Rosie’s birthday was recently, right? Maybe she got enough money to buy some chocolate for everyone. Yazmin was stuck between feeling joy and guilt. Rosie didn’t have to spend anything on them — that made her hope Rosie didn’t buy them, somehow.

“Okay, but how did you afford them?” Thalia picked one of the sweets off the floor and pondered it. “This doesn’t look like cheap chocolate, Rosie.”

“It was my birthday recently!” she stuttered, “that’s how! No need to be ungrateful Thalia.”

“Your birthday, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok.” Thalia sat in front of Rosie, investigating her gaze. The others looked at each other, wondering what was going on. Thalia brought her palm to her chin. “So how much were they?”

“Huh?” Her smile and laughter faded. “That … that doesn’t matter, surely.”

“Answer the question.”

“Why don’t we all just eat the chocolate and forget about it?”

  Zackary nodded his head slightly, stopping once Jack noticed him.

“Rosie,” Thalia said harshly, “you stole them, didn’t you?”

Rosie glanced around nervously. “And … Why does that matter? Supposing it’s true.”

“Because!” Thalia stormed to her feet and walked away to the other side of the room. “You can’t just steal from people!”

“Uh, actually,” she corrected, “it was a shop, not a person.”

“That’s not the point.”

Thalia spun around and chewed Rosie out some more. Yazmin shifted over to Jack and Zackary, away from the telling off zone. She silently greeted the two boys. Jack was playing with his glasses, looking around the small bedroom, like this was his first time here and not his twentieth. Zackary stared at the chocolate, still spread across the carpet, his fingers twitching. She couldn’t blame him. Chocolate was a luxury few got to experience.

“She really is a mum,” Jack whispered, pointing to his head at the argument between the two girls. Rosie had protested for the third time that shops aren’t humans. They were making great progress.

Yazmin bit her lip. “Eh, I don’t see her that way.”

“Of course not,” he laughed, “you’re as old as her.”

“Yeah.” Yazmin chuckled, as if that was the only reason. But no-one could know about that — none of them would probably understand.

Rosie broke away from Thalia’s lecture. “Guys, who thinks a shop is a person?”

“That’s not what I …” Thalia buried her face in her hands.

“A shop is a building,” Zackary agreed.

“Thank you!” she turned to the fed up Thalia. “See?”

“No. There’s a person who runs the shop, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Zackary looked confused. “You mean the person that … takes my coins?”

“Not just your coins, but yes,” Thalia answered, glad to finally be understood. “That person needs the coins to survive.”

“Tell them to find their own coins then!” Zackary moaned, “I need my coins!”

“What for?”

He couldn’t answer. “I just need them, okay?”

“Understandable,” Yazmin noted, “I think we all could do with keeping our coins.”

“Don’t encourage him, Yaz—”

Zackary finally pounced, a resolute fist enclosing around a wrapped bar of chocolate. Rosie’s eyes lit up. Thalia was ready to give up.

“Don’t you dare!” she shouted, “that’s stolen!”

“And?” He ripped the chocolate open with defiance. “Who cares if it’s stolen? Rosie got them for us!”

“ZACKARY!”

He bit down on the brown bar. In seconds, it was gone, transformed into pure bliss. Jealousy filled Yazmin. What did it taste like? How fulfilling was it? Those questions spun around her mind. From the look on Zackary’s face, it definitely tasted better than good.

Thalia sighed heavily. Rosie leapt up a whisked Zackary away, out the door, the two giggled to each other. She shouted something about saving him from Thalia’s wrath. 

“Should I go after them?” Yazmin asked.

“Na, I’ll do that,” Jack replied, “they might think you’re her agent or something.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He closed the door carefully behind him. It creaked to an unsatisfying stop.  Yazmin waved at the shut door, as if anyone could see it. She turned to Thalia, who sat on the edge of her bed, head in hands. The room fell silent. Yazmin didn’t know what to say, so she just picked herself up and sat next to Thalia on the bed.

“Hi.”

“Hi?”

“You okay?”

Thalia looked at her oddly. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, I—uh—I thought you were annoyed.”

She laughed. “No, no. Well, maybe a little bit.” Thalia stretched her arms and yawned. They brushed past Yazmin’s hair. “Just been a long day, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Yazmin agreed, “I much prefer our midday hill gatherings to this.”

“Well, this wasn’t too bad.” Thalia leant down and scooped up a couple chocolate bars. “Until Rosie started sharing contraband. But she’s still a child, I doubt she understands food shortages and stuff.”

Yazmin nodded. “I guess that’s the same for Zack too?”

“Oh yeah,” she laughed, “Zack is utterly clueless about most things.”

“Hey don’t be mean! He’s even younger than Rosie!”

Thalia threw a sweet at Yazmin. It bounced off her nose. “He’s my brother, Yaz, I get to be mean to him.” Yazmin hummed in understandment, though she wondered how true that was. Thalia wasn’t actually mean to him, right? She sensed Yazmin’s worries. “I don’t want to be mean to him, though. I wish I could give him all the chocolate in the world, he’s not been himself for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he hasn’t been laughing and playing like most kids his age,” Thalia explained, a hint of pain in her voice, “Zackary only comes out with us because I make him. I thought it would make him happier, but he still has that glum look on his face back home. All the time.”

“I think it does make him happier, if only a bit,” Yazmin reassured her, nervously placing a hand on her shoulder. “I mean, look at him and Rosie, they seem happy to be with each other to me.”

“Yeah. I hope so.”

Thalia glanced at the hand softly floating on her shoulder. She smiled, closing her eyes gently, placing her own hand on top of Yazmin’s. Heat rushed to Yazmin’s face. Her arm itched to yank free, why was her hand still on her shoulder anyway? This shouldn’t be happening. Thalia’s palm was warm, though her fingertips were cooler. She felt the chill trace her knuckles and the back of her hand, a tingle shooting through her bones. Yazmin’s heartbeat increased, she worried the thumping in her chest was audible. Thalia half opened her eyes, looking up at Yazmin through her eyelids.

“Your hand is soft,” she murmured, removing it from her shoulder, now just holding it outright. Yazmin shuddered. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.” Yazmin concentrated on not letting her hand shake. She didn’t want to ruin this moment. “You’re holding my hand.”

Thalia smirked. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no, it’s just I’m not used to holding someone’s hand, that’s all.”

“Really? I think I like holding your hand.”

Her smile infected Yazmin, raising her temperature and flooding her brain. Nothing else mattered but this one moment. She could remain here forever. Thalia laughed, a hint of nervousness in there. Yazmin followed, unable to contain the joy. 

Is this what it feels like to be loved?