Chapter 76-Losing her charm (2)

Chapter 76: 76-Losing her charm (2)

"Do you think you can do better?"

Sarah crossed her arms, she hadn’t heard the other thing that Dylan said. She held herself up though she wanted to collapse against the nearest wall. "I never said that."

"Exactly. You never say anything useful. You just complain about everything that I do."

"Then why don’t you cook?" Sarah argued back. "Since you are so good at doing things then, this task shouldn’t be hard for you. Go ahead!" She was practically screaming at this point.

"Because I don’t know how!"

"Neither do I!"

"Then stop telling me to do it!"

Sarah’s face reddened. "You’re unbelievable, Dylan. You never used to treat me this way," she raised another complaint.

"And you’re impossible," he added.

The argument escalated almost instantly. Neither of them seemed capable of stepping back.

They were both hungry, exhausted, frustrated, and convinced that they had suffered more than the other.

Every accusation struck a place already bruised by fear. Sarah rubbed her aching shoulder, fighting the urge to cry from pain, exhaustion, and the humiliating realization that she did not know how to care for herself. "I’ve been working all day."

"So have I."

"My hands hurt, Dylan. Aren’t you even a man?"

"So do mine and what does this have to do with being a man?"

"My back hurts," Sarah couldn’t hear him. Only focusing on her pain.

"Mine too."

"I nearly fell when that section collapsed and I could have been crushed!"

"I was the one holding the support beam the whole night!"

"I didn’t ask you to. Did I?"

Dylan stared at her. For a moment, he looked genuinely speechless. He had held that beam because the thought of watching it crush her had been more terrifying than the pain tearing through his own body.

He had not expected gratitude, but hearing her dismiss it made something inside him twist. Then his jaw tightened. "Do you hear yourself speak?"

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. She heard the accusation, but not the fear beneath it. However, she refused to step back, "Do you?"

They stood across from each other in the damaged kitchen, neither willing to surrender the fight.

Once, they had called themselves lovers. Once, Sarah had believed Dylan would always be the person who understood her and spoilt her the most, and Dylan had believed she would be the one person he could trust when everything else disappeared.

Now they looked more like enemies trapped in the same room, each secretly wondering whether the other would abandon them first.

Neither saw the other’s exhaustion. Sarah only saw her own aching body, her own hunger, her own fear, and her own suffering.

Dylan saw exactly the same things: his own pain, his own exhaustion, his own hunger, his own fear.

Their selfish hearts had no room left to acknowledge that the other person was suffering too. They were not cruel because they felt nothing; they were cruel because they felt too much and had no idea where to put it.

"Fine," Sarah snapped. She turned away, blinking rapidly. "I’m not cooking."

Dylan scoffed, though his voice was strained. "Fine. Neither am I."

"Good."

"Good."

They both stood there in silence. Five seconds passed and then Sarah’s stomach growled loudly. Dylan glanced at her. She glared at him, mortified. "Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"Your face did."

He rolled his eyes. Then his own stomach growled. Sarah’s lips twitched despite herself. For one fragile second, the familiar rhythm of them returned, and the relief was so sharp it almost hurt.

Dylan immediately glared at her. "Don’t even think about it."

"I didn’t say anything either."

"Your face did and I saw it so don’t you dare deny it."

She snorted. For one brief moment, it almost felt like the old days. Then reality returned.

The food was there, and the kitchen was there, but neither of them knew what to do with either of the two.

Sarah opened the refrigerator, and Dylan leaned over to look inside. There were ingredients: meat, vegetables, eggs, milk, and frozen food and it was enough to make several meals. But to them, it might as well have been a collection of mysterious objects.

Sarah stared. "What are we supposed to do with all this?"

Dylan shrugged, though shame prickled beneath his exhaustion. "How should I know?"

She slammed the refrigerator shut. "This is ridiculous."

"What’s ridiculous?"

"We have food, but we can’t eat it," she said, for a minute she wished that Aymara was there, she would’ve prepared a warm hearty meal for her to enjoy.

Dylan frowned. "We can eat it."

"Raw?" Sarah imagined it and felt extremely disgusted. When the imagination alone ess enough to irritate her then how can she make it her reality. "Are you out of your mind, Dylan?"

He paused. "No, I am not and here me out before you get so judgemental.

"Then?" Sarah waited to hear his brilliant plan. She was sure she wasn’t going to like it because either way, it wasn’t going to be cooked food.

Dylan went silent. The truth is, he only said that in the heat of the conversation as he had no answer.

The helplessness of it pressed down on them. They had survived storms, destruction, and the collapse of the world around them, yet a refrigerator full of food had reduced them to frightened children.

Sarah’s expression gradually twisted with frustration. "We need someone to cook for us."

Dylan laughed humorlessly. "There is no one."

The words settled heavily between them. Hard. They didn’t have a chef, a maid or Aymara. The two of them were completely alone.

The absence was suddenly physical, almost suffocating. Sarah could picture Aymara moving through the kitchen, calm and capable, solving problems before either of them noticed them.

Dylan remembered how easily he had taken that care for granted. The guilt came quickly, followed by resentment and it was not toward Aymara, but toward himself for realizing her value only after she was gone.

Suddenly, the life they had taken for granted seemed impossibly far away.

Aymara had not simply made their days comfortable; she had made them possible. In the past life, she had known how to ration supplies, prepare food, maintain order, and respond when something went wrong.

Without her, every overlooked skill became a threat, and every remaining resource became useless if they could not manage it. The ship might still be standing, but their survival was already beginning to depend on the person they had allowed to disappear from their lives.

Sarah looked at Dylan. Dylan looked at Sarah. Neither said what they were thinking but their thought was loud.

"We should have kept Aymara with us!"

The thought came to both of them, and neither wanted to admit it. Admitting it would mean admitting how dependent they had been, how unprepared they were, how much they missed the person who had made their lives feel effortless.

It would also mean facing the terrifying possibility that, without her, they might not survive the next crisis at all. Instead, Sarah crossed her arms. "You’re cooking, Dylan. And if you don’t know how then figure it out."

Dylan immediately shook his head. "No, I am not."

"Yes, you are," Sarah insisted. "Don’t you love me. You always say that you can do anything for me... even gather the stars and given them to me if I wanted. Well, I don’t want the stars," she breathed heavily. "I want you to cook and if you anything you’ve ever promised me is true then, you’ll do it."