Rose Colored Boy - dreamwastaken

chapter fourteen

"Blair? Are you awake?"

Even though Blair was not awake, her mom still opened the door and popped her head in.

"Good morning sweetie, you said you'd make those teabags for me? Fresh chamomile only lasts a day or two, remember?"

Blair sat up and pushed her unrelenting curls out of her face. Her mom smiled at her.

"Okay."

"Thank you!"

Dorothy closed the door and Blair flopped back onto her pillow. Her old alarm clock said it was almost eight a.m. She stared at the ceiling for a few moments more before pushing herself out of bed. She got dressed and braided back her hair so at least she could see.

Aspen was already awake, eating a bowl of cereal at the little table next to the kitchen.

"Good morning," Blair said groggily. He waved his spoon lazily at her. She sat down across from him and rested her head on the wooden tabletop.

"What's the matter? Didn't get enough sleep?"

Blair didn't need to look up to know he was teasing her. "Shut up, Az." He kicked her gently under the table, and she kicked him back.

"Hey," he said, tapping her on the forearm so she looked up. "You can talk to me. I won't make fun of you. Well, starting now."

She smiled and rolled her eyes. Blair leaned back in her chair to look down the hallway. No one else was up, except her mom, who was busy with a book in the living room.

"I- I don't think there's anything to talk about, yet. Especially not after, well-" Blair tugged one of her braids back nervously. "Not yet."

Aspen twirled his spoon around between his fingers. "Do you want to talk about... before? Mom only talked a little bit about what happened..."

Coincidentally (maybe), their mom looked up from her book. Blair smiled and stood up. "Teabags, yes, I remember."

Blair gathered the chamomile and supplies and sat back down at the table. Dorothy smiled knowingly and turned back to her book.

"So...," Aspen started again.

"Right." Blair started cutting the cheese cloth into squares. "I mean, it wasn't ever like... as bad as the live stream," she said quietly. "But it was worse than I thought, and I didn't realize until after- I mean, Dream had to outright tell me that it was bad sometimes."

Blair cut three squares, and moved on to cutting the stems off the chamomile flowers. "And like, Dream's been nothing but helpful and kind to me from the moment I met him. It still hurts, and after such a long time with someone who was... bad, it'll take a while to be one hundred percent, but it's been good. Better than I could have imagined."

She looked up from her flowers. Aspen was still spinning his spoon, looking up at her.

"What was he like? I mean, if you want to say."

"He, ugh, he just- wasn't nice. No, wait- he was, when he wanted to be. But he was manipulative and didn't listen or like, care about what I needed? I don't know..." Blair accidentally squished the bud she had between her fingers and frowned. She just scraped it onto the cheesecloth.

"It's okay, I think I get it. I, uh, I wish I called more."

Blair looked up again. "Hey," she said, and pushed her chair to the other side of the table to sit next to Aspen. "I wouldn't have even known what to tell you. Mom called twice a week and had no idea."

He leaned his head on her shoulder and watched her tie together the corners of the cheesecloth. "I'm sorry."

Blair sighed. "Me, too."