prince in jeans

t h r e e

I should’ve been scared. But instead, I watched blankly as the owl sped towards me and then, at the last moment, veered upward. I turned my head to find that she was perched on a rod above the doorway, ruffling her feathers as she regarded me with bright orange eyes.

“That’s Glade,” my mother spoke, breaking the silence. “I’ve had her since I moved in here. Careful, she’s quite fussy.”

I reached up to rub my finger under Glade’s chin and her eyes half-closed as she cooed in response.

“Wow.” Elena straightened a picture frame on the hall table and looked up at me. “She usually bites.”

I didn’t answer but I let myself follow my mother into the kitchen.

“Here,” she gestured to a plate of freshly-baked cookies. “I remembered chocolate chip was your favourite…”

“No, thank you,” I said, curtly. “I just had a coffee.”

Elena’s face fell but I refused to care.

“Well, then, take a seat and I’ll explain the schedule to you,” she replied and this time, I listened, walking over the linoleum tiles to sit on the chair.

“I'm not usually here in the morning,” Elena began as she strode over to the cabinet and took out a mug. “Each day a week, I have a meeting with a different client in the morning. I only get back just before lunch. Except Tuesdays.”

She paused as she poured some hot chocolate powder into the mug and set the kettle to boil. “On Tuesdays, one of my clients—he lives just opposite us—comes here. So I’m free Tuesday mornings.”

“I didn’t know being a publisher was so much work.” Scorn crept into my voice and Elena sighed.

“Neither did I.”

I waited for her to continue and she obliged.

“I assume you can make your own breakfast so I won’t worry about your nutrition but there are several restaurants nearby that do take out and there’s a list of them on the fridge.”

I nodded, spotting the list stuck to the fridge by a magnet.

“You can have your choice of rooms,” Elena went on. “We have three unoccupied upstairs but there’s a loft as well—I thought maybe you’d like that better.”

I raised a shoulder in answer.

“If there’s anything you want, don’t hesitate to ask me. Peyton will take you wherever you like. His number’s on the fridge.”

Staring at my hands, I nodded just as Glade flew in and perched herself on the back of my chair, cooing in my ear.

I scratched under her chin and she ruffled her feathers.

“That’s about it.” My mother poured hot water into the mug and then stirred it. “Anything else you’d like to know?”

“When can I visit Foreman’s?” I inquired.

“Whenever you like. I’ve a meeting to be at in an hour so I won’t be here but I can get Peyton to take you.”

“Please do.”

I chose the loft. It was smaller compared to the other rooms but it had everything I needed—a single bed, a writing table and a bookshelf.

It was surprisingly clean and a small circular window looked out onto the house right opposite us—the one Elena had said her client stayed in.

Peyton took me to Foreman’s Clinic that afternoon and it was the typical squeaky clean clinic. I met Dr. Yvonne Sanders—the middle-aged doctor who I would be working with as an intern.

She was nice enough and soon, Peyton and I left and made our way back to the house.

Glade greeted me as I walked in by flying onto my shoulder and I felt comfortable enough with this new home.

It was only the next day that my mother and I got into our first fight.

I’d come down for breakfast and she was sitting there, sipping tea and skimming her I-Pad.

She was dressed for work—pencil skirt, white blouse, black stilettos.

“Sleep well?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the screen as I took a seat opposite her. A plate of steaming scrambled eggs was waiting for me along with a cup of coffee.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t be here in the mornings,” I said, recalling that it was a Monday.

“Hmm, well, I didn’t expect you to get up so early. You always used to get up around ten, not seven.”

“Well, that’s changed.”

“I reckon a lot of things have.”

“You wouldn’t know, would you?” Maybe it was plain stupidity on my part to bring the subject up but the words slipped out.

Elena raised her eyes to mine but I didn’t falter. “I made a mistake, Celeste.”

“Mistakes aren’t good enough,” I snapped back and she sat back in her chair with a disbelieving shake of her head.

“People make mistakes,” she said, softly. “And I’m sorry you feel this way about mine—“

“Yours?” I scoffed. “My dad had to give up being a rock star—his dream—just because you left. He had to become a boring interviewer—a job both you and I know he hates.”

“That isn’t my fault—”

“You were the one who was providing for us at the time with your publishing company while Dad made little money. But the money never mattered because he was doing what he loved.”

Elena stayed silent so I raved on.

“And then you left with a pathetic note about how you’d miss us and my father had to give up his music career and take up this interviewing shit because it paid more money. All because you left.”

Elena’s expression was unreadable but I couldn’t have cared less.

Picking up my mug and plate, I stormed upstairs and had my breakfast in the loft.

Part of me insisted I was right about getting angry at Elena but the other half whispered that I was being a child.

These were my eighteen year old emotions pent up inside me—words I’d practiced since the day she left.

I heard Elena leave and I spent the rest of my day, skimming through Foreman’s’ brochure, taking a walk through the empty neighbourhood, calling my dad and unpacking the rest of my luggage.

That is until the day after. The day I met him.

{dedicated to @inthepants cuz she's life. Elena on the side>>}