The Life We Live

7.The Picture

Once they walk into Ravens house. Raven properly gives Harlow a tour.

"This is the living room... obviously as you've seen it before.." she says jokingly

Harlow laughs "yeah.. yeah."

She takes him to the kitchen "here's the kitchen." She shows Harlow where all the kitchenware is and where he can find cups, bowls, silverware, and all that jazz.

She goes down the first hallway "this is the bathroom.. got everything you could need.. toilet.. toiletpaper.. blah blah blah." Harlow laughs as she seems to be in a funny mood.

She walks farther down the hallway as Harlow notices a picture of a younger girl and two adults next to her. The younger girl looks simular to Raven. He assumes they must be the same person and the adults are her parents. "Are these your parents?" Harlow asks as he actually never heard her talk about her parents.

She turns around and admires the picture showing sadness "yes... yes they are."

"Can I ask what happened to them?" Harlow asks hesitantly

Raven sighs "they drowned in a car wreck.." she tilts her head "for real... no cover up." She looks down and sucks her top lip then continues speaking "I was in the car with them as we were driving back home from a night out at this restaurant.. we saw a deer and my father lost control of the car while trying not to run it over... we went over this bridge, straight into the water. Knowing that water pressure makes it difficult to break windows. My father quickly broke the window open before we were fully under. My father got me out first as water was filling up the car very quickly. He quickly came up after me, thinking that my mother would be following too. After almost a minute my father looks at me and says "no matter what happens dont come down for us if we dont come back up... I love you girl." He then kisses my forehead and goes back under for her. I don't know what happened down there but he didn't come back up... I swam back onto land and sat there waiting, for... I dont really know how long. A bystander saw me sitting there and noticed I was crying while looking at what appears to be empty water. They called the cops without even asking. Later they got them out and they were dead. And so now.. I live with my grandfather.." she looks up at Harlow with tears in her eyes.

Harlow could feel her sadness intensely and couldn't find the right words to say all he could say was "im sorry you had to go through that."

Raven doesn't really smile but still tried. "Its alright... it was years ago."

Harlow looks at the picture realizing her change of emotion and regrets bringing it up as he must have ruined her happy mood.

"This is my grandfathers room." Raven points in.

Harlow looks in the room and finds it cleaner then he had expected although he didn't quite know why.

They then left the hallway, walked back into the kitchen and went into the second hallway she shows him the storage room "obviously we've been in this room" then she walks back and goes into her room.  "This is my room.. she waves her hand towards her room "sorry about the mess.."

Harlow looks around the room and couldn't figure out why she said that... it wasn't messy at all to him. "It looks fine to me."

Raven laughs "thats good.."

Raven then walks further into the hallway showing the guest bedroom. "And this would be the room you can stay in if you need."

Harlow stares at its bare appearance and starts nodding lifting his eyebrows "Cozy.." he says sounding almost sarcastic

Raven laughs "id hope it's cozy."

Harlow sits on the bed and bounces "atleast the bed is comfy."

Raven furrows her eyebrows and sits on the bed to bounce on it too. "Hm... it really is comfy."

Harlow looks at her skeptically but amused "you really gave me this bed not knowing it was comfy?"

Raven shrugs wide eyed "I mean... where else would you want to sleep?"

Harlows first thought came too quickly... he freezes to stop himself from saying his thoughts out loud. He smiles "this works right here..." and pats the bed

Raven laughs noticing he had hesitated. 

They stare at eachother in silence for a couple seconds till they hear a door open; Raven quickly stands up. "Marvin's home."

Harlow and Raven step out of the room and walk into the kitchen. It infact wasn't Marvin..

It was Ricky.