FREE FLYING HEARTS -- A collection of short stories from Tonig73

All's Well ...

Larry felt so much better after a maybe too long, and maybe too hot shower.  The heat made him feel a bit queasy, but he knew it was his stomach, and not just the temperature of the water.  He'd taken some Tylenol as Laurent had suggested, no, ordered.  The last thing on Laurent's list was to eat something, and Larry knew he should, if only to settle his still churning stomach.  Then, they would talk, apparently.  What the fuck about ?  Larry had nothing to tell him, no "my side of events", as Laurent had put it.  Entertaining or not.  He had no idea what his side of the story was even.  Larry sighed deeply, lost in thought as he gazed off into the distance, drying off in his room.  He made his way to the window, looking around outside.  Since the minute he saw it first, he'd loved this view.  It was his view, from his window, from his room.  A cityscape, the ocean in the distance, loving the look and the feel of all the buildings lit up at night like the proverbial Christmas tree.  He turned back to face his room.  His room.  How much longer it's be his room, he didn't know.  His heart sank, plummeted to his boots, thinking just how short his stay had been.  A few weeks.  He'd actually had a home for a few wonderful, happy weeks.  Long enough to start college, find a job, and reunite with his daughter.  Ember !  Surely Laurent wouldn't stop helping him .... No, he wouldn't.  Laurent had told him that now that they knew where Ember was, what her circumstances were, he would never keep father and daughter apart.  Never.  

Now dressed and feeling much better as time went on, Larry tentatively opened his bedroom door, standing in place for a second, just listening.  If he could hear Laurent in the living room or the kitchen.  Steeling himself for the inevitable.  Laurent had called in an interior design team to help him put the apartment back together.  New tables and lamps had appeared, a couple of new chairs, and all the shattered glass in the kitchen cabinets had been replaced.  They had been and gone in a few hours, while Larry was asleep, he presumed, and he hadn't heard a peep. 

Just one more thing, though, that made Larry think, that once Laurent had made his mind up about something, once he'd put the wheels in motion to enact his plan, he was not to be messed with.  He did not change his mind.  And after what he'd yelled at Larry as he left last night, that's what he was afraid of.  That whether Laurent believed him or not, he wouldn't change his mind about him leaving.  But if Laurent didn't believe him, would he want to stay anyway ?  Larry's heart was already in his boots, and he honestly didn't think it could get much lower.  

He padded along the hallway, craning his neck around the corner as it opened up into the living room.  He looked over to the kitchen, huffing out a relieved breath as he found Laurent nowhere in sight.  The temporary relief didn't stop his heart from pounding in his chest though, feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter.  Because that's what it felt like.  He had to keep reminding himself that he had nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to defend himself against.  He knew it, so he shouldn't feel the need to persuade himself.  

Larry's angst, his own pain, came from Laurent's.  His physical and emotional pain, that he'd had to go through all of this.  That he was the reason Laurent was going through it at all.  If they hadn't met, if he hadn't lived at the shelter, if he hadn't been picked on, if he hadn't moved into the apartment.  All of it, all of these reasons.  It was a soul destroying habit, but half the time he couldn't help it, it was conditioned into him.  All his life, Larry had blamed himself for things that happened to other people, he thought, because of him.  And it had to stop.  

He made himself some scrambled eggs and toast, and a strong coffee.  As he was about to put the last forkful of food into his mouth, Laurent's office door flew open, Laurent glaring at Larry on his journey to the kitchen.  The eggs on Larry's fork fell back onto his plate as if in sympathy for him, knowing what came next, Larry's mouth still agape as his eyes followed Laurent.  Laurent pulled a mug down from the cupboard, and poured himself a coffee, taking a mouthful before leaning back against the kitchen counter top.