THE LOOK IN ELLIOT'S eyes was unlike anything she had ever encountered. Dead set. Unflinching. It brought goosebumps over her skin at the mere memory.
Scarlet parked in her driveway, mulling over the way her heart dropped down her chest leaving a hollow trail in its wake. It lingered as she turned off the engine of her car.
She wondered if maybe he wanted to talk to her. After last week, maybe he had something to say and found himself too late.
Hopefully he could find her on Monday, if he didn't forget what he wanted to say by then.
She unlocked the front door of her house, spying the television showing an old sitcom from the eighties. The sofa in front of it was empty. Scarlet frowned and threw her bag in a corner, forgetting all about her high school and all of its implications. Her homework would have to wait until the next day.
"Mom?" she called out, moving her legs to the kitchen. Scarlet sighed, crossing her arms over her chest as her mother served a plate with dinner—chicken fettuccine Alfredo pasta. "Gosh, Mom, I said I would make myself something."
Her mother turned around, offering her the plate with a bright smile. Scarlet couldn't even be mad. It was always a blessing to see her up and at it, having the energy to actually do stuff around the house. Anything could happen at any second, and it twisted her insides to know she didn't have control over it.
"You're busy with your theatre meetings," she said, as if that was the entire reason for her energy to cook up dinner. "And I don't want you to be hungry for too long. That's not good either."
Scarlet wanted to respond that it wasn't good for her to be cooking without company in her condition. In case of an emergency, she would not be able to get the help she needed, and that could go from bad to worse. But she bit back her usual comments and accepted the dinner.
"How are you feeling?" Scarlet asked, moving along to the dining table. Her mother followed suit, sitting down opposite of her.
"Today was a good day," she reassured her. Scarlet nodded, feeling her day's anxieties diminish. "I have chemo tomorrow."
Scarlet bit down on her lip, thinking of her list of things she needed to do. Most of it was tedious work, so she could take it with her as her mother sat on her chair taking in the chemotherapy. While Scarlet tended to work on her assignments, her mother would flip through magazines, collecting perfume samples and cutting out makeup items she wanted to buy.
She always envisioned them going out after her chemo appointments, but her mother never felt the best. She would be under the weather for a few days after, going through the side effects. Scarlet never left her side, sometimes passing out on the floor beside her bed, just in case. Once midweek arrived, her mother would start regaining strength, to the point where she could walk around the house and go up and down the stairs (though Scarlet wasn't too crazy about it). But she knew that her mother needed to live. Despite her condition, she was still a human with aspirations and dreams, so Scarlet worked hard to calm down her anxieties of the worst case scenarios.
"How was the meeting today? No mop accidents, I hope." Her mother gazed at her with a teasing glint in her brown eyes. Scarlet chuckled, rolling up a bite of the creamy pasta.
"No mops today," she said. "I had to design potential costumes for the cast."
"Oh? Was the cast announced?" Her tone switched to a purposefully innocent one as she swirled her fork around her dish. Scarlet's ears burned, remembering how she had gone on a rant about the auditions she saw, specifically a certain Romeo one during the week. Oh, to take back her words.
YOU ARE READING
Forever Crimson
Teen Fiction"The vultures are disguised as humans." Scarlet Turner has her last semester of high school planned out: graduate as best as she can and take care of her sick mother. But when she's told she won't graduate because of the pile of tardies she's collec...
