Tweetie

53

He didn't think it would actually happen. To have lived in a home so tattered, he thought that was all it was ever going to be. He didn't think about what would happen when the threads finally snapped. When one of them finally left.

Joel was curious, he almost always had questions. But this time, he didn't. He didn't want to know what the reasons were, why last night was the final straw, why it had gone on for so long.

He just wanted to sit, accepting the comfort Stewart offered while the cafe was lonely and quiet in the dark early hours.

It wasn't a school day, thankfully. After the strange day of having some teachers turn up while others didn't, the school decided to close its doors for another day, knowing the same thing likely would have happened. They wanted to save as many classrooms as they could from bored, unsupervised students who every fifteen minutes would say 'if a teacher doesn't turn up within fifteen minutes, we're legally allowed to leave.'

But, the day was already wasted. Joel knew for a fact that it wasn't going to be a good day because he would be thinking about the fact that his dad would likely never come home again. It happened and he wished it hadn't, but he knew that it needed to.

The door to the cafe opened, and following the sound of heavy breathing, heavy wind and a new trend of early mornings, Robin walked in.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to be noticed.

"...Joel...?" She said, hearing his sniffs and seeing the yellow hoodie which was three sizes too big. "Joel? Are you alright?"

She dropped into the seat beside him, watching and listening to him sniff and bury his crying face in the palms of his hands. He didn't want to cry at all, but he was glad that if anyone was going to find him crying, it was her. The others rarely let their emotions show, they never let anyone other than themselves see their tears. But he did, he was emotional and he couldn't change it.

"They-" he took in a deep breath, gasping for air as he almost let a sob escape him, "my parents- my dad- he left... I didn't think it would be so... so difficult..."

"Oh no..." She breathed, frowning as she leaned close to him on the table, keeping her voice soft and quiet for him. "Do you need to talk about it? Do you want distracting? A hug? Anything?"

He shook his head thoughtlessly. Yet, realising what one of her offers was, he quickly sat up and threw himself onto her, latching her into a tight hug while he burrowed his face into her shoulder and cried, his body shaking with the sobs that he held back.

She brought her arms around him, hugging him tightly as he drenched her red jumper in his tears.

He didn't say anything, he just took in the fact that everything was real, that they were where they were, that his home was a mess, that things felt wrong but they also felt real.

He didn't know what to make of it.

"It's not fair," he said into her, showing no signs of letting go, "why can't things just be okay?"

She didn't say anything and instead, just held him, deciding to take time to listen to his shaking voice.

"I want-" he hiccuped, "I want things to be normal again. I want something to stay, to prove that not everything ends. Does everything end? Am I just being stupid?"

"...No," she breathed, her voice barely heard, but, he was close enough to hear. "Of course you're not. Feel what you want to feel, what you need to feel. This isn't the time to criticise yourself. Let yourself be upset, okay?"

"I- I just- I just want to wake up again and have my usual routine be normal. But I can't, every day something is different. Some days I'll sit down, eat my cereal and my mum will walk down the stairs crying, other times it will be my dad. I just want to eat my cereal each day and have the same thing happen, I don't care which. So long as it just stays the same so I at least have something. I won't have anything now though, will I?"