𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙒𝙊𝙐𝙉𝘿𝙎 𝙒𝙀 𝙎𝙃𝘼𝙍𝙀 ᵉᵈᵈⁱᵉ ᵐᵘⁿˢᵒⁿ

☼ 12

; T U R B U L E N C E S
paralyzed by JAMIE BOWER

"You're done, perfect, I just finished making some, uh...", Eddie stopped to look at the label on the opened can, "It's too faded to read. But I think it's something with potatoes. Or meat balls. We'll have to eat it to find out." Eddie smiled and turned off the heat of the oven before emptying the pot into two bowls. The food steamed and made his eyes water, causing him to rub them hectically. It smelled a bit burned and a look into the bowls told Matilda all she needed to know.

"You're not a passionate cook, are you?", she asked mockingly, gently nudging his shoulder. He shot her a scolding look and handed her one of the bowls.

"Eat now, complain later." They went back to the living room and sat down on the couch again. Eddie turned on the TV and stopped skipping channels at some cartoon for kids. Matilda knew why he didn't look further. The next channel was a news channel and if she was in his position, she'd probably rather watch a kids cartoon than seeing herself being framed for murder too.

"I turned the washing machine on by the way. Took me a while, but it's running."

"Damn, this is starting to feel like a roommate-situation instead of a murder-scheme", he sarcastically murmured, to what Matilda responded with a worried expression.

"Are you okay?" She'd been longing to ask, but up until now she'd been too busy worrying about herself to actually listen to him. Weirdly enough she liked being around him to an extent at which she actually worried about his well-being, which hadn't happened with a lot of people within the last years. In actuality, the more she got to know Eddie, the more selfish she felt for caring about her own mindset instead of comforting him. If anything, he was the one in the shit situation. She was merely accompanying him.

Eddie looked up, seemingly thrown off by the sudden question.

"Yeah, what, I'm good", he answered, his tone far too exaggerated to sound realistic. Matilda cocked her head and raised a brow, what caused Eddie to roll his eyes. "Really, I'm a-okay. I mean, shit happens. It's fucked but crying about it won't help." He seemed sincere, what shocked Matilda the most. But in a way she also understood what he meant. She hadn't really talked about her own feelings in a long time and for most of that it had felt like the best, if not the only solution.

She adjusted her seat and started stirring her potatoe-meatball-something.

"Well, I, for one, am terrified of what is going to happen from now on", she said truthfully, the words only quietly leaving her lips. Opening up had never come easy to her, even when she'd still had something of a friend group. Right now though it felt like the only possibility. "I honestly don't think I've ever lived through something this scary." She couldn't help laughing it off, even though it was far from funny. She needed the balance between honesty and jokes. Eddie frowned and awkwardly kept chewing, not making eye contact.