Water From Mud

Eighteen.

a/n: Two chapter updates! 17 & 18. I'm headed on vacation this weekend but still wanted to post. Enjoy! Thanks for reading!

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George was what her counselor referred to as an organized procrastinator. Routine duties held little appeal, but she would make sure to complete them, usually in scheduled increments, to avoid a larger problem. Tidy environments were necessary for her functioning, and it was easy for her to let everything go if she put off doing chores, leaving her with an expanding to-do list and a growing mess. She didn't slack because she had enough foresight to know how much time they would take to complete if she didn't keep up with them.

Though, when she fixated on something, these chores often felt like a compulsory escape.

George cleaned the entire house over the weekend. She steamed the carpets, wiped the wallboards, mopped the kitchen, scrubbed the toilets, dusted hard-to-reach places, and decalcified the bathtub. Each time she completed a chore, she found more to do. It was the perfect mindless distraction she needed to ponder what she'd discovered in her mother's letter.

After reading it countless times, she'd gently tucked it back inside the envelope and returned it to her dresser drawer like it had never been opened. She hadn't reached for it once following Friday night. But it never left her mind.

His name. Her father's name.

Dean Maeson.

Of everything else in the letter, that was what George clung to. It was as if it had been bolded and underlined, diminishing the four paragraphs filled with sentiments and words that carried little meaning to her now. They were seven years old. Too much time had passed for them to penetrate the place where she'd needed them to when her mother had died.

But her father's name did. It cut right through, because George knew it was the outlet she needed. It was the weapon she needed. Finally, there was someone in her sightline who deserved her anger. All of her anger.

Upon discovering that her mother was pregnant, Dean Maeson had left. And why not? If the connection that George had believed existed between two people when they had sex was a falsehood, what was to make the other person stay? She knew firsthand, and she wondered if her mother had experienced that same emptiness that had carved George until she was hollow after she'd been with Keiran. Was she, too, subsequently filled with the same quiet rage?

Her mother had gone through with her pregnancy. Maybe that quelled the emptiness. Or, maybe, that emptiness had instead carved George hollow before she was even born.

She thought of Maeve.

George had barely seen her all weekend. And that was okay. She didn't want to know if Maeve had taken a pregnancy test. She didn't want to know the results. She didn't want to think about her sister with Kyle. She didn't want to remember the exact shade of Keiran's eyes. She didn't want to think about the lack of affection in them after they'd slept together, or how affectionately Sam looked at her on their walk after the barbecue. She didn't want to draw. She didn't want to work on her animation. She didn't want to watch a movie. She didn't want to sleep, eat, bathe, or do anything but think of her father while she polished every square inch of her house as if sharpening a knife.

When Monday arrived, George felt like she could slice through anything.

It was another blurry day, but she was precise. Like she was moving through the world without noise or causing a wake—as if she was so sharp that she was invisible.

Invisible but destructive.

There were emails and phone calls to answer, and George went through the motions of a regular day at the office all the while brewing years worth of anger. It was ready and waiting. She thought of little else besides her father's name.