limerence | COMPLETED

11

THE LIGHTS ARE ON DOWNSTAIRS IN HER HOUSE AGAIN WHEN LAYLA MAKES IT BACK.

Her anger has subsided somewhat during the time she's been walking and as she lets herself inside the white front door, she sighs. An exhausted kind of sigh. All she wants to do right now is go to sleep and lose herself in her dreams.

Placing a hand on the wall, she kicks off her Dr Marten boots and bends down to neatly line them up on the shoe rack, rubbing her ankle for a second from where she's been overdoing it with the running lately. It's not swollen thankfully but it does ache.

There are a couple of bags resting in the short hallway and it's only then that she remembers overhearing her parents having a conversation on the phone the other night about going away for a few days; something to do with a friend of theirs'. Well, at least she won't have to worry about avoiding them too.

However, when she trails through to the kitchen and finds her parents sitting down at the kitchen table, looking like they've been waiting for her, she freezes. Oh, no. This couldn't be good. Dread courses through her and she swallows. Aren't they supposed to be leaving soon?

Her mother nods at her to join them at the table. Obediently, although very reluctantly, Layla sits down in the seat on the other side of the table and silently glances between them. She forces her expression to remain neutral.

Her father wordlessly slides an opened envelope towards her. Layla keeps her eyes on her parents while she opens it. She pulls out her grade card for the term and finally glances down at the paper, not at all surprised to see a long row of Cs, C minuses and a D in art. She looks back up at her parents with a blank expression.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Gerald quietly asks.

"We want an explanation," Emily states impatiently.

Layla can only stare at them, dumbfounded. They're joking, right? They aren't being serious right now, right? Yet the two of them continue to stare expectantly straight back at her and it's only then that it hits her. They aren't joking. At all. In fact, they're very serious right now.

Oh. So now they give a shit? Because they've actually picked up the post from where they usually always leave it for her to sort out by the door? Because they've actually taken two fucking seconds to check it and only just now found out that she's barely passing her classes the way she has been for the past two years? Because she's come home slightly later today and she didn't have a chance to throw it away because she'd given up caring a long time ago? Now they care?

"Say something, Layla, because we're out of explanations."

"What do you want me to say?" she asks, a breathless chuckle escaping her. Her parents recoil as though she's physically assaulted them.

"Are you laughing? She's laughing, Gerald. Why is she laughing?" Emily places her head in her hands.

In the background, a car horn loudly beeps.

Layla didn't even notice the slight laughter falling from her lips but now that she does, she can't quite seem to make it stop. She laughs. Harder. Harder again when the two of them just stare at her as though she's gone insane. She laughs so hard her stomach hurts and her hands start to tremble. So hard that she can't quite catch her breath.

It hurts.

"Now?" she says, trying ever so hard to compose herself. "Now you care." She bends forwards, her lips dry and sore from the way they stretch wide over her teeth. "I can't-" She gulps another deep breath of air. Why can't she breathe?

The two strangers before her continue to watch her wide-eyed. The car outside loudly honks again and one of their phones dings with a message.

"What? What exactly do you want me to say?" It hurts.