It's Understandable: A Tronnor AU

34. Growing Pains

During dinnertime, regardless of the circumstances, the table was alive with aimless chatter. Tyde talked about his camping trip that weekend, Laurelle gave Cheryl the dirty details on her recipe, Troye shared his crucial plans to replace the busted string on his ukulele, Cheryl asked Sage how she was feeling about learning to drive, etcetera, etcetera. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't dull conversation, but in his situation Connor found it all to be redundant information.

What he thought really should have been discussed was yet to be a question requested, but Connor found himself staying mute for the entirety of dinner. He offered polite smiles when somebody looked at him, opening his mouth only as a vessel for the hearty pork chops and mashed potatoes prepared by Laurelle, until he didn't. Until he, sitting stiffly between Cheryl and Tyde, became lost and blank in a spacey confusion. 

He spent most of the hour or so like this. He knew his mom wasn't in the best place, and he didn't want to bother her, but he, by himself, couldn't pinpoint why this all felt so wrong. Her sitting next to him at the Mellet's dinner table, her voice twittering with small talk, her appearance sunken and off kilter; the following question responsible for the random disturbance this gave him, Connor couldn't decode why in fact she was even there. He didn't know she was supposed to be out of the hospital, let alone why she just showed up to stay, instead of taking him home. 

It was eating him up, and he hated being so silenced by himself and his situation. He hated the strain that came with trying so hard to figure this all out, because it was impossible if he didn't know anything.

This was evident in his face, blank and white, though it took a while for somebody to notice. That somebody was Laurelle, who consequently asked, to animate him: "So, Connor. You and Troye had date-night last night, didn't you?"

Connor lifted his head hazily, seeing that, to that, Cheryl instantly brightened, turning her body to face her son. "Really? That's so sweet, what did you guys do?" She asked with warm excitement.

Chained smoked, got illegal tattoos, nearly got into a car accident because Troye's dad lied and said he got a heart attack, so he could lure us in a conference room for a rather aggressive heart-to-heart. Connor smirked a little, despite the ridiculousness of both these past and present circumstances. "We had Vietnamese, then went for a walk." He said plainly. He presumed it was okay not to give the whole truth, as the truth was exactly what his mother seemed to be avoiding herself. "It was nice."

Troye, sitting directly across from Connor, smiled knowingly behind his fists. He had his elbows propped up on the table, and Connor felt a twinge of comfort as Troye's socked foot touched his shin gently under the table, running tenderly down the length of his blue jeans with secret intimacy. Troye recognized that Connor was going through something, and his loving actions distracted Connor from his troubles, just for the moment, and activated a nice warmth that ran through his chest and collarbone and in the veins underneath his new, and now painless, tattoo.

He wanted more of that, less of his perplexing mother, but then the dishes were being gathered, and Cheryl said something that brought the discomfort right back. "Connor and I will do the dishes, won't we Connor?" She winked happily at him, adding to the unarguable persuasion of her benevolence in the offer. Well, benevolence to Laurelle at least, but not to the veiled anxieties of her disconcerted child.

Connor flushed; he didn't want to spend time alone with his mother in the confines of the kitchen. No, not when it would be nothing but small talk, like dinner--not when he had so many questions he felt it would be too upsetting to ask. It would be too foully tempting, too overwhelming, so naturally his body nearly lurched in relief as Laurelle shook her head.