Try For Me | Zelink AU

Mama's Boy

It's kinda short this time but oh well. 

Carmen—Lana Del Rey

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Link's Perspective

"Fucking stupid," I say to myself, slamming the car door shut and locking it. Everything is sticky: my shirt, my belt, my jeans, my shoes. Blue, sticky, and disgusting.

I pick somewhere far and those friends of hers just happen to be there. And Ravioli or whatever the hell his name is just happened to ask her on a date the same day I was taking her on one. I guess now I know why he didn't want me around her.

I'm not sure if she thought I wouldn't be able to hear her and Mipha talking in the library but I heard every bit of it. How he likes her and asked her on a date. He can't possibly like someone else after his stupid little warning to stay away from her.

I slam the screen door behind me and tug my shirt from my jeans before pulling it over my head. Even my stomach is sticky underneath. I should have given him a black eye.

Ma turns away from the open oven, a steaming dish in her mittened hands. "What happened?"

"Nothing." I run my shirt under the faucet but the blue doesn't wash out. I scrub it together next, swearing under my breath when nothing happens.

"Let me look at it." She takes it from my hands and unravels it, squinting at the stain. "What is this, dye?"

"It's a slushie or something, Ma." I look past the fridge into the living room. His recliner is empty. "Is Dad here?" I can't hear it from him. Not his laugh or mocking me for standing here as Ma scrubs my shirt in the sink.

"He took Aryll with him to the store." Daddy's little girl like always.

The stain lifts slightly as I watch her work. She scrubs the fabric together under cold water, rinses, and repeats it. Over and over until it goes from vibrant blue to a pale stain. She doesn't say anything else, letting me watch and I can pretend it's just us for a moment. It could have been like this if he'd never come back. They wouldn't have had Aryll either; just me.

I was too little to remember most of it but I remember standing on a stool next to the sink and helping her dry the dishes she washed. I remember pulling wet clothes from her basket and giving them to her to hang on the line outside. I remember her taking me to the park and I remember her making chalk drawings with me on the sidewalk.

And I remember when he came back and he told her she was making me sensitive, that she was treating me like a girl and not a boy. He'd take me outside instead and teach me how to punch when all I wanted was for him to go away.

"The rest will come out in the wash," she says, holding up my shirt. The stain is almost unnoticeable now. She squeezes out the rest of the water and hands it to me with the kind of smile anyone would return.

But I don't.

"Thanks, Ma." She's good at hiding the disappointment. She gives me that smile every chance she gets, hoping she'll get one back. But I just can't. It wouldn't be real. I can't lie to her like that, not when she's so hopeful for something untainted.

I think about telling her once she goes to the stove to finish dinner. Telling her I met a pretty girl who hiccups when she's nervous and mouths thoughts she thinks she's keeping to herself. That she wears dresses from the 50s and smells like vanilla and flowers and the faint hint of something I only realized was books because I noticed the same scent in the library.

I told myself I would keep Zelda a secret so I wouldn't get Ma's hopes up. I told myself this girl was just a distraction too. I'd take her on dates, forget about home for a while and that would be it. But each time she saw my real smile, she seemed to try to look just a little bit deeper than what I let everyone see.