Right after she and Penny had ended their conversation, Pauline hurried to her son's room.
After knocking and awaiting his answer, she entered and saw him sitting at his desk.
There were schoolbooks, paper and pens all over it, but Miles looked like he had given up on them a long time ago.
Instead, he was fiddling with a pencil he had previously used to note down thoughts and - well - feelings into his little notebook. There were quite a few of those lately.
"Miles, you know I don't want to pressure you to talk to me, I understand there are things you just don't want to share with your mother at seventeen, or ever. But I've been worried about you and I believe I have told you, and I just got off the phone with Alex's mum. She told me how badly he is doing. Did something happen? I haven't seen Alex all week and you haven't been talking about him at all, which is strange considering how close the two of you usually are."
Miles was overwhelmed.
How could he possibly explain? Was there any way to put some sort of logic to all of this?
"No,- I mean yes-", Miles began but failed, having to take a breath and restart. "It's not that simple."
He inwardly cursed himself for coming up with such an unspecific response whilst still inevitably implying there was something out of the ordinary going on. He really couldn't blame Pauline for the way she was looking at him now.
He also couldn't blame her for worrying, after all he had been rather distant and cold to her lately when the two of them were actually very close.
"Miles, you're going to have to give me more than that if you want me to understand."
Miles thought.
"Unless you don't want me to", Pauline elaborated. "Understand, I mean."
"No", Miles disagreed, "it's not that I don't, it's just-"
"Complicated?"
"Yeah."
"Look, sometimes things seem a lot more complicated than they actually are because we don't know how to deal with them. Some things are complicated, sure. But some are too simple to understand. So simple that they scare us."
Miles looked down at his hands.
"It's not always a bad thing to be scared, Miles. Fear can make us stronger. It can make us brave."
Miles suddenly felt she had made it through all of his layers right to his heart and read every word that was written on it.
He looked up at her. They held the eye contact in silence for a few moments before Miles finally spoke.
"You know." He blinked and a small tear escaped his eye. "You know, don't you?"
Pauline just kept looking at him for a few more seconds before she approached him, gave him a kiss and then left the room, all without saying another word.
Miles hated how he could never keep anything from her. She would always get to the bottom of it eventually.
As much as he was annoyed he was also relieved though as he felt like he had lost some of the weight he had been carrying around for too long now. Not much, but it helped a little.
He wiped the tear away with the sleeve of his jumper and sighed deeply.
He then redirected his attention to the little notebook in front of him.
Somewhat absentmindedly, he flicked through the pages and looked at his scribbles of chords and patterns, words and lines.
Suddenly, he had to stop.
The page he was looking at made his heart skip a beat, he thought.
If you just get it together and read my mind
Then sleeping would be easy
Miles felt himself tearing up again.
He threw his head back for a second before he looked at the words another time.
He read further.
His fingers pointing to the lines on the page, he whispered:
"I need something to sort me out, I need someone to come and shake me."
The tears now clouding his vision, he added the final words of the song:
"Wish you'd just get it together and read my mind."
Miles woke up the next morning almost feeling like he had a hangover but not from alcohol, no, from all the rolling around and opening eyes to stare at the wall, the ceiling, the window.
Realising that there was no use in lying there and overthinking pretty much everything there was to overthink, Miles forced himself to get up and his mind moved his body away from the bed towards his closet to find something to wear.
YOU ARE READING
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Fanfiction"Perhaps it was the night, he thought, and that beautifully strange silence about it. Perhaps it was the air. There was something about the air. Or in it." (Milex Highschool AU) Alex and Miles have been friends for almost a year now, ever since Mi...
