COMFORT [ben clark x f!oc]

TWO

To say that Mia was exhausted was an understatement. After Ben walked her home she scanned over the group chat once more just to be reminded that they had homework. Since she wasn't able to sleep anyway she stayed up doing the said homework.

Her mind wasn't working at all. Every so often her thoughts would drift away from the paper in front of her to the events from earlier. Her eyelids were too heavy. She would close her eyes, just to rest them a bit and every time her mind would play the exact moments before they shifted back. Except, in her 'dreams' it would always get her.

She hadn't even realized how long she was sitting at her table staring at the paper before her. That was until the alarm on her phone went off. She groaned as she got up from her uncomfortable sitting position.

With heavy steps she walked down the stairs to the kitchen. She took out a pot, filled it up with water and let it sit on the stove till it boiled. When the bubbles started popping up on the surface she took out an egg carton, took out three eggs and put them in the water, bringing down the temperature. She set a timer on her phone to nine minutes and started making the table.

As she was setting the tablecloth down her dad called out "Morning kiddo." It took her a few moments to register his voice. As she made her way to the shelf with dishes, as if she just heard him she let out a tired "Morning dad."

She brought the plates to the table and her timer went off. She took the pot of the stove and went to the sink. She let the pot sit under the running cold water till the eggs were cold enough so that she could peel them without burning herself.

Once she was done, Mia made her way to the dining table, sitting in the chair across her dad. "Hey, what's up with you?" Her dad asked. "Hmm? Nothing why are you asking?" she answered. "Well, to be quite frank, you sound like you were a test subject in a russian sleep experiment." even though he tried to make a joke his tone was still serious.

Ever since her mom and him started dating when they first moved to Georgia she would always tell him everything. How her day was going, what the kids in the kindergarten and later on in school were saying about her accent, if she did anything fun or just random things that popped up in her mind. And it was always like that. She never kept any secrets from him, and that was really how things were. When she had a crush she would tell him, not going into the specific obviously. She told him when she first tried cigars (which she didn't make a habit of) and he wasn't pleased to hear that at all but deep down he was glad that she had enough trust in him to tell him that.

But things changed over the last month. Jack wasn't the best at reading people but he knew his girl well. With a single look he could tell that something was pressing her and it was killing him that she won't tell him what it was. Not having a clue on what was stressing his daughter enough to keep her from sleeping at night was getting to him. But every time he would try to ask her about it she would play clueless or brush him off. He really wanted to respect her boundaries so he was trying his best not to press her about it so much.

Mike and him were best friends since high school. They were there for each other through everything. When Ashlyn was born it was like she was his daughter as well. When Mike and Emma were going out, which was rare, he would always look after Ashlyn. Mike was there to help him with Svetlana, though he was mostly passing on tips he got from Emma. He was his brother from another mother.

When they went out to the bar the other night, he told him about Mia. He thought that Mike would tell him that it would pass, that she was now a teenager and that he was just worrying too much What he didn't expect was that the same thing was going on with Ashlyn. That just added to his worries.

"Gee thanks dad." She jokingly replied, though she didn't miss the serious tone in this voice. "Always." he said and with that they continued their breakfast in silence. But his thought weren't as silent. He was trying to come up with a way to approach this situation. Should he just be straight up with it? Or would it be better to go around a bit and figure it out on his own depending on what she says to him?