Eigengrau

The countdown to a beginning

Chapter 3:

When the families finished talking, they resumed the carrying of the bags. Casey was gone, so she wasn't helping. Brett didn't let Clara lift too many bags at once, despite her protestations, and Brett himself argued to have a back ache from all the driving he'd done, so the heavy lifting duty -mostly Casey's suitcases- fell on Mia's shoulders.

She didn't argue one bit, for what more could she do in that unknown place?

Well, I guess she could have gone to the beach. Or town. Or anywhere other than that stupid front yard, unloading suitcases from the car.

Mia was pissed, but she was the best at concealing her emotions. The only person who always knew what was going on was her father, and he was in the other end of the planet. Great, she thought.

Brett tapped her shoulder, once she was finished and lying on the couch, and said: "You get the top bedroom, it has the best view," his tone was the very definition of fake, and on his face was the cockiest grin Mia'd ever seen.

Even before seeing the bedroom with her own eyes, Mia knew she'd been screwed.

The stairs that led to the bedroom were steep, narrow and dark. It looked as if that part of the house had been ripped apart from some other house, and then added to Brett's cabin. The paper on the walls was peeling off, and unlike every other inch of the house, there were no pictures of Casey whatsoever.

The girl climbed up the stairs carrying all her bags, in an attempt to make an only trip.

When she opened the door, she almost expected it to creek, but luckily it didn't.

She had been screwed. That place was no bedroom, it was a fucking broom closet!

It's like I'm fucking Cinderella, Mia thought, as she dropped her bags on the floor.

There was a bed and a bedside table, along with the smallest dresser on earth. Now Mia knew why Casey couldn't have that room: there was little space for the incredible amount of clothes she had brought.

The view Brett had talked about you could see from the tiny, round window. To be fair to him, even though he wasn't fair to her, the view was amazing, but you could hardly see the sea through that peephole of a window.

At least it was clean, not a speck of dust to be seen.

Mia smiled sadly, feeling defeated.

She sunk on the bed and closed her eyes, grateful for just one thing: the silence.

{•}

"Mia!" Her mom shouted from the other side of the door, waking her up.

She sat up, rubbing the sleep off her eyes "Come in,"

Clara opened the door and let a thin thread of light into the otherwise dark room. Without warning, she turned the lights on.

"Hey!" Mia shouted, slightly upset.

"You haven't unpacked yet?" Clara asked, pointing at Mia's suitcase.

"No, I've been sleeping off the pains of slavery," Mia scratched her head and stretched her limbs.

"Oh, come on, Mia," her mom scolded, tired of hearing her daughter talk like that about her husband. Her husband, nonetheless!

"Are you serious? Casey didn't do shit, you didn't do shit 'cause Brett didn't let you, and Brett didn't do shit, either!" All her anger was being dumped onto her mother "It's not my fault he treats me like a servant!" she shouted, knowing neither Brett nor Casey would hear.

"He doesn't treat you like a--" she was soon cut off her daughter's sarcastic laugh.

"Whatever you say, Golden Globe," Mia said, half expecting her mother to catch the insult, half dreading the words as soon as she'd spoken them.

Her mother's face broke and settled in an expression of horror. Her eyes began watering, and her lip quivering. She grabbed the hem of her dress so hard that her knuckles turned white, her stare piercing Mia's eyes.

She'd gone too far. The horrified picture of her mother standing right in front of her, yet as still as a statue, made her realize that.

Mia genuinely tried to apologize, but her mouth refused to make a sound. The expression on her mother's face, the disappointment her features showed, left her out of breath, and with an aching heart.

Clara parted her lips and whispered "The Allens are coming over for dinner," her voice broke, and Mia's heart did too.

"Mamá," Mia was unable to speak anything but Spanish. "Mamá, perdón," she apologized in a hurtful whisper.

"English, Mia. English." Clara scolded and turned away from her daughter, going down the stairs.

Mia's eyes watered, and soon she couldn't hold back the river of tears that threatened to roll down her cheeks.

She cried face down on the pillow, not making any sound other than the occasional sob. She cried about her mother, about her father, about Brett and about herself. She cried until her stomach hurt and her eyes itched in redness.

Once she was drained of all tears and sorrows, there was no other thing to do  but to shower, like her mother'd told her to do.

And it turns out, a hot shower was all she really needed: it relaxed her muscles, getting rid of the tension in her shoulders and the pain in her legs. She washed off the memory of her mother's expression and scrubbed clean the dirtiness of the four-hour drive from her skin.

The steam followed Mia down the hallway.

Downstairs, there was the rumbling of cooking and setting the table. The low murmur of the TV reached Mia's ears, and despite everything, she chuckled at the sound of F.R.I.E.N.D.S playing in the living room, the episode in which a screaming Ross yelled 'Pivot! Pivot!' as he carried a sofa.

Mia hurried up the stairs when the realization hit her: the Allens were coming over, and she wasn't even close to being ready.

The thought of Theodore's oldest son -Riley, she recalled- hadn't left her head in the whole of the day. His smile was somewhat imprinted on her mind, and his kind eyes were driving Mia crazy. Her brain wandered again and again over the picture she had mentally taken of him: handsome and charming he stood in the middle of Mia's mind, and she couldn't seem to get him out of it.

Mia put her clothes on sloppily and clumsily, and went downstairs.

It wasn't until she bumped into Riley that she knew they had arrived.