Espresso

(3) Kisses, Ads, and a Forgotten Phone Call

Sunlight slanted in through the cracks in her window and shone down on Louise's sleeping form sprawled out underneath her thick duvet. Grumbling, Louise raised her hand to shield her eyes from the piercingly bright light, but her arm seemed incapable of staying still for more than twenty seconds.

Instead of taking a shower, eating breakfast, and having a productive morning, Louise made the executive decision to stay in bed until her mom got divorced from Harvey. Not that she was going to let them get married in the first place.

Flipping over so her back was to the window and the deathly sunlight streaming through it, Louise reached for her phone, which was balancing precariously on the edge of her aged nightstand.

Before Louise could input her ridiculously long password into her phone, her bedroom door swung open, crashing into her overflowing bookcase and causing books of all genres to come tumbling down on the intruder's feet.

"Breakfast is getting cold, we're waiting for you to eat so my friends can come over. Dad says you'll get fat if you lie in bed all day, wouldn't want that, now would we?" A smug look came over Connor's freckled face.

"Just go away, okay? I don't need Harvey, or you for that matter, telling me what to do!" Louise sacrificed her pillow and chucked it in the general direction Connor's voice was coming from.

"You missed," he replied bluntly, returning the pillow so that it hit her square in the face before sprinting out of the room, Louise's phone in hand.

"Breakfast in bed would be great, thanks for offering!" Louise called after him, throwing the patterned covers off of her bed and tracing Connor's steps as he wove through the small maze of rooms in the single floored apartment.

Louise could hear Connor's panting stop along with his footsteps as he disappeared into the kitchen. Curious to see what was going on and eager to retrieve her phone from his grasp, Louise followed suit and headed towards the kitchen.

As soon as her bare feet came in contact with the cold kitchen tiles, the rest of her body bumped into Connor's back. It was unlike Connor to stay still for any length of time unless he was sat in front of his Xbox.

Louise had to crane her neck to see past Connor, even though he was seven years younger than her. The sight before her eyes made her wish she had dug the hole in the park to China that she had dreamt of digging as a kid.

One of Harvey's beefy hands was gripping the back of Tracey's head, pushing her hair up into a halo like shape. The other one was rested as gently as an overweight hand can on the small of Tracey's back.

But the loving positions of his hands wasn't the worst part, not even close. Their eyes were locked into one another's, staring at eachother with the same intensity with which they crushed their lips together.

She could feel a tremor starting in her head and shaking down until her toes, but she couldn't be sure if this was due to anger as shock, as she felt both. Louise knew Harvey and Tracey were getting married, meaning they would be kissing a lot in the future, but there was something about seeing it happen right before her eyes in the place she ate her cereal every morning that made it much more real.

She wasn't ready to see this, that much she knew, but Louise also wasn't sure when she would be ready, if ever. What was it going to be like living in a house with two people who loved each other just about the same amount she hated them?

At that moment, Louise wished she could be anywhere but there, seeing anything else but Tracey kissing this beast of a man.

She wondered how differently things would have turned out had her mother not divorced Kurtis, her real father. Would she still be standing here, in a tiny, cluttered apartment full of the people she hated most? Or would she be somewhere else - in the middle of a city maybe - enjoying and living life to its fullest?