Humor Me

The Mom

Adeline

I was mostly asleep when I had my head down on the table. I was happy being by myself like that, even though the pain was intensifying; I managed. I was moments away from actually falling asleep when I was disturbed by a distant sound,

"Adeline? Adeline?" said the distant voice in such a sweet tone, "Addie? hun?" The sound thus became closer making jolt up in response to my name being called, but just as fast as I came up I went back down groaning from the pain.

"Argh, ah. Who's calling me?" I said peering through squinted eyes at a currently blurry figure.

"Addie it's me, Emerald." Confused at the name I rubbed my eyes to get a more clear look,"Emerald?" I echoed.

"oh! Emerald! Hi, what are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" she eyed me suspiciously, "I work here, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Oh I um, I left." I began to sit back from leaning over the table. "Ah!" I shouted wincing in pain. I forgot the bruise was there for a second while talking to emerald and honestly I didn't want her to know, so I very  much felt stupid in the moment "Dammit." I mumbled. I looked up at who was now looking at me with concerned eyes.

"Addie, what happened?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." I said with a half hearted smile.

"Adeline, don't lie to me" she said as she put a hand on my should, making me cry out in pain. She immediately pulled her hand back and gave me a look as if she knew.

"Show me."

"What?" I asked confused,

"Addie, don't play dumb with me, Show me."

Understanding what she was talking about, I pulled my sleeve down my shoulder to expose the small bruise that only wasn't so small anymore. She gasped in fear at what she saw, "Addie, what happened?? This bruise is the size of my fist!" Wait here.

She went to the back for a second then returned with some water and an aspirin to help with the pain.

"Take this." Watching me intently, she waited for me to take the aspirin. After chugging it down, she gave a small sympathetic smile.

"The pain isn't gonna go away right away Addie, so give it time. In the mean time, why don't you tell me what happened?"

I looked at her nervously not wanting to tell her but at the same time I felt compelled to, so I just sat silently. Though sensing my hesitation she said something else, "Look, you don't have to tell me, but I rather you would. I wanna be there for you Addie, let me." At the end of her sentence she reached across the table and softly laid her hand on top of mine. I began to grow immensely nervous at this, but when I looked up from her hands she was giving me this reassuring, comforting smile, and my nerves immediately began to settle. Deciding to take a leap of faith, I told her what happened.

Emerald

Adeline awkwardly shifted in her seat while telling me the story, and she wouldn't look at me once; which was completely understandable. Though the story she was telling was absolutely shocking, even though I was taken aback by the story I managed to keep calm. Finally she finished her story and looked at me, her eyes were so full of worry and fear. I couldn't tell if she was frightened about what happened, or about telling me what happened. Regardless I wasn't going to let this slide.

"Bethany!" I shouted towards the back.

"No no no, what are doing??" Adeline asked with a sense if emergence.