Mania

Lesson 10. Trust

Clemence had been doing her homework for over an hour yet did not have much to show for it. She chewed the end of her pen absentmindedly as she lay on her bed, papers strewn beneath her, laptop open, the white blank page mocking her. She kicked her legs, blinked, stared at the wall in front of her, head propped up on her right palm, left hand holding the pen in her mouth.

She had not been able to get Tim's words out of her head, the more she thought about them, the heavier the lump in her throat felt, the lower it sank into her stomach.

Erin was her best friend.

She couldn't believe what Tim had said. She refused to believe it. He was just trying to twist things, trying to belittle their friendship in order to worm his way out of the situation he had created.

Clemence told herself this.

Yet she had not spoken to Erin since, muting her phone and not even checking her messages.

She sighed heavily, dropping her pen on to her bed, running her hands through her hair and rubbing her forehead with the tips of her fingers, concentrating on the pressure, trying to apply the pressure and conceal the dull ache.

'Clemence! Honey! Dinner's ready!'

Clemence unravelled herself from paper and sheets, unravelled her mind from its heavy fog and made her way downstairs, taking the seat opposite her mother, who was watching her curiously.

Her mother let her sit for a while, let her scratch the wooden surface of the table with one finger while the other hand held a fork near her mouth, the spaghetti hanging off one end as Clemence stared at the table, stared at her finger scratching back and forth.

'Okay.' Her mother sat, taking a gulp of wine before sitting back and crossing her arms. 'What's wrong?'

Clemence blinked, shrugged, shoved the fork into her mouth. 'Nothing.' She mumbled through the food.

Her mother raised her eyebrows. 'I got more convincing responses from you when you were four. Come on. What's wrong?'

Clemence sighed, pushing her dinner around her plate with her fork, keeping her eyes off of her concerned mother with the warm smile, dressed in yellow and orange, a burst of sunshine that Clemence couldn't bring her eyes to stare at for too long.

'It's nothing, really.'

'You've been off for a few days now, I'm not blind. If you think I'm going to leave this then you have another thing coming honey.'

Clemence didn't respond, lower lip jutting out, eyes cast down, hair falling into her face.

'Clemence.' Her mother's tone grew softer. 'You can talk to me. Please. I want to help you. It's my job.'

'It's just silly, I'm probably making a big deal out of nothing.'

Her mother waited, patient. Clemence could feel herself unravelling, unable to hold it in, the words spilling out of her lips.

'It's just, how can you ever trust someone? How can you ever fully whole heartedly trust someone? You can put all your trust into someone and truly believe them, believe in the person they are or believe in what they say or do. But at the end of the day, what's does that even mean? That's not going to stop them turning around and going against your trust. You can have all this belief in someone and you can never know if or when they're going to throw it back in your face.'

Clemence dropped her fork onto the plate, the metal clanging as she leant back in her chair, her mother watching her gently.

'It's just...scary. Like you can think you know someone but it's impossible to truly every know someone. Trusting people just seems so...hopeless, there's nothing concrete in it.'