broken pieces 》 muke/cashton

six

The sound of the doorbell rang throughout the Clifford household at 7 pm on a Friday evening, quickly followed by the barking of Michael's dog, Ace. "Mikey, could you get that? I'll be there in a second!" Mrs Clifford sang from the kitchen.

"Don't worry Mum, I've got it!" Michael called back as he ran up the stairs from the basement, where he was readying the video games for the night.

Michael opened the door, shushing his Yorkshire Terrier as he did so, and as he expected, found Luke standing on his front porch, a white car with the windows rolled down parked by the pavement.

"Hello Fries," joked Michael, looking at the lanky boy's ocean blue eyes.

"If you really think it's going to bother me at some point, you're wrong because I really like that name," laughed Luke.

"We'll see about that. It'll get annoying at some point," Michael responded. "Come in," he said, opening the door wider to let the blonde in.

He turned around and waved at the car which had a woman seated in it, waving back at Luke before driving off. "Oh you have a dog? Oh my God, it's so cute!" Luke said, kneeling over to pet Ace. "What's it's name?"

"Ace. He's a great friend," Michael smiled as he watched Luke play with the dog.

Just as Luke was taking his shoes off, Mrs Clifford emerged from the kitchen with a massive smile on her face.

"Hi, you must be Luke," she said, holding out a hand for Luke to shake.

"I am," Luke said, fitting his hand into Mrs Clifford's and shaking it. "Nice to meet you Mrs Clifford."

"Don't be silly, call me Karen. It's nice to meet you too Luke," she said. "Well, you two have fun. The pizza is in the kitchen if you want it. I'm going to call it a night."

"But it's only 7?" Michael questioned.

"I've got to get up early tomorrow Mikey. Don't do any thing stupid okay? Good night," Karen said, placing a kiss on Michael's forehead.

"G'night Mum," Michael said as she headed upstairs.

"She was nice," Luke told Michael once she was gone.

"She's great. You'll love her," Michael smiled. "Come on, let's go downstairs."

Michael and Luke headed downstairs, Ace trailing behind them once they had taken the pizza and a bottle of Coke from the kitchen. "This place is really cool," Luke said, looking around the nicely decorated basement as Michael started up the PS4.

"Yeah I spend most of my time down here. My dad was the one who decorated this place he let me design it however I wanted. It's probably my favourite place in the world," Michael said, letting out a heavy sigh of contentment as he looked around the room.

"That sounds really awesome. Where is your dad?"

Michael chewed his lip at the sound of the four words he hated the most- Where is your dad. He felt a tightness in his throat all of a sudden. He couldn't decide if his heart was racing or had stopped all together. He felt his breathing begin to quicken and took it as a sign of an upcoming panic attack. Problem was, he promised himself that he'd be fine. He hadn't had an anxiety attack in about two weeks and he was proud of himself.

He started to concentrate on his breathing. There was a long silence as Michael breathed in and out trying his best to avoid the anxiety attack before it worsens itself and makes him look like an idiot in front of Luke. Each moment of silence making Luke's eyes fill with more and more worry.

"H-he's not around anymore," Michael finally managed to choke out, his breathing slowly easing itself as the words escaped his mouth.

"Oh," Luke gulped. "Sorry, I-I shouldn't have asked-"