Marked With Deception (ereri)

Chapter Nine

~Eren's POV~

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy what Levi and I did together. Every time he touched me, it felt like a single feather running it's tip down my spine. Holding me like a glass figurine, gently enough so he wouldn't break me. Just as subtle as how the sea creeps towards the shore only to draw back immediately.

Even if it was just sex, I feel like he treated me like I was something meaningful. Something worth keeping. Kind of.

After showering at Levi's place, he drives me home and drops me off a few streets from my house only because I told him to.

The sidewalks are quiet just as always. For some reason, it reminds me of when sometimes strict teachers walk in on a noisy classroom; everyone nearly become mute the instant they see them. I, myself walking, quiet the roads. The sky hushed the ground through soft breezes and tumbling leaves. 

Each step was deafening though relaxing to the ear. 

I see my mother sitting on the front steps of my house. My house that had rotting walls and ceilings. My house that's as cold on the inside as the outside. My house that'll be taken away from me in three weeks if I don't do anything about it. My own house.

"Hey Mom." My smile is forged, but the redness in my cheeks from the brisk cold isn't.

"Hey sweetie," she hums while she opens her arms out for a hug, "How are you?"

"Eh, could be better." I kinda shrug off the question. If the truth were out, I probably say that I'd rather be dead because less than an hour ago it felt like a drill was shoved up my anus and turned on destroying my organs from the inside-out. It was nice, but no, let's not tell her that.

"Good, good. You just got back from babysitting?" 

"Mhmm." I hesitate. "I've actually been saving for months...and I've reached a grand."

Her eyebrows skewed in confusion wrinkling her forehead. Her face read huh all over. I'm nowhere near surprised because if my son said he had one grand, I defiantly wouldn't believe him if it were all from babysitting.

"A...grand? Like a thousand dollars?" Her dry fingers clasp around my meatless forearms.

"Mhmm," I say ignoring the pain.

"Well don't make me wait! Let me see it!" Her confused look vanishes to pure excitement.

Is this woman serious?

I love my mom to death, but she cannot be serious. She believes me? I mean who can blame her? When life gives you a lemons, you squeeze every fucking drop of juice until your hands bleed.

I'm guessing her with her malnutrition—lack of sleep, food, water, and overwhelming stress—stripped her ability to think logically.

Reaching in my back pocket, I hand her the rolled cash that Levi had given me.

With her trembling fingers, Carla gentle examines in rolls of twenties and tens. Seconds after, she pulls me into another hug squeezing my back and pressing on all the bruises. Ouch.

She pauses.

"Why do you smell so good?" Her nose roams all throughout my chest and neck. "Vanilla?"

The distrusted expression she made breaks me. Jealously maybe? She can't know anything about the other side of my life; Levi being.

"I showered at the house I was babysitting."

"Oh." She goes quiet after speaking. Getting up from the stone steps, I follow her inside to be greeted with a raw shiver. My home.

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