Oh, Eleanor

Chapter 28 : The wound

The kiss was apparently short, before both of them pulled away at once...As soon as they stumbled back to the reality.
Ron felt a sharp twinge of guilt. He thought about so many things. Chris being the top of it.
Then Eleanor...
He could see clearly that she wasn't meeting his eyes. Her head was hung low. Maybe he shouldn't have done this. He was just making the matters worse for Eleanor to handle, whatever she was going through.
The cool air turned warm again. Though, still immensely benumbing. Before the awkwardness and the silence could shatter him, Ron left.

***

At home, Ron kept himself busy. Redoing the assignments, cleaning his room, checking for toilet paper in the bathroom.
He tried not to think about what happened at Eleanor's. How very soft and cold her lips were. How delicate she was to hold. How purely she gave into that embrace, he offered.
And damn, he was thinking again.
He made dinner just to have something more to do to keep his mind frozen from that image. When his mother came home, they ate in silence. Ron's mother was really in a good mood. Excited for the returning of his father. Oh right...His father was getting back to them.
He still couldn't get the thought fixated into his head. Ron never had his father around. Except on vacations and some unexpected weekend surprises. But being here all the time was something he never had and wasn't really not paranoid about the thought of it.
He sighed.
"You seem off." Martha said. "Almost too off for someone who cooked dinner and could be bragging about it all right."
He nodded.
"What's it?"
He shook his head instantaneously. "Nothing." Said a feeble pur from his throat.
"Your actions don't match your words."
"It's nothing." He said again and stuffed his mouth with food.
The next few minutes passed in utter silence except for the few chomping sounds Ron was making on purpose. Almost like a conversation. Yada.
"Ron, you can always tell me something of its bothering you." His mother pressed again.
"Mom, that's enough!" He shouted. The voice came louder than he meant it to be. "Nothing's bothering me, all right?"
Martha gasped.
He was never loud to her.
"I was just asking because seeing you desolate makes me worry."
"I am not desolate for God's sake!" He shouted again. This time accompanying it with the picking up of the glass and smashing it on the floor.
Was he really being this? What was he doing? There couldn't possibly be so much anger welled up in him, could there be?
His mother started to cry silently.
That looked like torture. He didn't go to her to comfort her. He instead stooped and started picking up broken pieces of glass.
A tiny chip of the glass went through his skin. Resulting in a gash with trickle of his blood.
That's what a wound felt like. Now could he count how many Eleanor has?