𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 ( IT CHAPTER 2 )

chapter two.

CHAPTER TWO .
' ADULT STUFF '

FIVE AM — THE NEXT MORNING

The neighborhood's street lamps stretched their light across the her car's interior as she subconsciously drove the streets towards her home.

On any other typical return from work, Amelia would be exhausted and be a cup of coffee away from descending into a danger on the road. But, that rainy morning required no coffee to keep her eyes alert — her heightened nerves was natural caffeine currently and was inflicting a broader expanse of adverse effects than the drink would; there had been a few instances that morning where the aftermath of the phone call nearly forced her to maneuver onto the road's shoulder. Yet, she always veered back into traffic despite the desire to not go home.

Her clasp on the steering wheel was white-knuckled and could even inflict pressure marks onto the foam outlining but such an imperfection was discarded in her head as she gradually turned into her driveway. Amelia forced the vehicle into park, the dull heat from the vents vanishing from her cold face as she pondered how she'd approach her husband upon entering the home — there was no feigning content and conducting her typical return home. No earnest kisses, no going to bed with him, no reciting her night at work, no frenzies of laughter, no falling asleep with him close. Then, she finally rose her stare from the dashboard's curved surface and to the front door, where she'd be starting this confrontation. Her nerves peaked with a quaver as it was revealed that she'd be initiating this burdensome discussion sooner than her anxiety was inclined towards.

On the dim front porch was a hunched — more appropriately defeated — silhouette amongst the darkness and downpour. There was her husband. He had barely permitted his head to lift from his hands as the vehicle front lights had indicated her arrival. He wasn't waiting for her. No, because the gaze that met her own through the windshield was charged with dread, not anticipation.

Amelia stretched a few fingers out in a wave with a forced simper as if she wasn't about to be submerged in a shit-show the second the door didn't disconnect her from the outside anymore. She pressed the very door open before her apprehension absorbed her entirely, forebode like an anchor propelling her back in all the while.

The rain was speared with a slight bitterness the early fall morning radiated, its droplets pooling on the bridge of her nose and her disheveled hairline, sullying her already rumpled appearance. A poignant sliver of her prayed that the deluge would arouse her from this dream — because that's all it could be. Or that's what the perverse young girl in her conscious likened it to. But even she wouldn't cower from this.

Amelia didn't round the car to recover her purse and work bag because it was unknown when she'd even require them again — if she needed them again. She maneuvered her steps about the silvery, mirrored puddles until she teetered to a pause at the start of the walkway to the porch steps. Eddie was already stuck in a stare at her when she peered up through the downpour, the pair silent and too internally plagued to say something. They were adults — parents — yet their matured minds couldn't supply their racing thoughts with anything worthwhile. Their failure of words only augmented that they weren't those individuals currently — they were petrified thirteen-year-olds again. As if it wasn't an exhausted yet clean-shaven man sitting dazed on the doorstep, rather a young boy with supple brown eyes, a childish outline to his maturing face, and a broken arm gazing apprehensively forward. And as if it wasn't a rumpled yet headstrong woman that stalled in the rain, instead it is a bloodied and bandaged girl with braids at the facets of her freckled face, and a sorrowful smile.