Touchy

Chapter 10

Triple upload! :) 

As soon as I enter the house, mum seems to sense something different in me. The corner of her eye surveys me with deep attention as I go about regular habits. I take my shoes off, sling my bag down at the foot of the stairs ready to take up to my room later, empty my lunchbox and drink into the bin and sink and graze through the cupboards for a snack. All the while her gaze is tensely staring into me, physically boring holes into my back, shoulders and anywhere else she chooses.

Swinging round from the counter with a glass of strawberry flavoured water in hand, I decide to meet her eyes. Almost instantly she averts her gaze onto the pot of rice that she's currently hovering over on the stove – well, when she hasn't been keeping her eyes on me that is. She glues her eyes to the rice, which is practically already boiled to the right extent it needs to be boiled to. It's cooked.

Coming round to her side, I turn the hob dial off. "It's done," I announce blandly as if she didn't already know. Now she finally meets my eyes, smiling, but behind the hazel I can see her trying to add up all of the things she's been observing and noting down like a journalist with a notepad and pen. Eagerly, she's trying to get anything from the most miniscule words or movements I do or say. Am I like a puzzle to her, her project to work on to attempt to solve?

"So it is," she bluntly replies, picking up the pot ready to carry over to the sink to drain the steaming water from.

Stepping back, I allow her to move past me to the sink. Slowly, she strains the rice, separating it from its cloudy bath. Tapping my foot against the lino, I wait for her to finish. I don't want her to burn herself, but I'm also getting impatient waiting. She's trying to conceal what she's thinking about me. What she's manipulated in her to be reasoning's of my behaviour – or what she thinks has changed. That I'm certain is what her eyes boring into me is for. If not though, I want to know what it is instead.

Without trying to be rude, I summon up the courage to ask. "Mum, is there something wrong with me?"

"What? No. No of course not darling." She places the pot down on the side and extends her hand until it reaches my cheek. Softly, she brushes my skin with the pad of her thumb until I lean back away when she hits a sore spot of skin. This time it's not eczema, it's a half-risen spot on the side of my face. Excellent I know. Wrinkling her nose, she drops her hand onto the rim of the sink, a small metallic noise sounding at the interaction of her ring on the metal. "What makes you think there is Celine?"

Stepping over to the other side of the kitchen, I come to lean my back against the top of one of the chairs at the table. "By the way you're watching me with something like curiosity in your eyes," I say as I straighten out my back before I pull out the chair I was previously resting on and sit down on it, the proper way. My gaze wanders from the glass I've placed down in front of me on the table up to mum who's still stood at the sink and then back down to the colourless liquid again.