Living Loving Maid

Chapter 21

Hailey was sitting alone in the guest bedroom, and she couldn't help but feel sad, and worried. Charlotte had clearly discovered that her and Jimmy were together, and it was only making Hailey feel more worried about what was going to happen next. It wasn't helping Hailey sleep well.

A few moments later, she saw the door open, and saw little Scarlet. She looked a little sad, and scared.

"What's wrong, Scarlet?" Hailey asked as Scarlet walked towards the bed and climbed up on it with Hailey's help. Scarlet instantly wrapped her arms around Hailey in a hug.

"Mommy can be scary sometimes."

Hailey began to feel concerned. "What do you mean?" She asked.

Scarlet released Hailey and looked up at her. "Sometimes she'll start acting mean and strange." She explained. "I think it's because of this stuff she drinks."

Oh, dear God.

"What stuff?" Hailey asked.

"It looks like water." Scarlet answered. "But, I've smelled it before, and it smells weird. Daddy says it's off-limits."

Wait a minute.

Hailey started to remember the time Robert had told her about Charlotte, and basically said that Charlotte was an alcoholic. Apparently, Robert was actually being honest.

"Whenever mommy drinks that stuff, she starts to act weird." Scarlet continued. "She's not fun to be around when she acts weird, so I go in my room usually."

Hailey sighed. "Is she acting strange now?" She asked.

Scarlet nodded.

"I'll be right back." Hailey said, getting up and heading for the door. "Stay here."

Hailey opened the door and left the room, looking around. She went to the kitchen, and looked at the living room. Hailey saw Charlotte sitting in a chair, drinking vodka while listening to French yé-yé music on the record player. Hailey felt a little nervous, and hoped that Charlotte wouldn't be mad at Hailey for talking to her.

"Hey, Charlotte. Are you okay?" Hailey asked, concern in her voice.

No answer.

"Charlotte, I'm just worried. Are you alright?" Hailey asked, raising her voice a bit in case Charlotte had been unable to hear her the first time.

That seemed to get an answer.

Charlotte stopped the record player and looked at Hailey. "Do I look 'okay'?" She asked, laughing slightly.

"No." Hailey answered. "That's the reason why I was concerned."

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "You don't need to be concerned about me." She said. "Waste your time doing something else, like...go talk to Jimmy or something. I mean, aren't you two, like, in a relationship?"

Hailey sighed. "Actually, I was talking to Scarlet." She said. "She's scared...of you, by the way. Talked to me about it."

Charlotte laughed again. "What are you going to do?" She asked. "Become her new mother or something?"

Geez. Hailey thought. She hadn't really dealt with drunken people before, but Charlotte didn't seem fun to be around when she was drunk. She seemed antagonistic. Deciding that trying to talk to Charlotte more would be no use, Hailey decided to head back to Scarlet.

"You're right." Hailey said. "Your mommy's definitely not a nice person to be around at the moment."

Scarlet nodded. "Daddy says that mommy does this when she's sad or angry." She explained. "I wonder what she's sad or angry about."

Hailey shrugged, even though she had a feeling she knew why Charlotte was upset. "I don't know." She said. "Anyways, how about you go talk to your daddy? Maybe he can cheer you up."

Scarlet got off of the bed and left the room. About a minute later, she returned.

"Daddy seems sad too."

Hailey sighed before getting off of the bed and leaving the bedroom, heading off to Jimmy's room. She slowly opened the door, and saw Jimmy sitting on the floor, listening to Buddy Guy on his record player.

"Hey." Hailey said, going over to Jimmy. "You okay?"

It took a bit for Jimmy to answer, but he eventually stopped his record player, not looking at Hailey. "No, I'm not." He answered, sighing. "I don't think I will be for now."

"What do you mean?"

Jimmy looked at Hailey. "So, I talked to Charlotte." He answered. "Basically, I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do now. I swear to God, my life is fucking over."

Hailey took Jimmy's hand and held it. "Your life is not over." She said. "You've had tough times before, I guarantee, but you got through them. Remember when Robert took me home, and you were really upset? You eventually got through that."

A smile slightly formed on Jimmy's face. "Yea, I remember that." He said, and then his smile disappeared. "I'm just worried that there's going to be a repeat of that incident if I have to..."

"Have to what?" Hailey asked.

Jimmy was silent for a few moments. "Nevermind."

Hailey sighed. "Jimmy, it's okay. You can tell me."

She could see a tear starting to form in one of Jimmy's eyes, and she started to tear up too.

Finally, Jimmy answered.

"Charlotte's probably going to want me to leave you." Jimmy said. "And...I don't want that to happen."

"I don't want you to make things harder on yourself, though." Hailey said. "I'm not that important, and I'm not going anywhere. You can still talk to me on the phone."

Jimmy wiped the tear from his eye. "It's just...I can't handle being away from you." He said. "This sounds ridiculous, but it's almost like separation anxiety, but not with children and parents. It's like I have to see you in person in order to feel the happiest, not even talking on the phone could help."

Hailey fought off the tears that were forming in her eyes. "Jimmy, it doesn't sound ridiculous." She said, cracking a slight smile for a few brief moments. "But please, don't feel sad about this. You need to do what's right and I know that Charlotte means a lot to you. You don't want to lose her, right?"

Jimmy slowly nodded. "Yea, but I don't want to lose you either." He said. "You're really the only person keeping me together."

Hailey's smile briefly returned. "I know you don't want to lose me, and you're not, even if you feel like you're going to." She said. "If you want to be with Charlotte, you need to realize that in order to do that, we're going to have to go our separate ways for now. It's going to be extremely hard and painful at first, but you'll get used to it."

Jimmy glanced at his record player before letting it to continue playing Buddy Guy.

"I'm not going to get used to that." He said hopelessly. "I don't want to end up getting used to it. It seems...wrong."

Hailey wrapped her arms around Jimmy in a hug.

"It's going to be okay, Jimmy. I promise."

This chapter was a little bit shorter but that's okay. I actually got a bit emotional again writing this chapter.

Ah, yes. The wonderful feeling of torturing your characters and taking everything from them, and then crying over it.

As LLM gets a little closer to ending, there's going to be this few-month time skip in this chapter where it jumps from the summer to September while Hailey's in school and Rowan tries to be a supportive best friend and cheer Hailey up. Both Hailey and Jimmy are going to be somewhat depressed and it's going to be sad but what I'm thinking about is that there's going to be a really happy reunion towards the end, but I'm still debating with myself on how the reunion's going to happen. I'm also still debating with myself on whether or not there's going to be a sequel to Living Loving Maid, but I definitely have some ideas for a possible sequel.

Also, I realized Living Loving Maid is getting closer to 1K reads / views and I just want to thank everybody for this! Love y'all