I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Twenty-Five

Van

American hotel rooms needed two things; tea kettles and a stove, or just a hot plate. There was nothing worse than microwaved water for tea; it didn't taste right. I skipped the microwave all together and brewed two cups of hot water from the Keurig machine. The first cup was full of coffee grounds and Ellie laughed at my misery over it. After a few tries, the water came out clean and hot, just as it should be.

Ellie sat on the chair by the window, hands folded in her lap, face still puffy from getting upset outside. I dipped a bag into her cup and let it steep as I added cream and sugar that I nabbed from the coffee bar downstairs. I felt her eyes on me the whole time, and found myself becoming nervous. That wasn't a normal feeling to roll through me, so I tried my best to ignore it.

"My mum always told me there's nothing a good cuppa can't solve." I smiled at the mention of my mum. She'd like El. She'd like the softness in her voice as she spoke, and she'd like her smile. She'd see right through her though. She'd see all the broken bits and try to fix them herself.

"Do you miss her?"

"Absolutely." I said without thinking. "She was my biggest fan, her and me dad for years before any of this happened. I have no siblings other than Larry and the lids, so it was always just the three of us." I stirred her tea with one of the small black straws next to the Keurig.

I walked over to her and handed her the cup, she smiled as she brought it to her nose and inhaled.

"What if I want more sugar? Is that something you'll frown over?"

"As long as it's not coffee, I won't frown."

She brought the cup to her lips and took a small sip, smiling afterwards. "It's perfect."

I returned the smile and sank to the bed, one foot propped on top of my knee, shaking habitually to a beat in my mind. The comfortable silence was back, the one I yearned for but never got quite right. I craved this type of peace with someone but never seemed to be able to find it. 

It could be like this all the time.

The words rushed through me again and my eyes found my notebook. Ellie followed my gaze to the black book with the frayed edges and uneven spine. It was worn out from years of being tossed around and filled with ideas, some ideas that she'd heard on other albums, and some things no one would ever hear. The truth was, she had a lot to do with what was coming out of me, and one look through that would give it all away.

"Is that your...is that where you write?"

"Yes." I brought the cup to my mouth and took a sip, trying to act casual, trying not to look like I was hiding anything.

"And are you writing now?"

A nod.

"Can you show me something?"

I didn't know what to do. I could let her read through my scratches and decipher some words, form her own opinions about it all and go from there, or I could do something else. Something harsh. Something that maybe I owed her to make up for what I did to her with Red.

She waited for my answer as I took another long drink of tea. I sat the cup on the bedside table and reached to the floor for my guitar. I pointed at the notebook. "Hand me that."

She reached for it, pausing for a moment before picking it up. She held it like it was something sacred, clutched religiously like a bible in her small hand. Once she handed it to me, I flipped through a few pages before finding what I was looking for, and pulled the napkin from earlier from my pocket. "Give me a minute." She smiled her response as I copied what was on the napkin into the book, and scribbled a few more things out. When I was done, I read through it quickly to make sure it sounded good enough to show her. Sometimes when I wrote, things sounded one way in my head, and read different on paper. A lot of that was the reason I never showed anyone anything until it was complete. People like to make changes to bits and pieces of things, or harder to make changes to something complete, it takes more time to sort through.