I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Eighty-Five

Van

It was getting late. The shadows of my parents' home were cast in their usual spots, leaning against the light still creeping in between the blinds. I knew I'd been here too long. I knew my mum was already outlining the questions she had in her head. She'd already prodded around the subject.

"Where's Ellie?" She'd asked when I'd finally come into the kitchen after spending time in the living room enjoying my dad's silence.

I shrugged, and rubbed the back of my neck nervously, the way I'd done when I was a child and I didn't want her to know something.

"Home. Not feeling the best." And she wasn't. She'd looked like hell the last few days. Deep bags grew in the hollow spot beneath her eyes, and I wondered how much sleep she was getting. I didn't ask, because I knew she'd lie. She'd tell me she was fine. Besides that, I didn't want to know that I was the one making her feel this way. I assumed it, but hearing her say it, I couldn't take it. Guilt did odd things to me.

I'd asked her if she wanted to come along. She'd been pouring tea into her cup, a jumper wrapped loosely around her, and she looked at me as if she'd heard me speak for the first time. It was the same look she gave me all those months ago, when we first met and I'd jumped her case about being a journalist. Eyes wide, lips set into a firm line. I realized then how malicious my tone sounded. My accent thick as I forced the words out of my mouth. My voice was hoarse from not speaking much and it cracked on the vowels of every word.

She'd shaken her head and her shoulders fell. "I don't feel too great. I'll stay here."

That was the length of our conversation, and it was the only conversation we'd had in days.

My mum knew something was up. Even as I replayed the moment over in my head, she knew it was more than just Ellie not feeling well. She knew and I knew, there was more to the story.

The truth was more dense.

So, as the night drew on and swallowed up the day, and I wasn't in a rush to leave, mum's questions came up again, this time with more aggression than before.

"So...how's Ellie then? What's been brewing between you two?" She sat her teacup down and nodded at the cup she'd filled for me. I swirled it around in my hand casually and stared at the blackness in the cup.

"Don't act like you're going to drink that as is."

"Maybe my tastes have changed."

"Psh." She slid me the cream and the bowl of sugar as she clocked her tongue. "Tastes don't change that much. You like what you like, you always have. You're too stubborn to go against the grain of what you want."

I smiled shyly as I picked up the creamer and filled my cup to the brim. I added the sugar next and swirled the spoon around slowly, my mum's eyes burning holes in me the entire time.

"She's alright, isn't she?"

I could hear the worry in her voice. The familiar shakiness that collided with her accent when she was nervous about something. Usually, she was nervous about me. About my future and what I'd compromised to be where I was.

I nodded once and sank my teeth into my lip. "She's fine, mum."

She sipped her tea. "And the two of you...that's alright?"

I shook my head.

"You seemed fine the other night...at least at the beginning. What's wrong?"

I shrugged and traced my finger over the patterns on the cup. "I just don't think I'll ever get over the thought that she'll go back to him. To Barns. I let the thought of it consume me, and then I don't trust her."