TEMERITY | H.S.

2 - PUT IT ON ME

"So, Miss Ella Capella. How have you been?" 

Ella's eyes rolled back into her head as she threw Vega's luggage onto the guest bed. 

Guess they didn't bother to keep her room up. It wasn't like they were running out of space. This place had at least five other guest bedrooms. 

"You are the only person I won't stab for calling me that," she laughed at Vega, both of them plopping onto the end of the bed next to the bags, sighing now that they had space. 

It was always easy to be around Capella. She knew she wasn't supposed to pick favorites, but Ella was Vega's favorite. 

It was quiet for a minute, both of them basking in the comfort of silence before Vega spoke again. 

"Will you tell me how Mom is? Now that they're gone?" 

Ella let out a sigh, swallowing all of the air in the room afterward and building up the strength to think about their mother. 

"We really don't know. That wasn't a lie. They don't tell us anything, and we rarely see her anymore. She's always sleeping or has a headache, just laying in that bed doing nothing all day every day."

Vega could hear the sadness in her sister's voice, and even though she knew Ella shared her minor dislike for Mom, the misplaced guilt they both felt was filling their hearts in the most uncomfortable way possible. 

Vega nodded, "Dad said she asked for me to come home. I don't know how much of it I believe. I mean, I'm here, so I believed it enough, I guess. But I can't help but think this is some scheme, and Dad's going to trick me back here somehow." 

Ella was already shaking her head before she finished, "No, I think she might have actually asked for you. I can't be sure because I wasn't there when she did it, but she might have."

"She hasn't spoken to me at all, E. In two whole years, I haven't heard a word from her. She was really fucking pissed when I left, and I don't think that shit just goes away," Vega reasoned, remembering the look on her mother's face when she walked out the front door with her things. It was one she had nightmares about for months. 

"She's been kind of loopy... if that helps," Ella speaks out after a minute, "she honestly might not remember the anger. She probably just misses you and wants to make amends before...." her trailing off gave Vega enough to know what she meant. She meant before she died. They all knew it, and Vega could say the word, but she wasn't surprised that no one in The House was. Even her father avoided voicing the truth over the phone, tapering off at the end of his sentence without finishing, similar to how Ella just did. It was what they always did here and something she had to work really hard to stop doing. Avoiding.

A knock on the door paused all conversation as they watched Atlas' head poke into the bedroom, apprehensively speaking. 

"Hey, V. Dad's home. He said to send you to the office." 

"The office? Why can't he just come here?" Vega immediately questioned, knowing Atlas wouldn't have that answer, but the office was the last place she wanted to be. Especially with her father. 

As expected, Atlas had no answer. He shrugged his shoulders before exiting the doorway, leaving Vega in the shape of a sigh with Ella's comforting hand on her back. 

"I swear if he's trying anything, I'm gonna kill him." 

The figurative phrase sounded weird in The House. Giving it a completely different meaning that she was not comfortable with. 

With a reassuring nod and some encouraging words from Ella, Vega made her way out of her bedroom and down the stairs, the route to the office feeling all too familiar. Her feet pulled her there subconsciously, watching the paint chips on the walls that she grew to memorize on her trip to the back of the house.