Caught Red Handed

Chapter Twenty-Six, Fracturing Truth

Tom's Perspective

After a very casual lunch, Edd remembered that he needed to run some errands. Seeming as we were already out in the city, I made the grueling decision of letting him drag us into the grocery store. Matt was of course enamored by the self-care and beauty products section as always, so I left him to that while Matt and I split the grocery list. I'm glad that we have a shared credit card for all four of us, it makes spending money a lot easier. That way we also know if someone made a purchase we should be concerned about, like that time I got a very expensive camera with all of our money. Edd is still making me pay that off, and it sucks. I lazily slinked through the aisles and filled the hand-basket I had been using before purchasing my half of the small list.

I then hunted down Matt who was looking at himself in a bedazzled hand-mirror, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and dragging him to the car. He whined and attempted to get back to the mirrors until I sat him down in the car, making him stop struggling. He huffed and pouted, crossing his arms. I rolled my eyes and put the groceries away in the trunk, not being very careful about putting the milk where it wouldn't squish anything else. "Are we going home yet? The wind messed with my hair." The narcissistic ginger whined as I got in next to him. "No Matt, we have to wait for Edd. He's probably taking his sweet time trying to find that cat food Ringo loves." I told him and watched as he combed his hair while looking in his compact mirror.

"I've never really understood why you love yourself so much." I commented and Matt glanced over at me. "Because I'm gorgeous. It doesn't really matter how gorgeous someone is anyways, it only matters that you're happy with yourself. You could consider yourself good-looking if you had the mentality." He told me and continued fixing his messy hair. He has a point, but I really don't understand how someone can be so happy with themself. "Well how do you do it? Have that mentality?" I asked curiously, causing the young ginger to look up from his small mirror once more. "Well, I just don't see anything bad about myself. What's so bad about you?" He asked and put away his small mirror in his coat. "... Everything." I said pessimistically and looked at myself.

"Like what?" He inquired as I returned my gaze to him. "I'm just not enough for this world. I can't be good enough for anyone." I told him and stuffed my hands into my comfy hoodie pockets. "Well you don't have to be good enough for anyone. Just good enough for yourself." He told me and smiled. "Are you good enough for yourself?" He asked and I shrugged. "I mean I guess." I said without any shred of self-confidence. "You could always work harder to improve yourself, like Tord. Don't you want to be better than him?" He said and I nodded. He really does have a point for once. "Just try doing little things, like improving your diet or stop drinking. Or try a new hobby, or learn a new song for your guitar." He suggested and gently rubbed my arm. "Or maybe even get a partner, whatever makes you happy." He added and I stared at his gray eyes. "I think I'll try to stop drinking, or at least hold back on it." I said unsurely, causing the redhead to grin proudly.

"Good! You can always ask me or Edd to help you with that." He said and stopped rubbing my arm. "... You brought up Tord, but I'm really curious. Do you talk to him often? Like we're talking now?" I asked and stretched my back. Matt thought for a moment and shrugged. "We talk sometimes, but I think that Edd is the only one who really talks to him. Even then, Tord isn't very talkative at all. He's a mystery." He said and played with one of the curls that had come loose from his combed hair. I stopped talking and stared out of the window at the store, waiting for Edd to finally come out. I watched as Edd wandered out of the store with two bags, setting the groceries in the trunk. "I call shotgun!" Matt yelled and quickly jumped into the passenger seat before I could even protest. I sighed and sunk back into the leather seat of our car. I buckled and waited for Edd to get in, because I was very suddenly curious to know why Tord is so anti-social. And I wanted to know exactly how anti-social he is.

No way am I asking that asshole myself, so this is the best option. Edd got into the driver's seat and I tossed him the keys. Edd almost missed  catching it, but luckily his finger got caught on the keyring. As Matt happily chattered about how beautiful he looked in the store mirrors, Edd began the ride back to our house. When Matt took a moment to breathe, I stole the opportunity of silence. "So Edd, how strong of a relationship do you have with Tord? How often do you talk?" I cut in and asked the brunette. Edd seemed confused as to why I would even ask that question, but answered regardless. "I wouldn't say we have the best relationship, Tord is very reckless and careless by nature, and he keeps himself secluded a lot. We do talk sometimes though, Tord even takes me up to the roof to look at stars while we talk. It's pretty special, but most of the time he doesn't want to talk to me." He told me while focusing on the road. So Tord really doesn't talk to anyone that much? I understand the feeling of not enjoying pleasantries and small talk, but even I talk to people more than he does.

"Oh, by the way, Matt convinced me to start cutting back on drinking." I reported, which was a pretty bad way to phrase it. I couldn't really think of any other way to bring it up though, so it worked for the time being. "Really? That's nice. Maybe then we can have some more sober quality time together." He responded warmly, though to me it stung a bit. I guess my drinking is really that bad, huh? I'm more drunk than sober some days, I guess it's the hard truth. "You make it sound terrible Edd- at least say you're proud of him for trying." Matt the usually oblivious pointed out to the artistic boy. "Oh! Oh yes- I'm sorry Tom- thank you for attempting to better yourself. We both appreciate it." Edd said with clear guilt, making eye contact with me in the small mirror. "Good." I responded off-handedly and looked at the dirty streets of London. Home trashy home, I guess. I wonder how terrible Norway is to turn out a psycho like Tord. Then again, he's been in London for most of his life as far as I can tell. I remember his "what I did over summer break" essays always being about visiting Norway with his father.