So she's going to live with us?

Chapter 8

Amy

What's irritating, long and comes around every week?

Mondays.

Amy wasn't woken up by screaming today but to the sound of Carly Rae Jepsen's voice singing something about maybe calling her blaring from Amy's alarm clock.

She didn't want to play a song that she liked as her alarm in fear of permanently ruining the song for her but waking up to Carly every morning was starting to annoy her too an entirely different level.

Rolling out of bed she stood up, yawning and stretching. She stumbled through the obstacle course of a room to the en suite bathroom to make herself presentable for the day ahead. Or at least try to.

While getting dressed, she thought about her phone call with her mom. She loved her mom but wasn't extremely close to her and when they talked it was rarely an enjoyable conversation.

The phone call last night did not fail to break the tradition.

A knock on the door interrupted Amy from styling her curls. She dropped her brush in front of the mirror and went to answer the door.

It was Jude.

"Hey Amy," he greeted. "Mom told me to tell you that the pancakes are ready if you're hungry."

"Okay I'll be down in a sec," she smiled while nodding. Jude turned to exit but Amy stopped him before he could. "Umm, Jude before you go, I know it's an inconvenient time but could you help me with something?"

"Yeah what do you need?" Amy stepped aside and let him walk into her room.

"I just need help hanging a painting but I can't...uh, reach the nail to hang it on." Amy said. She was a little embarrassed to ask but the painting meant a lot to her and she wanted to finally customise the guest room and make it hers.

Amy directed Jude to the painting and showed him where she wanted it to be hung. He effortlessly picked up the large painting that was about 3 by 4 feet and hung it on the wall. Amy watched him do so and couldn't help but stare at his arm muscles, that were visible because of the slightly fitted dark blue T-shirt that he wore, rippling in the movement.

"There you go," he smiled, looking up at the hung painting.

It was an abstract piece that was filled with colour and looked, to Amy, like a giant eye that had the reflection of a mother embracing her child.

"It's a really nice painting," he stated still looking at the painting. "Did you do it?"

"I wish," Amy chuckled "My mom painted it when I was about seven."

"She's gifted." Jude said dropping his gaze to Amy.

"Yeah," Amy breathed. She broke her stare from the painting and stared back at Jude.

They held gaze for a second longer than normal.

"Well uh, you can come down when you're ready and I'll leave you to doing... whatever you were doing before," Jude said quickly and stepped out the room.

"Thank you," She said to him before he gently closed the door and left.

Amy walked back to the mirror and continued styling her hair.

The curly hair struggle.

She thought about how her mom never painted anymore. How her parents never took her to art galleries anymore. She missed those days but she knew they were never coming back.

She tucked her hair behind her ears, grabbed her orange Eastpak backpack and left the room.

She hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen. Charlie was sat on a stool at the breakfast bar island picking all the marshmallows out of her bowl of Lucky Charms and putting it into a separate bowl.