Degenerate | Riren

VIII

To Be Young And In Love

⊱ | ✾ | ⊰

It was a wet weather Sunday morning, Eren refused to eat his favorite Fruit Loops for breakfast. Carla was distraught as she watched her son pick at the cereal that was floating in his bowl of milk. "You're not yourself, honey."

"Everything's perfectly fine."

"No, it's not. I can tell when you're sad about something, you put on your vintage music and look like this." Eyeing the countless layers of fabric Eren had on, she placed her hands on her hips. "Do you have any idea how many clothes I had to fold in your closet? Everything was on the floor."

One of the many things Eren did to make an effort of cheering himself up whenever something bothered him to the point of distraction was to put all his nice clothes on. Even when he was going nowhere in particular. It was his quiet way of dealing with heartbreak and insecurities.

"I'm sorry."

Eren pushed his uneaten bowl aside and went into the living room. His mother followed suit. He sank into the couch, resting his head on one of the cushioned armrests in a curled position.

"You've been acting like this since you came home crying last week, did that Kirstein boy bully you again?" she demanded, "When I talk to Dot about this, I'm going to一"

"Mom."

Eren remembered slamming the front door and bolting up the stairs too loudly, it alerted Carla who had been in the kitchen preparing dinner. Worried, she followed after him and found the boy huddled in bed with his stuffed animals, tears overfilling and breaths rapid.

The brunet's expression softened when his mother offered him her motherly comfort that night, "Start with focusing on your breathing, inhale and exhale slowly, don't worry, I'm here, baby."

Feeling a twinge of guilt, he gave in and said: "I'm in love with someone who doesn't want to be involved with me in that way at all, and it's making me crazy."

"Do you know what his reasons are?"

"He said nobody would want us together in that way because everyone thinks it's wrong."

"Is he way older than you?"

Eren jerked in surprise. "How'd you know?"

"First of all, I am your mother. Secondly, I've known you for fifteen years and lastly, your sweaters are on backwards." she kissed him on his temple and tickled his sides. Eren erupted in a series of joyous laughter. When he recovered, his mother asked: "How old is he?"

"Okay, before I tell you, you have to promise not to be mad."

"I promise," she assured him. "No matter what I'll always love you."

Eren hesitated. "He's thirty-two."

"Being young and in love is amazing, isn't it?" Deep in thought, Carla searched for words to console her heartbroken son and sat next to him. "I remember loving someone who was way over my age range, he was forty and I was nineteen."

Eren's eyes lit in bewilderment. "Really?"

"Though I'm not very proud of how things precipitated, in my youth's eyes I knew it was love." Carla chuckled softly, "I worked as a waitress at a local bar back then, and one night a customer had had a little too much to drink. He was disrupting the venue so I asked him to leave, but then he tried to assault me."

Eren shot up from his spot and sat lovingly close to his mother, "Were you okay?"

His mother smiled. "A man came to my rescue, he wasn't very friendly but I saw a quiet kindness in him. We fell in love, and I was in a happy place. . until I got the call."