𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐲 𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐂 𝐇 𝐀 𝐏 𝐓 𝐄 𝐑 𝐒 𝐈 𝐗

There were many routes and questions El could have asked. But she went down a route I had least expected and hoped to avoid.

"So....Do you think he's hot?" She bit her lip and leaned forwards as if we were out in public and wanted our conversation to stay between us. For our ears only. "If you do, I don't blame you."

My cheeks pinked and I stuttered and tumbled over the next few words.

"N-no of course not." It's inappropriate and I already felt guilty when my mind had wandered towards him and when I found myself staying up for half of the night, trying to figure out who he was besides his name.

She leaned back in her chair, seeming to have given up when I didn't budge. She sighed, "That's too bad, he seemed totally into you by the way he was eye fucking from across the bar.''

She stood up and walked towards one of the cabinets and opened it up and moved a few glasses around until she pulled out a clear bag of marijuana.

I straightened up in the chair and watched her every movement. "You saw that? Then why did you let me sit here and explain it all to you? And why are you hiding a bag of marijuana in a cabinet with cleaned dishes?"

I fired out a bunch of questions at once and waited for her response.

I felt like a fool and complete idiot for explaining what had been or more like who had been plaguing my mind for the last fourteen hours and eight minutes.

The thought never crossed my mind that someone else could have witnessed Mateo's strange behavior.

I felt good knowing I wasn't imagining it or completely insane but I felt wary at the same time.

"Celia, I'm pretty sure everyone in the club saw that."

That didnt make me feel any better, I didnt want this information to somehow get back to adrian that his father was eye fucking his girlfriend in a club he owned.

It already sounded bad.

"Besides, at the time I didn't think it was important to bring up. It's not like he knows who you are and did it intentionally."

"Yeah and that makes it much better." I didn't like her response.

It was a normal response as if we were talking about the weather or something and not the fact that more than one person had witnessed Adrian's father eyefuck me across the room in the nightclub he had owned.

Yeah, totally normal.

I stood from the chair, done with conversation and walked into the bedroom we had slept in together last night.

I looked around the room in search of my phone and found it underneath the bed with the screen protector cracked.

I must have thrown it harder than I had thought. I held the power button and waited for it to power on and sat on the bed.

The screen flashed with an empty battery and I let out a frustrated groan and reached for El's charger behind the dresser and plugged it up at the same time El walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed right next to me.

"Are you mad at me or something?" She lit the perfectly rolled blunt and the smell of the marijuana burning circled around the bedroom.

"No." I replied truthfully.

"I think being back here has brought up a lot of mixed emotions and unsettled feelings. I just don't want to find myself pulled into another sticky situation being down here. I mean I'm here for my father's funeral not to get mixed up in some kind of drama." 

I didn't want to ruin whatever remained of my father's reputation by false rumors of me in some kind of messy entanglement with a man much other than myself.

"I understand that, I really do." I felt the warmness of her hand placed on top of mine.

"I think it's brave of you to come back here after everything that had happened between you and your mother. Not a lot of people can come back and face the one person that had hurt them in ways a mother shouldn't have Celia."

"I didn't have a choice.'' I hated how my voice cracked and how weak I sounded.

I didn't let the years of abuse and hurt my mother had caused me to sway my decision in coming. It was for him, my father.

Something told me I needed to be here right now, I might not understand it at the moment but I always trusted and went with my gut feeling.

El held the blunt in my direction. "You don't have rabies or anything contagious right?" I joked. She bumped my shoulder and tried to be angry but her chest shook with laughter.

"Why do you always try to make fun of me?" She whined and for a moment it felt like no time had passed between us and we were in our regular after school or sleepover routines.

I allowed myself to get lost in the moment and laughed along with her.  I took the lit blunt she held out for me and placed it in between my lips.

I closed my eyes and took a deep puff and allowed myself to relax and let the soothing feeling to course through my body.

"Because after all of these years you're still fun to mess with." My phone lit up on El's dresser and I reached for it.

I typed in my password and my phone dinged non stop and my screen began to flood and fill with a bunch of messages, phone calls and voicemails.

I stood up and scrolled through my phone and saw they were all from my mother asking for the time of my expected arrival time and a bunch of other things, flower preparations, food everyone would eat, but the last message she sent popped up on my screen and it made my body shake to its very core.

Mother: Are you seriously out getting drunk? Christ Celia your father just passed away.

The phone shook in my hand and I reread the message over and over again, hoping it was some kind of sick mistake and that my eyes were playing some cruel trick on me.

But the message remained on the screen. "I have to go."

I didn't know how she knew or found out but the best thing and most rational thing to do is to head to my parents house and try to explain myself to her.

It was the last thing I wanted to do. But, who knows what my mother could do now that my father is gone.