Everything You've Come To Regret

40 | the burning light

warnings: sexual content, angst/mental health issues (hurt/comfort)
(I promise I'll stop someday, thanks for being here <3)

February 4, 2016

Put up a fight you believe to be right
And someday the sun will shine through
You've always got something to hide
Something you just can't tell

⋆ ˚ °  ° ˚⋆

"Hello?" I called inside, hanging the keys on the wall. "I'm here!"

There was no response, so I started unloading the food on the kitchen table before searching for pots and pans in the cupboards of my parents' house.

I turned on the small oven, humming some sixties tune while I moved along. Slowly, the pleasant aroma started filling the room, which was perhaps what attracted my dad from wherever he had been hiding, behind all the plants my mother liked to "save".

"You're still here?"

I jumped at the voice, pausing in the middle of cutting onions. I looked up at him, where he was standing on the kitchen threshold.

"I didn't hear you coming."

"I was outside," Dad offered me a smile, leaning his elbows on the back of a chair.

"I didn't think it'd be raining so much today," I said lowly, focused on not cutting off one of my fingers.

My hair was still wet, and my socks were too.

"You broke up with Alex, haven't you?" he ignored my attempt at a weather chat, crossing the small room to wash his hands.

I turned around to face him. Before I could even get a word out of my mouth, we were both startled at the sound of the front door opening, followed by a curse and what sounded like an elephant crossing the room. A second after, Sophie appeared with two suitcases and sunglasses larger than my forehead.

"Hi, losers!"

The knife clattered to the counter. I grinned back, squealing when she dropped her luggage to come and hug me. I was sure I heard my dad sigh in the background.

"Well? You broke up with him too?"

"With Alan?" Sophie pulled away from me swiftly, looking at our dad with furrowed brows. "No! Why would I?"

As a response, Dad only nodded in my direction.

Sophie's eyes widened, and her smile dropped. "Marianne, no!"

"We–no! No, we didn't break up! Why would we–"

"You didn't?"

I couldn't help but laugh nervously, eyes darting between the two.

"I'm very much in a relationship with Alex at the moment. There's no reason why I'd leave him, trust me."

"Yeah, you better be," Sophie scoffed, taking off her sunglasses and her white jacket.

I went on cooking, acting as if her last words didn't make me feel a bit warmer inside. She'd accepted us–too much, perhaps. 

Even though my sister started blabbering about her difficult relationship with Canada–she was very much in love with her boyfriend Alan too–I could see my dad sending me glances. Mostly worried ones.

I kept on chopping up the onions, thinking about the last book I'd read to avoid blushing under all of this attention.

Even later on, while we all gathered for supper, the conversation wasn't over.