Was It Always Us?

𝙼𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸𝚌𝚎 𝙲𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖

A lot of things happened at once. Emmy fell down from her bed and began crying. My phone buzzed. Josh raised his hand in a salute as he left for baseball practice. Atlas slammed the door to our room as he stepped inside. A cleaning cloth I'd left near the stove accidentally caught fire.

I sighed and rushed to the kitchen, taking the blazing fabric and dumping it into the sink. After turning on the water and making sure the fire was extinguished, I went to Emmy and calmed her down, whispering lullabies in her ear as I put her to sleep. Then, I checked my phone and almost got a heart attack. Ryle's name flashed on the screen, and I stood still for a few minutes before picking the call up.

Surprisingly, the voice on the other side was not Ryle's.

"Hi there! This is Lily, right?"

It was Amy's.

"Uh, yeah, it's Lily. How are you?"

"Pretty good. Hey, I wanted to call you to ask if you'd like to meet up sometime. Last time we hung out you didn't give any definitive decision about whether I could be near Emmy or not. And I'm often at Ryle's house.  So, I thought-"

"Oh, sure. I'd like to see you once more, but I'm fine with you near Emmy. It's no problem. Where and when do we meet?"

"Today, if you're free. We can talk anywhere you want."

"Umm, okay. Yeah. I'll, uh, send you the location."

"Thanks! Bye!"

I closed the phone, and smiled despite myself. Amy sounded like a good enough person. After scrolling through my texts a bit, I peeked through the door of our bedroom where Atlas had went him. He was laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and he looked distraught. 

"Hey, what happened?"

"Hmm?"

He didn't seem to be hearing me.

"I asked if everything was okay."

"Yup. Uh huh."

"Atlas!"

I snapped my fingers near his face and he jolted up.

"What?"

"Would you answer my question?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I just got a call from my...mother."

Uh oh. Please do not let this be something bad.

"What did she want to talk about?"

"She wanted to meet Josh."

"That's not bad, right?"

"No, but the reason is. She said she wasn't feeling well, and she'd been hospitalised yesterday."

Oh, God. Please don't be cancer, please don't be cancer, please don't be cancer-

"What happened to her?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know how to break it to Josh. It's probably nothing serious, but..."

"I'm sure it'll all smooth out. Now, shouldn't you be heading to work."

"I think I'll take an off and watch some TV."

"I'll be heading out soon. Amy said she wanted to meet me."

His head snapped in my direction.

"Why?"

I tried not to roll my eyes.

"She wanted to talk about Emmy, Atlas. Chill."

"Yeah, I am chill. Really chill."