Disclaimer: This is part of an original work of fiction. So please don't steal it from me.
~~~
"Maybe it's just as well your friend moved, dear," my mother says while we sit down for Family Feud reruns after dinner.
One very awkward and painstakingly slow week has passed since Emily left- a week where I have only had the patience for to sit through half of a movie, and have settled for drinking tea out of bottles and cans bought at the grocery store. Every time I go to brew my own, I forget that the kettle's on the stove, and go to my room, where I zone out and can't hear its whistle.
So I'm bored, and I'm thirsty, and I'm refusing to let it bother me. I watch game shows with my parents. I'm getting by.
"Really?" I say mildly, not really caring much what she says. I'm staring at the rug, counting how many times the pattern repeats lengthwise. "Why's that?"
"Well, dear, I know you really liked her- I mean, how long has it been since you've had a girl friend?- but I was just so uncomfortable with her."
I keep staring down the rug, though I'm not counting anymore.
"How so?"
"Sweetie, she just wasn't normal. When I think of letting her share your bed- oh, it just gives me the creeps."
It takes me an inhale, and an exhale, before what she said sinks in. another inhale, exhale, and all the various responses bubble up to the surface of my mind:
Her sexuality doesn't define her-
You barely knew her-
That's not the kind of girl she is-
She'd never do anything to hurt me-
Before I speak, I stop myself with another inhale and another exhale and the realization that I'm wrong about at least two of my own responses to my mother's ignorance.
So I say, "Mom, it doesn't really matter now, does it?"
And even though that's a lie and most of me knows it, the small part that's in control has the rest under lock and key and agrees with what I've just said with every fiber of its being.
It doesn't matter now.
It doesn't matter at all.
And I go back to counting the pattern on the rug.
~~~
I have trouble sleeping.
I lay in bed, staring at my ceiling, calculating how many hours of sleep I can get if I fall asleep right now. I do that for hours.
My dreams consist of brewing tea some nights and watching movies others. Nothing is ever just right; the water won't boil or the sound is gone without subtitles. It pisses me off that these things that used to be my escape are inaccessible to me, even in my sleep.
The rare times I wake up without punching my pillow out of irritation, I can just barely hear a steady and almost forgotten thumping.
Once, I step out of my bed to investigate. Standing at the edge of my yard with one hand on my chest, I discover that what I thought was the sound of repetitive pitching practice with a brick wall is actually my own heartbeat, echoing in my ears.
It is so insistent. It won't let me do anything I used to enjoy, it won't let me sleep; but it is more than happy to let me walk back to bed, stare at my ceiling, and wish things were different.
~~~
AN: Okay. So. I didn't forget y'all. Here's your celebration of the beginning of the cruelest month (name that reference).
And yeah, I know, shortest chapter ever.
Love you
x
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Tea For Two
Humor"Just wondering, Shoemaker. Are you going to tell your parents? Or should I?" When I was little, I was terribly afraid of heights. One day, in a bleak attempt to rid me of this, my father climbed onto the roof of our one story house with me on his b...
