Bates & Landon [Wattys2015]

BATES

Penn Badgley will play Jonas. (Picture to the side.)

Bates

"I wonder where Alice is," Landon said as we walked out of the school together, she sounded worried, "I need to call her when I get home." She crossed her arms tightly as a cold gust of wind blew at us.

I sent her a weak smile, shoving my hands in my pockets to protect them from the chilly air. "She is probably just sick, Lan, especially with all this cold weather." I looked over at her, she was biting her lip nervously.

"Yeah," she agrees, nodding her head in agreement, "probably." I probably needed to tell her about Alice not eating, from what I've noticed. If not, she'd be upset with me for not telling her. I opened my mouth beginning to speak.

"There's Mandy. I gotta go, Bates. Oh God, wish me luck. I hope she doesn't say anything to me in the car about me telling her off last night." Once again, she bit her lip out of her nerves.

I put my hands on her shoulders, turning her to me. "Look, don't worry about her. Don't waste your thoughts on her, okay? Just ignore her or turn on the radio." I kiss her forehead then pull her towards me for a quick hug.

"Alright, thanks. Bye Bates," she says, waving then turning around to walk away.

•••

"Bates!" Emmy yelled at me, skipping towards me. I was seated at the couch, doing my homework.

"Hmm?"

"Look!" She said, holding out a piece of paper. It was a drawing of a house with two people in the yard.

"Is that us?" I asked, impressed at her drawing. It looked pretty good. Maybe she has my artistic skills.

She nodded her head. "I didn't add Mommy," I noticed that. All she had drew was me and her on the paper with crayons besides the house behind us.

I frowned, "Why?" I put the drawing on the table and ushered for her to come closer to me so I could fix her hair back in its pony tail.

She turned away from me, her back facing me as I took her hair down and began to brush it lightly with my fingers. "Because," she spoke in her adorable voice, "she isn't here much. And you have to be there for your family." I couldn't see her expression, but mine was full of shock. She was already thinking that at such a young age.
That's awful.

Mom nor her new boyfriend, Andrew, was present at the house which wasn't a shock to me or Emmy. They were probably at a friends party getting drunk and doing who knows what. Mom needed to really straighten out. She needed to get back on her feet and stop getting drunk.

"Emmy," I sighed, pulling all her hair into my hand, "don't talk like that. Mom..she just--just gets overwhelmed and...just," Here I was, making excuses for my Mom's mistakes and unhealthy habits.

"I know," she said with a sigh. "I just wish she wouldn't get like that." She turned to face me. "I'm hungry. What are we having for dinner?" She changed the topic of conversation quickly.uickl

"Um," I stood up and went to the kitchen. I looked in our pantry to see that we didn't have that much food besides a few cans of beans, corn, peanut butter, and peaches. We had a small loaf of bread on the counter. In the fridge, we had half a gallon of milk, water, five eggs, grape jelly, and a little bit more of food but not much.

We needed to go shopping.

"Do you want some peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" I asked her. She was sitting at the table, playing with these two toy cars I used to play with when I was her age. She looked up and nodded.