Alone Together. [An OM&M FanFic]

Chapter 12: A damaged heart for a wounded child.

Hannah.

I could feel Jeanette's constant breathing pattern and knew she was asleep. I unfurled myself from her and crept from her room and downstairs. Grandma was no where to be found, but her car was in the driveway, so maybe she was doing the same thing Jeanette was doing.

I explored the shallowly quiet house, bowl of purple grapes in hand as I made my way outside when I noticed grandpa was gone and I figured grandma was fer sure asleep in her room. I sat on one of the chairs and kicked my legs up on the table, trying to watch the puffy white clouds float across the sky before sunset.

I finished my grapes all too soon and the house was so quiet I thought I was going to fall asleep when I heard tires bump up the drive. "Who-?" I turned and was cut off by my scariness. I was caught off guard by grandma, who I thought was asleep. She was standing in the doorway with bags under her eyes and wrinkles yanking on the corners of her mouth.

"For you." She croaked out, and turned back inside. I got up and walked around the house, too lazy to actually walk though the house like a normal person, and saw Austin pulling up in my car, Matty, and my phone in his hand out the window. I jumped for joy at the sight of my car and sprinted towards it, wondering how on Earth I could've forgotten I'd left that too.

"You brought him home!" I clapped my hands happily and her got out and handed me Matty's keys. I squealed and clutched onto them, happy he was home.

"Him?" Austin perked an eyebrow up and hitched his thumb at my car. "Are you talking about this orange beast of a car?"

"Don't make fun!" I fake scoffed, poking him in the middle of his chest, that I could reach.

"Well, then I'm glad I could bring HIM home." He joked back, rubbing the spot I'd poked. "I think this is yours too." He handed me my phone and I immediately shoved that in my pocket.

"Thank you SO much Austin. You have no clue how much I need my phone right now." I took a deep breath and cracked my neck, feeling a little better.

"Tough car ride home form the hospital?"

"You have no idea." I sighed, tapping my key into the palm of my other hand.

"Want to talk about it?"

"You always ask that, ya know?" I looked up at him, the sun glinting in my eyes and forcing me to shut the one with the most sun in it.

"Well I always want you to know you have that option."

Awe! "You don't know me."

"Maybe not enough, but I know you." He dipped into a slouch and shook out his hair.

"But not enough."

"So?"

I stood there, thinking about it, and when I thought about the friends that were suppose to be there for me during the move and everything, weren't, I should know they're not real friends. Maybe Austin is though? He's there for me, he waited next to me in a hospital, and he always asks about me, and he seems to accept me. Yeah, I think that's a real friend, right?

I nodded and he followed me around the house to the back porch, where I sat in my previous seat and he sat on the swing next to me. "So what's on your mind?"

"My grandparents are getting a divorce, and they've been together for a long, long, long time. Since like, the Dinosaur ages." I smiled and looked over at him, at first to make sure he wasn't laughing at my analogy, but then because his smiling back made me feel better about talking about it all. "I thought they'd be in love forever, but I guess forever isn't what I thought it was." I shrugged and my face dropped. I looked at my bare knees instead. "I just can't see them without each other, and so now my younger sister is so upset she cried herself to sleep, and my grandma is brokenhearted, and my grandpa is no where to be found.. Yet."

"So that's why she was so emotional at the hospital earlier."

"That'd be why." I nodded and we got quiet for awhile.

"Anything else?"

"Is that not enough?" I snapped, looking over and watching him pick the loose strings of fabric from his jeans that were tight on his bent knee.

"That's not what I meant, just, is there anything else. Divorce sucks, it's sad too, especially when you had two people who loved each other as much as I'm sure your grandparents did. I haven't dealt with divorce, first hand anyways, but I've been around enough friends to know that they both get better and so ill everyone else in your family who gets affected by it."

"Lucky you." I grumbled, looking back at the clouds.

"Why?"

"You've never had to deal with divorce or anything majorly tragic."

The mood seemed to change around us and as soon as I felt it I looked back at him, who was zoned out on one of those wishing flowers, a Dandelion I think they're called, with a blank face and sad eyes.

"Austin?"

He snapped out of it and studied my concerned face for a few minutes before getting up and walking over to me. "I should get going. You can text me or call me if you need anything, but I'll see you at school." I nodded solemnly and there he went, as if he never came. How's he getting home? I pondered and when my curiosity got the best of me, I brought my bowl in the house and peeped from the front window, watching him text on his phone and then sit from my sight behind one of the cars in the driveway and wait for his ride. Weird...

At the thought of him mentioning school, I hopped over to the calendar on the fridge and saw I'd missed Monday and missed today too. Did Austin? I thought about things some more, wondering why he'd gotten so upset and all during our brief talk and left. I got upstairs and after checking on Jeanette I plugged my half charged, half dead phone into the charger and turned on my bedroom TV, flipping through all the channels until I found one that on any day, could make me smile, Friends.

((This chapter is REALLY short I know, I'm sorry. But it's two chapter published for you guys, thanks for all the reads already and I can't wait to hear what you have to say about the upcoming chapters and just the whole fan fiction itself. <3))