Dandelion

13. "Like a horror movie..."

Like a horror movie everything that happened played again in her mind as if somehow her brain was unwilling to let the news go and in its attempt to analyze them it made her feel sick. Simple ideas, simple things Tallulah had to get done that day slipped through her mind like so much sand in an hourglass. She stared out of the window at the scudding white clouds and longed to be among them, soaring and carefree. Tallulah knew the more she tried to suppress it the more it would play again, but she couldn't help it.

Things were turning to shit really fast. The bad news was piling on top of bad news and Tallulah felt as if she was going crazy. For the past week, she hadn't seen or heard from AJ or Joe. They had both been spending a whole lot of time with Aubrey while she was in the hospital and because of that, they had all been spending time in AJ's apartment out of the city. Tallulah wasn't even aware of this said apartment.

Her despair was a heady blackness; the ways forward she had thought possible had vanished to black, not blocked, but like they were never there at all. The notion of hope had become meaningless, if her mind lingered on such ideas they started to feel like cruel tricks, as cruel as any desert mirage. The bonds she had, the ones that kept her heart beating, felt so thin and even they were a terrible weight. To love is to care for their futures and for them to care for hers- yet what was to come would bring no comfort to any, least of all for us "disposable people" like herself.

"Tallulah?" she heard his voice through the door and her heart ceased beating. "It's AJ can you open the door?"

Jumping out of bed, she rushed to her bedside table and opened a drawer. The pregnancy test on her hand felt as if it was a ticking time bomb that she had been waiting to explode over the past few days. But it hadn't.

Maybe this was the time.

She wiped sweaty hands over her jeans and opened the door. He appeared before her, in all his grandeur. A body-hugging white shirt with charming blue pants. His chiseled jaw lifted with a proud, pleasant smile. His eyes were sparkling, so much like his son's, and his soft, feather-like black hair brushed away from his brow.

"Hey?" he asked.

The words to answer him seemed to have vanished. The days without him had seemed so long and lonely that she thought that maybe if she lay her eyes on him again, they would be warmer. But they weren't. Looking at him sent a shiver down her spine.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, letting him into her room.

He walked in. "Thing are as good as they can be."

"Your wife?" she asked meeting his gaze. "Is she doing fine?"

"She is being discharged tomorrow," he replied. "The cut on her head is healing well."

Meaning it was time for Tallulah to leave because this wasn't her home. What would she say if the woman was to find her in her house? Who would she be to AJ and her son? How would she live in the same house as them?

"I wanted to apologize," AJ said.

"For what?"

"For being distant, for not calling and checking on you."

She shrugged. It was what it was. Nothing said would make the situation easier.

"Tallulah."

"Joshua?"

"Say something."

"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "I get it. You have a family to think of, I shouldn't expect you to do anything. We're not little kids, so I get it."