Rugged To The Core

Chapter 55

Abel

     Post Malone's Psycho was on, blaring into the room from his laptop. As he placed the ear-plugs in his ears, he realised the music was still quite audible but he decided to leave it on. He hummed to the music, staring at the ceiling as he waited for his call to be answered.

"My main idiot, how far?" The lazy voice filled his ear and he rolled his eyes.

"Fool, you are high again, right?" Abel replied, tugging at the wire of the earphones he was currently wearing.

He let out a throaty chuckle. "I'm always high, Bro."

"You need to tone it down a coupl'a notches though..." Abel advised.

"What's going on? How's your mum?" His friend resorted to deflection.

"She's better, I guess. I'd be going to see her on saturday." He replied.

"Why are they still keeping her though? They should discharge her already."

"She's not really stable, her blood pressure rises then drops. Doctor thinks its best she remains hospitalised till he feels she's all good."

"Hmmm..." Fabian sighed deeply. "Hey, do you think she really saw... him?"

"She said she did." He quickly replied, feeling anger at the mere reference to a man that took his sister's life.

"What if she saw someone who looked like him, or someone who's a spitting image of him."

Abel thought about It for a while, spacing out. He realised his friend might be right and there was a fat chance it was a false alarm. "No, I don't think so. She said he spoke to her."

"After ten years, why's he showing up now?"  His friend asked.

"I don't wanna think about that now. He'd better stay away from my mother though." Abel droned.

"If he knows what's good for him."

"Yeah. How's your dad?"

"He's dying, Ugo." Fabian blatantly replied, his tone laced with annoyance.

"I-I'm sorry." Abel apologised, not really sure why or how he offended him.

"It's fine. I'm just tired of the question. It hurts to answer it."

That touched him. "Remember what we talked about..."

"I know..." Fabian replied, taking a deep breath. "So uh... How's that girl you were talking about the last time we saw...? The fair one."

Oh Lucky...

"Oh God... She's keeping me in the dog house." Abel replied, massaging his forehead.

His friend laughed aloud. "You fûcked up, didn't you?"

"I guess I did."

"Alright, tell me. What did you do?" He asked, chuckling.

"Well, she came over because we had to work on a project..."

"Okay, I see where this is heading..." Fabian said, sounding smug.

"And I kissed her. Then very quickly, things were hotting up. And then I said something stupid and ruined the moment."

"What did you say?" His friend enquired, sounding amused. Abel went ahead to recount what he'd said. "You really said that?"