Externalizing [mxm]

Chapter 6

“Some guy called,” Terri informed when Marc got home. He’d had a late meeting and had set up for Terri to go home with Ariel after school for a few hours.

Marc only grunted and ignored the blinking answering machine. Terri got all of her homework together and he drove her home from there. “Thanks for watching Ariel again,” he said. Having a babysitter was nice. It took a little bit of the stress off of him if something came up.

Terri nodded and went inside. “What do you want for dinner?” Marc asked, turning in his seat to look at Ariel.

“Real food,” she declared. “Like what Terri makes.”

Marc dropped his head and sighed. “I can try and make something, if you tell me what you want.”

“Soup.”

“Soup is not very descriptive,” Marc grumbled but headed for the store anyways. The directions for soup were simple enough—add some milk in and cook. He bought some cheese to melt in, because nothing could ever be ruined by cheese. Ariel wanted green onions in it and they went home from there.

It only took a few minutes to put together, and the cheese made it even thicker. He chopped the green onions, and almost his finger, before adding it all into the soup. He was actually quite proud of himself for this one—something that wasn’t bacon and eggs.

He dished some up for himself and Ariel and they ate while watching another run of Lilo and Stitch. At the moment, she refused to watch anything else. And Marc could admit it was kind of a cute movie. Ariel moved some of her art supplies into the living room to work while watching the rest of the movie, and Marc cleaned up from dinner.

“Oops,” Ariel remarked, barely audible from the living room.

“What?” Marc questioned.

“Nothing,” was her quick reply.

Marc swore under his breath and went over. She was trying to cover some of it up, but he could see the paint-water stain on the carpet from her watercolors. Marc sighed and picked up the spilled cup, and grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” Ariel whispered guiltily.

“It’s fine,” Marc sighed, trying to pat up the blue-green mess. It wasn’t like he was going to get angry at her, these things happened. “Just keep it to your art room, okay? I don’t care if you make a mess in there.” All they had to do was close the door then, but the living room was a little different.

He had her clean the rest of everything up and take it back up stairs. It was late enough where he could tell her to get ready for bed. Only then did he actually listen to the answering machine for a brief moment. It was the usual, “How are you?” from his dad, along with wanting to see Ariel again sometime soon.

Marc stayed up later to do some work from home before he went to bed too.