Her Right Mistake

(40) Vren

Vren's hand covers hers, snapping her out of her stream of thought. They were in the kitchen having coffee after lunch. He wanted to stay for the weekend. Badly. But he had important business to attend to that he couldn't reschedule. He likes to think that Audrey was just sulking that he couldn't stay, but that's not Audrey. She won't show her need for him to stay because that would be demanding him to stay. And she's not the kind to hold someone back.

"You're awfully quiet, Audrey." He links his pinky finger with hers, finally drawing her attention to him.

Her other hand grazed the curving handle of her mug. "It's nothing, really."

"What is it? Maybe I can help?" Vren wasn't dense not to notice her mother locking herself up in her bedroom. Audrey leaves her be.

She kept her eyes on the mug like she found entertainment in the swaying steam of her coffee. She was silent still.

Vren urges her face up with a finger beneath her chin. "Is this about getting a ring on your finger? Because you don't have to worry about that. I was just spit-balling ideas."

"Okay."

A nagging skepticism blinks in the back of his mind – stimulated by the aloofness of her reply. "Talk to me, Audrey."

She leaned on the counter, her posture stiff. "Why?"

"Because I hate it when you're not talking to me."

Audrey shakes her head. "I meant getting engaged."

He felt his muscles tighten with tension. "Same reason typical people gets engage, I guess. We don't have to talk about it right away."

"We were never like other people, Vren. We haven't met like typical people. If we weren't too wasted that night you won't even know my name the next morning. You'll be a free man."

He doesn't like where this is going. This is the Audrey Danler he met from months ago. The Audrey with the distant eyes and her big old walls.

"You wouldn't have to establish the story with me to keep the shame of a foul-up that we were dumb enough to make. You wouldn't have to be chasing a woman that's barely even your taste. You wouldn't have to stop having fun." She shrugs, neglecting the slightest importance of every word that should have mattered.

The cold nature of the shrug wrings his gut. "Audrey, what are you trying to say?"

"No. I'm just spit-balling some hypothetical possibilities." She tugs his hand away from her face.

A knob formed in his throat. A knob he was trying to force back down but seemingly failing to do so. "There weren't any possibilities."

"You're right." She nods with a little laugh. "Not anymore."

She didn't say anything for a while. There was no mistaking what her silence was. But he doesn't want to acknowledge it. Still, it was a stone-cold blanket settling around him, too overwhelming that he preferred to think she was just tired and stressed out. Terribly so.

"Are we," her finger jolts back and forth between them like a tug of war, "because of the baby?" She turned aside.

"We?"

Audrey had her hands on her waist and spun back toward him. "Vren, you know what I mean."

"We're," he gulps. "We're suddenly having this conversation because of what I said about you walking around with a ring?"

"This is not about getting engaged." Her arms wrapped around her middle as though protecting herself. From him.

God, that stings. "I won't hurt you, Audrey. I—"