Living Next Door To Alice

14/ The Bomb Explodes

"Hey Arch! Come on in, we're almost ready for school." Betty greeted her friend and gestured for him to enter the apartment.

He looked at how how quickly Betty and Polly were trying to get their backpacks. "No rush, we're early."

The redheaded boy took a seat on the barstools and stole one of the waffles that was still untouched.

"Hey, did you hear anything about Alice and FP?" He threw in, assuming that since they were her daughters, that they were more up to date than he was on the whole situation.

"What about them?" Betty asked confused, throwing a few books in her bag.

"Well, you know they kissed right?" Archie told her, growing confused himself as he saw the frown on both girls faces.

"They did? No, we had no idea." Betty looked at Polly to check if she knew anything about it, but her face said enough. She had no clue.

"Oh. I thought she would have told you." Archie shrugged. Now he felt sorry for telling them before Alice could.

"Seems like we're all very happy your family moved into the building." He grinned a little, breaking the tension. Betty blushed and squeezed his hand.

"What do you know about my Mom and FP?" Polly asked him suspiciously. Now she knew something had happend, she wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"Nothing, that's it." Archie brushed it off.

It wasn't a complete lie, all he knew apart from the kiss was that they had been on a date, but it was up to Alice if she would tell them or not. He didn't want to get stuck in between.

"Anyway, let's go. We can run by Pop's for a coffee if we hurry." Archie walked to the front door, followed by the girls. One happy to leave to school, the other's mind running over with a thousand things.

**

The Smith women had almost finished dinner, but there was one of them that barely ate a thing. After it had looked like Polly had been doing better, Alice was growing concerned as she witnessed this setback. She decided to ask, in the hope that her daughter would be open and honest.

"Polly, why are you so silent, honey?"

She shrugged a little. "It's nothing."

"Didn't we promise to talk about things that bothered us? You can tell me everything." Alice laid her hand on that of her daughter, but she still didn't meet her eyes.

"I'm not the one keeping secrets." Polly spat out in a whisper, the annoyance in her voice more than clear.

Alice took back her hand and shook her head confused. "What do you mean?"

But Polly wasn't buying the the innocence of Alice's answer. She knew what had happened because of Archie and she couldn't stand that her mother acted like everything was normal.

"Please stop acting like you have no idea. We know there is something going on between you and FP!" Suddenly the girl raised her voice, startling both Alice and Betty.

Polly wasn't one to quickly yell or have an outburst. This was new. And Alice didn't like it one bit.

However, she had bigger issues to focus on than the growing temper of her oldest daughter. They knew about her and FP. She felt the blood disappearing out of her face. When Alice stayed silent Polly continued in her rage.

"Archie told us you two kissed. Even he knows, but it wasn't worth telling us?" She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from crying.

Why was she so emotional over this? Did she still have hope for her parents? Or was it something else that got her this overwhelmed? Alice looked down at her plate, not sure what to say. It hadn't even occurred to her to tell them, especially when she had no idea what there was between her and FP. Did they want her to share every little thing about her possible love life?