Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 10

~The Beast~

He had been up since the faint orange daylight began to creep through the shades of his window. It illuminated his skin, displaying it was back to its normally ugly self - not the burnt ugly version. He got up and changed into a fresh set of clothing, deciding he would give up on trying to dress nicely for Bethany's sake. He went with one of his favorite rock band’s t-shirts, a neon skull with glowing dirt kicked up around it. It was too early for breakfast so he listened to a few CDs, slipping on his headphones for the first time in years just in case Bethany was still sleeping. 

Once the CD began to repeat, he dragged himself down the stairs. To his surprise it was 8:00 am and Carina still wasn’t up making breakfast. He sat down at the stool scratching his chin. Should he go to her room and knock to ask what was going on? Maybe she slept in considering all the commotion from last night but Carina had been kept up by bigger messes in the past and she never slept in. 

Then she appeared, marching through the doorway and reaching into the lower cabinets without a glance his way. 

“Uh . . . You’re late.” 

She slammed a coffee pot onto the counter and rummaged through the cabinets overhead. Noticing she was in a robe with her pajamas underneath, he wondered if he should go back up to his room and wait until she put herself together. The woman never showed off her PJs before. 

“And?” she asked, as he was getting ready to leave. 

He blinked. “You’re supposed to have fixed me breakfast by now.” 

His words hung in the air as she started the coffee machine, tampering with buttons and switches. Teigan never really touched a cup of coffee in his life. It didn’t taste good to him and the ones that did were more sugar than actual coffee. The machine had been a condition of Carina’s live-in maid service but he was never usually awake to see her use it. 

The silence was unbearable. “Is everything alright?” 

She unexpectedly whipped around to face him. “No, it isn’t.” Then she continued further into the kitchen, loudly rummaging through pots and pans. With the coffee machine going as well the house was easily as loud as it had been in a long time. 

“Well, making a scene won’t help,” he snapped. He wasn’t up for Carina’s abrupt grumpy mood so he changed the subject. “Is Bethany up yet?” 

“Why?” 

“I just want to know! Why are you being so difficult this morning?!” 

“Oh, so you can throw a tantrum but I can’t?” She shook her head and went back to boiling eggs like he had disappeared. 

“What is this really about?” She was almost never this upset. He suspected that if she was there had to be something big behind it. Whatever it was had to be bad if happy go lucky Carina couldn’t turn it around. 

“It’s about you, Teigan.” She sighed, crossing her arms and facing him. The tension had melted out of her face, at least a little bit. “She almost died yesterday. She was hurt and it was because of you! I don’t know what I would have done with myself if something had happened! I . . . I didn’t sign up for this.” 

She was attempting to make him feel even more guilty than he already was? He had confided in her the other day about how awful he felt. She knew he wished it never happened. Why did she have to pour salt in the wound? He should have never admitted anything to her. 

“It wasn’t my fault!” He blurted the words out without a second thought. “She snuck into my car! I told her never to leave this house!”