Cinders

~28~ Middle Man

The ride back home is just as awkward as the drive to dad's. We all go back inside, and I don't know what to do. I finally make myself look at mom, and she isn't even looking at me.

She goes to the medicine cabinet and gets some Tylenol.

I must've really hurt her.

All I wanna do is run up to her and give her a hug...Tell her how sorry I am...Tell her how much I love her....Hear her tell me that she loves me—But I don't; I can't.

I can't make myself talk to her.

Taylor's standing there, silently watching us. He's watching me stare at mom. He's watching mom take her Tylenol without looking at me.

He watches as she leaves for their bedroom, not even glancing in my direction. He watches my face as I try not to cry, hurt that she left without saying anything. He watches me lose my composure, and actually start to cry.

He comes over to me, silently pulling me into a hug. I just cry, letting him hold me.

"I didn't mean to," I say, my face buried in his shoulder.

"I know," he says simply.

He doesn't tell me 'it's ok,' because we both know it's not.

"Go to bed, buddy. Tomorrow's a new day."

I go to bed, and all I'm doing is tossing and turning—My butt is throbbing, but I think my heart hurts even worse. I decide to get up and talk to mom; I'm not gonna be able to sleep until I do.

They're both in the bedroom, and I can hear them murmuring behind the closed door. I go to knock, but stop myself when I hear what they're saying.

"I'm so sorry, Ellie. I had NO idea he was that heated. I never would've let it go on that long if I knew."

"It's not your fault, it's mine—I saw how mad he was getting. He's just like Alex when he gets mad. I knew I needed to let him cool off, but I kept pushing him."

Of course. Mom's blaming herself.

The guilt of that makes me sick. I turn back around and go to bed, crying myself to sleep. I just keep thinking about how much of a monster I really am.

~*~

The next morning, I wake up and leave my room, about to take a shower. Taylor is already awake, drinking his coffee.

"Morning," he says with a small smile. He's still upset.

"How is she?" I ask, not even bothering to tell him good morning.

He looks at me hard for a minute. "Her head is fine, Liam."

"Where is she?" I ask, looking towards her room.

He sighs quietly before he speaks. "I turned her alarm off—She didn't get much sleep last night. I'm gonna take you to school."

"How mad is she?"

Man I'm afraid to hear this answer

He shakes his head. "I'm not gonna be the middle man. Ask her yourself this afternoon."

I sigh as I grab a bowl and fill it up with cereal. I pour my milk and sit down next to him. Once I sit down, I wince slightly, but try to pretend like I'm not actually dying. Taylor notices, but doesn't say anything.

"Are you mad at me?" I ask as I take a bite of my cereal.

He pauses for a minute, trying to decide how to answer. "Yeah, bud—I'm mad. You put your hands on your mom. You put your hands on a woman. You never even apologized last night. I hoped you would come to our room last night, once you had a few minutes to yourself, but you never did."

"I got up and almost did, but I chickened out."

"It doesn't count," he says darkly.

Yeesh...He's giving me zero slack today.

I sigh. "Can I just go to my dad's after school?" I ask. As soon as I ask him that, I know it wasn't a good question.

He looks at me, anger flashing in his eyes. "You just want to avoid this? Really? Your mom deserves better than that—Ask her yourself; Like I said, I'm not gonna be the middle man."

He shakes his head in anger, standing up and dumping his coffee out into the sink. Without even looking at me, he barks: "Go take a shower!"

~*~

I get ready and we leave; He's silent the whole way there. He says goodbye to me, and pulls away quickly.

The day drags on. I smile at Brooklyn when I see her in the hall, and she smiles back, still embarrassed. By the time it's time to go home, I feel sick.

Taylor picks me up again.

"Mom didn't want to pick me up, did she?" I ask, feeling the burn of tears behind my eyes.

Taylor looks at me for a minute before he answers. "She was planning on it, but Chief needed her to come in last minute for an issue they're having. She's going to be another hour or so."

"Oh," I say relieved. At least she's not avoiding me.

We get home, and I work on homework at the bar. Mom comes home about an hour later, and she's in a REALLY bad mood—She hasn't seen me at the bar yet.

"What's wrong?" Taylor asks as soon as he sees her face.

"Apparently someone stole some morphine outta the rig during a call the other night. Now Megan and I have to get our reports to line up, and figure out which call it was and how it happened—It was the night we had 10 calls!!! I don't even know where the heck to start. I'm gonna be working on this all dang night," she says, throwing her bag down roughly on the table.

Taylor thinks for a minute. "I bet it was the bowling alley call—Those guys were shady."

He goes over to her and gives her a hug, and I immediately see her shoulders start to relax.

"Yeah, but how am I gonna prove that? Ugggggghh what a mess!! Where's Liam?" She asks, looking towards my room.

Taylor just silently points to where I am.

"Oh! Hi bud. Did you have a good day?" She asks, still irritated from the mountain of work ahead of her.

"It was fine. How's your head?" I ask, looking at her carefully.

"It's fine."

I just nod, going back to my homework.

I can tell Taylor's mad that I haven't apologized—I'm still trying to get the words out. Mom doesn't seem phased, though. She just grabs her bag, and gets out her phone, calling Megan. She talks with her for over a half an hour, trying to figure out what needs to be done.

She finally gets off the phone and puts her head in her hands. Taylor comes over to her and takes the reports out of her hands. "Let me take a look at them," he says, sifting through the stack of papers. As he's going through the papers, mom glances over at me.

"Liam, I forgot," she says with a sigh. "Dad wants to know if you wanna go to the game with him tomorrow night."

Taylor looks up from his stack of papers, to stare at me hard.

"Can I?"

"Yeah?" She answers, making it almost sound like a question.

"I'm not grounded?"

She sighs quietly again, and looks at Taylor for a minute. "No, Liam. You're not grounded."

"Yeah, I wanna go to the game," I say, pleasantly surprised.

She just nods once. "Ok—You can let dad know," she says as she picks up another stack of paperwork.

She and Taylor work together for the rest of the night, trying to figure out what happened to the morphine. Once my homework is finished, I go to my room and watch tv for the rest of the night—I still haven't been able to apologize.

I'm an ass.