The rest of the day had been better than the beginning of it. 

Audrey walked through the streets of her neighbourhood, her hands stuffed in her hoodie. Well, more specifically Erik's hoodie. Humming some random song stuck in her head. She stopped in front of the house and looked at it, the grass was still messily cut, neat in some places overgrown in others. The bluebells at the edge of the yard flowed gracefully with the wind. Audrey remembered Taz telling her that bluebells meant humility, it made her think whether Arthur knew about them as well, he seemed like the researcher type. 

Audrey stepped onto the stone pathway leading to Arthur's front door and in a few steps, she was right in front of it.

"Sorry, I can't come with you to my Granda's," Jake had said during lunch today,

"It's alright, I can go by myself," Audrey had replied.

And it was alright. Although Audrey was hoping to get to know Jake a little more, he was a really nice guy. But she would be fine going to Arthur's alone, the little old man was fun to be around.

Audrey raised her hand and ring the doorbell, the chime rang in the house and seeped through the door. The pleasant feeling of the jingle crept up Audrey like it had just yesterday.

Footsteps were heard from inside of the house before the door swung open. Arthur stood right in front of Audrey, his green eyes assessing her with confusion. Audrey let out a small laugh at Arthur's confused face.

"It's me, Audrey," She said to him with a smile.

"Ah right," His confused face eased to one with a crooked smile "Jake's lassie friend," He said stepping.

"That's the one," Audrey said, following him inside, shutting the door on her way in.

"I'm gonna go make some tea," Arthur said stepping into the kitchen, not before gesturing Audrey to sit on the couch.

Audrey looked around the house, really looked. Yesterday when she was here, she didn't get to look around much. Maybe it was because she didn't really know Arthur that well or maybe it was his stories about Jake.

Audrey looked around the house, the place was quite cosy she thought. painting of landscapes hung on the burnt orange wall alongside a few family portraits. The room was full of warm browns and burnt oranges. Except for the couch, it was coloured a beautiful and warm blue, with orange cushions and a wool blanket. The fireplace was decorated with miniature wooden animals and crackling fire warmed up the entire place.

"Alright, let's begin," Arthur said, as he placed the tray consisting of two mugs of tea on the center table. 

"You know Arthur, it's summer and I'm 96% sure that you don't need a fire," Audrey said, picking up the mug and sipping a little bit of the tea.

"Hush lassie, you always need fire," Arthur grumbled, sipping his tea as well.

And then they began. Starting with the basics, Arthur taught Audrey how to simple phrases like "Hello" and "How are you?" It was not that hard Audrey thought. Sometimes getting corrections.

"Our accent is quite easy," Arthur said, "It's like the British one, but on crack," He finished after giving it a thought. Audrey laughed, the old man was definitely interesting.

Checking the time, she said: "It's getting pretty late, I should go,"

"Of course," Arthur replied standing up and leading Audrey to the door.

"Goodbye, old man," Audrey smiled, stepping out of the door.

"I'm not old," Arthur grumbled.

"I'm only..." He said getting lost in his thoughts, his eyes rolling upwards, squinting one of them. "I'm only... only... ninety-two. Yea, I'm only ninety-two. That's not old," He said as if he had won a gold medal.

"I hate to break it to you old man, but that's pretty old," Audrey grinned.

"Hush lassie, now move along. Get off my yard." He barked. It might've sounded angry to some people, but Audrey knew he was just kidding.

Shaking her head in amusement, Audrey got off his yard. "You know I still love you," She said.

"Don't try and flatter me, lassie, it won't work," He grumbled. Shutting the door, but not before waving goodbye.

A small chuckled slip past Audrey's lips at the old man as she walked down the streets towards her house. It was almost 7 when she reached her house. She was taking out the keys, when she heard a noise from inside the house, voices, two of them.

Lifting her hand up, she gently pushed the door. Surprised to see that it was unlocked. She pushed the door and entered the house. Two voices were heard instead of the usual silence. Wearily Audrey stepped into the living room.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened at the sight in front of her. Her parents, were here. At 7:30 p.m. in the evening. They were home early.

Audrey fully stopped into the living room making her presence known to her parents. They both stared at her as she stared at them. Her mother's mouth curled into a taunting smile.

"So it's not okay for us to come home late, but completely fine for you to do it," Ramona mocked, standing up. Slight anger swirling in her blue eyes.

"Excuse me?" Audrey asked, taken back.

"How Dare you say that to me, you know mother I was actually happy that for once you decided to come home early but you had to ruin it, didn't you. What gives you the bloody rights to say that to me," Audrey yelled tears streaming down her eyes.

"For fuck's sake mother, I'm dying. And you're here taunting me for being late when you've literally not been home for the past two weeks, how fucking dare you." Audrey screamed with all of her energy, running out of the house with tears still streaming down her cheeks.

"For God's sake Ramona," Micheal sighed, following his daughter out of the house as well.

He tried to follow her as best as he could, but he wasn't the fastest man. He ran out of his neighbourhood and went into the park. Huffing as ran to catch up to Audrey. He stopped and took a deep breath to calm himself when he saw Audrey sitting on the swing, her legs were crossed on the ground, her hands clutched the swing chains tightly and the swing slowly rocking back and forth.

"Hey sweetheart," He said, sitting down on the swing beside hers. She looked at him and didn't reply, she had nothing to say to him, nothing at all.

"I know you're angry," He said lowly. Audrey looked at him again, scoffing.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry for blowing up on you this morning. You didn't deserve that. You had every right to be angry in the morning and you have every right to be angry now. But your mother and I, we've been really stressed out about this entire thing. Especially your mom, she's trying her best. You have to give her some time," He explained, running his hands over his face letting out a sigh.

"Give her some time, how can I giver her some time. When I don't even know how much time I have left for myself. There is no time. My life could be over any minute, and she needs time. There is no time for time," Audrey said. "Look, Dad, I forgive you. You're stressed, but at least you're being nice. Mom's taunting me for no reason and I can't deal with it. I'm sorry," Audrey whispered the last part, before getting up and walking away, leaving the swing dangling after her. This time Micheal didn't follow her, because he knew that this time she wanted to be by herself.

Audrey walked into the park, trying her best to mute her raging thoughts and questions. Questions about herself, about her life, about her parents. She wanted to talk to someone, someone who wasn't her dad... or her mom.

She thought about calling Erik, but she didn't want to bother him again, even if she knew he would come in a heartbeat. She thought about Mason, but then again Mason wouldn't know. Zahra and Hannah lived too far to come here.

And calling Taz would be foolish, Taz didn't even know about Audrey's lung cancer.

Which only left Audrey with one option- Jake. Audrey thought about it hard, she didn't want to bother him, but she needed to talk to someone. Letting out a sigh, Audrey pulled out her phone. Her hands hesitating to press the call button.

After a few more seconds, she pressed it. Within a few rings, the call was picked up.

"H-hey Jake," Audrey stuttered a little.

"Hey, Audrey. You okay?" He asked, his voice smooth and confident unlike Audrey's.

"I um I..." Audrey hesitated, not sure what to tell him. "Are you um doing anything right now," She asked.

"No, why?"

"Can we talk?" She asked, internally hitting herself for making it sound like they were breaking up.

"Yeah sure. Where are you?" He asked.

"The park,"

"Where in the park?"

"Gazebo," She replied, as she started to climb up the hill it was on.

"Alright, I'll be there in a few," He said before cutting the call, just as Audrey reached the Gazebo.

She sat their quietly, tracing the chipping rainbow paint on the gazebo, the night making it hard for her to differentiate the colours.

In a few minutes, Jake had arrived. Smiling at her, he took a seat. "What's up?" He asked.

And Audrey replied, with the entire story. From what happened this morning to everything after she returned home from Arthur's. And through it all Jake didn't utter a single word, he listened to her attentively and nodded along.

"I'm sorry, that must be really hard," Was the first thing he said after Audrey had stopped talking. "I really don't understand all that much, since this doesn't happen to me. But what I can tell is that your dad really loves you, it's clearly hard on him to see both you and your mom like this. So that's probably why he didn't know who's side to be on, I think he's trying his best to comfort you and keep you and your mom from arguing. So you shouldn't be so hard on him,"

Audrey nodded, he was right she shouldn't be hard on him. 

"And as for your mom, I think she's trying her best too. But she doesn't know what she's doing. I think this situation is stressing her out too much and she doesn't know what to do. So instead she's taunting you and over-working, she's just coping in a different way. But that doesn't mean she doesn't love you. And I know this might be hard and you're probably thinking that she's the one that needs to apologize. But I think you should do it," He said, making Audrey scoff.

"Audrey I don't know you like Erik or Hannah do, but something I do know is that you are one extremely stubborn person. But this time you need to be the bigger person because this time you need to make your mom realize that there isn't any more time left. Plus I don't think you wanna live the last few months of your life arguing with your mom," He said, and he was right. He was absolutely correct, Audrey couldn't let their differences get between in these last few months. She needed to apologize and she needed to do it now.

Audrey quickly got up from her seat and turned around to look at Jake. She hugged him as tight she could. "Thank you so much," She said, before running off.

"Your welcome," She heard him yell, probably with a smile.

She was going to apologize to her mom and she was going to do it right this second.