Emily preferred to walk to my place, I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t really complain, it was pretty good weather for a walk anyway. I wasn’t sure what mom had planned for dinner, she didn’t mention it when she had called me earlier. I kept my eyes on my phone, waiting for her to answer my text. But she rarely answered when she was doing something.
I didn’t notice when Emily tried to get my attention at first when she nudged my arm, but when she tugged my shirt, I quickly turned to her. “Huh? What’s wrong?”
“O-oh nothing!” She tittered, “I wanted to ask you something, but you weren’t listening.”
I grimaced. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to get my mom to reply.” I put my phone away as we kept walking.
“It’s alright…” She looked over at the passing cars before she continued “…What’s your mom like?”
“My mom? Well, uh… She’s er… Kinda herself. She doesn’t really care about what anyone thinks of her. And she can be a bit, goofy. At times.”
“Complete opposite of my mom,” Emily chuckled, though it wasn’t a happy chuckle, “what about your dad? What’s he like?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What?” She looked at me concerned before she realized what I meant. “Oh, he… doesn’t live with you anymore?”
It wasn’t something I usually wanted to talk about, but it felt like I could tell her everything. She was fully engaged in our conversation, she wanted to know about me, I shook my head at her question. “Nah, he left when I was three. It’s only been me and mom since then. She doesn’t talk about him that much, rarely mentions him.” I could see our house at this point, it wasn’t that far to the hospital from where I lived, it was further to school if I walked. “I don’t think I know his name even.”
She pouted, “that’s kinda sad.”
“Eh. Doesn’t matter to me, honestly.” I shrugged.
She was quiet for a bit, almost pondering over what to say. In the end I knew what she was gonna say before she even opened her mouth. “Would you want to meet him if you could?” It was a common question, everyone had asked me that since he had left, I always gave them the same answer.
“I mean, yeah. I would love to get to know him. But I think it’s better to do that when I’m older, y’know?”
“Yeah, I get that.” Her focus was brought to the surrounding houses as we turned the corner to my street, “hey, these houses are really cute! They blend in so well with the scenery.” Maybe she could be an architect, or do real estate, she seemed to be interested in it. We stopped a bit away from my house as Emily eyed the front, “you live here?”
“Yup, it’s not that big, but convenient.”
She smiled as she looked over at me, “and cozy it seems.” She looked happy.
I stood on the doorstep and fumbled to find my keys, before I had the chance to use them, the lock turned and the door opened. We were greeted by mom as she stepped back in a startled hurry before realizing that it was me.
She raised her finger in a not so serious pose. “Mike! I told you yesterday! Don’t sneak up on people!” She was holding trash with her other hand, it was pure timing that she was gonna open the door.
I stared at her, my pulse was racing. I wasn’t prepared for her to stand there. “I- Ho- What?!” Every sentence I thought of was squished together, “I was gonna open the door!”
“Bah! Excuses excuses…” She waved it off as she stepped out and walked over to the bin, it took her a moment to realize that Emily stood beside me. She quickly walked up to her while brushing her hands off on her shirt before shaking hands. “Oh! Hello! You’re Emily, right? Name’s Camille.”
“Yeah, nice to meet you!”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” she smiled before ushering us inside, “now uh, I haven’t prepared anything yet. I didn’t know when you would be home or if you were going to eat with us…” She nudged me before continuing “…Because someone didn’t tell me when you were coming.”
I nudged her back and loudly whispered, “maybe check your phone for once, I even called you!”
“You did?” She pulled up her phone, “oh, you did. Hah, it was on silent! That explains it.” I rolled my eyes, it happened way too often that she’d forget her phone on silent. “Anyway, make yourself at home. Dinner will be done in around uh… an hour maybe? I’ll figure something out.”
“Sounds great.” They gave each other a smile before mom walked back to the kitchen. Emily turned to me, looked me in the eyes and laughed. It took her a while to calm down, but eventually she could talk again. “Your mom’s amazing! God, I love her personality.”
“She’s like this every day,” I chuckled, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her fully mad, or angry. She’s never really had to be that way when I did something wrong.”
“I like her, she’s nice.” She looked around the hallway, from where we stood it looked cramped. But one step further out and suddenly you had more than twice the room to move around in, it wasn’t the biggest hallway, but the floorplan was open apart from the wall by the front door, and the kitchen. “Hey, I wanna see your room.” She looked over at me with big, excited eyes.
“Really? It’s not the cleanest at the moment… “ I scratched my head before I figured that what I said had come out wrong “… Not in that way! There’s just uh… Papers, and stuff, everywhere. Like school stuff, I haven’t had the energy to clean it up properly.” She started walking towards the hall with the bedrooms.
“That’s alright, I don’t mind. It makes it look more lived in, and not like a TV-set. She turned to me and pointed at one of the doors. “Is this your room?”
“That’s mom’s,” Emily pointed at the door next to it with curious eyes, “that’s her uh, studio. Or workspace. Mine’s across from it.”
She turned to the other wall and looked at the door, it wasn’t different from the others. But she lingered for a bit before I nodded and she turned the handle. She reached in to turn the lights on.
“Wow.”
“It’s really not that different from other rooms.”
“No, I know. But it’s pretty. You got a bunch of books.”
“Well, it’s one way to keep my mind on something else. Most of them are in finished book series, some are stand-alone.”
“So simple, yet so cozy.” She almost stood in awe.
“Hey uh… You okay?”
“Yeah, of course!” She turned the lights off and close the door before walking back to me. “Your place looks so homely, mine’s just completely balanced. There’s nothing unusual with it and it almost looks like no one lives in it.”
“Huh, different homes have different styles, yeah?”
“True.” She looked down at her shoes, “should I take off my shoes? I don’t mean to be rude! But there are some who don’t mind, but I feel better by asking.”
“Oh, no worries! Yeah, we usually take them off, it keeps the floors a bit cleaner.” We took them off and I placed our shoes on the shoe rack. “Did your dad tell you when you had to be home?”
“Huh? Uhm, I’m not sure. It depended on when mom wants me to be back, but…”
“You don’t want to be with her?”
“…No, I don’t. She’s really not understanding at all, and she won’t let dad do anything.”
“Shit, that sucks.”
She nodded quietly.
“You don’t have anywhere else you could sleep at? Like a friend? Not Ashley, of course, no offense but she tried to flirt with me just to get to know why you weren’t at school.” I whispered, “I don’t really like her.”
She scoffed, it didn’t seem like this was the first time her friend had acted like this, “don’t let it get to your head. She’s like that with every guy she wants something from.” She paused. “I can’t be at her place after what I did.” I gestured her to the couch, Emily sat down and put her phone face down on the coffee table. It was lightly buzzing before she picked it up and turned on do not disturb.
“Wh… You mean the uh…” I pointed at her stomach, I wasn’t sure if I should’ve said it or not. It was still a sensitive topic. “…Y’know.”
“Yes, but no. I kinda… yelled at her before I left. Some very insensitive things. I don’t wanna talk to her about it, she’s only been calling and leaving voicemails, but they’re all about her. In the fifteen voicemails she’s left me, there’s not a single apology.” She seemed to momentarily regret what she had said to Ashley, but I didn’t have a right to really meddle in their friendship. We sat and talked about what had happened until mom called to meal.
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