Blurred

Ch.12-Scars

On would think that after our little breakthrough, things would be swell and fantastic between Alec and me.

They weren’t.

Everything pretty much returned to normal. Alec remained in his room, conversation stunted, and things were boring. A few days passed with that going on. On the afternoon of a particularly hot Wednesday, two days before my grandfather was due back home, I heard Alec leave. I didn’t know where he was going, but I never did, so I didn’t worry too much about it. He always came back eventually.

I travelled to the kitchen, my automatic go-to place when I was bored, lonely, or basically any other emotion. After nearly going into cardiac arrest at the sight of no guacamole and no tortilla chips, I made do with a popsicle. On my way out of the kitchen, my hand caught a stack of papers wedged against the wall and sent it scattering to the floor.

“Excellent,” I muttered, crouching down to pick them up. And as if I needed one more thing to do, the phone rang. I straightened up and reached for the phone. “Hello?” I asked, returning to the toppled over papers.

“Lily!” I heard Emma shout. “Hey! Is your grandfather around?”

“Nope,” I said. “He had to go somewhere for a week. He’ll be back Friday, though.”

“Oh. That’s okay. Then maybe you would like to see them!”

I frowned as I picked up a piece of paper and began unfolding it. “Who?”

“My parents! They moved out of North Carolina a while ago and they’re visiting for a couple days. I hope Mr. Matthews can make it before they go, but I think you should see them, too! They would love you!”

“Oh, yeah?” I mumbled distractedly, wondering what the heck I was looking at. A hospital bill? Was it for Alec?

“Yeah. So can you come?”

I folded up the paper and stuck it in my pocket. “When? Now?”

“Why not? Is that cool?”

Well, considering I was alone with nothing to do but gorge myself, “Sure,” I replied. “I’ll be right over.”

“Yay! See you then!” and she hung-up with the sound of a baby crying in the background. I sighed, trying not to think too much about the paper burning a hole through my back pocket. It was probably nothing, right? I was just being stupid.

I hoped I was just being stupid.

I slipped into my flip-flops and threw up my hair, taking my time in the sweltering heat as I sauntered down the sidewalk. It nagged at me a bit where Alec went, but unless I wanted unnecessary worry I just couldn’t think about it. Clearly the boy didn’t know how to execute proper communication, so I couldn’t do anything about it.

I knocked on the Richardson’s door, folding my hands behind my back as I waited. Footsteps approached the door, and then Rhys was there throwing it open. He smiled, stepping aside to let me in.

“Hello, Lily,” he greeted. “Sorry it’s kind of chaotic at the moment.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, taking in the state of the household. Skyler was shrieking from the living room and something was going off in the kitchen. I heard a loud thud upstairs and crooked an eyebrow. “Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Rhys!”

He sighed. “Excuse me.” he jogged into the living room. “What?” he said to Emma.

“Take Skyler or the brownies will burn!”

“Why can’t I just take out the brownies?”