Thorn [Farkle Minkus]

[02] Dinner

One thing Ellie and her brothers hadn't expected to happen was to see their mother return from Los Angeles. They had expected her to return two weeks into the school year, but they were wrong.

"Mom?" Ellie asked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd come back," Mary, Ellie's mother, answered. "I've been pushing you and your brothers away over the summer over what had happened between your father and me. So I cut my business trip short to see you and your brothers before the school year started."

Ellie smiled weakly.

"So, where are your brothers?" Mary asked.

"Justin has baseball and Tyler is meeting with his robotics club," Ellie responded. 

"They're already starting?" Mary asked.

Ellie nodded. 

"Well, at least you and I can have some bonding time," Mary smiled.

Ellie smiled. 

"Come on, get dressed and lets go," Mary said.

The two got dressed for dinner before heading out. Anna helped Ellie pick out her clothes and everything.

"So the boys aren't coming?" Anna asked.

"Nope," Ellie answered. "Thank God."

Anna chuckled.

"You seriously don't like your brothers, huh?"

"It's not that I don't like them, it's just..." Ellie said. "There are times where I wish they'd leave me alone. They were good at that for most of my life. Now that Dad left us, they've decided that it's a good idea to started pestering me. Sure some things has remained the same between the three of has remained the same but...."

"Most of the time, you just want to be left alone and try to deal with this on your own," Anna continued.

"Yeah," Ellie said.

"I get it, it's hard," Anna said. "But I know that there are times where you just don't want to talk about it."

Ellie nodded.

"Come on," Anna said, "I'm pretty sure your mother is waiting for you."

The two left Ellie's bedroom and went to the living room.

"Make sure to pick Tyler and Justin from baseball and the robotics club when they're done, Thomas," Mary said to Thomas.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. 

"And when you drop them off, come pick Ellie and I from dinner," Mary continued.

Thomas nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Hey, Mom," Ellie said.

"Ready to go, sweetie?" Mary asked.

Ellie nodded.

"Good," she said. "Get the car ready, Thomas, we'll be out in five minutes."

Ellie looked at her mother confused. 

"Five minutes?" Ellie repeated.

Those five minutes passed and Ellie and her mother entered the car. Thomas started driving to their favorite restaurant.

"How was summer camp?" Mary asked.

"I - it was good," Ellie answered. "I made a lot of new friends. Friends who don't want to be friends with me because of you."

"That's good," Mary said. "And what else happened?"

Ellie told her mother about everything that has happened during the summer. Mary just sat and listened to what Ellie went through over the summer. Knowing that she was not a part of her daughters summer deeply hurt her but she needed some time to herself after splitting with Brett, her ex - husband, Ellie's father. 

They arrived at the restaurant just as Ellie was finishing up her stories from the summer. The mother and daughter exited the car and entered the restaurant. Thomas had driven away from the two.

"I have a table reserved for Mary Michaels," Mary said. After the divorce, Mary had decided to use her maiden name once again. She does not want to be associated with Brett Turner any longer. Even though her kids have their fathers name, she decided against changing their name, knowing that it is their choice if they wanted to change their names or now. 

The hostess checked the reservation list before looking up and said, "Right this way."

Ellie and Mary followed the hostess to a private room where it was just Ellie and her mother.

"So," Mary said as they looked down at their menus, "school's coming up."

"Yeah," Ellie said.

"Are you looking forward to high school?" Mary asked.

"Sorta," Ellie answered. "Justin told me there are a variety of plays that will be held during the school year, so I was thinking of auditioning for this."

"Which plays will they be playing?"

"Um, there will be Our Town," Ellie answered. "A coupe of Shakespeare plays, so..."

The dinner went by quick with Ellie and Mary catching up. It was awkward between the two. After dinner had ended, Ellie and Mary returned home. Instead of staying behind in the living room with her brothers and mother, Ellie went up to her room. After spending all day around people, Ellie felt drained of her energy and wanted to be alone.

She has everything she wants and needs in her room. With the amount of money they have, they could afford plenty of things, but most of the things that they had weren't things they needed. It were things that they wanted. Ellie is grateful for everything she has, but in her eyes, everything she and her family have is way too much. All she ever wanted was her family, but she doesn't due to her parents constantly being busy and her and brothers not being close at all. 

Most days, Ellie never crosses paths with her brothers. With school, homework, summer assignment, after school clubs, and just different plans, they don't get to spend time together. 

Ellie took her English notebook and her laptop and a book she had to read over the summer and sat on her bed and starting to work on her final reading assignment. Ellie had already finished the book and nearly done with writing the essay. All she has left is her concluding paragraph and she's done. 

It took twenty minutes for Ellie to finish the conclusion. She kept going back in forth between her conclusion and her other paragraph to finish. Once she did, she printed the essay out and put it into a folder.

Relief washed over Ellie knowing that she's finally done with it.

Ellie took a deep breath and sat on her bed. She bit her lip. Tears threatened to fall out of her eyes, but she didn't let it fall. She tried her best to keep herself together. She tried her best to stay strong, but days like this, it's hard to keep herself and have a mental breakdown.