Take Two

10║Moving On

T E N;

There was a Sunday morning tradition in the Finley household. It used to include my entire family; my brother, Mum, Dad and myself. But today, it was just me.

The tradition had started years ago, long before I was born. My parent's used to spend Sunday mornings watching cartoons and eating cereal until nearly noon early in their relationship; the tradition continued after me my brother and I were born, up until his death.

None of us had brought up the tradition again following his death; thinking back on it now, I don't know why we didn't continue it. I suppose that to my parent's it would have been another stark reminder that their son was gone.

I tucked the wool blanket further around myself and settled in to the couch, removing my arm from under the blanket to flip through the channels on the television before settling on a children's channel that was showing reruns of Spongebob Squarepants.

My eyes glazed over as Spongebob came onto the screen, muttering something about Gary. Instead of focusing on the television my mind drifted back to Carter and what he had said to me yesterday.

I've missed you, Zoe.

I blew a piece of hair out of my face in frustration, wondering why he had the right to throw that in my face so easily.

He had been sweet when were dating, the perfect gentleman. But he had never said things like that to me before; things that raised goosebumps on my arms and caused my stomach to flip.

The jarring sound of my phone ringing drew me out of my daze and I looked around for it, tossing the blanket off to the side. When I found it I quickly pressed talk and raised the phone to my ear, "Hello?"

"Zoe? Is this still the right number?"

I frowned, reaching for the remote to mute the television. "Um, yeah. It's Zoe."

"Oh, great! It's Thea."

I sat back on the couch and pulled the blanket over myself again. "Hey, what's up?"

My mind ran as I thought of possibilities as to why Thea would be calling right now, she had rarely called me when Mark was still alive and hadn't called me once since he had died.

"I just wanted to talk to you about what I said the other day."

The other day? I thought back to the last time that I had seen her at the coffee shop, when she had been persistent that I shouldn't get a job. "Oh," I paused, remembering how hurt I had been by the conversation, "What about it?"

"I shouldn't have said that to you and I just wanted to apologize."

A smile fell over my face at how polite Thea was. Even when Mark had first brought her home, I thought that she had been too polite and that it had to be an act- I think that I was coming to realization now that it wasn't an act, mostly because I knew that she had no one to impress anymore. "You don't have to apologize."

"It's just," This time there was a pause on her end and then the sound of a door shutting, "I don't know, Zoe. Getting a job is what helped me to heal but I don't think that's what's going to help you."

She didn't get it, I thought, tugging at a loose thread on the blanket. She just didn't understand how desperately I wanted to heal, I needed to heal. And if working helped Thea to distract herself I don't see why it couldn't help me. "Why not, Thea? How could working possibly hurt me?"

"You're fragile-"

"I am not fragile." I snapped, my grip on the phone tightening. "Don't you dare try and call me weak."