Momma, I'm in love with a criminal

two

Alice was walking back to the facility now.
Her thoughts not able to think about anything else, just him.
Linus Ek.

A name she so desperately hated.
A family who wronged hers.

Tears fell from her face as she remembered the very thing that she had tried so hard to push to the back of her mind.

She shook her head, snapping herself out of the spiral she hadn't realized she had gone down.

Pulling open the front door, she was greeted with this lingering smell of sadness and old food that the dining ladies hadn't bothered cleaning of the walls.

"Alice, what took you so long?" one of the ladies stopped me in my tracks, crossing her arms. A stern look spread across her face.
"Lot clean is a 10 minute job at most, please do better" she further insisted.

Alice rolled her eyes and made her way back to the closet sized room she lived in.
She threw herself onto the bed, exhausted.
Replaying the five minute interaction over and over in her head until her throughs were flooded with nothing else.
A long groan escaped her lips as she rolled over, pulling out her phone.
'mom'
She hesitantly clicked on the contact.
It rang repeatedly before being sent to voicemail.

"Hey mom, it's me, Alice. Um I just wanted to let you know that Im okay and uh I really miss you-"

The voicemail ended before her sentence could be completed.

She shifted to where she was now laying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
Closing her eyes tightly, memories of her mother flashed through her head.
But not the bad ones.
The memories of the two making spaghetti together on Sunday nights.
The ones filled with laughter and smiles.
The good ones.

Suddenly those memories were broke apart and replaced with a new one. A more recent one.

'Linus' head on her shoulder.
His smile.
His messy hair.
The soft but unknowingly scared look in his eyes.
Linus ek'

That name.
Repeating itself in her head.

She rolled over, her head now against the pillow, as another memory appeared, one she hadn't yet experienced, but wish she had.
The way his lips felt on hers.

She opened her eyes as the memory slowly faded away, only his name left echoing in the back of her mind.