Infections of a Different Kind of Human

16. Churchyard

When Ryan entered Amelia's room at 6am, hoping to get information on where he could locate a gluten free snack, he did not expect to see her sleeping in bed with his father. The image itself had put him into complete shock, and he spent the larger part of his morning sitting in front the TV while it was on mute, with his anxiety slowly spiking. He'd rationalized that maybe his dad was too tired to go home, so he spent the night, and he understood that because his mom didn't have many rooms, they would share one. What he couldn't understand was why he was almost butt naked in her bed. The only person he'd ever seen half dressed in his mother's bed was Owen. Which meant...

"Oh," Ryan said as he opened the door and stepped out of the bedroom, not expecting to see the young boy by the couch, "Hey RJ."

He simply stared at his father with a blank expression. "Hi dad." The two watched each other in awkward silence as one of them tried to figure out what to say. On one hand, Ryan wasn't entirely opposed to his parents sleeping with each other. When he was younger, all he'd wanted was for his parents to fall in love again. But then there was Owen, and he really liked Owen. Owen had been there for him throughout all his formative years, and he felt safest with him. His real dad, well, he loved him dearly, but they were still lacking something. He didn't know if it was because they'd never lived together, or something else, but he didn't feel as connected to his father as he did towards Owen. Which meant he felt an obligation to defend Owen about seeing his dad in bed with Amelia if he ever found out.

"I was pretty tired last night," Ryan rambled on as he slowly buttoned up his shirt, not sure where he was going with that, "Just ended up...you know..."

"Sleeping in bed half naked with mom?" he finished for him, leaving Ryan at a loss for words. Thankfully, he didn't have to find a response, as Amelia had now come out of the bedroom, sleepily rubbing her eyes, unbeknownst to the awkward interaction.

"Ry? What are you doing up so early?" Amelia said as she finally noticed the boy. It was then she looked at the reaction on Ryan's face and figured it couldn't be anything good. The young boy was very observant and would probably figure out eventually what was going on between Amelia and Ryan.

"I was going to ask for a snack," he explained to his parents, "But you two were busy." The way he said it made Amelia realize that he had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

"Okay, how about you go wake up your siblings so we can all have a snack?" she suggested, ignoring his sneaky statement.

"Okay," Ry simply said, leaping off the couch. Right before he hit the start of the hallway, he turned to ask, "Are you guys doing it now?"

"Go!" they both yelled at him, and he scurried off.

"Rosie!" Ryan hissed as he entered the bedroom and shook his sister awake, "Rosie wake up!"

"What?" the redhead groaned as she pushed Ryan off of her.

"Mom and dad are doing it!" he exclaimed, to which she responded with a confused gaze.

"My dad?" she sought to clarify, unsure of which father they were talking about.

"No, mine!" he further explained, making her eyes open wide.

"How do you know?"

"He slept over, and they were in the same bed," Ryan recounted dramatically, "and he was half naked."

"What's 'doing it'?" the twins said in unison as they both finally awoke. Ryan and Rosie looked at each other, wondering if they should tell the twins. They had a streak of saying too much in front of their parents and being poor at keeping secrets amidst the siblings. But, if they didn't tell them, then they would definitely ask their mom, and they were trying to avoid that as best as possible.