Edgeton Prep

𝔼𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥

𝒞𝑜𝓃𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒

The house is white.

Every house in this town is white. It has a green lawn, a picket fence, and a red door. Like every suburban family's dream home, two stories and has a large porch.

This.

This is what they left us for. The exact same house we are living in. Wow.

Dad looks at me with an expectant expression.

"You better be on your best behaviour tonight Connie," he warns. He had lied when he told me he'd only know a day. Apparently, they had been chatting for over a week trying to work out a time to catch up. I was not thrilled. Dad is now convinced that I'm going to try and act out during dinner.

"I will Dad."

"Connie," he looks at me expectantly. "I know-"

"She left Dad. Without a single word. How could you just easily forgive that? She doesn't even know Mom's dead!" The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. Silence fills the car.

"Bear," Dad starts. "It's hard, I know, and I'm not saying you should forgive her, I'm just saying that you should give her a chance. She was Mom's best friend, I would like to get closer to some of the important people in her life again." The way Dad's voice breaks at the end of the sentence stops me from saying the retort on the tip of my tongue.

He places his hand on top of mine and squeezes. "Con, please?"

He looks so sad and pleading that I swallow my anger and smile softly at him. "Ok Dad, let's go inside."

We both exit the car and walk up the steps onto the porch. "You look lovely by the way," Dad whispers before we knock.

I look down. I'm wearing white jeans - which I'm still trying to decide whether that was a bad choice or not - and a knitted blue sweater. Nothing special, just nice enough for a dinner with 'friends'.

The door opens and standing there staring at us with a slightly confused look is Griffin. He's wearing a white button-up shirt and black pants. He looks good.

"Hello Griffin," Dad says smiling at him.

"Hey Mr. Fracher," Griffin says smiling back at him.

"Griff, is that them?" Evelyn Prescott appears at the door next to Griffin. "Well let them in!"

Griffin moves the door and steps aside to let us in. The house is warm and smells like roast chicken. Which is one of the best meals on the fucking planet - go argue with the wall.

"Oh, Cameron!" Evelyn says embracing him. "It's so good to see you." She wraps him in a massive hug. Once Dad steps back she sets her sights on me. "Connie! You look lovely. You've grown up so much, haven't you!" She throws her arms around me and squeezes. Her perfume is so strong my eyes start to water and I struggle to not cough.

"Mom let her go your perfume is killing Constance." Another voice says and Evelyn steps back shooting a look at Tanner standing at the entrance of the living room. "Hey Constance," she waves at me. I wave back and watch as Evelyn tries to move us into the living room so there is more space.

"Come on in, make yourselves comfortable." She ushers us onto the couch and sits across on the other patting either side of her telling Tanner and Griffin to sit down. She looks at both me and Dad and then frowns. "No Aggie?"

My eyebrows raise and I slowly turn my head to look at Dad and lean back into the couch. This is going to be good. I was expecting that to be the first thing that came out of her mouth. But here we are already inside and she only just noticed now.