In Your Heart

Chapter Two: He had perfectly straight , white teeth

After my shift at the Grease ended, I decided not to go home yet. It was a war zone there. Liz and Mom had been in the fight for a week now, because my sister wanted to fix the wedding date as soon as possible and Mom was hesitant.

Liz and Calvin met at the community college she attended near home. He worked in the administration office as a part time while completing his masters in english and my sister was in his class. It hadn't been that long since they started dating, only eight months had passes since then, and marriage was already coming into play.

It made sense as to why Mom was so bothered and irritated about the whole matter. But at the same time it didn't. Liz loved Calvin, he had become her entire world ever since they got together and it was natural that they had taken the decision.

"It's ridiculous Luce! Eight months is nothing. Nothing at all! How can they jump to wedding out of the blue?" Mom had told me the night Liz had delivered the news. It couldn't be helped though, Liz was already planning on moving in with Calvin. He had a fancy apartment near campus, Liz said he even had a pool table and a tennis table and an aquarium in it.

She hadn't explicitly brought up the moving part, but I saw her bringing in cardboard boxes from the market the other day and figured out what was going on in her head.

"Should we go to your place? I'm missing your Mom's apple pie." Landon was smoking again, while he closed up all the windows and doors. I was cleaning the floor with the mop and Amanda was already gone. Uncle Fred left a while ago, instructing us to lock everything up.

Landon liked to pretend that we just didn't live in the same house. OK, so it wasn't entirely true. But his place was right across ours, since Uncle Fred and Mom bought the houses at the same time.

"Mom's not in a mood to coddle you Landon." She wasn't going to make an apple pie any time soon. Or any pie for that matter.

"Are they still fighting?"

I sighed, "They had a yelling match last night. Tears and emotional blackmail was involved. In the morning, I didn't even need an alarm to wake up." I explained to him, and starting putting the chairs to their respective tables. I noticed that the leather on one of the booths in the back had a long cut.

"That bad?" He muttered, blowing smoke.

"I don't get the issue though. She wants to get married so what? Let her marry."

Landon gave me an all knowing look. "It's obviously because of what happened with your Dad." He reminded me quietly. Although there was no need to do that. The pain and memory was always there, in my mind, always hurting, always throbbing.

"I didn't think it's just that." I told him darkly, "Mom apparently doesn't like Calvin that much. "

Everytime Calvin came over, things were got weird. Even after eight months, it was hard to get used to his presence. He was tall and fair, always wearing those expensive shoes of his. He was a little too neat, a little too polished. A foreigner in our messy house.

"What about you? You don't like him either?"

I thought about a few conversations I had had with him. "He's not bad. But it's always so awkward ... you know? He's a little too sweet for my taste and I'm not used to men being sweet."

I thought about my encounter with Trent earlier. When I had went to give them a bill, he had casually thrown in a fifty dollar in it.

"It's a generous tip for you." He had said, throwing the money as if it weighed nothing.

With my face burning, I had added everything in the account instead of taking the bill. I would rather die than accept Trent Hopkin's money.

"I'm plenty sweet." Landon said in a flat voice.