Lights

Lights 7 ☼

Chapter 7

I groaned and tried my best to force myself back to sleep, but the morning light invading my eyelids told me that just wasn't going to happen. Sighing, I opened my eyes expecting my own, cold, boring room with its blue walls and broken furniture that I don't have the time or energy to bother fixing. Instead, I was greeted by a TV set, (not mine considering I don't have one) a Christmas tree (also not mine for the same reason) and a shiny glass coffee table in the middle of myself and a dark red couch on the other side of the room. The entire place smelled like a family gathering and the blanket surrounding me was soft and smelled the way Leah's brother did.

Austin's house.

I looked around again, studying the Christmas tree like an old friend, and I noticed the moving boxes that I hadn't seen in the dark last night. About to get up from the couch, I stopped when I noticed the warm arm draped around me. Turning to see Austin asleep on the other side of me, I laughed quietly at his mouth hanging half open, limply. My laughter was cut short when I realized we had been asleep on the couch together and one of his parents could come down any minute now.  Naturally wanting to avoid that situation, I picked up his arm and rested it on the couch as I sat up. 

Walking sluggishly towards my bag that was rested against the wall, I pulled it open and saw that there wasn't much inside. My keys, a small stack of emergency money, and a prepaid cell phone. For whatever reason, one of my 3 copies of Moby Dick was in there too, and I picked it out of the bag to look it over before deciding that I needed to read a different book every once in a while.

I stuffed everything back in the bag before getting up and heading towards the door. Reaching for the doorknob, I heard a small mumbling noise from behind me and turned my head to see Austin rubbing his eyes and sitting up. Just run out of the house and go home, I told myself.

"Elodie?" He asked, scratching his head and yawning. Sighing, I dropped my hand off the doorknob and turned completely around before nodding. His eyes widened and I looked at him weird.

"Uh... Yeah?" I said, playing with the strap on my bag.

"Are you okay?" He asked, seeming really worried as he studied my face. Feeling around, I poked under my eye and winced from pain. "You have a black eye," he stated, getting up from his seat on the couch and walking over to me. 

"It's fine, I just fell over." I lied, trying my best not to meet his stare.

"Fell over onto your eye? I don't think so." He argued, and I couldn't think of what to say. "Somebody gave that to you."

"It doesn't matter." I said, dismissing it. "I'll just go home, my mom is probably worried." I explained, trying to excuse myself without being rude. He gave me a look and held my chin up to look at my eye, which was throbbing so hard I could nearly hear it.

"If your mom's going to get so worried, why did she lock you out in the cold in the first place?" He asked, "She probably knows you have the black eye, maybe even knows who hit you." He was right, and I was speechless. I looked to the floor to think of an answer, but I came up with none, so I simply shrugged and headed for the door again.

"Elodie," he said, and I froze again with one hand on the door. "Something's up. Why are you so quick to get home if your mom is just going to kick you out?"

"She isn't  going to kick me out again," I snapped, knowing it wasn't true. "It's just a thing, I'll be fine." 'A thing'? What kind of excuse is that?

"Is it an all the time kind of... thing?" He asked, sounding sort of concerned and, obviously, catching my thin lie. I wanted so badly to just tell him that it was more than just a small problem, that it was an all the time kind of situation. Maybe if I just blurted everything now it would be easier to deal with.