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𝐒.𝐇.𝐈.𝐄.𝐋.𝐃. 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐑
ELEANOR
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'Hello, mum,' I spoke evenly into my phone.
My mother was the last person I felt like talking to when I decided to aimlessly move around my room, hoping to clear my fervent thoughts. I wanted to listen to a familiar voice and me being a gifted audience; just hear. Something to keep my mind deviated. Besides, I was never the one to leave voice-memos yet here I was, eating my words.
'I know you're worried,' I mused, 'but get this. I am alright, Tony's alright and we're fine. And, whatever the Colonel told you is true. I do have er, an electromagnet elbowed into me—'
'Eleanor? Please be there, darling—hello?'
My mother's voice was awfully calming even in her distressed state. Madeline Preece was an aloof woman—she respected the state of calmness and valued loyalty. She was a prim and proper English-bred woman who brought me up with the same optimism as her. She was known around the town for her ever radiant features and about how she never looked a day over thirty when she was in her soaring fifties. She was your typical British countrywoman with a green thumb and a tiger mom. Fierce, passionate and hot-headed—I took most of her emotional traits rather than physical. My dad was a lost cause after I turned ten so she took it upon herself to culture me to the best version of myself till it was time for me to part my mother's wing and head out into the real world.
I never knew I needed her until now, a warm feeling radiating over my chest and caging me back home. I could remember her every gentle divot and feature as I pressed my fingers into my eyes, stupidly trying to push the tears back into the ducts. I attempted to choke out a response.
'Mum,' I murmured, my quiet steps coming to a halt. I grappled the phone like it was my life source, leaning into the nearest support. 'Hi.'
'Christ,' she relievedly whispered, fighting off a sob. There was a whole range of emotions—anger, fright, and obvious distress. 'Elle.'
'Yes, it's me.'
'You cannot begin to imagine how worried I was and—and I'm still your mother! I have a right to talk to you when I want to. Omigosh, baby girl, are you alright? Are you hurting a lot? And electromagnets, sweetheart? That Stark fellow is turning you into one of him already.'
My mother's flaxen face had the efficiency to pull out the secrets in me. The cat was out of the bag before she worked her magic. There was no hiding from her and just the thought of that had my heart banging up to my throat.
