Take Me Away | Richard Madden [Completed; Editing]

Chapter 4 - It's Silly

Rain poured down the hushed neighborhood, fogging up the café windows. Mia sat at a table nearby, her hands resting on the keyboard of her laptop. She focused on the words typed in front of her — Elderslie is.

I'm losing it, she thought, and for anyone who saw her at that moment, it didn't seem like an exaggeration. She wasn't a morning person, but she had forced herself to get up early, complaining that the birds were singing too loudly. Expectedly, they weren't, but that hadn't stopped Mia's mood from changing sourly. Appearance didn't matter anymore; unwashed hair, a white shirt, and grey sweatpants would do.

She ran her fingers across the keys, the voice in her head reciting every other word that skipped along her mind. Elderslie is the best place to live in.

Mia had never hit the backspace bar so quickly before. Her head hurt and she was growing impatient. She needed her coffee, immediately, and just as she was ready to fume, a waitress came by with a tall white mug and a small milk jug.

"Here you go, Mi," she said, placing it next to Mia's notebook on her right. "You alright there?"

Sipping her coffee, Mia shrugged. "I'm fine."

"You don't seem like it." The waitress pursed her lips together, shooting daggers from her eyes at the lonely writer. Mia could only resist a scoff.

"What makes you say that, Gem?"

Gemma hugged the round, red tray across her stomach. She looked at Mia, then at the man seated at the other end of the café, barely in their peripheral. With a yellow highlighter at hand, he was hunched over a black binder, a rainbow of sticky tabs poking out. An array of pastries were also spread out in front of him, a whole french press of black coffee and a mug also present.

"Because you're here and Richard's all the way over there," Gemma explained. Mia couldn't help but stare at the stray gray hair above her friend's left ear. She thought about how Gemma had aged beautifully, like fine wine. There was only one strand of gray among the brown, but nothing much had changed. Her eyes were still round and bright, her smile young and lively. Mia hoped she'd age that way, too, but at the rate she was living, it probably wasn't in her future.

"It doesn't seem right," the waitress added.

Mia sighed. "We fought a tad."

Gemma's eyes widened, her chin lowered. "A tad, huh?"

"Yup." She nodded, popping the last consonant. "Just a tad."

"Sure." Gemma shook her head and walked away, back to the counter up front.

Mia aimlessly continued to stare at her laptop screen, distracted by the images that flashed in her head. She recalled the afternoon before, and how Richard had confronted her on, of all days, his mum's birthday. It took a turn for the worst, and she could feel her cheeks warm up, remembering how dreadful it had become.

The conversation they had had was calm, but when Mia's tears couldn't be held back much longer, the scene had turned irritable. As much as Richard understood the way she had felt, he didn't want to accept the fact that she was purposely treating him like a stranger. Someone she couldn't even look at, not even out of politeness. Mia couldn't understand why Richard didn't get the point, that there was only so much she could manage after that unexpected night years ago.

Years — the word Richard had used to reason out with her. It had been years, and he knew that Mia wouldn't be able to hold a grudge for so long; but that was still merely a thought.