"...She won't talk much..." Louis said into the phone as he leaned against the kitchen bench watching Tellie eat breakfast. After a couple of weeks had past he was honestly fed up with the fact that Tellie wasn't speaking, he'd finally managed to get her to eat and was slowly dealing with the reoccuring nightmares she'd been having, but getting her to talk to him was the one thing he couldn't find a solution to.
"It's been three weeks though! She even started talking to El before she left." Louis drummed his fingers against the bench. Listening closly to the speaker on the other end. "Maybe...but Darian called me yesterday and wants to see her, I'll bring her down when she starts talking to me, I'll just tell Darian in a couple of weeks... Understandable, you know I find it weird that I dated someone with the same name as my sister...it's weird."
Tellie sat at the table watching Louis as she ate cereal.
"Yeah love you to mum." He finished. He took his phone from his ear and slid it into his pocket. He then looked at Tellie.
"You finished?"
Tellie nodded.
"Can I have some chocolate milk?" She asked as Louis put her bowl in the sink.
"Yea-" Louis stopped mid sentence. "You can talk!"
Tellie looked around awkwardly as Louis smiled.
"Milk?" She repeated. "Please..."
"Oh yeah..." Louis smiled as he got a bottle of chocolate milk from fridge.
"What do you wanna do today?" Louis began watching Tellie from the corner of his eye.
Tellie shrugged. "Can I watch Mulan?"
"Why Mulan?" Louis asked sliding a glass of milk towards Tellie.
Again she shrugged. "Mushu's funny, and I like the cricket."
"So you like Mushu... Fair enough." Louis put leaned against the table a smile planted on his face.
"Thank you." She said taking a sip of her drink.
"No problem love... How 'bout we go watch that movie aye? Maybe after I'll take you to the park or something."
Tellie slowly slid out of her seat, following a smiling Louis into the lounge room. Louis felt better now, hearing Tellie's small voice made his day.
"Do you wanna see Darian?" Louis asked as Tellie sat on the lounge, nodded furiously making Louis groan. "it was good while it lasted..."
"Where'd Elea..." Tellie trailed off stumbling on how to say Eleanor. "Elea..."
"Eleanor." Louis said as he put this disk in the DVD player.
"Where'd she go?"
"She," Louis sat on the lounge next to Tellie, "went back to her place in Manchester. She has to go to uni. Why?"
"I like her...she's nice." Tellie shrugged. "Like mummy. When is my mummy coming back?"
Louis frowned as Tellie looked up at him her blue yes shinning with innocence. It amazed Louis how innocent she was, how she could simply ask that and look at Louis as if expecting him to give her a date or something.
"Tellie, love." Louis started. "You understand that mummy...mummy can't come back honey..."
Tellie looked down. "Yes she can..."
"No...I'm sorry love, she's not coming back..."
"Why'd she leave me...?" Tellie whispered, the three year old couldn't wrap her head around the thought of not having her mother around. She couldn't understand how one night her mother was tucking her into bed and the next she was at her uncles listening as he tried to explain what had happened, and after that she was at whatever a funeral was and sent to London. She loved being with her father, but nothing could make her stop wanting her mother to be there to read her bed time stories and hug her before she went to bed.
"It wasn't her choice." Louis replied, he wasn't sure what he was expected to say in this situation but making Tellie happy was the one thing that was on his mind. "So what exactly is so good about this movie?"
Tellie grinned. "Mushu."
Through out the day the one thing Louis had learnt was that Tellie talked an awful and always had something to say no matter what. It seemed ironic to Louis how before she hadn't said a word and now he couldn't get her to shut up. Louis walked into Tellie's room rubbing his eyes as he did, he'd already started getting used to the fact that Tellie screamed in the middle of night, but tonight it seemed different to Louis.
"Tellie?" He muttered sleepily as he sat on her bed. "You okay?" Tellie whimpered as Louis put his hand on her forehead.
"Baby girl it's okay, it's okay..." He cooed as he sat her in his lap. "It's okay..."
Tellie cried into Louis chest as he stood up holding her tightly.
"It's okay love, it's gone, it was just a dream." He continued as he walked out of her room and down the hallway into his.
"Daddy...?" She whimpered as Louis sat her down on his bed.
"Yeah love, you can sleep with me okay?"
"Monster's." Tellie managed, laying down while cringing. "The monsters..."
"There's none in here I promise. I promise..."