Nora Farris
Tuesday February 6th, 2019
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

chapter twenty- cat and mouse

             I WAS AVOIDING HIM. 100 percent, without a doubt. I begged Dr. V on hands and knees to let me leave twenty minutes early, she eventually agreed, warily. I couldn't bare an encounter that awkward right now.

I tried to stay busy during the passing days; they began to slowly smear into one.

"I'm not so sure that's such a good thing." Dr. V scribbled something down after I stated this, after that, I shrunk down into my seat, embarrassed and ashamed that I didn't agree with her.

What did it matter if I had no real concept of time, or everyday was predictable? I was finally starting to feel a little okay.

"Nora, you're young," she begins. "You're supposed to be living in the moment and having a good time while you're in your prime."

If this is my prime, kill me.

"I'm going to a school dance!" I blurt, defensively. I feel like a moron. Was I still going to the dance? Yes? No? Oh I didn't know!

There were a lot of things wrong with me, being uncertain and indecisive made the list. I didn't know anything ever, didn't know what I was doing after high school, didn't know about Ezra and I, or my mom, or why and when my life ended up being so damn hard.

"I've been eating more." It's a poor attempt to try and change the subject, but I couldn't bare it any longer.

Her eyes light up and she genuinely looks delighted for me. Something in me smiles on the inside, it's stupid, I know, but no one is ever proud of me anymore, since my dads been gone. It felt nice.

"That's awesome, what did you eat, anything good?"

"Well, I spent the weekend with my best friend, so we smoked, a lot, and I kinda ate everything, cereal, pizza, Mcdonald's, all the fat stuff."

"Those are the best kind." She jokes.

"We are getting pancakes after this!" I add excitedly, trying to stall out the last five minutes of our session.

She nods, returning back to business. "You're smoking again? Does your mom know?"

My heart immediately starts racing. My mom was  highly apposed to my substance abuse. I got really bad at one point. I didn't remember much of Fall 2018, because I hadn't been sober any of it and in the slim chance that I was, I was ruining myself in some way; ditching school, getting in trouble, anything to make me self destruct because if my dad wasn't here, I didn't want to be here either.

I do not like my mom, we mix like water and oil, she's the flame, i'm the cool pool of water. No, I don't like my mom one bit, but I do love her.

It's possible to love someone and not like them; it took me a while to finally understand my relationship with my mother. Complicated and ever-growing and destroying and building and collapsing all over again.

When I got bad, my mom didn't know what to do. She watched me, drown over and over again. Up until recently I hated her for it, the one person who actually understood my pain, didn't show any pain at all. She just got really quiet.

We lived in a quiet house after my dad was taken away from me. We didn't have it in us to watch the television without dad in his Lazy Boy, we hadn't shared many meals together, if so it would be silent. The sound of clanking and scraping against plates, at best.

I don't think my mom was really there. If I did say something to her, she'd take a long while to answer.

"Jackie," I tried, one night at the dinner table. I'd just started referring to her by her first name, because if she wasn't going to act like a mother, why should I have called her that?

She said nothing, just stared forward. Not at me, but just behind me, at the wall. "Jackie," I say snappier, but no one was home.

I turn behind me, and see my dads gloves. They were on the kitchen counter. This was when my dad's presence still hung to the house, his shoes around, jackets on the coat rack, protein powder in the cabinets, his laptop, little mundane stuff like that. Slowly, but surely my mom was determined to lock it all away. So it'd be easier for her to forget.

"Mom?" I'm almost begging now. Of course I had been high, but it was starting to feel like a paranoid, my life is over, I might as well die high, if you know what I mean.

Her trance is lifted. "Hm?" She shakes her head, like she's trying to shake the fog off. She puts up a good act, but I see her cracks and there's lots of em.

"I'm going to Danielle's." A statement not a question, a lie too. I wasn't going to Dani's, I was going to a club to drink away my sorrow and self sabotage.

"It's a school night." She tries to be so calm and nonchalant, but it makes me boil like magma.

"So?"

I don't hate my mom, but sometimes I think she hates me. I can never really tell and that's what scares me. Maybe she thinks the same thing about me.

"If you leave out that door, don't bother coming back, you're....you're too much Eleanora, I—I can't take it, I lost him too." And the dam breaks.

Her emotions spill out everywhere, into the air, into my eyes, it stings like ocean waters, it pours into my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I feel so heavy, like i've been strapped to my chair.

"I lost him. He's gone." Her voice holds so much pain, she's all but wailing, it's an ugly cry, that makes you want to curl down on the floor. She looks down into her lap, rocking back and forth. I feel sick to my stomach.

"He's never coming back, I'm never going to see him again, I can't Nora....please." She grabs herself into a hug, she's so small, her nose is snotty and her hair is messy.

Nora please. How could I hate this woman? I couldn't blame her for anything, she was going through hell, and I was making it worse. She was so broken and small, she was just one woman, dealing with all this.

Of course I didn't care or realize this at the time, so I left out that night and when I returned early morning, the door was still open for me.

So, no I don't hate my mom for what she did, but yeah, she cannot find out i'm smoking again.

"Please don't tell her."

"I won't."

I let out a sigh of relief and let out one more
when I look at the time. I rise to my feet.

"So, this dance?" She mentions again. Damn.

"Yeah...."I nod, awkwardly. "Bye now."

I don't look behind me, but I know she's still staring at me. She must think i'm really weird, I am really weird, I remind myself.

I swiftly make my way out the building, with no trouble. Dani is waiting in the building lobby for me, she is a sight for sore eyes.

"Hi!" I am so happy to see her, even after spending the whole entire weekend with her, even after seeing her at school today.

She made me feel like my old self again. "Hi
beautiful, how was your session?"

We begin our walk to our favorite spot, 24 Hour Breakfast, my stomach was grumbling already for a stack of warm pancakes and silly girl gossip.

"Did she ask you about, Ezra?" she questions. Dani's dark hair is pulled into a braid, showing her fair skin and ocean blue eyes. I forget how pretty she is, inside and out. Her eyes are always accompanied by dark eyeliner and mascara, giving her doll face some edge.

"No, not really." It was always Ezra this, Ezra that. It was growing to be exhausting. He kept hurting me over and over. I don't think it was intentional, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

I can't entirely be mad. I've never been the type of girl to be introduced to parents. never had a boyfriend or a guy like me for too long.

I was scared. If i'm honest I wasn't too upset at Ezra anymore, honest. I think I was using the incident as an excuse now, at this point. Things were getting hot and heavy between us, i'm not a virgin, but i've also never been touched in the way he wants to touch me.

When he touches me, he wants to please me. He's not selfish, because he likes me. The very few guys I've been with were unmentionable, they used my body for painful or awkward missionary, they always ask if I came after not doing anything to make me cum.

Ezra isn't like them. He's romantic and sexy and I know he knows how to please a woman. The thought of him makes a fluttery feeling erupt in my stomach. I can tell from kissing him alone. He's lingering and slow and takes his time. I wanted him to take his time on me.

Dani reaches into her coat pocket, retrieving her dab pen. Her and I had been smoking it all weekend, it felt nice to just have girl time with her.

She takes two big hits and I slowly see her eyes become red and glossy. At least with her pen I wouldn't smell like weed, so my mother didn't suspect anything.

Dani hands it over to me and I take a few hits. I can feel the tension in my body release into the air.

"Dani, I can't stop thinking about him." I pass her back the pen, she takes it laughing. She was so giggly when high or drunk or even sober really.

"Because you are in love," she sings it, grabbing my wrist. She takes another hit, releasing the smoke like a dragon.

No one on the street paid us any mind, people smoked in the city just as much as they breathed, no one cared.

Her pale hand passes it back and I hit it again and again and now i'm high.

"I'm not in love, shut your mouth!" I laugh, nudging her. She nudges me back, but I find myself beside her again, we walk shoulder to shoulder. I imagine we look like those cats that walk with their tails intertwined.

"I need you and Ezra to stop playing the cat and mouse chase and just be together, you two would be a lot happier."

"Who's the cat?" I say pushing the diner door open, the bell chimes signaling our arrival.

"Definitely Ezra," She says it like she's stating the obvious.

I scrunch my face in disapproval, that was definitely not true. She didn't know Ezra like me, deep down there was a tiny scared little mouse inside him and deep down inside of me, locked deep away was the cat, cunning and bold.

We make our way to our usual booth, tucked away by the window, the cold nips at us through the glass. I take my coat off, hugging myself to produce warmth. I would order a hot cocoa.

I did order a hot cocoa and a short stack of pancakes with a side of hashbrown and scrambled cheese eggs, what can I say, munchies. I was sure to gain some more weight and that made me happy.

Try as I may, my mind always drifted back to him, did it happen to him too? I prayed that it did so I wasn't the only one subjected to this feeling. I glance at the time on my phone. 7:43 pm he was out of his therapy session, I wondered what he was doing. I wanted to call him, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

"We need to go dress shopping!" Dani says, shoving french toast in her mouth. When our server came to the table she'd asked us what we wanted, I told her my usual order and Dani had a usual order as well, but when she said french toast instead I gasped, like actually.

This caused Dani to erupt into laughter, the server didn't like us too much after that. She stood there tapping her pen to her notepad while we laughed.

"Dress shopping?" I raise a brow.

"You dumbass, for the dance," she kicks me under the table. I really think she was rooting for Ezra. I just shrug, and poke my food around.

"Who says i'm still going?"

She tilts her head, and scrunches her eyebrows, shaking her head in disappointment. "What if he goes with another girl?"

A new fear unlocks in my brain. I try to play it cool and act like the thought of him dancing and laughing with someone else didn't make my blood boil.

"Maybe that would be for the best, I'm tired of the push and pull."

Dani is speechless for the first time ever and it's scary, it could be because she's high as a kite, however.

She leans back in the booth. "I think his delivery for certain things are bad, but I think he means no harm by it, I just think that's the way he is."

And i'm the way I am. "You should still go to the dance at least, then be done with him."

I turn the idea over in my head over and over. Be done with him, how could I ever?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

I get home at 9:47 pm and my mom says that i've  been out too late for a school night. She's never happy, I used to not come home at all.

Even after I shower, even after I brush my teeth and do my homework i'm still thinking of him. I move my laptop to the nightstand, and turn my nightstand lamp off, so all that's illuminating my room is the fairy lights above my headboard.

I pull myself under the covers and try to sleep, but only manage to toss and turn. I reach for my phone and my finger hovers over Ezra's contact.

I fight the urge to text him, I just keep looking at his contact name. No emojis, or nicknames, just Ezra.

My hand slips and the phone begins to buzz, I hang it up with panic. Fuck, fuck I'm so screwed.

I throw my phone to the farthest pile of clothes, and shove my head in between two fluffy pillows. I was never gonna get up again, I would die here.

a/n
too lazy to write out a constructed a/n
will edit this chapter later as of rn it has horrible grammatical errors <3