Her fingers moved restlessly in the comfortable darkness beneath the dining table. Twirling the dying tissue between her fingers.
Twisting and straining the soft white security blanket of sorts.
The voices of the others bounce off the honey coloured walls. 'Charming' her mother had called the room. Words meant nothing in the world of her mother though. The expression draped across her face had said what she really thought.
Her father was less demanding. colours and fabrics meant nothing to him. All he saw was her ragged, short hair cut and the t-shirt-less torso of Will. Will the vagrant-who-stole-his-only-daughter-and-turned-her-into-a-gyspy. Will the waste-of-space-boyfriend-who-would-leave-her-pregnant-and-poor. Her parents carried label makers like loaded pistols, and they were all too ready to use them on her and her so-called life.
And so she sat, forgetting to breathe for minutes at a time and giving herself a headache. Her parents were giving her a headache. Her parents and their labels and their savage eyes.
Will kept talking, ignoring what was beneath the surface, or maybe he only saw his own refelction? She was grateful for him, he carried only a guitar and a head full of honesty, but still she kept the tissue moving knowing she was shredding it to pieces and littering the floor with the artificial snow of her anxiety.
3 courses. Tea? Coffee? Shall I get your coat mum? Thanks for coming dad! She kept her own smile plastered on running her eyes over Will for reassurance, to make sure he was still there, still staying.
Standing on the front stoop counting down the seconds til she could shut the door and shut them out her mother stopped in the semi darkness and turned around "Oh and Hannah, deeeear, there's a mess of paper under one of the chairs, cleanliness is next to godliness you know. I would expect better from my daughter."
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1 comment:
"label makers like loaded pistols" - brilliant.
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