Chapter Thirty

Amaryllis Lexington

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"AMARYLLIS!" was all I heard before something, or someone, fell on me. Oliver! I wanted to get mad and shake him off of me, but I missed it too much to even try. Ever since I arrived in Halloway two days ago, I've been waking up to his usual morning antics, but rather than retaliate, I only relished the moments.

However, it was our thing to always argue and banter, so I couldn't let him have a field day so I did exactly what I had in mind. I shot up like a light and he fell off my back, his head hanging over the bed. The image was so hilarious and I had a good laugh for about ten seconds before he lunged at me.

"If you guys wanna kill each other, at least have breakfast. Makes the journey to heaven a lot easier." Mum yelled from downstairs and I shook my head. That woman should really get mother of the year award. When I flew back here, I thought things would be really awkward. I thought they would start acting different around me and I already beat myself up for coming up with the idea, but they proved me wrong. Everyone acted like I never left. Even Oliver who was a little too young to even understand how situations like this work.

"Riley... is try..ing to kill me, mum!" Oliver managed to croak out in between smacks from the pillow. Any other kid would have suffered a nose bleed from the amount of times we've whacked each other with pillows, but not Ollie. He has a very hard head, which explains his stubbornness also.

After ten solid minutes of fighting, we both called a truce and we raced ourselves down the stairs. The smell of bacon filled our nostrils and we gave each other the stare before we both ran to the stack of bacon on the table.

"The BACONATOR came through!" We yelled, stuffing our faces with as much bacon as we could, until mum smacked us from behind. My bacon fell out of my mouth from the pain and I groaned.

"Come on, mother. Are you trying to kill your only daughter?" I cried, taking a seat while still trying to get a hold of as much bacon strips as I could.

She rolled her eyes, setting the eggs before us. Whoever says bacon and eggs isn't the best breakfast in the world should get themselves checked at the nearest hospital, because there's definitely something wrong somewhere.

"The princess is up." Dad said in a sing song voice as he walked into the dining room. All the thoughts of bacon disappeared from my mind as I ran into his open arms. His familiar scent and warmth filled me and I almost cried. When I arrived, he was out of town and today will be the first time I'll be seeing him.

As we all sat around the table, I realized just how much I missed this. Although, my real parents were amazing and they showed that they loved me helplessly, I couldn't help but prefer this. Maybe it will take some time to adjust. After all, I spent seventeen years of my life loving every minute of this, and I've barely had three months to settle in with the Lexingtons.

"We'll see you guys soon. Take care of yourselves."

"Don't miss me too much, BuzzyRiley." Dad and Ollie said at the same time as they stood up. Oliver still had two more days of school while Dad had to get to work. The bright side, however, is that I get to spend half of the day with mum before she goes to work and I'll spend the other half with Rose. We made plans to hang out this afternoon.

"Definitely won't, CreepyOllie." I winked and he gave me a stink eye, as much as he could, before they left. Mum had a small smile on her face as she ate her food. It was that smile that reflected just how happy she was to have our family complete again, but also reflected her sadness at the fact that it won't be like this forever.

I tried to push my own sadness down as I plastered a huge smile on my face, taking the seat closest to her. "I'm not leaving anytime soon, woman, so stop with the sad look. I can still see right through you, you know?"

Her sad smile gave way for a full blown chuckle that told me I had accomplished my mission. "Oh please, don't get so full of yourself. What if I was just missing your dad?" As much as that was a possibility, seeing as they act like college lovers most of the time, I knew she was just messing with me.

"Can y'all like quit it with the young love thing. Y'all old. If you guys take up all the romance in the world, what will be left for youngsters like us?" She shrugged, pushing her lower lip forward in a way that made her look twenty years less than her actual age, then her eyes turned to me, excitement shining brightly in them.

"Speaking of young romance. How's the young man you told me about? Carlson, isn't it?" The mention of his name kinda sucked all the fun in the room. The way mum's excitement diminished told me I probably had that horrible crestfallen look on my face. Ever since he accused me of being a backstabber and I shut the door in his face, I've only seen him on TV, and he looked like a wreck everytime. A hot wreck, actually. Anyone wouldn't be able to guess that he didn't look like his usual gorgeous self, but I knew him enough to know he was just a few moments away from breaking down. I felt really bad for him and the situation he was in, but I also couldn't get over my anger at his distrust.

"Tell me everything, and don't leave a word out." Mum demanded and I did exactly that. It wasn't until I started narrating it to someone else that I realized my actions might have been overboard. What if he thought I shut the door in his face because I was too afraid to face the truth? Oh God. What have I done? Maybe that's why he never reached out to me. Not even when we passed each other in the hallway during midterms.

Mum had a gaping mouth by the time I was done, and the sympathy she felt for Carlson was evident through her eyes, "Oh, the poor boy. He must have been so hurt when the news came out. Although it kinda sucks that he didn't even ask you before he jumped into conclusion, you can't exactly blame him for not being rational at that point. He probably felt like his world was crumbling down and he must have been losing his mind, then you shut the door in his face." Mum saying it out made me feel even more horrible than I should.

I ran my hands across my face, fear and frustration building up inside me like a Lego house. What if I ruined our relationship before it even had the chance to start? What if he probably already closed his mind towards me and he doesn't want anything to do with me forever? The thought of losing him and seeing him being all happy with someone else flashed across my mind and I groaned. Not only had Maya mocked me for not listening to her advice, she also made my life a living hell by bringing up the Hawthorne situation every night during dinner just so I would have a constant reminder of what I had and lost.

"What do I do, mum? You always warned me not to overreact and now, I've gone ahead and ruined things. He probably hates me already." It was very unlike me to feel so much fear and every word that fell out of my mouth was coated with enough fear to last a lifetime.

She placed her hand over mine, offering a small smile that did nothing to calm the raging storm in my mind. "From what you told me about this young man, I'd say it would be pretty hard for him to hate you. He really loves you, Amaryllis, and while you have the assurance of those words because he actually said them to you, I can't exactly say the same for him. He isn't even sure of how you feel about him and I think this is the time he needs that assurance the most. He must be in over his head trying to clean up the mess that has been made." My heart broke for him all over again and I suddenly wished I had some sort of teleportation power that could take me to Lakeview right now.

"I need to call him. I mean, I can't get to Lakeview right now, but we have to thank technology, right? Hopefully, he'll pick up my calls." I dashed up the stairs, my mind on two things; Carlson and the phone sitting on my bed side drawer. I reached the phone in record time, but the difficult part was placing the call. My finger danced over his name for all of five minutes before I finally summoned the courage to call him.

It rang for a while, then went to voicemail. Hurt filled me at the realization that he wasn't picking. I tried to tell myself that he probably was in a meeting and he would get my call later. I tried one more time and it went to voicemail still, so I gave up. The wait was killing me and I needed to tell him how sorry I was as soon as I could, so I clicked on my message box and started typing, not having a single word in mind, but I trusted my heart to do the talking.

I know you probably hate me right now and you don't want to talk to me, and I get that. If I were you, I'd probably hate me too. I shouldn't have shut the door in your face the other night. Now that I think about it, it was a really stupid thing to do. I was just so hurt that you didn't trust me and then you yelled at me, but all of those are silly excuses.

I didn't do it, Carl, and I want you to believe me. I would never do anything to hurt you, and that's not because of my high level of integrity, or code of honour, or something like that. It's simply because I love you. I love you so much, it's insane how I can love someone that much in such a little time, but then it doesn't come with a time duration now, does it?

I have always wanted to tell you since the night you told me about your feelings for me, but I was a little too scared and a little too shy to do that. Plus, the timing wasn't always right.

I can only hope it's not too late to try and work things out between us. Call me when you get this.

That's if I haven't, somehow, died of shriveled nerves and twisted gits and all that."

I read the message about a million times before I finally clicked the send button. Even after sending, I still kept on reading the message till I could read it by heart without blinking. I was just about to drop my phone and go scream in my pillow when a message notification came in, and it was from Carl. My hands shook as I opened it. I was expecting one of two responses; either he tells me he has forgiven me or he tells me to go to blazes. Unfortunately, the words staring back at me left me in utter confusion.

Come open the door.

What door? Come to where? How does opening the door fit into this scenario? What exactly did I type to warrant such a response? Questions like this ran across my mind until my mum halted them by yelling my name.

"Amari! You might wanna come see this for yourself." She yelled and I rolled my eyes, but I stood up anyway. I hoped, for her sake, that it would be something worth my attention, else I would vent all my pent up frustration on her and end up crying like a pregnant bozo.

"This better be good, mum, else I wou..." The words got stuck in my throat when my eyes landed on the homo sapien standing at the door. He looked exactly the same way I remembered him, but this time, he looked somewhat larger than life in our tiny apartment. A part of me wanted to run upstairs and fix myself and get out of my pyjamas, but the dominant part of me was too frozen to even get my body to move.

"Guess you haven't died of shriveled nerves, and twisted guts, and all that, Cielita."