Down End Road

We sat in a peaceful silence, enjoying this rare moment of quiet. Myra had, as planned, requested the reinstatement of The order of Adams. With herself as the official head.

The entire board -apart from Harris- had immediately rebuked the idea of an 18 year old girl taking over a powerful order, but with great persuasion and a tiny bit of guilt tripping, we had finally managed to secure the official reinstatement. Along with all of its members. Which, to my ever growing irritation, included Henry and his flirtatious ways.

Apparently, his family had transferred to Hamilton when The order of Adams was shut down, but they had forever dreamed of transferring back to The order of Adams. Annoying.

Myra’s ocean blue eyes were concentrated on the book in her hand as she read over every word with increasing speed. Feeling my heated stare, Myra slowly dragged her gaze to me, eyebrow arched. I kept my thoughts to myself, my silence teetering on the edge of forever before she sighed and went back to reading her book with pursed lips

My gaze wandered to her lips next, memorising every line, every crack, every curve. Her foot kicked my thigh. “Stop staring.” She muttered quietly, desperately trying to focus on the words typed on the page.

In retaliation, I nudged her hip with my foot, catching the end of her jacket on the toe of my trainers. “Why?” I asked playfully, my toe continuing to flap open the hem of her jacket. She whacked my foot, clucking her tongue. I huffed a laugh.

Clop, clop, clop, clop.

Heeled boots clopped along the hardwood floors, getting closer to our small nook of the library. Wheels nobbling along the floor accompanied the clopping shoes.

Ignoring the intrusion, I continued to stare at Myra’s admittedly breathtaking features as she continued to read. However, our balmy silence was broken when the two intruders made there way down our aisle.

“Told you they’d be down here, Mrs. Remington.” Maverick chirped. Our heads snapped to the odd trio, Mr. Remington glared at us from his wheelchair. One that he would be confined to for the rest of his life.

When Ben had shot him, the bullet had been lodged in his Lumbar vertebrae. Even with the copious amounts of Medela concentrate infused into his spinal column, Charlie Remington would never walk again.

I could tell Myra blamed herself for it. The way she flinched every time his wheels squeaked. The way her eyes would cloud with self hate every time she saw him have the slightest struggle -even ones he probably would have encountered on two legs.

His new disability weighed on the family like a ton of bricks. But I knew they would get through it. They were thicker than thieves. The perfect family. I envied Myra for that. The easy relationship she had built with her father, one that could weather any heartbreak.

My dad’s return from assumed death had been less than smooth. All the small kinks in my small family had been amplified ten-fold. Not to mention, me and my mum’s… less than perfect past. My father hadn’t talked to my mum for a day after learning about that.

Not until, I had stormed into his room yelling at him for treating her like that. It didn’t matter whether or not my mum was the perfect PTA mother of the year. She was the reason I was here today and had become the ambitious man I was (or in Myra’s words; boy). She was my mother, and not even death could stop me from tearing apart anyone who disrespected her.

Ever since then, an awkward tension has loomed over our small odd family. I had been trying to avoid them all day, when I had found Myra, staring out the window and offered to take her to the Library (which had been exactly thirteen steps to the right of her). We had been sitting here since.

Mr. Remington still eyed our close proximity, as if the one thing he wanted was for me to get up and go to the other side of the world, far away from his little girl.

Mrs. Remington, noticing Mr. Remingtons glare, thwacked him on the shoulder. Myra flinched when he grunted, turning to give her mother a meaningful stare.

“Don’t do that, I’m not made of glass.” Mr. Remington grumbled a joke, noticing Myra's discomfort. “Besides, you’ve seen your mother abuse me for years now.” He laughed. Mrs. Remington stared at him, seemingly dumbfounded while he laughed belly over.

“Yeah, yeah. What’d you need?” Myra asked, her gip on the book tightened considerably. I put my hand down near her ankle and began to drag my finger along the line of skin, slowly bringing her boiling emotions to a simmer.

Thankfully no one noticed. Well, no one except Maverick, who knew that if he spilled one word about it, I would personally make sure that the entire school knew about a minor accident in year nine.

“We need to talk to you about something.” Mrs. Remington said. Confused, Myra cocked her head to the side and urged her to go on. Mrs. Remington gave me and Maverick wary glances. “Alone.” She finally explained. I nodded, standing up and murmuring something about seeing her later.

Secretive silence engulfed me and Maverick as we made our way out of the library. It had been hard on both of us with our dad’s back and neither of us wanted to talk about it. “I have an idea.” I announced, “why don’t we go out, to that coffee shop or the garage, don’t you need a new part for that musty bike you have.” I mocked playfully, trying to lift the taut tension.

Maverick’s luminous head shook. “I don’t know man, I’ve gotta… stay here, just in case.” He excused, trailing off and leaving the unspoken words hanging between us. I have to stay in case my mum needs me.

“Cheer up, I promise, you’ll be back before dinner. Just like a fifth grader.” I teased again, trying to prod at his playful side. A twitch of his lips was all I received before he nodded and we were off.