The creatures of the Payne den were still asleep when Carla had woken up. It was her time to wake up and she got out of the bed that she had shared with the old grandmother, who had refused to let the woman go anywhere else.
Lauren’s mother put on her slippers before leaving the room with a yawn. She felt as if she had come here for a vacation and not to convince her daughter back to New York with her.
But, now when she had seen the reason for her daughter’s coming here, she didn’t want to leave either.
The Payne family was like that, they gave everyone the feeling of homeliness, and no one wanted to leave. Before it had been Lauren and now it was her mother.
The woman walked to the kitchen which was just a few rooms down the hallway when she began to hear rustling in the kitchen. Her body went stiff as she walked a little closer and noticed that there was a small light coming from the kitchen.
There was someone there.
With the worse in her mind, she grabbed a nearby broom which was just placed beside Andrew and Laura’s bedroom before she tip-toed to the kitchen.
At the entrance, she looked around at where the person might be when her eyes caught sight of blonde hair. An eyebrow raised itself up when she realized that the blonde person was looking into the fridge with his body bent in half and his butt in the air.
His head was practically one with the refrigerator since it was inside of it, as he hummed and collected snacks to eat.
“Boy.” Ms. Carla called as she walked a little closer to him, and this scared him; enough for him to let go of all the things he was holding and to bump his head with the top of the fridge’s inside.
“Ow, who?” Blake got his head out of the appliance before looking behind him, but just as he did, his whole body froze.
Carla stood giving him a smile, a mischievous one since she was amused by what he was doing. “W-What are y-you doing here so e-early, ma’am?” Blake stuttered as he tried to muster up the courage to also smile back to her, but it just looked like he was constipated so he stopped at the last minute.
“Oh, I just came for my morning coffee.” Carla spoke as she walked over to the dining table and sat down, pulling out another chair before tapping the seat with her right hand. “Why don’t you come sit with me a little while, child?” Blake gulped in fear as he re-collected all the fallen stuff before coming over to the woman with slow steps.
His fear was justified since the woman had practically held him in a head lock, and she was not willing to let him go. He wondered what would have happened if Lauren and Stewart weren’t there to save him.
Sitting down on the chair, Blake placed all the junk food he had gathered onto the table.
Carla looked at it in amusement before grabbing a bag of chocolates and opening it up. “Now, tell me what’s on your mind?” She gave him a motherly smile which soothed and scared Blake, as he gave her a small smile before shaking his head. “It’s nothing, I was just hungry.”
“For junk food?” The woman raised her eye-brow.
“I’m a growing boy?” Carla laughed as Blake fidgeted in his seat before she leaned back on hers and gave him a strict stare. “Tell me what’s on your mind, son.”
It was as if Blake had been torn between sharing his secrets with her and giving her a huge hug and just crying in her embrace. But he chose to do the first, as he sighed before placing his chin on his hand while keeping his elbow on the table for support.
“I don’t like Katie.” He mumbled childishly, which made Carla nod. “And why is that?” She asked, wanting to know why the boy didn’t like the girl. If she remembered correctly, Katie was the dirty-blonde that had been standing besides the red-headed Juliet.
“She cheated on Scarlet before and I don’t like how Scarlet forgave her so easily.” Carla’s eyebrow raised as she learned that bit of information. “Your cousin must really be an angel then, or really naive.” The woman commented which made Blake nod his head.
“Right? She’s naïve. She doesn’t know that Katie didn’t deserve her kindness, not then and not now.”
The woman could feel that there was something that made the boy hate the woman a little too much. Maybe it had been his very own personal experience that was not letting him think otherwise, and Carla didn’t hesitate to ask him.
“Have you ever been cheated on, Blake?” The guy opened his eyes wide in shock as he looked at the woman that only gave him a re-assuring smile. It made him feel like he could tell her anything and so he didn’t hold back.
Not anymore.
Katie had woken up with a headache as she looked around the room in search of that water bottle they had been placed in the room because of their laziness.
When she found that the water bottle was now nowhere to be found, she got up from her mattress and stretched her back.
It had been a while since she had slept on the floor with only a soft cushiony object to separate the floor and her body. She remembered the last time she had done that, and a smile immediately found its way to her face, as she thought about the time when Scarlet and she were on a camping trip.
Scarlet had taken her on a camping trip and they distributed all the work there, but it was the older woman that had to do everything since Katie had injured herself just on their arrival.
Katie remembered sleeping in Scarlet’s arms, being wrapped up in safety and security, and being so happy.
And now, when she looked around Scarlet sharing a mattress with Lauren, she felt sad.
She saw how Lauren was now the one wrapped up in Scarlet’s safe and secure arms, and how both of them had happy smiles on their faces. It made the woman sad as well as regretful.
She had already realized how awful it was to lose something you never truly got to keep, and she wondered if things would’ve been different if she hadn’t cheated on the woman.
As her thoughts began to wander, she shook her head to clear up her mind. This was no time to be regretful or sad. It was a happy time. Lauren and Scarlet were getting married and Scarlet had even forgiven the blonde woman for the betrayal she had given her.
It was all okay.
But, Katie didn’t really think so as she walked out of the room, before ascending the stairs of the basement.
She had so much thoughts in her head that she didn’t even notice that the kitchen light was open and voices could be heard clearly.
And one of those voices, she recognized as Blake’s.
“Well, I stayed with my family at a town close to this one before coming here to live permanently, and I was attending community college there. Life was so perfect.” Blake spoke as he grabbed a handful of chips before shoving them in his mouth. Carla didn’t mind since she was also doing the same, as well as being immersed in the true story that Blake was telling her.
“There, I had everything. I had a great family, I had great friends, even a girlfriend I really loved.” A dreamy sigh escaped his lips, and Carla smiled at the boy’s actions. She was beginning to enjoy the boy’s weird personality.
“But you know how things don’t last as long as you’d like. I go to college one day, earlier than usual, and I find my girlfriend by the lockers, kissing some dude that I didn’t even know existed.” It was as if Blake had been brought back to the moment of betrayal as he spoke and tears already collected in his eyes. Carla gave him a tissue with which he dabbed at his eyes. “It’s okay, son, she wasn’t meant to be yours.”
“But the worse part about this all was that, we had planned to get married right after the last semester was over, but I found out that she had been living with that guy she was kissing for like more than 8 months. And she didn’t even tell me!” He pounded his fist on the dining table, and Carla wondered for how long the guy had been keeping this bubbled up inside of him.
She got a little closer to him before engulfing him in a motherly hug.
While that all transpired in the kitchen, Katie listened and felt sad for the guy. It wasn’t like she was directly responsible for causing him pain, but that she kept reminding him of how hard it was for someone to be cheated on, and she couldn’t even imagine how hurt the guy must’ve been.
Katie went back to the basement without getting that glass of water she wanted, since she could not bear to hear a broken man’s cries anymore.
In the kitchen, Carla comforted the man, “You know, Scarlet may have a reason to forgive Katie.”
Blake sniffed before he backed away from the woman to give her a confused look, to which she smiled before explaining, “To move on.”
It was as if the man was understanding finally what his cousin had failed to explain to him.
“When we hold on to the past or to the things that hurt us, we can’t really find happiness without getting reminded of what pained us.” Blake bowed his head as he remembered back to how Scarlet looked when Katie had broken her heart and now, when she was with Lauren.
The two Scarlets looked entirely different and he realized that he was the one that was wrong.
“B-But how do I move on?” He asked Carla, who gave him a pat on the shoulder as well as a smile. “Well, you’ll have to figure that out yourself, but I think the right way to go would be to forgive Katie for what she did and see in her the woman that did you wrong. Forgive her, and maybe you’ll feel a little better.”
Blake listened with a nod of his head as he gave the woman a large boyish smile.
“Thank you, ma’am. I feel better after talking about this with someone.”
Carla shook her head with a smile of her own, “Call me Carla, son.”
“Um, also, can I ask you of something?” The mood in the kitchen turned awkward as Blake began to fidget in his seat again, while Carla gave him a raised eyebrow.
“Can you not tell this to anyone else? I mean, I don’t usually cry, and I don’t want the others to worry about me.” The older woman nodded with a laugh while Blake blushed lightly.
He was shy suddenly since he had been hugging the woman and even told her something that he hadn’t told anyone else. “Thank you.”
Carla stood up from the chair with a sigh while Blake began to re-collect all the packed junk food that he hadn’t eaten yet, “I didn’t get to drink my morning coffee.”
“If you want, I can make you the coffee, Scarlet also likes to drink coffee way earlier than everyone else wakes up.” Blake offered as he placed all the food back down on the table before getting up to put the coffee maker into action.
On cue, Scarlet walked into the kitchen with a yawn before she stopped suddenly by the counter after seeing Carla standing by the dining table. “G-Good m-morning, ma’am.”
Blake snickered beside the coffee maker as he looked back at Scarlet’s face and how she looked terrified. Carla looked at the woman with amusement, as she crossed her arms. “Good morning.”
“Uh, would you like me to make you breakfast or something?” Blake snickered again as Scarlet offered to make breakfast that she never did before in her life, for anyone.
Throwing a glare at her cousin, she looked back at the mother of her fiancé, who looked amused by Scarlet’s behavior. “Oh dear, no, how could I make my daughter’s fiancé work for me.”
Scarlet released a sigh of relief, which came out too soon, “But, Blake might need some refreshments to start his day.” Carla glanced at the quantity of packed treats on the table before continuing, “Some healthy refreshments.”
The dark-haired woman looked at the older woman with her mouth wide open as Carla informed them that she would be in the living room before she walked out of the kitchen leaving a confused Scarlet and a smirking Blake.
“Wow, did she just tell me to make you some breakfast?” Scarlet asked with confusion as she looked at her cousin, who nodded his head with a chuckle.
“Chop, chop, now, I’d like an omelet with some toast.” The dark-haired woman glared at him before going over to the coffee machine to get a cup of the freshly brewed coffee as well.
“Make your own damn omelet.”
“Carla!”
“What the fuck, shut up!” Scarlet placed a hand over her cousin’s mouth, who wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You’re even on first name basis, oh my god, it feels like you’re the one marrying Lauren.”
Scarlet grumbled as she went to the stove to start working on that omelet that Blake wanted.
“Well, we bonded over snacks.” Blake explained as he smiled towards his cousin, who glared back at him.
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