Page 10 of Eleanor & Grey
“Yup.”
Just fine.
Shay was crashing in my room that night, and when we walked into the house, the living room television was glowing bright. Some horror movie was playing, so I hurried over and grabbed the remote, quickly shutting it off. There they were, passed out on the couch. Dad was lying flat, and Mom was wrapped in his arms.
“Should we wake them?” Shay asked.
I grabbed a blanket and covered them up. “Nah. They always end up in bed by the morning.”
This was a normal sight with my parents—Mom wrapped in Dad’s arms after they’d fallen asleep watching television.Whenever she would shift around on the couch, Dad would smile, readjust his arms around her, and get comfortable again. I’d never seen two people who’d merged so completely as one. If it hadn’t been for my parents, I’d have thought soulmates were a lie.
2Greyson
“I’m just saying, I don’t get why people think Shay would win the bet over me,” Landon said, tossing his hands around like a madman as we walked home from the party. “I can’t stand the woman. There’s no way I’d fall in love with the chick.”
Ever since he’d made the bet with Shay a few weeks back, he’d been going on about how much he couldn’t stand her. Which, in turn, made me think he liked her a lot more than he was interested in admitting.
“Anyway, sorry I made you talk to her weird cousin,” he said, running his hand through his hair.
“She’s not that weird.”
“Cardigans every day. Head always in a book. Weird.”
“Just because someone is different doesn’t make them weird,” I said, getting a bit defensive about Eleanor. Sure, she had her quirks, but so did Landon. He bit down on forks and pulled them out of his mouth, making an unbearable sound. He couldn’t watch a movie without going “Wait, rewind that, I missed something.” He couldn’t get over his infatuation with Shay and kept lying to himself about not having feelings for her. Maybe no one else knew how much he’d randomly mention her, but as his best friend, I heard her name dropped a lot.
Plus, it really did bother me that he spoke about Eleanor like that. Sure, maybe Eleanor wore a lot of cardigans, but at least she seemed like a good person.
“All right, all right. I see you made a new friend today,” hesaid, tossing his hands up. “I still think she’s a weird loner, but whatever.”
I guess in a way Eleanor was a loner. She was a professional at keeping to herself, outside of Shay.
Sometimes I wished I could be more like that.
It seemed less complicated.
Landon lived on the same block as me, and when we walked up to my house, his over-the-top chatty persona faded as he took in the howling that was coming from my house.
Mom and Dad were home.
That was always a treat to partake in.
Landon stuffed his hands in his pockets, and he gave me a pathetic smile. “You wanna crash at my place tonight?”
I shook my head. “Nah, it’s fine. I’ll just hurry to my room. I’m sure my dad will find a reason to storm off soon enough.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Night.”
He scratched the back of his neck, hesitant about my choice, but he started walking away. “All right, night, Greyson.” He paused, then turned back to me. “I’ll leave the window to the first-floor guest room open tonight if you need it, OK?”
Even though he was sometimes a crappy human, he was a damn good best friend.
“Thanks, Landon.”
“Yup. Night.”
Once I reached my front porch, I didn’t go inside. I knew nothing good would come from walking into that place.
