Their Battle

1

Mal

I jolt as a sound pulls me from my music, my heart racing, and when I look up, raising my headphones, Mia is standing in the doorway to the living room, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, rubbing her eyes lazily.

“Are you still working?” She slowly walks over, crawling next to me on the couch and I check the time on my laptop. It’s three in the morning… Oops.

“I guess.” I put my laptop to the side and wrap an arm around her. “Did I worry you?”

“A little.” She pushes closer, her head on my shoulder, her eyes already sliding shut. “I woke up and you weren’t with us.”

“Just got a little wrapped up in work.” I kiss the top of her head. “But I’ll come to bed. That’s probably a good idea anyway.” Getting sleep is usually a good idea, especially when we’ve got so much to do around the house.

She doesn’t move, even getting a little heavier against me. “Can I hear what you were working on?”

“Not yet. Maybe later. I’m still trying to make something click to make it sound like I want it to.” And I’m not ready to let her hear it, it’s still a little too scary, too raw, to share the songs with her. Because it’s not just one song, it’s a whole album.

“Okay.” Her voice is languid, and she almost slides off my shoulder, already falling back asleep.

I don’t think we’re going to make it to the bedroom, not unless I carry her up, and I’m not doing that, not tonight. The day has been long enough and I like having a little time with her by myself, no matter how egotistical that sounds.

Smiling, I take the blanket from the back of the couch and pull it over us. We can sleep here, it’s not like I’ve not done that enough times already. I slide down and make myself comfortable on my back, Mia on my chest, my arm around her back, burying my nose into her hair.

I love having her with me, I love having her so close, so I can just forget about everything else for a while and disappear into the safe and loved feeling she gives me. When I can just be, and not worry about anything else, because reality will come back soon enough. All the not-fun things will come back soon enough. With her here, I don’t have to think of those for a while.

“Oh,” Mia mumbles. “I love you too. You didn’t let me answer you on the phone.” She tightens her arm over me, pushing a little closer, and my heart starts beating really fast. Where did that suddenly come from?

My face heats up as my brain is going into overload-mode. Why did she suddenly have to say that, just as I was about to fall asleep?

Of course, I love her, but this was too sudden. I wasn’t ready for her to say those words, especially not today, especially not after everything from the last days, from the last week. “I love you, so much.”

But she doesn’t say anything else, and, with a smile, I finally manage to fall asleep.

No matter what the morning will bring, I’ve got her here with me, and that’s all that really matters.

***

Morning brings… more noise than I expected, at a way too early time too. I’m woken up by a crashing sound, and then I realise that Mia isn’t on the couch with me anymore.

Tom and Jake try to quietly argue in the hallway and then there’s another noise as something crashes into one of the dressers in the hallway.

“Just lift it higher, it should work.” That’s Tom, he’s not very happy, his voice all gruff.

“I’m telling you, this isn’t going to work. That corner is too tight. If we could just…” Jake sounds like he’s making the same argument he’s made over and over again, and getting frustrated over Tom not listening to him.

“No. Mal is asleep in there. Let him sleep a little longer.” Tom lets out a low growl. “Let’s just put the table back. We’ll do this later.”

What does me being asleep have anything to do with anything? I get up, stretching, and then open the door to the hallway, only to be faced by Tom holding the frame of the big table at an awkward angle.

“Morning?” I look him over and when I look down the hallway, Jake is holding the other end. “Morn’.”

“Afternoon.” Jake grins. “You’re right on time to miss lunch.” He winks. “Also, thanks, now we can use the living room to turn the table.” He shoots Tom a look.

“Fine.” Tom sighs, before looking at me. “Morning. I hope we didn’t wake you?”

“Not really?” What else am I supposed to say?

“Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.” He smiles. “Excuse us.” And he steps closer to me, as I back up. It seems like the frame of the big table doesn’t really fit through the hallway, at least not when they try to move it to the kitchen.

“Will that even fit in there? It looks way too big.” The kitchen is decently sized but not very big.

Jake bursts out laughing as he walks past me, his eyes sparkling. “Sorry. Sorry. Won’t laugh.”

I laugh too before I smack his arm. “I’m being serious, though.”

“It fits, we measured.” Tom puts the table down, rolling his shoulders. “And don’t even go there.” He glares at both of us. “Honestly, I’ve had to deal with one for long enough, do I now have to deal with two of those people?”

“What kind of people?” I try to look as innocent as possible, but I can’t help my grin.

“People with dirty minds. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a table to move, so you can actually have breakfast, or lunch, or whatever.” He lifts the table again and Jake does too, giving me a great view of muscles of their arms bulging as they do so.

“Watch that you don’t drool all over the place, makes things slippery.” Jake winks as he walks backwards into the hallway and then towards the kitchen.

“Jake…” Tom grumbles. “Pay attention, please. I don’t want to have to put new varnish on this table, or on the doorframes, if we don’t have to.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The guy laughs, and I follow them both to the kitchen, surprised at how different it already looks, just in a single morning, and I apparently slept right through it all.

The small table that was here has been moved out, though the mismatched chairs are still here. The big tabletop is leaning against the wall, together with the two bits that extend it to make an even longer table, and Tom and Jake put the frame of the table down next to it. Then they put the top back on the table and move the chairs around it.

I don’t know why, but just from the chairs no longer crowding around the table, everything somehow feels much more open. Sure, the table takes up a lot of space in the kitchen, but it still fits and we can all easily walk around the table when we have to.

“There we go.” Jake sits down on one of the chairs. “Now we just need a couple more chairs that actually match, and potentially ones that don’t fall apart at the edges.” He looks at the chair next to him, tugging at a couple of loose threads. The chair has a pillow for a seat and the fabric is coming undone at the corners. Yeah, that thing definitely needs some new fabric, or maybe just needs to be replaced.

“I guess I can see if we can pick some up second-hand.” Tom shrugs. “I’m pretty sure we can find chairs that match each other close enough, and then these can move to the back room or the living room, or whatever. We don’t have to get rid of them, just spruce them up and they’ll be good to go again. It would be a shame to get rid of them.”

I nod, turning to the coffee machine and finding that there is still coffee in it. “How long has this stood?”

“Not even an hour. Dylan made it before he went out with Mia,” Jake answers me, and when I look back at him, he smiles. “They’re picking up some food and things for the house. Seems we were running low on toilet paper.”

“Ah.” I laugh. “I guess that means we’re back in the real world, then? No more fairytale days, but thinking of making sure we have enough toilet paper and that the dishes are done each day.”

“Seems like it.” Tom comes over, pouring himself a big mug of coffee. “On that note… We need to talk about something.” His voice has gone serious, and when I look at him, his eyes are a little sad, giving me a bad feeling in my stomach. Why do I feel like I’m not going to like this ‘talk’?

“Okay.” I pour myself some coffee too and sit down at the table. “What’s up?”

“We’ve been thinking, and talking last night…” Tom looks down at his mug, not meeting my eyes.

“Yes?”

“I’m really going to sell the house.” He sounds really sad and my heart drops. “No matter if we’re buying this house, or if we’ll find something else. I’m going to sell it. I can’t stay there.”

I get up, going over to him, and I wrap my arms around him tightly. “Okay.”

“I can’t do this on my own anymore.” His voice breaks. “I can’t keep living there, and I can’t… I can’t make it work anymore. Too many memories. Too many reminders.”

I nod, tears in my eyes. “I understand. I do.”

I understand too well. We need to break away, we need to break away from everything we got stuck in three years ago, when we stopped living, when we started just surviving. We all need a break, and we all need help to start fully living again. All of us.