Cuppa Tea || Rowan & Abbey
Rowan took a sip of his espresso, and made it a point to study Abby over the edge of the cup as she spoke. He couldn’t help but to smile a little; she was amusing. There was something about her mannerisms, and the way she spoke in short snappy sentences, that he found really intriguing. Not to mention how she easily jumped from one topic to the other, picking up on a couple of his words, repeating them, talking more about something else… Seeming almost distraught, and yet making sense. He especially liked her comment about the sun being stronger in California, and realized she was probably right. Rowan had a feeling that all of his observations could help him make some sense of what she was really like; if only he were able to read them correctly, which he at the moment had to admit he wasn’t. Maybe material for a song, he thought.
When she mentioned that Arcadia really wasn’t that bad, he couldn’t help but to chuckle a little in disbelief. She seemed skeptical of his hellhole comment, and he didn’t want to get into a debate with new girl about the pros and cons of living in Arcadia. Noticing the cons might not be easy, especially for someone who had barely scratched the surface when it came to finding out what living there actually meant. But he had to comment on it, even if it was just a sidenote. “Not that bad? Yeah, I guess that depends on who you ask. Some things are better, some worse.”
He listened intently as she talked about her mother, and his thoughts instantly wandered off to his own mother, and how awful it would be if she got sick or something were to happen to her. Or to Grace. He would be left alone with his controlling, pompous-ass father. Having to deal with him now was sometimes already bad enough. Not to mention how Grace and his mom were pretty much the only people from his family he truly liked. With the exception of a couple of grandparents. “I’m sorry about your mom”, he said. “Is she better now? I suppose Arcadia works well as a change of environment and climate in comparison to England, even with its flaws. … You are from the England part of Great Britain, aren’t you?”
"I think that you're just terribly cynical. A cynical little muffin. The bran muffin that no one wanted, so you have to sit alone in the container, waiting for someone to come along at take you." She said as she lifted her hand a bit, balling it into a fist, before nodding her head, glancing over at Rowan. "I imagine bran muffins to be cynical little creatures inside my head. I really, very much dislike bran. If you couldn't tell. In any form... muffin, flakes. It's disgusting, tastes like tree bark. No one should be allowed to digest that, if I could take matters into my own hands bran would not exist anymore." Abbey murmured, as she nodded her head in a matter of fact kind of way, before lifting her tea up off of the table again, taking a tiny sip. "Still too hot." She said, as she placed it back down on the table, leaning her body against the arm rest of the chair.
Abbey shrugged a bit as he apologized for her mother, like every other person did, as if saying that they were sorry would have changed anything. As if they had time to go back into the past and make her better; she knew that would never happen. "Saying sorry isn't going to change anything. Anyway, it isn't your fault, it isn't anyones fault." She said with a soft smile, as she nodded her head at his next question. "She's getting better, better than she was before. I think she just needed a change of scenery, somewhere that she could relax. We all needed it though." Abbey murmured, there was only so much time that she could have spent taking care of her mother, without starting to lose any bit of sanity left. Her father must have felt the same way, because before she knew it, they were packing up their bags and on their way to Arcadia. "Yes, I am from the England part." She said with a laugh, shaking her head slowly at him.
