During Eri’s rant, Jeff kind of just ignored them. In fact he made it obvious that he was done talking to them by taking out his phone and beginning to watch Tiktoks. He clearly grew tired of their disagreements and wanted to just rest without being bothered.
Meanwhile. Mel was in her car, driving to Jeff’s place. In the car with her, she had three bags from one of the nearby hamburger places. While she drove, she couldn’t help but to think of Eri and Jeff. Wasn’t Jeff supposed to bring Eri home? Why was Eri still with Jeff? She just assumed it was because he felt Eri was going to be unsafe back at their home. From what she heard, it sounded unsafe for a young girl to be in an abandoned building in the first place. He always been a fairly protective person to begin with.
The drive was silent, Mel loved listening to music during her drives, but today she was tired and much too stressed to even bother listening to music, she just wanted to go home and sleep. And forget about everything, forget about Lune, Eri, and hell even Jeff, her own boyfriend. She needed time alone.
After Mel drove to Jeff’s place, she grabbed the food she brought and made her way inside.
Immediately after she got inside, Jeff ran up to her and pulled her into a tight embrace before kissing her on the cheek.
Every time Mel would see him, he would greet her like this. Even days like today, she’s seen him multiple of times, hell he was at her apartment for the majority of the day. But he still got excited. It was weird, but cute in its own way.
“Thank you, baby! I owe you so much for this.” He said as he grabbed his brown bag and walked over to his mattress to eat.
As Mel went over to follow Jeff, she saw Eri. They just sat there in the corner of the room. They looked absolutely miserable. She didn’t know why, but she felt maybe it was best for her to talk to them.
Mel crouched down next to the miserable Eri and extended her hand before gently placing it on their shoulder.
“Hey, Eri…I’ll be honest, you look terrible. Do you want to go home?”
When Mel spoke to Eri, Jeff sat up and looked at her. “Don’t listen to them. They are just being a whiny idiot.” Jeff murmured as he stuffed the second half of his cheeseburger into his mouth.
Mel just stared at him for a moment, long enough for him to take the hint that she was absolutely not in the mood to negotiate with him.
She then looked back at Eri before she nudged them with her shoe. “That’s enough. Let’s get you home.”
After Mel and Eri got into the car, Mel began to drive off.
There was a long silence between the two. The roads were all dark beside the occasional street lamp, it was in the middle of the night after all.
She didn’t know much about Eri. She wasn’t sure what to say really, they were so agitated to begin with.
“You know, a few months ago my mom died.” Mel said, finally breaking the silence. “I don’t know all of your story or what exactly happened, but from the sounds of it your father really did hurt you.”
“My mother hurt me as well. It wasn’t in the same way exactly. But she allowed her husband to do whatever he wanted with me. He would beat me senseless, spit on me, strip me naked and lock me outside, and attempted to sell my body to a man three times my age. She never said anything against it. Sometimes she would encourage the violence.”
“She had colon cancer and died. I thought that it would be a relief that she was gone. But really, I felt worse. I don’t know why I felt worse, or what happened really. I hated her and everything she’s done to me. But somehow, I felt so much worse.”
“I cried for weeks after it happened.”
“I didn’t even know why I was so miserable. I guess I just wanted my mom. Not just the mom I grew up with, but the mom I always wanted. I always wanted a mom who would read me bedtime stories and tucked me in at night, or a mom who actually planned out birthday parties. Hell, I wanted a mom I could cry to during my melodramatic teenage years. But I didn’t. I had Catherine. A cold hearted old bitch who only had me because she was cheating on her husband.”
“…I still don’t know why I was so upset. Hell, I am still sad and confused over it”
“Jeff, my dearest, didn’t understand.”
“Jeff would try to comfort me, he did try everything to help.”
“He would tell me: “Bebe, please try to remember that she hurt you! She was horrible, you shouldn’t be so upset! You should be relieved by this!” She said in a deepened tone, poorly mimicking Jeff’s voice.
“I felt so alone during this.”
“Anyways, my mom is dead and everything has gotten worse…”
She said in a hushed tone. She wasn’t looking at Eri, but it was clear that she was becoming misty eyed from speaking about this. It was clear that this was still something that was painful to speak about.
There was another long silence between Mel and Eri after that. Up until Mel cleared her throat and shifted her gaze towards Eri for a short while.
“I can’t say with full confidence about you, but I think you feel the same way about your dad, don’t you?”
“You don’t need to answer me. But I just want you to know that you are not alone with this. It’s not easy, it’s painful. And you shouldn’t have to struggle through it alone.”
After that, she just continued driving up until she finally reached the old hospital.
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