Falling For Amelia Manning - 18 Pebbles on the Windowpane

Phoebe pushed herself away from the kitchen table after the last bite of dinner, her mother told her to head to her room and study. As if she had other options. She made sure not to mumble those words too loudly, she was still on her mother’s bad side, and she hadn’t heard a peep from her guest the other night.

There were thousands of thoughts buzzing through her head as she peeled off her dirty clothes for the shower. They sat on the floor, covered in drywall and dust, as she gently stepped under the falling water. Feeling the pain in her muscles starting to accumulate, she stayed under the hot water for a moment longer than normal. When a harsh knock startled her, nearly making her slip in the water draining down the tub. Poking her head from behind the curtain, the suddenly cold air made her shiver as she listened to whoever was on the other side of the door.

“Phoebe, I’m running to Target for some stuff, no phone calls or texts. You better be studying or in bed when I get home.” Her mother’s voice carried through the door all the way to Phoebe in the shower. Shouting back a disgruntled, okay, she heard her mother leave the room. Usually, if she ran to the store, her mom would ask if she wanted anything, her leaving that out told Phoebe she was definitely still mad at her. As if the sympathy she didn’t show when she came home from working on the house, didn’t tell her first.

Phoebe quickly finished her shower knowing she had a ton of studying to actually do. Forgetting she left her clothes on the bed, she wrapped a towel around herself to keep from shivering as she ventured out into the much colder bedroom. Spying her pajamas on the bed, she reached out for the right before another sound startled her. It wasn’t as loud as a knock, but it wasn’t anything. She looked over at the bedroom door, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Forgetting about the sound, for a moment, she went back to the bed for the clothes as she held the towel tighter to her wet skin for more warmth.

A second pinging sound made her jump to attention only this time she knew it was coming from her window to the right.

Curious, and apparently not as shy as she once thought, she looked out the window while still wearing just a bath towel only to see something that shocked her.

Struggling to open the window, she grunted and groaned until it finally opened enough for her to shove her head out of it to see Amelia standing in her backyard.

“Edan, is it safe?” She shouted up.

“Give me a second,” Phoebe yelled back and closed the window the best she could. Forgetting she was still only wearing the bath towel, she hurried downstairs to the back door.

“Are you insane? What if my mom was still home?” Phoebe greeted her with a strained voice and darting eyes as if she was preparing herself for another guest.

“I saw her leave like ten minutes ago, are you receding the invitation?” Amelia asked with a tone of playfulness Phoebe hadn’t caught onto. When she stood at the entrance of the backdoor, Phoebe couldn’t understand why Amelia was just staring at her.

“Are you going to come in, or not?” She asked after a long pause of a slight uncomfortable silence.

“Are you going to get dressed, or not?” Amelia brought up the elephant in the backyard that Phoebe had clearly forgotten about. Remembering the towel, her hands went to the edge of the top making sure it was still in place. Throwing a glare her way, she turned back to the kitchen and walked to the fridge for a drink.

“Are you hungry? I just put up the leftovers before my shower,” Phoebe casually told her while fishing for a can of coke.

“Yeah, I am actually, what is it?”

“Meatloaf, mash potatoes, green beans…” Phoebe listed off what they ate as she pulled it out of the fridge. “Mom won’t miss it; she’ll just think I got hungry before bed. Let’s get it warmed up and head up there before she gets back. Not sure how long she’ll be gone.” Phoebe took charge and threw everything on a plate, she didn’t wait for Amelia to say no to anything as if she still knew what she liked to eat. Throwing the plate into the microwave, she quickly rinsed the containers before sticking them in the dishwasher and starting it. A chore she nearly forgot to do before bed.

“You left, you weren’t here when I woke up this morning,” Phoebe broke the tension in the room while she watched the plate turn in the microwave under the warm, yellow light.

“I thought it would be easier. I left before you woke up, got through the house without waking anyone up, and headed for the school. I didn’t get caught being there on my suspension. I’ve gotten good at hiding in the locker room.” Amelia explained making Phoebe somehow feel worse.

“Don’t worry too much about me there, Edan, I found a job yesterday. Soon I’ll be out of your hair. My sister has to let me back home knowing I’ll contribute something to it.” Phoebe jumped when the microwave beeped even though she was standing right in front of it, watching it the whole time. Pulling the plate out, she grabbed a fork and handed it to Amelia who couldn’t look her in the eye at the moment.

“Is that why she kicked you out? Because you didn’t have a job?” Phoebe asked while they headed for the stairs. Hearing what Amelia did to leave this morning made her happy that her mom didn’t cave when she asked for a dog years ago.

“No, there’s another reason, but it’s not important,” Amelia waved her off as they arrived at Phoebe’s bedroom door. Forgetting she was still in the towel, Phoebe walked around her room as if she was giving another tour.

“Edan, are you going to get dressed now?” Amelia reminded her offhandedly while she found a spot on the floor with the blankets and started eating. Phoebe, shocked and embarrassed, ran to the bed and grabbed her clothes before heading to the bathroom.

It didn’t take her long to get dressed and even less time grabbing the books out of her bag before sitting in the middle of her bed with them.

“I think I may have a few of those in the bag I left here,” Amelia commented while her mouth was full of mash potatoes. “You left your bag here? I don’t remember seeing it…” Phoebe looked around her room but turned her attention to the closet when a jingling sound came from it. Amelia had scooted over and grabbed the bag from the back and shook it for good measure.

“I only took out what I needed from it before I left. You and your mom are heavy sleepers, did you know that?” She commented.

“Actually, yeah, my dad would tell me it took nearly breaking five plates of dishes and a whole cabinet of pans falling on the floor for us to wake up,” Phoebe remembered fondly before staring at her school books wondering where she had left off.

“I was able to brush my teeth the morning, and I dropped a textbook on the floor by accident and still nothing from you. Nearly tripped down the last few steps too, trying to be quiet. What are you studying?” She asked, changing the subject.

“A few history notes, I have some papers that need to be corrected before handing them back in. How are you doing with the stuff I taught you during those tutoring hours?” Phoebe asked and as they went back and forth discussing school and their studies without realizing how comfortable their conversation had become. Once Phoebe heard her mom pull up in the driveway, she stopped talking quickly.

“Manning is it possible for you to cram yourself into the closet again?” She asked, cutting her off about chemical reactions. “I might be able to, what’s under your bed?” She dropped her voice to something softer just as they heard the front door open. “A bunch of crap my mom thinks I’ve cleaned up. You won’t fit under there, get in the closet, hurry!” She jumped off the bed and started shoving Amelia further toward the kitchen.

Once she pushed herself into the tight spot, Phoebe grabbed the empty plate sitting on the floor and tried to think of what to do with it. Remembering the dishwasher had already been started, she knew it would need to be hand-washed which meant her mom would still see it.

Gathering enough courage, she left her room with Amelia in the closet, probably slightly stuck, and walked herself down to the kitchen where her mom was unloading the few things she grabbed from the store.

“Still hungry? It makes sense, you seemed to push your dinner around earlier. How is the studying going?” Her mom asked as Phoebe started to wash the dish in the sink trying to think of a good enough story her mother wouldn’t think twice about. It wasn’t that she could just say it was going well, she was getting herself worked up and the only thing on her mind is that Amelia is squished in her closet, probably not breathing properly, and that’s all she wanted to shout in the kitchen at the moment.

But what came out of her mouth was much different than the panic settling into her brain.

“I’ve been correcting some history papers that were handed back last week. Studying will commence shortly.” Phoebe, in a panicked state, literally bowed at her mother before running to the staircase.

“Hold on a second,” her mother’s voice stopped her, but her heart kept hammering in its cage.

“I’m expecting that your room will be cleaned before tomorrow. If I go in there and see the mess under the bed and in that closet, we will have more words tomorrow. Got it?” She told her, sternly, making Phoebe gulp back the fear rising in her throat for a whole different reason.

“Of course, mom, it will be spotless,” Phoebe told her while doing another stupid nervous bow before turning and running up to her room. When she opened the door, she didn’t see anything but her books on the bed. Calming herself down for a moment, she moved to the closet to try and find Amelia.

“It’s clear,” she whispered to the closet. When a sudden figure came from under her bed, she jumped almost a foot off the ground.

“You gave me a heart attack!” She whispers screamed at Amelia when she saw it was her coming from under the bed. “I shoved all the crap out from under your bed after the closet practically threw me out of it. That was not made to hold someone of my size. Does your mom suspect anything?” She asked, trying to catch her breath.

“No, but she’ll be coming in here tomorrow to make sure I cleaned things up, so I better find a good place for all that stuff you shoved out of the way.”

Getting back to the stuff on the floor, Amelia looked over the room she helped destroy and saw a few things they used to mess around with when they were much younger. The memories pulled at her heartstrings forcing the words she wanted to keep so desperately to herself for fear that it would ruin everything around her as it did before.

Staring off at no one spot, in particular, she opened her mouth to speak but what came out wasn’t what she needed to tell Phoebe.

“I had six toes on one foot when I was born. My mother had it cut off, so it wouldn’t affect my walking later on,” Amelia softly blurted out a random secret she had been keeping for years, making Phoebe look up at her from her spot on the floor.

“That’s…Nice, Manning, is there anything else you want to share?” Phoebe was caught off guard with the random fact about Amelia that she just stared at her.

“My sister kicked me out because I told her I was gay.”