The Awaited Apology
“And where have you been?”
A voice protruded from the living room as Kel shut the door. His mother was sitting on the sofa watching some sort of reality show.
“Oh, just at the park!” Kel responded. Hopefully if he just sounded positive enough, everything would be fine, that was how things worked after all.
Maybe an excuse could cover up what he was doing, but time is a universal experience.
“It is eleven thirty PM, Kel, PM…” His mother stood up to face him. The guilt was shown on his face. She sighed.
His father must have been at work, all he could hear was the faint ticking of the clock and the heavy breathing. He expected Hero to be in bed again, but who knows. He hoped his sacrifice hadn’t been for nothing.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise how late it was. I was just- concentrating,” yeah, concentrating, “during my practise so much that I wasn’t paying attention to the time…” Perfect. It was a shame that it was actually a believable lie. That people knew he was irresponsible enough to be that stupid.
“You have a watch don’t you? All that money has gone to waste! Dinner is in the microwave, go to bed after you’ve eaten.” She left to go sit on the sofa.
That was all his mother had said to him before he could hear the chattering of the TV in the background. He left and made his way to the kitchen to find something to eat, he was hungry. And dehydrated.
Kel opened the microwave, finding some cold mushroom risotto!
Kel doesn’t like mushrooms, his parents know that, but he would just have to make do with it. He departed from the kitchen with a steaming hot bowl of ~flavour~, and went upstairs. To his surprise, Hero was still awake, and spun around in his chair, smiling.
“Oh, hey Kel!”
“Hey, Hero..” Kel felt ashamed for what he was expecting Hero to say. It was Kel’s fault after all…
“Uhm, are you okay? It's quite late.” Mind you, Kel would have preferred him to say something else, but this was good enough.
“Yeah! Fine, just lost track of time!” Good, simple, excusable, perfect! He made his way towards the bed. “I’ll just eat this and go to sleep, I’m quite tired.”
“Okay! Goodnight!”
Kel only ate half of his dinner, most of it was contaminated with mushrooms, which was unavoidable. But that was okay.
Woken by the smell of fresh bacon, Kel emerged from his cocoon of blankets and messily tossed his bedding on top of his mattress. Downstairs he went.
In the kitchen was Hero, cooking, with some music in the background and a smile on his face. On the counter was a plate with four fried eggs, another with toast and guacamole, however in the pan, sizzling away- even a pack of fresh, tasty bacon.
Oh how he missed this feeling. Memories like this had been locked away to prevent any unnecessary emotions. It hadn’t been like this in almost a year.
“Hey Hero!” Maybe this was the time. The time for the apology.
“Kel!” Hero spun around, looking him in the eyes, “I made breakfast, want any? I noticed you didn’t eat much of your dinner?”
“Oh, I don't like mushrooms very much. It still tasted good though!”
“I wonder why I didn’t remember that?” He muttered to himself, “I took your dish down though, help yourself!” Kel fished out a plate from the cupboard and took a couple slices of toast, spreading over some guacamole and bacon and loading an egg onto the side.
He caught a whiff of something- “Is that- halloumi?!” Hero smiled and pushed three pieces onto his plate. “Wow… Thanks!”
It tasted simply heavenly. He hadn’t had a cooked breakfast before school in ages. He left on his way to school.