Cozy Cabin Getaway Ch08

Trying to get through an evening was difficult.

It’s even worse in the daytime. Everything is weird. Michelle and Mary rarely spend the night under the same roof, and that seems to escalate things. Riley made it clear from the start that she and Michelle planned to handle the cooking and stuff, but by the time she gets downstairs, Mary is already cooking.

It’s not as though Riley has never seen her mother grumpy before, but she’s never seen her sustain her grumpiness for an extended period of time. Even when things were leading up to her kicking Dad out of the house, she wasn’t like this.

Michelle is dragging her feet coming downstairs, which is understandable.

The smells coming from the kitchen are delicious, and Riley can hear Mary clattering around busily in there. This is a coping thing for her: keeping busy with a familiar task like cooking is probably helpful. Still, this is about boundaries. Mary is not respecting them.

Riley perches next to Kayla on one of the sofas. Kayla sits there, staring like a zombie. No phone. No TV. She holds a mug of coffee, which she sips from automatically, like a robot.

“Kill me,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” Riley agrees, taking the mug from her to have a swig. She doesn’t want to go into the kitchen for her own. Bacon sizzles, yet there’s something hostile about the muffled clink of the spatula, as though Mary is viciously stabbing the pan or something.

“So, couple things,” Kayla murmurs.

“Huh?” Riley has decided not to give the coffee back. She needs it more than Kayla does, although Kayla has put too much sugar in it.

“Mom’s hung over.”

“Yeah.”

“And this place has like vents. Like in the bathrooms.”

“So?”

“So you can hear everything.”

There’s a long silence. “Oh,” Riley says finally.

Wordlessly, Kayla gestures with her hands in front of her.

“So,” she says finally. “I’m trying to figure out if I want to know what those sounds were or not. I mean… I just don’t have a clear picture of what kind of weird shit you were doing. And I want to know because I don’t like not knowing. And I don’t want to know because it’s gross. And I’m wondering if I only want to know because I’m so bored.”

Feeling intensely awkward, Riley rubs her sister’s back.

“I’m, uh, really sorry.”

“For trapping me in literal hell or for making me listen to you cum?”

“OK, it’s not literal hell and I didn’t make you do anything.” Riley can’t let those two falsehoods pass. She feels bad, but still. Kayla’s being a little much.

“It’s literal hell. Mom has my gummies.”

“She ate them?” Riley is startled.

“No. But I don’t have them.” Kayla puts her hand on Riley’s leg and squeezes. “I need them.”

“I’m sure she threw them away.”

“No,” Kayla moans, slumping over to lean on Riley, who sighs and puts her arm around her. “Is it bedtime yet?”

“It’s eight AM.”

Kayla closes her eyes and sniffles.

“I know. I know,” Riley says, stroking Kayla’s hair.