“I thought you said you were going into recovery,” Lenora commented to her mother, Alison, whom she had noticed on her way out to school. More specifically, she had noticed the bottle she had on their coffee table. This was a situation that had occurred countless times, the most frequent statement she had said to her mother - and yet it always came with disappointment when Lenora found once again Alison not sticking to her word. “I know, I was trying, Marcus got that for m–” “‘Marcus’?” She interrupted, but she didn’t need to ask to know who he was. Another name, another boyfriend, another excuse to carry on drinking.
While Lenora had begun to seriously consider a rehabilitation centre for her as a solution - that wasn’t going to be something that would immediately fix the situation before she left to go to school. Instead, she leaned forward and took the half-full bottle, putting it in her bag. Alison remained silent, that is, until Lenora went to leave and she heard a small; “Thank you,” from behind her. Lenora looked back at her, up and down - and then around to make sure there was nothing hidden from her - before telling her: “You know that doesn’t fix things,” She told her, regarding her short-term solution of taking it.
Not only did taking her bottle fail to fix things for her mother, but also didn’t help Lenora when at school. Not when she was in her class and pulling out a notebook, unbeknownst to the fact that her teacher was looking over her shoulder. “Very classy of you, Miss Foley,” Mr Lennox told her, making his presence known to her. He took and searched through her bag to reveal the alcohol that seemed to be causing her just as many problems as it had been her mother, and evidently became exchanged for a detention.
Walking into the detention at the end of the day, it was hard not to notice the one other person sitting in the classroom. It was even harder to not to notice that it was Ricky Montoya sitting in the room. Of course it was - and after the unwanted declaration of her arrival by the teacher, he was turning to watch her advance further into the room, sitting in front of him. As she did, Lenora felt a twisted sense of nostalgia in having him sit behind her in a classroom. She felt a pit in her stomach at the reminder of the simpler time. But also came a feeling of guilt in that if she had never turned to talk to him years ago, he probably would have been far better off.
Not long after she had sat down, the third party in the room told them to stay quiet while he left - as in, left Lenora and Ricky alone in the room. But when he did so, Lenora struggled to resist the urge to talk to him. To say something after all this time. She didn’t know yet what that would be, but still she turned to face him; “Ricky–”
There was a time when Ricky would have been more than welcoming to her turning to him. But that was before she told him she cheated on him. Before she ‘partially’ made him this ‘sh!tty human being’. Lenora knew that doing that was for the best, for his sake, but it still left her with the guilt of hurting him. “I didn’t mean to do that to you,” Lenora told him, quietly. She cleared her throat as she continued, because she knew it might be the only and last chance she would have to say something to him. “I wish I could have done something different, but I didn’t know what, but I never meant for it to end up like this.”
@/benitz786 Ricky Montoya