Silence. He considered stooping down and peeking through the letter box, before realizing that no matter how prepared he could make himself, stepping inside this tomb of a house would always be just as emotionally draining and challenging as it always had been. His stomach sunk sickeningly, as it always did, but at least he had his ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ to keep him going through whatever he had to deal with this night, and all other nights to come.
Sam's body involuntarily tensed as he swung open the door and stepped over the threshold, but (as his eavesdropping had told him) the house was completely still and silent. His immediate thought was that he should run up the stairs to the bathroom, where he had last seen his mother, and make sure she hadn’t passed out in the toilet bowl and accidentally drowned herself in the toilet water. His foot was on the first step when he heard a snuffling, grunting, half-snore from the living room sofa. He walked softly over to the piece of furniture and peered down over the back - his mother lay awkwardly on its pillows, her limbs jutting out at odd and uncomfortable looking angles, but sleeping soundly (and for quite some time from the look of the dried, crusted trail of saliva that spread from her mouth and across her cheek). Her mobile phone lay on the floor nearby, where she’d dropped it as she’d passed out, open on the text that Sam had sent her that morning, an incomprehensible, half-formed and unsent reply showing on the screen. Sam smiled to himself, admiring his mother’s drunken efforts and feeling oddly touched by them. He strolled around to the front of the sofa and gently lay a tartan blanket over his mothers fragile, snoring form. Bending down to her level, he gazed at her peaceful, sleeping face, and couldn’t help thinking that, in sleep, she looked just the same as she always had - like the loving, joyful mother he remembered from childhood, if a little thinner and bonier. Sometimes he could look at her sleeping features, and if he concentrated and pretended hard enough, he could almost pretend that nothing had ever changed - that it had all just been some terrible dream. But he had no time for pointless daydreaming or wishing tonight - he had important research to do. He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before standing up, causing her to scrunch up her face and snuffle a little more in her sleep, and smiled warmly down at her before quietly making his way to his room. Today seemed to have gone fairly well in all aspects.
Six and a half hours later, as the fluorescent lights of his digital clock announced to Sam that it was 11 pm, he was just about ready to tear his hair out in frustration. When he’d thought of the blonde girl as an ‘enigma’, he couldn’t have comprehended the true extent of that statement. He’d entered his room with a plan of tracking her down online, via Facebook. This task was made trickier by the fact that he had absolutely no clue what her name was. He’d started off by trawling through the ‘friend lists’ of all the people he knew from College, in the hope that maybe at least one of them had added her as a friend. He’d scrolled and clicked and scrolled and clicked, encountering disappointment after disappointment, until his mouse hand was raw and aching. His eyes burned from the thousands of computerized images he’d gone through, analyzing each one carefully for any sign of the blonde girl, but with no luck. So he moved on to the College’s facebook page, looking for her face in the tiny, thumbnail pictures next to each and every post and comment, and keeping an eye out for any students whose friends lists he hadn’t yet trawled through. After all - everyone these days had a Facebook, so she was bound to be on here somewhere! But four solid hours in and Sam hadn’t managed to find so much as a whisper on the mysterious new girl. He would have begun to
Sam's body involuntarily tensed as he swung open the door and stepped over the threshold, but (as his eavesdropping had told him) the house was completely still and silent. His immediate thought was that he should run up the stairs to the bathroom, where he had last seen his mother, and make sure she hadn’t passed out in the toilet bowl and accidentally drowned herself in the toilet water. His foot was on the first step when he heard a snuffling, grunting, half-snore from the living room sofa. He walked softly over to the piece of furniture and peered down over the back - his mother lay awkwardly on its pillows, her limbs jutting out at odd and uncomfortable looking angles, but sleeping soundly (and for quite some time from the look of the dried, crusted trail of saliva that spread from her mouth and across her cheek). Her mobile phone lay on the floor nearby, where she’d dropped it as she’d passed out, open on the text that Sam had sent her that morning, an incomprehensible, half-formed and unsent reply showing on the screen. Sam smiled to himself, admiring his mother’s drunken efforts and feeling oddly touched by them. He strolled around to the front of the sofa and gently lay a tartan blanket over his mothers fragile, snoring form. Bending down to her level, he gazed at her peaceful, sleeping face, and couldn’t help thinking that, in sleep, she looked just the same as she always had - like the loving, joyful mother he remembered from childhood, if a little thinner and bonier. Sometimes he could look at her sleeping features, and if he concentrated and pretended hard enough, he could almost pretend that nothing had ever changed - that it had all just been some terrible dream. But he had no time for pointless daydreaming or wishing tonight - he had important research to do. He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before standing up, causing her to scrunch up her face and snuffle a little more in her sleep, and smiled warmly down at her before quietly making his way to his room. Today seemed to have gone fairly well in all aspects.
Six and a half hours later, as the fluorescent lights of his digital clock announced to Sam that it was 11 pm, he was just about ready to tear his hair out in frustration. When he’d thought of the blonde girl as an ‘enigma’, he couldn’t have comprehended the true extent of that statement. He’d entered his room with a plan of tracking her down online, via Facebook. This task was made trickier by the fact that he had absolutely no clue what her name was. He’d started off by trawling through the ‘friend lists’ of all the people he knew from College, in the hope that maybe at least one of them had added her as a friend. He’d scrolled and clicked and scrolled and clicked, encountering disappointment after disappointment, until his mouse hand was raw and aching. His eyes burned from the thousands of computerized images he’d gone through, analyzing each one carefully for any sign of the blonde girl, but with no luck. So he moved on to the College’s facebook page, looking for her face in the tiny, thumbnail pictures next to each and every post and comment, and keeping an eye out for any students whose friends lists he hadn’t yet trawled through. After all - everyone these days had a Facebook, so she was bound to be on here somewhere! But four solid hours in and Sam hadn’t managed to find so much as a whisper on the mysterious new girl. He would have begun to
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