When Arne steps out of his room, there are only two things on his mind.
1. Get out from here before mom comes out the study.
2. Get out from here, before mom fricking comes and KILLS ME with this rabbit.
He is able to make two steps out the door, and he is doomed.
His mom's silver white hair glistens from the sofa opposite the mantle, TV's light making her hair even more brighter and silvery, and not a second later her head shrivels up to his. Her stark blue eyes narrowing up to his and then, goosebumps rise on his arms, straight to the cardboard box in Arne's hands.
"When did you come home?" Her voice is curious, eyes still on that box.
Arne tries not to hold the box too tightly, tries to even his voice before saying, "Ten minutes earlier, Olivia called me, she asked for this." He says pointing to the box and not moving it, he didn't want to startle the rabbit resulting it in making a sound that would end his existence.
One thing Arne had learned over the years was, no matter how kind his mother was, she absolutely hated animals, being around them made her itchy and guarded, a kind of sharpness that Arne couldn't ever understand.
Maybe because of me, he thought with a pit in his stomach, because of the way the other children behaved with him when he talked to animals.
"Okay cool." His mother says, nodding, her eyes moving up from the box to his face, eyes soft and caressing, "You are tired," she observes, "Here," she says standing and picking up an apple from the glass table.
Arne's eyes widens when she starts to move close to him, her small height didn't any less affected her strong sharp way of walking, taller than her at least by two feet, Arne still felt like a little kid in front of her, "Give me the box and eat this apple."
Arne clutches the box tightly, a snort comes from inside the box and his mom's eyes move to the box inevitably, "What's inside that box?" she asks her wide and hard.
Arne snorts praying to hell, his snort sounded same as the defiant insatiable rabbit inside the box, his mother's scrutinizing eyes comes up to his, this was not going to be easy. "You know what it is," he snorts again, his nose was going to swell up like fucking bread till the time he would be finished, "Those indecent amount of little vases she collects, mistakenly ordered at ours."
"Can I see them?" his mom asks, her little hands moving towards the box.
Arne's heart thuds in his chest and he steps back from his mother in a flash, her hand grasping air, she looks sharply up to him. "You know she doesn't like people touching her things, can't, sorry mom."
"Oh but I don't think she would mind me." She says stepping one step closer, hands ready to reach out again, his mother was stubborn.
No, Olivia wouldn't, considering she idolized his mother like a god, and loved to show her artefacts in their history classes, also considering his mother was the one who evolved those interests in her in the first place, when they joined as History majors last year, taking classes under his mother, yes his god forbidden ass was whipped by his mother in classes too, she was a History Professor, the reason why Arne thought to change up his majors numerous times.
He smiles confidently, clasps the box in one hand and reaches for the apple in his mother's hand with other, he was his mother's son, he played the only card he could, "She wouldn't, not you, you are right, but I am very tired mom those assignments you gave made me stayed up all night, I am just gonna give this to her, you can ask to see them later, not in the mood to open and pack them again."
His mother's eye softens immediate, her hand detouring and falling on his curly black hair, she stands up on his toes and kisses him on his cheeks, he thinks of the numerous times people have pointed out how different he looks from his mother, how she had silvery blonde hair and was much fairer than him, how little she was and how tall he was, but the instant he looked at those silvery frost blue eyes, the same as his, he knew, he knew they had a connection no one could understand.
She has taken care of him alone since as long as he can remember, no father, no relatives, nothing. When he was a kid, he used to ask her, "Mom, where is my dad?" And she used to tell him, "There is no dad baby, he's long gone, I am sorry." And she used to buy him extra chocolates and extra toys, as if to compensate the loss, but when Arne grew up he understood, he understood what she did for him, how difficult and struggling it would have been for her to take care of a child who was not normal, weird, bullied and he had stopped asking, it didn't matter, if they would have cared they would have come, at least once, if they even existed in the first place.
His eyes soften and he accepts the kiss with a smile, "I will finish the apple, and be here by dinner, I promise."
His mother nods smiling that rare smile, "Tell Olivia Hi"
"You met her this morning." He rolls his eyes.
"Tell Hi" she says.
"Okay, okay." He says, and moves forward tucking the box back under his arms and kisses her on forehead, "Bye mom."
"Bye." She says.
And he moves through the living room to out the door, the last look he has of his mother is her beautiful face and silvery hair shining under the departing evening sunlight, her stark blue eyes, the colour of freezing blue icecap on mountains, looking at him all fond and lovely, not sharp and closed as she had for others.
And he says, "Love you Mom."
And she tells him back, "Love you baby."
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