Traces of the Indefinite

Chapter 5

The harsh heat of the morning sun greets Miles with a light, warm tap on the cheek.

Miles scrunches his face in discomfort, turning away from the large window pane that sits next to his bed on the floor. He shuffles around, trying to find a comfortable, cool spot, only to give up and decide that it's time to start the day whether he likes it or not. The heat from the late morning sun has already made that clear.

Miles gets up, palming his sheets looking for the hoodie he had discarded the night before. He finds the hoodie on the floor, right next to his mattress, sitting in a black clump next to his already-full ashtray. He grabs the hoodie and gets up.

He makes his way to the mirror, clumsily fixing the mess of dark waves on his hair, smoothing out knots. While struggling with a stubborn knot, he notices a purplish patch on his chest that looks almost painful. Curious, he stupidly gives it a small, gentle press. 

He smiles, and his memory immediately flies back into the events the night before. Him and Louise, in a tangle of limbs, sweaty skin pressing against each other, locked in an embrace and sloppy, passionate kisses. 

He had never really pegged Louise to be as eager as she had been the night before, but, from that small purple stain on the smooth, tan skin of his chest, there’s probably a lot more to learn. 

Miles slips on the hoodie and heads out the door, a smile plastered on his face. He could get used to this. 

Heather, having been up early unpacking whatever’s left of their things put away in boxes, wipes sweat off her forehead as she catches a sight of Miles, smiling as he slips out of his bedroom door. 

She gives one quick glance to the kitchen. The stove is clean. So are the pots. 

“Hi, honey!” Heather greets, her voice a pitch higher, quite unsure of how to tell her probably hungry son that she’s just about to make breakfast. 

“I’m just finishing up these and-”

Miles looks at the dinner table and finds it empty, save for a pair of scissors and some crumpled up, used tape. He takes one quick glance at his mother, sweaty, already looking tired not even halfway through the day. 

Miles heads over the refrigerator. He could feel his stomach grumble, and from the activities last night, it was no surprise he was hungry. 

“Honey, I-”

“It’s okay, mom.” Miles says, nonchalantly, to his surprise, and to his mother’s too. “I know how to make breakfast.”

Heather smiles. Miles’ voice is music to her ears, even more so than the usual. She was more than happy to hear his voice, to be mom again. 

When she moved here, she was looking forward to a fresh start. And a fresh start, it was. 

Miles looks around their refrigerator, which he notices to be twice as large as the one they had in their previous apartment. It was filled with food from top to bottom. Sausages, bacon, a marinated steak, vegetables, salad dressing, milk, juice, and even some ice cream in the freezer - a far cry from the empty fridge he would always come home to. 

Miles grabs a pack of sausages from the chiller and a few eggs from the egg tray. He sets them on the counter, bringing out a whisk and a bowl from the dish cabinet. He pulls out a pan hanging by the cupboard and sets it on the stove, making a mental note of turning the heat on before he pours the oil. He’s seen Lena, Louise’s mother, do this a hundred times, and from that, it shouldn’t be hard. 

Heather watches in amusement as Miles makes breakfast. He thaws out the sausages, cuts slits on to the sides, and sets it aside to work on beating the eggs. She knew she never taught him how to make breakfast. In fact, she doesn’t remember teaching him anything. She had been so focused on saving what was left of her sanity, of herself, that she had forgotten the most important part of being a mother - teaching.

As much as she wanted to enjoy the sight of her grown son making breakfast for himself - and for her, she hopes - the small guilt quietly gnaws away whatever flicker of hope she has. 

Heather makes her way to Miles, slowly, unsure. He looks at him, brows furrowed in concentration as he starts to fry the sausages, the scent of smoked meat filling the kitchen. 

“Need help?” she asks, as casually as she could, hoping for a less cruel response from him. 

Miles awkwardly tries to distract himself with seasoning his would-be omelette. He had never stood so close to his own mother for years. Normally, a cruel barb would slip out his mouth so effortlessly, so coldly, and his mother would know to back away and leave him be. But for some reason, he couldn’t think of any. And the worst part is, he realizes he just doesn’t want to. 

Man. That was one hell of a night. 

Miles looks around the kitchen, hoping for something - anything - he could notice, he could mention, just to break the awkward silence. Much to his gratitude, he sees the coffee pot empty. Knowing both he and his mother need coffee to get started on life, he motions her to the coffee pot.

“Um, you can make coffee…” he says, sheepishly, his voice the softest it's ever been since he was born. 

Heather smiles. 

“Sure.”

A few minutes more and breakfast is ready. Miles brings out two plates, spooning fried sausages and scrambled eggs onto each, while Heather pours a cup of coffee into two cups - one for her, and one for her son. 

Miles sits across Heather, and quietly takes a sip of his coffee. Heather follows suit, and for a few minutes, it’s a quiet morning between mother and son, something they have never had in years - not in good nature, at least. 

Heather looks into her head for anything she can ask her son. Nothing too personal, nothing too serious. She laments at how she has to tread over eggshells talking to her own son. But she knew she needed to press on. After all, she was getting close.

Miles wolfs down his breakfast, his hangover and his night at Louise’s had him spent. As he takes bites of his food, he remembers the hasty decision he made the night before. 

He remembers the contest, the dumb contest that wouldn’t leave his mind, even after a tiring o****m, or two. 

Pushing the thought as hard as he can into the back of his mind, he notices the shirt his mother had been wearing. 

It looked old, the gray cloth all worn and thin after possibly a hundred tumbles in the washer in its lifetime. But it was the print that caught his attention. 

It was a photo of a gun, or at least, what appears to be a painting of a gun, in messy red ink, and a typewriter typeface that spells out the band’s name.

The Killing Fields, it reads. 

Miles looks up at Heather, who was busy scrolling on her phone, waiting for her coffee to cool. Dirty blonde hair, messy fringe, two earrings on each ear - Heather is every bit of a retired grunge mom whom, despite the age and the weight of responsibilities, never lost her spirit. 

Miles smiles. Perhaps they’re not so different after all. 

His amusement with his mother and her shirt is suddenly cut short by the thoughts of the contest flooding back into his mind. Louise goaded him into it. She said he was good. But is he, really? What would his mother think, though? Does she even know Route 66? Hell, does she even know I write songs? 

Hell, she doesn’t know anything. 

But what if she did?

Miles remembers Louise and the night before. She was amazing. The smartest. Sugar and spice. One hell of a ride. All of which he wouldn’t know, had he not tried opening the present to see what’s inside. 

Throwing caution to the wind, Miles, for the first time in a decade, decides to ask his mother.

“Mom, can I ask you something?” Miles says awkwardly, hesitantly.

Heather, caught up in reading a piece of news she’s opened from f*******:, looks up in surprise. 

“Sure, hon.” she says, clearing her throat in an attempt to stifle her glee. 

Miles seems to regret this. He’s unsure of how to start, how to open the conversation. It’s his mom, for goodness sake. It shouldn’t be hard. 

“I write songs.” he says, outright, his talent for words betraying him again, like they did with Louise.

Heather smiles. “I know, honey.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.” she says, beaming with pride. “I hear you every night. You’re good.” 

Miles could feel his heart do a somersault. He has never really cared for his mother’s approval. He had given up on that a long time ago. But it sure feels good to have it, whether he wanted it or not. 

“I, uh…” Miles begins awkwardly, “There’s this contest that Louise made me join.”

“Contest?” Heather asks, basking in the joy of finally sitting down in a nice conversation with her son, about a passion that they both share, no less.

“Louise, huh?” Heather interjects, almost suddenly, veering off topic, noticing how tinges of pink crept into Miles’ face as he mentioned her name.

“About damn time.” Heather says, casually taking a sip of her coffee.

“What?” Miles asks, defensively, “What do you mean ‘about damn time’?”

“Honey, we all knew.” says Heather, with a smile. “You were always flustered whenever she was around. I remember how you looked at her seeing her in her dress at junior prom. You looked like you could kill James Jeeter when he drove off with her.”

Miles finds himself reliving junior prom, much to his chagrin. He was dateless, not having the balls to ask Louise out, knowing she was the only choice for him. He drank his weight in a mix of cola and rum he stole from his father’s liquor cabinet, getting drunk before the stupid dance, and Heather was right, he wanted to tear off James Jeeter’s arms when they made their way around Louise’s waist. She looked really happy to be with him. He needs a serious discussion with Louise about that.

“Mom, we have a thing, okay.” he says, the pink on his cheeks now a light red, wanting desperately to shift the subject away from the last thing he wants to talk to his mother about. 

“I’m happy for you.” Heather says, with a genuine hope in her voice. 

“I didn’t even say anything…”

“Well, you slept there last night, didn’t you?” 

“Mom!”

Miles buries his face in his hands, which earns him a playful chuckle from his mother. 

“Alright, what about this contest?” Heather says, taking another swig of her cold coffee, helping her son out of the embarrassing topic that she herself has put him in. As cool as she was on the outside, Heather’s heart could practically beat out of her chest. This was what she was longing for. Funny, awkward situations where she would embarrass her son in, like a real mother.

“It’s a songwriting contest.” Miles continues, silently grateful to his mother for the quick subject change. “It wins me a songwriting session with a band I like.”

Heather lights up, a proud smile on her face. Miles has always been a shy, withdrawn child. But she knew how talented he was. He had a great voice, he was amazing with the guitar, he had a way with words. She had spent so many nights listening to him sing his heart out to songs he’d written, wishing she could just barge into his room to tell him how proud she was of him. But he had never performed beyond the four walls of his room. And she really wished he would.

“That’s great, honey!” Heather exclaims, making little effort to hide her joy this time. “You’ll nail it, I'm sure.”

“I won’t.” Miles says, his voice low, flavored with hopelessness. “I’m sure there’s a lot of others out there better than me. At least I don’t want to think…”

A look of disapproval quickly fills Heather’s face, so obvious it’s almost a caricature. 

“Not with that attitude.” Heather says, shooting Miles a look with her eyebrows raised. 

“You never try, you never know, honey. Better lose than never having known what it's like to take a chance.”

Miles gives his mother a shy smile. Heather, albeit hesitantly, reaches out to her son’s hand on the table. Miles, feeling a surge of comfort he hasn’t felt in a long time - coming from his mother of all people - slides her hand into hers in acceptance. 

“When I hear from them, you’ll be the first to know.” he says, with a smile.

-

Greg was putting away empty glasses from some early bird patrons when the bell by the door rings as the door swings open. 

A familiar face, characteristic curly dark brown hair, bright blue grey eyes, an unlikely smile on her face. 

“Wow. You beat Miles this time. That’s rare.” Greg greets, mockingly, as Louise perches herself on one of the bar stools by the counter.

“No Miles today.” she says, almost too confidently.

Greg takes one look at Louise and the uncharacteristic silly smile on her face. A smile you’d see on a teenage girl who had just had her first kiss. 

“Safe to say it was one hell of a night, huh?” Greg says, with a chuckle, grabbing a clean glass and filling it up with a shot of rum, followed by two shots of cola. Louise’s usual. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Louise denies, meekly, looking away as pops of light red begin appearing on her cheeks. 

“Kid, I’ve been in this game way longer than you have. Look at your face. Plump, blushing. Your eyes twinkle, sparkle… whatever you call it. You look like you just won the f*****g lottery.” 

Louise rolls her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. It could be very well written on her forehead, with the way she’s squirming like a little girl who had just seen a boy she likes, when Greg unintentionally reminded her of the events from the night before. 

“So, you guys a thing now?” Greg asks, dropping a cherry into Louise’s cocktail, unnecessary, but something he liked to do for her, knowing how much she loves cherries. “After two decades of being idiots?”

Louise smiles. “I guess.”

“Ugh, finally.” Greg says, rolling his eyes mockingly, in a mock-Valley girl accent. 

Louise takes a sip of her rum cola, allowing her thoughts to dance around Miles, the night before, the days ahead. He was hers. Always have been. At least now, he knows. 

She takes a look at Greg, who, by then, was whistling a familiar tune while cleaning off plates and empty glasses at a table near the bar. Her mind still floating on the topic of relationships, she realizes she’s always wondered why Greg wasn’t married, or at least seeing someone. It wasn’t like it was a stretch for him to find a date. Greg was handsome, in a scruffy way, and a retired rockstar. There were more than a few occasions that female and male patrons tried to take a chance, which Greg, ever the smooth, old school bastard that he was, had always respectfully declined. 

Maybe it’s about time she asked.

“Hey, Greg.” Louise calls out, which earns a swift turn from Greg, his hands still occupied with the tray of dirty dishes and the washcloth. 

“Yeah?” he asks, placing the unwashed cutlery in the dishwashing bin.

“How come you’re not married?” Louise asks, wide-eyed, eager for an honest response from Greg that she knew she’d get out of his fondness for her. 

Greg chuckles. While it was exactly the characteristic booming laughter she had always heard from him, especially when he would mock her and her previously-unaddressed affection for Miles, it was a bit different this time. 

His eyes weren’t laughing at all.

“Special girl?” Louise asks, unabashedly.

“You could say that you two were not the only decades-long idiots in this household.”

Greg gives Louise a small - almost sad - smile before turning away and heading to the kitchen. 

Louise knows very little about relationships. Hell, the only examples she had were a single mother, a single man possibly longing for his first love, for all she knows, and a couple who fought every single day that their son wants nothing to do with either of them. 

But whatever little she knew, it’s that it’s not just good s*x, stolen kisses and running off into sunset. Miles is a man with his own gift basket of issues. Issues she will have to deal with. Hell, issues she has been dealing with way before they were together. Together? Is that what they are now? Wow. 

“Do you wanna call him up, or do I?” Greg asks, appearing in the kitchen door with a knowing smile on his face. 

“Nah.” Louise answers, taking a bite of her complimentary cherry. “I don’t wanna get sick of him.”

“Like you would.” Greg laughs. 

No. She definitely wouldn’t. 

-

Miles and Heather have been laughing at silly stories from her youth and from his childhood that they have barely noticed it was almost time for lunch. 

Miles enjoyed hearing about how his mother slept outside the concert hall her favorite band The Killing Fields would be playing, wanting to get even just a small glimpse of her favorite member, lead singer Bo Lyon; how she almost named him Bo because of him, but ended up naming him after his father’s favorite Jazz musician, much to Miles’ quiet gratitude; how she kept listening to the band while she was pregnant with him, hoping he’d grow up loving them just as much as she does, which he did. 

For the first time in years, Miles was more than happy to listen to his mother’s voice, a voice he had spent so many years drowning out, yet a voice he longed to hear, despite all the mess, even if he wouldn’t admit it. 

While laughing at a childhood memory of Miles almost breaking the coffee table after jumping onto it like a makeshift stage as he pretended to be Bo Lyon while The Killing Fields blasted on the radio, their joy is interrupted by a beep from Miles’ phone. 

Miles smiles, expecting a sweet - or naughty, hopefully - text from Louise. He excitedly pulls out his phone from his pocket. 

The message seems to be automated, as there was nothing resembling a phone number on the screen. 

Instead, it was a name. 

AUD. 

Fuck.

Watching the smile slowly fade from Miles’ face as he scrolls down his phone, Heather looks at him worriedly. 

“What’s the matter, honey?” Heather asks, a look of concern on her face.

Miles fumbles with his phone, his palms sweaty and shaking. He could feel beads of sweat starting to trickle down his back and the sides of his face. Why was it so hot all of a sudden? He glances at the air conditioner. It was on.

“Um, it’s the magazine…” he says, nervously. 

Heather looks at him, puzzled. “What magazine?”

“AUD. The magazine I read all the time. They’re hosting the contest.”

Heather’s eyes grow wide with excitement. Her son joined a competition and now they’re contacting him. And that, coupled with the fact that she has a nice home to come home to, and a son who’s beginning to sit down and enjoy being somewhat embarrassed by the prodding questions she has about him and his love life.

Needless to say, it had been a good few days. 

“What did they say?”