03. 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒃𝒚𝒆

WHEN the father and daughter knocked on Hanna's door, they expected silence. As usual, after a fight.

It was the next day, around five in the evening, when the pair decided to head over to the woman's apartment. Riley had texted her a couple of times during the day, as Eddie called once to let her know they were coming.

To apologize, to make up before she leaves for Queens. Both felt sorry for what was said- or not said- yesterday and wanted to leave on good terms, as both cared still so much about her, despite their differences.

Riley looked to Eddie to signal for him to knock again, after a few moments of silence. He does, this time more forcibly, his knuckles aching slightly afterward.

Riley swallows, a small wave of worry for the silence her mother was leaving for them forcing her eyebrows to narrow downwards.

She sighs, bringing a hand up and knocking on the wooden door, number 23B.

"Hey- hey Mom? It's me, Riley, and Dad's here too. Can we come in? We just wanted to talk. Please?" Riley pleads from the outside of the door.

A lady appears down the hallway, of whom only Eddie notices, who's short and fragile. She holds a small purse and walks with a cane, decorated with children's stickers.

Eddie gives her a small smile, and she does the same, muttering a grave greeting to him. He turns back to Riley.

"I'll do my chores every Saturday from now on, if you please just open the door," she adds, trying to appeal to her mother's softer side.

The old lady, who's now unlocking her apartment door down the hallway, stops to look at them, keys still in the door. She clears her throat, catching Eddie's attention.

"Excuse me, dolls," she starts, and Riley turns now, her hand lowering. She looks to the voice and recognizes who speaks.

"Oh-- hey Ms. Flannery. Um, sorry about the noise, we're trying to get my Mom to open the door..," Riley trails off, giving Ms. Flannery a sheepish smile.

Riley expects Ms. Flannery to nod and laugh a little, but instead, her face sags, her age becoming more prominent. Eddie's light facial expression becomes heavier, taking the form of a frown.

Riley immediately knows that face; it was one she knew Ms. Flannery only wore if she knew something someone else didn't know. And in this case, it was something negative rather than the more frequent positive cases.

Riley opens her mouth to say something else, but Ms. Flannery beats her to it.

"I'm sorry, you two, but Ms. Hanna left early this morning. I'm sorry you had to hear this way, my deepest apologies."

And then a couple of seconds of silence, before Ms.Flannery's voice adds in her usual smoker-drained tone, "I'm truly sorry you had to hear this way, but I think best if I leave you two to it. Riley, Mr. Brock," and with that, Ms. Flannery gives a nod of her head as she takes the keys out of her door, and gently closes the door behind her.

Riley doesn't know really what to do. Her mother's never done this before, ever. And to add to it, she still has stuff in the apartment. And Hanna takes the keys with her every time she's left before, so why would now be any different?

"Alright, well," Eddie starts, placing a hand on Riley's shoulder, "why don't we go ask the front desk for a key to get in. To get your stuff?"

"Sure," Riley responds quite dully. She's hurt by her mother's actions, but she can't say she doesn't deserve it, she was being quite unfair to her yesterday. But on the flip side, she didn't quite know how the hell to respond to her mother.

But that's no excuse now.

AFTERWARDS, meaning a couple of hours later and getting Riley's things out of the apartment with a spare key, the pair was back at Eddie's apartment.

Riley was sitting on her bed in the spare room, which had a mix of band posters and her paintings plastered over the walls. She had a window looking out into the city of San Fransico, which was the perfect looking space for her.

She could paint, eat, or people watch out that window, and she liked it a lot. On the other hand, every time she tried to open it she couldn't, simply because for some reason when Eddie bought the apartment it was stuck shut.

Eddie tried getting it open once but still couldn't, not even with the landlord's help. It was strange, but she hadn't fussed about it for years. But today, her mind had become extremely fussy over it, and she wanted the damned window open.

Eddie had left a couple of hours ago to take a breather and go to a nearby bar, to relax. Riley stayed, manning the apartment, and enjoyed herself a little silence. Accept now, she was home alone and wanted the impossible window opened.

And that just wasn't possible. So she just sat there, a chair pulled up to the window and stared out at the dull night city.

She'd seen it time and time again, yet this time, it seemed so much darker and darker. It seemed like everyone was either not moving at all or moving so fast she couldn't keep up. Cars zoomed down the empty -for the most part- streets, while some people she watched as they walked hand in hand with a partner, or someone simply sat down on the sidewalk and cried into their hands.

She felt the compassion bloom inside of her, felt it wrap itself around her lungs, as she felt her fingers tremble because of it. The sight of someone so broken while people passerby didn't sit well with her. It never did; it never will.

But her father told her to stay inside and don't let anyone in. But then again, didn't her father lose the restaurant reservation, which led to her mother leaving?

No, she can't do that. Stop blaming her shit on someone else. If she'd just spoken up, if she just had the balls to speak up, maybe she would've been able to apologize to her mother, and maybe she wouldn't feel so goddamned shitty right now.

But it was hard to decipher, since most nights whenever she got into an argument with someone she cared for or saw two people she cared for getting into an argument, she always ended up feeling the same way.

Shitty.

And this feeling swallowed her compassion whole, leaving a fit of explicit anger inside. And she never knew how to get rid of it, aside from talking to someone about it. But right now, that someone was halfway across the country from her, and it sure as hell wasn't her mother.

EDDIE was on his third beer when he knew he had to stop. He couldn't go home all drunk the first night with his daughter home. But he felt so terrible about what happened, even if it wasn't even a fraction of the meanest fights he'd had with Hanna.

It was Hanna leaving, and the hurt look on Riley's face that she couldn't control made it worse. But if he was being completely honest, the worst part of all of this was his secret, his little secret.

It weighed on him heavily, with each day he woke up, and each sip of beer he took now. It was bad enough he didn't tell Riley, but even worse that Hanna didn't find out by now. He was shocked she hadn't already found out, and even more so that she hadn't told Riley.

But he was better at hiding things than he thought.

The thing was, Eddie just didn't know for how long. Sure, Riley had a whole summer of free reign ahead of her, but he knew he wouldn't last a week without her suspecting something of him, or at least without him leaving something behind. He knew Riley would find out sooner or later that he lost his job, and for all, he knew she might've already figured it out.

The sound of the TV in the bar snapped him back to reality, as he'd been staring at his empty beer with no particular look in his eyes. The man sighed, rubbing his eyes harshly.

He knew he had to leave now, as he was feeling his system slowly start to seem looser than normal.

Great, let's just hope I make it home before passing out. He joked, but he was half-serious with himself.

Frankly, he didn't want to pass out on the sidewalk and wake up with a frantic Riley looking for her dumbass father.

Well, sometimes he was a dumbass. Those times he knows he's doing something stupid, while the other times he figures it's other people just judging him being an 'intellectual'.

Either way, he stood up, slapped down the amount for the three beers, grabbed the bottle, and threw it in the recycling, hearing the ding of the bars doorbell behind him as he left.

AUTHORS NOTE - sorry for the filler here, i'm trying to find a time to rewatch the venom movies. i promise i'll try to be quick ya'll, so please try to be patient :)