Roschel: Familiar Faces Trilogy 3 Chapter 25, a friends fanfic

A/N: Hey guys, this is just me reminding you guys for the reviews and suggestions for any improvements I could make to keep coming and to read all the chapters leading up to this one and the other books. Please also keep in mind that strong themes of bereavement will feature from now on for quite a while across all three books, and so if you are sensitive towards that topic, I ask you to keep that in mind before continuing to read on with the trilogy. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope you have a good day whenever and wherever you're reading this!

Chapter 25 – Ross

I awoke to the sound of someone shouting my name. As I moved from laying down to sitting up, I saw that it was Ben and I also realised that someone's phone had been going off.

"Are you going to actually get the phone?" Ben asked impatiently, gesturing towards my phone on the bedside table with its flashing screen.

Grunting with the effort of moving, I grabbed my phone and accepted the call.

"Who is it?" I asked, trying mentally to wake myself up a little.

"It's your sister," Monica answered, her tone stone cold for some reason that I couldn't quite recall.

"Forgive me for not wishing you a good morning, then," I said, as neutrally as I could.

"Cut the BS," Mon replied, clearly more annoyed at me somehow, even though it hadn't yet clicked exactly what I had done wrong. "Next time you want to go joyriding off to God knows where, tell someone where you're going, for goodness sake!"

I mentally rolled my eyes as everything fell into place.

"I'm not 15 anymore, and you aren't Mom, so worry about your own life, not mine!" I said, desperate to get this over with.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Mon spat angrily. "So you're just going to forget that you scared the shit out of me and your three kids last night for the second fucking time?"

"And, in case you have forgotten, I also have a wife who's probably going to die and I want to spend as much time with her as I can," I answered, trying not to let the anger that was boiling up inside me spill over and cloud my judgement.

"What are your kids then? Dolls?" Mon yelled down the phone, clearly not planning on letting this go anytime soon.

"Again, in case you had forgotten," I replied, as my eyes darted around the room to see whether Ben was still in here. Confident that he wasn't, I continued, "I have a 23 year old son who could be the girls' temporary guardian and food in the fridge if they needed it."

"And you really think that's fair on Ben?" Mon asked, sounding almost sceptical about my parenting skills.

"Right," I said, done with this conversation and contemplating hanging up in the moment.

"Don't think Dad or I will let you get away with this," Mon said, stopping me in my tracks as it was as if somehow she had read my mind and knew my exact next move.

I cackled heartily. "For what exactly?" I said.

"I'm not playing this game anymore," Mon declared, leaving me dumbfounded as to what she was getting at.

"What game?" I asked, genuinely wanting to know what it was that I had done.

"Playing dumb when it comes to your reluctance to take responsibility and then signposting everything when you're confronted to the fact that your wife is ill," Mon answered, her tone more cold than angry at this point. "It works once, it might work twice, but you cannot use it as an excuse to get out of living your life and taking responsibility for your behaviour every goddamn time!"

"We're not really getting anywhere, and I have stuff to do, so I'm going to leave this conversation here and wish you a good rest of your day," I said firmly, hanging up on Monica and slamming my phone onto the bed.

Desperately craving a mug of coffee, I walked out of the bedroom and started to make my way downstairs to the kitchen.

All three of the kids were already down and in various stages of making their breakfasts.

"Good morning, kids!" I announced, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

None of them answered, which shocked me at first, until I remembered that even Ben had been a little frostier towards me this morning when he woke me up so I could answer the phone.

Abandoning the idea of attempting to make more small talk, I proceeded to make my breakfast with the least disruption to the kids, intending on taking it back upstairs on one of the spare trays that Rachel and I had bought when we first moved in and were furnishing the house.

Back upstairs, I checked my phone, expecting to see some kind of message from Rachel but then remembering that being on her phone was probably one of her lowest priorities.

Nevertheless, it wasn't long before I was fully ready to leave the house. I'd decided that I would do the weekly grocery shop before going to visit Rachel as usual.

On my way out the door, I passed Ben.

"I'm off to do the grocery shop and go see Rachel," I said to him. "I know you're taking a break from studying, so the offer to join me if you want to is on the table."

"I think I'll pass," he replied, expressionless.

Your call, I thought to myself, as I shut the front door behind me and started walking over to the car.

As I switched the ignition on, my phone started ringing again. I looked down at the caller ID, and saw that it was Carol. Slightly confused as to why she would be calling me at such a random time of day, I switched off the ignition as I didn't want to keep it running if I was going to be stuck here for a while, which I probably would be.

"Hey, Carol," I said. "How can I help?"

"Hi, Ross," she answered. "Monica called and said that you wanted some support in the house whilst Rachel was in hospital."

What a bastard.

"Did she really?" I said, my heart racing with joy over the things I would be saying to Monica later.

"Apparently, you'd been struggling to make time for your kids with everything else going on," she added. Son of a bitch, I thought, a tsunami of anger washing over me.

"Tell her I say thanks," I said, hoping that Carol wouldn't note the sarcasm in my tone, as this would be a necessary element to start the ball rolling for Monica and I's chat later.

"I'll be there in 5," Carol said.

"I'm just leaving," I said, switching the ignition back on and beginning to back out of the parking space onto the main road. "But the kids are still there."

"Okay," Carol said. "See you later."

She hung up and I opened the Spotify app to start playing music for the journey to the store.