Ardy really didn’t know what to make of the situation, at all. But Colin’s words were right, she<em>knew </em>that, hadn’t she been telling herself that Beth wouldn’t do this to make her feel like this? Ardelia rested her head on her arms on the table for a long time, trying to decide whether to bolt or not. What to say, what to do? She felt attacked, completely, but there was nothing in the situation to warrant it. Not a single thing. It was her own issues projecting, but if she could identify<em>that</em>, why the heck couldn’t she sort her head out enough to stop feeling like this. She turned her head to the kitchen door, eyes opening for a second, raking everything through in her head over and over.<br/><br/>The teenager felt suffocated, absolutely suffocated,<em>breathe Ardy</em>. How much of an immature brat was she being. She needed the help, it wasn’t like Beth had reached an unjustified conclusion. Not only had she not eaten in days but she was going to be on the street pretty soon. How could her pride be wounded at such an accurate assessment? Oh God, why couldn’t Beth have just asked her somewhere else so she could squirm away politely and hide under her pillows? This was beyond normal, this wasn’t going to slot back into place, her head had been firmly buried in the sand for weeks now and pretty soon she was going to be in enormous trouble.<br/><br/>Except these weren’t things she wanted to be thinking about, these weren’t topics she had answers for. So she avoided them. Told herself that Scott would come back, that she’d find a job, that something would happen because her luck always held out in the end.<br/><br/>Wasn’t this what this was? Displaced luck that she had found somebody generous to extend this offer?<br/><br/>She glanced at the door. They’d been gone<em>ages</em>. Would they even notice if she slipped away? Would Colin breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t have to put up with a strange girl in his house for any extended length of time. Because surely he couldn’t be as nice and kind-hearted as Beth.<em>Nobody was</em>. Ardelia knew for a fact that if Scott had brought home another guy and said he was staying there – well she wouldn’t have had a choice because he never generally asked her opinion on things but that was so entirely not the point.<br/><br/>By the time Beth came out of the kitchen, Ardy wasn’t sitting at the table. Her chair was empty. It was pretty obvious that Beth was staring intently at the pie because she hadn’t even noticed Ardy had moved.<br/><br/>The brunette piped up from the sofa,<br/><br/>“Oh God, I’ve never done anything even slightly vanilla in my life. How boring would that be.” Then she looked a little sheepish and gestured to the TV, and then the couch, biting her lip and shrugging it off she stood up. “Well you two were gone<em>forever </em>and you basically said make yourself at home<em>and </em>my battery died – do you know how annoying it is when you can’t check the football scores?”<br/><br/>Perhaps the invitation didn’t quite extend to emptying the bread basket and helping oneself to the television. Surreptitiously sweeping some crumbs off the couch she waited to see whether she was in trouble.<br/><br/>“But really, if you keep feeding me like this you may actually have to reinforce the floor in your guest bedroom…”<br/><br/>Which was pretty much the only way Ardelia could stomach saying<em>yes </em>to the invitation.