How I Missed You.

Friday came and I was really excited, James was finally going to meet Jamie. I wanted to see what he thought of him, I really liked Jamie, although how much I wasn’t sure. I was hoping James would help me too make up my mind.

I woke up extra early to clean my room; it had gotten very messy these past few days. I was just in the middle of making my bed when I remembered that I hadn’t told my mum about James or Jamie coming. The plan was that both James and Jamie would stay for dinner, unless Jamie’s parents called him home, and then James would sleep over since the drive would take too long.

I ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time and jumping the last few, “Mum!” I called.

“Yes?” A cheery voice greeted me.

“What’s got you so smiley?” I asked as I joined her in the lounge room. She had work off today so she was sitting in the lounge room catching up on current affairs.

“You didn’t tell me James was coming over today,” She smiled.

I pulled my eyebrows together in a frown; I sure didn’t remember telling her about James, “How did you...?”

“Sharon called me last night,” she beamed. Of course Sharon did.

I laughed, “Mum, is it okay if Jamie comes over too?”

“That nice boy that always walks you too school?” She winked.

I blushed and nodded, “Yeah, I want him to meet James.”

“Of course dear, I’ll cook an extra big dinner. I’ll have to get the spare mattress out from the spare room and blankets...” She trailed off, making plans for tonight. She seemed over excited.

I shook my head and headed back up the stairs to finish cleaning my room. It would take James at least two hours to get to my house so I’d have to find something for me and Jamie to do while we waited. I settled on getting my play station out from under my bed. I had stopped using it when my mother had refused to buy me anymore games so I fought back by saying “Fine! I won’t play at all, and then you would’ve wasted your money!” It didn’t work.

I dusted it off and plugged it into my small T.V, I’m not even sure you could classify it as a T.V. I grabbed the stack of games I had hidden in the closet because my mum had threatened to sell them since I wasn’t playing anymore.

When I had my room looking respectable but not looking like I had tried to hard I started getting ready for school. It was eight o’clock so I skipped on washing my hair, it wouldn’t dry in time and my hair dryer was stuffed.

I grabbed the last cookie out the cookie jar, yelling to my mum to buy some more and right on schedule opened my front door to a smiling Jamie.

“Hey, hey,” I smiled, closing the door and continuing down the steps.

“Hey,” Jamie said, stealing the rest of my cookie away.

We walked to school talking about tonight and Jamie confirmed that he would be able to stay for dinner, by the time we reached the school I was bursting with excitement; I guess my mother must have rubbed off on me.

~~~~~

“Isabella!”

“Yes Mitchie?” I turned to my friend, shuffling towards the edge of the school.

“I’m offended I wasn’t invited to this gathering,” she pouted.

I rolled my eyes, sighing, “You can come if you want to, but we will b doing homework and you’ve already met James.”

“Hmm, I suppose so. But I can’t come anyway. I’m going to visit my cousin, she lives so far away.”

“Okay,” I smiled, waving to my friend as she turned on her heal and marched up the path to where her parents were waiting in the car park.

I looked at Jamie and he was smiling, Mitchie was always such a drama queen.

“Come on,” I grabbed his hand pulling him out of the school.

It didn’t take long to get home, even with Jamie dragging his feet. I opened the front door to find every surface sparkling clean and the smell of homemade lasagna wafting through the hallway from the kitchen. Jamie’s nose perked up as he sniffed the scent and, like under a spell walked in a zombie like fashion towards the kitchen. I laughed, dropping my bag by the door and followed him.

“You must be Jamie,” my mother said, “I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting you.”

“Well here I am,” Jamie grinned, hopping up onto one of the kitchen stools and making himself at home. I could tell he and my mum were going to get along great.

My mother turned in my direction, “Sharon just called, they just left the house.”

“Okay,” I nodded, “Come on Jamie, I’ll take you on a tour of the house.”

Taking Jamie by the shoulders I led him around the house, first too the lounge room where he marveled at our DVD collection, then to the dinning room where he laughed at my baby pictures, then up the stairs to my room where he asked if I had been cleaning. I skipped my mother’s room and the bathroom; those weren’t the kinds of things you showed to people on tours unless they were in line for buying the house. Finally I steered him out the back door to the backyard. It was fairly big backyard, with a small shed in the corner that we never used. Even on sunny days I avoided the backyard, ever since we moved here. I guess when I was little it reminded me of James’s backyard, my third home. I say third because James’s house was my second house. We were always out in his backyard, playing tiggy or hideout in out cubby house. Without someone to play with, my backyard seemed like a ghost town rather than an entertainment area. My mother went out occasionally, to do the garden and other things, but most of the time she was to busy so the back door remained locked and the backyard, another world.

“Wow,” Jamie exclaimed when we were outside. There were trees lining the fence on all sides and a big oak tree in the centre of the grass which made you feel like you were in a forest. I never realised just how beautiful the place was.

“Come sit with me?” I asked him and he nodded following me to the oak tree. I sat down with my back against its thick trunk and looked up into it’s branches where the sun shined through. Jamie sat next to me and it was quiet for a time, a comfortable silence. I looked up at the clouds and started making shapes, soon enough Jamie was joining me and we spent the better half of an hour making up stories about the various clouds and bickering about what we thought they were. Apparently our imaginations were so brilliant that the play station wasn’t even necessary.

Finally the back door opened to reveal a windswept James, he must have driven the whole way with his window down.

“James!” I smiled, hopping up and giving my best friend a hug.

“Hey Is,” he patted my back. Look up he said, “Hi, I’m James.”

I pulled away as Jamie introduced himself and the shook hands. So far, so good.

“Isabella! Phone for you!” A voice called through the kitchen window.

“Okay,” I called, “I’ll be back in a minute,” I told them and ran in house with the hopes of them getting better acquainted.

“Hello?” I spoke into the phone.

“Ello,” Mitchie sang.

“Hey Mitch, what’s up?” I asked smiling.

“Nothing much I’m at my cousin’s house. She’s giving me a makeover but her little brother came in and stole the nail polish and she’s been chasing him around the house for almost ten minutes so I thought I’d call you and ask how the ‘gathering’ is going. So how’s it going?”

I was still smiling when I replied. I had met Mitchie’s cousins once before when the eldest one came for a birthday sleepover. She was blond with blue eyes and had an intoxicating smile but she was so sweet that it was obviously fake and I couldn’t stand being around her. She was obsessed with makeup and ‘growing up’ something I never wanted to do. Her little brother was just plain annoying, I believe his soul purpose in life was too make everybody else’s lives miserable, and to my enjoyment, he seemed to be doing a spectacular job of just that to his sister. “It’s going fine, James just got here and your call interrupted me introducing them, but they seem to be doing a fine job without me,” I said looking out the window to see the two boys laughing and slapping each other on the back.

“Oh okay. Well I better not keep you then, plus I think we got the nail polish back,” Mitchie giggled.

“Right, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yep.” I hung up the phone and made my way back outside. “So, what do you boys want to do?” I asked them settling myself back on the grass.

“Eat,” James suggested and right on queue his stomach growled making us all laugh. So, very grudgingly, I got up off the ground and we went back inside.

~~~~~

The food wasn’t ready and my mother wouldn’t allow us to spoil our appetites by having any form of snacks, so we ended up racing cars on the play station (it wasn’t completely useless) until six o’clock when Sharon called us down to the dinning room.

“I call head!” James cried as we ran down the stairs. Head was our thing, like when you call shotgun in a car; we called head at the table.

“Damn,” I pouted as James grabbed his called seat. He grinned at me. I sat down on his left and Jamie on mine. Sharon sat across from me, and my mother next to her. The other end of the table was left empty, there was only one head.

Jamie smiled at me, he seemed more self conscious than before and I wondered why, then I looked over at James who was stuffing his mouth with potatoes and realised.