I Don't Need You To Save Me

I awoke the next morning to the loud clattering of what sounded like metal being pushed over forcefully. My eyes sprung open and I slowly sat up, wondering what the hell had made that noise. I reluctantly pealed back the bed covers and walked over to the open window, which I had forgotten to close the night before, no wonder the noise had sounded so loud, and looked out. I could see a small vintage style Mini Cooper parked on the kerb and behind the back of the car two silver dustbins lay on their sides with what I assumed was the contents of the bins scattered all over the floor.

Then I saw Kevin and a girl with long dark hair collecting all the black bin bags together and picking up and stray bits of rubbish that had found its way out of the bags. Kevin had a big smile on his face that reminded me so much of my brother when he laughed. I sighed and brushed my blonde hair away from my face and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

"Oh, Hayleigh!" Kevin called up to me. I didn't realise he had even noticed I was there. "I'm sorry, did we wake you?"

"No, no. Its fine." I smiled politely and ran my hand through my hair again. Kevin smiled back up at me and I pulled the window closed. The sun was already out and almost overhead, I wondered what time it actually was. I quickly changed out of the sweatpants and over sized t-shirt that I had worn to bed the night before and pulled on a pair of cut off jeans and a vest top. I decided I might as well get as much sunshine to my skin as possible.

When I made it downstairs, Kevin was sat in the huge kitchen that took up the majority of the bottom floor of the house. He smiled as I walked in and took a seat at the old wood kitchen table. Denise was also in the kitchen along with little Frankie, they appeared to be making cookies.

"Morning Hayleigh, well only just." Denise smiled and I glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall, the larger hand pointing to just before twelve. "I was going to send one of the boys up to wake you, but we thought we would let you sleep." I smiled in reply and rubbed my eyes again, I couldn't ever remember waking up from a nice long sleep and still feeling tired.

I heard the front door close and the girl from earlier walked into the kitchen. "I am really sorry about the bins, honestly." was the first thing that came out of her mouth. Her accent wasn't the same as all the other people in the room, it was more ... British Like mine had been a couple of years after we moved out to America from England. I had been quite young when we moved, so I hadn't been able to hold onto the London accent that I loved so much as well as my brother and father had. It was still there, sort of, just not as much as I wanted it to be.

"Its fine. Kevin will just have to remember not to sneak up on you next time." Denise shook her head at her eldest son.

"I didn't mean to scare you! Honestly." Kevin muttered and then ran his hand through his curly hair. The girl, whom I assumed was obviously quite well known by the family smiled at Kevin before looking over at me. Then her dark eyes widened.

"Oh. My. God." She stumbled over the words. "Kevin? Do you know Hayleigh Laurence is sat in your kitchen?" She asked him.

"Oh. Sorry. I forgot you were there Hayleigh." He smiled at me apologetically. "Hayleigh, this is Soffy. Soffy, meet Hayleigh Laurence. Our parent's are old friends."

"Its nice to meet you." I smiled.

"Why did you fail to mention this?" Soffy asked Kevin. He shrugged and Soffy turned back to me. "Hi. Sorry, its just a shock that's all." She explained herself, I nodded along politely. "I've never met a celebrity before."

"Oh, well I'm just like your average joe really." I smiled and tucked some of my hair behind my ear. If your definition of average involved having your name known nation-wide and pretending to be someone else being your day job.

"Did someone say my name?" Joe walked into the room. I rolled my eyes and looked over in the opposite direction of the way that he came in. "Oh, hey Sofia." He walked round the counter, catching my eye and smiling as he did, and picked up an apple from from the fruit bowl on the middle of the island counter.

"No, Joe. It was a figure of speech. If we wanted you we would have just called for the village idiot.” Soffy laughed and then clapped her hands together before speaking again. “Well, I better go. My mum wants me home soon. Do not forget to give those leaflets to your Dad.” She pointed at Kevin and then at Joe. “That is an order boys.”

Kevin laughed and nodded, before following Soffy out of the room, obviously going to say goodbye.

And that left me and Joe in the kitchen in a very awkward silence. I tucked another stray strand of hair behind my ear and looked over at him, unsure of what to say. Joe just smiled at me once more and then also left the room, leaving me to sit in silence. By myself.

---

"Are you always this anti-social?"

I sighed and pulled my iPod headphones out of my ears. I turned my head to see Nick stood in the doorway to my room holding a plate with a sandwich on.

"Not all the time." I shook my head and switched off my iPod. "Just when I'm around people I don't know that well." I confessed, although it didn't sound that much like a confession.

Nick walked over to where I was sat crossed legged on the bed and placed the plate down in front of me. "My Mom made it for you, she thought you'd be hungry. You haven't eaten all day."

"Thanks." I smiled at him and eyed the sandwich. I hadn't even thought about food, my mind had been too busy thinking about what Darren had said to me on the phone the night before. Nick smiled back and turned to leave but I stopped him.

"Nick, if someone were to come up here asking for me, someone who wasn't my brother or my father, would you let them in?" I asked. I didn't want to sound too paranoid. From the look he gave me, a cross between confused and one of those 'why they hell did you just ask me that' looks.

"I don't know." He asked. "Why, were you expecting someone to?"

I shook my head a little too quickly.

"No! No! Its just, if someone did, would you?" I asked with a sigh. "Its just, there's this guy who said he was going to come and see me, but I'd rather he didn't you know?" I forced myself to smile. "He probably wont though." I was trying to convince myself the exact same thing.

"Who is this said guy?" Nick asked. He came to sit down on the edge of the bed. I looked away from his searching eyes and bit my lip.

"Just this ... guy. He's called Darren. He probably wont even come up here. He doesn't know where you live!" I shook my head and looked back over at Nick. He looked concerned, poor guy. And I sounded crazy. "Seriously. It probably wont even happen."

"If you say so." He smiled, but he still looked really concerned. I probably should have left it a few days before I brought my physco ex boyfriend into this. I hoped I was right, that he wouldn't actually come up here. But with Darren, you really should expect the unexpected.

"Anyway, we're going out tonight. Soffy's babysitting Frankie. You can come with us if you want, or you could hang out with Soffy and Frankie." Nick smiled at me. "I must warn you though, Disney channel movies will be involved if you stay home. Can you handle that?"

I laughed. "I think I would survive that." I looked down at the sandwich still sitting on my bed. Looking at it made my stomach rumble rather loudly. I didn't realise that I was actually hungry.

"Well, you don't have to decide now. Just let one of us know." And with that he got up from the bed and walked out of the room. I watched him walk out and couldn't help but wonder if I had told him too much about Darren, if he would be expecting the worst to happen now. I sighed and put my iPod earphones back into my ears.

I was being too paranoid.