You Could Be My Unintended...

Unable to fall back to sleep and afraid of the return of my imagination taking advantage of my crushing loneliness, I settled with late night/early morning television. Even though I was pretty sure I was in Germany at that point in time, the late night television showed me a black and white movie, where the cast spoke only in French. Gone were the days of my fluent French, so I only understood words every now and then.

Slowly, my eyes started to droop again and when I woke up the sun was shining through the blinds, giving the room a heavenly glow. I also noticed I wasn’t alone anymore, but the part of the couch, just after my feet, was occupied by Matt who was sitting, humming to himself.

I rolled over onto my back and put my feet into his lap.

‘Sleeping beauty.’ Matt smiled at me as I stretched my arms out, hearing my back pop, he started to play with my feet and I laughed as his fingers started counting out my toes.

‘Stop,’ I murmured, unable to manage more than a whisper.

‘Or what? You’ll yawn at me?’ He laughed as he continued to count the little piggies and tell me where they had been during the day. Of course, Matt hadn’t played little piggies for many years, so instead the piggies were going to the bottle bank, the drug store, the hairdresser, a pretty piggy’s house (because piggies need love too) and to get their mother some tea.

I regained consciousness quickly when Matt leapt to his feet, throwing my feet off and ran into the kitchen, although I decided to remain horizontal. ‘What are you doing?’ I groaned, waiting for his reply, and hopefully reassurance that he hadn’t destroyed anything just yet.

‘Nooooooothing,’ He called back, false innocence ringing in his tone, forcing me to strain my ears, listening for the sounds of him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. All I could hear was him giggling to himself like a school girl so I let it slide, trying to wake up completely and get the remnants of sleep from my eyelashes. Eventually I decided to sit up in a bid to stop myself from falling back asleep.

After finishing whatever suspicious activity he was doing in the kitchen, Matt emerged and sat next to me on the couch again, leaning his head on my shoulder. Once again this move was suspicious as he exaggerated everything; even little sounds of content he made were odd and a little too loud for my liking.

‘What are you planning?’ I asked, trying to move my shoulder out from underneath his head.

‘What? I’m not allowed to surprise my best friend while she’s sleeping by breaking into her room and sitting there until she wakes up... And then running into the kitchen to do some non-suspicious activities? What kind of cruel world is this? I’ll have you know that I am offended by this lack of trust.’ He moved his head off my shoulder and crossed his arms, turning his body away from me.

I couldn’t help but laugh at him before putting on a serious, sad tone. ‘Matty, love, the apple of my eye, the love of my life, my sunshine, you know you’re my world.’

His shoulders started to shake and I knew I had him.

‘Matty, please forgive me for being so foolish as to believe that you were planning something when you were trying to be nice and do some non-suspicious activities in my kitchen. Oh, my heart aches from this mistrust that I have bestowed upon you, my heart breaks as I feel that you no longer feel I trust you,’ I jumped up from my seat on the couch and threw my arms in the air. ‘Alas! I will make it up to you! Pancakes with every kind of topping known to man! To the kitchen I shall away!’

Just before I could fling myself towards the kitchen, Matt crash tackled me. ‘Don’t go to the kitchen!’

I tried to regain the breath that was knocked out of me as I hit the floor, Matt landing on top of me, crushing my ribs with his elbows. I managed to gasp ‘Can’t breathe’ at him and have him let up before my ribs gave out.

We spent the next ten minutes lying on the floor, trying to talk the other into getting up first.

‘So... what did you do to the kitchen?’ I asked, attempting nonchalance and failing horribly.

‘I’m not telling you.’ He crossed his arms and stared at me.

‘Fine,’ I sat up quickly and ran into the kitchen to find the oven on and something baking. ‘What’s this?’

‘Well... I thought you were probably sad... after some of the bad things that have happened... so I wanted to buy you a cake. But the cake store here only sells weird German cake... which I didn’t think you would like... so I decided to make you a cake but the oven in my room is broken and just fills with gas and makes me sleepy, and then Dom’s oven was also broken because we wanted to cook something the other night and broke it accidently and Chris won’t let me use the oven in his room because he’s afraid I’ll break it, how ridiculous is that?’ Matt took a deep breath in, quenching his need for oxygen after not pausing in that story to take a breath.

‘Thank you, Matt, that was very sweet of you.’

‘I know, right? Aren’t I precious?’ He smiled like a little boy in a candy store and I couldn’t help but have my heart melt just a little at how genuinely happy he was at that moment.

‘Aren’t you just,’ I agreed.

He took my hand and led me back into the living room/ sitting area and sat me down on the couch next to him, taking my other hand and making me face him. He looked directly into my eyes and I tried to maintain eye contact for as long as possible. Slowly, he started to lean in. His face grew closer and closer to mine until I flinched then stood up briskly.

‘I think the cake is ready!’ My sheer terror would have been masked better if I had managed to stop my voice from breaking.

He leant back in his seat and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds and I couldn’t help but feel guilty.

‘Matt, you know I...’ I was cut off by him.

‘Don’t bother... I think I’m going to go. Enjoy your cake.’ He stood and left the room without so much as a glance in my direction.

As I sat back down on my couch I couldn’t help but feel like everything I touched turned to shit. I had probably just destroyed the only real friendship I’d ever had... AND now I was completely alone with my thoughts... again.