I Will Not Kiss You

“Hey, Dad,” I called, letting myself in through the front door.

“Hey, kiddo,” He called from the living room.

Kiddo is Dad’s old nickname for me. He’s been calling me that for as long as I can remember. He came in from the living room and held his hand out like he wanted me to shake it. I grinned and slapped his hand with my own and let him slowly step forward to hug me. That’s Dad’s way of saying he loves me. He holds his hand out when he’s going to hug me because he says he feels awkward telling me when he’s going to hug me.

“You hungry?” He asked, walking out into the kitchen.

“Can I have some skittles?” I asked.

Dad shifted from foot to foot, like he’d done something bad.

“Um. . . we’ve run out,” He said.

“But we bought some last week,” I pointed out “I can’t have eaten them all already.”

“Well I’m telling you now, Frank, we’ve run out!”

“Okay,” I replied, opening the cupboards and taking out some twizzlers “I’ll have these instead.”

“Okay, you do that,” He replied, setting up the coffee maker “I’m assuming you want a coffee?”

“You assume correct,” I replied.

While Dad made my coffee, I stood and watched him because I have to know what’s been done to it. I used to hang around the kitchen and watch him make our dinner but he said that I was getting in the way, so he had a hatch put into the wall so that I can see into the kitchen while he’s making dinner. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like eating at restaurants and diners. Food courts are okay if the foods on display in front of you and you can just pick what you want. I still tend to be a bit wary of them though and sometimes I’ll even get someone to eat a little bit of the food before I do.

“Hey, Frank,” Dad said out of nowhere as we sat in the living room to watch TV.

“Yeah?”

“I know you don’t like strangers but there’s gonna’ be someone joining us for dinner tonight who I want you to meet, will that be okay?”

“Not really,” I replied truthfully because I don’t like lying “But I'll try and be nice.”

“Good boy,” He praised.

I don’t like lying but I still do it. When I do lie I feel dirty which is why I always try to tell the truth. Lying makes me feel dizzy and I usually end up telling the truth afterwards because I feel so guilty.

“Who is it, anyway?” I asked.

“Just a friend of mine,” He replied mysteriously.

I hate it when people keep secrets from me! I get frustrated. It’s the same when I have to wait for something. Like queues, for example; I even have a special pass that allows me to skip them, but only if they’re really long. I don’t like it when we have to do something that wasn’t planned either. Like if Dad and I were to drive to the store to get some stuff for dinner and were gonna’ drive back and Dad suddenly decided he wanted to stop and get some gas as well, I’d get irritated because we hadn’t planned to stop for gas. I like things to be scheduled. Not minute by minute but just so I know what we’ve got to do that day and it’s all in a nice order. I thought about what Dad had said for a minute. I’m not stupid.

“Is this a lady friend, Dad?”

Dad bit his lip like a naughty little kid who’d been caught out. He’s got a girlfriend! He wants me to meet his new girlfriend.

“I know you haven’t given up on me and your mother, Frank; but I think what me and her had is dead! This isn’t the movies, we’re not gonna’ magically fall in love again; can you understand that?”

“Yes.”

I felt sick. Dad has a new lady friend. I don’t want him to have a girlfriend. I want it to be just me and him when I stay round his apartment. Now it’s gonna’ be me, him and his girlfriend. And then they might get married – I want my Dad to be happy but why can’t he be happy with just me? Then what if he and this lady have kids? He might totally forget about me and spend all his time with these kids love them more than me. . . Okay, I’m probably overreacting but it’s still scary. I need to talk to Mikey.

“Can I use the phone, please?” I asked, standing up quietly.

“Who you gonna’ call?” He asked.

I couldn’t help myself when he said that.

“Ghostbusters,” I replied sarcastically, making him laugh “I just want to call Mikey! Is that okay?”

“Yeah that’s fine, kiddo” He said, sitting back on the sofa to watch the TV.

So I picked up the phone and took it into my room. It’s actually just the box room but I like it. The walls are a disgusting cream colour. They’ve been like that since Dad moved in here. He offered to paint the walls but I said no thank you. I don’t like change and I try to avoid it, if I can.

You can barely see the paint in my bedroom anyway because of all the posters on the wall; all neatly aligned around the room. And I’m only here twice a week. My carpet is a biscuit colour. I have a single bed opposite my door and a neat desk set up in the alcove of the wall. According to Dad, my bedroom is impossibly tidy for a sixteen year old boy.

I lay back on my bed and dialled Mikey’s home number in. The phone rang for about forty-one seconds before someone answered. I didn’t recognise the man’s voice.

“Hello?” He repeated.

“Sorry, I think I have the wrong number,” I said.

I must have. Donna always answers the phone and I always say ‘Can I please talk to Mikey?’ and she says ‘Hello Frank, how are you?’ so I say either ‘I’m very well thank you, how are you?’ or ‘I’m not very well at the moment, how are you?’ and then she says ‘Okay, hold on and I’ll get Mikey for you’. Then she passes the phone over to him for me.

“Who were you looking for?” He asked.

“Michael James Way,” I replied.

“Oh, Mikey? Yeah hold on, I’ll go get him.”

And then I could hear him shouting ‘Mikeeeey, oh Mikeeeeey! There’s a sexy young lady on the phone for you! She said something about Saturday. . .” Then Mikey shouted ‘Get a life, Gee’ and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me,” I said.

“Oh, hey, Frankie!” He said, sounding happy “What’s up? Hope my idiot brother was nice.”

“He told a lie,” I stated plainly.

“What?”

“He said there was a sexy young lady on the phone for you who said something about Saturday! Not only am I not a girl, I didn’t say anything about Saturday.”

Mikey laughed on the other end of the phone. I don’t like it when people laugh at me but Mikey told me that when he laughs, he’s not laughing at me. He means it in a friendly way or what I just said was funny.

“He was only kidding, Frank,” He explained “He was making fun of me! He doesn’t mean it.”

“But still,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll get him to say sorry if you meet him,” Mikey promised “So what did you call for?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I guessed that,” He laughed again.

“Dad’s got a girlfriend.” I blurted.

“Oh wow!” Mikey exclaimed.

Then he heard my reluctance to say anything.

“How do you feel about it?” He asked.

“I’m not over the moon.”

“I can understand that!” He replied “What’s she like?”

“I haven’t met her yet! She’s coming over for dinner later though; I don’t want to meet her, Mikey, I don’t like strangers! What if she’s an evil troll?”

“Then I’ll savagely attack her with pillows!”

“You could be a bit more serious!” I suggested sarcastically.

“Sorry; right um. . .”

Then there was a strange clicking sound. I was wondering what it was when Mikey suddenly yelled ‘Gerard, get off the phone!’ and the man from earlier yelled ‘I’m not on the phone!’ which was very stupid of him. Then he said ‘Crap’ and Mikey laughed and said ‘Busted’. The clicking sound went again as one of the phones was put down. There was another silence.

“Mikey?”

“Yeah, I’m still here! And so is Gee”

“No I’m not,” The man insisted.

“Yeah, you are!” I argued.

“Oh no I’m not!”

“Go away!” I said “I don’t like you.”

“Well that’s polite!” He said “Are you gonna’ let him talk to me like that, Mikey?”

“Mikey?” I said.

“Yeah? Sorry, guys; this is quite entertaining!”

“Make him go away!” I begged “I don’t like him.”

“Oh yeah. . . yeah. . . well. . . um. . . I don’t like you either!” He argued like a three-year old.

I knew he was making fun of me. I didn’t like that. I don’t like people making fun of me. Mikey made several death-threats down the phone, making him whimper and hang up. There was a silence between us for a few minutes.

“Is he gone?”

“Yeah!” Mikey confirmed “He just came downstairs and went into the kitchen. . . so back to your Dad and his new girlfriend.”

“I don’t want her to come over!” I whined.

“Well. . . I’m not a fairy godmother, Frankie; I can’t cause her car to break down on the way over!”

“As if you’d do that anyway,” I giggled “You’d make a piano fall on her head.”

“Yeah, true” He agreed “Much more my style.”

There was another awkward silence in which I tried to paint a picture of this new lady. I couldn’t get a proper picture because Dad hadn’t told me anything about her and all I could see was a cartoon-style fat, bloated, toothless old lady with a hairy chin. I shuddered and tried to force the image out.

“Frank? Sorry, I have to go for dinner now! But don’t worry about your Dad’s gal! I’m sure she’ll be fine; you might like her-”

He was cut across and the strange man spoke to me. Mikey shouted at him, demanding that he give the phone back.

“I have no idea what your dilemma is but, if all else fails, you can hide in my suitcase!”

I didn’t say anything.

“Wow. . .” He dithered “You were serious when you said you didn’t like me, huh?”

When I didn’t respond, he tried again.

“Okay, look, I’m not that bad when you get to know me! I was just kidding you about.”

“Can you put Mikey back on, please?”

He sighed heavily and then Mikey was back on.

“Okay? Sorry but I really have to go now!”

“Okay then, bye”

“See you tomorrow!”

Then I hung up.