Living with a Heartache

Alexa’s POV

I always knew that we were going to have a new house mate; I didn’t expect this one to last more than a week. Let alone a year.

You see, my mum works at this really complicated professor-sabbatical care centre. You know how Professors at research labs have yearlong sabbaticals, where they go to another country or continent to work on their newly assigned project. Well, usually the kids of these professors have to tag along with their parents to the other countries because well, their parents want to live a normal life with their kids. Personally? I deem that impossible because you can never have a proper life if you have to move every once in a while.

Anyway, my mum works at this place where they care for the hard-headed kids who refuse to follow their parents on these trips. So, I have to put up with lots of teenagers who want to lead a normal life with their friends and not go along with their parents. I wouldn’t say ‘put up’ would be the most technical phrase, because some of them were quite nice people. We still stay in contact, and sometimes I receive some stuff like chocolates from Switzerland or like, Yak Cheese from a place with lots of Yaks. But still, we do receive a minority of brats once in a while (7 out of 13 of them so far).

But so far, no one stayed long enough for us to become best friends or whatever. Because, after a week without your parents, you start to have these weird hormonal imbalances and you start missing the Chinese food you and your family have and start wanting to go back to them. I’m not sure if this is a scientific fact but, most of the guys and girls who come here suffered from it and gave up in like a week or so.

It isn’t bad being the child who has to share my room constantly with strangers. I mean, it helps to up my Facebook friend-count, and I can lots of help in World geography. The kids usually have the guest-room in my house until recently my mum decided to knock down the wall between her room and the guest room to pamper herself and my dad. So, I have to share my room because so far no wants to sleep with my parents.

So anyway, our latest guest was going to be this (gender unknown yet) kid from my school. And I’m pretty jittery about it. Until, of course when his parents dropped him at my house, I almost died of a heart attack.

Brian’s POV

I looked around the house and I saw lots of photos, photos of this girl smiling, crying, sticking her tongue out, and bulging out her cheeks. I wasn’t impressed or unimpressed, it’s just that she looked familiar. Too familiar. Suddenly I heard a crash.

“MA! YOU DIDN’T SAY THAT IT WAS HIM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!”

“I TOLD YOU HE WAS FROM YOUR SCHOOL, YOU SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED IT.”
She was from my school? That narrows it down quite a bit.

“BAH!”

“DON’T YOU BAH AT ME WHEN GUESTS ARE IN THE HOUSE!”

“I CAN’T SHARE MY ROOM WITH HIM!”

“YOU’VE DONE THAT SINCE YOU WERE FIVE!”

What? My parents never told me anything about sharing a room with a girl. I was about to turn around and sprint back to car, begging for forgiveness and follow my parents to Poland. Only when I did, their car was already out of sight. And then, when I turned back again, I almost fell backwards as this gush of black hair whisked past me and grabbed my suitcase, and rushed up the stairs. However, being a proud man. I sprinted after the black moss of hair and stopped her half way up the stairs. Not bad huh.

“Hey, you look familiar. Brian,” I stuck out my hand and waited for hers. She just looked down, her black hair still shrouding her face.

“I um. Hi Brian,” she replied awkwardly. Then she turned her heel and continued one-manning my suitcase (which was heavy, mind you) up the stairs.

“Hey, do you need help with that?” I called out to her, as she continued plodding up the stairs, adverting her covered eyes from my face. What was wrong?

She led me into a room, which was painted a creamy yellow, with a musky but comfortable smell to it. Somehow, the smell was familiar. I forgot about my suitcase, when I finally contemplated my choice of words, I walked towards her down casted face and grabbed her hand. In shock, she dropped my suitcase onto the floor, which inevitably landed on both of our foots.

“Oh god! That hurt like a f-“I was about to curse when I was interrupted by her. Unlike me, the mysterious handler just winced a little, but held it in.

“SSH! No profanities or you’ll be out of here if my mum hears it,” she whispered. Damn, even her voice sounded familiar. I kept looking at her, trying to find out who the hell she was. She noticed me looking at her, and she rolled her eyes silently and looked up.

“For crying out loud Brian, it’s me, Alex,” she placed her hand on her hips as her hair slid off her face.

Oh, Mother of mercy. I knew it! It was Alex, ALEX! The girl who sang at that failure of a gig. I knew her, of course. I sat with her 2 years ago- best of the worse years of my life. Now I get to live with her? Oh joy.