Right Now, I'm Anyone's

Leila...

God, what the bloody hell is that? It’s far too early in the morning for anything like this. I buried my head further into my lovely, comfortable pillow.

“Leila...” Go away.

“Leila!” The covers were pulled away from my body, exposing me to the cold, mid-October morning. “Get out of bed, now.”

“Gee, if you cherish your life, you will leave me alone,” I grumbled, burying my head again. Next thing I know, Georgia pulled the pillow out from under my head and stood over me, glaring.

“No, you’re going to be late,” she said. “I’m not waiting for you.”

I rolled over and checked my clock; 8:30AM. Unfortunately, she was right. Normally, we never had to be at work before midday, depending on what was going on, sometimes later. I worked at a bar/concert venue in central Leeds with Georgia Mae Good, my best friend and flatmate. I handled the lighting and music tech, and served drinks to tenants. Occasionally, if my boss – John Price – was desperate, I’d design the fliers and backdrops for events.

Georgia shouted at me again while she put her beautiful, thick, dark auburn hair up into her usual ponytail. She was insanely tall and skinny, with a pretty heart-shaped face and a pair of glasses perched on her nose constantly. She always insisted that John was stupid for hardly ever using my designs for the club.

I dragged myself out of my warm bed, out into the cold of my small bedroom. My walls were completely covered in posters of bands and films – since we rented this place, and I wasn’t allowed to wreak havoc with some paint. I moved here just after I turned twenty-one and finished my degrees in Art, Music and Advertising. I realised I needed more than a degree to get anywhere serious in music or art, but I couldn’t afford it. Plus I liked where I was working. Georgia and I went to university together, and the council happened to room us up here together.

Anyway, as I said, under normal circumstances, we didn’t have to be conscious at this hour, but John had set up some kind of music festival, starting on Monday – i.e. in six days – set to last up until about early November. It was a fantastic idea, but it did require a lot of work and a handful of severe bollockings off of John if we didn’t get something perfect. He wouldn’t even tell us who was going to be playing.

Georgia grabbed my arm and practically dragged me into the bathroom in between mine, hers and Dimitri’s bedrooms, throwing a towel at my head and shutting the door.

Dimitri was our other roommate; a good friend, an even better gossip and one of the biggest cliché gays I have ever come across. He’s half-Russian, half-American with a Leeds accent. His full name is Dimitri Isaac Williams-Chesnokov, and he had straight black hair that always stuck up at odd angles, making it look like he just rolled out of bed. He had dark eyes that looked black, beige-toned skin and a very angular face.

Georgia was like a mother to both of us; she made sure we were both up, dressed and fed and ready to start a day of work. I did love her for it, because I probably would’ve been fired by then if it weren’t for her. Dimitri brought out my wild side; he always got me drunk at parties, it was always him that I walked home with, late at night and drunk while we held each other up and he was always the one to cheer me up effortlessly after a bad turn.

“Ten minutes,” she shouted through the door, retreating back into our small kitchen slash living room area. I sighed and got into the shower, running my hand through my dyed pale brown hair and untangling some knots, before letting it fall back just below my collar bone. I could’ve fallen asleep under that hot water, that is, until it went extremely cold and I heard the toilet flushing.

“Come on, princess!” Dimitri shouted through the shower curtain when I leapt backwards and shrieked. He laughed all the way out of the bathroom, and I glared at him until the door closed again. I wrapped the towel Georgia had thrown at me around my body and tottered, tired and cold, back to my bedroom.

I was sorely tempted to just climb back into bed and hope they didn’t notice, but, no. I picked out the first pair of skinny jeans I could find and hunted around my wardrobe for our mandatory work shirt, which we all had to wear.

It was basically a black shirt with the word “Flux” printed in light blue on the front and the word “staff” in bold, block white letters on the upper back. I shrugged that on and slipped on a pair of black pumps, before shoving my arms into my Parka for maximum warmth out in the Arctic (not) conditions. I put my phone and iPod into my coat pockets, before standing in front of the mirror and changing the stud in my nose to a silver ring, then putting on some light make-up.

I finished, and made my way into our communal kitchen, yawning and stretching my back out. Georgia and Dimitri were standing behind the counter, staring at me as I walked in and smiling like axe murderers after their latest kill. I stopped walking and stared back. I said, “What?”

Dimitri kept up the crazy smile. “Do you remember what day it is today?”

“Uh...Wednesday?” I asked, slowly. Georgia raised her eyebrows at me and shook her head, while Dimitri sighed over-dramatically and laughed.

“What’s the date?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Georgia, come on, we’re going to be late.”

“No, we aren’t leaving until you remember,” she smiled. That was when I noticed that Dimitri’s hands were behind his back, holding something. I eyed him suspiciously, before he just lost his last shred of patience and rolled his eyes. He brought his hands forwards and he was holding a little chocolate muffin, complete with a single candle burning on top.

“It’s the sixteenth. Happy birthday, Leila, you silly cow,” Dimitri laughed. I took the muffin from him and mentally slapped myself as I blew out the candle. I’d turned twenty-two that day! How the hell did I forget that?

Dimitri laughed again and gave me a hug. “God love you, princess.”

I smiled and hugged him back firmly. “Shush, fairy-boy.”

“Okay, now we’re going to be late,” Georgia said, grabbing my hand. Dimitri followed us and said he’d be giving us a lift to work, and we both agreed gratefully. Georgia let me have the front seat, and Dimitri let me plug my iPod into his stereo, even though I knew it was annoying him; he hated everything on my iPod, except for Kesha.

Half-way through our twenty minute ride to work, my phone went off in my pocket. I took it out and flipped it open, reading my new text message:

From: Levi Richards
Time: 8:51AM

Happy birthday babe :) I’ll come over later and we can celebrate, okay? – Levi xxx

I smiled and tapped out my reply. Georgia noticed and rolled her eyes at me; obviously, she wasn’t that big a fan of my boyfriend. “Do we have to evacuate the flat tonight, then?”

I laughed. “You don’t have to.”

“Yes, but we don’t want to sit around watching you and the boyfriend making kissy-face,” Dimitri smiled from beside me. “Even if your boyfriend is gorgeous.”

“Dimitri,” Georgia said. “Shut up.”

I laughed and the rest of the car ride was spent in silence. Since it only took twenty minutes in the car, we were relatively on time, while we would’ve been late after a thirty-five minute bus ride.

“I’ll pick you two and Maddox up at six,” Dimitri called after us. “Give ditzy moo here a lift home, and take you and Maddox to The Acorn, Gee.”

I rolled my eyes and called goodbye to Dimitri. Georgia shouted her consent and we both made our way through the back entrance and to the staff room.

*****

“I love this new design, Leila,” Georgia said, as we hung our jackets up in the staff room. She was standing and admiring my latest flier design, that Maddox – our other friend and colleague – had blue-tacked to the wall. I turned my phone onto vibrate and put that into the pocket of my jeans, before I walked over to the mirror on the wall near the lockers and fluffed my hair a bit.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “But I doubt he’ll even use it.”

“He will. This is by far your best design yet.”

“But he probably won’t, you know what he’s like,” I muttered. “He doesn’t remember my name half the time.”

Right on cue, John came meandering into the staff room, on his way to collect his morning cup of coffee. He didn’t even see Georgia and me standing there, watching him. I walked back over to Georgia by the coat pegs and she cleared her throat, rather loudly. She was always quite forward about things.

“Oh, g’mornin’,” he said nonchalantly, holding his signature mug – “World’s Best Dad.” Of course.

“Morning, Mr. Price,” I said, twining my earphones around my iPod and shoving it into the inside pocket of my coat for safe-keeping.

“Hi, Lily,” he smiled, walking out of the staff room. I shot Georgia a very meaningful ‘I told you so’ look and she just laughed at me and raised her eyebrows so much they nearly disappeared under her hair. She linked her arm through mine and began to lead us both from the room.

“Come on, Lily,” she smirked. “I’d hate to find out what he thinks my name is.”