Yes, I'd Fancy Your Company But You Know I'm Rubbish

The drive back to his house was silent, just like the first time I gave him a ride home. It was too silent for my taste, and very awkward. Even the music emerging from the radio wasn’t enough to fill in the void between Cedric and I. Every time I stopped at a red light, I would pretend to look out the window and be very interested in what was happening around us. It didn’t work much because it was still very awkward. We passed through that road where we had been stuck overnight and good memories came back to my head. I was the old me then.
I finally pulled up to his driveway and waited for him to get out.

“Want to come in?” Cedric asked me before exiting the car.

“Excuse me?” I asked. I was taken aback.

“You heard me,” he said in an annoyed voice.

“Well if you’re going to be like this, nope.”

He rolled his eyes and looked out of the window.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled and looked up at me, “it’s not fun when you’re mad at me.”

I looked away, “I’m not mad at you. It’s---”

“Look at me and tell me that you’re not mad at me,” he interrupted me.

He got closer to me and turned my face so he could look me in the eyes, and whispered, “Tell me.”

I looked down at my hands and sighed.

“I’m not mad at you,” I said looking back up again into his eyes, “it’s just that the truth hurts.”

God, his eyes were so enchanting. I couldn’t take it anymore and looked away.

“What truth?” He asked resting his hand on my hand. I quickly withdrew my hand out of reflex.

“You know,” I muttered, “about wanting to know you. You’re right. Who am I to want to know so much about you?”

His eyes softened and he said, “Look at me. Emily, look at me.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly, “I...just...umm...I’m not used to people being interested in my life. You took me by surprise. I thought you were one of those people who didn’t care about the others.”

He was right. The old me wouldn’t have given a damn about him.

“So will you come in?” He asked hopefully again.

I sighed and nodded. I parked my car and we entered his house. The lights were off, no one was at home. He led me to his room and motioned me to wait for him on his bed. I sat down and looked around his room. It was messy, and the worse part was that I wasn’t even surprised. His walls were fiery red and all the objects in the room were a different shade of gray. His bed sheets were a light gray, but his desk was very dark gray. He had a painting of an oasis with the sun setting. It looked really nice. No, it was beautiful.
He came back in with a tray containing two tuna sandwiches and two glasses of orange juice.
When I finished I placed the tray on his desk and I lay down on the floor as I looked at the ceiling. The floor was nice and hard, which was very comfortable. He lay down next to me and turned to look at me for a minute, then looked at where I was pointing.

“That’s so cool,” I whispered pointing at the phosphorescent stars that were stuck to his ceiling.

“Yeah it is,” he agreed with a smile on his face.

This was not like my old self. But I hadn’t changed in two weeks. I didn’t want to change. If I was not the old me, and I wasn’t the new me, who was I?

I lay there thinking until I noticed a silver Mac sitting *under* his desk.

“Why is your laptop under your desk?” I asked with curiosity.

“Long story,” he mumbled.

“Can I check my email?” I asked.

It’d been a long time since I last checked my email. I didn’t have internet at home and I wasn’t going to spend the miserable salary I got every week on internet. There were more important things in my life.

“Yeah, sure.”

So I got up and took the Mac from under his desk and sat down on a chair. I turned on the Mac as I placed it on the desk. I opened an internet window and typed my email and password on the email website. I looked at my inbox and saw that most of the emails were spam. A lot of emails were from Facebook but I decided to delete them.

Then I saw it.

My dad’s name.

He had sent me an email two weeks ago.

A fucking month after he had left--no deserted me. I didn’t know what to do; part of me didn’t want to open it, but the other part was curious.

Wasn’t there a saying that said ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’?

I sighed and looked at Ced. His eyes were closed, he was probably asleep. I took some air in and exhaled it slowly. I dragged the mouse to the new email and double clicked it. I closed my eyes while the page loaded and hoped that I was wrong. That it wasn’t from my father. Yeah, I wished. I slowly opened my eyes and saw some writing.

Hey Em! You probably won’t read this, or you just might not care but life here with Clare is great! Her tummy is starting to get bigger. You have to see her, she’s so gorgeous. I don’t know why I’m writing this but I felt like writing to you. After all, you’re my daughter. I hope that you do understand my choice; after all they call it love. Isn’t loving someone doing everything that you can to make them happy? Well, please make me happy and stay out of this for a while.

Love, dad.

I reread the email for about a billion times and hit the button ‘reply’ and typed:

Right. I thought that when you love someone you do everything you can to stay by them. You need to check your definitions dad, because I think your definition is wrong, selfish, and lastly, bullshit. Fuck you.
Sincerely, Emily Jenkins

I purposely used my mother's last name instead of his. He wasn't my father anymore. I hit the button ‘send’ and watched as the page loaded again. I turned around to check on Ced, and saw him right behind me, looking at the computer screen.

“What was that?” He asked leaning in to see the screen better.

“Oh, nothing. An email from an old friend,” I lied.

He didn’t buy it though, seeing as my eyes were a bit watery. He sat down on my lap and ignored my protests about him being too heavy for me. He went back to my inbox and realized he didn’t know whom it was from. So he went to sent messages and looked at the last message I had sent. He opened it and read my father’s email and my reply. He sat on my laps quietly taking in what he had just read. I wished I hadn’t been there when he was reading it. He leaned in to me with his back in front of me. He pulled me into an awkward hug by wrapping his arms around me from behind. I leaned my forehead on his back and felt a few tears stream down my face. I wasn’t going to react. I couldn’t react. I felt too numb. So I stupidly sat there with Ced on my laps thinking about what his next move was going to be.

After ten minutes of sitting there in commiseration, he got up and pulled me up. He took my hand and dragged me downstairs to the kitchen. I sat down on a stool next to the counter and put my head down. When I put it up again, Ced was getting something from the fridge. He finally took out a box of Hageen Daz chocolate chip ice cream and took two spoons from a cupboard. He sat down facing me and looked at me intensely. His look was too intense for me, so I looked away. He gently turned my face with his hand, so that we could look at each other in the eye again.

He looked away and then looked back at me. He sighed and murmured, “I’m sorry.”

I smiled at him and took a spoonful of ice cream. Mmmmm, it was so good! I immediately took another one. And another one. And then I froze. I noticed that Ced had been watching me the whole time. I cleared my throat out of embarrassment and slowed down the rate at which I took the spoonfuls. He laughed softly and started eating the ice cream too. Fifteen minutes later, the box was half empty.

“Someone was hungry,” he commented looking at me, “you were bloody fast.”

My face broke into a grin. I had gotten used to his thick British accent, but I still found it hot.

“Not as much as you were,” I pointed out.

“True, true,” he stifled a yawn, “I’m knackered, mate.”

“Okay, I’ll just get my stuff upstairs and leave,” I said getting up.

“Do you really want to drive home at 1 in the morning?” He asked raising an eyebrow.

He was right, how could I put up a fight with that? It was too late to drive home, but I didn’t want to stay there.

“I’ll figure something out,” I said as I got up the stairs.

He followed me upstairs and took my hand in his.

“What if I said that I don’t want you to leave?” He said it in a way that sounded more like a statement than a question. He pulled me into a tight hug and rested his head on top of mine. I was about to say something, probably protest, when we heard the front door slam.

“Cedric?” I heard a woman say out loud, “is that you honey?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, “I’m in my room mum.”

I quickly pulled out of his hug and pretended to be inspecting his library. Some of the books he had were actually good ones. I heard some footsteps coming up the stairs and his mother opened the door. I was in total shock. She was completely different from Ced. Completely different. She had dark blond hair, green eyes, and a rounder face. She was a few inches taller than Ced.

“Oh, hello. Cedric, sweetie, you didn’t tell me you had company,” she said as she looked around the room and noticed the mess, “you could’ve cleaned up your room a little.”

“Hi, my name is Emily,” I said shyly.

“What a pretty name,” she winked, “my name is Charlotte, and although it’s already obvious, I’m Cedric’s mother.”

I smiled shyly as she shook my hand.

“Mum, I was wondering if Emily could sleep here tonight. She kind of lives far away,” Ced said to his mother. I noticed he used the begging eyes with her too. So that was his technique of getting what he wanted, huh? I was going to find mine too.

“Okay, fine, but you and I will have to talk soon,” she said as left the room.

He just shrugged and turned off his Mac. He put it under the desk, again, and went to his wardrobe to fish out a shirt that I could wear as a pajama. He gave me a huge blank white shirt and showed me where the bathroom was. Once I was in there, something hit me; Ced’s mother didn’t have a British accent.

That was strange. I was going to ask him eventually.
I came out of the bathroom and found Ced laying on his bed with his eyes closed. I took one book from his book shelf and started reading the summary. I could hear Ced’s breathing, it was irregular. I put the book back on the shelf and sat down facing him.

“So, where did you buy that painting?” I asked curiously, “It’s beautiful.”

“You think?” He asked opening his eyes.

“Yeah it is. Where’d you buy it?”

“It’s from my ex,” he said looking at the painting.

This weird feeling came over me and made me sick in the stomach. I regretted asking him this question as well as the next one.

“Oh really? Were you guys close?”

“Yeah we were. I miss her a lot, she was great. She painted this when she went on vacation to Egypt with her family. She's an amazing artist,” he sighed.

“What’s her name?” I asked. I probably expected some crappy name to make up for her super duper great personality.

“Leslie,” he said, and I was wrong.

And then he took a picture out of his wallet and it was him with her. She was quite good looking, I had to admit. Her hair was long and caramel brown. I couldn’t see from far but her eyes seemed dark, probably brown. She was a few inches shorter than him and had an average body. She did have long legs, probably from playing some sort of sport.

“I remember,” he continued, “how beautiful her eyes were. They were light brown with a few hints of green in them. They always changed shade when she was happy, sad, or even angry. When she felt creative, the green part of her eyes took over and it made her look even more beautiful,” he said in a daze.

I felt like shouting ‘Shut up! Shut. Up.’, but I didn’t; because I was becoming someone else, someone nice and understanding.

“The way you talk about her sounds like you were in love or something,” I joked.

“We were,” he sighed again.

And that hurt even more.

I decided to ask no more, for my own sake. I closed my eyes and faked a yawn. I didn’t like him but he was the first guy to be so nice to me, and even be my friend, so...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

------------------------------------------
When I woke up the next morning to a cell phone ringing. It wasn’t mine, probably Ced’s. Curiosity washed over me and I looked at the screen name. It said Leslie.

I quickly put the phone down and closed my eyes when I heard foot steps coming upstairs. I pulled the covers over my head and turned the other way around, my back facing the door. I heard Ced pick up the phone and answer with such a soft voice.

“Hello?” He whispered.

I strained my ear to hear the other voice but I couldn’t. Looks like this was going to be a one sided conversation.

“Yeah, it’s been a long time,” he said softly on the phone.

I sometimes dreamed that he spoke to me with that tone of voice. I wasn’t a dreamer though; goals were more or less what I had. And making Ced like me or speak to me in that tone of voice was definitely not a goal. I hoped. ‘Stupid me!’ I thought while mentally hitting myself on the head. I was so deep into thought, that I hadn’t paid attention to the rest of the conversation, so I hadn’t heard anything important.
I decided that it was time to get up and went to the bathroom. I found some mouth wash in the bathroom, and since I didn’t have a toothbrush, I used it. I went downstairs and found Ced eating cereals.

“Morning,” he said looking up at me, “mmmm, these cereals are wicked!”

I just nodded at him and took his spoon to taste the cereals. They were alright. I sat down on exactly where I sat the night before and checked the time. It was 10.45 a.m. Crap, work.

Ced seemed to read my mind and said, “Don’t worry I called in sick for you. You won’t be sacked.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, “I should still be getting home though.”

He didn’t reply so I took it as a ‘Yeah sure, you can go. I don’t fucking care about you anymore, I got my girlfriend back.’

But my thought was wrong.

“Hey,my mum is going to England for a few days. I was wondering if I could stay at your place for a while.”

I really had to think about this. He was my friend, yes, but I liked the fact that I was alone to myself in my flat. I knew I would surely end up lonely for a while but that was alright. On the other hand though, he was my only friend. I couldn’t turn away from my only friend.

“Okay,” I said sighing.