Hey There, Delilah.

Nathan looked at the screen of his laptop in his dark dorm room, waiting for Delilah’s bright face. He missed her giggles, he missed her smiles, he missed her everything, even though the last time he had seen her was less than twenty-four hours ago. Delilah was someone he met doing one of those international pen pal things that were so popular in schools a few years ago.

They had been thick as thieves ever since. Delilah moved around a lot when she was younger, but when she was a teenager, she received early admission to an arts school in New York, and now, she was in college. Delilah now lived in the bright and sprawling place known as New York City (Marble Hill, Manhattan if you need to know) and he lived in Liverpool, England. Well, he used to, anyway.

He moved to the States a few months after his mother got a promotion at her job, and the Kipling family moved to the bustling place of Los Angeles, California. He was twelve. At that time, if he remembered correctly, Delilah lived in Seattle. They made plans to meet up some day, but that day had never been given a date, nor did they know what exactly they were going to do when they finally met up (or at least, that’s what Delilah thought).

They called each other all the time and spent evenings on Skype. Something, after all, is better than nothing, isn’t it?

To sum up Nathan’s dilemma:



She didn’t know and if she did, she did a great job at hiding it. Did Delilah like him? He didn’t know and he was desperate to know, but he was desperate to. He didn’t know if she was seeing someone (she never mentioned it but who knew?)

What Nathan did know was that he was planning a trip to see her (a surprise of course). They had a habit, a cute habit, of leaving their webcams on always, because they talked all the time. Or most of the time, anyway. The few times they didn’t talk were when they were asleep or not home. But besides that, they talked and talked, and for the most part, couldn’t run out of things to say. That was mostly due to the fact that Delilah always had something to say, and the fact that Nathan couldn’t help but listen.

Poor boy, he was smitten with a girl who felt exactly the same way (but he didn’t know and she didn’t know that he felt that way).

He looked at her dorm room, seeing all the books scattered around, clothes thrown haphazardly, and her unmade bed. He drummed his fingers against the keyboard, but smiles when she finally comes into view, wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of knee high socks. Her hair was in two messy plaits and she felt tired and he could see it, but to him, she looked adorable.

Delilah was an art major, and despite the fact that she didn’t get much encouragement from her family, Nathan supported her wholeheartedly, along with some of her friends. She had gotten a scholarship to the school she went to, and although her parents weren’t really in favor of her studying something like Liberal Arts, they couldn’t do much about it.

“Hi,” she breathed, small smile on her freckled face. There was a splash of paint on her small hands that made him smile. “How was your day?”

“It wasn’t really that interesting,” he said with a shrug, shaking his head. It really wasn’t. To him, Los Angeles had lost it’s splendor and it was just a city to him, no more, no less. He went to school during the day and worked in the afternoons as a volunteer at a children’s hospital, and somehow managed to get home in time to talk to Delilah. Which, to Delilah didn’t really matter, because there was only a few hours time difference and she ended up talking to him until late in the night every day anyway. Nathan didn’t know that time didn’t matter to Delilah, though, but she did and that’s all that really matters. “I want to hear about yours.”

“Well, today…” she began, hands animating her words as she talked about her adventure on the train to school (she always had something new to tell him about what it was like on her way to and from school every day). He watched as her face lit up when she talked about the little kids who came to her school that day to paint with them, and her nose scrunch up when she talked about the lunches. “…Nathan?” she asks quietly, getting his attention.

“Huh?”

“You look very…well, not like yourself. Are you okay?”

“It’s just been a long day,” he reasoned, shrugging.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. School’s…annoying, I guess,” he said quietly, scratching the back of his head. She rolled over and looked at him upside down, a childish innocence about her actions. He started to talk about his day, something that he rarely did. Not because it didn’t interest Delilah, but rather because he preferred to hear about her day. He was going to school to become a teacher for children with special needs and as interesting as it could be, it made him a bit sad to talk about at times.

When he was finished, Delilah looked at him with a soft smile.

“You should tell me about things like this more often. I’m going to go grab something to eat; I’ll be back later, okay?” he nodded and mumbled a good bye, watching her steady herself and walk off.

Nathan sighed and looked at the pair of tickets tacked onto his bulletin board. There was one train ticket and one plane ticket, and they were dated for two days from that moment.

He had been trying to work up the courage to tell Delilah that he loved her, that he thought that she was one of the most whimsical and endearing persons he had ever met, that all he really wanted was to be with Delilah and make her happy. But of course, he didn’t, because he was shy and she was Delilah and Delilah was, to put it simply a free spirit. He felt that if he did, he’d be tying her down.

Nathan was bound to burst one day, and that day was coming soon.

He knew that she dated around but she always spoke badly about her dates. For example, her flat mate, a girl that he saw once or twice because she poked her head into Delilah’s room on occasion, a girl named Jaime, liked setting her up with some of her friends. Delilah didn’t like them, because most of them were so very serious and macabre and she just didn’t like them. But something that Delilah knew that Nathan didn’t know was this: she was holding out for a very special boy who liked to volunteer at hospitals and thought that Los Angeles was severely overrated.

Nathan didn’t need to know because she was sure that he had a girlfriend or something anyway, and she didn’t want to be a bother. He stared at the tickets and at the suitcases on his floor for so long that Delilah had to clear her throat to get his attention.

“What? I’m sorry, I was…distracted.” He scratched his head, shrugging.

“By?” She was eating a box of take out, which was the norm for Wednesday evenings for her. “You’ve been very odd lately.”

“Nothing…I’m…I think I’m going on a trip soon.”

“Oh?” Delilah knew that Nathan loved to travel (he tended to go on holiday a whole lot) and he usually sent her something from his travels. For example, he went to Mexico for Spring Break one year and sent her one of those little painted donkey things with her name on it. So, of course, she was curious to where he was headed this time. “Where are you going?”

“It’s…a surprise.”

“What kind of surprise?” She set the take out box down, looking at Nathan.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t surprise you, now would it?”

“Lily!” Jaime called out, looking for Delilah. “Lily?” she asked, poking her head into Delilah’s room. “Oh, hi,” she laughed, waving slightly at Nathan. “Uh, Lily, a bunch of us are going out tonight, are you coming?”

“Who’s going?”

“Parker, MJ, Kent, Rachel, Kelsey and I think Scottie’s going too…”

“Um… sure?” Jaime smiled and shut the door and Delilah looked at Nathan. “I don’t want to go,” she sighed, letting her head fall onto the pillow she was holding. “Scottie’s such a creep and Parker needs to seriously get over himself,” she groaned, turning over.

“You should go,” he said, trying to keep his face from falling. “Just try to have fun.” He managed to smile and that made Delilah smile. “They’ll get the hint eventually, love, you’ll see.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to you when I get home, okay?” She smiled brightly at him, making Nathan blush and feel flustered.

“’Kay.”

He looked at his laptop long after Delilah was gone (or so he thought) with a bit of longing.

Delilah. The name simply rolled off his tongue. It was only seven letters, but hearing it made his heart beat quicker and it made blood rush to his cheeks.

“Delilah, Delilah, Delilah,” he said quietly, opening a book on his nightstand and starting to read. “Oh, Delilah.”

∇∇∇

Nathan looked at Delilah’s tired smile and messy hair, and smiled slightly to himself. She looked at him with half lidded eyes, blinking slowly.

“You can go to sleep you know,” he said quietly and she shook her head, rubbing her eyes. She was wearing her pajamas again, and looked at Nathan tiredly.

“I don’t want to,” she mumbled.

“Don’t you have class tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” she yawned.

“You’re tired, Lily,” he laughed, which made Delilah smile, which made him laugh even more. “Just go to sleep.”

“Sing to me.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Nathan sang on occasion, but he didn’t think he was the best at it and he didn’t really know why Delilah insisted on it. “Please?”

“Hey, there Delilah, what’s it like in New York City? You’re a thousand miles away but girl tonight you look so pretty, yes you do…” He fought a smile as Delilah laughed and laid her head down, looking at him sideways with a pillow hugged to her side. If only, he thought to himself, she knew that I actually meant this, that these weren’t just words to her favorite song and that she knew that all I wanted was just to hold her and kiss her and… “A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they’ve got planes and trains and cars, I’d walk to you if I had no other way…our friends would all make fun of us and we’ll just laugh along because we know that none of them have ever felt this way...oh hey there Delilah, you be good and don’t you miss me,” he sang softly, watching her fall asleep. “Night, Lily.”

“Night, Nathan.” She blew a kiss at the screen, which he thought was friendly more than anything else. Her tired hands shut the laptop and he sighed as he did the same. He lied on his back and stared at his ceiling, knowing that in a few days, he’d be in New York City. Granted, he’d probably get lost or get mugged or maybe even shanked, but he didn’t think about that. He just thought about seeing little Delilah Hemmingway.

∇∇∇

Delilah stared at the screen of her laptop on Friday afternoon, wondering where on earth Nathan was. She was determined that day to tell him, to tell him that she found him amusing in his own odd, comical, shy way, and that she liked him loads and loads. But of course, he wasn’t on.

Of course.

She drummed her fingers on the laptop, sighing. She hugged her fluffy pillow to her chest, ready to cry. She had been sitting there for almost two hours and he hadn’t shown up. She called his phone and he hadn’t answered; instead, it went straight to voicemail.

What if he was mad at her? She burrowed her face into the pillow, staring at his name on the screen.

Where was he? She had to talk to Nathan.

She just had to.

She tried calling his phone again, leaving probably the third message that day.

“Hey there, it’s Nathan and if I’m not picking up, I’m probably wrestling polar bears in the Arctic Circle. Or ignoring you or something. Leave a message and I’ll probably get back to you. Or not. I don’t know. Cheers.”

She sighed and laughed, waiting for the little beep.

“Hey, Nate, it’s Delilah, um…you’re probably busy or something so I’ll call you later I guess…? Bye.”

She hung up and stared at her screen, willing Nathan’s smiling face to pop up and make her laugh. But she got nothing.

It’s not like Nathan was having the best of days either.

First, his train breaks down and he ends up having to hitch a ride with a trucker named Bill who was kind of creepy and smelled strongly of tobacco. By the time he got to Florida, his plane had gone, so he had to exchange his flight for a later hour. It was four in the afternoon by the time he managed to get to a plane, and the plane was delayed for almost two hours due to ‘technical difficulties’, whatever that was supposed to mean. He didn’t reach JFK until seven in the evening.

The day before, he had managed to find Jaime’s number (thank you, Facebook). She was supposed to be picking him up at the airport. He called her when he was in Florida and she promised to be there. Lo and behold, when he reached JFK, he sat in the waiting lobby for almost an hour before he surmised that either Jaime had gotten lost or forgotten. Either way, he was now screwed, because he had only been to New York once, and that was when he was almost five.

He managed to get a taxi after fifteen minutes of standing in the rain. The cabbie didn’t speak English, nor did he know where Marble Hill was, so he ended up taking yet another taxi cab. This time, the cab driver wanted to charge him extra, because he was a tourist most likely, and so he bid the man goodbye. He slung his valise over his shoulder and buttoned up his coat, beginning the long trek to Marble Hill.

He ended up taking the subway for the first time, almost got mugged and somehow managed to miss his stop half a dozen times. He finally reached Marble Hill sometime after nine. An Asian woman in a corner market managed to point him in the general direction of where Delilah lived. He ended up getting lost (again) and reached it a half hour later, mostly because he was traveling in the wrong direction.

The doorman didn’t want to let him in, seeing as he looked sick, wet, and overall displeasing. Eventually, he managed to convince him to let him in. he trudged across the lobby with tired legs, fearing that he’d fall over and pass out before reaching Delilah.

He took the elevator to the third floor, and walked towards her door. He didn’t get really far, however, because Delilah came bounding out of the apartment in her usual get up of an oversized t-shirt and knee high socks. She jumped on him with giggles and laughter.

What had happened was this:

Jaime was stuck in traffic, and she had no choice but to call Delilah and tell her that Nathan was on his way to come see her. Delilah didn’t really believe her at first, but after a while, it started to make sense. His surprise trip. His nervousness.

He was coming to see her.

And so, Delilah started to get ready to go pick him up at the airport. She didn’t really have to though, because when she peeked out her window she saw him coming into the building already. He was soft and firm, and this hug was everything she thought it’d be. He held her tightly and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

She leaned in and kissed him firmly, pulling away with laughter.

“Hi,” she said between giggles. He couldn’t say anything, this was just so surreal.

“Hi,” he breathed, moving her hair out of her face.

“How’d you get here?”

“I walked,” he laughed, kissing her again.

Oh, it’s what you do to me, what you do to me.