Us Against The World

The only positive thing to come out of the entire ordeal was for Stephen to buy a less disgusting cereal, as a treat. It was, I supposed, better than nothing. Besides, cocoa puffs were far nicer than rabbit food any day. Mozart seemed to think so too, for he sat on the chair opposite the kitchen table to me, watching every mouthful I took with large, unblinking amber eyes. I would have been perfectly happy to let him eat the rest of my bowl, if it wouldn't have harmed him that was. It was only out of the knowledge that I had to eat that I was doing so.
It had been a week since Cyrus and I had had our talk in the sitting room. Time had never seemed to pass so slowly, yet in a blur, before. It had been a week of rest, I was told school didn't matter, but a week of pure emptiness. Just as Cy had said, I could no longer feel much - I was numb to emotion. It was strange, so strange, to no longer have the ability to smile, to cry, to laugh; express any emotion at all. But perhaps that was best.

After what seemed a moment's thought, Mozart jumped up on the table and stuck his face in my cup, beginning to drink the tea out of it. Up until he had worked his way into our lives, I never thought a cat would drink tea. Seemingly, I was wrong; he absolutely loved it. He only stopped five minutes later, at the sound of two pairs of footsteps coming down the annex stairs. Voices accompanied them. "I'm simply saying that you should consider telling her - it'll only be worse if you leave it longer."

"It's Mel, not me, you know that. She's just worried that something will go - oh, hello." Stephen stopped short as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Cyrus behind him. " I didn't know you'd be up this early."

"Mm, well, I don't want to miss the bus." I replied, as Cyrus shuffled his feet, looking at the floor.

"You're going in today?" Cyrus asked, glancing up, surprised, as he picked Mozart up and placed him on the floor. He was forever telling me that it was unhygienic to have cats on the table.

"Yes," I replied, as he sat down opposite me, Mozart immediately jumping up into his lap. "Staying here is hardly achieving much. I've had too much time off lately, after the chicken-pox."

"Are you sure?" I simply nodded as he forcefully swallowed, his gaze coming to rest on the wall to the left of my head. "Right. Well, if you want, I can give you lift there... To save going on the bus, you see."

"Alright... Thank you. What time are you leaving?"

"Quarter to eight." I nodded once more, as Stephen sat down too, placing his bowl of rabbit food in front of him. Seeing Cyrus glance at the still nearly-full mug of tea, I pushed it towards him and stood up, intending to go and get dressed. He took it with a lop-sided smile which didn't quite meet his eyes. It was only when I was almost out of the doorway that he took a sip, grimacing before running a finger across his teeth and pulling something out. "It this a cat hair?"

It almost made me smile.

Forty minutes later, the two of us were sitting in an awkward silence in his car, stuck in traffic at some gas works only a few roads away from school. His car was absolutely pristine - something which I would have found hysterically funny before everything changed. Cyrus was probably the only straight, allegedly anyway, man whose car didn't have a single crumb inside of it. He had stayed quiet the entire journey - not saying a single word. Even with nothing to do except sit there until the traffic began to move, he felt no need to make conversation. I appreciated that in one respect, but I also no longer wanted to seem alone. He was the only person who I felt comfortable around any more, for no reason that I fully understood. However, the same couldn't be said for him; he fidgeted around in his seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and anxiously watched people walk by on the pavement outside. It was strange for him to not be calm.

As the corner of his eye began to twitch, I couldn't stay silent for any longer. "Cy?"

"Yeah?" His response was instant - jumpy almost, as he turned to look at me for the first time that journey.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," his gripped the wheel with both hands then, his knuckles popping white in his clenched fists. "Are you?"

"Yes," he gave a short nod turning to look out the windscreen once more.

"... Cy?"

"Yeah?" He didn't even bother to look this time.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You may, but I do not guarantee that I will answer it truthfully, if at all."

"Do... Do you believe in God?"

His eyes flickered across to my reflection in the screen, opening then closing his mouth, nervously biting down upon his lower lip. He took a long time in replying. "No. I was raised as a strict catholic – and I believed in it all up until the point of… The fire. As I lay there, bleeding, barely conscious and watching the flames slowly creep closer, I did the only thing I could think of doing – I prayed. I prayed to Him and asked him to just let me die, to not have had to endure the years of torturous pain I went through after. But that request was never given to me. After that, I couldn't possibly see how there was a God, an empathetic one at that. A devil, maybe, but not a God."

"So you believe in the devil?"

"More so – it lives inside every one of us. Every person has the capacity to be evil – it all just comes down to choice whether we are or not... Why do you ask?"

It was my turn then to gaze out of my side window, watching a fine drizzle of raindrops batter themselves against it. "I'm finding it difficult at the moment to believe there's nothing bigger then us out there."

He slowly nodded, raising a hand to his head and running it along the side of it back and forth a few times. "Well, perhaps it better to believe in that and a purpose rather than nothing."

"Yeah... Maybe."

Not soon after, the traffic cleared past the works and we arrived at school with no more talk. The place was deserted of pupils - I'd never been in so early before. There were only a few cars in the staff car park, with a man climbing out of a red car the far end as Cyrus parked.

The man, it turned out, was my head of year, Mr Burke, who strolled over as Cyrus climbed out, speaking to him. "Morning, Quince. Just wondering if you had any news on -" He stopped short as he noticed me exiting from the car, as well. "Hello, Eva."

"Hello, Sir."

He gave me a weak, bland sort of smile, awkwardly taking a deep breath and nodding "I'm glad to see you back," and with a final glance toward Cyrus, with a murmur of "Speak to you in the common room?", he turned and stiffly walked across the tarmac to the main school entrance.

Cyrus avoided my gaze as he opened the boot and pulled out his briefcase, passing me my rucksack. It was only as he locked the car that I realised what the look had meant. "They know, don't they?"

He met my gaze for the first time that day as he nodded. "Just the staff - for consideration reasons."

I slowly exhaled. "Today's going to be a joy."

He slowly reached out and gave my upper arm a soft, gentle squeeze of reassurance. "It'll be okay."

"You promise?"

A wry smile spread across his mouth as he turned began to walk across the lot. "I can't promise things that I can't guarantee."

And that was the start of day one.