Zoom Into Me

I made my way through the room trying to not make a sound, careful not to wake Fio up. I had stayed with Bill at the hospital for the remaining afternoon and then my father was let out, so we all went out for some pizza. It had been a little uncomfortable at the beginning with the previous incident between my dad and Bill but after apologies were said they seemed to get along well. My dad threw some expected questions his way, like what he did with his life, and obviously a few respecting his unusual looks. My mom kept throwing me these looks and smiling at me through it all, it was really hard to understand what was going through her brain. She also smiled at Bill and did ask him a lot of questions too, but none like the ones my dad did. She was the most understanding out of my parents, and seemed very curious as to how we met and what things he was interested in and what not. After finishing our dinner we parted ways, both my parents hugged me and said goodbye to Bill, and on the car ride to my apartment we had a really deep and mean-full conversation, something that I hadn’t been able to have with anyone in a long time.

I was being successful not making a sound until I tripped on what seemed to be one of Fio’s high heels. I should have expected something like this, she tends to leave everything scattered around and it’s always me who has to clean and organize the house every Saturday. It was one of my now routines, even then I despite routines, but someone had to clean this place, and what better day to do it?

I had clearly woken her up, but she was not how I expected to find her. She had now turned facing me, and turning her back on the wall, I couldn’t see much cause the lights were out but, the moonlight coming from the almost see through curtain allowed me to see just enough. Her eyes were dark, but I could see run downed mascara trailing from her eyes, and she seemed to be in pain, or at least that’s what her face expressed.

I quickly got up from the blue rugged floor and made my way to her bed, sitting on the edge of it, getting a closer look at her messed up face.

“What happened?” I asked in almost a whisper, but I knew she heard me.

The room was so quite be could hear each other’s breathing, and maybe even some heartbeats.

“H-he..”

She couldn’t even tell me, her tears got the best of her and she sniffled trying to tell me what had gone wrong. It was then when it clicked. He, as in Tom, I’m pretty sure. We had left those two at the restaurant this noon and I had sworn I saw her crying when we passed them out on the way to Bill’s car.

“What did he do?” I asked, clenching onto the sheets beside her. I couldn’t even stand the idea of someone hurting her. Not again.

“He-he said that he was leaving…that I was just another girl, that he’d get someone better then me on their next stop…” she broke crying again and I didn’t try to stop her. She needed to let it all out. I would be devastated, I’d feel like shit too if that had happened to me.

I stood up, pulling my cell phone out of jacket and pressed enter on one of the numbers that I had saved on my recent calls list. It rang at least three times before a sleepy voice spoke.

“Hallo?”

I had to admit that when I had dialed the number, thinking it was Tom’s, I was ready to scream at him a quite lot of profanities and demand an logical explanation. But it wasn’t Tom who had answered. And I knew better then to take it out on someone who had been anything but nice to us.

“Hallo?” he spoke once again, sighting, probably thinking this was a prank call or something.

“Bill, hi. It’s..”

“Lucy! Hi!” he seamed much more awake now.

“Um, I’m sorry if I woke you up. I actually wanted to talk to Tom…is he there?”

A seconds of silence passed before he reacted.

“Oh, ja. Just wait a second… Tom, beweg deinen Arsch hier jetzt!!”

I heard him scream something in an unfamiliar language in the background, the only thing I could guess is that it was directed to his brother. Some more words that I couldn’t understand where heard in the background before Tom spoke coolly on the other side of the line.

“Hello?”

“Tom, hi. It’s..”

“Lucy, yeah I know. I should have known, by the way my brother was smiling like an idiot.” he said in a matter of fact tone.

For some odd reason, his comment made my blush, gladly that he wasn’t able to notice that I continued demanding him to explain to me what had happened previously this afternoon.

“I’m sorry if I made her feel that way, I’m just not looking for….the type of relationship she is. That’s just not me.” I could hear the smile in his proudly voice.

Manwhore much?

“I see. Well, thanks for your err..time. I’ll let you get back to what ever it was you were doing.”

He said goodbye and I could hear those unknown words again, as they seemed to be passing the phone around.

“Hello again!” Bill voice seemed to indicate he was feeling rather hyper.

I was still curious as to how he could have such sudden mood changes. And energy, at this hour of the night.

“Umm, hi.”

Yes I admit I am rather awkward in person, but it only seems to get worst through the phone. And I just don’t know why, I mean it’s supposed to be the other way around, right? It should be easier to talk to someone on the phone, where they can’t see you, but it’s not. For me, at least.

“What are you doing???” he asked curiously.

I just managed to look around the dark room I was standing in. I noticed Fio had drifted back to sleep, hugging a pillow and sniffling every once in a while.

“Well, to be honest, I’m just standing in the middle of a dark room.”

After those words left my mouth I wanted to punch myself. I couldn’t come off as more of a freak, could I?

“Ohh. That’s…interesting. I mean, I do it myself, sometimes .”

“You do?”

We kept talking for what seemed like hours, after the first five minutes I gave up on standing and headed downstairs to lay on the couch, as we continue to share weird habits we had. When my eyes started to get heavy, I waited for him to finish his story about his failed attempt at ice skating, instead of interrupting him.

“I don’t want to sound rude or anything, but I’m pretty tired.”

“Oh, yes me too. We can…talk tomorrow?”

I thought about it. Well, I did have his number and I didn’t see anything wrong with it at all. It was nice to have someone to talk to, someone different. I agreed to call him at some moment tomorrow and we said our goodbyes, and goodnights.

I didn’t even bother getting up from the couch, I just shifted around till I found a comfortable enough position and quickly fell asleep.