Every Man I Fall For

11pm and Adrian is completely sozzled.

We’re sitting on the spare bed, and he’s struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Ade? Ade? I’m going to go home now, I have school tomorrow.”

“Wha-? Neeeeewwww don- leave meeee!”

He always takes on a whiny tone with me when he’s this passed it. With girls he’ll flirt, with guys he’ll laugh. With me he’ll become a clingy bitch.

“I have to, OK? You’ll be fine, Chris will take care of you.”

He grabs on to my arm with slightly too much force, making me wince.

“Please, Oliver”

But his voice has lost its power, and his eyes are too glazed to plead or glare. I can’t really tell which of those expressions he’s trying to pull at the moment, but if there was a prize for acting constipated, he’d be right up there in the stakes.

“No. Stay here and go to sleep, there’s a bucket here if you feel sick.”

And with that I stand in one fluid movement, brushing the hand off me, which has now lost its momentary strength. I roll him on to his side and make sure his head is just on the edge of the mattress, bucket in the appropriate place, before I wedge pillows behind his back to stop him from rolling over.

“Love you, Oli” he mutters, before his eyes flutter closed.

“Yeah, love you too Ade” I say quietly, in a toneless voice.

I shut the spare room door and make my way down the stairs and back out in to the front passage, navigating through a minefield of the drunk and passed out. The party is still very much in full swing, but I’m confident that Adrian will be undisturbed where he is. The spare room is in the corner at the back of the top level of the house; the door looks like one to a linen cupboard. I’ve left him in worse places.

Exiting the front door for the second time that night doesn’t bring the sort of sense of freedom I had hoped it might. Instead I pull my jacket closer in to myself, wrapping my arms around my body, and scowl in to the wind, feeling utterly sorry for myself and pissed off with Adrian for getting himself in to this state. I’ve really only just begun the walk home when a battered Commodore pulls up beside me, and someone gets out. I instinctively begin to walk faster, before the familiar voice stops me.

“Hey!” it’s Thom, with an ‘h’. I muster a small smile.

“Oh… hey.”

“I heard you were at that party, but I didn’t see you! Get caught up somewhere, eh?” he asks, with a wink.

I laugh a short, humourless laugh before muttering something like that under my breath. There’s a short, awkward silence.

“Well, have you got a lift?”

“No, it’s fine, I’ll just walk. It’s not that far.”

“No really, it’s no problem, we’d be happy to take you!”

It’s at this point that I realize I’ve rather rudely not even noticed the girl sitting in the driver’s seat. She looks about Adrian’s age, maybe a little older, and looks almost nothing like the boy leaning against her passenger door. Her face is flatter, her features far more Asian, with dark eyes and thick, jet black hair. Her nose is longer, though, and more pointed. I wave awkwardly through the windscreen and she smiles widely back, returning the wave.

“Um…. Ok”

Thom looks ecstatic and wrenches open the passenger door, before essentially leaping in to the car. I walk hesitantly towards the back seat, before climbing in smoothly and clipping in my seatbelt.

“Hi Oliver” the girl says almost immediately, and I’m surprised by her recognition since I’m almost certain I have never seen her before in my life.

The look must show obviously on my face because she glances at me in the rearvision mirror as she pulls away from the curb and giggles quietly.

“My name’s Charlie, I’m Thom’s sister. He hasn’t stopped talking about you all afternoon!” she says with a smirk, and Thom gasps and smacks her on the back of the head. “Hey hey watch it, don’t abuse the driver!”

I can’t help but laugh quietly at them, wondering if this is how Adrian and I act around each other. Then I think about her words.

“You’ve been talking about me?” I ask, with a playful smirk.

Thom flushes beetroot red.

“I’ve been talking about everyone, don’t flatter yourself Pretty Boy.” He mumbles, shrinking down in his seat and staring out the window.

Charlie exchanges grins with me in the rearview mirror.

“So which street, sorry?”

I give her right-left directions to my house and when we pull up out the front, my dad’s car is in the driveway. I smile at it with genuine affection.

“This is your house?” Thom seems shocked.

I look up at my house and consider it. It seems perfectly normal to me. Two stories, smallish frontage, three steps up to the front door.

“Lived here all my life. Why?”

He looks at me with interest and a hint of indecision, before finally saying

“I expected something more… grandiose”

I raise an eyebrow and I suddenly feel very defensive of my house, as if someone has just told me that my teddy bear is ugly.

“No no, I mean, I like it,” he clarifies “it’s homely. I like it a lot, actually.”

I’m not sure what I’m meant to do with his approval. Is it a good thing? Am I meant to shoot him down and pretend like I hate it? I go for the easiest option, which requires the least talking and therefore the least opportunity to make myself look like an idiot.

“Um… thanks.”
“Thomas Motley you awkward potato.” says Charlie, pulling on the handbrake.

“Shut up” says Thom, clearly embarrassed.

I slowly unbuckle my seatbelt and wonder where I’ve gone wrong this time, before I realize that if I used the wrong tone of voice, what I said would have come out wrong. I’ve done it again.

“Well thanks for the lift” I say, as I open my door. “It was…. illuminating”

As I climb out, I hear Thom say what the hell is that supposed to mean in a mildly mortified voice. Charlie just smiles sagely at the road ahead.