Written In The Sand

“Ah, shit,” Sean laughed and raised the magazine in his hands, “It’s not for me.”

“Sure,” Olivia replied, raising her eyebrows as she caught sight of the front cover. An Asian girl sat on a bar stool, scantily clad and with her legs spread wide apart.

Sean smirked and flipped his head to the side. Olivia noted how this gesture barely moved his hair which had been waxed and ruffled to perfection. “Honest, it’s for a friend as a joke. I get all my porn on the internet… or from memory,” he quipped, his smirk widening and dark eyes glinting under the superficial glare of the supermarket lights.

Olivia let out a short laugh, not particularly amused but appreciating his effort. She went to walk away when Sean stopped her.

“So!” he started and Olivia stopped walking and turned back to face him, “Uhh, what you looking for?”

Olivia scanned Sean’s face. This had to be the longest she’d ever conversed with the boy and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him considering she already had a very strong opinion on him. Somehow, he didn’t look anywhere near as cocky today as he looked at her, anticipating her answer.

“Eh, ice cream,” she answered awkwardly and stuffed her fingers into her jeans pockets, jingling the change.

“Me too! I’ll chum you,” Sean replied with an odd chirp to his voice that contradicted his usual, smoke-infused, growl. With that, Olivia found herself being led to the freezers by Sean who stopped to stuff the magazine back onto a random shelf, amongst the cereal.

“You know… I heard girls like to have ice cream when they’re feeling a bit shit…” Sean began with a knowing tone in his voice as he reached into the freezer and handed Olivia her requested Cookie Dough ice cream.

Olivia threw him a condescending glare before making her way over to the till, Sean quickening his pace to keep up.

“You alright then, you know about Jack?” he asked her quietly as she handed the girl at the till a fiver in exchange for just a few coppers of change.

Olivia couldn’t help but notice that Sean wasn’t buying anything and she really wasn’t in the mood to talk about Jack to Sean Roxburgh of all people. “I split up with him,” she said bluntly.

“Aw, well that’s good,” he said brightly allowing Olivia to go through the door before him. “He must be gutted.”

Olivia stopped walking and Sean stepped in front of her, his eyes searching her face quizzically. “What makes you say that?” she asked trying to keep the strain out of her voice.

“You’re fit,” Sean replied with no hesitation, a smirk twitched at the side of his mouth. Olivia scoffed.

“You say that to all the girls don’t you?” Olivia rolled her eyes as she continued walking, Sean alongside her.

He shrugged his shoulders, “Only if I mean it… or I want a shag.”

To Olivia’s outrage she found herself blushing and Sean’s smirk widened when he saw it highlighted under the orange gauze of the streetlamps.

“My apologies, my intentions were not to make thee blush,” Sean retorted with a laughable Shakespearean accent, in such a way that told Olivia that her reaction was exactly what she’d wanted. “Do you live round here?” he asked as they turned a corner. Straight ahead of them was the small church where Jack and Olivia had played Mary and Jesus in their school Nativity play when they were ten. No matter how many times she passed it, Olivia always had to hide a grin when she thought of how furious Laura Sinclair had been when she was cast as a donkey.

“Just round Burrell Avenue,” Olivia replied hoping he’d never heard of it.

Unfortunately he had. “My gran used to live near there, I live only a few streets away so I’ll walk you.”

“You don’t have -,”

“It’s dark and it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly to let you walk by yourself,” Sean said with yet another one of his grins. She started to laugh at the irony of what he had said. “What are you laughing at,” he said, nudging her in the ribs.

“Gentlemanly?” she chuckled.

Sean squared up his broad shoulders. “So you don’t think I’m a gentleman do you?” His dark eyes shone with trouble as he looked down at her laughing frame. Olivia shook her head, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, as she turned to look at him. They were both not walking now, just smiling at each other. “I could be,” Sean said, his eyes burning into hers.

Shuffling her feet, Olivia felt uncomfortable as she dropped her gaze. “Look,” Sean said, grabbing the plastic bag containing Olivia’s ice cream from her, “that’s gentlemanly; I’m holding your bag.”

“Suppose so,” Olivia said coolly, killing the conversation. They walked along in silence for a few minutes, Sean carrying her bag and Olivia wondering how on earth she’d got herself in this situation.

“My friends having a party tomorrow night,” Sean announced. Knowing that this meant on Monday him and his friends would come into Maths boasting of their conquests, Olivia remained quiet. “You should come.”

She raised her eyebrows, “Wont your friend mind?”

“Nah, you should bring your friends, Poppy and who’s that little one?”

“Mae,” Olivia replied automatically, “I’ll need to bring Lottie too if I’m asking them though.”

Sean looked shifty just as Olivia thought he might. “Well alright,” he said after some musing. “You know I didn’t realize it was her right?”

“Still, pretty dickish thing to do,” Olivia retorted and for once Sean didn’t look as if he had much to say on the matter. Last October, Sean had found a picture of a half naked girl on his friend Carters phone and after Carter had refused to say who it was, Sean had sent the picture to every contact in the phone. Naturally the next day it seemed every person in the year and the year below had seen it and there was a big mystery over who it was in the photo. Olivia had found Lottie in tears that day and after a sob-ridden confession that it was her in the picture, Olivia and Poppy had gone out of their way to track down Carter in their free period only to find out it was Sean who’d sent it.

Olivia was surprised to see he looked rather ashamed of himself now.

“That’s my house here,” Olivia said, taking her bag from Sean.

Sean rubbed the back of his neck, “Have you got that leaflet from Maths the other day?”

“Yes why?” Olivia asked.

“Just I never got it ‘cause I was late and she didn’t have any left when I got there. Can I borrow yours?” he said. Thinking back, Olivia did remember that Sean had arrived late that day. She had taken notes from it already so she supposed she could lend it to him.

“Right sure,” she said with a sigh, letting him into their front garden. She walked ahead of him up the stairs to the front door before turning to look at him.

“I’ll wait here,” he said hastily and took a step down as Olivia got out her key and opened the door.

“Olivia!” her mother greeted her immediately when she walked in, “You’ve been a while.” She was in a pink dressing gown and as usual a book was in her hand.

“Hey mum,” Olivia answered quickly trying to shut the door behind her to obscure Sean from her mother’s view. But it was too late.

“Who is that out there? Is it Jack?” Kirsty asked leaning to the side to catch a glimpse. Olivia sighed and swung the door open and Sean awkwardly stepped into her house, giving Olivia’s mother a scared smile. Olivia leant against the wall with her arms crossed as her mother beamed at the new comer. Sean’s gaze fell over the cardboard boxes for a split second and Olivia looked down at the floor, her ears burning.

“And who is this?” she chirped whilst reaching out to shake Sean’s hand.

“Sean Roxburgh, Miss Fog,” Sean replied as he nervously shook her hand, “I’m just borrowing a Maths book from Olivia and then I’ll be gone,” he added as if his presence was a nuisance. To Olivia it was very much becoming one but from looking at her mother it was clear she was delighted to meet another one of Olivia’s school ‘friends’.

“Don’t be silly, I’m just about to make myself a cup of tea, are you thirsty, would you like one?” she asked and ushered a rather bemused looking Sean past all the boxes and towards the kitchen. With a groan, Olivia pulled off her shoes before she followed them, dragging her feet across the wooden floor.

Kirsty was nattering away to Sean when Olivia joined them. Dejectedly, she walked to the drawers and pulled out a spoon before sitting next to Sean at the counters and opening her tub of ice cream. It didn’t taste nearly as nice after all the bother it had caused.

“So how long have you known Olivia then Sean,” Kirsty was asking him as she stirred the contents of three mugs.

“Oh we were in the same History class in first year,” Sean replied casually. He didn’t seem nearly as nervous now.

“We were?” Olivia yelped with surprise. Sean turned to her looking a little hurt whilst her mother cast a disapproving look to her.

“I sat behind you for a whole year,” Sean reasoned and Olivia burned crimson again when she found she couldn’t recall this in the slightest.

“Not very observant is she?” Kirsty laughed and handed them their mugs of tea, “Well I’ll be in the living room if you need anything,” she said and left the kitchen.

“Your mums nice,” Sean said after a small silence.

“She’s alright,” Olivia slipped off the barstool, took her ice cream and tea in one hand each and made her way to the door, “Suppose we better go up and find the leaflet.”

“What are the boxes for?” Sean asked curiously as they passed them again.

“Putting stuff in,” Olivia snapped, glad that she had her back to him. Sean didn’t say another word.

As she pushed her bedroom door open with her foot, Olivia found herself watching Sean as he put down his tea on her bedside table and gazed round her room. Hoping he wouldn’t spot the teddies above her wardrobe she put her tea and ice cream down and walked over to the desk. Her mother had demanded that she tidied her room after school that day and although she was glad of this now that she had company, she still had no idea where the leaflet was.

From behind her Sean gave a short laugh. She smiled when she noticed what was in his hands. He’d found the photo that had been taken of the whole year in their second year at the high school and was sitting back on her bed looking at it.

She sat next to him and took one side of the long photo. “Nice haircut you’ve got going on there,” she said with a smirk as she spotted Sean in the fourth row, his hair gelled in an array of spikes giving him a distinct likeness to a hedgehog.

Sean nudged her with a laugh, “Hey I was a cool dude back then, even cooler now,” he added.

“Sure you are,” she smiled and giggled when Sean pretended to be upset.

“Never have I met such a horrible girl,” he said mopping an imaginary tear from his brown eyes.

“Thought I was a fit girl?” She had no idea why she had said it but she had.

“Well you’re definitely that,” he said with a laugh, all pretence of hurt feelings having disappeared. Olivia suddenly noticed how close he’d moved to her but before she was able to move away, Sean, in one fluid movement, had stood up, grabbed the largest teddy from above Olivia’s wardrobe and walloped her in the stomach with it. “Even if you still keep all your teddies.”

“Stop it,” Olivia shrieked, holding out her hands and laughing as Sean brought the teddy down on her again. She fell back on the bed and Sean knelt beside her, a grin on his face as her second demand for him to stop was muffled by the bear.

“Never,” he laughed but his mouth dropped with surprise when Olivia sat up, grabbed the teddy out of his grasp and swung it at his head. With a roar, Sean launched himself at Olivia, grabbing her round the middle and bringing them both back down onto the bed.

Olivia dug her fingers into his ribs and Sean immediately tore himself off her. “You’re tickly!” she exclaimed, delighted at the revelation that Sean Roxburgh couldn’t stand being tickled.

“Am not,” Sean huffed, crossing his arms and sitting up on the bed.

“Yes, you are,” Olivia teased, bringing her hands back towards his ribs.

“Don’t you dare!” Sean warned but Olivia didn’t listen and hysterically laughed when Sean shrieked in a very unmanly way as she tickled his ribs. However Sean soon retaliated and Olivia, much to her surprise, found herself squirming and convulsing as Sean tickled her neck, her ribs and even the soles of her feet.

It was when he had hold of her feet, that Olivia noticed Jack. Horrified, Olivia blanched at the sight of him and Sean stopped too, noticing something was wrong. He twisted his body as to look at what Olivia was looking at before slowly getting off the bed with a guilty blush creeping over his features.

Jack looked everywhere but at Sean and Olivia as he rushed to put down his blinds again but Olivia knew he’d seen them. Had seen how his face contorted with hurt and anger. She didn’t know how long he had been looking but he’d seen too much. The reality sunk in. She’d sat for months in Maths, trying to ignore Sean and his friends but now here Sean was in her bedroom and here she was flirting with him.

“Shit, fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” Sean rambled the second the blinds had been closed. “Honestly, I didn’t know he lived next to you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Olivia mumbled as she straightened out her clothes, the threat of tears stinging in her eyes. “I think you should go, it’s getting late.”

“But the leaflet?”

“I’ll bring it to school tomorrow,” she muttered as she led Sean back to the front door. Olivia opened the door and Sean stepped outside before turning back to her.

“You still like him don’t you?” he asked. Olivia tried to fight it but a tear rolled down her cheek. Sean looked aghast as she frantically wiped it away.

“He’s my best friend and I’ve lost him. And it hurts.”