Us Against the World.

I was watching Cinderalla 3 : Back in Time on the couch and eating a bowl popcorns. As the movie ended and the credit was rolling, Quinn came in with a smile on her face. I inwardly smiled, loving the fact that she obviously had a great time with Louis. She was always upset when she went out with Rory. It only confirmed my theory that Louis was perfect for my best mate. She would really thank me sooner or later.

After she went to take her shower, I turned off the TV, took the now empty bowl and brought it into the kitchen. I washed the bowl and made my way into my room to continue with my project. I took part in an invention fair that would be held in two months from now. I wanted to further my study in an engineering school and if I could get the first place in that fair, I would be able to get a full scholarship for the school that I wanted to enrol and it’s near here so I wouldn’t have to move.

There’s no way my parents would support me for my study. They never supported me in my choice. They wanted me to be a lawyer just like my sister and my brother was now in law school, following every path they’d set up for him. Well, I was definitely not sorry that I wasn’t the perfect daughter they wanted me to be. I wasn’t sorry that I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do. But I was sorry that they couldn’t see me pass my sister and they had to expect me to be just like her.

When I got into my room, I pulled up my hair and tied it into a messy bun and got onto my desk that was cluttered with electronic components, solder kit, some opened books and my laptop that I always left on the sleep mode when I wasn’t using it. Taking my seat, I turned my laptop on and opened the Linux to get to the C compilers to start with the programming that I wanted to do. I had decided to make a smart ordering system as my project. It’s basically a program that allows a user to order food at restaurant by only pressing a button. It would be a huge help for restaurants in peak hours and didn’t have enough servers because with this smart ordering system, they wouldn’t need waiters to take orders anymore. As for right now, everything was still in the planning stage and I still hadn’t started on the programming.

I flipped through my books and started reading, trying my hands on simple programming examples in the book to familiarize myself with the coding and the programming language. About an hour later, the door to my room opened and Quinn entered with a mug of coffee, a smile on her face. She handed me the hot beverage and sat cross-legged on my bed.

“Thanks, Quinn, you’re the best!” I said gratefully, taking a sip of the coffee and placed the mug carefully on the shelf above my desk so I wouldn’t spill the content. God knows how clumsy I could be sometimes. “Thanks,” she said. I just rose my eyebrows at her. “For asking Louis to cheer me up.” I grinned widely at her words.

“You had a good time?” I knew I didn’t have to ask, the smile on her face was proof enough. But I just wanted to hear her say it.

“Yeah… he’s really fun to be with,” she answered. I wriggled my eyebrows suggestively towards her and she waved me off. “Cut it out, Mel, I really mean it.”

“What did I do?” I feigned innocence but the playful smile on my face gave it away. She rolled her eyes at me.

“How about you and Harry?” she asked. I frowned at her question.

“What about me and him?”

“You two seemed to hit it off pretty well last night.” This time, she was the one who wriggled her eyebrows at me. I laughed and shook my head, waving her off dismissively.

“He’s the same age as my little brother, Quinn,” I replied in an amused tone.

Quinn just shrugged and got up from my bed. “Don’t stay up too late, you have work early tomorrow morning,” she reminded. I nodded as she walked out, closing the door behind her. I smirked to myself and shook my head before focusing back on my laptop to run the program I had just compiled. It was a simple calculator program from the exercise on the book. Okay, let’s pray this worked so I could move to the next exercise, I thought as I click on the ‘Run Program’ button.

I didn’t realize that I had fallen asleep on my desk. When I woke up, the sunlight was already peeking through the slit of my curtains, the light falling to my face, blinding me. I opened my eyes and lifted up my head groggily, yawning wide. Sleepily, I reached for my phone to look at the clock and my eyes widened to realize that it’s already 8.15 in the morning. Oh my God! I was already late for work! Standing up, I quickly made my way towards my bathroom, throwing my clothes haphazardly onto the floor, not really caring that I made a mess. I brushed my teeth as I jumped into the shower without turning on the heater. Desperate times called for desperate measure. I couldn’t afford to be picky now. I didn’t even untie my hair from its bun from yesterday. There’s no time to wash it.

Five minutes later, when I was decently cleaned up, I turned off the cold water and stepped out. After drying myself quickly, I just took a random t-shirt from my closet and slipped on yesterday’s pair of jeans and my black Chucks. I also put on my snapback to cover the poor state of my hair. I just applied a thin layer of powder onto my face and raced out of the flat after grabbing my phone and sling bag. No matter how late I was, I couldn’t miss my morning coffee, so I took the chance and stopped by at the Starbuck. Not caring about the line of customers waiting, I went straight to the front of the queue. I ignored several voices yelling ‘hey!’ or ‘oi!’ towards me. Already seeing me, Quinn just pushed my usual order towards me and I handed her the money and without waiting for the change, I left with a wave to Quinn.

At about fifteen minutes after nine, I clocked in at work and sat on my chair, placing the plastic cup on my desk and let out a sigh. “Melanie! My room, now!” my manager, Joseph called from his office door and slammed the door shut. I rolled my eyes and let out another sigh. Sam looked over at me and gave me a sympathetic smile. I just gave him a small smile and went into my boss’ room.

“You want to see me?”

My boss was a douche. There’s no other way to describe him. He’s a sexist and he smelled like damp socks. “You’re late,” he stated, leaning in his chair, eyeing me up and down.

“I’m sorry, I promise it won’t happen again,” I said. No matter how much I hated him, I was still the one at wrong here. I was tardy and I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I was wrong. Joseph nodded. I thought that it was cue for me to leave so I turned around.

“Wait!” he called. I spun and watched him expectantly. “Next time, please dress up more nicely. You have nice arse. It won’t hurt if you show what you’ve got once in a while,” he added, winking lecherously. I gritted my teeth, willing myself to hold my fire. He’s my boss. He’s my boss and it wouldn’t do me any good if I crossed him. I reminded myself. So without saying anything, I turned on my heels and walked out of the room. However, I couldn’t help myself from slamming the door harshly that it rattled on its frame. Sam looked up from the computer he was repairing and rose an eyebrow towards me.

“Arsehole,” I mumbled, my eyes narrowing in annoyance. A look of understanding flitted across his face as he gave me another sympathetic smile. A sigh escaped my lips and I made my way towards my desk, just wanting the day to be over already. As if my morning wasn’t bad enough, not too long after that, my phone rang and when I took a glimpse at the caller ID, I groaned inwardly to see it was a call from my mum. I really didn’t want to take the call but I knew she would just keep calling.

“Hello, mum,” I answered the phone, hoping that Joseph wouldn’t come out and catch me talking on the phone during work hour.

“Hello, Mel,” she greeted in her overly cheerful voice. “Did you hear that your cousin Andy is getting married?” I rolled my eyes. Okay, here it goes again. “I heard her fiancé is very rich.”

“Yeah, mum. I heard it. You can’t stop talking about it since a month ago,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. I used my free hand to pull a customer’s laptop that needed to be reformatted and turned it on.

“The relatives have been asking me. Don’t you have a boyfriend, now?”

“Mum, you know I don’t really care about that.”

“Your closest cousin is getting married. Your sister is getting serious with her boyfriend. It’s about time you find someone to settle down with.”

“Mum, I’m only twenty-three. I don’t need to settle down just yet,” I replied before sighing and pinched the bridge of my nose in exasperation.

“Well, you’re not getting any younger, you know. When I was your age, I was already pregnant with your sister.” I shook my head. “You were doing just fine when you were with Michael. You drove him away with your tomboy-ish attitude. You need to act more like a girl, Mel. If not, you’ll never find a man. And you still think of being an engineer. Boys don’t like girls that are smarter than them. They have their ego.”

“Sorry mum, I’m working. Talk to you later, bye,” I said finally, not really caring that I was being rude to my mother as I hung up the phone. Must she bring up Michael? Of all day, must she bring up Michael today? Michael was my ex-boyfriend but that’s another story for another time. Wiping my face a few times, I began my work. I rebooted the laptop and began reformatting. I immersed myself in my work, repairing the computers, helping to serve the difficult customers that came in to buy computers and enduring more stupid remarks from Joseph. When lunch came, I let out a sigh of relief.

I was about to get up from my desk to go out for lunch when my phone rang again. I frowned when an unknown number appeared on the caller ID. “Hello,” I answered cautiously.

“Melanie?” The voice on the other line sounded familiar.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Hey! It’s Harry.”

“How did you get my number?” I didn’t mean to sound snappy but with the way my morning went, it was bound to happen. I was actually quite surprised that I hadn’t exploded just yet.

“I got it from Louis. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just fucking fine. What do you want?”

“I just thought I wanted to talk to you but I guess you’re in a bad mood. Maybe I’ll call later?”

“Sure,” I replied curtly and just hung up.

When I finally clocked out, I couldn’t wait to get home. I knew Quinn was already home because her shift ended long ago. Apparently, as I had come in late, I had to work extra hour to make up for lost time. And he let Sam out early. Fucking Joseph. He just wanted to torture me. And he knew how much it pissed me off whenever he made crude and sexist remarks. Working alone with him was hell. I was so close on chopping off his head.

“Quinn?” I called as I entered our shared flat and just stared blankly when I realized we had guests. Louis smiled widely and waved from his place next to Quinn on the couch and Harry beamed his usual bright smile as he got up from his seat and made his way towards me. “I’m sorry, lads. I’m really tired. I’m just going to head off to bed early,” I said, hating how weak my voice sounded and pulled my sling bag over my head, placing my keys inside the bowl on the small table near the door. Harry reached me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Come on, we bring pizzas,” he stated, the smile never leaving his face. I stared at him for a moment and looked at Quinn who just gave me an apologetic look then at Louis who nodded. With a sigh, I followed Harry who just dragged me towards Quinn and Louis and sat down on the floor in front of the coffee table. The younger boy sat back on his original seat.

Quinn tapped my shoulder and when I turned to face her, she gave me an ‘are you okay?’ look. I just shook my head and mouthed ‘later’. She nodded understandingly and let it drop. I took a piece of the pizza with cheese topping and nibbled on it. “It’s totally Harry’s idea. He insisted to come here with pizzas,” Louis suddenly said, pointing towards Harry accusingly. Probably he could sense the murderous aura emitting from me. He’d been my friends for so long anyway so he knew my mood well enough. As he had said on that day we met again, I hadn’t changed a bit. Harry however seemed unfazed by it.

“Well, when I called you earlier, you sounded upset so I knew you’re not in a good mood. And to have a bad mood in the morning? It’s bound to get worst. So I reckon you must be very upset by the time you got home. Therefore, I brought pizzas. What’s better way to end a bad day other than eating pizzas with two extremely handsome men?” he explained, smiling from ear to ear. Seeing his smile, his bright green eyes and his overall bright personality, I felt as if an invisible force drained out of me and I just couldn’t stay mad anymore. My shoulders lost all its tension and I relaxed a bit. But I kept my face carefully blank.

“A handsome boy is more like it,” I said without thinking. Harry laughed at that and shook his head.

“At least you admit that I’m handsome,” he replied, shrugging. My eyes widened as I heard Quinn chuckled near me and Louis laughed. A blush crept on to my face but other than that, I didn’t show any other reaction to his comment. “And for the record, I am not a boy,” he added with a wink.

I swore my heart just stopped beating for a moment there. But I also was feeling better already.