A/N: This story is dedicated to my brother. Even though you're nearly finished your university degree, and I'm half way through high school, it doesn't mean we can't have the same adventures we had when we were toddlers. You're childish behaviour inspired me ;)
"…Vaughn! Vaughn! Come quick!"
Her voice rang through my bedroom, and I didn't even need to open my eyes to know that the sun had yet to make its appearance. So I ignored her and rolled onto my stomach, cocooning myself in the warm doona. Maybe, if I was really still, she'd realise the wrong in her ways and leave me to sleep.
Of course, it didn't work out that way. I could hear her struggle with the dodgy lock on my door. In my head, I pictured her crouched down level with the doorknob with a dinner knife in hand, picking at the little bent bit in the middle of the knob with a serious look of concentration, tongue sticking out and everything. I listened to the hypnotising clicking sound of the knife against metal, softly lulling me back to sleep.
It stopped. The rattling of the knob halted, and I was left in peace. For about five seconds. Her fists came down on the door, and I swore I could hear the thin wooden barrier between us start to splinter. "VAUGHN! Get-out-here-now!"
"Chels, what the hell are you doing?" Another voice came to join the racket, and the pounding on the door stopped.
"Oh… Did I wake you Mark?" She asked, her voice etched with anxiety.
I could see him rolling his eyes and that lazy smirk brighten his face as he said, "Of course not. I'm a really heavy sleeper." There was a pause. "I have to ask though, how'd you get in? You don't have a key."
"No, I don't… But on the weekend Vaughn taught me how to pick the lo—." Right, time to get up.
In three long strides I crossed the room and opened my door. The hallway light was on, and I rubbed my eyes as they tried to adjust to the sudden flood of light. Two pairs of eyes were watching me, and I gave them both a look of utter annoyance.
"Vaughn!" Chelsea pounced at me, and together we both toppled down to the floor. My body made impact with the old, worn out carpet floor and I stared up at the girl who was now straddling my chest. Her big, sapphire eyes went wide as she leaned down and squeaked: "There's a freaky alien flower growing in my garden! You have to come see it!"
A freaky… alien flower…?
"You walked four blocks in the middle of the night… to get me to see a flower?" I queried, resting my head back on the floor. "And this couldn't have waited until morning…why?"
Her delicate hands came down on my chest, pressing down with force. Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced around suspiciously. "It's an alien flower, duh… It'll be gone before the sun rises. We have to hurry."
Mark came up to the door frame, looking down at the two of us with a childish expression. "I gotta say, she's got me intrigued! Come on Vaughn, let's go."
"Fine… Can I at least get some peace to change in?" I sighed, closing my eyes half way as I saw Chelsea's hands shoot up from their position on my chest. She scrambled up to her feet, her cheeks rosy as she stuttered out a quick 'S-sorry!'
I got to my feet and kicked the door shut on them, heading over to my wardrobe. I took out one of my black shirts and pulled it over my bare chest, smirking to myself as I thought of the reaction she gave when she realised she had caught me shirtless. She was such a little girl sometimes.
I met Chelsea four years ago, when I moved into town to live with my cousin and my aunt. That was after I lost my mother, but that's beside the point. I was nineteen at the time, so I had just gotten out of school and I had no plans of going for further education. Chelsea was in my cousin Julia's grade, and I quickly discovered that the slightly crazy sixteen year old was practically apart of the family too. I don't think there was two days straight that she wasn't over for dinner. Julia said it was because Chelsea's parents were going through a messy divorce, and Mirabelle was quick to bring Chelsea into her nest for the temporary.
She annoyed me. When Julia left the room to help Mirabelle in the kitchen, Chelsea was at me in an instant. I realised that sitting in the living room was not going to stop her, so I started to make myself comfortable in the backyard. Chelsea was not afraid to make her first impression on me, one that screamed the creepy stalker girl.
I only started talking to her about a year after we first met. It took me that long to realise that she wasn't going to give up. I remember the first time I said something to her.
"Julia put you up to this, didn't she?"
"Huh? No, I just… I never see you talk to anyone. I thought you might be lonely."
"…Lonely? Why would you care?"
"Because I want to be your friend!"
I found her intoxicating smile and bright eyes to be my downfall. From that day, my friend count had increased by one. When everything settled down on Chelsea's side of the world, and as she headed full force into her final year of high school, we saw less of each other. It was when I first felt the withdrawal symptoms. I had gotten attached, and I didn't like how empty I felt without her.
But I got used to it, especially when I left home to live in a share house with Mark. I didn't know the guy, but Julia said he was nice enough, and if I really needed the space then Mark would definitely be the guy to give it to me. I got a job working in the local animal dealership, which meant that I spent a lot of my time fixing up the books and making deliveries to farms in the outer fringes of the suburbs.
Eventually, Chelsea started the lazy life of a university student, and moved out of the broken house she came from as soon as they said the word Go. I don't think it a coincidence that she picked the cheapest house in a two mile radius from my flat either. She made me feel happy when she knocked on my front door. And somewhere along the way I realised that I didn't just miss her because she was my best friend. I missed her because I had unwillingly fallen in love with her. I didn't want to admit it though. I spent half of my concentration on burying the emotions I felt when I saw her when it could have been used for things so much more important.
When I came out fully dressed, I found Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum jumping around the living room waiting for me. Even with me standing there, the hyper activeness did not die down one bit. Both Mark and Chelsea grabbed onto one of my arms and started to skip around like little kids. Well, they tried to get me to skip, in reality I was being dragged around like a sack of potatoes.
"Vaughnie! Are we gonna go alien hunting?" Chelsea said, making me scowl. I hated that name.
"Yeah Vaughnie! We'll become famous!" Mark piped up. Oh great, the nickname was spreading. Next thing you know everyone in town will be calling me that horrid name.
"Yeah, yeah." I started. "Stop skipping around like idiots and I might help you on your alien hunting endeavours."
Everything stopped. Arms slid out of mine and I felt like I finally had my personal space back. The peace kept longer than I first thought it would too. I managed to grab the keys to the house and pull on my hat without hearing a single squeaky voice. When I closed the front door and I caught a glimpse of the two jumping around on the side walk, I told them to shut it.
"Just because I'm lenient enough to let you wake me up, nobody else is. So don't go making any loud noises."
"Vaughn!" Chelsea whined as quietly as she could. "You're such a party pooper."
I glanced over at Mark, who was nodding his head vigorously in agreement. I started to wonder when these two became tight enough to be Mr and Mrs Crazy together. Maybe if I was a bit more relaxed, Chelsea might think more of me...
We all started to walk down the middle of the road in the direction of Chelsea's little cottage. It was the middle of the night, so the streets were quiet. The chance of a car turning around the corner was practically nil, especially around here. They didn't even have a night bus service for all the young adults who went into the city to party.
I looked over at my two companions, thinking off all the other young people who lived in town. I don't think any of us were particularly interested in the night club scene. Maybe that's why there was no night bus that came around here.
"I'm so excited!" Chelsea squeaked, practically jittering in anticipation. "We're gonna win the Nobel Prize. I can feel it in my bones."
And I bet she did too. The look she had in her beautiful sapphire eyes told me just how much she had riding on this. She obviously thought it was something very important, because this was the first time Chelsea had knocked down the door to my house in the middle of the night. She must have rushed over too, because her comical red bandana was missing.
Her chestnut hair shone like bronze in the moonlight, its long strands falling over her shoulders and framing her features. Her lips were glossy, and I wondered if she had put on some of Julia's new pink lip gloss before she came here. This was odd, seeing I had seen a display of distaste for makeup multiple times when Julia brought it up around Chelsea. I wasn't going to ask though, it wasn't my place to point it out.
And of course I had to get caught staring. Not by Chelsea, who was still too high on excitement to notice anything, but by Mark, who purposely shoved me in the shoulder blade. Hard. My attention snapped towards him, and he rose a brow at me, questioning my odd actions. I glared at him, and he held up his hands in mercy. Silent conversations were common between us.
Chelsea's house was the only cottage in the district. It held some sort of heritage to the original buildings in town, but nobody knew exactly why it was important, and nobody had bothered to keep it in shape. That's why Chelsea managed to get it so cheap. The roof was sinking, and tiles were missing. I remember visiting her on a rainy day, and I tripped over a bucket on my way in. She had a dozen of them at least, collecting the water that streamed through the holes in the roof. On occasion I suggested she move in with Julia, or in some instances, me and Mark. She declined politely each time, because she loved her house. And despite the obvious health risks that came with living in a house with asbestos in the walls, it suited her. And it gave her plenty of space in the garden too.
Chelsea rattled the key in the lock, but no matter what, the door wouldn't budge. She caught both of us by surprise when she rammed her knee into the mechanism just below the doorknob, before grabbing hold of it and giving it a good hard yank.
"Doesn't that make it worse?" I asked. Maybe half the damage in the house wasn't there before she bought it, like she so often insisted.
"Might do." She said, sticking the key in again. The door opened smoothly this time. "But it works."
The inside of the house was darker than the street we had just been walking down. Chelsea always had the shuttered closed on the windows. I didn't think they actually opened. But Chelsea knew her way around the place, and we each held on to each other as she dragged us through the death trap of a house and into the backyard.
"Wow. This is new." Mark commented on the dark earthy patch that took up eighty per cent of the yard. Chelsea had gone a whole extra step with her farming endeavours. "Is this why you were still up when you found the flower?"
"Maybe." She averted the question, and jumped down the steps into the yard. Odd sounds came from beneath me, and I looked down at the wooden slats that made up the back porch. Two black eyes were looking back up at me. They disappeared, and a little wet nose replaced them, sniffing at me through the wooden panels. Once again, it was gone in an instant.
"Get outta there Lou." Chelsea said, and a big fat Corgi scrambled out from underneath the porch, wagging its stubby tail at her. Louie was Chelsea's rescue dog. She found him at the pound, and fell in love with him. They'd been together ever since then.
"So what about this flower?" I had had enough of distractions, and I wanted to get this over and done with so I could go to bed.
"No need to rush." Chelsea chided.
"I thought you said it would be gone by morning. So we had to hurry?"
"Shut up."
Either way, she ducked back inside to grab a flashlight, and like little spies, we began our stealthy crawl along the grassy lanes of what was left of her yard. We were pretty good at it too, if Louie wasn't jumping up and down, nipping at my leather bound ankles all the time.
She lead us behind the big gum that was growing by the corner of the fence, and slid behind it's sturdy trunk to a little niche that was hidden away. Just when I was shuffling through the small divide between the trunk and the fence, I heard her call out. "Look at it!"
Well, it was definitely weird, I'd give it that. But it wasn't an alien flower by any means.
It had ten, long white petals that were all equally aligned. From the middle, little feathery fronds came out and covered half of the white petals beneath them. The tendrils changed colours along their length, from a maroon to white and to a dark lilac. But even so, there was still so much more to the anatomy of the flower than you would expect. The stamen of the flower looked like little propellers, and a circle of green ones framed three, rich purple ones that sprouted from the very centre.
"Oh my god." Mark gasped, just as clueless as Chelsea. "It is an alien flower! We must take it as a specimen immediately."
Just as the two were about to run off again, I pressed my arm against the tree and cut them off. "It's not an alien flower." I said, watching their elated expressions fall.
"What...?" Chelsea said, looking just as confused as Mark.
I leaned out and picked it off the vine that it grew from, and I heard the two of them cry in disapproval. I brought it close to me and smirked. They had obviously never seen anything like it before. "It's a passionfruit flower."
Chelsea didn't look too impressed by the answer, shaking her head at me. "No, it's not. How do you expect a fruit to come from that freak of nature? You're mistaken."
"I'm not. It's a passionfruit flower, the common type." I started.
"The common type?"
"Yeah. You've probably had this vine growing here without even knowing for ages. It was probably here before you even got the place."
"It's never flowered though." She said. So the vine had always been there.
"Depends if the weather is good. It might not flower if the conditions aren't right."
I heard Mark sigh dismally, and his green eyes focused on the flower. "Well that's lame. And here I was getting all excited, thinking that I was gonna get rich off this thing."
"It's a good thing I pointed out to you what it was, or else you'd be painted as the town fool." I laughed at Mark glared at me.
Chelsea went and took the flower out of my hands, and brought the flashlight to it to get a better look. Even though she had just been proven a fool for believing in aliens, she was still entranced by the strange flower she had in her hand. "It's got a really strong smell." She said, twisting it around. "You know, I wish I could wear purple like that."
"What do you mean?" Mark asked.
"I don't look good in purple." Chelsea answered quickly, pointing her pinkie finger as the lilac ends of the feathery bits. "But it's such a pretty purple."
"I'm sure you'd look fine in purple." I muttered, surprising myself.
She laughed and shook her head. "Trust me, I don't. Julia said so."
Of course Julia said so. She was the fashion aficionado after all. She was constantly on my case about all the black and brown I wore. I could hear her voice yapping at me in my head about it just now.
"Can we get inside? It's kind of cramped in here." Chelsea nodded, and was the first to get out. Mark followed, and once again I struggled to get my broad shoulders through the narrow space provided.
Neither me nor Mark could be bothered to go back home, especially when the clock read three. At first, we planned on watching a movie or something. But after some struggle with Chelsea's ratty old T.V's antennae, we realised that it wasn't going to work. The wires had been chewed through, and I shot a deadly look at Louie, who had made himself comfortable on the couch. Chelsea swore that it was the rats from the creek nearby, but that didn't really make me feel any better.
Chelsea went and stoked the fire, despite it being summertime. It was unnaturally cold in her house as well as unnaturally dark. Eventually, we all settled down on the fluffy rug that covered the living room's floor cold wood floor.
"I'm sorry I brought you guys out for nothing."
"Aw, don't worry. It was fun." Mark said, lying down and taking up the majority of the rug. Lou came up and jumped onto his stomach, and Mark couldn't help but laugh and the sickening adorability of the dog.
I crossed my legs and shrugged. "I'm up now anyway, so we might as well have checked it out."
Chelsea smiled at the two of us, happy to see that neither of us was too upset about being woken up late.
"Vaughn, does this mean I'm going to have passionfruit later in the year?" She asked. It was a good question to ask, but I wasn't really sure. I worked with animals, not plants.
"You might do. But you'd probably want to go and ask someone who knows more. But I don't think they'd grow very well in the shade of that giant gum tree you've got there." I admitted, and Chelsea nodded in acceptance.
Eventually, the chatter died down. Mark had been silent for a while, and I started to wonder if he had fallen asleep. Louie was definitely asleep, comfortably curled up on Mark's chest. The gentle rise and fall of his chest caused Louie to move with it. The room was silent, and I felt no need to ruin the peace. Chelsea was too caught up in her little discovery to speak.
The fire crackled in the fireplace, and I watched as the wood heated red. Mark was snoring softly, and he looked quite comfortable sleeping on the plush rug that covered the floor. Chelsea was sitting, cross legged on the ground just behind Mark, her eyes focused on the strange flower she twirled between her fingers. She had quickly gotten over her disappointed when I pointed out that it was not actually an alien flower, and she was silently admiring its unique beauty.
I quietly got to my hands and feet, crawling along the rug at a slow, stealthy pace to make sure that the wooden floorboards did not creak and wake up the sleeping Mark, or Louie. I sat down beside her and stretched my legs out in front of me, focusing my gaze on the flower as well.
"The purple… reminds me of your eyes." She whispered, taking her other hand and running a finger along the feathery purple bit in the middle. I glanced towards her, and her soft cheeks were glowing in the firelight. Her perfect lips were parted slightly, and her nose wrinkled when she brought the flower up to smell it's strong fragrance.
I found myself staring, caught up in her beauty. It was then I knew… I knew that I could spend forever burying it all, but I knew that if I did, it wasn't going to go away. I had to admit it to myself. I had to admit it to her. I had to admit… I was in love.
I took a deep breath and got to my feet, holding my hand out to her. She looked up, her big blue eyes staring at me with innocent curiosity. Eventually, she took my hand and I helped her up to her feet. And then I took the initiative I had been trying to take for years. I lead her out the room and down the hall, stopping only momentarily to open the front door. I dropped her hand and made my way to the front of the porch, leaning against the banister as I looked out at the pitch black street.
"Vaughn, what is it?" Chelsea asked, her voice louder now that we did not need to worry about waking Mark. She was standing a few steps behind me, I could feel it.
My head sunk, and I let out a moan as I felt my innards start to seize up on me. I never thought I could feel this nervous, especially around Chelsea. It didn't get any better as I felt her hand on my shoulder, and hearing her voice asked the same question once again. Only this time, she sounded worried. So I braced myself for a mental beating as I twisted around to face her.
"You may not look good in purple…" I started, and I felt the electrical circuits in my brain start to go haywire. What the hell was I saying?
"But I'd sure as hell like to see you in a white dress."
She looked at me with a bemused expression. For a long time, she did not register what I was getting at. I didn't even understand where that came from. She was just a friend, as if she'd understand what was going on in my unstable mind. But, all of a sudden, her eyes grew wide and I could see the moon's milky reflection in their glassy exterior.
"Vaughn…" She sounded so uncertain. I was mentally kicking myself right now. Good going, idiot.
She had dropped the flower. The gentle wind was pushing it along the wooden panels, so I bent down and picked it up again. When I stood back up I saw Chelsea walk back inside, leaving me out there without another word.
I closed my eyes, feeling my body shudder under the warm breeze. I was so stupid. Of course she wouldn't feel the same way. How could she have any feelings for me? The high school drop out with the freaky eyes and the white hair. The guy with the pale complexion who hid beneath a Stetson. There was nothing to like about it, so why had I been foolish enough to expect her to? Stupidly, I hit my fist against the wooden banister, and it shuddered under the impact.
"You're an idiot Vaughn." I said to myself, sinking down to a sitting position. Might as well sit out for the rest of the night, because there was no use going out in the dark, and I certainly wasn't needed inside.
It felt like hours passed, when I knew it was only minutes. It was only a matter of time before the true depth of my actions began to sink in. I was preparing myself for when I would get my head bitten off by Julia, because I knew that was coming…Ha, she'd be the last person I'd want to know about my blunder. She wouldn't understand.
The front door creaked open once more, and I wondered if Chelsea had gone and woken Mark so he could come and laugh at me. But when I looked up I saw a pair of fuzzy pink slippers that certainly didn't belong to my flatmate. I rose my head, drawing my eyes up her body and finally, to her blushing face.
"I… Couldn't find anything else. I don't usually wear dresses." And there she was, dressed in a satin white nightgown that barely covered enough of her thighs to stop a man from going crazy. I got to my feet, never once taking my eyes off her. The material fell across her natural curves perfectly and shimmered in the moonlight. I looked at her, at a loss for words.
She blushed, fidgeting slightly. "I never stopped to think… whether you liked me, like that." She said, glancing up at me every once and a while. "It never occurred to me. I'm sorry."
I took a step forward, and brought my hand up to tuck a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. Her sapphire eyes constantly flickered up to me, and then back. "I'm such an idiot. I should have told you earlier."
"No, it's okay." Chelsea smiled at me. "I don't think you could have done it any better way. I'm not the smartest girl in the world, especially when it comes to reading other people's emotions. You're just another example of how my own thoughts can go so stray from the truth."
"So what does that mean...for us?" I asked the dire question. What did it mean? Did it mean that we had a future, or was this Chelsea's way of telling me that she was glad I had told the truth, but still didn't feel the same way?
She closed her eyes, and I felt sick. Damn, she was going to let me off as nicely as she could. "It means... I want to give this a try."
"You...You do?" I hadn't expected that at all. She nodded her head, and her smile returned once more as she looked up at me with her beautiful eyes.
"You're as silly as me. You obviously can't read me as well as you'd like to think you can. Otherwise, you would have known how I felt." I smiled sheepishly, taking the initiative and stepping forward to close the gap between us.
I tucked the flower behind her ear and cupped her face in my hands. She looked up at me, almost expectantly. I smiled as I leaned in and whispered to her, "One day, I'll have you in a real white dress. And you'll be just as beautiful as you are today."
She brought herself up as I bent down, compromising the height difference between us. Our lips met, and I cherished the kiss that I had ached for. Her hands came up and tangled themselves in my hair, and I wrapped my arms around her waist, picking her up off the ground. She started to giggle, and I brought myself out of the kiss to look at her glowing face.
Mark was standing by the window, holding a thumbs up to me. Of course he was awake now.
I set Chelsea back down on her feet and grinned. "You taste like passionfruit."
"It's the lip gloss Julia gave me." I knew it.
A/N: Taddaaa~ I hope you enjoyed it. I loved writing it, hehehe. Oh, and if you'd like to know, my brother ran into the house after he got home from work one day and called out to me, "You have to come see the freaky alien flower!"
Don't forget to review! And I apologise for any spelling errors.