I warned you. Serious cliché mush coming up – I'm sorry, it's just been Valentine's Day, things will improve, but this is actually pretty important to the storyline. *taps nose annoyingly* May update tomorrow, may resign to revision, you never know.
El x
"This bit here, see, the way she scrapes back her hair, she's constantly doing it, it's the little things like this that De Luca will pick up on" Oscar rewinds the tape and freezes it as Sofia De Luca moves her hand to push her hair out of her face. He's lying on his stomach on my bed, scanning through the interview tapes on a portable TV. The portable TV was given to me by MI9, pretty generous of them; Oscar insisted that it was necessary for me to be able study Sofia whenever I wanted in the privacy of my own room. My mum thinks I won it in a school raffle. I sit on the floor, back against the end of my bed, hugging my knees. "Oscar, seriously if I see Sofia De Luca push her hair or pout her lips one more time I'm going to scream, I need a break"
Oscar grins at me, I know he's secretly enjoying torturing me with hours of body language study, followed by either work on my Italian public school accent or quizzing me on everything there is to know about Sofia De Luca.
"Fine, fine, but after that we need to work on your accent" I don't try to conceal my groan. This has been going on for a week, I spend my whole lunch in HQ, and then either go round to the care home to work with Oscar there, or he comes round here. I've been spending so much time with him, not that I'm complaining, but I'm getting a lot of stick from my parents and sister about it. If Lily does that immature kissing her arm thing when Oscar turns his back one more time I swear I will not be to blame for my actions. I push myself up from the floor intending to go and raid the kitchen for food, but stop as Oscar calls me back.
"Mia," a pause, "are you scared?" I know what he's talking about immediately, the subject hasn't left my mind for a week. His question doesn't surprise me, I know he's beating himself up about the danger I'm going into. I consider making light of it, but decide to answer truthfully, "Yes, petrified."
He sits on my bed, looks at me, then bows his head as he murmurs, "Do you hate me, for putting you through this?"
This question takes me back; it had never crossed my mind. I don't blame Oscar for this, I'm thankful that I can do something to help him. Yes I'm petrified, so much so that I lay awake at night picturing about what would happen if I got found out. But every time I start to lose a grip, let the fear suffocate me, it's Oscar and his stupid dozy smile that pulls me back. "What, no, no of course not" is all I can reply. I walk over to my bed, sit opposite him with crossed legs, stare into his wide brown eyes and almost whisper, "I could never hate you."
He leans forward slightly so his forehead is resting against mine. My heart goes crazy, unable to decide whether to slow down at the calmness that I feel just being this close to him, or to beat faster at the fact that I'm this close to him. I close my eyes, just taking in the slight difference in temperature between his skin and mine, the slight heat of his breath on my face, the sligh-
"Mia, I need a hand unpacking the bags!" My mum calls from downstairs. I leap of the bed and hurtle out of my room. Crap! Of all the moments for my mum's stupid clichéd bad timing. Urgh now I have to go back up to my room and face the awkwardness of seeing Oscar again. Oh well, it's not like I won't have another chance to be alone with him, not at the rate my accent's improving.