Seven


Past.

"What is the difference between Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia?" Duncan asked Courtney. It was a Sunday afternoon and they had been studying in her room for over two hours. She had a psychology test coming up and since they had spent so much time together not studying, something she wasn't used to in the slightest, she felt incredibly far behind.

"Broca's is when the words have meaning but they can't string together a proper sentence," Courtney answered confidently. "And Wernicke's is when the sentence flows but the words don't mean anything."

Duncan nodded. "Awesome. Can we take a break now? We've been working for ages and the heat is killing me. Don't you have an air conditioner?" he whined.

Courtney rolled her eyes. "We do but there isn't one in my room," she replied. "I have a fan." She switched on a small pink fan next to her bed, but all it seemed to do was blow the hot air around instead of actually make the room cold.

"Wait, so your parents expect you to study in this heat every day? Have you asked them for an air conditioner at all?"

"Yeah but they never listen," Courtney responded. "It doesn't really matter. I'm used to it now."

Duncan didn't reply, he just felt kind of bad for Courtney that she had nowhere near the kind of freedom that he did. It's not like her parents couldn't afford to give her the things she wanted, they were incredibly well off, it just seemed like they thought their needs were greater than hers.

"Do you want a drink of something?" Courtney asked after a moment of silence. Duncan nodded and Courtney hurried downstairs to get refreshments. While she was gone, Duncan took the opportunity to look around Courtney's room.

The walls were a light purple that matched her butterfly bedspread, which clearly meant she hadn't been allowed to change the aesthetic since she was about twelve. The walls were covered in study notes from all of her classes and there was a desk with numerous binders neatly stacked and sticky noted. In the corner of the room, Courtney's violin was in it's case leaning against the wall.

Duncan picked it up and removed it from its case gently, just as Courtney walked in with two glasses of chilled lemonade and some cheese and crackers.

"Do you get to practise much?" Duncan asked, carefully putting the violin on Courtney's bed and taking a glass of lemonade from her hand.

"Not really," Courtney said in disappointment. "I still have my weekly lesson and I get to play a bit during lunch at school, but my parents hardly let me play at home. I really wanted to join the school orchestra but I'm not allowed to do extra curricular activities that my parents don't approve of."

Duncan furrowed his brow, feeling worse and worse about all of the rules Courtney had to follow. "Okay... So what extra activities are you allowed to do?"

"Debate club, newspaper club, study club plus I get extra legal studies tutoring twice a week," Courtney told him, counting them on her fingers. "I honestly think I could handle doing orchestra as well but apparently it will only encourage me to want to be a professional violinist and that's insanely hard to get into and doesn't pay very well anyway. It's better I just stick with the safe option of law because it's always going to be a stable career."

"It sounds like you're reciting something," Duncan noted. "Is that what your parents told you? Do you really want to be a lawyer?"

"I hadn't really thought about it before," Courtney sighed, sitting on her bed. She picked up her violin and stared at it in admiration. "It's just what my parents always engrained into me. I don't know. I enjoy the violin, but they're probably right. It can't take me anywhere."

"They don't know that." It was frustrating for Duncan to sit there, trying to convince Courtney that what her parents had planned out for her wasn't what she really wanted. He could tell just from the way she looked at her violin that she would much rather pursue that than law, but she was stubborn and set in her ways. There was no changing her mind, not with an argument.

"Well anyway it's not like it matters. My parents wouldn't let me do orchestra and I doubt they're going to change their minds anytime soon," Courtney said, putting her violin away. Duncan nodded in understanding.

"I understand," he told her, and he did, as much as he wished it wasn't the case. "Hey your next door neighbour has a pool don't they?"

"Yeah, why?" Courtney asked cautiously. Duncan just smiled and ran out of her room, gesturing for her to follow. She chased him down the stairs and out the back door and caught up with him when he was climbing the fence into the neighbour's yard.

"Come on!" Duncan encouraged her. She folded her arms and looked at him, unimpressed.

"Really?" she asked sceptically. "This is your big plan for keeping cool? You're going to get into trouble you know."

Duncan just waited for her impatiently, already on the other side of the fence. Courtney sighed and rolled her eyes but joined him in the neighbours yard nonetheless.

"Are you ready?" he asked excitedly. Courtney just raised her eyebrows in response. Duncan grabbed her hand and jumped into the pool, taking her with him. Even though she'd been so reluctant to do it, Courtney was smiling when they both came up for air.

"Okay, this is actually kind of refreshing," she admitted. To Duncan's surprise she didn't even complain about the fact that he'd pulled her in when she was completely clothed, but that just showed how much she was already learning to unwind since they had been together.

"I told you it'd be fun," Duncan laughed, splashing her slightly. Courtney returned the favour with a much bigger splash and quickly swam away, but Duncan was too fast for her and water came crashing over her head. He was half expecting her to glare at him and declare that the game was over and it was time to continue studying, but instead she just burst out laughing. She grabbed his arm and pulled him close to her, so there was no distance between their bodies.

Courtney kissed him softly on the mouth, her lips lingering on his longer than was really necessary. As she slowly pulled away, they looked into each other's eyes, not in an awkward way but as if they were really seeing each other for the first time. After a moment, Duncan pulled Courtney's mouth back to his and kissed her far more passionately, running his hands down her back as she pushed hers up his chest.

They were interrupted, however, when a loud voice started to yell at them. "What the hell are you two kids doing in my swimming pool?" Courtney's neighbour, an elderly man who really had no use for a pool, demanded of them. Both of them made the immediate decision to get out of there as fast as possible, scrambling out of the pool and running through the man's front yard, back to Courtney's house.

They were both laughing hysterically on Courtney's doorstep, but the laughter was short-lived as Courtney's mother pulled up in the driveway.

"Uh oh," Courtney muttered. Duncan squeezed her hand comfortingly, Courtney's mother approaching them with pursed lips.

"Courtney," she said sternly. "Who is your... friend?" Duncan could hear the disgust in her voice.

"This is Duncan," Courtney introduced. "Duncan, this is my mother Nadine."

"Don't worry, ma'am. I was just leaving," Duncan assured Nadine. Nadine nodded sharply.

"Of course. But you will address me as Ms Ashley," Nadine requested. No, demanded. Apparently she hadn't taken her husband's name. "We must have you over for dinner sometime, Duncan. We love entertaining and it's always lovely when Courtney makes new friends."

It was clear Nadine was just trying to come off as polite. Anyone could see that she didn't like Duncan in the least, and she'd barely spoken to him.

Duncan managed a thin smile at Nadine and mumbled a quick "See you tomorrow," to Courtney before heading off, his shoulders slumped over, obviously not impressed with where the afternoon had ended.

As soon as Nadine was sure Duncan was out of earshot, she turned on her daughter. "Courtney. We need to talk."