This will be my last chapter this evening, but I will try and update later on in the week if I get time :) Thanks for staying with me so far!
As always, you can donate through my page. You can access it though bmycharity and searching for 'jennicoutts', or you can click the link on my profile. Please donate!
All reviews are welcome :)
11th September 2006
Leo woke up in his new room, feeling apprehensive. His whole life he had only lived in two places, either at his mother's flat or his father's house. Already, although he did not want to admit it, he was missing home. Around him were piles and piles of cardboard boxes. He had unpacked just enough for him to be able to survive, such as clothes and bedding, but his laziness had overcome him later on.
He got out of bed, and stretched, yawning. Still in his pajamas, he wandered into the kitchen to find breakfast. That girl was sat there again, sipping at a mug of tea, with a bowl of shreddies covered with a small mountain of sugar in front of her.
He stopped, and they glared at each other for a few seconds. He was hungry, but he didn't want to use the kitchen whilst she was in there. She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at him, daring him to come closer and confront her.
"It's too early in the morning," he muttered, and turned and went back to his room. Once alone, he stood in the middle of the room, wandering what to do next. He crashed back onto his bed again, but he was already wide awake, and his stomach was grumbling loudly.
He cursed inwardly. He knew he shouldn't have made an enemy out of that girl straight away, and he was beginning to regret being so rude. But there was no way in heaven or on earth that he would ever apologize. Never.
He lay down, carefully listening for the sound of the kitchen door. After about ten minutes, he heard the kitchen door open, and the sound of somebody walking down the hallway. "Finally!" he muttered.
He opened his door a crack, just enough for him to be able to check that the hallway was clear. At long last, he was able to walk into the kitchen, and make himself some toast and coffee. He sat down at the table to eat his breakfast. He was just tucking into his second slice of toast when he heard the sound of somebody walking down the corridor.
In a moment of panic, he wondered if he could hide under the table, worried that that girl would be coming back. He froze as the door opened, only to see someone completely unexpected walk in.
"Oh, hello!" the strange girl said cheerfully. Her accent was Irish. Her hair was long and blonde, and she had blue eyes and pale skin. She wore her loose T-shirt and jeans in a casual, nonchalant way that screamed that she was in the 'it' crowd. The kind of cool person who usually wasn't very nice, in Leo's experience. "My name's Katie. Katie Desmond." She stuck out her hand.
"Leo Fitz," he replied awkwardly, shaking her hand.
"You look young! How old are you? I'm 23. Old, I know, but this is my second degree."
"I'm 16," he replied uncomfortably.
"Wow! So young. You must be a genius!" Leo warmed to her at that. "What course are you studying?"
"Electrical engineering," he replied a little more easily. "It's an accelerated course, so I'll be graduating in one year," he added smugly.
The girl looked impressed, Leo was pleased to notice. "I'm studying law, this time around. I also have a previous degree in forensics, but I couldn't find a job, so I travelled the world for a year and now I'm back at uni." Leo wondered how she could be so enthusiastic at nine am.
"You want to be a lawyer?" he asked, struggling for conversation topics as she started to make herself food.
"U-huh," she replied. The kitchen fell into a slightly awkward silence. Leo sat there uncomfortably, searching around in vain for topics.
Eventually, she broke the silence. "Have you met any of our other flatmates, yet?"
He shook his head. "Only you, and another girl."
"Was it Alice, or Sunny?"
"Who? No, I don't think so. Her name is Jemma, I think."
"Oh, I see. She must be the only one I haven't met yet! There's Alice, from Manchester, and Alexander, from Aberdeen, and Sunny, who's from Taiwan." As she recalled their names, she counted them off on her fingers.
"Sunny doesn't sound like a Taiwanese name," Leo pointed out.
"I think her actual name is Sun Mae Shi. I think. I was drunk when she told me, so I can't really remember. But they're all really nice!"
Leo nodded, unsure what else to say. The kitchen again fell silent, each second feeling like hours.
"Well," Katie said awkwardly, "I agreed to go to the Fresher's address with Sunny, which starts at twelve, so I should go and get ready. Would you like to come?"
Leo thought about it. "Nah," he replied eventually. "I really need to unpack; I only moved in yesterday."
"Ah, okay. See you around, then!" She waved and walked out of the kitchen.
Leo breathed a sigh of relief. He had been terrified that university would just be a repeat of high school, but surprisingly his first conversation had gone fairly well. If he excluded the conversation with that girl, which he did.
That day he pottered about the uni, familiarizing himself with his surroundings. He did not bother going to any of the events; he assumed that most of them revolved around drinking anyway. After a few hours he headed back to the flat.
That evening he cooked himself dinner, and sat down to eat in the kitchen. Technically, this was his second attempt at dinner. He had given up on his first attempt. His second attempt consisted of only a microwave meal, nothing special. He made a mental note to look up recipes online, rather than trying to experiment.
Suddenly, the kitchen opened, and that girl walked in. Leo grimaced, and she made a look of disgust in return.
"Hey, I'm eating in here!" Leo complained.
She rolled her eyes. "This is a shared flat, you know!"
"I waited until you had finished in here this morning. You can at least wait until I finish my dinner!"
"No," she replied, ripping open a ready-made meal of pasta and shoving it in the microwave. "If you don't want to be around me, you're the one who is going to have to leave."
He frowned at her irately. "You're so annoying!"
"So you keep telling me." There was an awkward silence whilst she waited for the microwave to finish cooking. She removed her food from the microwave and tipped it all onto a plate, and then sat down at the table, directly across from him. She started to eat, slowly and deliberately, her eyes daring him to give in and leave.
"Leave," he said again. He still had over half a plate of food left, and he could not bring himself to leave before he had finished, or to eat in his room, as then it would seem like she had won.
"Nope," she replied, eating her food even slower than before.
He glared at her. She met his gaze, but did not falter. He watched her eat slowly, mouthful by painful mouthful. He knew she was just doing it to irritate him. And much to his annoyance, it was working.
She was pretty, he noticed in an objective way. Even Beautiful. And clearly close to his intelligence level. He would not go as far to say intellectual equal. But her face, the longer he looked at it, infuriated him more and more with every passing minute.
He began to suspect that she was enjoying herself, exacting revenge for what he had said earlier. He could end this all now, if he apologized. But there was no way that that could happen. He decided to try and change tactics.
"So you like spending time with me, then?" he asked, trying to sound laid-back.
She snorted infuriatingly. "Dream on. I just like to eat my dinner at a table, rather than at a desk." Privately, Leo felt the same way. He found himself even more irritated; he didn't like the idea that they were similar.
"Then why do you keep staring at me?"
"No more than you've been staring at me." Her expression was carefully nonchalant, but her cheeks blushed slightly.
"I wasn't staring. I was critically examining your face."
"What were you examining my face for?" she asked, looking at her food.
"I was trying to determine exactly what it is about your face that irritates me."
Annoyance flickered across her face, but she quickly wiped it away, realizing what he was doing. "Any excuse to stare at my face, right?"
It was Leo's turn to turn red. "That's ridiculous," he exclaimed, and cursed himself for not thinking of a witty riposte. She smirked, seeing his discomfort.
Leo looked down at his plate, and realized that he had finished his food. With relief, he stood up and washed up his plate, careful to take just enough time that it wouldn't seem like he was running away.
"Bye!" the girl said, waving her fork and smirking at him as he left the kitchen.
Infuriated, he marched down the corridor to his room, his mind plotting revenge. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good with coming up with ideas that he was satisfied with. He spent the rest of the evening ruminating on revenge tactics.
At about 11pm, he decided he needed a cup of tea. In the kitchen he turned on the kettle and opened up the cupboard to grab a teabag, only to find that he had picked that girl's cupboard by mistake. He was about to close the cupboard when he noticed how similar the salt and sugar jars looked. In fact, the only difference between the two jars was the label.
He began to grin cheekily, deciding on his revenge.
The next morning, Leo was woken by a large scream, followed by a girl coughing. A few seconds later, he heard a shout. "Urgh, you're such a jerk!"
Leo smiled contently, and went back to sleep.
Thanks for staying with me so far!
As always, you can donate through my page. You can access it though bmycharity and searching for 'jennicoutts', or you can click the link on my profile. Please donate!
All reviews are welcome :)