To all my readers, I forgot to add this in last chapter so I'll put it here. There is one person you should be thanking (if you're still reading) for these last two chapters: Tash - tsh. I'm sorry, mostly because I'm a horrible Updater, and now because I forgot to mention you but. Yeah, thanks for bullying me into writing. *wipes tears* without you... there would be no chapter 8 *cries* but anyway. Love you all. READ ONWARD!
Well if that isn't incredibly depressing I don't know what is. Thankyou Rob Thomas, for affecting my mood so greatly and making me feel like an emotionally unstable person. For the third time in my life, great, I'm talking to myself again, let's try humming shall we? No, we shan't. We shall sit in our car and wait until we stop talking in plural and talking to ourself before we drive, to decrease the likely-hood of an accident on the way home.
I found myself lying, yet again, in the one place there was no other noise, the attic. Why I hadn't been up here I couldn't remember, let alone the last time I had. I looked around the dusty little room, perplexed, why in the world did I come here in the first place? The silence around me was answer enough. But since I had had Caleb, I hadn't needed the silence. And god do I sound like a lovesick, ranting, teenager or what? Why is it, in these situations I always feel the need to hit my head either on something, or with something? I mulled over the question for a little while before deciding to get up. I had a shift at the restaurant in around half an hour anyway. Walking down the creaky, home-hardware ladder my mother had made someone install, I pulled out an earbud. Purely for the purpose of making sure there was no one in the house who was going to kill me. As far as I could tell, right now, there was no such person.
But that was just now, shut up brain. Jesus Christ I've actually gone mental.
Ignoring my internal ramblings, I pulled out the restaurant attire, surprisingly comforted by the itchy, ugly blue-black polyester polo-shirt my stupid employers made me wear. It was stupid, yes, no question about that, but I found an odd sort of relief, to know what I was doing today.
It was a week or so since Caleb had left for Harvard and I found myself either: working, sleeping, taking stupid photographs, drawing or looking at the ceiling. And to be honest, it was getting just a tad boring. Suddenly, an idea came to mind, one that I almost missed work for. I still had my inheritance, and I'd always said I was going to buy a motorbike… why not? I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to relax myself, but the prospect of owning a bike was almost too much to handle.
I wanted one.
I shook my head, work. Work equals money, and money equals not living of relatives and friends for the rest of my life. I scooped the keys to the Nissan off the front table and locked the door behind me as I left. I sighed loudly, in the most irritating fashion I could muster.
Work was boring. Beyond bad cowboy / Sci-Fi movie boring; I had a sudden urge to apply to Columbia again and see what happened. But then again, I liked being a lazy ass. Jumping into the car, I turned on the radio and pulled out of the driveway reluctantly. I really didn't want to leave solidarity. With one last, longing look at the house, I continued on my way to the restaurant.
Upon arrival at the Shithouse du jour of restaurants in Ipswich, I was all but swamped by Olive and Hannah. They pressed their faces up against the windows and stared at me creepily, I made a face and pushed the door open, much to Hannah's annoyance.
"Hey!" Olive cried, Hannah still mock pouting over losing her spot squashed against the window, "Where've you been? It's been insufferable without you!" she moped dramatically, leaning against the car,
"I was away… on… leave?" it sounded suspicious even to me,
"Leave?" Hannah inclined her head to the side, "Isn't that what old people and pregnant women get?" Olive gasped,
"Pregnant?" she squealed, horrified, "You're pregnant?" This earned us a number of confused and irritated glances from the staff on break. I went red,
"No! Are you mental!" I hissed and a wide grin spread onto her face,
"Good, because… if you were pregnant… that'd just be…" Olive made an extremely unattractive face,
"Weird." Hannah finished for her, grimacing at the thought,
"Gross is more like it." I muttered, feeling sick, "Anyway! Please tell me you have this shift!" I pleaded and Hannah nodded, Olive pouting,
"God I'm a loner, I have to go to my little sister's best friends cousins batmitzvah." She frowned, I raised an eyebrow, "We're close!" was her excuse as Hannah and I exchanged confused glances,
"Right… so… where's Dan?" I asked, knowing he'd most likely appear behind me once I even mentioned his name, but he didn't. Olive frowned, looking sad,
"He quit." Hannah said with the same amount of sadness as Olive, I frowned,
"Why?"
"His parents said he needed a real job." She rolled her eyes and I shook my head,
"That sucks," I mumbled,
"Tell me about it," Olive pouted and I felt a smirk creeping onto my face,
"Olive… were you and Dan… in any way involved? While I was away?" I asked and she blushed bright red, Hannah burst out laughing,
"No!" Hannah giggled, "She wishes,"
"Shut up," Olive was getting redder by the second, I for one, was enjoying my friends discomfort.
"Aw, don't worry Ollie-kins, we're just…" Hannah trailed off, looking for the proper word, then waving it away when she couldn't find one.
"Right," I drawled and clicked the lock button on my car, "We should be getting inside." I realised and Hannah nodded, Olive grinned,
"Suckers, I'm going home. See you," she waved and walked over to her car, in my opinion, it was a little weird to be driving a beat-up, sky blue VW bug with a soft top convertible roof around somewhere like Ipswich. But that was Olive,
"Lucky bugger, I've been here all day." Hannah frowned, "Eh, let's go." we squeezed through the narrow path between the smokers and made our way through the employee section towards the kitchen, where the ever delightful Fiona was waiting, solemn and looking a bit depressed by the fact Anna wasn't with her. But not enough to notice us and start up, I could see her face brighten a little at the sight of us and she crossed her arms over her chest, eyes flashing in amusement as she looked me up and down,
"Wow, now I know why you stayed away for ages… gotten a bit tubby there haven't you." She smarted and I resisted the urge to slap that stupid ugly, fat ass smile off her face and punch her in her obtuse nose.
"Just trying to fit in…" I gave her a pointed look and Hannah snorted, Fiona frowned,
"Funny! Is that all you do? Make stupid jokes and forget to put on makeup?" she asked, a smirk appearing on her repulsive mug,
"Pretty much… so how's the disfigured Barbie look working for you?" I asked, gesturing to her face, it looked like she had literally smeared the entire bottle of extremely too dark foundation over her face. Completing the style with too much eyeliner, dark red lipstick and almost fluorescent orange legs, it was funny, in a way. Torture in another, then, to my utter surprise, Fiona smiled genuinely.
"Did you just call me Barbie?" she asked and I wasn't sure what to do, "Was that a compliment?" she was getting really excited, at one point, the idiot even started jumping, "I knew it. I so do don't I?" I wasn't sure whether this girl was joking or not… but she had foundation in her fringe.
"Um… okay," Tilly was my saviour, she came strutting through the kitchen doors with a murderous look on her face, maybe not my saviour. She marched straight past us towards the employee car park. Fiona ignored her, focusing purely on her nails, looking frustrated and confused,
"Do you think it's possible to breathe somewhere other than your nose or mouth?" she asked, looking at her hands, "Like… your fingers!" she asked either herself or us… neither Hannah, nor I were going to reply. "Let's try!" she covered her mouth and nose with one hand, squeezed her eyes shut and held the other one palm up in the air. I stared in amazement, this girl was unbelievable. I didn't think anyone could ever get that… stupid. I looked at Hannah and saw her as confused by the whole thing as I was.
Neither of us knew whether she was joking or not, I just knew she was deranged. I had a feeling the rest of the shift wasn't going to be much better than this in terms of intellect for Fiona, and decided to leave it. Settling for streamlining it to the bench and sweeping up a dish as the bell rang for service. Chuckling to myself in wonder as I walked towards table seven, maybe Fiona would be my source of amusement from now on. God knew what else she would come up with.
I was inspired, what can I say? Holidays should be good for this story. Once again, you won't believe how sorry I am for being so late with these chapters and I'll try to make it up to all of you eventually. But in the meantime, I hope... that maybe, just because I tried really hard with the last two chapters... that you'll give me a review?
In other words, if you click that little blue or purple button down there... I will love you. But even if you decide not to... that's fine. PLEASE! REVIEW?
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