To Share You (manxman)

Chapter 8

It's Thursday evening and we're not expecting anyone, but there's a knock on the door.

Mum and I are sitting in the living room, each minding our own business. We look at each other briefly when we hear the knock, but she doesn't seem to know who it is either.

I shrug, deciding that I will probably have to go open the door anyway.

When I do, I stand face to face with my mate. She stands there, at least a head smaller than me, and just looks up at me patiently.

'Are you gonna let me come in?' she finally says, a little smile on her lips. I just nod and move aside, closing the door after she steps in.

'Mum. Sheila's here. We'll be upstairs.' I call into the living room, not wanting to deal with mum making fun of me about how I behave around my mate.

I lead the way to my room, my mate following me as I go and I wonder what she's doing here. There's no way I'm complaining, far from it, but I just don't understand. She's never mentioned anything about wanting to come over ever, but here she is.

A few minutes later, I sit on a chair in my room, while she sits crosslegged on the bed, curiously looking around.

'You're not into memorabilia much, are you?' she jokes, still letting her eyes examine everything.

'No, not really.' I laugh, because it's true. After moving here, I decided not to keep much of my stuff if it's gonna be that hard to let go every single time. I like photographs and still have all of mine but those I would never openly display, they're just for me.

'It's a shame. I always think spontaneously remembering a specific moment when looking at something randomly standing around is really precious.' she says absentmindedly. I shrug. I can't really disagree with her, but what she says are private moments for me only. The other thing is that if I forget things, I'd like to think they weren't important enough to remember. And if I do want to remember something, that's what the photographs are for now.

I do have to admit though, the room is quite empty and boring. There's just all the necessary stuff, I don't have much else. My room has always been a place for me to go back to and relax and for me, that just comes easiest without little stuff in every corner. It would just make me miss home so much more.

'Why did you come by?' I ask, and notice too late how offensive that sounded.

'Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, just... I didn't expect you at all.' I smile sheepishly, my hand rubbing the back of my neck. It's a bad habit and most of my friends and family already know I do it when I feel uncomfortable.

'It's fine, don't worry.' she waves it off, 'I just feel like I've not spent enough time with you. You're my mate too and I want to get to know you.'

Immediately, I can feel my heart beating faster.

'We've been on dates?' I reply lamely.

She just laughs and it's such a clear sound, I find myself just mindlessly smiling at her.

'Still. Couples are friends too. So I wanna hang out.' she decidedly says. Again, I can't help but smile at her.

'Alright, mate. Any suggestions?' I ask her, one of my eyebrows raised in a challenge.

It's not like I can't just casually hang out with people, because that would be seriously weird, but I can't imagine what my mate and I would do to just casually hang out.

She seems to, though, because she just points at the PS4 I had foolishly decided to buy last year. Foolishly, because I'd had a PS3 before and never used it and spending money on a PS4 was both a complete waste and utterly unnecessary. I've yet to use it for anything other than watching movies and listening to music.