I made two cups of coffee and walked back through to the living
room where Amy was sitting on the sofa.
‘Don’t expect
these to be as good as the ones at the fair,’ I said, handing her the blue cup
which I always use for when we have visitors over.
‘Thanks,’ she
said, smiling. She blew away some of the steam before taking a sip. I sat down
beside her, setting my cup down on the table beside me waiting for it to cool
down a bit.
‘What are you
talking about,’ she said after taking a second sip, ‘this is better than the
coffee I have at home,’ she said.
‘You think so.’
‘I know so.’
‘Well, I did my
best,’ I said.
‘And it paid
off,’ Amy said going in for another sip before resting it between her hands on
her lap. This was a nice turn of events, I thought as I studied the situation
at hand. Instead of me being in Amy’s home, Amy is in my home, and even though
it is the same home, it is entirely different. The trouble was, I don’t know
what to say. We talked about ourselves on the way here, but do I continue that
conversation on or start a new one? I don’t want to sit here in silence as it
will only turn into an awkward one if neither of us choose a topic. I could be
sitting here waiting for Amy to start whilst she’s sitting there waiting for me
to start, resulting in neither of us talking for quite some time.
I decided to just
go for it and start a conversation. I looked around the living room to try and
find something interesting, but nothing came to mind. Why would she want to
talk about ornaments, or a plant? We already talked about films so would it be
bad of me to reuse the same topic or not? The weather is what everyone jumps to
when they have nothing to say and that always makes the situation so much
worse.
A lightbulb went off in my mind,
illuminating a good idea for a topic. ‘Do you have anything interesting planned
over the summer holiday?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you know, a
bit of this and a bit of that,’ she said vaguely, ‘so not much really.’ She
took another sip before continuing. ‘Well, I am going away for the weekend in
the middle of August.’
‘Sounds exciting.
Where you off to?’
‘London. My mum
and dad has signed up to do a business trip and I was asked if I would like to
tag along. Instead of hanging around their offices waiting for them to finish,
I am free to go about London by myself. Go around the shops and all that,’ she
explained. ‘This’ll be the first time I’ve ever walked around London on my own,
so that should be pretty interesting.’
‘I’ll say,’ I
said. ‘It’s not every day you get to do what you want in London.’
‘True,’ she said,
‘but I do have to be careful, though, because London is that sort of place
where you can’t help but spend your money. You walk into a place, and you feel
if you have to buy something because you have eyes staring at you wherever you
go, yet you know they aren’t actually following you. It’s creepy.
‘I know the
feeling,’ I said. ‘I walked into a technology shop once just to have a look
around to kill some time before I had to go somewhere else, and I ended up
walking out with a two-pound cable that I clearly didn’t want because I’ve
already got the exact same one at home. That was the moment when Tom told me
that I needed to do something about my nerves. I had to agree with him.
‘So what about
you,’ Amy turned the conversation around so I wasn’t bringing the mood down too
much. ‘Doing anything nice.’
‘Well, I, and my
parents don’t know how long they’ll be before they return home and so I haven’t
really made a plan as they might come home any day. I thought about making it
up as I go along. Spice things up a bit,’ I explained. That was my original
plan ever since my mum and dad left for their business trip, leaving me all alone
for, what could possibly be the entire summer. They could be home any day and
so I had planned to just wing it, see where each day takes me. Now that I have
the watch, it is actually harder to make it up as I go along because there are
so many possibilities. But if I do plan ahead, that could make things even
worse. I don’t think this is the best time to worry about that at this point.
‘Does it get
lonely? Without your parents at home, I mean,’ Amy said, snapping me out of my
train of thought. I could hear it in her voice that she was a bit worried about
asking that for she could be treading into some deep waters, but I didn’t mind
and answered anyway.
‘It was at
first,’ I said. ‘Even though I had my nana and grandad looking after me, not
having my actual mum and dad was something I struggled to get used to at first,
but as time moved on and they went away more and more, I became immune to the
loneliness and understood that they are going away for the benefit of keeping a
roof over my head, food on the table, heat and electricity pumping through the
house. There have been a couple of odd occasions where I wished for them to be
home, but I’ve always managed to get over that. Tom’s mum and dad helped me out
so much as well, so I owe them just as much as I owe my nana and grandad.’
‘How often do
they go?’
‘It varies each
year. They can go away for four short trips or two long trips. One year, they
went away for two whole months, but they stayed at home for double that amount
of time. And when I say stay at home, I mean, they do go off to work, but they
do come back at the end of the day as well. Sometimes, my mum or my dad do
decide to stay at home for a couple of days, though, which is always nice.
There has been a time, however, but the only time mind, that my mum went away
on a business trip, leaving my dad here, and then a couple of weeks later, my
dad went away and my mum stayed home.’
‘What are their
jobs, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘That is the only
question I cannot answer fully,’ I admitted. ‘I know they work some kind of
office job, but that’s all I know as they do like to keep their work and
private life as separated as possible. They said that considering they do away
for weeks at a time that it would be unfair for me to hear about their work
when they get back.’
‘Understandable,’
she nodded, taking another sip from the cup. I reached over and picked up my
cup and sipped from that. It was now the right temperature so I didn’t have to
put it back. I rested on my lap.
‘What do your
parents do?’ I asked Amy.
‘Oh, funnily
enough, they work in an office block as well, except they don’t go away that
much. And what I mean by not much is they have gone on business trips before,
but far and few between. The last being when they went on was a couple of years
ago for some health and safety course or something like that; I can’t remember
off of the top of my head.’
We diverted the
conversation off to various other topics. Amy likes to read books when she gets
the chance, but I don’t read as much as I would like to. When I do, however, I
make sure I am dedicated to finishing the book from cover to cover. We then
moved on to if we like to play many video games: Amy doesn’t play as much at
all because she just isn’t as interested in it that much. However, she does
enjoy the odd dance game now and again. I told her about how I’m currently
undefeated in racing games against Tom and how he vows to beat me every time we
sit down to race. We then noticed that we had finished both our coffee.
We lost track of the time and we
both noticed just how dark it had gotten during our talking.
‘I reckon the
fair would be closed by now,’ Amy said. She didn’t sound disappointed, which
was a sign that she enjoyed our talk.
‘I think so,
too,’ I agreed.
‘So,’ Amy said,
‘what do you want to do instead?’
‘I hadn’t thought
this far ahead, if I’m honest,’ I said. During our long talk, my confidence
grew. We were able to open up to each other. Discover so much about one another
that we felt it was unnecessary to be nervous or awkward anymore. We would just
be ourselves from here on out.
‘Me neither,’ Amy
said. I offered to take her cup through to the kitchen and laying on the
counter, as if it was put there by someone who knew what was going to happen, a
pizza menu. An idea sparked in my head and I took the menu and entered the
living room once more.
‘I know what we
can do,’ I said, holding up the menu. ‘How about ordering pizza and watching a
movie?’
‘I was in from
the word Pizza,’ she said. This day could not have gone any better. Not only
have I been talking to the person who I have liked (and have liked me back) for
four years, but am now going to sit down and have dinner with her. Awesome.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)
My book, Sector 22: Zoey, is now available on Amazon, eBay, and SkyCat Publications' website:
Amazon:
eBay:
SkyCat Publications:
Ask me anything at:
ahudsonpresents@live.co.uk
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