Attachment (A Benedict Cumberbatch Story)

Chapter 1

Don't you just love the sound of turning pages? Crinkly, yellowing paper in books you've had since you were just starting school and loved to sit on your daddy's lap while he read you The Hobbit or Around the World in 80 Days. Thin notebook paper decorated with the scribbles that you once called your diary.

March 2nd 2006
Dear diary,
The cat is sitting on my feet as I write, he won't stop clawing at the blankets. We had shepherd's pie for dinner tonight, and I spilt it all down my dress, the one with the purple birds on it.
Goodnight

November 24th 2010
I wish wish WISH that Christopher would just say one sentence to me. I want to collapse on the floor every time he even glances at me. Imagine what would happen if he said my name. Hopefully he'll break up with Jordine soon, I don't think she's his type. I'll make sure I'm his type and am the first person he sees when he ends it.

You know, that kind of thing.

I sat on the battered floorboards of my room, surrounded by cardboard boxes all taped up and ready for the boot of my shiny new car. The last of my books were all I had left to pack, then that was it; my whole life in this house neatly packed away. Flicking through my diary entries from when I was fourteen and the inscriptions in the old books my mum had passed on to me from her childhood, it felt like every old word I read was beckoning me to stay here. "Stay with us, don't leave them, your sister won't manage without you."

Suddenly the words seemed to be shouting at me, far too angry for my liking. I slammed the cover down over the pages and the sound echoed round the empty room.

Sighing, I stood up and clicked my back. I piled the books into the final box and taped it up, then I curled up on my bare mattress and squeezed my eyes shut. The one smile that was ever given to me by Christopher, my high school crush, was in my mind's eye, along with the blurred memory of my daddy spinning me round in the front garden in Autumn; the smell of my mum's apple pie reached my nose and I fell into a contented sleep.
**
"Honey, let's get things moved out to the car. Kath?" I stirred at my dad's soft reasurring voice. He came into the room and held a hand out to me, pulling me to my feet and into a hug. I buried my face in his shoulder, breathing in the warmth and cologne I've never forgotten.

"Ready?" he whispered, and I shakily breathed in, nodded and hoisted the first box into my arms. Dad did the same and we gradually cleared my bedroom into my new car.

Mum came out onto the drive, already dabbing at her eyes.
"Your friend isn't here yet." she commented. I shut the boot and squeezed her shoulder.
"Arch just texted that he'd be five minutes."
She sniffed and I pretended to sigh.

"Let's do the snivelling now, shall we?" I smiled and all three of us wrapped our arms round each other.
"Make good choices, eat healthy, wash properly - "
" - Karen, I think she get's it. Have fun, learn yourself something and be safe, sweetheart."

My parents each kissed my forehead and a bicycle bell made us rotate our group hug to face my new best boy-friend Archie, who was waving as he pedalled down the drive.

Putting his bike on my car rack, Archie dusted off his hands and came to shake my father's.
"Mr Jakes, sir." he said politely.

"Please, call me Anthony. Now get going, before Kath's mum starts hugging you too."

In the moment, getting in that car and pulling out of my drive seemed like the hardest thing in the world.
But university is a whole other world, and things I thought were totally ordinary were going to be a lot harder. Like getting the laundry machine to work, finding time to cook a proper meal, and concentrating in lectures when there's a perfectly gorgeous boy sitting right next to me.