Little bird

Chapter 11 - Stress

You could soon feel that winter was coming. After a long and tough semester of trying to keep up with schoolwork there were only the last few tests left and the teachers had really been that stupid as to push all of the remaining tests into one week. One week! Basically every students on the school looked like zombies at the end of those few days. Luckily, having such a hard week meant that some teachers felt bad, so we got an extra free day on the friday that week.

Erik had already had plans for this friday for a few weeks back and Jeremy and his other friends had gotten a bit tired of him spending less time with them, so he went off with them friday afternoon. Since I had known that he was going away I had also made plans and that is how I ended up sitting in Mica's living room friday night.

"Pizza or chinese?" Mica stood in the doorway to the room with her phone in one hand and multiple food menus in the other one.

"What about burgers?" I asked while itching her cat under the chin. The cat was an old scrawny thing, but one of the cats that could be close to me without freaking out, since I gave away a scent similar to a dog's.

She gave me a weird look and then dialed a number on her phone and put it up to her ear.

"Hello, yes, I would like to order pizza..." Her voice trailed of as she went to the kitchen.

The pizzas were good, even though I had no choice in the matter of the food. There was some lousy comedy on the tv that we watched for a bit, but is soon got boring, so Mica went and got her sister's game control and plugged it into the tv. I had played Mario together with Jeremy on out shared control when we were younger, so I wouldn't say that I was the worst at such games. Although, it proved that Mica had in fact played a lot more with her sister and was evidently better that me.

"Are you done with that paper? The english one?" Mica asked when she dropped her control in her lap after winning again.

"Um.. Yes, I finished it monday. I decided to write about the evolution of the language instead of my original idea. What about you?"

"I don't know, I started it with a good idea, but then it got boring and then i got some feedback and it proved that apparently my subject sucked, so now I have to change it and do it all over. It isn't too bad though, I think that I'm going to spend a few extra hours in after school time."

'After school time' was something that the teachers of the school had come up with where the students could stay for a few hours and get extra help with their homework or any other kind of schoolwork. It was usually pretty nice to be there, or at least I thought so. Mica had hated it forever and her happy comment about it made my eyebrow raise in surprise.

"But you hate after school time."

"I know, but there were this two cute guys there last time and I overheard them talking about going there next week too, so that, my friend, means that I'm going to be there too."

Her comment and even just the way she had said it made a laugh rise from me. She could be so ridiculous sometimes!

"Who were they then?" Suspicious that she hadn't already figured out their pets name's, mother's phone numbers, or anything like that yet.

"I actually know nothing of one of the guys, I have only seen him in the hallways sometimes before, but the second guy's name is George."

"Wait, George? As in Jeremy's basketball friend George, the werewolf George?"

"Yes, that's the one. I was sitting behind them and I heard that the were talking about a guy, I think. George sounded obsessed over this guy, but like with pain, like he found it hard to talk about or something. I dunno. Anyways, do you remember that bruise you told me about?"

"What?" I had no idea how we came in on that subject. We had gone from schoolwork til my brother's friend's bruise.

"The bruise that you said George had on his face a while ago. I have a theory about it."

"Ok, what is it?" She usually didn't act this weird. Almost every time she had something important to say she had said it as fast as humanly possible.

"Um, you have to promise not to get mad at me."

What, how could I ever get mad at her?

"Sure, I promise."

"You know how you said that he had had a bruise and that he hadn't wanted to talk about it? And you know that night that you had a gathering with your pack and George had accidentally knocked you and you little mate had walked away furious?"

She looked at me, waiting for me to connect the dots. When I didn't she sighed and explained.

"Maybe...maybe it was Erik who had hit George for hurting you?"

Realization dawned on me. But, that couldn't be possible, why would Erik ever do such thing? Sure, he had his aggressive tendencies, but that hadn't ever affected people around me in any way. Except for that time with Mica and him of course. The thought of Erik hurting someone because of me made my mind turn. Sadness, and anger arose in my body. George had never done anything wrong, he had actually been really nice to me since always and had always wanted to talk to me when he got the chance, even though I was too shy to really get to know him.

"Hey, Liam. You aren't mad, right?" I looked at her.

"No, I'm not mad at you. Slightly irritated that I haven't understood this before, though."

"Are you going to talk to Erik about it then?"

I nodded to her confirmation. The living room was quiet, the only thing that sounded was the buzz from the paused video game. Mica looked at me with sympathetic eyes, but I didn't see them, since the carpet was the most interesting background to my twirling thoughts. I felt her hand come looking for mine and when she found it she squeezed it. It felt awkward and sweaty, but it was one of the best comforters I had ever felt. I let her pull me out of the sofa and towards her room, there she picked up two small glass bottles, one was bright blue and the other one was yellow.

"Which one?" She looked at me and held up the two bottles of nail polish.

I pointed to the yellow one, Mica looked great in yellow. She picked up an old newspaper and dragged me back to the living room. On the way to the sofa Mica took a retour over to an old stereo and put in a cd. After a while Taylor Swift's voice started singing "Love story", an absolute banger. We both started laughing, the memories from this song were still strong. I remembered munching on forbidden candies on weeknights while screaming the lyrics so loud that Micas's mom soon came bangning on the door. We were young and fantasised about what we thought love was, it was different now. Even though we still didn't really know what love was, we were older and the old fantasies didn't seem as great anymore. Everything seemed so much more complicated.

Mica sat down on the floor and laid out the newspaper on the sofa table and put one of her hands down on it. She stared at me until i mimicked her gesture and then she pulled my hands over to the newspaper. Then she shaked the nail polishfor a bit and screwed of the lid. That was when my slow head realised what she was doing and snatched my hands back.

"You're not painting my nails!"

"Haha, yes I am. You scared?"

"Wha- I'm not scared! How could someone be scared of nail polish?"

"I dunno, ask yourself. I know that you want to try, I have seen you look at my nails. It doesn't have to mean anything, I promise you can take it off afterwards. It will cheer you up a bit, it always does with me."

She looked at me with pleading eyes. She was not totally wrong with the part of me wanting to try it, I had seen many people wear it, both boys and girls and I thought it was so cool. But it was still a big step.

I hesitantly stretched out my arm and put one hand on the newspaper again. Mica grinned toothily at me and screwed off the lid off the nail polish and started painting my fingertips yellow. It felt weird to move my hand when she was done, my nails felt all wet and kind of cold. Mica was obviously pleased with her painting.

She painted her own nails too, so that we could match and then we grabbed the game controls again for another game. She won every time, probably because I was so bad, but it could also have been because I was too distracted by watching the light from the lamp reflect off of my nails to actually care.