Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

I need Scissors!

Mikelah POV

Mervyn was daydreaming a lot more than usual lately. I mean, he had always been a bit daydreamy, but lately it was a serious thing. And I knew why, too. It was because he was nervous. He was dreaming up a storm so that he didn't have to focus on the campaign for a while. The poor kid, I wish he hadn't taken up the election. It was freaking him out, especially with the major part- the rally- coming up tomorrow. Mervyn was going to have to make a speech, and that was going to be the difficult part for him. I would, of course, help him out as much as I could, but the part that worried him was the part that he had to do alone.

I watched him sitting on the bed, legs crossed, staring at nothing, and wondered if I should wake him up... or... whatever it is you do. I decided not to, though, but I lay down on the bed too, placing my head in his lap, and rubbing my stomach with my hand, as I tended to do lately. Briefly, I wondered whether I would be happy or sad when the kid was born, but I didn't have much time to think. Mel bounded into the room, and dived onto the bed, effectively shaking Mervyn out of it.

"I need scissors!" He blurted out, and then stopped and looked around, quite confused as to where he was. "Oh, hey Mel." He greeted her, as calmly as if he hadn't just been shaken from a (seemingly quite odd) daydream. She snuggled up to his side, and probably would have climbed into his lap if I hadn't already been there. Mervyn rubbed circles on my back, gently, as if I was sleeping and he didn't want to wake me. It felt nice. I closed my eyes.

"Mervyn, will you play with me?" She asked, with her infamous puppy dog look.

"Sure thing, Mel." He told her. "What do you want to play?"

"Um... Basketball!" She said. I got up so that Mervyn could move to face her.

"Okay." He said. "But not for too long. It's getting dark."

Melanie pouted. "Okay." Then she lit up again. "Can Mikkie play, too?"

Mervyn looked at me with an edge of concern, seeming quite worried that I couldn't handle it. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure that I wasn't that pregnant yet, since I was barely even showing, and so I smiled. "Yeah, sounds fun."

Mervyn got hit by the ball several times, and I'm pretty sure he lost. That was kind of sad, seeing as he was playing against his six-year-old sister and his pregnant girlfriend, but... oh well. He wasn't in a basketball frame of mind. He did, however, have his head on long enough to end the game when the sun had almost set. Mel complained, but Mervyn simply lifted her up and carried her inside, as if she had only weighed as much as the ball. Melanie giggled. A lot.

We ordered a pizza (no one really felt like cooking), and sent Melanie to her room with a slice of pizza and her homework. We didn't really think she'd be gone for more than 20 minutes, but it worked. We spent a little time doing... well, teenager stuff, but then we had to talk about the pressing issue of the moment. "Are you ready with your speech?" I asked him.

"Well, it's written out already, and I think it's pretty good, so...yeah." I took the speech from where he had it on his desk, and read it through. We spent a couple minutes doing things like correcting grammar and phrasing so it read well, but it was a pretty good speech. Mervyn was smart, and better with words than one would expect, looking at him. It wasn't that part of the speech that worried him. It was the part where he had to get up on a stage in front of hundreds of people, and actually deliver it. I laid my head on his shoulder.

"Mervyn, you'll be fine." I assured him. "Everyone in the school already likes you, for one thing. And for another, you already have the hard part down. You've spent your time thinking and coming up with an awesome speech. Now, all you have to do is read it. No big deal. You'll be perfectly fine."

It was a shame that he didn't relax (he was very tense at the time), but he laughed, a nervous sort of chuckle. I hugged around his waist and smiled. "No worries, unless you go around narrating those daydreams of yours." I teased. He rolled his eyes, smiled, and gave me a playful tap on the head.

I soon found out that I we were much more tired than we had right to be. Mervyn yawned, and then I yawned, and then Mervyn yawned again. And then we started laughing. Really laughing. Apparently yawning really is contagious. "You have anything to sleep in?" He asked me. I shook my head, though I wasn't really sure. He got up and went to his drawer. He took out a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and gave them to me. "So I guess it's time to go to bed now, huh? See you in the morning."

Mervyn had exiled himself to the couch, since I was to sleep over that night. Any parent with the least amount of common sense would ban their teenager from sharing a bed with his girlfriend. "Are you sure you don't want to stay here? I mean, you have a big day tomorrow, and I don't want you nodding off because the couch was uncomfortable."

"Mik, we've been through this already. I'm not putting you on the sofa." It was, admittedly, pretty weird that the winnerof the fight was the one who was sleeping on the couch. But anyway, that was Mervyn for you.

"Night Mervyn." I said, getting up to kiss him on the cheek. He smiled, and flicked off the lights as he left.

"Good night, Mik."

I changed very quickly into his clothes. Just the scent coming off them was intoxicating. It was pretty hard not to think about Mervyn while lying in his bed and wearing his clothes, and I didn't resist it. I fell asleep with that warm, fuzzy butterflies feeling that made it so easy to relax.