Stories under the Velvet Sky

Chapter Eight: The Pretender

Living with someone else in the house is weird; especially when you barely know them. This is exactly what living with Adrian felt like. For the first few weeks, I felt like I was being watched, which was normal for a paranoid person like myself. It just seemed odd, to feel the same way at home, the way I felt at school. I didn’t really care for it.

Not to mention the fact that it put me on edge, so I was ready to snap at my new house-buddy at a moment’s notice.

I took out most of my anxiety on my pillow though… poor thing. I think I killed it.

Currently I was sitting in my room, pondering my mathematics homework while staring up at my ivory ceiling with an oak ceiling fan sitting up above my twin-size bed that had lilac-colored sheets and covers, with pink pillows. At the edge of my bed was a pile of blankets that I regularly slept with in the summer, when I didn’t want to sleep under the covers. My Uncle liked to keep the air conditioning at a minimum, so the house could get uncomfortably warm during the sweltering season.

Yeah, I’m a girlie-girl. Deal with it. My favorite colors are teal blue, deep purple and light pink. It’s not like I’m some sort of depressed goth chick. That stage happened in my middle school years, and I’d gotten over that change pretty quickly if I do say so. There wasn’t enough time for me to change my room theme.

Or my clothing for that matter, but it wasn’t like I could do much about my clothing now. The school I currently attended required a uniform or formal dress. As a result, I don’t own a lot of casual clothing.

A knock on my door garnered my attention. Drawn from my pointless thought-collecting, I sat up to stare at my now-open door way, and lo and behold, my new “friend” was there, a brow raised, probably in reference to my current position.

I stared right back at him, “What?” I demanded, not wanting him to just sit there for too long. I hated it when he did that. It made me feel all tingly. Not that I minded it too much, it just felt extraordinarily unusual.

Adrian shrugged and motioned to my desk, which was to the left of my bed and sat underneath a window overlooking the forest behind the house. On my desk was a pile of papers, and my Statistics text book. It was my math homework, and it was only half-finished. Though how he knew that, I’ll never know. Or rather, I really do not want to know.

“So?” I rolled my eyes and flopped back to lying down on my mattress. I wanted to take a nap. Yes, yes, I know I sleep a lot. I’m a teenager, what do you expect? I like my sleep like a crack addict likes cocaine.

He snorted and waltzed over to the bed, sitting down on its edge and posing himself to look much like “The Thinker”, “So it’s not done. Go do it, it’s due tomorrow,” he said, tugging at my leg, “I will drag you downstairs if I have to.”

As if that was much of a threat. I’d just fall asleep on the couch downstairs. He knew I would do it. Mostly because this had happened before, and he’d tried to pump me full of delicious caffeinated coffee to get me to stay awake. It hadn’t worked.

And I had laughed and laughed when I’d finally woken back up.

I yawned, covering my mouth as I did so. Then I closed my eyes, “And then I’ll just sleep on the couch. You’re going to have to do better than that to keep me awake. You know that,” I replied, trying to suppress a smile. It was a lot more fun than I had anticipated, having a friend. I wasn’t used to it, the pestering and the pillow fights, or the arguing over who would do what.

He’d stolen my household chores from me, with the excuse that I was in no particular shape to do them. While he did have a point, now I had nothing to occupy my time with. Well, besides my math homework.