Story of a Heart

Chapter 8: New year's Night

Faye's point of view
I led across the sofa, my head in Lee's lap. I knew I was drunk, but it was a near year party I had every right to be. I couldn't even exactly remember how many drinks I'd had before this one as I sipped cider from a bottle.
"How are you beautiful?" he whispered in my ear.
"I'm fabulous!" I replied loudly, laughing.
"Well, that's good." He replied, laughing too.
This 'party' as we were calling it had been going on since 10:30 and as it was nearly midnight, the aim was to celebrate together, an idea that excited all 5 of us. We hadn't invited anybody else to join us, preferring instead to keep it somewhat quiet and just be friends together for once. Quiet had gone out the window quite quickly and instead we were now calling it a 'Loud and Proud Night' in. I was amazed by what we had created between us given we'd really been forced to be friends. How strongly built some of the friendships had become, to the point that we teased each other and generally we all knew it was a joke. It was a relationship mostly built off trust.
Lisa took hold of my free hand. She pulled me to my feet, and Lee stood up and we all looked to Claire, who was time keeping.
"Fifteenth seconds!" She shouted.
"Fourteen, Thirteen, Twelve..." H shouted.
"Eleven, Ten, Nine..." We all joined in.
"Eight, Seven, Six..." I looked towards Lee, he glanced back at me.
"Five, Four, Three..." This was going to be it, my very first New Year's kiss. I was only slightly worried about it.
"Two, One. HAPPY NEW YEAR!" We all shouted, then Lee's arms snaked around my waist, and he kissed my mouth. It felt like all those years of waiting had been worth it. He pulled away from my kisses after a moment and looked at me, in an approval of sorts. I smiled back at him, us both knowing what was going to happen when we got chance to escape the other's company.

Claire was very insistent that we all sat down in a circle to discuss our New Years resolutions, because apparently that was her family's tradition – though H's response that she wasn't with her family wasn't well received. As we did I suddenly realised that I had no idea what to make a resolution to do.
"This year, in 1999, I resolve to prove to my family that I am good for something more than advanced baby sitting and music." Claire announced, initiating the conversation. "Lisa, What's your resolution?"
"This year I'll read more often, I kept forgetting to read lately, last year was the worst year in the history of my reading journal for number of books read." Lisa explained. "Faye? Your go."
I was caught off guard and, not wanting to let my friends down, made up the first thing that came into my mind. "This year, urhm... This year I'm going to keep in touch with my family better. I know now how much my sister misses me when I'm away and it kinda made me feel guilty." I described. I kept to the clockwise trend of this circular conversation, by asking Lee to speak next.
"I resolve to socialise more with my closest friends, because like Faye know they miss me when I'm away for ages and barely see them." Lee said. I kissed his cheek.
"You've got me now though." I whispered in his ear. I saw his smile, which was proof enough that he cared.
"H, you got a resolution?" He asked, trying to get the focus off of us.
"In 1999, I resolve to try and get on better with people, as in not have crazy relationships based so much on walking in on each other without knocking." H said, looking at Lee. It was good to know he couldn't even take a New Year's Resolution seriously.
"It's mostly you entering my room unannounced Mr." Lee replied, laughing one of his cute soft laughs.
"Okay well maybe it is just me and maybe that's why something needs to change now you have a girl. No offence Faye but... urhm yeah, I don't wanna see you without any clothes." H retorted. Me and Lisa in our usual fashion just laughed as I shrugged.
"Left hand in everybody!" Claire instructed, trying to avoid the boys fighting on New Years. We all put our left in the centre of the circle, so they overlapped, and followed Claire's lead as she placed her right hand over her heart. "Repeat after me, ready? H! Put your other hand on your heart damn it!"
"Yes..." Me and Lisa said hesitantly. Lee nodded, and I'm guessing that somehow, H agreed too, reluctantly putting his hand against his chest seeing that the rest of us had.
"I promise to keep my resolution." Claire started, as we'd agreed, we all repeated what she'd just said.
"To help my friends achieve their resolutions," again, we repeated.
"No matter how strange they might seem to be." We repeated that line, the boys more hesitantly than me and Lisa.
"And not to give in before the end of January." We finished. Claire nodded her approval, mouthed three, two, one and we all lifted our hand up, yelling 'Go Steps!' much more loudly than was probably necessary. It was New Year's. It wasn't like anybody would be sleeping anyway.

After that conversation wore out, and with that Lee and I headed to his room to enjoy each other's company. It was one of those nights I was quite glad my mum had encouraged me to take 'the pill' because of all the travelling we did. It hadn't started quite like that, to begin with we'd cuddled up together on his bed getting progressively closer and closer to each other until it led to kissing. The kissing then led further, to him slowly rubbing his hand through my hair and my hand straying under his top. From there really there was only one way it could go, and it did.

Lisa's point of view
Claire had retreated to her room, feeling tired and a bit rough, about 20 minutes or so after Faye and Lee had headed upstairs. The magic of staying up in such a small group to celebrate New Year's had worn off pretty quickly, especially after it was just the three of us left downstairs. At that point it felt quite pointless. My personal advice to Claire had been having another drink, but she'd decided that wasn't a great idea, and had gone to bed before she fell asleep somewhere strange. As for Faye and Lee, I had a good idea on what they were probably up to in Lee's bedroom right now, although I was trying to both drown it out and push the thoughts to the very back corner of my mind, where ideas such as those belonged. The last thing I needed was even the vague mental image of two of my friends - one of them my best friend - in a bed together. Anyway, the fact they were in his room was all that I was certain about with them at this exact moment, though I was more than sure within a short while we'd find out if something had happened. That was beside the point, now me and H were listening to some good music together, in the hope that if the other two did get a little too loud we wouldn't have to hear, the effects of the alcohol starting to wear off as we did mostly because neither of us trusted ourselves to walk to the kitchen and find the other box of beer. I was kind of tired and, feeling rather convinced neither of us would remember this by the time the incident was over, asked a slightly bizarre question of H that had been bugging me for a few days.
"I've got to know H. When you went quite... no that's not the word... erh qu...quiet on the car on the way here, after Faye said how she felt for Lee, did you go quiet for a specific reason?" I asked, my speech was a mess and half the words didn't sound quite right, but I didn't care, we wouldn't remember this tomorrow. Would we?
"Yeah." He replied sounding even worse than I did, "I think that maybe I know that I'm having that kind of a loving feeling for him you know what I mean, you're a girl... You should love a guy like him..." He finished. I looked at him blankly, processing the information I had just been fed, and doing the best I could with my alcohol messed mind at translating it into a more efficient wording. I concluded from what I got that the requirement for my second question was no longer there due to his overly expressive answering of my initial question. It wasn't Faye he wanted, it was Lee. The concept confused my already fuzzy mind, and I lay down on the sofa.
"Do you have one of those rainbow flags?" I asked, slowly connecting the idea of H loving Lee with the rainbows of the pride community. I knew he was gay, I had for a little while by this point but for some reason while drunk my brain couldn't join the two dots directly.
"Yeah, of course! I need the rainbows, it's just who I am." He replied. "You should get one we could be rainbow buddies, it would be amazing Lisa! Two Welsh friends, walking around together with rainbow flags!"
"I'm not quite sure that's entirely how that's meant to work, I think you're a little too drunk to think straight." I replied. "Ohhhh... That pun was so unintended." I added. The comment was quickly followed by a hiccup. As nobody was around to try to remove the situation, I curled into a more comfortable position on the sofa, and pulled the blanket I'd been curled up with over my body. It was, as I'd later find out, Faye's yellow duck blanket, but it was too dark to distinguish in my defence and as far as I was concerned it was fine because it had been left down here and was incredibly warm and fuzzy. I knew she wouldn't care so long as I didn't make it messy or sticky and I could easily wash it if I had to.
"It would be fun though! Imagine that, the people looking at us and seeing that as a group Steps are okay with Gay!" H said. I laughed, and he moved closer to me.
"H, I think you should go to bed mate. You seem really disorientated." I told him.
He picked up Lee's blanket that had been abandoned on the floor with Faye's earlier and lay down onto the other sofa. "I think I'm past using the stairway Lis." He replied.

I sighed, sometimes the very best thing to do is accept it and move on. I curled up again, battling to find the most comfortable position. Pretty much as soon as I'd managed that sleep caught up with me, or maybe because sleep caught up with me my brain gave in with getting comfortable. Either way I didn't mind too much, I'd got to sleep somewhere safe and comfortable instead of crashing into hangover land on no sleep and my body might just thank me tomorrow for not passing out somewhere strange and awkward.