I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The following morning I went downstairs to find Stewart and Alex at the kitchen table. They weren't doing anything lascivious, but there was something intimate about two people sitting together at breakfast that turned my stomach. Alex looked up first and smiled,

'Good morning, you.' Why did she have to be so cheerful?

I mumbled, 'Good morning.'

Alex explained to Stewart, 'She takes a while to wake up.' I wanted to scream. I didn't like her referring to me in the third person and I really didn't want her stupid boyfriend to know anything personal about me at all. I figured they were being physically intimate, but hadn't had to face it before. It was easier to pretend nothing was going on when it wasn't happening in the room just next to mine. Watching him eat his toast I suddenly hated him violently for touching her. The idea of someone doing that to her was repellent to me. The idea of anyone doing anything to anyone else was repellent, but when it involved Alex it was even worse. It seemed like such a base thing to want to do. I looked at my porridge with jam, but couldn't bring myself to have any. I knew I couldn't say I had a stomach—even though I did—because Alex would know something was up. I forced down a few spoonfuls then said I wanted to get some typing done and locked myself in the study. At lunch, Alex appeared in the doorway of the study and said they were going to the Mongolian place near Opium Den and then to the cinema and asked if I wanted to join them, I said I was really into organising (though I'd been staring at the same shelf of books for half an hour) and would make something for myself.

Maybe last night was the first time they had actually...you know. Maybe she didn't like it and would tell him today how she wasn't interested in that sort of thing. I played out scenario after scenario wherein she explained how she felt they worked better as friends and whilst it made me happy to think of him realising he'd never touch her that way again, reason was in the back of my mind telling me that she actually liked that sort of thing, and most likely wouldn't be calling it off with him over Mongolian cuisine. So I spent the remainder of the afternoon envisioning Stewart being torn apart by wolverines or getting his foot stuck between railway slats just as the train was coming round a bend. Then I remembered that one of her boyfriends had died rather tragically in a car accident and felt guilty for killing off another one, even if it was only in my mind.

As we were having an unseasonably warm day, the girls and I decided to romp in the back garden, or I should say Cate and I romped and Clem waddled about after us. It occurred to me that I hadn't "played" in ages. Not since that day in the snow with Alex. Thinking of her making a snow angel made me smile, which led me to think on the day in the foyer of Tillington with the Tippo tiger. Recalling her roar made me giggle and I heard a voice behind me, 'Something amusing to you?'

I turned to find Stewart in the kitchen door. I hated being watched.

'I was just getting Cate some exercise. It's nice out today.'

'Yes, it is rather mild. Compared to the last few days.'

'Months, more like.'

He chortled and I wanted to do physical harm to him. He stepped out onto the terrace and I willed him to stay on the brick part. Suddenly, the entire garden became my comfort zone. He stopped at the edge of the bricks and announced, 'Alex and I went for a stroll along the Isis, it's beautiful out there.'

'Yeah, I'll bet.' I wished he had kept walking right to London.

'Did you get much done on your story?'

I shrugged, 'A little.'

Alex appeared in the door behind him, 'Something came for you in the post today, Catherine.' She stepped out beside him with an envelope in her hand. 'I believe it's from the writing contest.'