Song: "Waiting For You" by The Aces
The days leading up to Thursday went by in a blur and soon enough I found myself frantically cleaning my apartment at 10:00 am the day of the date. Inviting Alex over to watch the new season of Heartstopper had seemed like a great idea a couple of days ago, but now that it was actually happening, my stomach churned and a dull pain lingered as I tried to make my home presentable. Two hours passed and I had done nothing but move around a few chairs. This is hopeless.
I sat down on my couch, defeated, and pulled out my phone. There was only one person who could surely talk me out of my current state of stress-induced procrastination. Thankfully, he picked up on the first ring. I smiled as Pedro's face came into view, standing out starkly from the blue sky behind him: he clearly wasn't home.
"Hey Bells," his familiar deep voice resounding throughout my apartment, "to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Um... nervous breakdown," I answered weakly.
"About the date."
"Is it that obvious?" He thought about it for a second then responded with an over-exaggerated nod, I rolled my eyes. Suddenly his background changed to show a light gray ceiling and harsh neon lighting.
"Where are you anyway?" I asked, attempting to change the subject from my dating ineptitude.
"See... I thought this would happen Bells so...." the doorbell rang and I ran to open it.
"I'm here," said Pedro and I heard his words echo through the phone in my hand. I hung up the Facetime call and then turned to him in disbelief.
"You're still in London?"
"Yeah," he scratched his head with the hand not holding his phone, "I have another interview here tomorrow and then I'm flying home." I stared at him for another second and then fell into his arms, needing a hug from the person that sometimes felt more like a father than my own parent. He chuckled as I made contact and nearly knocked us both over.
"You don't understand how much this means to me Pedro," I whispered and he tightened the hug. We stood there like that in the doorway for another second and then he pushed himself back gently.
"We have a lot of work to do kiddo," he declared.
I led him into my apartment, which was still particularly disorderly; not in an I-don't-know-where-anything-is kind of way, more an I-know-exactly-where-stuff-is-in-the-mess kind of disorderly. But to the outside world, my living conditions seemed sub-par. Pedro clearly thought so, because he took one look around and got to work, instructing me to put away the kitchen while he worked on the sitting room. I smiled. This was how I worked best: with clear instructions and structure. When other people told me exactly what to do, there was no time to think, which meant no time to stress out.
By 2:00 the whole apartment was clean and we stood in the sitting room admiring our work. The books that had been stacked on the floor next to the couch were put back neatly on the shelves surrounding the tv, and the many blankets that had been strewn across the floor were folded in the corner of the room. It looked... nice; cool even, with my mother's vintage rock posters lining the walls.
"Thanks for your help," I turned to face Pedro.
"No problem kid," he turned his head slightly to meet my eyes, "how are you feeling?"
"Nervous... but not as much as before," I sighed, "I'm just scared I'll mess it up."
"Bella, I promise, there is nothing you can do to mess this up if you just act like you would normally. You are really cool, no matter what you tell yourself."
"Really?"
"Yes. You know I'm right," And I could tell he meant it by the firmness in his voice.
"Thank you," I smiled. We stood there in silence for a minute until Pedro interrupted with a wave of his hand:
"I best be off, see you soon Bellie"
"Bye P," I waved as he walked out of the room.
When I heard the front door close I let myself fall onto the couch behind me.
Not even a full 5 minutes had passed when I found myself once again restless and itching for productivity, despite there still being a couple of hours before Alex would be here. I started scrolling through the cooking website that Pedro had recommended in an attempt to find an easy recipe for dinner. I stopped on a simple-looking recipe for Lasagna, which I was pretty sure I had all the ingredients for and could most likely pull off so that it tasted decent, and took screenshots of the instructions. With a sigh I looked up at the round clock on the opposite wall, it read 2:45.
2 hours and 15 minutes until my life could be changed forever.
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author's note: hey guys, reminder that there is a spotify playlist that goes along with this story. check it out :)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/79y7Zau8XdEUU18Salm0CA?si=e5fff6ec1626451a
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Falling In Love (Bella Ramsey)
FanfictionAlex is a first-year student at King's College navigating life with the open wounds of her parent's rejection of her identity and her last relationship. There was very little to her life until she bumped into a person who would change that.
