Cold Hard Hugs

#9_That Takes the Cake

Following on, life became by turns average and also sickeningly lovey-dovey – though never at the same time.

When they were average they were average for old, predictable reasons. There was uni work that needed doing, bins that needed taking out when the rubbish finally started to peek out over the top, bills that needed paying and so on. That stuff was dull, but necessary. The lovey-dovey stuff was new and also considerably more fun. The giggling on Tillie and my parts had yet to stop. We couldn't really help it.

We made an effort to meet up on campus more often. This was primarily my idea. Learning that Tillie's days at uni tended to consist of her slouching silently from class to class - occasionally hiding in the library if she had reading that needed doing – but generally going home as quickly as possible once she was done had made me a little sad.

I did not like to think of her spending her days there in the quiet and on her own. So I would hang around when my own paltry seminars and lectures were done so I could leap out and walk with her where she needed to go or follow her to the library and bug her when she needed to do reading. I'm not sure she appreciated the second part quite as much, but it was hard to tell. She put up with it, which was enough, and even when me stern looks to be quiet her lights were still a very comforting shade that made me smile. Not that I knew what shade, but that's a paltry detail.

Today was not one of those days, however. Today I had seen Tillie in the morning before she left and that had been about it. Our schedules did not match today. My schedule did match with Michelle's though, which was why – following the extremely short-notice illness of the person who was meant to be taking our seminar – we were sat outside waiting for divine inspiration to tell us what to do next. So far, we had nothing.

We'd managed to pick out one of the numerous picnic-type tables that dotted campus for no discernable reason. In fact, our conversation had roamed over why these tables were all over the place, at least once we'd finished kvetching about being left in the lurch at such short notice.

Our combined theory that we'd worked on was that drunk people had moved them from where they supposed to be to where their drunk minds and drunk strength had told them would work better. We both agreed that this explanation was overwhelmingly likely, especially given the otherwise inexplicably isolated location of our particular table, which gave a commanding view of the valley but was otherwise too far away from anything to be of any real use. With that pivotal issue settled we moved on.

"We could have lunch?" I suggested, watching a knot of people I didn't know meander off into the distance. Their day finished early, if they were going home already. Then again, my day was done at this point too. I was just staying put because I had no real reason not to. From the corner of my eye I saw Michelle shake her head.

"I'm not really hungry," she said.

"I am..." I said dolefully. I wasn't, really. I was mostly bored. This amounted to the same thing a lot of the time.

Michelle yawned and stretched and I fought the urge to watch her do it. It was perverse, but I had heard it said then when she stretched all the way up on a big yawn her shirt rode up a little around the middle. I had not of course ever observed this myself. Never. And had no desire to observe it again. Not even a little bit. That would have been unbearably sleazy and made me feel a bit guilty and filthy. I kept my eyes on the hill and the people I did not recognize who were now disappearing from view.

"Aren't you meant to be having lunch with your, uh, friend?" Michelle asked once she had recovered from her full-body yawn. I was a tiny bit surprised about this, as I didn't think anyone else had noticed. I certainly hadn't made a point about telling anyone about that, and it didn't strike me as particularly likely that Tillie had told Michelle, given her expressed opinions on Michelle. Speaking of which, I realized at that point I was hanging around with Michelle, though I couldn't remember if I was supposed to be doing that or not. What had Tillie and me decided on? If anything? Should I be nervous about that? Probably best to just ignore it.