An Aftermath Of Many Years (CrankGameplays)

23

30th December 2016

I sighed, letting my dishevelled body fall back. I was editing like I usually did because I really didn't have a life. Even if I did, I'd probably still be editing this piece of bullshit. My ringtone, a Glass Animals song. It was playing and for once my phone wasn't on mute. I sighed and looked at it, knowing full well that I wasn't going to pick it up, despite my preference for always picking up the phone. Ethan was calling me. Most likely to ask a stupid question that he knew I wouldn't answer unless it was asked in a way that made it so I couldn't just escape easily. I threw my phone onto my bed from the slumping, wooden desk I was sat at.

What was I editing? My homework that was due in a few days that, unsurprisingly I had left it until last minute. Well, the editing part. I had managed to steal Ethan for a few hours before he left for Christmas. Just long enough to get this filmed between the two of us before he had to leave. I was lucky it didn't come off rushed, considering we filmed it at his house, the night before his flight. I had felt bad that we'd been up until four just working on this and nothing else. He'd left at the same time I did that morning. Getting into different cars and going to different places, yes, but still. It was a long night and an even longer morning.

There was a knock at my window, which on its own was weird considering the ground floor underneath me. I sighed and opened my curtains, taking notice of the way the room was flooded with ridiculous amounts of light. Jenny was standing out in just a t-shirt on the lip of the window sill, holding a skinny ginger cat under her left arm. I gave her a look and she smirked, tapping on the window again. How the fuck did she even manage to get out there? I sighed, getting up and opening the window, watching her through the fly screen.

"Jenny? What the fuck?" I pulled the fly screen from the window with too much ease. She held up the tiny cat to me, vaguely knowing that she couldn't get through my window, based on the layout of my room.

"Take the cat."

"Why do you have a cat?" I asked, grabbing the cat from her arms. It was tiny and I could feel every part of it from its matted hair to its pronounced ribs. "Jenny. what the fuck?"

"I saw him on the ledge and had to get him. I'm gonna take him to the vet."

"Alright..." I furrowed my brows and placed the cat on the carpet of our apartment floor. It was weird, watching this animal on my floor. I was never one to particularly like cats, but I could put up with them for long enough. I could heat Jenny climbing through her own bedroom window. She came busting through my door, grabbing the cat and wrapping him in her own arms. I looked past her, unsure of whether Aaron was here or not. I never heard the two of them, not that they did anything but play video games and watch films. Even when they did that, I never heard them. Maybe that was a good thing. I didn't want to just constantly hear the two of them laughing at ridiculous hours of the night. Then again, I was a heavy sleeper and would probably have slept through them at any frequency. I looked at Jenny now, head in a phone, bringing up a phone number for a vet. "We doing anything for New Years?"

She shrugged. "It's too late to make plans really. I think Aaron and I were going to see a midnight screening out of town, though."

"Oh cool."

"You doing anything?"

"Probs editing. Maybe watch the fireworks. Most likely editing," I laughed, sliding back to my desk. "Can you deal with your new friend, now. I have to get back to this. And I don't know where I'm up to now."

"Is that the thing that Aaron asked me to do? The script? Who'd you do it with?" I gestured to the open screen of my laptop where Adobe Premiere was open to a longshot of the two of us. "Oh. Ethan. Did he get back yet?"

"Yeah. Like a day ago or something,"I mumbled letting my headphones sit around my neck. "haven't spoken to him yet, though."

"Huh." She looked around, pushing the cat further under her arm. "Is he good?"

I leant back, spinning in the chair that was only a new thing, really. Ethan had actually gotten it for me not that long ago. It still smelt of new.

"I think so. Why do you care?"

"I don't know. You seem close enough to know those kinds of things." She smiled and looked down at her phone. "I'm gonna make a call. You should call Ethan."

I looked down. "He tried to call me earlier."

"And you're an ass for not picking up."

I could agree with that opinion, but I wasn't going to. Jenny got enough daily praise as it was. She was a general favorite of many and didnt need my words of any kind. You could consider it that i was just in too much of a pretentious mood to tell her that she was right. I was an ass at the moment and really just wanted to close myself up and stop existing for a while.

My phone rang again. I still stood in the middle of the tiny room. Jenny had left now, shutting the door behind her. She had probably left the house too by now. Wrapped the tiny cat in a towel and put her in a cardboard box from the last grocery delivery. I looked down at my phone, no longer shiningly overpowered. It wasn't dark in my room any more, but I knew I'd shut them again soon. It was no surprise that it was Ethan again.

I let it ring out.