Officially Us

4 - Violation of the bro-code is now the least of my worries.

Mum again insisted that I hang out with Tim for the rest of the day after I cleaned, claiming that she just wanted some time to herself at home after everything that had happened over the past week. I figured I owed her the respect to give her what she was asking for after what she had been through, so I rocked up at Tim's in the early afternoon, unannounced and unprepared to find Brooke there, too.

Turns out my speculative wonderings about them being a perfect match for each other and getting together weren't too far off the money.

"So, what's going on here then?" I said, taking a seat in the fluffy, black beanbag on the floor. The two of them looked between each other and me so frantically I actually thought their heads were going to spin around on their necks.

Tim had jumped up and off the bed, walking to the complete opposite side of the room, putting as much distance between me, Brooke and him as possible. "Brooke was just telling me about you guys breaking up last night."

"And I take it you were just consoling her from that heartache, right?" I said inquisitively. I really didn't care that she was here with him, but it was a little fun watching the two of them squirm thinking I did.

"Rubes, it's not like that, man," he said, but Brooke clearly didn't seem content with that answer.

"Ruben, we're not together anymore — your decision, not mine. I'm allowed to be here, and I'm allowed to do whatever I want while I am," she said, very matter-of-fact. Very Brooke. She was right, of course. She could do anything she wanted.

"Mate, I swear nothing happened," said Tim, cutting Brooke off.

They both insisted that nothing had happened between them yet, but a part of me wasn't sure I believed them considering how they were acting. But even more concerning than my disbelief in my best mate's truthfulness was my realisation that I genuinely didn't care that she was here with him. I would probably be happy for them both if it's what they wanted. But for pride's sake I didn't want to let on too easily that I felt that way.

I stayed there for as long as my awkward-tolerance would last, which, given the practice I had had in the last week, should have been a lot longer. I think I was just tired of everything, and of people in general. Tim tried desperately to deflect the tension in the room by talking about our footy game the following day, which worked for a while, until I heard the exasperated sighs from Brooke in the corner who was clearly disappointed that football, not Brooke, was the centre of Tim's attention, like I imagine she had planned.

I didn't want to be here. But I promised Mum some space at home, so decided to leave without an actual plan as to what I was going to do or where I was going. I contemplated walking home, which would have extended my trip by an hour at least, but the black and heavy clouds looming in the direction of my house didn't seem all that inviting.

There was a bus down the street, but it was heading in the wrong direction to my house. I checked the time on my phone, justified that I owed Mum a couple more hours at least, so sprinted across the road to the bus stop just in time to step on to the bus headed god only knows where. The only time I ever travelled in this direction on the bus was to get to Tim's, and I had never been on it any further than his house, so I really had no idea where I was going to end up. I hoped it was a looping route and I could stay on it until it rounded back to my house, but I wasn't holding my breath. Pretty much everything was going wrong this week.

And this bus wasn't any different. It definitely wasn't looping around, and it wasn't long before I had less than no idea where I was, and very little hope of trying to figure it out given the black sheet of rain that started hammering down. It seemed like it was suddenly six o'clock at night, and not two o'clock in the afternoon.