Funny Boy

Nine

*VERY LONG CHAPTER AHEAD. I'M SORRY!! HOPE IT'LL BE WORTH IT THO LOL*

"Get up!" Yells a shrill voice, waking me from my sleep. It's none other than Candie.

"What?" I ask, still half-asleep and extremely confused. Candie jumps on my bed. "Who let you in?"

"Your brother. What a sweetie," Candie says dreamily.

"Oh, he's sweet alright."

"Hey, aren't you glad to see me? I'm sure you and Sam missed me an awful lot," Candie says, attempting to straighten out my horribly messy bed head. I slap her hands away.

"You were missed till this moment. Why did you just barge in like that?" I ask her. My God, you'd think there was some emergency.

"I just couldn't wait to see you! We got back this morning, and the first thing on my mind was seeing you and asking about Brian," she says, topping it off with a smug smile.

Oh, right. Brian. He did call me last night, like he said he might, around 3am. Being rudely awakened is a common theme for me, it seems.

It was a short phone call which begun with Brian singing my name: "Fayyyyyeeeee!" I asked him if he was, indeed, drunk off his ass; he said no. "I just was thinking about you. Plus, I gotta abuse my newfound ability to call you whenever I please." As much as I wanted to be all cutesy and whatever, I was rather blunt with him as I could barely even stay awake. "You woke me up," I said, and he responded with a giggle: "Sorry. Let's do something tomorrow. Or today, I mean. You know what I mean." I sleepily said, "Yeah, sure," and then I don't quite remember much else. I think the phone call ended after that.

This running through my head, I respond to Candie with, "Brian's good, I guess." I almost don't say more, but I can't just lie to my best friend. I've gotta have somebody as my confidant. "But, uh, he kissed me that night. After you left." Candie lets out a dramatic gasp.

"Golly! I am so shocked!" She says, her words dripping in sarcasm. "I could've betted my whole lipstick collection on that."

"Oh yeah? Why was this so obvious to you but not to me?"

She scoffs. "Maybe because you're always trying to deny your feelings for guys. I've witnessed so many of your relationships, I know how things go. Plus, this seems different. He doesn't seem like a drag, unlike the other guys you've dated." I wanna slap her arm, but she's right. Brian's not like any other guy I've been with, and I'll admit I've been with crummy guys.

I proceed to tell her about our conversation last night, not the 3am one but before that. Candie calms my nerves by clarifying that Brian probably didn't mean anything else by telling me that he's a busy guy, he's probably just making sure I know what I'm getting into. I just can't help but think I still don't know what I'm getting into, though. From time to time, I think about that first night we met. He acted so strangely at first, all sullen and irritable, and yelling at me to turn off his own song. I often wonder why he acted that way, and what it meant. But I guess that's something I'll have to learn by getting into this; yet I'm still determined to keep my guard up until I know what's going on with us.

This is new territory for me. This is something that I know, deep in my heart, has potential to last longer than any other relationship. I'm growing up now, and there's no time anymore for fooling around. My judgement and emotions are maturing in a way that whatever guy fits my criteria should end up being the one I genuinely commit to. This isn't high school anymore; it's real life.

Once Candie decides to leave so she can pay her next surprise visit to Sam, I roll out of bed and make my way to the bathroom to freshen up. Coming out of the bathroom is Jack, who I haven't talked to much in the last couple of days.