Al POV
I went to answer the door, but I didn't understand who would be calling at a time like this. I sniffed, my nose being runny, and hurried to get to the door after throwing away almost five tissues. I had been a wreck since Calum and I had talked. What was worse was that I had a ton of homework that I had been previously neglecting. Now I just needed some free time to finish it.
That's why I was both surprised and a little annoyed when I saw Caitlyn standing at the door with Eddie and Hailey at her sides. I raised my eyebrows. "Um, hi, Caitlyn."
She looked at me urgently. "Hi, sorry for this being such short notice, Al, but I really need you to take the kids today. Just for a few hours. I'll pay five dollars extra per hour."
I was taken aback. She hadn't even called to warn me that they were coming. Did she think I could just wait upon her every need? I understood that her job was unpredictable, but she could have at least called. "Sure, but you should have called Caitlyn."
"I know, I know. But there was no time. Thank you, I'll see you tonight!" She was about to leave, but I had to yell her back.
"Tonight? Caitlyn, I'm sorry, but I have plans tonight. I can't keep the kids until then." I made sure to sound firm so she would get the point. One of the problems between our interaction is that I was often the only one actually interacting. She would usually just brush everything off and pretend it was all okay. But it wasn't, I actually had a life, as surprising as that might have sounded.
And I wasn't lying. I really did have plans. I was going to go out with this girl from school I had met recently. She seemed really nice and I needed some escape from this one, set group of friends. I needed to expand. I was feeling suffocated. Especially with Calum and I not talking, a girls night out was just what I needed.
But I couldn't go out with any of the other girls. Ashley was just too obsessed with Ashton. It would make me sick, jealous, and sad. So that was out. Kate had just gone on her date with Luke so that would probably be all she'd talk about. And Jodie was way too insecure when it came to these things. Maybe someone new who didn't know about everyone else would be great.
Caitlyn sighed at my words. "Well, how about you drop them off at their grandparents'? It's not that far, here, let me give you the address."
I loved how she just assumed that I could drive them to their grandparents' house. She was lucky enough that I could, but only this time. I made sure she knew that. "Yeah, this time I can, but usually I wouldn't be able to." There. Now she wouldn't rely on me to drive them to their grandparents' house. Judging by the address, it wasn't that close either. I wasn't surprised. People who were too busy to pay attention to their children usually exaggerated a lot. This wasn't 'not that far' at all.
That made me wonder what happened to their dad. Why did Caitlyn have to work so hard? How did these kids feel about not having a dad? Well, I could kind of relate to them. I felt a pang in my chest. I didn't really have a dad either.
Before I could get emotional, I just nodded and said bye to Caitlyn, closing the door behind her retreating face. I turned to kids, then remembered that my face was red and full of snot. Stupid Calum. I smiled at the kids and led them to the living room, turning on the TV. "Here guys, come sit and watch TV while I just freshen up. And please be quiet, guys."
I walked upstairs to the bathroom, making sure to be quiet. It was the weekend, and Ashley didn't have any work today so she decided to sleep in. It was early morning, after all. I was only up because I couldn't sleep.
When I went into the bathroom, I made sure to leave the door open just a crack so that I could hear if anything had gone wrong with the kids. I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror, trying to calculate my schedule for the day. I looked like a truck just ran over me. So, I would busy the kids, while trying to finish my homework, then when I was done, I would go out tonight with this new girl, Daisy. It didn't seem like we would form a very tight bond, but it was a nice thought to go out with someone new.
After I washed my face, I went downstairs. I was met my Eddie jumping up and down in front of me. It startled me, sure, but it wasn't anything surprising. He was always like this. "Yes, Eddie, what is it?" I asked patiently.
"Can we go to the park? Can we go to Disneyland? Can we go to the mall? Can we go to space? Can we go get ice cream? Can we go-"
"Eddie!" I interrupted, feeling like my head was about to explode. He immediately withdrew and pouted, looking pitiful. I sighed. I told myself when I was younger that I would never let a kid's puppy-dog face affect me, but Eddie was way too good at it. Nevertheless, I couldn't take them anywhere. I was much too busy. "I'm sorry, Eddie, but we can't really go anywhere today. At least, not in the morning. I have a lot of homework to do."
He scrunched up his face. "You still have homework? When I'm your age, I'm not going to have homework!" He crossed his arms over his chest haughtily.
I laughed, playing along. "All right little buddy. Why don't you go play a little with your sister so that I can finish and we'll all go out? If you guys don't bother me too much, then I might finish early and we can go somewhere super special!" Truthfully, I didn't know where we would be going. It seemed that wherever we went, I ended up spending some money on the kids, so it seemed like I was only being paid five bucks an hour, not twenty. They were expensive kids.
He just nodded energetically and went back to sitting on the couch and watching Spongebob Squarepants. I sighed in resignation and went to sit on my desk and start on that horrible excuse of a waste of time called homework.
**********
By the time I'd dropped off the kids at their grandparents' house, the grandmother had invited me in and made me sit and wait for the tea on the kettle to boil. I wasn't the biggest fan of tea, but I thought it would seem rude to decline. I had twenty minutes or so until I had to leave and I was already ready to go out, so I thought it would be fine. The grandfather made small talk with me while the grandmother stood by the kettle and waited for the water to boil, also playing with the kids for as far as her elderly body could permit her. I could tell that they loved Eddie and Hailey a lot.
I knew that I might be crossing a line when I asked my question, but my curiosity was too much for me to ignore. "So, where are Eddie and Hailey's dad?" I asked quietly, so that only the grandfather could hear. He stiffened immediately. I recoiled a little, seeing that this was something personal. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
He shook his head though, and told me it was alright. He opened his mouth again when the kettle started whistling and the grandmother told the kids to go play in the backyard. She brought the tea to the table and I thanked her politely. That reminded me that I didn't know their names.
"Oh, I'm Wilhelmena and this is Carl," said the grandmother, Wilhelmena, with a smile on her face. I smiled back, then Carl continued gruffly. "She'd like to know what happened to Mark." I assumed that Mark was the name of Eddie and Hailey's father.
A saddened look came on Wilhelmena's face. "He left. He had a fight with Caitlyn and the coward just got up and left. Our poor baby was devestated." She looked at Carl and held his hand. I was surprised, to say the least. She continued. "The kids were only two back then. She couldn't take care of them. She brought them to us every day, then we had to take them to school once they started. Soon, I stopped driving and it got even harder." She stopped, not able to go on.
I was sorry I had even asked. A little while after that, I thanked them profusely for their tea and hospitality, and left. And I enjoyed my night out, as weird as it may have seemed. It must have seemed even better by comparison to the rest of my day, as much as I loved Eddie and Hailey. But today was sad.
Then it clicked. No wonder Hailey was so quiet all the time. It must have hurt her to not have a dad. And they hardly had a mom either, what with Caitlyn being gone all the time; not that I blamed her. It must have been hard. I thought about this that night in bed. I guess that I didn't have it that bad after all.
**********
I woke up the next day feeling awful as usual - these days it was like that - but it was little bit better this time; last night I had had fun with Daisy. And I had realized that I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. People like Caitlyn had it a lot worse than I did.
And I decided, after I was ready to take on the day, that I could take on Calum. I had to talk to him sometime now, didn't I? Why not today? Besides, I doubted I would have another opportunity to speak to him. Now was the best time. Except it wasn't, because it was only nine in the morning. Well that killed that idea. I guess I could go walking around. We lived in a pretty good area. Most of the things we needed were within walking distance. So I put on converse instead of heels and walked down to Starbucks, deciding I might as well do something with my time.
After that, I had gotten back to the apartment and smiled when I saw Calum coming out, earbuds in his ears and head rocking to the beat of his music. Thank you, fate, I thought. It wasn't just coincidence that he was here when I got home. This meant I had to talk to him. And fate aside, he saw me, so it wasn't like I could ignore him. Well, it seemed he thought otherwise, because he just walked past me.
"Calum," I called after him. "Calum, I want to talk to you."
"I have nothing to say to you." He didn't even turn around. He just kept walking.
"Then, I'll talk. God, Calum, stop walking away from me!" I ran up to him and grabbed his shoulder to turn him around. I wasn't going to let him get away this time.
"What do you want from me Al?" he asked impatiently.
"I don't want to ruin our relationship, Calum. I care about you too much. Please, please don't do this," I pleaded. "We're both wrecks without each other so why do that to ourselves?"
His eyes softened marginally. I decided that that was all that needed to be said. I hugged him. And he hugged me back.
"We need to go out, Calum. Let's take a vacation," I murmured.
He chuckled into my neck. "Yeah. Let's just go back to Australia. It would be nice there."
And for the rest of the day we were together, insperable like before.
**********
And when things seemed most perfect, who were we met by other than the A-list couple of the school? Way to ruin my finally good day. Maybe they wouldn't see us. That was when I tried to nudge Calum a little so that he would move.
"What are you doing, babe?" he asked, confused and not budging one bit.
I shushed him. "Just trust me and scoot over." I really didn't want them to notice us. And they didn't. But they did just stand there and decide to strike a conversation. That meant that Calum and I couldn't move from our spot behind the wall. Great.
"Are you trying to avoid them, babe?" Calum whispered into my ear, pointing to them.
I nodded then slapped his hand away. "They'll notice you!" I said.
"Alright, alright," he said, cradling his hand like a baby. "Who are they?"
"They're the couple of the school and they set my teeth on edge," I said irritatedly. They made me mad just by looking at them. I couldn't stand them. They had the wonderful ability to ruin anyone's day. Especially mine.
Calum nodded in understanding. "So are we just going to wait here or....?"
But I shushed them. They had started talking and this conversation looked priceless. It was wrong of me to eavesdrop, but they had both put me through too much for me to ignore this.
Leslie looked...sad. Like she was about to cry. That hit me like a punch in the face. I had never actually thought of her as human. I just assumed she was a special breed of alien sent here to ruin my mood every single day. It never crossed my mind that she might have a reason to be like this. I thought there were just people like her. Turned out I was wrong.
The whole time that Calum and I were hiding behind that stupid wall, Leslie cried and cried into Jack's arms. It would've looked quite funny to see Jack's face at that moment - he was totally clueless as to how to help a crying girl - if I weren't feeling horrible for Leslie. After all that she had put me through these years, I finally understood.
Her mom died. She didn't say how, but she was saying how her dad abused her now. It was when Jack asked what the bruise on her shoulder was that she first broke down. I'd never seen her so vulnerable. She said that it was because her stupid mom had to go and get herself killed and now she was stuck with her poor excuse of a dad who abused her and got drunk daily. And now he was dying. He kept coughing up blood and he couldn't get himself out of bed. All he kept saying to her was that she had to get him more alcohol. What was she going to do if he died? She'd be alone. She only had her grandma, living a few miles away, and her aunt. But her aunt was in another state. She missed her mom.
And by the end of it all, I wanted to cry. And I think Calum did too.
Then Leslie sniffed and said, "Sorry. I must look like a mess." I let out a shaky laugh. After all of this, she still cared about her looks. I supposed she still wanted to look her best for her mom. I knew that I always did. "What's up with you, Jack?" she asked. I guess they didn't really talk much in their relationship. Just sex then mall. Then sex again.
Then Jack when into this entire rant of how all the guys on the football team aren't listening to a word he says and it's stressing him out because they have a major game in a few days. He said how he felt like he didn't really have any friends. Leslie asked him why he didn't study more then, if he had free time because of a lack of friends. He said there was no point of being smart if there was no one to share your 'smartness' with. Got that right, buddy.
I turned back to Calum with wide eyes. I had eavesdropped on them to get some good stuff to gossip about, but I knew I wouldn't tell anyone about this. That would be cruel. No one except for Ashley of course, but she wouldn't gossip either. She would probably want to know this. And I'm glad I knew too. One less person being mean to the both of them.
"Let's go," Calum whispered. I just nodded, stunned.
**********
leslie to the side played by lily rose aka loml. im5 in all their usual perfection: "jingle bell pop"
ashley x