The weekend came slower than I would have liked, but it was like a blessing from the heavens when it finally arrived. I stayed in bed until noon, sleeping off the days during which I barely got any rest.
My mum had come in with breakfast, which she left on my bedside table. This had never happened before, but she decided that I deserved it, as I had done well in my first two weeks of a new school. I agreed with her, as I always had trouble with making friends, yet here I was with an entire group to sit with at lunch and a band to play in. It was a miracle I had even gotten this far.
My plans for a lazy Saturday were abolished though when I heard two sets of footsteps approach my bedroom door. I rolled over in bed, assuming it was just my parents, however when my dad knocked then peeked in, he said, quite cufused, "Kellin, there's someone to see you."
I groaned and told them to come in, just as baffled as my dad by the presence of someone who wanted to actually visit me. Things like that never happened - it was more likely to see a pig fly than to have someone voluntarily want to be in my presence. Well, until now I guess.
I looked up to see Vic standing at my door, looking at me with an amused expression, as soon as my dad left. First I wondered what he was doing here, then I considered why he would be looking at me that way, and lastly I realised that I had been lying on top of my covers with most of my body exposed to him.
I shrieked and dove under the sheets, bright red in the face from being seen only in my underwear.
"Nice Spongebob boxers," Vic said, walking in and closing the door behind him before collapsing down into the chair which stood by my desk. He spun around on it a few times, the old thing making a horrible squeaking noise, before coming to a stop, facing me.
"Uh, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but why are you here?" I asked sheepishly, sitting up whilst clutching the sheets to my chest.
Vic held out something which I had not even taken notice of when he arrived. "You left this at Gabe's the other day." It was one of my textbooks. It must have fallen out of my bag.
"Thanks," I smiled a little, "but why didn't Gabe give it to me then?"
"He didn't have time, he's away at his girlfriend's place," Vic explained, swatting his hand dismissively, and placing the book on my desk. I opened my mouth with another question but, before I could even ask, the subject was already being changed. "Do you want to hang out today?"
I shut my mouth to stop looking like a fish and considered this. Vic seemed quite persistent with wanting to spend time with me, and it was probably because he realised how lonely I was. I had already turned him down the previous day, so doing the same thing again would be horrible.
"Sure. Are the other guys coming along too?" I questioned, referring to the band.
"Well, like I said before, Gabe is with his girlfriend. Jack is grounded, for whatever reason, and Justin isn't replying to my texts so he's probably doing cocaine off some girl's tits," Vic replied nonchalantly.
"At 11am on a Saturday?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
"Don't underestimate Justin," Vic said in an overly serious tone, making me giggle.
I sighed out, lightly smiling to myself at the pleasant atmosphere and enjoying it. It felt so strange to have someone other than my parents here in my room, as I only had about two friends back in my previous area and I was not that close with either of them. I was not exactly best friends with Vic either, but he seemed to have a dislike for boundaries.
"Anyway, they're all busy, and I'm bored, so it's just you and me, buddy," Vic grinned. "Do you have any plans for the day?"
"Well, I was supposed to do my homework, but I guess that can wait until tomorrow. Also, I think Jack emailed me the audio files for the song you guys recorded, and I was planning on writing lyrics for it today."
Things were going quite quickly with the band, mostly due to them having already done a lot of work together beforehand. They already had the instrumentals recorded for at least four songs, so all that was left was to produce lyrics which could go over them. I had been notified of the process of how everything was hopefully going to go: we would carry on writing and recording songs until we had a setlist of at least six, next we would practice them until we could practically play them in our sleep, then we would post them on platforms like YouTube or SoundCloud, and lastly we would book some gigs to play and hopefully get recognised in the local area. That was the optimistic plan at least. Whether it would go that way, I had no idea, but I hoped I would have fun even if it did not last.
Vic's face brightened up at my last statement, and he offered, "I could help you with the lyrics. We'll get them done quicker that way."
I nodded along, letting my friend make himself at home while I got dressed. That was such an alien concept to me: having someone who I could already call a friend after such a short amount of time.
My eyes went wide and I playfully shoved him out of the way when I realised that Vic had changed my computer's desktop background to an incredibly inappropriate picture, speedily trying to get rid of it before either of my parents saw. He just sat behind me, laughing to himself about it and I could not help but join in. It was pretty funny, after all.
I dragged in another chair so that both of us could sit at my desk, and Vic and I began work on the lyrics. We first played the song a couple of times and I glued my eyes to the screen before me, whilst Vic's eyes intently stared at me. It was strange, to say the least, but I assumed that he just zoned out and did not even realise that he was gazing at me the whole time. That is, until he broke the committed silence between us which had only been filled with the sounds of the music coming from my PC.
"You have really nice eyes, you know," he said softly.
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, not really knowing how to reply to that kind of comment, so I went for the option of trying to make it the least awkward by turning it into a joke, "Thanks! That's a very masculine and heterosexual thing of you to say."
Vic rolled his eyes, "Shut up."
I did as he said, both of us going quiet to listen to the song and I tapped my foot along to the rhythm. At first, I simply sat and focused on the music, but I drifted off after a few seconds wondering whether he had told me to shut up as a joke or if he was actually mad at me. I knew that I was probably being silly and making things up in my head, but what if Vic was actually annoyed? Maybe it was too early for me to be satirically making fun of him and he took offence to it. A couple of days into this friendship and I was already ruining everything through being too upfront, believe it or not. I guessed I just felt comfortable around him, which made me warm up quicker. But he was probably different and that little 'shut up' was completely serious, as I must have irritated him. Why did I have to be like this?
"They are pretty though," Vic broke the silence yet again and I had been so lost in thought that I had no idea what he was talking about.
"Your eyes, I mean," he added to my blank expression.
Relief flooded me at the confirmation that he was not mad at me and I breathed out a huge sigh, which must have been weird to him. Once again, I was stuck in this conflicting situation of not knowing what to say to that, because I had no idea how to accept compliments. What did that even mean? He was obviously trying to be kind, but was there something more behind it?
Inside of my mind, I panicked, so instead of saying anything, I resorted to awkwardly shrugging my shoulders and sinking slightly into my seat. I could hear Vic quietly chuckling at my reaction, but I did not dare to look at him in fear of receiving another compliment about my eyes. Could people just stop being so nice to me? Life would be so much easier.
"Why are you laughing at me?" I whined. I kept my eyes glued to the computer screen even more precisely, and my purposeful inability to look at him seemed to make Vic laugh even harder.
I huffed out and crossed my arms firmly over my chest, my lips thinning and my eyes narrowing even more.
"Are you never going to look at me again?" Vic asked with a giggle, already having caught on.
"Nope," I said pointedly, seeing him laugh even harder in my peripheral vision. I could not help but let a miniscule grin slip onto my face too though.
We finally matured a bit and got to work on the song, finishing the lyrics in their entirety. Vic was going off about how excited he was about the band and how great it was to have a singer who actually cared about it too. It seemed like it was his dream to be able to do this for a living and, although it did seem quite childish, I understood where he came from. Everyone wanted to do what they loved for a living, I just had not figured out what that thing was for me yet.