Chad lay on his back, atop the covers, his head cradled in his hand over his pillows. He listened to the sounds of the night, to the dull humming of Earth itself. Nothing else stirred that frigid winter night of early July. If he closed his eyes, he'd forget June was in the house too.
The night was young and draped its darkness over him till it chilled him to the bone. He listened for a sign, any sign before stealing out of his room into the hallway to stare at her closed door, which was sparsely furnished and she had a bed to sleep on. Chad walked to the door and listened. She was as quiet as a mouse, not a sound, and for some odd reason, he missed Setal's light purr. It had reminded him he wasn't alone. With June, she was as if a ghost, there but not there. Even at dinner, which had been home delivery from a local fish and chips shop, she'd barely spoken. It was the reason he was having a hard time falling asleep, in case he woke up to find her gone. She hadn't wanted to come.
Chad heard the floor creak somewhere, and he bolted back into his room. Maybe she was awake!
♡
His phone's ringtone woke him up hours later, and he half fell out of bed. The sun was up and he rubbed sleep off his eyes before answering it, too tempted to stay under the warm covers. "Terry," he tried to sound awake.
"Chad." The way Terry spoke was slow, almost calculated. "I'm assuming you've been hard at work, late into the nights to have forgotten our meeting, again."
Chad sprang up, awake. "I did? Oh, holly. Sorry, Terr."
"No." She laughed. It was a rare thing and a dangerous thing, her angry, gritty laugh. She reserved them for his major fuckups. "We have a meeting at eleven, and I'm making sure I don't find you in your pyjamas again."
"You're coming here?" His phone beeped, and as Terry was saying, "I'm in the-" The phone flashed 'LOW BATTERY' and died in his grip.
He coaxed himself out of bed, heading down to find the charger. When he emerged at the foot of the stairs, which led into the lounge and kitchen combined, he saw June huddled up on the sofa with a book and a mug of coffee. He had almost forgotten she was there.
"Hey!" he managed.
"Morning." She pulled the book down and smiled. "Hope you don't mind I made myself some coffee." Chad shook his head, eyeing the book title. "I can make you some too," she offered.
"No." He rolled the phone side to side in his palm. "It's okay, I'll make some. I was on the phone with my ed... boss, and the phone died." He pointed to the charging station on the kitchen benchtop next to the coffee machine like a child, though it was out of her sight. "I should charge it so I can call her back."
"Hope you're not late for work. What is it you do, anyway? I've always wondered." She smiled at him.
"I work from home." He rushed to the kitchen and struggled to dock his energy sapped phone. "Umm..." Quick, come up with something! His mind couldn't come up with anything, however. He was still trying to wake up, for God's sake. "I... uh..."
"You don't have to tell me. Never mind. I shouldn't have asked." She bit her lip, remorseful. Maybe Chad didn't want to tell her, and that was okay. She returned to the book, hoping he wasn't offended, or worse. She'd found the book on one of the many bookshelves in the hallway upstairs and picked it up this morning since she had nothing to do.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Chad sipped coffee from his mug as he waited for his phone to return to life, impatient. He called Terry as soon as the phone came back to life. But, he wouldn't let Terry get much more than a few words so that June wouldn't overhear the conversation, nor find out how miserably he was failing at his job. A job he couldn't tell her about.
"11 am it is!" he cried out as soon as the phone connected. "Sorry, phone died. I'll meet you at the café at 11. Ciao."
"Chad..." she started to say, but he disconnected the phone, gulped down the lukewarm watery coffee and dashed upstairs to get changed in a hurry. Minutes later, he was already down, showered and clean, and grabbing his phone and wallet from the benchtop when a knock sounded on the front door.
He eyed the time on his phone. It was nearing eleven. Terry. Fuck! She is here. He knew it. He just knew it.
"You want me to get that?" June put the book down, stirring him into action. He was at the door within seconds to find Terry smiling smugly.
"I thought we were meeting at the café."
She pushed past him, her handbag tucked under one arm, and the other holding a large paper bag that smelled of fresh pastries. "No. You said café without giving me a chance to say I was already there and ordering us breakfast. Am I right in assuming you still have no food in this house?"
She walked in and stopped short of the sofa, eyeing June inquisitively. She forced a smile. "Hi," she chirped when she really wanted to say 'What's this?' to Chad. This is why he was blowing off another meeting, a girl, and so young too?
"Hi," June replied, slightly intimidated by the immaculate goddess eyeing her like a flea.
Terry placed the pastry bag on the table, the smell of which sent June's tummy rumbling. She was starved. There was indeed nothing in Chad's fridge or pantry worth eating without taking a serious bio-hazard risk. There was a half-finished block of blue cheese in the fridge she was sure had started life as a block of cheddar.
Terry turned to Chad. "I thought we could talk better here without all the noise." Her wide eyes kept glancing in June's direction. "I didn't know you had company."
Chad smiled. This was the first time Terry seemed interested in his personal life, or the company. "This is June. June, this is Terry, my boss."
"Excuse the sloppy man, June." Terry shook June's cold hand in her gloved ones. "If I didn't know he had a way with written words, I would have never believed the boy could write, let alone bestsellers." She glanced at the book in June's grasp.
June smiled, though she did not understand what Terry was on about. "Chad writes?" was all she could string together for fear of sounding 'sloppy'.
Terry laughed such a cacophony it shocked June into silence. "Chad writes? Oh dear, you're a charmer." It took her all of a few seconds to compose her demeanour and glance at the book again. It had 'Zachary Eve' written in big letters across the bottom of the cover page. "How's the read?"
June shrugged, stroking the book's spine. "I don't know yet. I only started it this morning."
Terry nodded, nestling her handbag on the other end of the sofa. "Tell me how it is at the end." She then turned to Chad, looking aghast. "Shall we leave June to her lazy Saturday read and take our breakfast, and work, to your study?"
Chad immediately led Terry to the study, his garage-converted-to-office at the back of the house. A garage was wasted on him as he never liked parking in that compact room of doom. He was always afraid he'd take out a supporting pylon or something and bring the entire house down, roof and all.
"Thanks for not outing me!" he whispered, once safely inside the study with the door closed behind.
"She's pretty." Terry shrugged.
"It's not what you think." He pulled a chair out for her to sit. "I'll get us a pot of coffee." And with that, he slipped out of the room, feeling Terry's eyes on the back of his head.
"Don't forget some pastries," she called out.
Within minutes of being locked up with Terry, Chad had his head in his palms and she had lost a few shades of colour from her cheeks. "You what?" she finally asked, quietly, reserved, the hot coffee going cold in her vice grip.
"I don't have a story," he mumbled into his palms.
"You've got nothing to show?"
He shook his head.
"No ideas?"
"Nada." He looked up, feeling sorry for Terry having to deal with him. She was looking like someone had slapped her across the face, and it might as well have been him.
"So, what have you been doing this month?" She carefully placed the cup on the desk.
Chad looked towards the closed door of his study, and Terry understood.
"Her? She's taken your month? Who is she? Family?" He shook his head. "Chad!" She nearly yelled, flustered by his incompetence.
That began a long-drawn-out afternoon of Chad recounting the month to Terry. The real story behind why he had a stranger sitting in his lounge room, reading one of his bestsellers without the slightest idea who he was, the author.
Terry took a good minute or two to think in silence. The last time Chad had felt this nervous might have been on his first date with Setal, or his high school English exam because he'd felt sure his entire future depended on it, a bit like his current position. Terry could make or break his career moving forward, whether he wrote that next bestseller.
"I couldn't leave her in the park, not after that." He got up to stretch his legs, and grabbed the empty coffeepot, heading off for another brew.
"It's fantastic." Terry blurted, coming back to life.
"What?" Chad almost dropped the glass pot.
"The story, Chad. It's fantastic!" She rose from her chair with a ridiculous grin that made Chad ever-so-slightly worried.
"Terry, that wasn't a story. I was just telling you what I did last month."
"I know." The grin on her face widened. She stepped closer to him. "That's what makes it fantastic. I want you to write it!"
"You want me to write that into a book?" He eyed her curiously. "I met a homeless girl in a park and brought her home to keep her safe?" he asked blandly. Terry was usually full of brilliant ideas and notes on his stories, but not today it seemed.
"Yes!" she nodded. "Use it. Can't you see the story in there? It can make them cry, or make them laugh because you are very goofy and it's cute." She took him by the arms, squeezing his biceps in excitement. "Make them think it is real, the pain, the anguish, the confusion, the lost writer and a homeless girl, falling in love, despite their age, their status. I mean, come on, I couldn't have even come up with this if I had tried."
She shook him for good measure and kissed him hard on the lips. Nothing arousing about it, not for either, saying, "Oh, I could kiss you, that's how good this is!"
"Terry." Chad stared at the woman in awe, or terror, he couldn't decide. Usually, when it came to Terry, it was a mixed bag of feelings.
She was excited about a book only she could see. "It's too personal. You told me never to do anything personal," he said after a little while.
"Fuck what I said," she grabbed his shirt, fiercely moved. "Chad, I have goosebumps. Goosebumps. Imagine what the readers will have. Besides, nothing that happens to a writer is off-limits, hun." She let go, straightened herself out and patted his shoulder awkwardly before heading for the door. "Right. I'm off, but yeah, keep me posted. I want the story, Chad, so you better get on it. Chop, chop."
Terry glided across the lounge room, where June was no longer sitting, reading. Had she heard what Terry had said and fled, he wondered. June had been very clear on 'I'm not that kind of girl,' deal, and he'd agreed.
Terry grabbed her bag, buttoned her jacket and stared at the empty coffee cup on the table. She looked up in time to see Chad walk into the kitchen and put the pot away.
"There's a story there, Chad. Nurture it, or let it happen." The smile on her face when he came to see her out the door was pure mischief.
"She's not that kind of girl," he hissed quietly.
"Then make her?" Terry winked devilishly. "All right, I'm off. Get me that story, lover boy."
He felt the weight of his world push him down when she left. He couldn't see the story she saw. Not a story that was possible anyway. He would have to make shit up and making shit up was hard especially shit about love. Not to mention, all he could see was June, Bax, and himself. Three different people, maybe even interesting people, but no story. Bax was dead. June was technically no longer homeless. And he was where he'd been a month ago, back to being that desperate writer scared to step on the green turf of Hyde Park, and no story within sight.
Chad went back to his study and fetched his laptop. He sat at the kitchen benchtop bathed in the warm afternoon sunlight. It wasn't the most comfortable place to work, but at least he could see June coming downstairs. He was about to chronicle the last month and see if he could see what Terry saw. He didn't want June to feel that he had been self-serving when he helped her. It had been in the beginning, but then, friendship had gotten in the way. His heart was involved now for what it was worth, and it thundered nervously as what he was about to do. What if she ever found out what he was attempting?
He stared at his nemesis, the blank page, once again. He flexed his fingers, cracked them, and twisted them through one another, delaying the inevitable search for this elusive story Terry wanted. His gut was saying no, his head was saying no, and his heart was saying 'don't even think about it,' but a small voice somewhere deep, deep inside, was daring, and coaxing him to save himself. It's just a story, it was saying. No harm ever came from a story.
Chad started typing.
He could try it out, and if nothing came from the attempt, then that'd be that. June didn't need to know. Not yet, not until it developed into something, if it ever developed.
It began: It wasn't my usual morning.
(Image by Tayeb Mezahdia on Pixaby)