To be loved

by Laura Paddick

  “This is my sanctuary!” he said with his arms spread open.

  I smiled politely although I already had a bit of a headache because of the strong smell.

  “Impressive,” I answered swiftly, hoping we would return to the ground floor straight away.

  “I’ve been working on this one,” he said as he pointed towards a misshapen portrait of Angelina Jolie wearing a Tomb Raider outfit.

  “Remarkable,” I said, dying to pinch my nose, but I didn’t want to be rude.

  “My next cartoon will be Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Uh-huh,” I mumbled.

  “And I was thinking the next one could be… you, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  He came closer to me.

  “Would you mind if I drew you one day?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  I must admit, I was a little flattered at the time. He then took my hand.

  “Would you push me away again if I tried to kiss you?” he asked gently.

  I would have preferred that he kissed me somewhere else than in his stinky workshop, but I was caught in the moment and I didn’t want to ruin it. Geoffrey was so kind that I couldn’t resist his advances anymore.

  “No, I wouldn’t push you away…” I replied, getting ready.

  His warm lips slowly met mine and I gradually returned his kiss. I could no longer smell the paint and cigarettes as the soft odour of Geoffrey’s freshly shampooed frizzy hair covered up the room’s scent.

  Chapter 16

  A kiss from Geoffrey certainly cheered me up. I still wasn’t too sure of what I was doing but at least I didn’t feel so lonely after visiting him for a couple of hours. We kissed, we joked and we drank tea. I left when an old couple turned up and wanted to buy one of his paintings. We agreed to see each other again over the weekend.

  Dark clouds were hovering over the city but it still hadn’t rained. I slowly returned to my apartment, contemplating the menacing sky. It was only the next morning that the thick clouds finally released all the water droplets they had stored. There was a complete downpour just as I was leaving the apartment to go to university. My roommates had been discreet ever since their argument and I hadn’t seen them together in the kitchen at dinnertime or breakfast. I sincerely hoped everything would be back to normal soon.

  As I was walking through the campus to get to the right building for the two-hour Purchase and Sales behaviour lesson, my classmate Tommy sneaked up beside me to find shelter under my umbrella.

  “Hi!” he shouted out of breath after running in the rain. “Can I walk with you?” he asked politely.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I got used to the sun so much, I thought it would never rain again!” he chuckled.

  “It looks like there might be a thunderstorm coming...”

  “I hope not, there’s a football match at lunchtime!”

  “Are you playing?”

  “Yes, if Graham lets me!” he said scornfully.

  “He can get a bit competitive.”

  “Chris will be goalkeeper this time, so I’m sure we will win!”

  No comment.

  “Will you and Olivia watch the game today?” he asked.

  He obviously hadn’t noticed the distance between us.

  “I…don’t know,” I hesitated.

  “It was great hanging out with Olivia the other day, didn’t you want to join us too?” he wondered.

  “I… I wanted to study… you know, exams soon…”

  “Shame. Chris told us some unbelievable stories about the previous campus he went to. He got into so much trouble!” giggled Tommy.

  “Where was he before?” I asked, a little curious about Chris' past.

  “He has been all over the place! Mostly in Sussex.”

  “What brought him all the way up here, to Merseyside?”

  “Family, he said...but also because he got expelled from the other universities he attended!”

  My eyes and mouth opened wide.

  “Really? Expelled from all of them?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “What on earth did he do?”

  “Bad grades and cheating, apparently.”

  “He told you that? With no shame whatsoever?”

  “Come on Amanda, do you really think Chris is the kind of guy who gets embarrassed or remorseful?” answered Tommy.

  He had a point.

  “I guess not,” I said, amazed. “He’s lucky that he was accepted here after such a troublesome history! I wonder how he even made it to third year!”

  “Whatever you do, don’t sit next to him during the exams,” Tommy warned me.

  I was definitely going to follow his advice.

  “What else do you know about him?” I continued to investigate.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Good question. What did I want to know? His birthday? How many girlfriends he had been out with? His shoe size? No. I wanted to know the back-fence talk. Anything out of the ordinary.

  “What were you laughing about the other day in the park?” I decided to ask.

  Tommy was chuckling again before he even started to explain.

  “In class last winter, Chris managed to steal his form teacher’s keys and kept them in his pocket all day. When night came and professors were leaving to go home, he slipped into the teacher’s office, put a fake snake in his top drawer and filled all the others with water.”

  “What a child!” I muttered under my breath, unimpressed.

  “He didn’t stop there…” added Tommy. “Before taking off, he turned all the teacher’s books, which were tidily displayed on the book shelf, the wrong way round so that he had to go through all of them to find the one he wanted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, instead of seeing the cover side of the books with the titles and the names of the authors, he would only see white pages.”

  “The teacher must have spent ages putting them right!”

  “Yes,” said Tommy, “but there’s more… Chris took a black marker from the desk and wrote BEWARE OF THE SNAKE in huge all over one wall!”

  “That’s vandalism!” I exclaimed.

  Tommy giggled while I seriously questioned Chris’ mental health.

  “Did he get caught?” I asked.

  “No, never. He left the keys on the door and threw away the gloves he used to avoid fingerprints. The next day, he found out that the teacher had called a snake removal professional, thinking the plastic one in the draw was real, and they had to throw out the desk because the water had ruined the wood!”

  “Oh dear! That’s terrible!”

  “Chris tells the story better than I do,” he commented.

  “And the walls?”

  “The entire room had to be repainted.”

  “Gosh! Aren’t you all concerned that Chris could cause trouble here? He’s obviously not trustworthy!”

  “He didn’t hurt anyone Amanda…” Tommy replied, as if I was being silly to worry. “It’s just a bit of fun! Chris was right, you really are sanctimonious sometimes.”

  I felt my cheeks turn hot and red in a flash. I wanted to scream at Tommy that it wasn’t true, but I knew it would only make things worse for myself. Instead, I walked faster, making him keep up with me to remain under my umbrella. I shook it from time to time to make drops fall onto his face and shoulders.

  “Mind what you’re doing!” he called out.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said sarcastically, “Am I going too fast?”

  ***

  By lunchtime, it had stopped raining but there were still many black clouds coming our way. They were so dark that it seemed like night was falling at midday. All second and third year students were sitting in the park, using their raincoats to protect their bottoms on the wet grass while watching the lively football match. I sat next to Helen, who was parked next to Duncan, who was beside Pauline, who was sitting next to Oli
via. Although I regularly tried to take part in their conversations, my friend ignored me completely. I even shared some chocolate buttons. Everyone took a couple, except Olivia. I didn’t know what to do to get her to talk to me and she obviously wasn’t eager to make up. She much preferred watching Chris show his abilities as goalkeeper. Thanks to his flawless defence, the second year team still hadn’t managed to score. Our team, on the contrary, had scored three goals. Graham was over the moon and was even gladly passing the ball to Tommy!

  At half time, all the players fetched their bottles of water. The morning rain had freshened up the city but it was still extremely close. I carefully watched Chris chatting with the lads and Kelly – alias Sporty Spice – while drinking their refreshments. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was here. After being expelled from so many universities, why continue his studies? He most likely didn’t care about his education, so why persist? What could he have said to the headmaster for him to allow Chris in our year? There was something illogical about his situation. His attitude towards me also brought up a lot of questions. Why won’t he leave me alone? Why constantly play with my nerves? What had I ever done to him to deserve his unstoppable and unwanted attention?

  As the participants regained their spots on the small football field, we all started to feel drops of rain landing on our heads. Jessica, lazing nearby, was the first one off the grass to run to shelter. The rest of us waited a little bit longer, but just as the referee was about to whistle to announce the start of the second half, a horrendous clap of thunder made everyone jump. The game had to end then, and the third year students cheered at their team’s victory while sprinting away from a sudden and unusual downpour. Olivia and Pauline disappeared so quickly that I didn’t even see them leave the park. I stayed with Helen and Duncan who had kindly invited me to join them for hot chocolate in town. When we arrived at the closest café, we were surprised to see some football players already sitting comfortably around two little vintage tables. Tommy, Kelly, Nolan, Graham and Chris had had the same idea as us: dry off from the rain in a cosy coffeehouse.

  “Goodness me!” said Duncan. “You were quick!”

  “We raced!” Nolan explained.

  “You’re welcome to sit with us,” Kelly suggested.

  “Good idea!” Duncan replied. “Sit down girls, I’ll fetch us three hot chocolates.”

  I immediately went for the chair furthest away from Chris. I ended up on a very dodgy stool, but I preferred to sit on something wobbly than by the devil's side. Helen, on the other hand, willingly sat next to him. Just like his neighbours, Chris was soaking wet from the thunderstorm.

  “You should have taken a gentle stroll under an umbrella like we did!” joked Helen.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” bragged Tommy.

  “Let’s hear another one of your stories, Chris!” Nolan proposed.

  “Not today,” he answered.

  “Oh come on mate,” he continued, “your schooling has been so much more exciting than ours!”

  Everybody laughed.

  “Yes, come on Chris,” I said to badger him. “I heard about the snake tale this morning thanks to Tommy… Tell us another one!”

  That was amusing! I felt in control of the situation for once and I enjoyed it. I had been looking forward to getting my own back after all his nagging.

  “No, not today,” Chris insisted.

  “Oh dear, is Mister I want to pee in the ladies room out of anecdotes?” I said provocatively, with a wicked smile on my face.

  The others didn’t have a clue what I was on about, but it put Chris in an awkward position, and I liked that. After a short silence, he finally began telling a story about his past.

  “Very well… I’ll tell you about something that happened not so long ago.”

  We were all ears.

  “Nearly two months ago, we all attended Jessica’s party. As you know, she and I started going out the next day. We weren’t the only people who got together thanks to that festive occasion... That morning, when everyone was enjoying strawberry pancakes, Amanda spilled some jam down her white t-shirt…”

  My heartbeat suddenly started pounding in my chest and I could feel its booms in my wrists.

  “She walked to the bathroom and when she came out a couple of minutes later…”

  My throat was tightening.

  “This is a boring story!” I shouted.

  “Nonsense, it’s intriguing!” the others said. “Keep going, Chris.”

  This will be the end of me, I thought.

  “As I was saying,” Chris continued with a smirk, “a couple of minutes later, Amanda came out of the bathroom and heard noises coming from one of the bedrooms.”

  Kelly, who was sitting next to me, blushed and realised what he was going to unveil. She started to get fidgety on her chair. So did I.

  “Amanda walked up to the bedroom door and pressed her ear against it…”

  “That’s not true!” I panicked.

  Nobody took notice of my side of the story.

  “She heard two people having sex,” said Chris, staring at me and savouring every second that I suffered.

  I noticed Kelly trembling as she took a sip of her coffee. I had completely gone off my hot chocolate.

  “I saw her from the corridor,” explained Chris, “and if I hadn’t stopped her from opening the bedroom door to peek at what was going on in there…”

  “That’s not true!” I cried out.

  “Amanda would have watched the erotic scene going on in that squeaky bed!”

  Tommy, Helen, Nolan and Graham looked at me with disgrace. Chris sat comfortably and drank his beer. And Kelly kept her head down, relieved that he didn’t give away that she was the one having sex. I was about to burst into tears, utterly embarrassed, humiliated, mortified, and unfortunately, guilty.

  “I… I didn’t open the door!” I said in a trembling voice.

  “Amanda seems innocent on the outside,” added Chris, “but when nobody’s aware of it, she gets a kick out of voyeurism.”

  I had to leave before I burst into tears and made an even bigger fool of myself. I desperately wanted to reveal to everyone that Chris had spied on Jim and Kelly after I left the corridor, but poor Kelly was shaking next to me out of fear of being discovered. I quietly put a five-pound note on the table and rushed out of the coffeehouse. Once I was outside, my eyes flooded up with tears. On my way home, I looked like a zombie whose eyeballs are allergic to daylight.

  Chapter 17

  I longed for Olivia’s forgiveness. My heart was aching from being apart from her, especially in such an arduous time. I was now known as Peeping Tom, or to be more precise, The Peeping Rat Woman. Chris’ revelation to my classmates was painful to say the least. I hadn’t slept all night and I needed to speak to Olivia. It had been nearly a week since our fall-out and I still hadn’t built up the courage to face her disappointed eyes. I didn’t blame her… I too would have felt let-down by my best friend if she hadn’t shared important news with me. Only know you love her when you let her go, a band sang on the radio, as if the singer liked rubbing in the message of cherishing what you have when you have it. I turned it off and finished my morning toast in silence.

  “Morning!” said Michael, walking into the kitchen in his pyjamas.

  “Hi,” I answered.

  He yawned a wide yawn and prepared his own breakfast. Hannah walked in at that point. She was fully dressed but had dark circles under her eyes as if she had cried for days. Neither of them spoke. It came as quite a shock to me; I was used to them joking and laughing together about things that went on in their lives. It was like witnessing parents getting a divorce and avoiding contact with one another.

  “Anything exciting planned for today?” I casually asked to break the ice.

  “No,” replied Michael.

  Hannah didn’t say a word.

  “Any more dissertations to do?” I tried.

  “No,” Michael
simply said without encouraging the conversation to go any further.

  The situation was awkward and uncomfortable. Surely their fight couldn’t have been that bad...

  “Exams are coming up for us too,” Hannah began to explain, sensing the silence was distressing. “So, no more dissertations.”

  My roommates were both studying for a Master’s degree in Art and they still had one year to go.

  “I heard on campus that there is some kind of ball organised this year for the Art’s department, is that true?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Michael answered in haste, as if to move on from that topic as soon as possible.

  I should have taken notice of the bitter tone in his voice, but I didn’t.

  “Are you going?”

  Nobody responded. Had I just brought up a tricky subject?

  “It sounds fun, doesn’t it?” I asked, trying to calm the unbearable ambiance in the kitchen.

  “Michael is going,” said Hannah, “he’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Don’t make me feel guilty for going, Hannah!” he blurted, raising his voice.

  “I’m sure you’ll have a smashing time with that slut!” Hannah replied.

  “You’re just saying that because you don’t like her!”

  “She has seen more ceilings than Michelangelo!”

  I didn’t know Hannah could be so direct. She had certainly never insulted anybody in my presence. Ever. I sat at the table between my two roommates who were standing on either side of me and screaming at each other.

  “I can go out with who I bloody well want to!” Michael yelled.

  “She’s the worst person you could have picked!” Hannah shouted.

  “She asked me! And she’s certainly braver than you, constantly hiding behind your friends to avoid any contact with men!”

  Hannah ran to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Michael sighed and his eyes started to brim with tears.

  “Sorry about that, Mandy. Have…have a good day,” he said quietly while marching to his room with his head down.