by Emma Quinn
And now I had to spend time with him again, interviewing him, trying to make him look good. That was going to be damn near impossible, how would I be nice to him now? I suppose it was going to be a good test to check that I could do it in the future, work with people that I didn’t get along with, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to it one bit. Urgh, it would be horrible.
With a deep sigh, I swung my legs out of the bed and I made my way towards the shower. My head pounded desperately, I had the sort of headache that came with a hangover, which wasn’t fair since I hadn’t been drinking at all. I’d been surrounded by booze and hadn’t touched a drop because I wanted to remain professional. Huh, what a damn joke. It made no difference at all.
Once showered and slightly more ready to face the day, I slung on some sweat pants and an oversized tee shirt and I made my way back into the room where Tia’s eyes bugged out her head at the sight of me. “Oh my God, what’s wrong with you? You look like hell, Faye!”
“I feel like it,” I admitted. “Last night was a bit of a nightmare… putting it mildly.”
“Oh yeah? Big party with the football boys, what happened? You hook up?”
“No I didn’t hook up, I was there in a professional capacity. I didn’t even talk to anyone, I simply observed to get the first YouTube video up, introducing the whole concept.”
“Is it up yet?” Tia grabbed her phone, probably ready to search for it to see what sort of job I’d done. My heart sunk again, if things had gone to plan there would have been something for her to see. I would have stayed up all night to get it online, but of course that hadn’t happened.
“No, it isn’t.” I couldn’t stand the idea of her logging on to see nothing. “Angelo sent me away before I could get any good footage, so I haven’t done anything. He gave it this big speech about how he basically wanted to control what was put out there and it wasn’t to be his partying time.” I sighed, hating myself for being so weak. “I’m scared I screwed it up, Dimitri was quite certain of how he wanted things, and I think that I might have blown it by allowing myself to be rail roaded.”
“I’m sure Dimitri knows as well as the rest of us how much of a dick Angelo is.” I couldn’t even begin to disagree with her this time, I just wished that I’d seen it earlier. “I doubt he’ll blame you because he had a hissy fit. Look.” Tia flashed her phone at me showing me some pictures on Angelo’s Instagram account from last night. In all three images he had a different girl wrapped around him for his two thousand three hundred and twenty one followers to see. “He’s okay showing the night on his social media, but not the YouTube channel. This doesn’t exactly paint him in a good light.”
I couldn’t stand to look at the pictures anymore, they made me feel oddly sick so I turned my eyes away. It wasn’t fair that Angelo felt like he could give me this job then take it away. What right did he have to play around with my future? Did he get a kick out of hurting me?
“Well, whatever, I’m supposed to interview him later on this evening, so I suppose I’ll find out more then. Maybe I’ll ask him why he was such a dick to me last night.”
We both knew that I wouldn’t do that, I was much too quiet for that, but it was nice to imagine that I might stand up for myself. It was good to fantasize that I could be brave.
“Right, well until then I think me and you need a morning of vegging out,” Tia said kindly, anticipating my needs well. “Watch some bad movies and eat chocolate. Chill you out before you have to go and suffer that hell. Sound good?” I nodded enthusiastically. “Perfect, let’s do it.”
I took the chair at the back of the classroom while I waited for the photography class to begin. I didn’t sit there because I didn’t want to listen, this wasn’t some high school scenario where the cool kids stay at the back to avoid detection as they messed around, I did it in the hope that I wouldn’t get called on to answer questions. I much prefered to blend into the background, even in class.
“Hello there.” I jumped as someone hissed into my ear. “Good to see you again.”
As far as I knew I didn’t know anyone in this class. I’d tried to persuade Dan to join me but of course he didn’t want to do anything that involved extra work, so it couldn’t be him. As I spotted who it actually was, my heart rose and sunk in my chest at exactly the same time. I felt ill.
“Angelo?” I asked in utter confusion. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I signed up to the class,” he replied with a shrug. “There were a few spaces left so I took one.”
“But... why? You aren’t interested in photography.” As I said that I realized that I didn’t actually know anything about Angelo, so I could have been incorrect with my assumption. “Are you?”
“Nah, not really.” He swung back on his chair, acting very childish. He didn’t have any equipment with him so I had to assume that this was something to do with me. “But I’m here.”
I wasn’t sure why but his childish attitude made me feel like being petty and angry myself. “Oh yeah? What’s it about then? You want some tips for Instagram? Need better filters?”
His expression hardened as he realized that I knew about his exposure of himself after he’d told me that I couldn’t expose him. As soon as he noticed that, I couldn’t stop myself from cringing. Now, I looked like a stalker, like I gave a shit what went on in his life. Damn Tia for showing me those pictures. Without knowing that they were there, I could’ve still been angry without the embarrassment.
“I don’t know what sort of person you think I am, but I’m not all about Instagram and my public appearance.” He rolled his shoulders back and slid his eyes closed as he continued to spill out more bullshit. “I know I probably gave that impression last night, but that isn’t me at all.”
“Oh no, not at all,” I replied in mock agreement. “You just gave me the impression that you were more focused on getting drunk and screwing around with as many girls as you like. From what I’ve seen it seems like you managed to achieve that much anyway.”
As the teacher came into the room, forcing our conversation to end, I cringed all over again. Now I’d made myself look jealous on top of everything else. I wasn’t sure that this could get any worse! It was ridiculous. I faced the front, refusing to look at him once more.
“Faye,” he whispered to me, clearly not letting it go. “Faye!”
“Stop talking to me, I actually want to listen to this. I give a shit, unlike you.”
He remained silent for a few moments, but I couldn’t soak in any of the words that the teacher was saying because my heart buzzed in my ears and my body was on edge, acutely aware of everything Angelo did. I hated him for being here in my private space, it really annoyed the hell out of me. I wasn’t supposed to have to deal with him for a few more hours yet, it wasn’t fair that he’d screwed that up.
“Faye, I came here today because I couldn’t wait any longer to apologize.” I clasped my hands together, not giving him the satisfaction of turning around to face him. “I was a dick yesterday. I took my anger for Dimitri out on you.” Still I refused to see him. Him saying sorry didn’t make up for anything, he’d been absolutely horrible to me. “I didn’t know you were going to be there and it threw me, that’s all. I didn’t mean to send you away so cruelly.”
“Can you just be quiet?” I finally shot back. “I don’t need to hear this right now. I want to pay attention in this class because it means a lot to me. I don’t want to listen to you.”
I turned back to face the front, just to catch the teacher glaring at me like I was the one in the wrong. I couldn’t believe it, how had I managed to become the asshole student at the back of the class who wouldn’t stop talking? I always hated those kids and after a few days of knowing Angelo I had become them. That was just marvelous. I wanted him to go, so I could get back to being me.
“You don’t need to be here,” I muttered out the corner of my mouth. “I have nothing to say to you right now. We can deal with this when we do our i
nterview.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Angelo replied. “I need to learn all about filters.”
I didn’t mean for it to happen, but a giant smirk burst out onto my face at his words. Maybe that was a bit harsh of me to say, but I couldn’t take it back now. I’d made myself look like an idiot and now I had to deal with the consequences of that. At least Angelo didn’t hate me.
“I promise you I’ll do you such a kick ass interview after this class that it won’t matter,” he carried on talking to me despite the fact that I’d asked him not to. “I’ll make you look so good that Dimitri won’t even realize that the other video didn’t happen. Trust me, it’ll be fine.”
I sat back in my chair and smiled at him. Maybe he was right and we could make up for things. I wasn’t too blown away by his apology, and I didn’t expect him to be perfect in the future, but that didn’t change the fact that I still needed to do this stupid documentary. It would only be a few weeks with Angelo anyway, then I got to be with Kevin, which was what I was desperate for. I had to just do what I could to survive it. Kevin was the end goal, if I thought about him then it wasn’t too bad.
“Fine, whatever. Let’s do it,” I hissed back. “But you have to be good in this lesson, okay?”
“Yep, fine, I will. Whatever I need to do. Thank you, Faye, it means a lot.”
7
Angelo
A
s I brought Faye to my dorm room where I thought it would be best to do our interview, I felt happy and carefree. I thought that I’d screwed things up too badly that we couldn’t repair it, but actually it hadn’t taken me long at all to win her back around. Going to the photography class on a whim wasn’t the worst idea that I’d ever had and I’d even managed to learn stuff along the way. Okay, so I wasn’t ever going to use any of it, I had no intention of ever taking photographs, but now I knew, and I felt like I understood Faye just that little bit more too which was a massive positive.
“So, what are you thinking?” Faye asked me as we got inside. If she thought that it was messy or smelled bad then she didn’t react badly at all. She was good at this. If she wanted to be some sort of photo journalist or something, I felt like she could do it with ease. “Any ideas how you want to do it? Maybe over at your desk so you can look like you actually do some work.”
I chuckled at this, but took it for the good idea that it was at the same time. I moved over to my chair and sat down, but as I did my eyes caught my calendar and I noticed the date.
“Oh my God.” My blood ran cold and my brain span. How the hell had I gone the whole damn day without noticing that? I always paid great attention to this day because of the memories it brought with it. I must have been a selfish dick to go this long without seeing it. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“What’s going on?” I turned to look at Faye, suddenly remembering that she was there. There was a thick ball of emotion lodged in my throat as feelings got the better of me. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t want to do this in front of Faye, I really didn’t know her well enough to fall apart, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I’d been a shit and this interview was supposed to make up for that, but now I didn’t think that I could go through with it at all. Faye was going to hate me.
“I’m sorry…” My voice cracked, this was awful. “I didn’t realize what date it is or I never would have agreed to do anything. I usually spend this day locked away from the world.”
“Why? What is it?” She reached across and grabbed my hand, clutching it tightly in her own. That sweet gesture somehow managed to get the words flying past my lips without me even noticing.
“Erm, it’s the anniversary of my father’s death actually.” I looked down at my eyes wetted. I really didn’t want this girl who was a virtual stranger to see me crying. “He passed away in a car crash when I was only eight years old. He was driving home from work and he got hit by a drunk driver.” I’d unlocked the flood gates now, somehow the words couldn’t stop coming. “They caught the guy, but before they could convict him he killed himself, so my dad didn’t really get justice.”
“Oh my goodness, that’s so terrible, I’m so sorry.” Faye didn’t know what to say, I could tell, but that was the reaction that I always got. People expected my life to be perfect so it was a massive shock to them to learnt that it wasn’t. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
“The after was worse.” I was usually so secretive about this, I didn’t know why I couldn’t stop myself now. “My mom started drinking loads and she basically switched off. I suppose she couldn’t cope with the idea he was just gone and there wasn’t anything she could do about it… but it left me a bit lost, you know? I’ve always been very aware that there’s a big part of my life missing.”
Without another beat, Faye wrapped her arms around me and she embraced me tightly to her chest. I leaned against her, giving myself over to her without even considering pushing her away. It felt nice to have someone hold me in a way that wasn’t sexual. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.
If I thought about it, I didn’t think I’d ever just had a female friend to offer me comfort. I liked Faye a lot, maybe she would be the first one that I was genuinely just friends with. I mean, I barely knew her and she was already being so sweet to me. There had to be come reason why I met her in the library in the random way that I did. Maybe it was because we were supposed to be important to one another in some way or another. She could have just left when I started being emotional, but she hadn’t. She stayed with me and ignored all the awkwardness to be nice to me, which in turn made it easy to speak to her about things. I actually didn’t mind opening up to her, it felt great.
“I’m so sorry, Angelo, I never would have come here to do an interview if I’d known.”
“You couldn’t possibly have known,” I replied into her chest. “It isn’t your fault.”
She held me for a little while longer, allowing me to listen to the sound of her thumping heart, and the steady rhythmic sound soothed me a little bit. It got rid of some of the panic.
“I’m sorry.” I pulled back and wiped my eyes. “I promised you an interview and that’s what I’m going to give you. I’ll… I don’t know, I’ll reveal whatever embarrassing thing you need me to, to make up for being a dick last night. I honestly don’t mind…”
“Angelo, no,” she replied softly while pushing all of her equipment away from her. “Dimitri won’t be able to fire me if you’re on my side, right?” I nodded and chuckled a little. “So fuck it, we’ll do the interview another time. Tonight I think it will be better if we just hang out.”
Wow, she really got me. That wasn’t something I expected at all. I looked up at her in awe, she was incredible. I thought I’d met all kinds of people while here at college, but I hadn’t ever met anyone quite like Faye. Maybe I met her for a reason and she was going to become massively important to me.
“You want to hang out with me? Are you sure, I’ll probably be a boring bastard?”
She lay down on the bed next to me and patted the sheets for me to join her. It wasn’t the first time that a girl had tried to get me into a lying position with her, but it wasn’t ever for this reason. I felt tentative as I joined her, but it wasn’t a horrible feeling. I couldn’t believe anyone actually wanted to be with me through such a challenging time, usually if I was in anything like a bad mood people avoided me. It made me see things a little bit differently… were my friendships all superficial? Now that college was on its way to coming to an end, I had to consider whether or not these were people that I would see once we left this little bubble. In my first year I would have thought so for sure, but now I couldn’t be certain. I guess I had grown in wisdom and I wasn’t sure where it would lead.
“Did your father like football?” Oh, it seemed that we were delving right into the difficult subject matter. I found that very surprising. “Is that what got you into it?”
“Erm, yeah he was actually. He supported my love
of sports massively. I suppose that’s why I’ve always stuck with it, even when it’s felt hard.” I crossed my arms above my head and stared up at the ceiling. “I always imagine him watching me. That’s mad, isn’t it? Sorry, I probably sound…”
“No, it’s nice.” Faye gently touched my arm. “It’s good that you want to keep his memory alive, I think that’s really awesome. He would be proud to see you now.”
“Oh I don’t know about that, I mean it isn’t like I have anything planned out.”
“What do you mean?” Faye turned onto her side to look up at me so I did the same. Our faces were almost touching, I could feel her breath on my mouth. There was a strange intimacy to this moment that I hadn’t ever experienced before. I didn’t know how to feel about it, it had me all churned up inside. “What do you need to have planned out? You seem to have it under control.”
“I’m in my third year now.” I swam in her warm, inviting eyes. The hazelnut color invited me in and begged me not to leave. “So it’s time to face the real world soon and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve always had this plan to play professionally, but how realistic is that?”
“It is if you’re determined enough,” she told me softly. “And you seem to be that.” When I didn’t answer, she continued on with her encouragement. “What will you do if it doesn’t work out?”
That idea caused a tight knot of panic to form in my chest, I didn’t like it one bit. I’d always focused so hard on succeeding, now that the time had come how could I think about anything else? I didn’t even want to consider it, especially not today while I was already so messy, thinking about losing my dad, so I did the only thing that I could and I turned the conversation around to Faye instead.
“What about you? What are you going to do when you leave here?”