The symbols meant nothing to me; well at least I was trying to convince myself of that. I couldn’t explain it though. It was like I was supposed to know what they meant, like I’m supposed to know what it is. I could see the boy too, the other strange event of the night. He stood so motionless at the window either looking at me, or something else. Something about him stood out, just like the symbols did. Maybe it was his stern jaw line or the clothes he wore, or even the way the light just hid him slightly. He had these muscles, even under his jacket I could see how it clung to his biceps. Maybe it was just the way that he looked at me. No one looked at me; no one even glanced slightly at me ever, but it felt like he did.
“Lily, I’ll get a parking ticket if you don’t wake up now.”
I groaned a little and I rolled my head back to look at Rhys. I realised he had almost double parked his car outside the lot of apartments I lived in. I had no desire to move though and I wasn’t even sure if I could, but Rhys noticed my lack of movement and sighed at me. He turned the engine of the car off and then proceeded to get out of the car and walk around to my side and open the passenger door and then forced me out of his car, and I felt myself sigh too. He really was always looking after me.
He put my arm around his neck and my body weight leant onto his and I used him as a support to walk as he took me inside. The stairs to get to the level I lived on were a little bit difficult as Rhys practically has to drag me up, but I don’t think he minded. Rhys used my key, which he pulled out of my bag to open the door, and I thought for sure my Uncle would be in bed by now, and that he won’t even notice me come in, but I was always wrong about something.
“Oh gees.”
I heard my Uncle’s voice followed by the sound of the television buzzing at a moderate volume level. My Uncle had a tendency to stay up late and watch crime shows, especially when he worked so may night shifts, and I should’ve realised that he of course waited up for me.
“Hi there, Mr. Williams,” Rhys said dimly as he fixed up the way I leant on him.
“She’s not-,” he started to say in a slightly disappointed voice.
“No, Uncle,” I said quickly, but even my voice is quiet and tired. “I’m just tired, and being stubborn.”
I could make out my Uncle standing up in the dark and I realised that he’s nodding, but something tells me he didn’t believe that I’m just tired.
“I’ll take her to bed,” Rhys said finally to break the silence.
Rhys walked me to my room and laid me down on my bed. My room was a place I really liked to be in more than any other room in this apartment. On the wall on the right was the only window and I had hung crystals across it so that when the light came through my window they shown through on to the walls. The wall behind my head I had painted myself to be my favourite colour of red. One of the walls was completely taken up a book shelf and my wardrobe sat in the corner away from the bed, and everything in this room seemed too crammed together because of how small it was.
Rhys ended up unzipping my ankle boots and pulling them off for me, and I wanted to help him but my body was literally just shutting down. He pushed me up the bed a little so my head snuggled into my pillow and I felt him drape the covers over the top of me.
“So you didn’t have fun then?” Rhys asked with a little chuckle.
“If you count getting elbowed in the back, fun,” I muttered as my eyes fluttered from being opened to closed.
I hear him laughed a little and I wanted to smile because I always enjoyed the sound of his laugh. “I’ll call you tomorrow then.”
“Okay,” I breathed out. “Sorry it you get a parking ticket.”
“It’s okay.”
Even with my eyes closed I knew he was smiling. I felt him move some of my hair from my forehead, before I felt his hands slip from me. I heard the sound of my door shut softly as he left. Rhys never felt sorry for me like most people did when they found out that my parents had died. People felt sorry for me because I was left with no parents, so young. They may never say it out loud, but I knew what they were thinking. A girl left without her parents at the age of three to be raised by her uncle who had no parenting experience, what else would they feel but sorry for me.
In a way I didn’t blame anyone for how my life is now, expect maybe the drunken idiot who decided to drive that day. My life revolved around only a few simple things now. I lived in Brooklyn but I’m not a Brooklyn girl, I only ever wanted to get out. Rhys was the only reason I was managing to survive for so long, and senior year meant I could finally find a way out.
The symbols and the boy didn’t matter. It should be the last thing on my mind. None of that should matter. The symbols meant nothing. I was just bored at that party and possibly a little drunk, and whatever it made me feel wasn’t anything I should dwell upon. I let my imagination get the best of me and probably ruined Rhys’ night.
I just wanted to get through everything. Just finish school and move on, and after everything I’ve been through I think I deserved that at least. I deserved to feel happiness and I deserved to feel like for once I belong somewhere real, but then again, I wasn’t sure where that something real was.
Chapter Two
I felt myself roll over in my state of tiredness and confusion before I actually woke up. I slowly let my eyes open and I squinted as the sun hit my pupils. I really wasn’t ready for the sun this morning as it turned out. Before I go to bed I usually pulled a sheet over my window to stop the sun from being so harsh in the morning, but considering I just literally passed out last night, I left no chance for that.
I pulled my bed covers off me and as I looked down upon my skinny fragile body. I realised I’m still in my dress and that I’m still a portrait of last night. I had suddenly become so tired last night that I couldn’t even dress myself for bed, well it was that or I underestimated how much I had drank and I was drunk than tired, but even that didn’t feel like the truth.
I sighed as I forced myself out of my bed and into a shower. I felt my muscles creak and ache and only the hot water seems to be able to loosen them, but my whole body felt exhausted, like I had run a marathon, and my mind felt very similar. It felt like I barely slept as well. I just felt tired and there was no real reason as to why I should be feeling this way, not after I slept through the whole night at least.
I walked out into the dining area of the apartment to find that my Uncle was already sitting at our six seater wooden dining table eating a piece of toast and drinking his probably extremely strong black coffee. He gave me a look as his eyes laid on me; the same one I seemed to remember him giving me last night and neither of these looks gave me the feeling that he didn’t approved of me at the moment.
“So, last night was fun?” he asked me, watching as I walked past him and into the kitchen.
“Not at all,” I told him, as I reached the fridge and pulled open the door.
“So why did you go?” he said slowly.
“Because I wasn’t about to let Rhys go alone,” I answered him grabbing the orange juice bottle.
As I turned around I saw my Uncle with his arms crossed over his chest. So I was right, he isn’t impressed with me at the moment.
My uncle could sometimes look older than he actually was. He was nearly five years younger than my mother would’ve been by now, and maybe getting a three-year-old child to raise at a young age by himself, aged him a little. I’m pretty sure he was only about thirty- seven, but he could easily be mistaken for at least forty-something.
He had this thick dark curly hair that apparently he got from my grandmother; well that’s what he liked to tell me anyway. He had cut it pretty short though, and I’m pretty sure he hated his hair. I was quite used to him wearing his glasses too. He had slowly gone through the stage of not being able to read properly, which was when he first started wearing his glasses, but eventually it moved onto not being able to see properly most of the time. His glasses are also something he hated, that I was sure of. You wouldn’t o
ften catch my uncle without a bit of stubble either, never a full on beard or anything, but he never liked to completely shave it off. He was reasonably thin too, not really any muscle on him like it may have appeared he had due to the fact that he was a tall guy and all.
“So,” he said slyly. “I take the drinks where good.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I wasn’t drunk.”
“It didn’t look that way to me,” my Uncle shook his head.
“I had nothing to do,” I told him, grabbing a cup out of the cupboard and placing it on the bench. “I may have drunk more than I planned to, out of boredom. I had Rhys, I was fine.”
“Lily,” my Uncle said firmly.
“Joseph,” I replied sternly.
My Uncle stared me down a little. I didn’t often call him by his name, and sometimes it was easier to call him Uncle, rather than Joseph, but he knew that when I used his name that I was fed up, or angry, or something. He narrowed his eyes at me and I rolled my eyes back at him and then continued to pour my orange juice.
“Are you going to Rhys’ today?” I was glad he was dropping the subject now.
“I suppose,” I shrugged. “Why?”
“I leave for a work in half an hour if you want a lift,” my Uncle gave me the same shrug to imitate me.
“I can walk,” I told him calmly.
My Uncle just shook his head at me. “I don’t like you walking. I’ll drive you.”
“You don’t need to-,” I started to argue.
“I want to,” he said quickly. “Besides it’s the last day before you go to school.”
I felt myself sigh, well it came out as more of a groan.
“I swear, if you go on about me starting senior year,” I told him, shaking my finger at him, “I don’t want to hear it.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Learn to be sentimental, Lily.”
My Uncle preferred to drive me around and if I was being honest, I didn’t mind it. Brooklyn wasn’t the best place to just walk around in, but we did live just that little further up in Brooklyn and I did attend the best high school in the area. Although it didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous, but then again this whole country was if you really think about it. My Uncle just wanted to protect me, My Uncle is always going to protect me. I am his sister’s daughter; his dead sister’s daughter. I guess I sometimes underestimated how important that actually was.
Rhys didn’t live too far from me, or too far from where my Uncle worked. My Uncle worked in the local hospital as a nurse, which I know sounded kind of lame, but it’s actually not. The only thing that sucked was trying to find a good payroll for the job, which wasn’t easy in this economy. It was helpful that he was a nurse for me though, because I’ve always been quite good at being clumsy and hurting myself, so I had him to fix that up for me, or really just fix me up that is.
I may have texted Rhys this time to let him know I was coming around, but it often didn’t matter if I just showed up most of the time. He had a reasonably large family cramped into a small house. His older sister, Megan, only moved out about a month ago, and that was just to live on campus at NYU. Rhys’ older brother, Justin had finished high school but he was still lounging around the house like he was a lost puppy. I guess it took Megan a little while to decide on college, nearly a year actually, but I was convinced there was no hope for Justin, and Rhys thought the same thing. His parents were split though and he only lived with his mother now. Rhys was thankful for the days Justin decided to stay at his Dad’s.
“So…” Rhys said, as we walked into his room, shutting the door behind him.
“Oh, god, not you too,” I complained. “I swear if you give me grief about drinking too, I’ll leave.”
Rhys couldn’t help but laugh at me. “Okay, okay… I won’t then.”
I sat down on Rhys bed and crossed my legs and Rhys sat on his chair at his desk. Rhys’ bed was pushed into the corner and his desk was across the room from it. His room was pretty simple and somehow he managed to keep it tidy, not that there ever was anyone in it to see it beside me and his Mum.
“I saw Josie last night,” he told me, “and you’re right, she is lost to us.”
“It was only a matter of time,” I sighed at him. “She only talked to us in the beginning because you helped her out with chemistry.”
I guessed in a way I didn’t bother with making friends anymore, but at the same time they didn’t bother with me either. It didn’t really matter to me, I had Rhys and my Uncle, and I didn’t need anyone else. It was hard to be around other people anyway, especially when they found out about my parents. I was used to people feeling sorry for me when they found out I was parentless. Rhys, thankfully never talked about it. He knew the subject of my parents was touchy and once he knew the story of it all he never brought it up again. He knew me better than anyone and I couldn’t take that for granted. I couldn’t take him for granted.
“Oh my god, you didn’t buy all that stuff for school?” I asked him, pointing to his desk.
He looked back at his stuff that he had piled neatly beside him. “Are you kidding? Of course I did.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “You don’t need new stuff, Rhys.”
It was Rhys’ turn to roll his eyes. “Lil, can you just try not to be a spiteful teenager for once? It’s our senior year and once it’s over, high school is over. I thought you could at least enjoy that.”
“It’s kind of hard to when I still have to endure a year of school,” I told him.
“You are such a pessimist,” Rhys shook his head.
“You know me,” I shrugged at him with a smile.
“Fine, okay,” he said, giving in. “Hm, we still going to go out of dinner tonight?”
“Of course,” I replied quickly. “I may hate school but I will never ditch our last night dinner dates before we go back… just as long as it’s Chinese.”
It was our tradition to have dinner together the night before we went back to school. Together Chinese was one of our favourite cuisines to eat out, mainly because I loved sweet and sour pork, but it had other perks. The Chinese restaurant that we went to was just down the road from Rhys’ house and is one of the best shops in the area, and considering we went there very often the owners had really taken a liking to us and it had never a really been an expensive meal for us.
The street it was on was busy and whilst there weren’t many other restaurants, the Chinese one didn’t actually stick out in any way. It was small and tucked in between this huge Italian restaurant, and this department store that pretty much just never appeared to be open. The restaurant itself had a sort of yellow and maroon theme going on. The walls had been painted a kind of mustard colour as it looked like the paint had been put on by a sponge or something. All the framing and what not was painted a dark red and the restaurant was scattered with various Chinese ornaments.
Considering we knew the owners we always got the best treatment from the moment we walked in. They knew exactly who we were and the table that suited us best. I’m not a fan of the window table; but I liked being up against the wall so I could see everyone in front of me. Our favourite table was just two tables away from the window, nearly in the middle of the rectangular shaped restaurant. Rhys sat across from me and in minutes he had picked something I didn’t want to talk about.
“So last night,” Rhys said slowly. “What…did you do?”
“What do you mean?” I frowned at him, twirling a fork in my hand to show my disinterest. “I drank…more than I thought and then wondered around the house.”
“And you didn’t find anything…or anyone?” Rhys shrugged.
“What are you trying to imply?” I asked him, leaning back in my car.
“It’s just…when I found you…you wouldn’t even let me look in the room,” Rhys said, looking away from me slightly and down to his order of Kung Pao Chicken.
“It was a boring study, there was nothing…and nobody in there,” I told him strongly.
�
��Yeah, yeah, alright,” he said, shrugging again.
I rolled my eyes. “And you didn’t find anyone?”
“For your information, missy, no,” he answered, with a small smile as he looked back up at me. “I don’t really need to find anyone.”
“Are you telling me you’re fine with being single?” I asked him, with a bit of mocking smile.
“Not everything is about being in a relationship, Lily,” he told me, rolling his eyes a little.
“I know,” I said quickly. “It’s just you were single all junior year and I always thought for sure you’d get some girl and ditch me.”
“I would never ditch you, you know that.”
“Yeah… I know.”
Our night consisted of eating our dinner followed by the occasional bad joke; we are good at bad jokes. That’s us though. We were so comfortable with each other that we could make terrible jokes and even make fun of each without being offended.
“Hmmm, so,” Rhys said, swallowing his piece of chicken “Are we going to bother participating in any extracurricular activates this schooling year?”
“Are you kidding? Why would I bother when I can sit at home and keep my A grade average,” I said sarcastically…but in a way I am kind of serious.
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