{1} The Re-Kindle
“ROOMIE!” she shouts, running over to me, her arms wrapping around me eagerly. Instead of stopping her, I embrace her, because as much as I want to deny it, I miss her.
“How have you been?” she exclaims, seperating her body from me, but her hands still sat on my shoulders.
“I’ve been okay, and you?” I ask, my arms, also, still around her.
“I’ve been… alright, just bored here.” she chuckles to herself. “But now your back!”
She runs over to my bed, bouncing slightly as she lands, before turning back to me. We talk for a while, as she sits on my bed as I unpack.
“What have you been up to?” I ask, hanging clothes onto my rail as she watches me.
“Not much. Been down to the town centre a few times but other than that just been here alone.” she says, a hint of sadness in her voice.
“For the last two months you’ve been sitting here all alone because your parents won’t let you stay at home?” I say, looking over at her, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek.
She brings her hand up to her face and wiped it away, still attempting to smile.
“Mhm. They said its easier if I stay here, but its fine, I like it here.” she says, messing with her hair at her shoulder. I think for a moment, unsure on how to help her emotions and decide to change the topic.
“Anything new with Ajax?” I ask, attempting to continue unpacking.
“Yeah, I guess. I asked him out to dinner and he said he doesn’t want to… date a bisexual girl because I will be able to “cheat on him with double the amount of people.” she says, sounding even more dissapointed then she did before. “So that’s not gonna happen.”
I sit down beside her, placing my hand on her shoulder, thinking desperately of how I could help her emotions.
“If that’s really how he’s gonna see it, then he’s the one at a loss. Your an amazing, funny, interesting, beautiful-, I mean intelligent girl.” Shit. I didn’t mean to say beautiful, it slipped out. Its a very common compliment, I don’t actually find her beautiful, her colour’s are on the verge of intolerable.
She smiles and looks down at her hands, her mood lightening.
“Thanks Wednesday. That means a lot to me,” she says, as I stand up and set my type writer down on the desk.
She eventually goes back to her side and sits at her desk scrolling through Instagram on her laptop. I feel bad for her, what Ajax did. He doesn’t deserve her in the first place, and now he’s treating her like that. He’s way too ugly for her anyway, can you imagine such a creature with her, a pretty- I mean, like, pretty alright looking, not pretty as in looks.
Thats twice now, but I know I don’t mean it, so I don’t understand why I’m doing it.
“Hey, Wens?” she says from her side of the room.
“Yes?” I say, looking over at her, her smile still so bright.
“I’m gonna order some food, do you want anything?” she says, turning her laptop towards me to show her on Deliveroo.
I walk over to her and stand beside her, crouching down to be beside her.
“What kind of food are you getting?” I ask,
“Probably like, Chinese or something, Is that okay?” she asks, looking up for me at confirmation.
I look down at her with an obviously confused look.
“Why are you asking me? Your the one ordering it and offering to order it for me, why would I have a say in what it is?” I say, which causes her to smile, and shrug it off, before asking me what I want. I tell her what I’m getting and get my phone from my desk sending her the money for mine, along with the delivery fee.
“Wens, you didn’t need to pay the delivery fee,” she begins to say. “It was my idea, I should be the one paying it”
“Yeah but you didn’t have to offer to order me anything, plus, It’s just less money for you, its not a big deal.” I say, stopping her before she can talk again.
We sit at her desk for a while, before she gets a notification that her order is at the reception. I walk down with her and bring it up with her, setting it down on her desk.
“I feel like they forgot something, theres barely anyrhing here.” I say, helping her unpack the bags. “Wheres your food?”
“It’s here.” she says, pointing down at a small tub of egg fried rice and a few prawn crackers. I look at her like its some kind of joke, but she just looks back, confused.
“You can’t be serious. Your saying your dinner is a bit of rice and some prawn crackers.” I say, clearly very unsure of why.
“Yeah, its fine, its enough for me.” she says, sitting down to eat it.
“No, it isn’t. Here have some of mine.” I say, going to give her half of my food, before she tries to put her hand out to stop me.
“I dont need more than this, I shouldn’t be having this but Im hungry.” she says, taking a small bite of a prawn cracker.
I look at her for a moment, piecing together what is happening.
“What have you eaten today?” I ask, immidietly seeing a change in her expression, her eyes avoiding mine and her vouce turning quite and mumbly.
“I- some crisps, and a yogurt, I think..” she replies, so quite that I had to focus to hear her. I look down into the trash can beside her desk, seeing an empty yogurt container and a not even half eaten packet of crisps.
I quickly stoo wating moving my food to the side.
“Why aren’t you eating?” I ask her, not getting answer, instead a quiet “I dunno” from beneath her breath.
I sigh, looking down at her, tilting her head up to look at me.
“Look, Enid. I don’t know who your trying to impress or what your trying to fix, but you dont need to. You have no need whatsoever to do this, please just enjoy your food, you need your nutrients, and more than usual considering your a were-wolf”
I scrape half of my noodles and half of my chkicken onto her plate before she could say a word, sitting at the table even after I had finished to make sure she had eaten it all.
“Thank you.” she said as I stood up.
“I didn’t do anything that needs thanking, what I don’t get is why you were trying to eat less. Is this for someone?” I ask
“I thought that, maybe the reason Ajax doesn’t want to date me is because of my body..” she says, making me both concerned and angry.
“If a guy or girl, or anyone for that matter, tried to tell you lr make you think that you need to be skinnier, than they aren’t worth your time.” I say, which she doesn’t reply to, but instead jumping up to hug me, before we both go back to our sides, where I fall asleep pretty quickly.
Word Count: 14
