Chapter Eight

  Shopping can be a very dull thing at times. Despite this, most people shop for something at least once a week. We are a species of consumerism and despite our hatred – some people do love it, though – of shopping, we can’t help but have a drive to push us towards needing more. We want more, being jealous of others that have more than we do. It is an endless cycle. So, whether you love or hate shopping, you will always be required to do so.

  Jenny had decided that we should go shopping, so we did. I never much loved the idea of deciding a certain look that would define my personality to another’s perspective. Reluctantly though, I agreed and within the hour we were at the local supermarket.

  It was a large store with groceries and all things food related on the bottom floor. We ignored that floor and went up the trolley friendly escalator to the one above. That was the level I most visited whenever I was inside. It contained all electronical items with DVD’s and gaming equipment that I much loved to use as an escape route from the world. Including in those indulging items was the clothing sections. One section for male, one for female and one final one for children.

  If you remember that I was fairly small back then – still am to this day – but I was just able to fit into a small male sized t-shirt if I was lucky.

  That didn’t seem to bother Jenny as she buzzed about looking at all of the clothes that might suit my personality in a way that also looked impressive to a certain extent. She kept holding things up and asking if I liked the look of each item. I didn’t quite know what I should think about them. One was a dark purple and blue small checked polo shirt with a black back and deep blue collars. Another a sort of shirt you would see on a cowboy type person, red and white.

  “You want me to go line dancing at a bowling alley?” I smirked at her.

  She looked at the shirt again and smirked.

  “You’re probably right,” she said in deep thought before placing it back on the hanger.

  This continued for another couple of minutes before we agreed that the deep blue and purple polo would be the best top I would wear. Up next was a new pair of jeans. This didn’t take as long luckily as once we decided on a pair of skinny – but definitely not skin-tight – dark blue jeans to match the polo, it was only a matter of finding the size. That took a long while as we had to transfer to the younger section to find a pair that was small enough to fit me. But as soon as it was done, I was finally granted permission to run – not literally – over to the section I was most endeared to. Jenny secretly loved it too.

  “What do you think of this one?” I asked her as I picked up a DVD with the cover of a Ninja covered in blood.

  “It’s an eighteen, Olly!”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “So…” I trailed off as I turned the cover over to where action packed images were aligned around some Ninja throwing stars.

  Several of them were gory and others were filled with people fighting with blood riddled samurai swords.

  “That’s what the internet is for.”

  I placed the case down and made a mental note of the film’s title before turning to Jenny.

  “What are you doing tonight?” I asked her.

  She looked at me thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.

  I picked up a horror film that was my age rating and held it up to her.

  “Creepy, psychological horror film?” I raised an eyebrow, knowing she hated horror films but put up with them because of me.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then laughed softly.

  “Alright fine!” she exclaimed. “Only for you…”

  There was a slight pause between us and I felt slightly uncomfortable. I didn’t know why.

  “You’re buying the popcorn and owe me my choice of my film next time.”

  “Deal,” I said quickly before she could take back what she said.

  The tension was gone from that moment and it never arrived back that night. While I could mention the obvious fact that we found popcorn and complied with the rules of shopping, I think I should explain our movie nights.

  First things first, they were simply movie nights. They started off about half a year after we both met each other, back in the early days of our childhood. Our parents used to swap us around houses for sleepovers and other events. Our favourite was the movie nights. We just stayed in one room with food, fizzy drinks and just watched as many films as we could before we passed out from tiredness. Each time the event occurred, a new film was bought specifically for the night and the others were just what we decided at the time. We still have them to this day… but yeah, that is the basic story of our movie habits. Several times we went to the theatre on a special occasion but it was mostly just films.

  “It’s okay that I stay around too!” Jenny grinned at me as I opened my front door to her gleaming face.

  I smiled back in delight as I let her in, the pale moonlight seemingly darkened as she left the front step and entered my house. I closed the door before we quickly ran up the stairs and straight into my bedroom where I had already set out a small camp bed that we used when guests were around, next to my bed.

  We jumped onto my tiny bed – it used to be just big enough for us to squeeze onto it – and Jenny noticed that the film was already on the menu, ready to be played. We picked up the popcorn and took a swig out of the bottle each before either of us spoke.

  “You skipped the trailers already?” Jenny gasped.

  She seemed shocked.

  “Wait, you actually want to see the trailers leading up to a horror film?” I questionably asked her, slightly smirking at the anticipation of her inevitable reaction.

  “God, no!” She laughed.

  “Come on let’s get this over and done with…”

  I suggested that she turn out the light in a sarcastic voice.

  “It’ll make it scarier…” I said in a deep voice.

  “I hate you sometimes.”

  She rolled her eyes before closing the door and then climbing back onto the bed with me.

  “Na you don’t!” I teased.

  She playfully slapped me and told me to shut up, so I pressed play on the remote.

  “You owe me an animated film after this,” she whispered as she leant against me slightly, her warm breath tracing across my rising hand as I popped a sweet bit of popcorn into my mouth.

  I smiled softly at her request, the contact seeming normal and carefree as it had done over the years of friendship we shared.

  The film played out like any clichéd horror film would. But that didn’t stop Jenny from jumping at every possible moment. It made me snigger when she had jumped, except when she jumped and spilt some of the drink on me. So, in response I picked an un-popped piece of corn and hid it in her hair. She was frantically trying to find it for a moment before shaking her head and forgetting about it while the rest of the film played out.

  By the time the horror film had ended, Jenny was almost at the brink of shaking and had almost merged into my body. We had pulled the cover over us towards the end as the temperature had dropped and the fizzy was almost gone. I had a faint wash of tiredness begin to fill my body.

  “You…” I yawned slightly. “You okay?”

  I felt her face smile slightly.

  “Yeah, you?”

  She laughed.

  I sleepily poked my tongue out at her before yawning again.

  “Happy-clapping film now?”

  I laughed softly.

  She nodded and moved so I could sit up and shuffle across the bed towards the television and switch the discs over to an old childhood classic that neither of us ever minded watching. It reminded us that no matter what happens in the future, we would always be able to come back to this moment, us together and a film to escape the world. Our perfect moment with no worries. Perfect to us.

  We let the trailers play through some of our old childhood films before pressing the play button and finishing the fizzy off. Laughing at the film, I began to get sleepier and sleepier due to the previous two nights. By the half way marker of the film, I was already leaning against Jenny and was beginning to close my eyes from exhaustion.

  I kept swimming in and out of consciousness for a few moments before I felt Jenny stroke my hair softly. My mind was in a daze and I can’t – to this day anyway – remember finishing the film completely. But I remember Jenny whispering something. Her words weren’t focused any more but I do remember one word, ‘I’.

  Then I fell asleep and the rest was just a dream.

  Chapter Nine

  Dreams can mean a numerous of things. Some things can show you your worst fears, some your greatest desires, and some can be so blurred between weirdness and laughable that you are unable to cypher the true meaning. Of course, there are people dedicated to deconstructing your dreams for you, those that tell you the meanings of your subliminal thoughts. Those are often professionals that study in psychology.

  Nowadays I have learnt some of the basics of dream psychology and understand most of my childhood dreams. For instance, I remember one nightmare where I was alone on a beach and a small platform appeared. When standing on the platform I was taken around the side of a cliff until I was in front of a mirror. The mirror showed my face for a couple of moments before churning into something I can’t describe. It was horrific and felt like it represented my worst fears. These days I feel like that dream was to do with my fears towards the way I looked, the fear of being alone and the setting – on the beach – a place where I related to physical pain. Anyway, enough of the psychology of dreams.

  As I said, back then I didn’t know anything about what dreams meant, so when I was suddenly awakened by my mother walking in my room, I was curious about what I had just seen before my sleeping mind.

  As I laid dazed against the wall, trying to focus on remembering the dream, I felt Jenny suddenly awaken from under my left arm. She was sleeping with the majority of her body resting on me that night. As I saw her awaken, I moved my arm quickly and the blurry dream from the night became clear.

  I was on my bed with Jenny as the night before. But, instead of a movie playing, Elise was trapped inside the television. She was wide eyed and horrified while Jenny and I continued to eat popcorn. Then Jenny had started laughing and I felt extremely uneasy. I began trying to crawl across the bed to reach her, but the closer I got, the longer the distance became. Soon I was trapped in the middle of an enormous distance between the pair of them and I had no idea which way to move. I felt abandoned, confused and alone with no way of escaping. Then I had been woken.

  Jenny had looked at my reaction to her sleeping on me for a few seconds before embarrassingly getting up and walking to the bathroom. Back then I didn’t understand her embarrassment. We had always slept in a similar manner when it came to our movie nights. We never used the second bed as we always fell asleep during the last movie. This time… this time something had changed but I didn’t know why.

  I remembered the word she had said as I fell asleep but I had no clue on the meaning. It could have been anything and yet it felt like it was more. I didn’t want to make a fuss as for all I knew, I had just imagined her speaking.

  I yawned for a moment before peeling my body away from the wall and I clumsily stood up and spotted the newly bought clothes, still in the carrier bag, in the corner of my room. I smiled at the memory of last night before taking my top off and placing a school shirt on.

  I was fully dressed by the time Jenny returned; her hair slightly messy from the previous night but a smile that represented years of friendship. She had brought over a set of school clothes too and had gotten changed in the bathroom. “Wow!” She smirked. “You got ready quick.”

  I looked down at myself and shrugged.

  “When you’re used to being late so often, you get used to it.”

  She laughed at this and tried to comb her hair with her fingers.

  “You forgot your comb?” She rolled her eyes.

  “That obvious, Sherlock?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Well, I like it like that, Watson,” I said honestly.

  There was a moment of silence between us before my mother called from downstairs, announcing that there was breakfast ready now so we weren’t late for school.

  “Your mum’s so nice!”

  Jenny smiled at the thought of food. I laughed slightly.

  “Only because it’s you, trust me. If it was just me, she wouldn’t have bothered.”

  Jenny didn’t believe me and together we quickly went downstairs to where my siblings were already finishing their food and getting ready for their day ahead. Back then there weren’t any strange looks towards us because they knew we had been friends for a long while. But as we collected our breakfast from the kitchen – bacon sandwiches with BBQ sauce – I couldn’t help but notice my mother having a small smirk on her face as she asked us how our night was. Clearly, she thought there was something more between us.

  I always loved consuming the fatty bacon that used to be cooked for us – mind you, I double the bacon now and add melted cheese to the mix. Once we were finished having our breakfast, we quickly gathered our school bags from upstairs – Jenny had hers packed from the night before – and left the house saying goodbye to anyone that was listening.

  “You got something on your moustache!”

  I laughed at Jenny as we began walking towards Elise’s house.

  “Damn it!” she moaned. “I thought I shaved completely last night.”

  She quickly wiped the sauce from her top lip and sucked her finger lightly, consuming the brown sauce instantly as she spun around in a circle with a grin on her face.

  “You okay there, Miss Ballet?”

  She laughed at this but didn’t reply as we continued down the street for a few minutes till we arrived outside Elise’s door once again. I felt more comfortable this time when knocking on her door, my bare knuckles making a repeated dull sound against the wooden door.

  Despite my confidence in my current movements, it didn’t stop my stomach from flipping on its head when Elise opened the door with a sleepy, dazed expression, her hair in a slight mess and her clothes not straightened as if she had either rushed to get dressed or had slept in them from last night. I beamed at her and after a slight yawn from her mouth, she smiled softly back.

  “I’ll be out in a second.”

  She yawned before moving back inside to grab her school bag and a comb.

  I moved back to Jenny as Elise came out, yawning once more as she closed the door behind her. Jenny made a smirking comment about Elise looking like a wild animal but we all just laughed it off as we continued to walk towards the school. All the while there we were talking about what we might be able to do after bowling. Elise mentioned something about going out for a meal and Jenny instantly took the opportunity to slyly arrange for a fairly nice place to eat, mentioning that we would need a seating plan of who would sit where.

  “I can sit on my own, if you want,” she said, trying to manipulate us into sitting next to each other.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “I don’t mind sitting opposite one of you two.”

  I noticed that Elise had a slight smile on her face when Jenny mentioned us sitting together so I knew that she wanted it as well. Luckily Jenny didn’t give up.

  “No, don’t be stupid,” she said to us as we neared the gate. “I will take up an entire extra seat anyway!”

  Elise looked confused but I just rolled my eyes, understanding what she was about to say.

  “What do you mean?” Elise asked curiously.

  “Oh, Elise… I can eat my weight and more!”

  I shook my head and laughed. Of course, Jenny couldn’t eat that much but Elise didn’t know that and she was adamant in making sure that we would sit next to each other. Even if that did mean her ordering an entire extra platter of food for herself.

  Anyway, I feel like you wouldn’t enjoy reading about school that day as practically nothing happened except for lessons and one or two jokes. Elise and I kept her acting a secret for now as I knew that it is what she would have wanted, and we just attempted to plan for the weekend. Jenny and I never brought up what she had attempted to say as I was sleeping during the sleepover. I hadn’t even thought it was real until months later when she finally revealed everything. For now, we just laughed at Jenny being scared of every horror film ever and both Elise and I joked about taking her to see one in the cinema, but tell her it was a soppy film or something completely different just to see her reaction as it starts.

  Soon enough though, the school day ended and we walked back to Elise’s house. Once there, we didn’t require much of a goodbye but when Elise and I joined in a goodbye hug, she whispered something in my ear.

  “Midnight,” she whispered as I shivered from her breath, feeling her words echo around my entire body as my heart rate doubled.

  Chapter Ten

  Most people have a secret life. Now when I say a secret life, I don’t mean they are like a secret spy that goes around saving the world every chance they get – although some might, so I’m not calling them liars or anything – I mean that they have little elements in their lives that are secret. Secrecy in my life, back then, was something that I had held onto as it was my little special source of confidence. I tried to keep secrets about myself from others as I enjoyed the way it felt. I always thought that it added an air of mystery to my personality, added more adventure to my otherwise dull life habits. Truth is, it pretty much just secluded me from most people around me. Only those closest to me knew of my secret life. In short, Elise and Jenny. Of course, you know that some of my secrets included my midnight rendezvous with Elise.

  That night at the exact stroke of midnight, I was sitting on one of the swings as I felt like being extra adventurous for once. I was only swinging a little, using my feet to push off the floor and day dreaming, staring forward at the gate. It took me a few moments to realise that Elise stood over by the fence beckoning me over. The gravel beneath my feet crunched lightly as I halted my swing and walked over to her. A light evening breeze tickled my hair as I was drawing closer to her small sweet smile.