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| SOMEONE SOMEWHERE SOON WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU by Enola PART 15 Sitting in a wooden bench in a park not far from ‘The House’, you’re waiting for James. It’s a quite nice day, sunny but not too hot. He’s just sent you a text saying he’d be a bit late. Last night you were both amazed to talk as you didn’t expect to meet, so you suggested going home, having a good sleep and meeting in the park. You see him arriving walking slowly towards you. He’s wearing a pair of blue jeans, trainers and a black short-sleeved shirt. He’s also got a pair of sunglasses and a packet of cigarettes in his hand. As he gets closer you slightly smile at him. Having said hello, he sits down and apologies for his delay. He says that when he got up he was a bit confused and he didn’t know if he had dreamt or not, so he phoned Shane and he told him you were waiting for him there. He’s extremely nervous. You can see that from many things, from the way he moves his hands on his face rubbing his nose with his index finger or scratching his forehead, but above all from his voice. He’s speaking in a low mumble and you find difficult to understand some words he speaks. But thank to his mumbling you realise that this is the true James, this is the only James you’ve ever known. He apologies to you again for everything expressing all his regret. “I’m sorry too. It was my fault!” you say, “Your fault?” he asked perplexed, “Yes James. I had to listen to you when you came at Ian’s, but I was too angry and bitterly disappointed ‘cos…’cos…” you start explain, but you suddenly stop, “’Cos I didn’t believe you” he ends for you, “you see, it was MY fault!” “I should have listened to you anyway and nothing would have ever happened” you sadly remark. You didn’t expect that talking to him could be so difficult. There are so many things you’d want to tell him, but there is something that blocks you. Thinking of all the things which have been happening between the 2 of you during the past 6 months, you realise you both need time to make up. You BOTH need time because you are sure he feels the same way. Sitting next to him you can feel all his embarrassment, which he tries to hide behind his shades, while he plays with his packet of cigarettes or with the hem of his shirt. Before, when you talk to each other he used to look at you, but now he just takes quick shy glances at you. It’s as if he was scared of speaking something improper which could annoy you, so he prefers keeping silent. But you know that you need to talk to each other, it doesn’t matter what you talk about, you must do it to make both feel at ease. For this reason you say the first thing that comes to mind, “So…what have you been up to lately?” He turns to look at you, although you can’t see the expression in his eyes, the expression in his face is pretty explicit: his month is half open and he’s wrinkling his brow in disbelief. For a moment he stares at you without saying anything, then he mumbles something, “Erm…nothing much!” “Nothing much in all this time?” you ask perplexed, “Erm…yes…well no…erm…y’know…just spent most of time at my dad’s…erm…read some books…erm…worked a bit…erm…gone for walks with Jesse…erm…I haven’t been in the mood for anything else.” Another moment of silence follows his words. Now it’s your turn to speak something you need to tell him. “Thank you…erm…you know…for that night in that club…” “You should thank Shane” he says looking down at the packet of fags in his hands, “You found me not him…dunno what it’d have happened if you…erm…I didn’t want that!” “I know” he says raising his head and turning towards you, “don’t think about that anymore.” He’s right, you don’t have to think about that anymore, it no longer makes sense. Fortunately he found you before things could complicate, so you just have to get rid of this stupid thought. You have to thank you him for another couple of reasons, but before doing that you ask him to take his sunglasses off. Afterwards you turn towards him and sit cross-legged leaning your arm on the bench and start speaking again, “First of all, I have to thank you for your letter…” ”Oh shit!” he exclaims cupping his face in his hands, “What’s up? It was beautiful! It’s not true you’re not good at writing!” you smile, “Erm…beautiful? You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” “No, I’m absolutely serious!” “You know…one day I was driving to my father’s and I got the radio on…you know, I rarely listen to it ‘cos I like more putting a CD on…but that day erm…dunno why…I switched the radio on…I didn’t listen to it that much tho’…to be honest… then there was that song…erm…you know…‘Trouble’ by…erm…SHIT! What the hell is their name…erm…” “Coldplay” you smile, “Yeah…well…I’m sure you do know that song more than me…no need to tell you what’s it about…erm…I knew you like them so…you know…I was kinda inspired later!” (AWW! His letter has been inspired by ‘Trouble’!!) Finally, you thank him for his lovely birthday present, Stella. You ask him if he’d like to see her and he says he’d love to, but he knows that he can’t go to ‘The House’ anymore since Olivia told him clearly he isn’t welcome there any longer. But that’s not a problem at all! You get up and tell him to wait a moment as you’ll be back at once. Behind the bench there is a high bush where you left Stella playing with her red ball when you got there, so you undo her lead you tied to a branch, take her in your arms and go back to James. “Here she is!” you grin sitting in the bench again. He’s quite amazed to see her and starts stroking her smiling happily, also Stella seems to be very happy as she keeps wagging her tail with pleasure and when James bends her licks his cheek and his ear! At this point you both burst into laughing and you tell him she always does that. But he says he knows that. In fact he surprises you when he tells you Stella was the sweeter of Molly’s young, his friend Nick’s dog! “Nick? You mean Nick…ehm…Jones?” He nods and adds that convince Nick was quite hard since he doesn’t know you, he had to beg and beg him to give Stella to you and reassured him saying you adore dogs, so you would take great care of her. “I chose her ‘cos she’s sweet like you!” “Thanks!” you smile shyly, “Erm…I’m blushing, aren’t I?” “Well, let’s say that your face is like this…more or less!!” he says jokingly taking Stella’s ball away from your hand. This is your friend James, kind and funny like when you met him about one year ago and now you realise more and more you’ve been missing him a lot in the past 6 months. You talk again and again about this and that, as you used to do before, for about another hour till you realise it’s getting late and you have to go back home. Leaving together it comes to mind another thing you had to tell him, “You know the book you gave me at Christmas? I told Shane to throw it away! How stupid!” you complain upset. James stops and says, “Are you REALLY sure Shane threw it away?” As soon as you get back home you run to Shane. “Can I have it back?” you ask kindly, “What are you talking about?…hang on…don’t say anything…you want your book! It’s in my room in one of my desk dr…” You rush up the stairs before he ends speaking, but after a while you rush backwards to hold him and express how grateful you feel because having a friend better than him would be impossible! During the following days you see James quite often. One day he tells you that one of his friend is getting married in a couple of weeks in Wales, but he doesn’t know if he’ll go to his wedding because he doesn’t feel like going there alone. Unexpectedly, he asks you to go with him. At first you think he’s kidding because he tells you that otherwise he wouldn’t know who to ask it to. At this point you try to find some pretexts to refuse his invitation. For example you tell him that you don’t like going to big parties where you don’t know anybody and you already know how it would end up. James would spend most of time drinking and chatting to his friends while you’d end up sitting in a corner alone bored to death! You suggest him going alone as he could always meet somebody there after all. But none of your excuses convince him. He says firmly he doesn’t want to go alone, he doesn’t want to meet anybody and he won’t spend too much time with his friends. He wants you to go with him for a very special reason: he wants to spend a bit of time with YOU so that the 2 of you can talk and have some fun because, after all, you both need and deserve that. Moreover, he adds that also his best friends Nick and Sean will be there with their wives and especially Nick is looking forward to meeting you. But there are other 2 reasons why you can’t say no. The first is that his friend’s future wife is Argentine and as her big family and friends probably speak only Spanish they could need an interpreter, so he’s sure you’ll make friends with them too. The second reason is that is friend is going to marry in a castle by the sea near Cardiff!!! That’s not all yet! Since the party will probably last till the day after, you will sleep over in the castle!!! How could you say no now?? You definitely need something new to wear that day, so you ask Chris to go with you to help you to buy something nice. Shane asks to join you and you accept because if you didn’t know Chris you would ask him to go with you. So one morning you go out to see if you manage to find something. Walking past the shop windows you don’t either stop when you see some dress. In fact you don’t have any because you don’t like them…well, you like them actually…when someone else wears them, but you don’t like them on you. You don’t feel at ease in a dress at all! Anyway, Chris and Shane persuade you to try some at least, so you enter several shops and try a lot of dresses, but you can’t find any which fits you. As if that wasn’t enough, you also have to bear Shane’s silly comments. The worst is that you should have asked James to go with you and make him buy you the most expensive dress of the whole London!! Since you’re extremely discouraged you’d want to go home, but Chris and Shane convince you to have a look in another shop. Chris notices a nice purple satin dress on a dummy and suggests trying it. You keep still looking at it thoughtful for a while and you have to admit it’s nice. It’s quite plain and has a low neckline and thin straps. You finally decide to try it and having worn it you look at yourself in the mirror for a while then you leave the dressing room to know what Chris and Shane think about it. “Oh Chrissie! Do you see what I see?” exclaims Shane when he sees you, “I think so darlin’!” she replies, “Can one of you tell me what you see?” you ask, so they look at each other for a while, then turn towards you and say in chorus, “You’re gorgeous!” “Sure? Or you say that just ‘cos you’re getting tired?” you inquire concerned, “Believe us, you’re lovely!” says Shane, “I don’t know…I feel so…so…fuck! I don’t know how I feel!!…OK, I’ll buy it!…Oh Chris, do you think I need to go to the hairdresser’s?” “Mmm…hang on” she comes close to you and raises your hair, “Shane? What do you think?” “I think you don’t need any hairdresser!” he grins, “Yeah, I agree with him!” says Chris smiling at you… PART 16 >>> <<< Enola's stories |