Fire & Snow

Chapter 7

A loud knocking pulled me away from my sleep. I laid there on the bed just staring at the ceiling wondering why someone would wake me up this early on a Saturday morning.

My eyes began to close on their own but the knocking persisted and I knew for a fact Kylie was out and had been since Friday afternoon to spend time at her boyfriend’s place. That meant I had to roll my way out of bed and to the door, something I was not really happy with.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. Liav was stood there smiling and he unsettled me.

“Good morning,” he said as he walked in and took a seat at my desk. “How are you this fine morning?”

I sighed and went back to my bed where I plopped face first. “It was definitely okay before you knocked,” my voice came out muffled but by the laugh that Liav did I was certain he had heard exactly what I had said.

“Oh come on Neva, it’s not that early and where is the fun in waking up after 8 am?” Liav said and I could hear a smile in his words.

“Why are you finding pleasure in any of this?” I groaned as I rolled onto my back and glared at him.

Liav spun around on the chair. “Where are your glasses?” he asked instead.

I arched my eyebrow at him. Sure, I did not see clearly without them but in my defence I was sleeping and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep.

“That is beside the point,” Liav said as he stopping spinning on the chair and faced me. “Get up, take a shower and get dressed. We are going for breakfast.” My mouth opened in protest but Liav cut me off. “Before you say how you don’t have money, this is my treat.”

I was speechless as I stared at him and just blinked. Liav stood up.

“You have precisely 30 minutes to do everything I have just said and I will be here at exactly,” he checked the time on his watch. “8:40 am.” Then he left.

I sighed and forced myself up and to the bathroom where I stripped and stood under the showerhead, letting the cold water run over my body. This was going to be a long and tiring day I could just feel it.

The water was refreshing and after that, I wrapped a towel around my head and body, brushed my teeth. I went back to my room where I had a task of finding the appropriate clothes to wear and considering the fact the nearly all of my clothes were breakfast appropriate, I had to think of an alternative very fast.

I sat on the edge of my bed and just stared at my closet that only had jeans, sweats, shorts and no skirt or dress in sight. What am I going to do? I asked myself as I checked the time on my phone.

I only had less than 10 minutes to finish up before Liav showed up once again.

                                                                        *********

“You look rather different today,” Liav, said as we walked to wherever it was that we were going.

I knew wearing shorts was a bad idea but I felt hot and that was the best I could come up with at such a short notice.

“It’s the shorts, isn’t it?” I asked. I knew I should have worn something like a jean or something but it was kinda hot and the shorts seemed like the best choice at the time but now, I was not so sure anymore. “I would have gone with jeans but I felt hot.”

Liav looked over at me but did not say anything. I could feel the way his eyes were looking at me analytically and I began to doubt my choice but it was already too late. Now, all I could do was just keep on going.

We walked for a bit and out of the school to a small restaurant not too far off. The place looked familiar but considering I was one person who hated going out, there was definitely no way that I knew about it. Instead of entering the restaurant, we walked to the back where Faith was.

”You are late,” was the first thing that Faith said, as she was Liav.

“It was hot,” Liav said with a nonchalant shrug as he pulled up a chair and sat. “Hence, I walked slowly to and from Neva’s room to here.”

I sat down on the chair next to Liav and opposite Faith who had her eyes narrowed into slits at Liav.

“That is not an answer but an excuse,” Faith said.

I looked between the both of them and I could feel the power dynamic shift, something that I had never felt before. It was so strong that all I wanted to do in that moment was crawl under a rock and die.

“Give it a rest Faith. We are here are we not? Isn’t that what matters most?” Liav said with a dismissive flick of his hand and an eye roll. “You have to learn to loosen up once in a while and not be so uptight.”

I felt the air go cold and the supercharged. This was not how I wanted to spend my morning but there was no way for me to get out of it. I was fully involved and all I could do was just sit and watch the whole thing unfold.

“Really Liav? You of all people are going to tell me to ‘loosen up and stop being uptight’?” there was a certain coldness in Faith’s voice as she asked that.

Their friendship was just way too much for me to handle. First there was Aydan and then apparently screwing each other over and now there was all this. Whatever this was. It was too much; I needed a break from the three of them. If this was what being a junior meant then I was most definitely not looking forward to being one next year.

“Yep,” Liav said with that cheeky smile of his that I came to associate with him finding pleasure in everything and nothing all at the same time. “Enough with all this talk, I am hungry and would like to get food in system today and not anytime later.”

Faith’s eyes were blazing with a fire but she did not say anything, just looked at Liav as though she wanted to murder him or had already planned his murder. Both of which I was not okay. Liav was the only one who understood my weird sense of humour while Faith always seemed to want to talk about real life issues all the time and how stupid and apparently dumb most of the human population was. All things that I did not mind talking about occasionally but things just got boring sometimes and being all serious lost its appeal.

Liav called over the waiter.

“What will you have?” the guy asked Liav. He had muddy brown hair that was tied into a bun at the back of his neck with light green eyes.

“I will have a plate full of eyes, some toast and waffles with a cup of non-decaf coffee,” Liav said. “And add some bacon too, with the grease.”

The guy wrote down Liav’s order and then turned to me. He smiled as he looked at me, his smile was cute and made him twice as cute as he initially was, something that I thought was not possible. “What will you have?” he asked still smiling.

“Non-decaf coffee, hold the sugar with some blueberry pancakes,” I replied and smiled back at him.

He wrote down my order then turned to Faith and I swear I literally saw the smile get wiped of his face at the look that Faith had. He coughed and tried for a smile but even I could see just how forced it was. “What will you have?” he asked timidly. I did not blame then guy for the way he acted, even I was sometimes afraid of Faith and I spent every day with her.

Faith sighed and her features seemed to relax but there was still a hint of a scowl on her face. “Something with less grease and from his order make sure you don’t add any grease unless you want him to die for you,” she said.

The guy, whose nametag said Ian looked over at Liav and then back at Faith. He seemed conflicted on what to do. His eyes kept shifting between them and finally settled on me and a small smile appeared. His eyes were asking me what to do and I subtly shrugged, I was just as clueless as he was.

“Just do as I have said and you won’t be arrested for murder,” Faith said.

Ian quickly scribbled down something. “Your food will be here in a few minutes,” he swallowed and practically scurried away.

Liav laughed as Ian scurried away. “There was no need to scare the poor guy like that Faith,” he said with a shake of the head but still laughing. He turned to me and his smile intensified. “Someone has an admirer. Did you see how Ian was looking at you? As though he wanted to tap that,” he laughed even harder as he said that.

“What? No, of course not,” I said. Ian

“Denial is such a terrible thing Neva, learn to accept things the way they are. But change them when you see it will be fruitless,” Liav said just as Ian returned with our food.

Ian placed the food in front each one, smiled at me and then left.

Liav took a huge bite from his toast then sipped from his mug. “This is great coffee,” he said.

I was never going to understand how Liav behaved. It was as though he had multiple personalities. I shook my head and began eating as well. We ate in silence before Liav broke the silence.

                                                                           ************

“That reminds me, how was the tutoring with Aydan?” he asked. He was looking at me expectantly and so was Faith.

I placed my fork down and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “We never had any tutoring,” I responded. “Aydan never showed up and I called him multiple times and left him messages but he never responded to any of them.”

I had nearly forgotten the fact that Aydan had stood me up and did not even have the common courtesy to tell me why. I was annoyed but I guess I should have seen that one coming.

“I think I might know why he stood you up,” Liav said as he finished eating. “Knowing Aydan and his love for football, I have a good feeling that was what he was doing.”

“Still doesn’t excuse him standing her up,” Faith said. “He could have called her after the match ended and explained himself but he did not.”

“That’s Aydan for you,” Liav said with a shrug. “Might have went and gotten drunk then called one of his many f**k buddies.”

I cringed at how Liav said f**k buddies so casually as if it was normal to use someone for s*x only. It made them sound as though they did it for money.

“Give me your phone,” Faith stretched her hand out to me.

I looked at her hand and then Liav who shrugged. I shrugged as well and passed her my phone.

Faith typed away and placed the phone on speaker. It rang a few times before someone picked up.

“Hello,” came a groggily voice.

“You will meet Neva this afternoon for the session that you missed yesterday and you will also apologise for the fact that you stood her up without so much as a proper explanation,” Faith said. “You did not even have the common courtesy to tell her you were going to be busy and reschedule.”

Liav burst into laughter at that.

“Faith?” Aydan asked. “What are you talking about and why are you using a different number?”

Faith scoffed, “After all the calls and messages that Neva left you, you still could not place one and two together. How pathetic, but that is beside the point,” she said.

I heard Aydan sigh from the other end of the call. “Look, I was busy and I forgot shite happens. You can’t hold it against me like this,” he said sounding tired.

“I can and I just did,” Faith replied coldly. “Today, afternoon, library. Do not stand her up again,” then she hung up and passed me my phone back.