THE EMPATH

IT ALWAYS GETS BETTER...

"Vicky, there is a text message on your phone from Anne," Mom half yelled across the kitchen. I had waited for her to call or text me all day so you could understand why I almost broke my leg running to the phone. "Wow, he must really like this girl," I heard my Dad say as I was making my way through the backdoor. "Remember to pick that bucket on your way back," Mum said. My arms were shaking a little by the time I got to the phone. I picked it up ready but froze right after imputing the password. What if the text was to tell me she wasn't gonna make it? Even worse what if she was at the gate? I was waiting for her but somehow I wasn't ready yet. "Oh come on Vicky it's not like this is your first female friend ever. Relax son, I met her and she is in many ways just like Alice. Everything is going to be okay," coming from Dad, those words almost felt magical. However, my hands were still shaking as I opened the message.

I half ren half flew to the gate but played it cool when I set my eyes on her. She was clad in a beautiful, knee-long, red dress complimented by white open shoes. She had a little makeup on which made her even prettier, I just wanted to go over, hug her so tight, and kiss her on the lips. For a moment I even saw that in my head. "Hello, for a moment there I thought you had stood me up," I said and reached out to help her with her bag. She leaned in and we hugged briefly, then I had to pull away as I noticed Mum and Dad peeping from the front door. "Sorry for the long walk, I was waiting for you to call and ask me to get you from home, that way you wouldn't have walked all that way alone," I was trying so hard to hide my excitement in vein. I wanted to walk hand in hand with her but that was not possible either so I just walked beside her like a two left-footed goat feeling my Mum's eyes staring at us as we approached the house.

We had to go through the front door so that she could say hello to my parents. I know Mum was eagerly waiting to meet her and it would have been rude to just walk directly to my tiny house. The smile on my Mum's face was a little bit concerning and Dad noticed it as well. We all sat down and waited for an outburst of questions. "3,2,1...," Dad counted down in a low voice only audible to me. "So, you must be Anne...," that was how it started followed by a sea of questions that Anne barely had time to answer. Dad just sat there smiling from the corner of his mouth while I had my fingers crossed. I feared mum would scare her off and given that Anne was the shyest girl I had ever met, scaring her wouldn't be that hard. Dad saw the look on my face and he decided to help. "Hun, don't you think you should let these two kids get to their studies? You don't want to be the reason why they fail," he had won with just that single sentence, and, that didn't happen much often around the house. Mum looked at her watch and then at me, she went on to explain that we had two and a half hours to do whatever we had planned and then I would take Anne back home before dark. I stood there just nodding my head even though I was just half-listening. All I wanted was to be alone with Anne in my room far away from my parent's watchful eyes.

"You have your own house outside your parent's house?" she seemed genuinely surprised. "Yes, is it a bad thing?" My thoughts were by then racing as I feared she was afraid of being alone with me in my house away from my parents. "No, no, it's just that...well, I think it's cool. My brother lives in the room next to mine and he is so noisy and messy that sometimes I wish I had a place outside my Parent's house. You know, for some privacy," that didn't make sense to me at all but I was willing to take it provided I knew she was not scared. The next worry was whether or not I had cleaned it properly, I wouldn't want to make a dirty first impression which is why I had spent a whole hour cleaning earlier that morning. "Well, welcome to my humble cubicle," I hoped that I sounded as cool in words as I sounded in my thoughts. "Thank you, your cubicleness," she bowed a little and walked in with a huge smile on her face. I was nailing it!

Once inside, she walked over to the table and went down to place all the books she had on it. "I see you brought your physics study book along as well," I said upon noticing the huge volume on the table. "I thought we could split the time we have between the two for the sake of balancing," Her thoughts were in the right place but I wasn't soo sure about mine. Physics was in a way my favorite subject but not at the moment. All I wanted was to seat beside her, admiring her as she did her thing. I was not ready to study but she seemed hyped about it so I sat next to her. She had brought with her those tiny study papers and we used them to quiz each other through the next hour and I was beginning to get my head into the game. "That's enough with chemistry, I guess. Let's get to your favorite...here, I go first," she handed me the papers and I shuffled them a little to make sure the question was anonymous. "Okay, name and explain two ways in which magnetism can be acquired," It was an easy one, and the smile on her face said it all. "Let's start with stroking...," it was like the reality switch had been flipped off in my head by the mention of the word stroking. I found myself seated on the shores of a beautiful ocean surrounded by beautiful coconut trees. On the shore were all sizes and colors of sea shells and I had collected quite a few pink ones.

Anne was seated next to me holding a camera while I was stroking her hair. The cold ocean breeze brushed through my skin giving me the coolest of feelings. The skies were clear with only a few clouds scattered all through the horizon. The waves from the ocean made a beautiful song that only the trees could sing to. The moment felt perfect. Sometimes I wished time would freeze in a moment like that so that Anne and I could live in that very moment forever and ever. A cool quiet place away from the exam blues, mini heists, and an unpredictable future. "This is the perfect moment to make my move," I thought to myself and without hesitation, I spoke out loud. "Anne, will you be my girlfriend?" It took me a while to realize what I had just said as in my thoughts, I thought I had said it to the fictional Anne in my head. "Wait, what?" she had said out loud bringing me back to the reality where I had just paused the question unconsciously.

"Oh, God...I am so sorry Anne... I didn't...I am...," I had no words to say and there was no way out of that. "Yes, yes Vicky," she said shyly and turned her face towards the floor. I rubbed my head in confusion as I tried to make sense of the situation. "Juice...I mean do you want some juice," I said with a shaky voice. She answered by nodding her head but her face was still glued to the floor. I reached across the table and grabbed the bottle, opened it, and handed it over to her. She reached out to take it but she knocked it over instead. The bottle then flew from my hands and landed on her dress before dropping to the ground. I had to go after it with all my speed and I could never explain how I got under the table, even worse, my head found its way into her dress and I lifted it all up on my way from under there. A moment of awkward silence followed as I awaited her to blow over and spill all her wrath uncut on me.

A few seconds went by without her saying a word and the silence grew even stronger. I had to do something to appease her before all hell broke loose. I rushed to the wardrobe, took one of my clean hand towels, and rushed to wipe her dress but she pushed me away. "It,s no use but don't you worry, with a little scrubbing it will wash out. I was amazed by the fact that she was not mad. In fact, she smiled and walked over to me, She leaned in and kissed me on the lips before pulling shyly. "You are not going to pull my head off and yank my heart right from my chest before tearing it into pieces?" I couldn't help but ask. "No, that would be gross, and also all this was my fault," she answered with an even broader smile, and this time I was the one who went close and kissed her. I had no plans to pull away and she didn't seem to be bothered so we kissed for a while. Before we could tell what was going on, we were already at the edge of the bed where I dropped on my back and she followed me. WE would have kept going but the timer on my phone went off and it was time to go.

I could have just let her walk home with a stained dress as she had suggested but I just didn't have the heart, also, I wanted a reason to bother her the next morning at school so I insisted that she wore one of my sweatpants and t-shirt. She protested of course but I kept on making endless remarks about how the stain on her dress looked ugly. In the end, she had to accept my offer and I had to turn away and close my eyes as she changed. Minutes later we were on our way out and as expected, we had to stop briefly to explain the sweatpant situation to my Mum and we were on our way. "Are we going to talk about what just happened?" she asked as soon as we got out of the gate. I was hoping and praying for her to forget or at least not to ask but now that she had already paused the question, I had no other choice rather than to talk about it. I had no idea what to begin or what to say. "Do we have to talk about it now?" I figured asking a question was way much better than saying nothing at all. "Are you kidding me? You just asked me to be your girlfriend, and I said yes, and instead of saying something about it, you gave me a juice that ended up on my dress. Then I kissed you and you kissed me back and we lost control and you don't want to talk about it now?" I couldn't help but feel like I had made things infinite times worse.

"Okay, I am glad that you are my girlfriend now, and I liked the kissing and just so you know, I was gonna stop myself eventually...," I knew I couldn't make her believe my words but I had to try if only to avoid being yelled at. We had just become girlfriend and boyfriend yet we were already behaving like an old married couple. "That is better," she smiled and punched me on the side of my hand. For the rest of the way to her house, we talked about our next move on solving the cases, we also talked about the exams and before we knew it, we were already at her gate. There was not much to say so we hugged, then we said goodbye and I started my journey back home. I couldn't wait to tell Alice all about it the next time we would meet. I was sure she would be happy and jealous at the same time and I would so much love to see her conflict with herself. I ren all the way back home to help Mum with the cooking since I had promised her and I intended to keep my promise. I had a feeling the night was going to be perfect and I was looking forward to having the family game night where all the members of the family were going to be present. Dad had just accepted his very first week off. From what I gathered, he had some plans to take her girl out for a vacation which meant there was a possibility that I was going to be home alone for a few days. Mum missed grandma, she had not seen her for quite some time and Dad had offered to drive her in the course of the week. The two were getting along so well lately that it felt like they deserved a gift or something. That was the reason why I had offered to help Mum with the cooking that evening.

We made Dad's favorite Chapati's and meat stew which took us almost two hours but in the end, it was totally worth it. The look o his face after the first bite was everything to Mum and it just made me happy to see the two vibing so well. Before long we were all seated around the dining table enjoying the well-prepared meal. Later that night we played fun games which Mum won fair and squire. Dad asked for a rematch and the date for that was set. We made a bet and after that, we all left for bed. My room felt different that night. All I could see was Anne waking up from her sit holding her wet dress looking all furious and confused. I could still see her walking up to me and I could still feel the kiss on my lips. The place smelled like her. I still couldn't get over the fact that she had said yes. It was hard to think of myself as someone's boyfriend, and yet I was and I was happy about it. That day I went to sleep feeling like I could have it all if I wanted.