Sanctuary (A Dan Smith/ Bastille fanfic)

14. Dan

I consider my options carefully. If I go upstairs with her then it could mean two things. Is she offering friendship or something more? I mean, she’s an attractive girl and all that but I’m totally new to anything to do with girls. Anything to do with other people really, I’m not a social person.

If she’s offering something more, I’m scared. I’m really scared. She’s probably had loads of experience with guys, but I don’t have any experience with girls. I could be really bad in bed. And our parents are all downstairs. They could hear. They could know what we would be doing just a few metres away from them.

I’m over thinking things. She could genuinely be asking me if I want to watch a film with her. But I don’t think I can handle even that. I don’t do friendships. I don’t need other people. All I need is to be by myself. And I need my keyboard as well. I’m not used to being around other people or allowing them to get close to me.

But for some reason I find myself following her out of the room and up the stairs. It’s strange; her house is completely identical to mine, just the opposite way around. It’s decorated differently to our house next door though. I follow Chloe through to the room at the top of the stairs, the room that is mine in the house next door.

It’s even stranger being in her room which is so similar to my own. The room is slightly more feminine than mine though, with purple coloured bed sheets and photographs spread across the room. I look at her wide smile in the photos with her and what I assume are her friends from where she used to live. She looks so happy and carefree, so different to how she does now. I know her as this isolated, quiet, snappy, sassy girl, but in reality when she’s with the right people I bet that she’s so much more.

I focus my attention back to Chloe who is leaning over her desk onto a shelf, studying her DVD collection. I’m unsure about how this is going to work. So she’s obviously going to put a DVD on but what happens next? Do we watch it? Do I make the move? Will she make a move? Is it assumed this is going to happen?

Am I being an arsehole right now? Am I assuming she means more but really it’s innocent? She turns around and holds a DVD up in the air and looks at me with a questioning look. I don’t even look at the film that she’s holding towards me, I just nod nervously and watch her as she walks towards the desk to get her laptop. She then moves back to her bed and sits with her back against the wall.

At this point I’m freaking out more than ever. I just don’t know what move to make right now. She’s still looking at me with those furrowed brows and that curious look. It’s like she doesn’t know what I’m going to do either.

I need to shut my brain off. I need to let whatever’s going to happen, happen. I join her on the bed and sit with my legs in front of me and my back against the cool hard wall. I leave just enough room between us for the laptop to sit. She’s already put the film in and the music from the opening scene is starting to fill the tense room.

Is she feeling tense too? I glance over at her and she’s staring at the screen. She looks back at me, feeling my eyes burning on her probably, and gives me a small smile before leaning over me. My body stiffens as her body is inches away from mine, but she simply grabs a pillow from the end of the bed that I am sat by and places it behind her back. She holds a second pillow in her hand and offers it to me, which I accept and place behind my own back. I immediately feel more physically comfortable but I’m still tense and unsure of what to do.

My thoughts are running wild, I still don’t even know what film she’s put on, I feel my breathing quicken and my nerves rise. I never really found her that attractive before so I had no idea that this would happen. But somehow we’ve fallen into this place and she obviously wants something out of this. I never really looked at her before today. She is extremely beautiful. Her dark hair curls at the bottoms and flicks in all the right places. Her red lips are pursed as she concentrates on the film. Her piercing blue eyes stare intently at the screen in front of her. Her bottom lip finds its way into her mouth as she bites it gently. Does she want me to do that to her?

I’ve never even kissed a girl before. I’m an 18 year old loser virgin with no experience whatsoever, whereas casual sex is probably a thing for her. I can’t go through with this, she’ll know I’m inexperienced and laugh at my misfortune. She’ll tell whoever she can and they’ll all mock me for it. Somehow, I don’t think that she’s that kind of girl though. I mean, not once tonight has she shown any effort to make conversation with Fran, and I know from her previous encounters with Claudia that she isn’t one of them.

I realise that we’ve been sat here for nearly ten minutes, should I have made a move already? I glance back at her and her eyes are now closed. Her breathing is steady and light mumbles are coming from her lips. She’s fallen asleep.

I battle with my conscious as I decide my next move. I know that she shouldn’t sleep because she probably has a concussion. But then I don’t want to wake her because I don’t want to have that awkward decision whether to go further with her or not. I decide to stay with her for a little bit to check that she’s okay, so I turn my attention towards the laptop screen. She’s put on Mulholland Drive, one of my all-time favourite films. I laugh when I think back to the time that I first saw it. My dad decided to have a father-son bonding day and so we went to a cinema and ended up seeing that film. Little did we know quite how weird it was going to be. Although that weirdness intrigues me, I guess just like Chloe’s weird side intrigues me.

I watch the whole film even though I’ve seen it at least 50 times. Chloe is still fast asleep next to me whilst the end credits run on the screen. She’s slid down the bed slightly, and is leaning on the bed on her side. It doesn’t look like a comfortable position at all. I almost want to move her because I know how sore her neck will be when she wakes, as well as the pain that she will surely feel in her head, but then I decide against it as I don’t want her to wake and see me creeping over her.

Instead I move slowly and creep up from the bed, carefully moving so as I don’t wake the sleeping girl next to me. I tiptoe towards the door and just before I open it I turn back to see Chloe stirring from her sleep. Not wanting to be faced with the awkwardness of the situation I do what I normally do; I leave to be on my own.

I can still hear my parents’ voices coming from the dining room, their laughs getting louder with the amount of wine that they have probably consumed. I don’t want to join them though; all I want to do is go home to be on my own and think about how strange this night has been.