The Unusual Thoughts of November (On Hold)

Chapter Four

:- C H A P T E R  F O U R -:

The flat had been silent all day until for the first time in months someone called the intercom.

“Hello?” I ask slowly. No one else is home.

“Oh my god is that you Nev?” The voice crackles through the speaker but there’s no mistaking who it is.

“Kate?”

“Well, let me in! It’s bloody freezing out here!”

It’s not long before over drawn eyebrows and an excessive amount of mascara appears outside my door.

“Agh! I haven’t seen you in forever!!” She hugs me tightly. I don’t return the favor. Instead my arms hang awkwardly by my sides. She puts her hands on my shoulders, “Jesus Christ, where the fuck have you been? I though you had cancer or something!” She giggles hysterically.

“No, Kate”, I wriggle out of her grasp. “I don’t have Cancer.”

“Yeah I know that now, I’m not retarded”, She flaps her hand in the air, batting away the thought. Kate is one of those friends that you’re only friends with because you’ve known them forever. We have nothing in common anymore. People change but they don’t change together. Normally, I hate people like her. So loud and so irritating. Despite that there’s no denying Kate is beautiful. Her skin is smooth like caramel and her brown curls bounce as she walks.

“D’you want a drink?”

“Oh, yes please, black coffee, five sugars.” Fucking typical. So I make Kate a black coffee with five sugars and sit down opposite her. “Can’t we go in your room?” Dirty clothes, cigarette butts and a mattress still lying on the floor.

“Um, no.”

Words float past me. Meaningless, dull words. During these words I come to a realization. Kate isn’t here because she cares. Kate is here because she wants sympathy from all this. She’s here because she wants people to ask questions and because she wants to be at the center of it all. When Kate is halfway through some monologue about a boy she met at a club, Leo arrives back home from god knows where.

“What the- Kate?” He stutters, bewildered. She turns to look at him; I raise my eyebrows.

“Oh hey Leo,” she flirts.

“Uh yeah. Why are you here?”

“We’ll seeing as Nev’s been off for a bit I thought it would be nice to visit.” Nev. Another reason why Kate gets on my nerves.

“November’s been off for a year.” They talk as if I’m not even here. Sometimes I wonder if I even am.

“Yeah, well, to be honest, I thought you and Esmé were still hanging out but she said she hadn’t seen you so I thought I’d be the bigger person and come and see you,” she declared. The truth is Esmé has called me almost everyday since I left school. I haven’t returned a call once and I don’t plan to. “She’s such a bitch isn’t she?”

“Esmé? No she’s not,” I growl.

“Ugh, she totally is. She’s such a slag. You know they found her smoking pot round the back of the school again!”

“So what?”

“Oh my god… don’t tell me you used to do that too?”

“So what if I did?” It suddenly becomes obvious. It’s not just that Kate doesn’t care it’s that she doesn’t even like me. We always used to try and one up each other but she’s winning now. I’m a mess and she’s the most popular girl in school. This visit is just to prove her victory.