The Cupid Touch

The Cupid Touch Chapter 6 - Out in the Cold

It took me a long time to sleep that night, despite all the alcohol I was saturated with, and which made the room spin whenever I tried to lie down. Undressed, with my make-up only half-removed (and most of that washed off by crying) I tried very hard to sleep, but even with my foot on the floor to stop the spinning, I wasn't able to black out and just forget it all. I kept thinking about him, and about how it had felt to dance with him. 

Maria knocked at around eleven whilst I was still lying with the light on. She stuck her head round the door with her black hair all tangly and her pyjamas on, and I wondered whether Luke had only just left. But it was nice to see her alone, without him. It didn't happen all that often, so I asked her in and sat up for a while.

She came and perched on the bed, her legs drawn up, and rested her chin on them. She had a kind of rabbit cuteness that made me want to hug her, too. But I told myself off inside for being a sad, lonely old spinster. Human contact wasn't everything. 

"So. How was it?" 

She'd spared a few minutes to tell me how great I looked earlier in the evening, which I'd appreciated. But I realised she was now expecting me to have hooked up with someone, or at least flirted with someone. I couldn't admit to that right now.

"It was fine," I said, with a slight shrug. "I talked math and biochemistry with a few people, and then knocked into some people trying to dance."

"No gossip?"

She looked up at me, a little bit sneakily. I wondered if she knew, somehow. Had someone called her up to tell her about how I'd danced with Joe-Moe? There was nobody there that I knew from her circles, but that didn't mean there wasn't someone there who knew her.

I shook my head at her. She might be giving me a meaningful look, but I was good at keeping all my feelings quiet. 

"I drank about four times the amount of wine I should have," I said. "But that's about it."

"OK." She sighed, and seemed to take me at my word. "I hate it when there's no gossip."

"I keep meaning to ask how long you're staying up for," I said, changing the subject quite deliberately. "Are you going to be here after the semester?"

"Oh yeah," she said, suddenly enthused. "I'm here for five days, and then my family are taking me ski-ing. I haven't been in two years, and I'm going to be useless, but I love it even when I swallow more snow than I ski over."

"That sounds great," I said, and realised it meant I'd have the house to myself for a full week before I went home to spend the festive season with my family. In any other mood, I'd have been looking forward to it. But right now, it sounded lonely. 

"How about you?" she asked, nudging me with her toe. "Are you going anywhere cool?"

"Ahh, that'd be a no. My programming project needs the computer lab. I'm going to be lucky to get it done by the twenty-fourth."

"Couldn't your step-dad just buy you your own computer lab?" she asked.

"He probably could. But I wouldn't let him."

Maria gave a huge, drowsy yawn, and then stood and shuffled to the door. 

"Sleep well, Cinderella," she said.

"Up yours, Pocahontas."

Maria laughed and closed the door behind her. 

I missed Maria. I mean, not just when she left the room. That would be weird. But how it was before she and Luke paired up. The time when we were the best of friends, and only left each other to sleep or go to class. I missed how laid-back she was, and how much we could make each other laugh.