The Sun in My Eyes

50 Pocketful of Sunshine

Friends. Best friends. No messy feelings here. Nope. 

***

One year later

"How was therapy?" Lili asked.

Bobby splayed out on his bed and considered what to say, while she waited patiently over the video call. "Rough. We've been talking about some difficult things." He sighed. "It's a lot."

"I know I say this often, like, but I'm proud of you for sticking with it. Therapy is so hard."

"It really is." He grinned at her. "But you know, I haven't talked to you in four whole days. You must have missed me while you were out of town. You can go ahead and tell me so."

She rolled her eyes. "I missed you, Bobby."

"Awwwww, that's pathetic."

"Oh fuck right off," she said with a laugh. "Just for that, I'm not making you any hoops on toast tomorrow."

"Gasp! How could you threaten me so cruelly?"

"I've had some practice."

He smiled and stretched an arm behind his head. After Lili helped him out with the coffee shop, a real friendship bloomed. From the moment she made it back to Liverpool, they'd barely let a day go by without speaking in some form or another. Days turned to weeks. Weeks to months. And when he had a meeting in Liverpool, in another attempt to revive his dream of a cooking show, he'd ended up sleeping on Lili's couch. A month later, she crashed at his place to help him with a huge baking job.

And now it was just a thing they did. Talk every day. Hang out whenever they could. He didn't really get to Liverpool too often, but almost monthly, she'd sneak to Glasgow and spend the night. She had her own room now and everything. They baked and laughed and watched movies. It was hard to remember what his life was like before she was in it, making everything shiny and bright.

"Hey. guess what else I did today?" he said.

"I can't possibly begin to imagine. Baked something?"

"You wish, you cupcake grubbin' Scouser. No." He gestured dramatically with his free hand. "I organised my sock drawer and I found five things to get rid of."

She raised an eyebrow. "Video or it didn't happen."

He clambered off the bed and carried his phone to the dresser, showing her his now tidy sock drawer. Then he headed into the living room and showed her the box filled with an old t-shirt, a pair of broken tongs, an apron with marmalade stains on it, and two books on the art of ventriloquism.

"I will have Louis verify that you actually got rid of all that and didn't just hide it behind your other piles of random nonsense."

"Respect my nonsense, please." He pointed to the box. "Anyway, as you can see, I have held up my end of the agreement. What about you?"

"It's not fair. You get to get rid of things. I want to get rid of things!"

"That defeats the purpose of this challenge, you minimalist weirdo," he said. "You've got to learn to deal with messes. Anyway you're lucky I didn't make you disorganize your shoe collection."

She gasped. "You wouldn't dare."

Lili had more shoes and boots than any human he'd ever met. She kept them in militarily neat rows, arranged by colour, style, and heel height. It was an illness.

"I would absolutely dare. Show me your beautiful mess now."

"Go look in a mirror, because that would be you."