clocks

18

George

I wake up to a killer headache, the noise of my phone ringing, and Dream pushing clothes around noisily in the wardrobe with a piece of smoothly buttered toast in his mouth.

"Sorry," Dream mumbles nearly incoherently as he drags a maroon sweater off the hanger. "I left you some ibuprofen there, your phone is ringing. I'm so late for work," he spits quickly, shoveling the sweater onto his head, whacking the toast as he does so.

I twist over, head banging, to pop the ibuprofen in my mouth and to pick up my loudly ringing phone. Dream jogs from the room holding a pair of grey trousers, seeming to mutter something about his keys.

The ringing stops when I click my phone, bringing it to my ear, still half passed out. What the hell happened to me? "Hello?" I call down the phone line.

"George?" a voice, a voice I know all too well, calls back. "Is that you?" he asks.

"Dad?" I answer, almost coughing back up the pill I just downed. Now, I feel much more awake. The drowsiness seems to disappear from underneath me.

"I've been you trying for the last week, it just kept on telling me the line was disconnected. Where on earth have you been? Why haven't you been answering the phone?" he asks, the noise of beeping cars and the rush of an office slipping down the line.

Has he? I never even heard the phone ringing. I feel frozen. Dream appears back in the room, eyes switching from me, to the phone in my hand.

"Yeah—sorry, sorry, the service out here is awful. Quinn can't even call any of her friends," I answer quickly, trying to sound convincing, the bullshit flying from my mouth faster than I can register.

Dreams eyebrows raise from across the room. He has one trouser leg on, and is attempting to pull the other up one handed, the other hand preoccupied with his toast. I nearly smile at the sight of him, before pausing, like my dad would somehow sense that.

"Where is out here?" he asks, still sounding curious. I can't tell if he's suspiciously curious, or just curious. My stomach knots and seems to keep twisting and twitching, like he can hear the squelch of my lies through my stomach.

"We're in— Ireland," I answer stupidly, the first thing that comes to mind that somewhat makes sense. "Quinn felt homesick, we're down the country, meeting some old school friends of hers," I lie, trying to sound calm, collected, not rushing my words as to not give anything away.

There's a beat of silence on the phone. "That's nice," dad says eventually, his words dragging slowly from his mouth. "Do you have any idea when you'll be back in London? I could really use a hand in the upcoming weeks."

The room is so silent between me being laid still on the bed, and Dream standing still in the doorway that I'm pretty sure Dream can hear my dad's words. He just looks, he doesn't speak, and waits for me to answer.

"I'm not too sure, I think Quinn wants to go to Venice next weekend. Maybe someplace else too, after that," I try to excuse, thinking if there's anyway he can prove my words are lies as the words come from my mouth. "Do you really need me?"

I say that like if he says yes, George, you have to be in the office tomorrow morning then I'd come running back to London when I wouldn't. I'm starting to think that if I have to go back to anywhere that isn't with him, then they'll have to take me kicking and screaming.

"I suppose not for the rest of this week, I should be alright," he sighs. I hear the sound of his own office door whooshing shut. "Will you be back next week instead?"

Dream manages to do up his trousers, and now just stands, eating his toast as quietly as he can, waiting for me to the answer, once again. Will I be back next week? That's funny, I almost say aloud. That's very, very funny.