The Trouble With Us

eighteen

The rest of the morning spent at Katie's consists of me waiting for a phone call or something from Harry, but it never comes.

"Scrambled eggs?" She offers.

"Yes please." I sigh.

"Listen, you told him the truth, don't you think a massive weight should be lifted off your shoulders?" She frowns.

"Ha, yeah. It depends on his reaction. If it's a messy rejection, a bigger weight will be sitting on my shoulders, and I just KNOW that that will be his reaction. I don't even know what I've been thinking. He has been back for a week and what, I expected him to be interested in me and fall in love me with? I'm being so inconsiderate, it's so stupid. I need to grow up, I have a childish fantasy that I need to burn." I shrug my shoulders, facing the facts.

"Yeah but he was trying to make so many moves on you at the waterfall, wasn't he?" She reminds me.

"Sure he was, but obviously because he's turned into the kind of guy that wants to sleep around and get lots of female attention. It makes so much sense." I sigh again.

"You're right. What an ass..." She mutters.

"Yeah," I murmur as a huge flood of sadness flows through me, "I'm going to get going soon. Thanks so much for having me, it was a lot of fun."

"My pleasure darl, please let me know what happens when you get home." Katie smiles gently as she opens her arms and pulls me in.

"I will." I promise, returning the hug.

***

I'm in my driveway sitting in the car, wondering what I'm going to do, and wondering what kind of stupid things I said last night. I pull my duffel bag out of the car and walk inside to find mum and dad getting ready to go somewhere.

"Hi honey! How was Katie's?" Mum chirps, hugging me.

"It was amazing." I murmur.

"That's good Liv, your father and I are going to an art convention but your brother will be home in five minutes from his little adventure with the boys so don't be alarmed if you hear voices downstairs." She laughs.

"No worries, bye guys. Have fun." I wave.

They both smile and wave before they walk out the door. I make my way upstairs and begin to unpack my things. As I walk back into my room to grab my pyjamas out of the bag I hear the door open. Soon after, there are multiple muffled voices coming from below, one persons voice making me feel completely ill in the stomach.

"Oh god." I whisper in fear.

I chuck my pyjamas into my draw and walk over to my bed and sit on it as casually and as comfortably as possibly whilst turning my computer on. I try and concentrate on the Internet, but they're so loud downstairs. Suddenly, I hear footsteps running up the stairs. A very, exhausted looking Zach pokes his head around the corner.

"Hey Liv! How's home being without me?" He grins.

I pray that Harry hasn't followed him upstairs...

"It's been..good." I force a smile.

"That's good, can you please come downstairs and give Harry and I a hand with unpacking the boat, tents, chairs and all that jazz?" He begs.

"Uhh...n-no, I can't sorry, " I point to my laptop, "homework."

"What a lame excuse! It's the holidays."

I know he's not going to take no for an answer. Sh*t.

"Fine." I sigh, swallowing the growing lump in my throat.

I follow him downstairs. Every step that I take, my stomach twists into a tighter knot. I simply can not breathe correctly. Out of the blue, Harry is standing in the kitchen trying to untangle fishing hooks.

"I grabbed Olivia bro." Zach calls out to Harry.

I stand there awkwardly and wait for him to turn around and tell me how childish I am.

As he turns towards me he grins, "g'day love."

What...?

"H-hello." I stutter like a crusty boat that hasn't been started in one hundred years.

"Are you just going to stand there or help us unpack?" He laughs.

He obviously hasn't heard the voice message. Yet.

"Um..uh yep." I nod nervously.

I slowly walk to the table and grab a camping chair. As I reach the door to the backyard Harry calls out to Zach.

"Can I borrow your phone charger? My phones been flat since late last night."

Oh f*cking no...

"Yeah man," Zach calls back, "it's in the cabinet above the microwave."

"Cheers." Harry yells towards outside.

I quickly leave the house and walk to the shed. My hands are shaking and my palms are sweating. I will not allow this to happen. The next five minutes are spent on the three of us unpacking the car and boat, none of that time includes Harry and I speaking to each other, but he doesn't seem different nonetheless.

As we walk back inside, Zach informs Harry that he's going to take a quick shower.

"No worries man." Harry replies.

I sit on the lounge room chair and watch Zach walk up the stairs and then face Harry who begins walking over to his phone. My natural instinct kicks in and before I know it I'm walking over to the kitchen besides Harry. Before he picks up his phone and put my palm over his hand and push his phone back down on the bench. I try my hardest to smile normally.

"So how was your weekend!" I chirp.

"It was actually really nice." He grins.

"What did you get up to?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"A whole lot." He smirks playfully.

Whether it meant something sexual or not, the pang of jealousy hits me hard. As I try and recover from this little yet strong force, Harry picks up his phone again and unlocks it.

"Two missed calls," he murmurs under his breath in concentration, "one voice message."

He turns to me before continuing, "these are both from you, did you miss me little Livvie?" He smirks again.

"Miss you? Pffft, in your dreams." I'm breathing incredibly heavy now, and my palms are sweating like something shocking, "just delete the voice message, I think I forgot to hang up before the beep."

He puts a finger up to shush me. I stand on my tippy toes to see that he's dialling in the number to hear the voice messages.

"Harry what are you doing?"

"I'm just checking my voice mails." He smiles gently.

"No." I laugh awkwardly and try and grab his phone out of his hand.

"Yes, what has gotten into you?" He frowns slightly in confusion.

He now has the phone up to his ear, I'm totally f*cked.

"Harry hang up! Now! Put the f*cking phone down!" I yell.

"Olivia, what the hell is wrong?" He frowns, "I'm just listening to my voice mails it's no big deal-"

And then he stops. I know that he's found it. I know that he's listening to it, whatever I said, I know it can't be good. The structure of his entire face seems to frown in confusion.