Housemates

Chapter 60

Eventually, Mark came home. He had shopping bags, and muddy sports clothes, and he didn’t have Mia.

Ellie said hi, and Mark said hi back, and then she waited, watching, impatiently, as he closed the door, and put down his keys, and took off his shoes, and went through into the kitchen to put things in the fridge.

Ellie got up and followed him. She was far beyond trying to be subtle.

“Hey,” she said to Mark, “What’s Mia’s phone number?”

Mark had his head in the fridge. “Why’s that?”

“I forgot to tell her something.”

He turned around and looked at her for a while. Suspiciously, it felt like to Ellie, but she was almost sure she was imagining it.

“Weren’t you with her yesterday?” Mark said.

Ellie was surprised her knew that. “Yeah,” she said. “So?”

Mark shrugged.

“So I forgot to tell her something then,” Ellie said. “Obviously.”

“Okay,” Mark said, but he kept putting things in the fridge. “In a sec.”

Ellie waited. She was nervous. She wanted to get this settled. “Could you tell me now?” she said. “Please.”

Mark looked at her again, thinking.

“Just please?” Ellie said. “It’s kind of urgent.”

Mark nodded, and got out his phone. He fiddled with it for a minute, and then Ellie’s phone beeped. “I texted it,” he said.

“Thank you,” Ellie said. She suddenly felt bad for being pushy. She wondered if she’d made a mistake too. Mark seemed to have noticed this now. He was looking at her, as if he was thinking. As if he was wondering why Ellie had been so insistent.

“Sorry,” she said. “I…”

“Urgent,” he said. “Yeah.”

“It’s just…”

Ellie had no idea what to say, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to start lying. Not to Mark, not when it kind of mattered. She stood there for a moment, and had no idea what to say. Mark waited too, then, when Ellie didn’t speak, he went back to putting things in the fridge.

He didn’t actually seem to care.

Ellie was relieved.

“So, thanks,” she said, and went to her room. She sat on her bed, and looked at her phone, and tried to decide what to do now.

She wanted to text Mia. She pretty much had to, now that she had Mia’s number, and Mia didn’t have hers. Ellie had to text, but she had no idea what to say. Which really meant that all she’d done was get Mia’s number, and then go back to wondering about imaginary rules, and how soon it was okay to try and talk.

She didn’t know if it was too soon. She had no idea how to tell.

She tried to make herself call.

After a few moments, she realized wasn’t going to. She wasn’t brave enough.

It was an awful realization.

She suddenly just knew she wasn’t brave enough, which meant she had no idea what to do next. Because she knew Mia’s number, and Mia didn’t know hers, and worse, Mia was probably going to stay away from the house until this was settled, because that’s what anyone would do. Anyone at all.

Ellie sat and thought and tried to make herself be brave.

She wasn’t. It was that simple. She wasn’t brave enough, and she was about to fuck it all up because she wasn’t, and she just didn’t know what to do now.

Then Mark knocked on her door.

“Yep?” she called.

He opened it, and looked at her. “Hey,” he said. “I meant to say. Mia asked for yours earlier too. I figured you wouldn’t care and gave it to her.”

“Oh,” Ellie said, relieved. “Yeah, okay.”

“Is that all right?”

“Yeah, of course. When did you see her?”

“I didn’t. I had soccer. She texted me.”

Ellie nodded. Mark kept looking at her.

“What?” Ellie said.

“What’s up with you two?”

Ellie shrugged, and made herself look bored. “Nothing.”

Mark kept looking, and Ellie decided she had to lie. She absolutely wasn’t going to tell him what had really happened, but he was curious now, and had gone and asked. All she could do now was lie. It was his own fault, really.

“We’re going shopping,” Ellie said. “That’s all. I forgot to get her number.”

They could go shopping, Ellie thought. Sometime between all the sex. They had to, she decided, because then this would be a lie.

“Shopping,” Mark said.

“Yep. Like girls do. Go try on stuff. Maybe buy some of it. She’s actually a girl too, you know…”

Mark looked at Ellie for a moment longer and Ellie had a feeling she’d taken that too far.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Okay, weirdo. I just thought I’d better tell you in case it was a problem.”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

Mark nodded, and closed her door.

Ellie was blissfully relieved. She was suddenly happy. She was too relieved to think. She didn’t need to be brave, after all. She didn’t need to call.

Now it was all back on Mia. No matter how unfair that was.

Ellie sat there happily for a few more moments, until it occurred to her that Mia hadn’t rung yet. Mia hadn’t rung, which left Ellie sitting there, looking at her phone, wondering why the fuck she hadn’t.

She began to worry again, properly worry. Because now it was just waiting for someone to call her, and that wasn’t fun at all.

She almost gave up and called Mia, but she made herself not. She wasn’t going to do that, not now she knew Mia wanted to talk to her. Ellie had promised herself no games, but this wasn’t a game. This wasn’t trying to be clever. It was just about being brave, or not brave enough. She wasn’t going to call Mia first, so Mia had to call her.

Even if Mia was only calling to dump her, Ellie didn’t want to be the one who called first.

She worried. She got frantic. She redid her nails because the polish was still a bit odd from the day before. She reorganised a shelf. She stared at her phone for minutes on end. She thought about getting out her room, to calm down, having a shower, or going for a walk, or a drink, but she didn’t want to in case that meant she missed Mia’s call.

Instead she waited.

After most of an hour she was about to give up and call. She didn’t understand why Mia wasn’t calling her, but she couldn’t stand to care any more. She just needed to talk to Mia, and find out what was happening.

She was about to call, she was talking herself into just picking up her phone and doing it.

Then her phone beeped.

She grabbed it, and looked. A message from a number she didn’t know. She wished she had a better memory for numbers, so she could tell if it was Mia’s.

She opened the message

“It’s Mia,” Mia had written. “Can I call?”

Ellie thought for a moment, then decided to be completely honest. “You’d so better,” she typed, and sent it.

A moment later, her phone started to ring.