Finding Troy

4. Invitation

It seemed a regular routine now. Waking up every day to the drilling. My days were filled with waiting for the noise to cease and waiting for something interesting to happen. I sat looking hopefully out of my window, hoping the universe would send a sign, any sign that Troy might be thinking about me too. I knew it was strange, a girl pining after a boy when she doesn't even know whether he thinks about her like she does him.
As a consequence, my nights were filled with vivid dreams, some lucid, where I was trying to walk through a mansion and open doors that were locked. I knew this had some kind of hidden symbolism, but I wasn't the type to take my dreams seriously. It surprised me more that Troy wasn't in my dreams, when I really wanted him to be. Maybe it was the universe telling me to not go through that door, to forget about him.
A week passed, and I thought that he had simply vanished off the earth. I walked into town nearly every day to meet up with friends, and he was never there. Our village was tiny - where could he be? How can someone go nowhere for a whole week?
I was walking past the corner shop when I caught sight of a sign in the window. A 'Help Wanted' sign telling whoever wanted to earn some money to sign up on the sheet and give their name and telephone number.
Troy Davies.
My heart leaped. He was alive after all.

I arrived home to find an empty house. My mother was at work and my younger sister Ann was at her hockey practice.
The evening came around quickly, and as my mother and sister plodded into the house they didn't look in the mood to cook. We ate a simple sandwich supper and I trotted up to bed to work on a music project I had taken up. I was helping my friend Abbie write a song, and trying to find a melody for the lyrics she had given me.
As I hummed to myself, gazing out of the window, I was about to draw my curtains for the night as the evening light was fading rapidly outside, when I saw him.
I stood up, not believing my eyes. And there he was. Walking along my street. For no apparent reason. Did he live around here?
Maybe he did, maybe I just never noticed him, maybe the universe was sending me a good sign after all.
I didn't know whether it was my imagination, but he seemed to turn his head towards my window, and I abruptly sat down.
However, not noticing anything he carried on until he was out of sight down the street.
I gazed after him, bewildered.
Maybe he's always lived here. Maybe it's like in one of those films when you've seen the person you like in your everyday life before you met them but never noticed them until now.
I shook my head, confused.
I didn't understand why I was so obsessed. I needed to get my head straight, and screwed back on. My life had been filled with normality, happy normality, without any need for any love interest so far. So why was he affecting me this way? I couldn't comprehend it. It was more than a crush, surely. And I'd only met him... once... twice, if I counted the concert as a 'meeting'.
Just as I was about to draw the curtains, for the second time, I saw three more people my age walking down the street outside my house. Was there some kind of gathering going on?
I sighed, closing my curtains.

___________________________

The next day, I realised I needed a friend's advice on the whole situation. Abbie and I got takeaway iced coffees and sat by the river.
"It's easy. He was going to Jenna's party. Her birthday. Though she holds 'parties' every week. I don't know how her parents are so relaxed." Abbie glanced at me for my reaction, sipping her drink.
"So that's terrific. The first boy I decide to like, in a long time, goes to parties to see other girls."
"How did you not know this? Apparently he's quite the... um, ladies' man." she laughed nervously.
"How does everyone seem to know Troy apart from me?"
"Well it's only recently he's emerged and everyone got to know him. His parents used to be really strict apparently, wouldn't let him go anywhere, but obviously not anymore."
"His mother seemed a bit uptight. They didn't really seem like they got on with each other." I speculated.
After relaying my encounter with him at my cello teachers' house, Abbie agreed there was something strange going on.
Just then, as we got up from the bench, I spied two people I really didn't want to see coming towards us on the path. They were the two girls at my school who seemed to think everyone loved them. They weren't horrible people, but I could never tell whether they were being genuine, and not to mention in primary school Lucy had taunted and bullied me for having a crush on my neighbour back then - who she herself 'dated' for a year instead of me. It was a long time ago, but I still held a grudge.
"Abbie, Rose. Nice to see you." Jenna was the more tolerable of the two of them, but there was something in her eyes that I never trusted. And especially now I knew she was throwing parties that Troy attended. A small grain of jealousy may or may not have been clouding my judgement.
"Hello, Lucy, Jenna. We're just enjoying the weather, while it lasts." Abbie gave a friendly smile; she was always entirely naive to their falseness.
"We have to keep going, but see you around!" Lucy grinned and walked off, with Jenna following.
Jenna turned around suddenly, grabbing a piece of paper out of her bag, and offering it to Abbie.
"I'm having a gathering next week for everyone in our year. End of term treat." she smiled sweetly.
"I would love for you both to come. If you wanted. I know it's not entirely your scene, but..."
"Yes, of course. See you then." Abbie
I muttered a quick 'thanks' and 'bye' half-heartedly, but a fraction too late.
Abbie hit me, "Try to be nicer to them. They're pleasant to us. She invited us."
"She invited the whole year. And it's going to be a really wild party, you know it will." I groaned.
"We're going. We never go anywhere. Come on." she looked at me pleadingly.
"Fine, but I'm not on speaking terms with Lucy. So I won't be socialising with her, or her group. And can we leave early? I just don't trust them."
Abbie nodded excitedly, ignoring my last remark.
As Abbie went to put our takeaway cups in the bin, I muttered to myself again: "I don't trust them at all."