It was three in the morning and neither Derek nor Adette were asleep; and they both knew. As the first tentative rays of dawn began to show their face, Derek crept cautiously into Adette’s room. She sat with her back turned to him, slumped.
“Look,” he mumbled, “I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t really feel forced to be here… in fact, I want to be here. And I think that’s what scares me, because I want to be here… with you.”
“How do you regard me, Derek?”
“What?”
“How do you regard me? What am I to you? A mentor? An acquaintance? A friend?” She drew in her breath and quietly added, “Something more?”
Derek’s heart hammered in his chest as he attempted to analyse the situation. What was she, truly? He realized he didn’t even know.
“A friend.”
“Okay. You can leave now.”
He didn’t leave; he did the opposite. He walked across the room and sat next to her.
“I said you can go.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to.”
She turned her head away from him, but did not argue further.
“Derek, you want to know why I don’t talk about my parents?”
He didn’t reply; he sensed he didn’t need to.
“They hate me.”
“Surely they don’t hate you-“
“No, they actually hate me. They disowned me as a daughter.”
Derek was stunned into silence. And then, he was suddenly seething with anger.
“How could they hate you?” he spat with disgust, “You’re everything a parent could ever want in a daughter. You’re smart, successful, creative, kind, honest, caring, beautiful…”
He realized he’d gone a bit far and blushed, falling quiet and hoping she didn’t notice.
She was blushing too, but she replied, “I wasn’t Christian.”
“That’s all? You’re not a lesbian or pregnant or something?”
“Yeah. I mean no. I’m not a lesbian and I’m not, nor have I ever been, pregnant.”
Derek shook his head. “Fucking outrageous. At least my parents not wanting me made sense, I’m just some crack addict.”
Adette swiftly turned her head to give him a hard look. “But before you were a crack addict, you were something else.”
“See? That’s what I mean. That wise shit. Who doesn’t love a girl who does that?”
“Does what?”
“Says the thing you least expect all the time.”
Adette just laughed.
“Yeah, well, they’re pretty strict Christians. I wasn’t even allowed to watch TV because it might ‘poison my mind’. They were horrified when I admitted I was an atheist. They probably would have died if I was lesbian or something.”
“Is that why you don’t have a TV now?”
She smiled at him. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”
