Man of the Year (Drake Story)

Chapter Fjorten

Drake was not home by the time I got there. This was a pleasant surprise, given that my conscience and I had already made the decision on the way home to apologize to him as soon as I saw him. Now that he wasn’t there, I could forget about it. He’d be home late and I wasn’t going to be in an apologizing mood anymore. Major sigh-in-relief moment.

A week passed, and of course Drake didn’t get his apology. He didn’t get anything from me, not even eye contact. It was best that way, if we ignored each other. It was the healthiest relationship we could conduct. This was good for us.

I was starting to feel like I had a bit too much leisure time. Not only did I have this time, but it was all to myself. The other newbies weren’t my friends anymore. Well, they never were, but they were less of my friends now than they were before. I couldn’t look Belphoebe in the eye at all. She wandered around the house, pretending to be weak when we all knew that her body had healed at least two days ago. I had so many questions for her, so much to get off my chest that couldn’t be handled in little conversations when we ran into each other in the kitchen or when I passed her the orange juice over breakfast. There was no time to say the things I wanted to, and even if I could make some, I wouldn’t tell her. I wouldn’t know how. Getting things off my chest was never really my forte.

As for Keziah, things were changing between us. It’s dangerous to say, but we might’ve been in a relationship. It was only a possibility, in Aubrey’s world. In Aubrey’s world it was something still developing, still in question. In Aubrey’s world it still didn’t have a title and was still just a toe in the water, something like an experiment. But in the real world, it wasn’t just a possibility. I think in the real world, we really were in a relationship, and I don’t know exactly when or where it happened or if the recollection I have of it is real, but this is what I remember to be what officially kicked off our fling:

It was the day after my run-in with Drake. Everything was calm and relaxed. Everyone was minding their business that day. But we weren’t just minding our business. It was like everyone was making it a point to show that they didn’t want to be bothered and had better things to do than to speak to each other like normal human beings. They were finally catching on to my lifestyle.

Of course, the only one who decided to say good morning to people and make small talk was Keziah, the pixie of the house. Today she looked especially beautiful. She tried a new makeup look today, with baby pink lip gloss and some kind of soft blush and eyeshadow that made her face glow. Her hair was curled in a pretty way that it usually never was, too. She looked like she was about to go to her high school prom, but instead of wearing a cheesy dress she had on GAP jeans and a Red Cross t-shirt.

She caught me in Madeleine’s bedroom. Madeleine invited me up there this morning, saying that she was going out for the day but she wanted someone trustworthy to occupy her room for her so the maids wouldn’t clean it up and move things around like she hated them to do. It was the second largest bedroom in the mansion - the first largest was Drake’s bedroom, and the third was the room they shared together. Her room had a wonderful floor to ceiling window that overviewed the pool, which made it easy for me to sit there and take in the sunlight while going over her old photo albums. She didn’t mind me touching them - in fact, it was one of the activities she suggested I try to keep myself from getting bored while she was running her errands. So far it was entertaining enough, mostly because there were a few bikini shots of Madeleine back in her modeling days and a few laughable high school pictures of Drake. I lay on her Italian quilt and flipped through the photos, only to hear a knock on the door.

“You don’t have to come in and clean, it’s fine.” I called.

“It’s Keziah. Miss Madeleine isn’t in her, I presume?”