Most girls would be jealous of Calliope Draycott. She seemingly has it all. The friends, the money, the boyfriend, and in a few years, if all goes to plan, she'll have the job too. So why doesn't she feel happy? It's after a disastrous family dinner...
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Her eyes are red.
They've broken up.
I knew it the second I read her text asking me to come over because if they had managed to sort things out, I wouldn't even be a thought in her mind.
The sad look on her face brightens up a little bit though when she sees the bag of ice cream, and I just smile, because I knew ice cream would help make her feel better.
She heads into the kitchen while I take my shoes off and put them by the door. About a second later, she returns with two spoons, and motions for me to follow her with her head. So I do because she looks too broken to argue.
Not that I would've argued with her anyway.
She leads me up the stairs and to what I assume is her bedroom. I haven't been in here before.
It's neat. Tidy. Apart from the bed, that's a bit of a mess.
It's also completely her. Her walls are painted a light grey, and she's accented the room with various shades of purple. Like the purple blankets and pillows, or the purple folders on the shelf above her desk. There are a few plants on her desk, and I can only imagine that she has them because of Arden.
She lies down on the bed, and motions for me to join her, and so I crawl onto the bed, putting myself between her and the wall.
The second that I'm comfortable, she cuddles into my side, and instinctively, I wrap an arm around her shoulders and she moves so that her head is rested on my chest, and one of her legs is between mine. She looks up at me, a hopeful look on her face. 'Can we have the ice cream?' she asks and offers me a spoon.
I nod my head with a grin and take the offered spoon before opening the tub of vanilla ice cream. 'It's all that was left in our freezer,' I say, as some sort of half-assed explanation, but considering she just shrugs and takes a spoon, I don't think she's that bothered.
Yes, I'd rushed home and picked up some ice cream before I'd come over. Mostly because I wanted to change. I didn't want to go and see her in a dirty uniform.
'Thank you for coming over,' she says quietly between spoonfuls of ice cream.
'You don't need to thank me, but do you want to talk about it?'
She drops the spoon in the tub and moves the tub so that it's on her bedside table.
This must be big if she doesn't want ice cream.
'He kissed another girl on Saturday night, and I can't be mad about it because we were on a break and he was free to do what he liked.'
'Are you mad about it?'
She shakes her head, 'I know I probably should be, but I'm really not. I'm hurt, and disappointed, but mad? No.'
My hand goes to her hair like it always seems to, and I start curling a strand around my index finger, while her hand goes from being flat on my chest to tracing patterns as I do to her hands. I'm trying to focus on what she's saying, but that's hard to do when all my focus is on how good I feel because of what she's doing.
