Conniveo

Chapter 13: Glance

"Are you even listening?"

I blinked twice and looked at Irene who was sporting an irritated frown. I tried to look apologetic, but it was a little difficult with the amount of noise being generated in my brain.

"Something about your cousin?"
"Why do I even bother? I'm here trying to set you up with a total babe and you're...what are you even thinking about?"

Err...my worried mother, Greg's absence and my session with Doctor Norman that was supposed to be this afternoon? And that's not counting the new pile of work handed to us this morning. But I didn't care about the short-story adaptation or whatever Leo had been yapping about.

"Just some stuff. Have you seen Greg?"
"I should be asking you."
"Haven't heard from him all weekend."
"When was the last time you guys hung out?"
"Friday. Went to see some friend of his. Neil. Was supposed to be a comic book nerd, looked nothing like one."
"Didn't know they had a look. My brother's into comic books and he's pretty normal. Anyway, my cousin's going to be around later on today and I was hoping you guys could hang out."
"I don't know...I'll be kinda busy this evening."
"What? Let me guess, going to see your boyfriend?" She rolled her eyes.

I wish.

"I have to do something for my Mum."

Yeah, I needed to get my head examined by Doctor Norman so she'll stop fretting over how I might be losing sanity. I had wanted to tell her that I was okay, and I was only time-tripping or whatever but that would have ended me in the loony bin. Besides, there was no need to talk about it after I had already resolved that I was never going there again, so I just let her think I was having the same blank-outs that she had seen when I was a child. Technically, I was. Just that I now understood what they were. I looked at my watch. 11:17.

"You really need to find your own place. I don't know how my cousin would feel about dating a guy who still lives with his Mum."
"What? Who said anything about dating anyone?"
"What did you think this was about?" She laughed and whipped her hair out of her face. "I'm not setting you two up so you can talk movies and become I.M buddies. I'm trying to kill two birds here, Eugene. You're just one of them."
"What makes you so sure any of this would work out?"
"She's hot, completely into the bad boy look, likes movies and is new in town. You're hot, have the bad boy look, make movies and are pretty old in town. It's a match made by the gods."
"There's so much more than just looks, Irene. I mean, you've got great looks and I still said no. So what makes you think this would work?"
"She's into punk rock, studying graphic design, has got a killer sense of style and I'm pretty sure you guys could talk for hours. Plus she's not as pushy as me. I'm pretty sure that's what put you off, even if you were too pussy to say it to my face."

I sighed and looked down at my plate. I had barely touched my sandwiches and I still had no appetite. I felt really nervous, and I didn't know why. After the last episode - when my Mum caught me, I had managed to get a hang of flashing into Kana's world. That's what I called it. I could look without visiting. I only tried it in my room, because every time I did, I got really confused for a few seconds as I tried to figure out whether it was a flash or a trip. Anyone watching me would have thought I had gone completely mental. Over the weekend, Kana's room had been cleaned, cleared, inspected, re-cleaned and possibly radiated. I began to think there was some sort of disease, because I didn't think anyone was supposed to clean a crime scene. That was supposed to be tampering with the evidence. A cleaning out probably meant that there was some sort of germ in the room that they were trying to kill. I wondered where Kana had gone. I feared she might have died from whatever that disease was. I wondered where she got it, and whether we had picked it up too. Or maybe we were lucky that we weren't around when she picked it up. The entire situation was making me feel ill.