Hold Me Closer

Part Six

"So the people are nice?" My mum asked me, fear practically pounding through the phone.

"The people are lovely," I assured her. "I've made a really nice friend called Meg, she sleeps right next door to me, and her friends are also incredibly nice. These two girls I sit next to in my history class are great. And, um, there's an alright guy in my Biology class."

I heard my mum sigh a little. "That's great Olive. It sounds like you're fitting in honey."

"You know what? I kinda think I am!"

Okay, yes this sounds like a very typical phone conversation between me and my mum, but in reality, things were kind of revolutionary and we could both feel it. In my last school, my friends had kind of dropped off around the sides and it meant that when my mum decided to move, I wasn't too sad to say goodbye to Mowtown High, or the people there. My mum had been silently pacing outside of my door for the last six months wondering if I was okay, and secretly reading 'How To Help Your Kids' books written by award winning psycho-analysts. I could practically hear the muscles in her face relax as I told her that, believe it or not, I was making friends.

My mother told me a little about her life in the Netherlands. Everything sounded hectic, and it seemed a little cold, and the people were all very tall, but I soon got the gist that she was perhaps making things seem worse for my benefit.

"But you like it, mum?" I said, interrupting her ramble about how the shelves in the supermarket were all extremely high.

"Yeah, I do," my mum's voice crackled through the phone. "Peter's got a great set-up here, and we're having a really nice time. He wants you to come visit, honey, maybe change your mind about leaving us."

"Mum-"

"- Or at least have the chance to look around, even if you decide to stay in England. Tell me you'll think about it? We can book you a plane ticket out whenever you feel like it."

"I'll think about it," I promised.

A knock sounded at my door, and I yelled out that I was coming before telling my mum goodbye.

"I love you baby," she said, before hanging up.

"I love you too mum." I shut the phone and took a deep breath, before walking over to the door and opening it up to...Mike.

"Mike! Hey, sorry I was just on the phone with my mum."

"Oh?" He looked a little bit bashful, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "So is now not a good time?"

"No, no, no! It's perfect." There was a quick pause of awkwardness. Don't get me wrong, me and Mike had talked just us a lot, but always in class and never in my room. "Do you want to come in?"

Mike looked at his phone quickly before looking back up at me. "Ah, I wish I could but I'm late to football practice. I just came up here to quickly ask you something."

"Oh, if it's about the socks I swear I didn't mean to do it. I just threw them in the wash, and I swear I am so good at washing normally, but for some strange reason the machines in the laundry room are really powerful, and I know they came out tiny but I feel like if you stretch them-"

Mike chuckled and interrupted me. "Olive, it's not about the socks! That is totally forgiven and forgotten."

I let out a little sigh of relief. "Oh thank God. So, what's up?"

"Well, I got two tickets to an art gallery in town next Sunday night. And I remembered your rant about how much you loved the Van Gogh Doctor Who episode, and I thought you might want to come? Plus, I've always wanted to take a beautiful girl to an art museum, so it would be a bonus for me too."