Friday 30 October 2009

I'M A WALKING DISASTER four

Will and I were each other's worlds...ha, that sounded soppy. I mean that we were always together and hanging around with each other...until university. He moved to America. Apparently a year in the states looks great on you CV when you're getting experience for your Media Course. Thanks again Will, I could have really done with a mate that year.
I bought a calendar...the first time I'd ever bothered with one but I wanted to be able to cross off each day as it dragged itself by. Cross them out of my mind and my life. I'm not the sort of girl who keeps a diary, I'm not the kind of girl who wants to remember every day of my life. They say that good girls keep diaries and the bad girls never find the time. It's not that I don't have the time...I have too much and not enough to do to fill a diary with. If your main pass-time is counting the tick-tocks of a clock marking the mocking minutes that moan by then maybe you'd understand but until then you'll just know me as the loner-girl who's obsessed with wishing away the days of the year.
I had other friends. I slept over at their houses and they slept at mine. We discussed movies and books and whatever else was on our minds at the time. I loved sleeping over at their houses...getting out of mine always felt good. My sleepovers with them were never quite like mine and Will's though. Ha-that sounded a little provocative. It wasn't meant to...or was it...nah, I'm teasing, it wasn't meant to. Since Will's mum and my mum were always being called into school over our behaviour when we were younger, they saw a lot of each other and they always had something to talk about. Will and I. They became good friends so me and Will had play dates when we were younger. Since we were both about six we've been sleeping at each other's houses most weekends...it's just what we do.
The first time I went over to his house to stay the night, he convinced me that the house was haunted and wouldn't turn the lights back on in his room when the sun had gone down. He stood himself in front of his bedroom door so I couldn't even get out onto the landing. It was pitch black but I could have sworn I could see the headless zombie that he'd been taunting me about.
"Will, please put the light back on, please!"
"Caitlyn, you've got to brave if you want to stay the night."
"William Vale! Stop being mean, maybe I don't even want to stay."
"Aw, Caitlyn, don't get upset."
"I'm not upset!"

I gurgled that last line through a choking sob...Will stopped seeing the funny side. He left the light off but wandered over to me and put on his little night light by the edge of the bed. The room was illuminated with stars glowing orange and yellow. Will sat me on the edge of the bed and held my hands, he moved them around him and then brought his own arms around me. I sobbed into his chest and he rested his chin on my head. We were both just six but I felt that he was so much older and grown up than I was just then. He comforted me. Not just that though, he made comfortable. I didn't have to be anyone but Caitlyn Morag when I was with Will. He took my good, bad and down right ugly sides and made me feel on top of the world no matter what.
Anyway, since that night, we'd always slept in the same bed on our sleepovers. That first night I was too scared to sleep on my own in my little sleeping bag so i climbed into bed with him and he just cuddled me close and told me that if anything bad came then he'd put on his cape and fight it because he had super-hero powers. I asked what they were. He told me that when he put his cape on, he could fly.
"What good is being able to fly?"
"I could drop stuff onto the Zombie's head."
"You said that the Zombie was headless."
"I mean that I could drop stuff onto the Zombie's stump."
"Oh."
"Once he's knocked out then I could take you flying with me."
"I can't fly."
"That's okay, I'll hold your hand and then I'll be able to take you to heaven and back with me."
"Okay, thank you Will."

In the morning he said that I needed to get a hair cut because my hair kept getting in his face when had been cuddling me the night before. Since then, I've worn my hair in pigtails in bed...that way it's out of his face and it's always crimply when I let it out in the morning.
Maybe it seems weird for two teenagers of the opposite sex to sleep in the same bed when they have no romantic entanglement but it was so right with me and Will. That's just what we did.

I missed Will. That year went really slowly. I didn't have anyone to hold me or wipe my tears when I cried or share my sighs or laughs with. I had no one to understand my jokes either. I'm not funny. I don't claim to be but I like telling jokes...Will always grinned at my jokes. Maybe it was more that he thought that me trying to be funny was a laugh rather than my jokes actually being any good but his support always made me grin.
I went through three black marker pens that year. Maybe they wouldn't have run out so soon if I'd just crossed the days of that calendar out but I had coloured square in completely. Each day gone looked like black hole forming in my year. All of my days without Will nothing but empty darkness. Yup, that year really did last a long time.

Caitlyn! Hi from the States!
I'm coming home soon...I make it one week and 2 days actually. Not that I'm keeping count. Fancy doing something when I touch back on home ground?
Love, Will

Of course I wanted to do something with Will. I'm not one for making big plans, I'm more the sort of person to live by the philosophy of live for the moment and just take what life throws at you. Lucky for me, Will knew how to make plans! He took me and the rest of our, "crew" our for dinner. I sat beside him at the table and whilst every one else conversed casually over wine and gourmet French cuisine, Will and I laughed about all of the things he'd done on his media mini-course. We had burgers, fries and coke and we ate with our hands. Did we give a moment's thought to the snooty, gutter-snob waiters? My arse did we! If they didn't fancy a tip then being rude to us was their own choice and let them live with it! The others left at about 11pm but Will and I had so much to talk about. Apparently, his course instructor had made him make a music video on the budget of $20! and he had to take the best photograph he could to sum up Colorado. He took a picture of a pigeon. He explained that although Colorado was beautiful, he found beauty in the pigeons because they reminded him of his home back here in London and that no matter how far you are from home, there are always little reminders around to comfort you.
We were eventually asked to leave at 1am. We walked arm in arm back to my apartment. He was singing so I had to elbow him in the ribs to shut him up. I didn't want to wake Hetty, my room mate. Will mock "shhhh"ed at me and I narrowed my eyes. We tumbled into bed together still our clothes and just as he had when we were six he cuddled me close. And insisted that I had to put my hair back up in pig tails. I did. I was just glad to have Will back again.

5 comments:

Lord Zaros said...

Crikey Kaytei, you're writing loads everyday! I like the way that this story shows what Caitlyn really feels; most story's(such as Patient X an The Colours Within) don't go through so much detail and re-account the past (Err, I've just remembered what the colours are all about). Great work anyway!
:)

This may be a weird, but do all the titles of your recent posts give a title of some sort? Also, you must sign into MSN. They are right behind you...

mundooteh said...

erm...they don't really mean a lot :S they're lines from songs 'n' stuffs :)
i dunno when i'll next be on msn :S i'm off soon and i'm out pretty much all tomorrow. ergle.
seee you xxx

mundooteh said...

that was me on elin's thingy...i'm at her house :)

Lord Zaros said...

Check Dementia!

Mark Geranium said...

Are you insulting my story there, Zaros? I spent a lot of time developing characters (even though there technically ever was only one of them. Then again, the development is nowhere near as good as what is used here.

Everyone's really on fire with these stories! For a while, there was nothing, but then this, Dear Diary, the Thought, Chronicles of Torture, Shattered World... I've got a lot of competition here!

Which reminds me, new Anarchist part is out. It's rather long, and doesn't reveal much detail. It's more of an action-packed filler...