LOST IN PLACE seventeen

Oh great. I've forced myself out of bed early this morning...well reasonably early. Well, before midday anyway but it's just left me with more time to worry about what's actually going to come of today. I can't even remember whether or not Will's picking me up. I've spent the past hour making more cups of tea than I'll ever be able to drink just for the stirring so as my hands aren't left up to their own devices..."Devil makes work for idle hands" 'n' all that lark. What if I've done so with no real purpose and Will isn't coming? Oh god, did I say that I was going to pick him up? Oh feck. It's been months since I've had the foresight to fill up the tank in my car. According to the ancient fuel guage I've been running on empty for the past week... I would say that it's an appropriate metaphore for my life really...but everyone knows how I do so hate to state the obvious. There are birds chirruping in the trees outside of my window. Any other day and I may have been able to appreciate there cheerful chorus; sung seemingly just for me. Today? Nah, today it feels as though they're really rubbing their "Bright-eyed, feathery-tailed-ness" in my face. Okay...even I can recognise that my jealousy of a bunch of beady-eyed squawking fools is a little irrational but Will isn't here yet and I can't begin to think when he's going to arrive...if he's coming-that is. I'm just going in circles here aren't I?

I might just go and make another cup of tea...

NO. Geez, Caitlyn, will you just breathe for a second, eh? You're going to see your best friend for the first time in just under a year, isn't this a good thing?

I suppose but it's more the setting that's bothering me. Won't he feel mighty uncomfortable under the circumstances?

...Do you honestly think I've got a better idea on this than you have?

Just shut up then.

THERE! The door bell, happy now?

Happy? No! Far fecking from it. I rush from my perch upon the edge of my seat in kitchen where I've been anticipating this moment for far too long. I catch sight of myself in the hall mirror as I head towards the front door and wish that I wouldn't have gone for the ridiculous au natural-look that's just so Vogue right now since looking half asleep and a little zombie-esque doesn't quite hold with it the same chic as the magazines promise. My trembling fingers snatch at fly-away strands of hair and tuck them back behind my ears and then move themselves down to my waist to tug my t-shirt down over the belt of my jeans.

Breathe in cool, calm, composed and breathe out fret, fear, frustration.
Right, what are you going to say? Hi. Hey...Hey, Will...Hey there....Sup?
"Sup?! Yeh boi!!"
"Er...Caitlyn? Your door isn't sound proof you know?"
Crap.
I opened the door and grinned up to meet Will's crooked smile.
"...hi Will."
"'Sup?! Yeh boi'?"
He reaeated my words incredulously and I think he was trying to arch an eyebrow up at me inquistively but underneath his raggedy fringe it was hard to tell.
"Yes? I'm just...keeping it real...being 'down wit da kids'."
Will held my gaze and sighed at my 'too cool for school' pretence; silently tutting his lack of approval at me.
"Shut up, Will!" I gave him a gentle nudge and stepped out of the door, shutting it gently behind me.
"So, what are you wheels like then?"

Then I saw his car. Wow.

SPLINTERED DARTS TO THE HEART sixteen

O...K...
Am I allowed to say that my heart stopped still for just a second and that the world ceased to turn momentarily and all of the other clichés related to events like this?!
I put the receiver onto the mattress and then with my newly-freed hand I pinch my other arm. Ow. No one told me how much that hurt! I am certainly awake though, I didn't by some miracle drift away into the safety of sleep...as if I could. I flex the now trembling fingers of my right hand and shake out the quivers before attempting to pick up the reciever again.

"Will..." Damn the figurative cat that's caught my tongue.
"Hiya Caitlyn, I'm sorry to wake you but-"
"Oh..erm...you didn't wake me; it's fine."
"It's seventeen minutes past four in the morning, what have been doing to keep you up all this time then?"
The edge to his tone curled with the suggestion that I'd been up to no good. He hasn't changed.
"I could ask you the same question, Mister, but knowing you...I'm not sure I'd care to here your answer..."
He gave just a taste of that low, rumbling chuckle of his which I adored so greatly.
"Fine...but really, I've never known you to lose your sleep over something that's not a big deal, honestly, what's wrong?"
"Hmm, sometimes I regret letting you know me so well. I don't know Will. It's nothing and...everything, I just don't know. I used to feel so sure of what I wanted to do and how I to choose to live my life; I used to know who I was. Now, I can look at the mirror and feel no recogntion for the stranger gaping back at me and each day she looks older and more tired; hagard even.
I broke off for a moment and cleared my throat, recovering from the breathlessness that my rant had conjured up within me.
"Haha, Will, what must I sound like, eh? I bet you didn't call up expecting a counselling session to be on your hands like this. Anyway, what are calling me up for at 4am?!" The feigned light-heartedness of my voice sounded as empty as the box of tissues when you really need to sneeze; even to me.
Will knows not to push it when I don't want to talk though.
"Er...well, it's just that...er, I was playing a game earlier tonight; trying to name all of the states in America and there's a couple that I can't for the life of me remember."
We both knew what it was that he was dowsey-dowing away from...the little matter of marriage."
" Aw Will, don't be so silly," I came close to getting serious, "...You know I'm no good at Geography." I was close but I'm not all that keen on smoking so no cigar. I could have kicked myself if I hadn't been lying down rather comfortably.
"Come on Caitlyn." It sounded as though he was pleading with me for a lot more than just the name of a state or two.
" Do you have Nebraska? Or Tenessee?"
"Yeah, I have those but don't worry, maybe it'll work itself it?"
He definitely wasn't talking about states any more...that was one thing I knew.
I sighed audibly down the phone, "Will-"
He interrupted, "Caitlyn, can I see you? Dinner? Or what about lunch, or even coffee and that's not even a date; unless you want it to be..."
He trailed off sounding as though embarrassment didn't even come close to how he was feeling right now. The naivety of believing that Will hadn't changed struck me. I'd known him as a hard-faced, shameless young man...he was never embarrassed, not even when he should have been. Like that time he went skinny-dipping at night, forgetting where he'd put his clothes. He was fifteen. Of course, he grinned and bared the ice cold wind that winter in Britain treats you to...as well as baring everything else. No, embarrassed didn't begin to come close to how he sounded at all.
"I'm going to visit my parents tomorrow."
"Do you me to come with you?"
"Actually, yeah, I could really use the company, thanks Will."
Gradually, seeing my parents had become harder and somehow more awkward than ever before. Having somebody with me who I could really talk to might make a nice change.
"So, I'll see you tomorrow then Caitlyn?"
"Yeah, I'll see you then, bye Will."
"Love you, Caitlyn."
"...I love you too."
As the call disconnected, I knew I mean it; I did love Will.

God, I asked for a miracle and whether it's just a coincidence or plain good luck...or You...well, thanks. Yeah, thank you, that was...decent.

TORTURED INTENTIONS fifteen

(note from author: Last part of story was removed under unforeseen circumstances, edits have been made and shall be re posted at a later date. The continuation of this story will make sense with or without the last piece, however, re-reading CAN'T BUY SALVATION when it makes it's next appearance is advisable. love you as always. thanks.)

Edith dropped her bags and pulled at her hair, admitting defeat. She would not be taking the bus to work today after all. With her car refusing to start, the vindictive bus driver leaving her in the rain and her purse being far too empty to afford train fair; she trudged home and called in sick to work. She may not have been ill but another morning of staring vacantly at the telly screen as Jeremy Kyle ranted at another bout of guests made her feel sick of the life that she had. Edith wrote a list to affirm some short term goals, which upon accomplishing would make her existence a little more worthwhile.
1. Invest in an alarm clock...and decent shoes to run in.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Do yoga.
4. Devote life to charity work...perhaps meet the queen and get an OBE for it...
5.

She stopped at number five. The lead in her pencil had snapped. The fifth item was mentally added to the list: buy a pencil sharpener...and don't lose it.
She heaved the Argos catalogue out from beneath the sofa where the long-forgotten gym equipment lived and was about to trawl through it in search of the perfect alarm clock. Then she realised that the guests on Jeremy Kyle's talk show were growing rather, entertainingly irate and opted instead to settle down with her cup of coffee and chocolate biscuits...the ones with caramel that she liked. The alarm clock could always wait; besides, her purse was far too empty to fund her fleeting fancies right now.

Caityln closed the book, marking her page with a discarded coaster...discarded for its ancient hot chocolate stain of initiation into her house, almost like a birth mark. She sighed, immersing herself in a wave of self pity; building and crashing more often now than she'd felt in quite a while. For the 8th night that week...hang on she pondered to herself...the first day of a new week, she'd found herself absorbed in a fiction book in place of the absence of her own dreams. Whenever Caitlyn's urge to evade the everyday of her own monotonous reality was particularly strong she would fall victim of her own psyche, strangled by a lack of sleep; sleep that helped her to forget her troubles. Tonight, Edith's hectic troubles weren't enough to keep her mind from stumbling back into the cold light of verity. She was drenched in the light, her skin prickling with the uncomfortable thought that she had been forgetting something.

Hattie.

It had been over two months, more than two months since Caitlyn had appealed to Hattie's better nature for a helping hand with her Will situation. She hadn't heard back from her. Who could possibly find themselves too busy to reply to a tiny email like that?
Hattie was so sweet; she and Caitlyn had been "close as thumb tacks" as Caitlyn's mum used to say. She always stood by Caitlyn's side, even when the others laughed. Maybe I should have been there for her when she needed me, instead of expecting her support when suddenly I find myself in a slight predicament. Another sigh swept over Caitlyn. Her gaze fell from the swirling, textured plaster of her ceiling and over to her bed side table where the photograph of her parents smiled back at her. I wish I'd have asked you for help when I had the chance, Mum and Dad. Although no one was around to see her, Caitlyn cursed at herself under her breath when the embarrassing threat of tears announced itself. She tugged the duvet over her head, pressing it tightly across her mouth. Oh god. She searched for the right thing to say, an appropiate question or plea, hoping that just maybe tonight would be the night that God might answer her prayers. All she wanted was to not be alone anymore.
As though calling her name the phone began to ring, it stirred her from the slumber she'd inevitably fallen in to.
"Hello?"
"..." A man cleared his throat, "Hi..it's Will."
Will.