Till We Rise (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

"HELLO?" We hear a loud and familiar voice coming from the hall. Theodore freaks out and pulls me apart; he seems scared but really cute at the same time. I am a little bit afraid too because I literally did not hear anything before, such as a door opening or something like that.

"It’s okay, it’s Roth,” I say softly, trying to calm him down. He takes a deep breath and afterwards he places his head kindly on his knees.

"WE’RE HERE," I shout immediately.

Theo starts complaining about my decision by sighing, denying and making every single facial movement he is able to make me feel like I have done everything in my entire life wrong.

                     "COMING," I add later, looking at him.

                     I get out of bed and start walking towards the entrance hall as fast as I can to try to stop Roth from entering his own bedroom, which is stupid as fuck because it’s
his
bedroom but anyway, Theodore doesn’t want to see him. Honestly, I wouldn’t want anybody to see me the way he is looking either.

                     I see Roth walking slowly with his backpack hanging from his right shoulder, he is smiling looking down at his phone, obviously texting with one of his many friends or maybe with Terrence, I don’t really care about it right now. The only thing that appears to be on my mind is that I don’t know what the heck to do with Theodore and that sucks, you know.

                     "Hey, you," Roth looks up and speaks.

                     "Hi," I say instantly. We are now less than twenty steps away from his room. I know he wants to get in there, I can tell by the way he looks at the door, so I just stand in front of him and interrupt his walk, pretending that everything is normal but for some reason I know than I am acting strange. I can't be a good actress, I am shit at it. He seems annoyed and, to be honest, I would be annoyed at myself too. I am acting –or whatever I appear to be doing– like a stupid girl lately and it’s all because of this guy.

                     "How did you get here?” I ask quickly the first thing that comes up to my mind.

"It's my house, Cal," he answers hesitantly.

"Yeah, stupid, I know," I laugh nervously "I mean how did you get here from college," and I am actually hating myself because it’s pretty obvious that I already know the answer. Roth always comes and goes to college in the same fucking way.

                     "Bus, Cal. Can I get into my room now?" He inquires with a tone of fatigue, rolling his eyes. He knows that I am hiding something, which in fact I am, but at the same time I am not; Theodore is the one who is hiding from him and I truly don’t know what to do.

                     Lately I don’t know lots of stuff but I keep doing them anyways, God knows why.

                     "Uh, yeah. But Theo is inside and—"

                     "Oh my God, I absolutely forgot about it,” Roth interrupts me. I hate the way he refers to Theo like a thing and not like the real person he is.

                     "Well, I kind of forgot about your existence too,” I tell him sarcastically. Hours passed really quickly with Theodore and I absolutely forgot about Roth and the fact that we were at his house, in his room, on his bed.

                     "HA. Funny," he says pulling a weird face.

                     I find it kind of odd that we are standing at the corridor, we aren’t in the hall nor in some decent place we can wait for Theodore to decide to make his appearance whenever he feels like doing it. Roth doesn’t seem to bother about our setting so I think that I don’t need to worry about stupid things like this anymore.

"So... What happened?" he asks uninterested while looking at something on his phone. Oh yeah, Roth, your technological device is obviously more special and important than your best friend, which is an actual human being, standing in front of you.

"Nothing," I answer trying to make him believe that nothing had really happened.

I realize that I always attach weight to my beliefs on over exaggerating every single fucking situation, and I am one hundred percent right. Nothing happened, it’s just him feeling a little bit sad and I act like if the world was upside down. But let’s be honest, he is the one who did not want Roth to see him with puffy eyes and red cheeks. And Theodore is the one who is making me exaggerate right now.

The worst thing is that I can't stop thinking about it and that makes me feel even more annoyed than I was before this. Please I am begging for some pills to calm myself down or I will never take care of my stuff if other one’s stuff concerns me in such way.

Focus, Calypso, it's not that hard.

"I grabbed some stuff to eat," I let him know.

"Okay," Roth answers "How’s my bed?" he asks pretty serious, seconds later he starts laughing like a total dork and I don’t understand what’s the funny part about it.

Now I get it...

"Your bed’s fine," I say laughing a little bit.

"Great," Roth makes a stupid gesture with his right hand that seems to express victory or something idiot like that.

"If I wanted to fuck a guy I wouldn’t ask a friend to lend me his bed, you know," I say a little bit disgusted, not about the part of fucking someone but because fucking someone at Roth’s place makes me feel uncomfortable just with the thought of it.

"Oh Cal, you’re a saint," he says sarcastically.

"I am," I agree with him. I am. I don’t know what he means.

"Why are we standing at the corridor like total dorks?” Roth asks joking, pulling a little smirk.

"I just don’t know what to do with The—"

"With whom?" Theodore speaks by the room’s door. I turn around surprised to look at him, who is standing with his hand on the nape of his neck. Theo’s eyes are less puffed up than they were before but his jowl is still bittersweet, his hair is all messed up and so are his clothes. It seems like we had had some action in there, I wish we had, to be honest.

"Woah, woah, woah" Roth begins to yell at both of us "It looks like you did something over there, Calypso," I know what he means, I feel you, Roth. Now he is looking a little bit pissed off at me but I know when Roth gets assuredly angry and for sure this is not the case.

"It’s not her fault," Theodore exclaimed, approaching me.

"It’s your fault then?" Roth inquires looking directly at Theo.

"Yes," he answers.

"No" I shout.

"Yes, Calypso," Theodore says to me with a look of happiness. Why is he smiling? I don't get it. Why is everybody so weird? Including myself, obviously.

He is nearer me now and when he settles himself behind me, he grabs my waist and places his head above mine. I don’t know if I am going to faint, start running and shouting that I am the happiest girl in Boston or maybe I am just going to scream that I am the happiest girl
but
of the entire world. All I know is that I am smiling and all this happiness is making my face ache, it seems like if I had never smiled before.

His hands are warm and soft, and I can barely feel the beat of his heart, which is not as accelerated as my own. From time to time, Theo moves his fingers tenderly caressing my waist and the back of my spine, just where his hands are perfectly settled.

I would love to see his face at this moment but it is impossible, so I decide to look at Roth, who seems confused. He is staring at Theo’s hands as if it bothers him, which I know it obviously doesn’t since he is gay.. I look at him crooking my smile because there’s nothing else I can do.

"I don’t know what's going between the both of you guys but would you mind if I, uh, ask you to leave?" Roth asks out of place.

What? My best friend is kicking me out of his place? Not only me but also my
other
friend or whatever me and Theodore are. It’s just disrespectful and I can’t accept any of this shit from Roth. First the argument before he told me his thing with Terrence and now this?

"No, we were about to leave," Theodore kindly says to Roth, taking his hands off my waist and instantly starting to walk directly to the hall.

"Yeah, we were, but I can’t believe it," I add furiously staring at Roth with anger.

"Believe what, Cal?" Roth asks innocently but at the same time he knows what I mean.

"THAT YOU ARE KICKING US OUT", I yell at him crossed. "I am disappointed, Roth, I can’t believe the way you are acting lately," I add; now I am not feeling angry anymore, I am beyond question disconcerted.

I resent when I get displeased at Roth because I hate everything about his fucking name thanks to its shortness and friendliness. The thing is that I can’t shout "Roth" and sound furious, it doesn’t sound like I am pissed off and it pisses me off even more.

"It’s my house, I want to be alone," he adds pretty calmed. SHOUT TO ME, I AM SHOUTING AT YOU, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

"GOD, ROTH," I add totally frustrated. That's the thing with his name again.

I take a look at the hall and Theodore has already grabbed our stuff; he is now standing beside the entrance door with his coat –that I love so much– and my backpack over one of his shoulders, such a gentleman.

He is looking at me peacefully, it seems that he doesn’t want to get into trouble so he just stays quiet and does whatever Roth wants us to do.

I start walking fast towards Theo and when I reach the door, I turn my gaze to Roth –who is smiling like an asshole– then I nod closing my both eyes.  I am trying to make him feel like a total failure but he obviously doesn’t care because I am only one of his more than two thousand friends.

"Take care, Cal," Roth says kind of shouting.

"Don’t you ever call me Cal again," I speak while staring at Roth from the distance with a look of sadness and furrowing my eyebrows, trying to look as if I am hurt; I am, but I am more annoyed than hurt. He is acting like a total dork, he did not even say hi to Theo and come on, we are not in kindergarten anymore. We are in college, we are adults or at least we should act like if we were one of them.

I open the door and walk straight to my car, Theo is still inside the house and I wonder what he is doing. If he was one of those shitty boyfriends he would now be punching Roth’s face but he is not like that, or that’s what I believe.

I am waiting him inside my red Trux. I am a little bit ashamed for the whole situation and the fact that maybe Theo is having a bad argument with my "friend".

I have to admit that I appreciate that he let us stay at his house for some hours, but he has to be a little bit nicer with me because when he confessed that he was in a relationship with a man, I really supported him. But now I told him that I am kind of going out with a possible-something-more-than-friends and he doesn’t give a shit. That’s not the way I would like to be treated by anyone, especially by Roth.

Suddenly, Theodore opens the door and gets inside the car, sitting on the passenger seat. I did not notice him walking towards the car because I was concentrated on my thoughts and some birds flying.

"What happened?" I ask him immediately. I am absolutely curious.

"Nothing, really," he answers listless.

"What took you so long?" I ask him again.

"I apologized to Roth," Theo says in a tone of shame.

"What for, Theo?" I ask without understanding why.

"Because I felt like doing it," he says emotionless.

"Interesting…" I start talking "He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, Mr. Kowalsky," I approach him a little bit.

"Woah, Calypso, are you sure you want to call me like that?" he inquires with a mysterious smile on his face.

"Absolutely," I confess.

"It’s strange, nobody, except professors and stuff, has ever called me Mr. Kowalsky before," Theodore speaks while touching his messed up hair. He is looking so damn sexy, to be honest, I don’t want to look at anybody else but him for the rest of my life.

"Nobody? Well... Nobody ever called me Lypso," I add in a low tone of voice, I am kind of whispering. I want to make everything more special and try to be a little bit sensual. I am so stupid I want to laugh at myself.

"The first time I heard your name, I instantly thought about Lypso, I don’t know why," he is quietly staring at me, his both eyes are on mines “But now I look at you and that’s the only thing that comes up into my mind. Lypso… Amazing," he smiles, not at me but to himself, as if he is proud of what he has just said.

"You are weird," I say "But I like it." I feel partially uncomfortable right now, indeed, I have just confessed that I like him. Well, I did not say literally
I like you
but it’s the same to me. I like something about him and that means I like him or at least like ONE thing about him. Okay, I need to be honest with myself; I like him a lot, end point. I should stop thinking about liking this guy because maybe it’s showing and he already knows how much I crave him.

"Do you?" he asks several seconds later.

WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER?

"I mean... Do you mind if I call you Lypso?" Theo adds.

Oh my God, thank you.