Hello World (7 page)

The heavy door opens and a petite, brown
haired woman with a friendly smile stands behind it. She looks with amusement
between the two of us.

‘Harold, the homeless have come looking for
shelter again,’ she shouts upstairs, leaving the door open and ushering us both
inside. So no butler then.

‘Harold, you lent me a dodgy car again,’
Jay shouts up mockingly, dumping his bag on the ground. ‘Nice to see you too,
Mum.’

I step inside, gawking around the space I’m
in. The floors are a light wooden colour with a grand staircase directly in
front of me. To the left are two closed doors but the right side of the ground
floor has been opened up into one large space, wooden support beams dotted
around the room. A large fireplace sits at the back of the room, embers burning
away and giving the place a homey feel.

One wall has been replaced by floor-length
windows that let plenty of light grace the room, and since they don’t have
neighbours on that side, the view extends to a small wooded area.

 
‘Oh sweetie, you know I love you,’ his
mum smiles, giving him a peck on the cheek despite the mud. ‘What on earth
happened?’

‘The countryside happened,’ Jay replies
dryly. ‘Mum, this is Neve.’

His Mum’s face lights up and her eyes
finally land on me.

‘It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, we’ve
heard so much about you,’ she reveals excitedly, engulfing me in a surprise
hug. I raise an eyebrow at Jay at the comment and this time he’s the one to
turn red.

‘Jay, Dad wants to know how you broke the
car and when you’re going to buy him a new one?’ A male voice belonging to a
guy just a bit older than Jay bounds down the stairs. He stops at the bottom,
looking at me and then smirking. ‘I see the mysterious red-haired girl finally
has a face. You were right bro, she is cute-’

His face looks familiar, but I can’t seem
to place it.

‘You said Dad wanted to see me?’ Jay cuts
him off a little too loudly, slapping his brother’s back and forcing him back
upstairs.

‘Its times like this I wish had three
girls,’ Jay’s mum smiles and shakes her head. Then she turns back to me and
holds out a dainty hand. ‘I’m Joy.’

‘Neve,’ I reply, shaking her hand back.

‘Well Neve, it seems you’ve had quite the
adventure,’ Joy laughs. ‘If you like, you’re perfectly welcome to use our
bathroom to clean up a bit. I’m afraid we don’t have any of my daughter’s
clothes lying around but I’m sure Jay can lend you something.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ I smile thankfully.
‘In fact I should probably be getting back to Charlie anyway.’

‘It’s no trouble, honest,’ she replies
earnestly. I bite my lip and look around me for a moment. It would be interesting
to find out a bit more about Jay, and Charlie will probably flip if he sees me
looking like this.

‘That would be great, thanks,’ I say at
last. Joy nods contently before heading off.

‘The bathroom is just upstairs on the left
and I’m just about to put on some dinner, you’re welcome to join us.’

‘Thank you,’ is all I can think to say. I
creep quietly up the stairs, although the muffled sound of the two brothers
arguing has me halting in my tracks. They’ve hidden in one room, the door
slightly ajar and are talking in soft voices.

‘Have you told her yet?’ Jay’s brother
asks, slight annoyance in his voice.

‘No, you know I can’t,’ Jay replies, his
voice slightly strained. His brother says something muffled, so low that I
can’t hear. Jay sighs heavily.

‘I know, I know. I’ll talk to Mum about it
later. I hate this. I hate what this is doing to her,’ Jay mutters angrily.

‘I know, man. I know.’

Knowing it’s probably family stuff,
possibly even to do with his aunt’s cancer, I quickly back away from the door
and leave them to it. Hell, it’s not like I want to be caught eavesdropping in
my new stranger’s house either.

The Ellsworth’s shower is just as grand as
the rest of the house and fires steamy, hot water at me from four different
angles. Revelling in cleanliness as I wash the mud and grime from my body, I
exit the shower and scavenge around for my leggings from yesterday.

Someone has also left out a jacket,
presumably Jay’s, so I chuck that over my vest top and tie my wet hair up into
a ponytail before emerging again. Not really sure where to go, I head back down
the steps and find Jay and his brother lounging on the sofas in the large
living room I had noticed when I first entered.

‘Hey, Red.
Ted
or
The Exorcist
?’ Jay
asks, holding up two DVD’s. He has changed his clothes and his hair is also
damp, which means that as well as many rooms, they also have many bathrooms. He
probably has his own personal ensuite, the rich bugger.

Jay has a sort of pleading look in his eye,
reminding me just how much he hates horror films, and lifts the
Ted
DVD that little bit higher.

‘
Ted,
’
I say, nonchalantly. Jay’s shoulders relax slightly in relief. ‘Besides, I’ve
already seen
The Exorcist
. Only a
child would be scared by it.’ Jay sends daggers my way.

Jay’s brother grins. His face is still
bothering me; I’ve racked my brain but can’t put a name to it.

‘Red, this is Blake,’ Jay says in a huff,
setting up the DVD player.
Blake
Ellsworth
.

‘Yep, we’ve met before,’ Blake confirms,
leaning back comfortably in his seat. Blake is a year older than Jay, if I had
been listening properly, and on his gap year. I half wonder why he’d spend his
gap year just hanging around at home but decide that to delve into the mind of
a boy would be a place of no return.

Although Blake has Jay’s green eyes, his
hair is a few shades darker, albeit cropped in a similar style, and has a faint
line of dark stubble decorating his chin. Blake is also a fair bit taller than
Jay and more toned. He probably spends most of his spare time at the gym.

Blake winks and I groan, finally placing
him as the stranger who had intercepted Martin and his gang of ghouls the other
night. Typical that I would meet both of the Ellsworth boy’s in situations they
had to pull me out of.

‘You have?’ Jay asks, confused.

‘The other night during my run in with
Martin, the one I called you about. He got them to back off.’

Jay looks angrily at Blake. ‘And you just
left her?’

‘She stalked off! What was I supposed to
do, follow her?’

‘Yes. That’s what girls do! They stalk off
and then you’re supposed to follow them!’ I roll my eyes as the brothers bicker
and play the film, enjoying the strange normality of it all.

They continue their bickering, the topic
changing every now and then during the film, yet I notice that no matter how he
tries to hide it, Jay has that same look of pain flashing across his face every
so often. But when I ask him about it I get the same response.

‘Tumble?’ Blake asks, his brow creasing
with worry.

‘We were at the top of a hill, Jay thought
it would be a good idea to race down it and ended up tripping and sort of
rolling down it,’ I laugh. Although Blake doesn’t laugh with me, he just looks
at his brother with concern.

‘Go get some painkillers,’ Blake tells him,
sending him a meaningful look, which Jay ignores.

‘Dude, I’m fine. Stop getting your knickers
in a twist,’ Jay replies lazily, paying extra attention to the TV to avoid his
brother’s gaze.

Blake rolls his eyes and gets up, muttering
something under his breath about Jay being a big girl before reappearing a few
minutes later with two white pills in his palm. Jay takes them begrudgingly and
then they move on as if nothing ever happened.

Must
be male pride or something,
I decide.
 

Dinner isn’t as awkward as I had imagined,
the boys make sure of that. Joy and Harold certainly aren’t what I expected
them to be, although I’m not sure what I had been expecting, maybe a stuck up
pair who would take one look at my converse and demand I be escorted off site
immediately?

I have to admit, though, I’m a bit
disappointed about the no-butler thing.

But they aren’t, and you can instantly tell
the love between them; the tenderness that Joy greets her husband with, the
stealing glances Harold keeps taking of his wife. And they welcomed me too,
engaging me in constant conversation, asking me about Charlie and my life here.

I mostly skirt around those topics or
interject white lies. Jay keeps throwing me looks of apology but I don’t really
mind. I’m not used to people taking an interest in me. The conversation then
moves on to my love of art.

‘She’s ridiculously good,’ Jay boasts and I
scowl at him.

‘I’m not that good,’ I retort, ducking my
head.

‘She is! Hey, I reckon she could even make
you look good, bro,’ Jay laughs.

‘Please, everyone knows who got the good
genes out of the Ellsworth boys,’ Blake smirks, running a hand through his
hair.

‘It’s just a shame I didn’t pass them onto
you two boys, eh?’ Harold chuckles, flicking his hair back in a dramatic
fashion. Harold is a tall, imposing man, who I’m sure could scare the hell out
of most of the kids around here. Currently, though, he wears a boyish smile
that wrinkles the corners of his eyes. Quite the opposite of scary.

Whereas Joy and Jay share the lighter
colouring of hair, Blake has obviously received his darker shades from his dad.
The only difference is that Harold has light blue eyes as oppose to everybody
else’s green ones.

Joy sends me a look of mock exasperation.

‘This is the shambles I have to put up with
everyday,’ she sighs, shaking her head, a small smile on her lips. I grin back
at her while the boys all make faces.

We finish up and I send a quick message to
Charlie to tell him I’m on my way back before getting into a different car this
time. I’m familiar with this car; it’s the blue Ford Focus that had almost run
me over the other day.

‘So let me get this straight, you guys are
stinking rich, and you drive around in a Ford Focus?’ I laugh. Jay smirks.

‘Would it help to tell you that this is
only my temporary run around?’ he raises an eyebrow. ‘Plus, I want to fit in. I
don’t want people thinking any different of me just because I can use a twenty
as toilet paper.’ He says it so solemnly that I slap his arm.

‘I thought it was your Dad’s anyway?’ I ask
instead.

‘Technically it is; I haven’t paid him for
it yet. It’s on my to-do list. If anything happens to this car, I can say
goodbye to any future one.’

I roll my eyes and before too long we are
pulling up outside my house. Charlie is leaning against the doorway and I’ll be
damned if he isn’t holding that stupid nutcracker, tapping it casually against
his palm.

‘Charlie put that bloody nutcracker away or
I swear to God I’ll use it!’ I snap, as I get out of the car. Charlie winks,
obviously satisfied that I’m alive, well and haven’t been kidnapped or murdered
etcetera, before nodding and disappearing back into the house.

As petty as it sounds, I can’t help but
notice how tiny mine looks now compared to the house I have just come from.

‘He’s so dead,’ I murmur under my breath as
Jay helps me get my bag out of the car. I shrug off his borrowed jumper and
hand it back.

‘Thank for doing this, Jay. I had a really
great time,’ I say honestly, smiling.

‘It didn’t go quite to plan, but yeah, it
was good,’ Jay laughs. ‘I’m thinking something a bit quieter next weekend
though, the cinema maybe?’

‘Sounds like a plan, see you tomorrow.’ I
wave as he drives off and walk back into the house. I see Charlie in the
kitchen and dump my bag in the hall before marching in there.

‘The nutcracker? Really?’ I ask in
disbelief, hauling myself up onto the counter and kicking my feet underneath
me.

‘What? I could have done worse. If we were
in America I would totally have been cleaning my shotgun,’ he grins goofily.

‘Like they would let you have a gun,’ I
mutter, rolling my eyes as I leave and start heading upstairs.

‘I would have rights!’

‘We’ll see about that!’ I yell back, a grin
creeping across my face. I make a mental note to never move to America with
Charlie. Then I pause on the steps. ‘Charlie, would you be opposed to me maybe
taking an art course next year?’

Charlie appears out of the kitchen, an
uncertain expression on his features. ‘Like, continuing education?’

‘Yeah, a foundation course. Then I dunno,
maybe Uni or something? I haven’t really thought about it.’

‘Are you asking if you can continue
education after we had a massive blow out last month about you dropping
sixth-form altogether? Are you feeling okay?’

‘Charlie!’

‘Okay! Absolutely!’ Charlie grins widely in
disbelief. ‘Go for it, whatever you want. They have websites for this sort of
thing right?’

‘Of course,’ I laugh. ‘Look, I know it’s a
lot of money but-’

Charlie snorts, cutting me off. ‘Money can
be sorted. Work out what you want to do first, and then we’ll figure that out.
Whatever happens, I’ll be one hundred percent behind you, got it?’

‘Yes, Charlie,’ I nod and an odd feeling of
excitement bubbles inside me. ‘Nothing’s for certain, I just want to look into
it.’

‘No problemo,’ Charlie winks.

‘Thank you,’ I say before carrying on up to
my room. After reaching it I pull out my old, battered laptop and type ‘
art foundation course’
into the search
bar. It’s going to take while, but I decide to dive right in anyway.

Homework can wait.

‘So Charlie tells me you’re looking into a
college course?’ Nadine asks in that neutral way of hers, her focus on her clipboard.

The weekend had quickly melted into
Wednesday and I’m back in my counsellor’s office, answering the usual
questions. Whilst a lot has changed since I was last here, including the colour
of the nail varnish I’m currently picking off, the office doesn’t look much
different at all.

It’s still a pasty grey colour and the
atmosphere is as dull as usual. Nadine is even in similar attire; her blonde
hair sculpted into a perfect bun and her trousers not a crease out of place.
The only difference being that this time her blouse is a pale yellow.

‘You know, I don’t understand why you two
don’t just have these sessions on your own. You seem to get a lot more out of
him anyway and all you get me to do is repeat the things he’s already told
you,’ I question, currently curled up on the comfiest of the chairs around.

‘What I get from Charlie are facts,’ Nadine
sighs, falling into the same speech she gives me every time I question her.
‘What I want from you is your-’

‘Emotions and feelings,’ I finish, rolling
my eyes and standing up to go by the window. The view hadn’t changed either.
‘Fine, I’m feeling… not better… just okay,’ I decide, struggling to put my
feelings into words.

‘That’s good,’ Nadine smiles, obviously
happy that we finally seem to be getting somewhere.

‘Yeah,’ I muse, thoughtfully. ‘I guess it
is.’