Chapter 8

Restless

I didn’t see Liesel for the rest of the day, which seriously worried me since we had most of our classes together. If she wasn’t skipping, she definitely rocked at hide and seek. And that was problematic because during the lunch break Nadia-Big-Tatas had made eye contact with me—the kind of eye contact that lasted more than five seconds and was clearly acknowledge by both parties. And the only female I hung out with and that could tell me just exactly what it meant wasn’t here.

            Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy, and I’m looking for my creepy slightly sociopathic, entirely insane, questionably heterosexual, girl person.

            The day went by, and no sign of her. I especially missed her during lunch time because she sort of fed me and now I was kind of starving, and I knew there would be nothing in the fridge when I got home.

The thought depressed me. I walked home, feeling worse and worse, with each step I took away form the school. It was Friday night. That meant I wouldn’t see Liesel until Monday, and I wouldn’t be able to ask her about Nadia until then. She had talked about a party on Saturday, but she had no idea where I live or how to contact me, so at least I got out of that one. Still, the prospect of spending my entire weekend alone, doing nothing made me feel especially bad.

            No one was home, of course, when I arrived. And the fridge was empty, as always. I dragged my feet to my room, dropping by backpack on the ground by my door and crawled to my bed, closing the curtain of the window over it.

I was all alone, as always, and suddenly all my gloom came crashing down on me. I hadn’t felt that bad all week long. Thanks to Liesel I had a few amusing moments here and there. And I was no realizing just how much her presence had an effect on me.

Suddenly, I heard a sound and frowned, looking around, but it stopped so I just shrugged it off and kept on feeling miserable.

“Stop jerking off Bundy and open the window,” Liesel’s voice screamed from the other side of my window, tapping against it—that was the sound.

I crawled to the window, pushing the curtain aside and saw her beaming face. I shook my head in disbelief.

Only Liesel…

I opened the window. “What are you doing here?” Part of me wasn’t even surprise to have her pop out of nowhere like this.

“We have nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother to watch,” she explained, showing me a DVD case.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you listen when I talk? I mentioned this.”

I raised my eyebrows. “And you want to do this now, and here?”

“Yes. Aren’t you alone?” She looked around our yard. “There’s no car in the drive way.”

“Yeah I am, speaking of which,” I scratched my head, “doors aren’t your thing?”

She grinned. “I like to make dramatic entrances.”

It was my time to roll my eyes. “Of course.”

“Now, scooch over, I’m sliding in,” Liesel warned, and threw a grocery bag inside before hoisting herself up and into the room, throwing herself, face first onto my bed.

I silently thanked the heaven for the food she brought, but then frowned.

“How do you know where I live?”

Liesel got off my bed, brushing her pants off. “I explained in great details how it felt to grab Nadia’s boobs and especially how it made me feel to your pervy, serial-killer-to-be friend.”

I got up too, giving her back the grocery bag. “Derek?”

“The one and only,” she nodded.

“I think he likes you.”

“I think he wants to wear my skin as a suit. I find it kind of a turn on.” He’d be happy to know that.

“Because you have a sick obsession with serial killers?”

“Because they’re fascinating,” she answered, and started to look around my room, going to my working desk. “And don’t dish it. It’s one of the only reasons why I’m helping you. Bundy is a favourite of mine.” She picked up my notebook filled with quotes, flipping the pages slowly.

“You’re talking about a serial killer,” I pointed out, and took a step forward, resting the urge to tear the book out of her hands.

            Maybe she read my mind because she suddenly slapped it shut and turned around to look in my eyes.  “I don’t encourage what he did, I’m just saying I would have liked to pick his brains a little.”

            I shook my head. “You’re weird.”

            She frowned. “Don’t you find human brains fascinating?”

            “I never really stopped to think about it,” I answered and shrugged.

            “You should. Our brains are marvellous.” She sighed, looking towards my door. “Anyway, where’s the TV?”

            “Living room.”

            “Puuuurfecto! Lead the way Mr Bundy.” She made a grand hand gesture and I rolled my eyes again, but humoured her.

            I felt kind of self conscious while I walked towards our small living room, in our modest house. My mom and I were fine in this house. It had everything we needed and I wasn’t the kind of kid that needed to newest video consol every time one got out. Truth was, we pretty much had the bare essential. The DVD player was actually a left over from Paxton—he had bought a Blu-Ray player not so long ago and given me his old DVD player. A flat screen was an unknown concept on our household.

The walls probably needed a new layer of paint. The few frames that hung on them needed to be dusted, and the pictures were all old and turning slightly yellow. The carpet was old and discoloured. No furniture really matched together, it was just a collection of cheap stuff.

Normally, none of these things mattered to me, but now, having someone over, I felt a little self conscious. I never invited the guys over. There was nothing exciting about coming to my house. And it just felt like everything screamed “POOR STRUGGLING FAMILY RESIDING HERE!” And it was kind of hard to have someone seeing it.

Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I’m not above feeling self conscious about my family’s financial situation.

But Liesel didn’t seem to mind. She walked in the place like she wasn’t noticing the tacky lamps and the squeaking floor and the wobbling furniture. And maybe she really didn’t notice these things. The girl was a little out of it.

Liesel pointed towards the couch and pushed the bag of food in my hands, while she went to set up the DVD.

“So, before we start watching this piece of art,” she started to rant, “I have to warn you that your life will be completely changed after this. And that you’ll probably pester me endlessly, until we finish all the seasons, so you’ll become obsessed and it will be magnificent.”

“You’re worrying me.”

“Good,” Liesel grinned, threw herself on the couch beside me, and pressed play.

I had to give it to the girl. I never really had been a big TV fan, but that was probably because my mother only put things like the Bachelor on, or ER. This was actually pretty amusing. And by pretty amusing I meant that each time an episode ended I thought, “it’s already over?”

Liesel kept smirking my way every time I burst out laughing. I was actually getting a little self conscious in the beginning but then thought better of it. This was what she wanted. And I wasn’t going to deny her this small thing.

After eight episodes, Liesel got up to change the DVD. I twitched a little on my seat. Liesel hadn’t mentioned her whole disappearing act, and I was… well curious. And this was as good a time as any, well, it was better than during the episodes—this show was pretty good after all.

“Liesel…” I trailed, tentatively.

“Yes?” she replied, her back to me.

I clenched and unclenched my fists. “Don’t take this the wrong way but… when I asked you about the butterfly… it seemed like I hit a nerve there.”

She just waved it off, still not turning around, standing in front of the TV with the remote. “You didn’t, don’t worry.”

For a second I actually thought about just leaving it like that.

Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I might be a pussy.

Grow some balls, Bundy. “Alright… then what do you mean by I’m not the buttefly?”

I saw her sigh before she turned around to smile at me, almost softly. “You ever heard about that kid that had cancer, he was in terminal phase, and he was going to die. He did that last wish thing and what he wanted was to catch a blue butterflies, you know in the Amazon, those huge butterflies? That was his dream. So this insect-man took him there and they went after a blue butterfly. And want to know what happened? They caught one. And the kid’s cancer disappeared. You’re the kid with cancer, I’m the insect-man and we’re looking for your blue butterfly.”

It took me a second to answer. I thought she was going to tell me I needed to get a tramp stamp. I hadn’t thought she’d come up with a story like that. “That… that makes a lot of sense.”

She snorted. “You say it like it’s surprising.”

I made a face. “Well, most of the stuff you say doesn’t make sense.”

“Not true.”

“Yeah, kind of true.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Titty-Virgin.”

I narrowed mine at her. “That’s not getting into a nickname.”

“Sure, Titty-Virgin,” she grinned my way, sitting beside me again, and pressing play.

            “If you keep on calling me that, I’m jumping off a cliff.”

            Liesel paused, appraising me. “Did you just make a joke about your suicidal tendencies?”

            I stared at the screen, ignoring her. “Shut up.”

            “Fine… Boobie-Virgin!”

I chuckled slightly. I had to give it to the girl, she wasn’t one to back down on anything.

So we kept on watching more How I Met Your Mother.

When my mother got home, she didn’t even realize Liesel was there. She actually got in the living room, told me to turn the volume down a little and went on with her life.

I ignored Liesel frowning stare when it happened.

Around four in the morning, when we were done with the first season, I was officially hooked, and it was time to go to bed.

“We’ll watch the next season right?” I asked when Liesel turned off the TV.

She chuckled. “Yep, of course. We can start it tomorrow when we wake up.”

I frowned at her choice of words. “When we wake up.”

She grinned this time. “Yep. Slumber party, girlfriend!” she squealed.

“No.”

Come on, don’t make that face, you and I cuddling in your bed and talking about our crush on the school’s quarterback, you have to admit it sounds tempting.” She ranted, too enthusiastically.

“You’re not sleeping in my bed,” I answered, deadpan.

“Well, I’m not going home, we have a season to start tomorrow, it would be counterproductive, and I’m certainly not sleeping on the couch—I’ll hurt my back.”

I shook my head. “You’re not an old lady with arthritis, you’re back is fine.”

Liesel snorted. “You don’t know, maybe I have a degenerative disease that makes me unable to sleep on couches.”

“Whatever, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Her grin was mischevious. “Good luck with that.”

I just glared at her, but let her make her way to my bedroom.

For a second, I actually thought about how stupid I was being. I should have fought with her more. Her parents certainly couldn’t be alright with her not going home for the night. But then again, I had no idea what was her relationship with her parents. I barely knew anything about her actually.

A stranger was sleeping in my bed, while was lying here on the couch, still fully clothed and miserable yet again.

I tossed and turned, unable to find a comfortable spot. This couch was awful. It was old and uncomfortable but my mother definitely didn’t have the money to buy some plush one. All I could think about was my bed. I actually longed for it a little.

And that’s pretty much when I realized that I didn’t have to endure this. I wanted, needed to sleep. I was tired. And I wasn’t going to fall asleep on the couch. And I was lucky enough to have a double bed. Wasn’t Liesel always telling me to live a little and not take life seriously?

I’m pretty sure that meant I had the right to go sleep in my bed even if there was a girl in it.

Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and the fact that there’s a girl in my bed is what’s keeping me away from it.

I grabbed the blanket from the couch and made my way, slowly, to my room. The door creaked as I opened it.

“I knew you wouldn’t resist me,” Liesel whispered in a teasingly seductive voice, as I closed the door behind me.

I glared in the dark. “Shut up.”

“Oooo, do we trash talk in the bedroom Mr Bundy?”

These were the times where I wondered why I was putting up with her. “I’m throwing you on the floor if you don’t knock it off.”

“Fine.”

I made my way to my chest of drawers and took my pyjamas pants and t-shirt out. Quickly, and with my back to my bed I changed into my night attire. Luckily, Liesel might have felt how uneasy I was because she didn’t say anything. Or maybe she wasn’t seeing anything because of how dark it was.

I walked up to the bed and lifted the sheets and cover off, under Liesel’s bewildered stare, and place the blanket in the middle, making a little hill. I also ignored the fact that she was only wearing one of my t-shirt—by the way, what the hell—and that gave me a pretty good view of her legs.

“This,” I motioned to my attempt at a separation in the middle of the bed, “his our territories frontier.”

She smirked at me. “And I can’t cross over without a passport and a full cavity check?”

“You can’t pass at all,” I informed her and got in the bed.

“Whatever you say, Bundy,” Liesel chuckled, settling in the bed once again, closing her eyes, “you’re the only virgin in this bed.” She had never stated upright that she actually had sex before, I mean she had implied it, sort of, numerous times, but she had never clearly stated it. It was kind of weird, to think the girl lying beside me had sex before me. But then again, I was antisocial, awkward and suicidal, so it was completely normal that she had sex before me.

I lay on my back, lifting the cover to my chin, my head resting on my pillow. I sighed in contentment and closed my eyes. “Don’t spoon me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”