5 Missed Calls

4.

"Hi this is Penelope Featherington, sorry to have missed your call. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you soon!"

"Pen... it's Colin. Just wanted to tell you Happy Birthday."

Penelope was expecting Eloise around 3pm that afternoon but showed up an hour and a half earlier. "Colin knows you're back."

Her face drained as Eloise explain what happened that same week.

"Maybe it's for the best, now he wont be too upset when he sees you at the wedding. Look I don't see how you can avoid him forever Penelope. Sooner or later you both will have to face each other," Eloise was pacing back and forth in the lounge of Penelope's flat,"Would you just tell me what happened between the two of you?"

"Ask Colin."

"We both know he would not dare."

"Is that why he had the nerve to actually call me this morning?" Penelope was plopped on the couch looking up at Eloise.

"He called you?"

"To tell me Happy Birthday," she hid her blush behind a bite of ice cream. "How did he find out I was back? I thought you always kept my room door shut."

"Will you tell me what happened between the both of you?" Eloise bargained with a smile. Its not that Penelope didn't want to tell her best friend, she just couldn't tell Eloise that she snogged Colin and left the country without an explanation.

"Elle I can't, I don't know how you would react. And it's really between me and your brother." Penelope wanted to spend her birthday indoors and just unwind. She had enough excitement over Colin's voice mail and now the news Eloise had shared.

"Fine, but after Colin found out you were back he was clearly upset. So he gave me this to give it to you. Since you two are dreading on seeing each other at all. More like you are dreading it than him," Eloise handed Penelope the parchement wrapped gift with a thin ribbon holding it tightly together. "He said he picked it out or bought it while he was on his tour.

"What are you waiting for I want to see it too. And you must open mine next," Eloise put the other gift which was a colorful gift bag, and onto the coffee table,"Thank you Elle."

She untide the thin ribbon, unwrapping the bundle and she pulls out a book from Cairo, written in eygptian. "Oh it's beautiful," she commented.

"How are you going to read that if you don't know the language?" Eloise frowned.

"I don't need to. I know this book because I wrote it. My book went international! Not just in the states of course but Eygpt too." She smiled,"Pen that's great!"

Penelope thought it was sweet for Colin to think of her while he was on his travels.

*knock* *knock*

"Food is here," Eloise got up from the couch to answer the door (Penelope had ordered take out while Eloise was pacing the front room sharing the news about Colin; food delievers quick when you're in the city).

Penelope flipped through the pages; she found something that stood out at the very end of the book. It was handwritten note and she didn't recognize the penmanship:

Happy Birthday Pen,

I read your work when you left. It's brilliant. And I saw this while I was in Cairo for the derby tour. You're book went international congrats!  I also think you would have liked Eygpt, it's quite exotic and there's so much more than just the great pyramids.

Pen, I admit I'm still hurt that you left without saying anything but I hope you won't let what happened between us affect our friendship. I miss you and I do hope to see you soon once you're back from the Americas.

Colin.

Colin still wants to be friends, she thought. She felt guilty that she left him without even a goodbye and she knew he must still be hurting or even worse now he knew she was back for a month.

The kiss between them clearly meant nothing, deep down she didnt want to admit that it was a mere moment they shared. Penelope should have known better. Now she felt stupid for wasting all her energy about being embarrassed and or having to run into him. None of her feelings were clear to him. She knew that now.

She couldn't bare it anymore, she didn't want to keep her feelings hidden much longer. She couldn't keep being friends with Colin.

"Pen, you ready to eat?"

"Yeah, I- um need to use the loo," she wanted a briefly to take in all that has happened today. She didn't want to cry in front of Eloise either. She was regretting returning from the Americas and now she was stuck in London; closer to Colin than she ought to be even if they haven't seen each other in person.