The fear in me

Nay

"Wake up, sleepy head!" an all too familiar voice bellows into my ear. I have just had dreams that circled around him, and here he is. When my eyes open, they wander to his attractive head. His mouth is twisted into a radiant smile. I see wonderful, even teeth set in a perfect mouth, and they make me sigh quietly. But before I linger at his mouth and run the risk of kissing him spontaneously, my gaze goes further, skilfully leaps across his attractive blue baby eyes that would again make me weak, and finally finish up at his hairdo. His blonde hair is again short. He must have been at the barber's yesterday. A pity! I prefer it when the hair is a bit wavy, because that flatters his whole face even more. Like a perfect picture frame for a perfect photo. Sigh!

However, he hates his curls! Unfortunately! Right through summer he let them grow and I thought he had at last realised that long hair suits him much better. Well, it seems I was wrong about that. As always when it is about him. At last I dare to make contact with his baby blues and competently suppress yet another sigh that is sneakily rising up in me. His eyes are beaming with visible amusement and mirror the friendship that surrounds us. The corners of his mouth are raised arrogantly and it looks as though he knows that for years I have felt more than friendship, and yet he would rather keep torturing me. And that in turn makes me mad as a hornet, because it reminds me of the day four years ago when I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I sigh in frustration and he laughs: "Nay, I'm shocked you're still lying in bed although you told me the day before yesterday how much you have to do before school starts!"

Yes, my excuses have been better at times. But quite honestly, if I see Tim once more with another girl on his arm, I'll certainly start yelling.

"I'm planning lots of things! After all, it's our final year!" I say loudly. The year in which everything is supposed to change and when you at last see me as a girl once more, and not just as a chum, I add as a thought.

Tim throws himself down next to me and hops sitting on the edge of the bed with an innocent look. "What have you done wrong last year? Everything went well! You got a marvellous report-card; the final year will be a pushover for you! As always!"

Without reacting to his words I toss off the duvet and crawl out of the other side of the bed. Perhaps today he'll notice my cute short pyjamas with the little hearts on them (a homage to his hidden heart birthmark). And my legs don't look too bad at the moment and seem a lot longer and browner in this little piece.

Slowly, and I hope sexily, I walk around the bed and stand in front of him. Now at last I am taller than he is! Tim gives me a leisurely once-over and stares at my body, and my blood starts pounding. When he reaches my eyes he looks befuddled. And I hold my breath and wait for a spontaneous declaration of love. Instead, he gives a short shake of his body, licks his lips, and then croaks: "Come on, Nay, it's our last weekend before the stress of school gets to us again."

That was not what I had hoped to hear, not in the slightest! "Let's go to the cinema this evening, what do you say? I could contact Tanja and Kay, they'd be happy ..." he does on, while I am clenching my fists with frustration. "We've seen so little of each other in the holidays!" he bleats.

That's correct, but it wasn't my fault! "And so...?" I ask sceptically because I know he would not go to the cinema by himself.

"What do you mean by 'and so'?"

I roll my eyes. "Who'd come apart from Tanja and Kay? What's the name of your latest conquest? Just so I don't get the names mixed up. I mean, it's be stupid if I said one of them incorrectly, wouldn't it? I can't keep up with all the girlfriends in your life."