"I saw him AGAIN"
"You sound like you're about to lose your mind and run raving mad. You really need to calm down," Anna scoffed so loud I think she's enjoying all of this.
"No, you don't get it. I can't get my nervous system down… I keep asking how small this place is that you meet someone twice?" My free left hand is on my waist as I pace back and forth in my room.
"You're in a better position to answer, but for your mental health, I'll answer. It's not small at all, it just sounds like fate to me." I hear a stifled chuckle at the end of that. Anna is really not helping at all.
"Don't make this worse than it already is, okay? Now isn't the time to be saying things like that." I pause to take a breath before I continue, "I feel like I've made the biggest mistake of my entire life, and I literally just got here."
"No, you've been there for three days now."
"Anna, that's not the point'
"Oh yes, back to the point. Your youths are curated for experiences like this; they are a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience. It happens in movies," Anna says excitedly.
"Exactly, this isn't the movies."
"Yeahhh, it's better than the movies…ugh, I wish I could kiss a tall Greek caramel-skinned god as well. What did he taste like? Chocolate?" Jezz, Anna is driving me nuts. She picked up on the tiny details? How would I even remember what he tasted like? I think he actually tasted like fresh water, but that still isn't the point.
A call from Aunty Lina appears at the top of my phone screen, and my heart almost skips a beat. She found out, she found out that I didn't just kiss a boy, but I did it in a pub which makes it look so__so__
__I don't know the word for it, it just feels somehow. I imagined my first kiss would happen at the front of the Eiffel Tower with my perfect Prince Charming, not some narcissist who looked like he was having so much fun by reminding me of the faux pas I had made. How did Aunty Rosy find out? If I'm in a hot pot of pasta, at least it might not be so painful to be boiled to the highest degree with floating spaghetti.
Quick plan, I'll speak calmly, I'll tell her how I'm 21 now and these things happen in the day-to-day life of youths, and how__ and how what? Shit!! I'm losing it. I'll be cooked in an oven alongside cinnamon rolls if my mum has already found out as well. What am I doing with my life at this point?
My thoughts are driven off when Aunty Lina's call ends and Anna's reinstated. "Hello," she says to confirm I'm still on the phone.
Before I get the chance to respond, Aunty Lina's call comes back up. Okay, this is my chance. I tap on receive, automatically ending Anna's. The line breaks for a flitting second, but the signal is restored almost immediately.
"Hello Aunty Lina," I manage to say between nervousness and excitement. I'm thrilled to hear from her, but scared she now knows my darkest secret. My mind doesn't get enough time to think of how to propose bribery to her when I hear a warm, sweet voice on the phone.
"Olive," her French accent is so strong and soothing. I can imagine she's wearing a sunny smile as she speaks. She never agrees that the right pronunciation is uh-LIV-ee-uh; for her, it's Olive or nothing, and I've learnt to get used to that. Actually, I find it so sweet when people find a way to produce a nickname out of my name. I see it as a beautiful way to show love. Aunty Lina shows love in a way I love. The last time she visited Paris was three years ago during Christmas. She'd always bake me croissants whenever I asked, join me for café hopping, and braid my hair in African styles [she loves the African culture a lot]. Whenever she came around, my mum would get jealous because I would spend the entire time in her room listening to stories about New York, unwrapping gifts she shopped for me from her favorite stores in NYC. How could I not have developed love for that country? Now that I think of it, I don't bond with my favorite aunt enough. I feel like a terrible person.
"Are you there?" Aunty Lina says from over the phone, jolting me out of my memory lane back to the present.
"Yes, yes, I'm still here. I've just missed you so much, can't believe I'll finally get to see you again." I forgot that a minute ago I was scared of her finding out about my darkest secret, and now I'm just so emotional.
"How do I believe that when you've been in the city for…" Her voice trails off as she tries to count.
"Three days," I help her out.
"Three whole days and you still haven't come to see me," she said that in a way that spikes my guilt all the way to level 100.
"I'll be here for a whole month, and trust I'm spending it all at your place."
"Really?"
"Yes, I wanted to surprise you, the reason I told mum not to tell you."
She says some things in French that I don't catch, but I understand she's happy with the news. I love her.
"How many more days before you leave the hotel?"
"5 days"
"That's so long, but I can manage," she says in such a funny tone that we both burst into laughter. My heart feels so light from laughing so much. For a second, I forgot the reason I'm here and the stupid mistake I made. I pray I never see any of those guys ever again.
"I hate that I have to leave now, but I really need to attend to something really urgent, Aunty Lina," I plead.
"C'est bein"
"au revoir"
I press a kiss to my phone that makes a sound. She does it back before hanging up. And I rush to attend to the urgent thing I mentioned, by urgent I meant Noah. We had a chance of being friends considering our encounter over the last two days, but his weird brother from my prediction of things will ruin all that hasn't even sprouted. He'll probably go to Noah and tell him about how the girl he introduced as his friend kissed him. I'm sure he won't mention the part where I was drunk and he took me to his house without my consent. And then Noah would regret giving me a free long ride at that time of the night when he could have been doing any other thing like sleeping or binge watching Reality High and crushing on Keith Powers, or not, he isn't me but still, he could have been doing any other thing at that time but he chose to show me around and I behaved in a way I could never openly defend with none other person than his weird-ass brother that out of everything to have, has a heavy attitude.
I'm sitting with my legs crossed on the bed while I plot. Noah is still saved as WINDOW SEAT GUY on my phone, making me feel like a mean person. I want to edit it, but there'd be no need, as I'm going to delete his number now and end all of this brother shenanigans.
My fingers are a bit hesitant, but I tap on delete anyway. The feeling that accompanies that is ensnared between relief, avoidance, and guilt. What the heck. I stand to my feet, slipping my feet into the fluffy pitch indoor slippers I bought at the airport as I saunter to the room balcony. It's early evening, and the breeze feels dry but soft on my skin. It's just three weeks to December, but I already smell the Christmas air. It's a mixture of this festive and invigorating feeling. Christmas was my best month of the year as I got to feel like I had a big family with Mum's co-workers coming around, their children messing with the chairs with crumbles of baked stuff that was so stressful to clean up after. I didn't mind as long as the Christmas pictures would look like one of a happy big family. I didn't mind. There's only a but in the picture because on the night of the 17th of December four years ago, someone failed herself. I'll never forgive her for that.
My phone's screen lit up with an incoming call from an unknown caller. I accept the call with the intention to hold a silence competition with whomever it is, but the caller actually speaks first.
"Hey, Olivia," it's Noah. My heart races so fast I might have a heart attack. I can't find the words, I feel like a thief caught red-handed.
"Hi Noah," I manage to say.
"How are you?" he sounds calm but concerned. Did he find out? What does he think of me now? Why do I care about what he thinks? I'm not comfortable with how I feel about this.
"Yes, I'm doing fine, and you?"
"I'm good, I'm good. I was just wondering why you left early. The party just ended, you know?"
"Um, I was really tired."
"It's fine, I understand. Sorry, I dragged you to the party at such short notice, I just needed to be there with a plus one, and I thought maybe you could use this as a way of exploring NY like you said you wanted to."
"Yeah, I get that, thank you for inviting me."
"Did you get something sweet for your delicate stom…" he doesn't even complete the sentence before I interrupt him
"Stop, don't do that," I say amidst laughter, and Noah joins me, surpassing the volume of my voice with his bass voice. We both heave a sound of relief at the end of our laughter at the same time, causing us to resume once again; this time, the laughter is so intense and almost endless.
Noah draws a deep sigh of ease like he just got something heavy off his chest, then says, "I'm glad that just happened."
It felt good too.
"Um, same here."
"I left the hotel already," he says, and I give him time to add something to that because I don't see why he's telling me that. "You're still at the hotel, right?"
"Yes, I am," I say as I tuck a stray hair into the back of my ear.
"Great, I uh sent you something like an hour ago, so it should get to you like really soon," he sent me something? Something like what? Maybe a photo of me kissing his brother last night. Jezz, I'm burst. The words I try to compose dance away with the evening breeze. I don't think fast under pressure. I'm under pressure. I'm such a bad person. I feel like a bad person. I should confess my sin to Noah even before he says it. That way, I'll be the one to walk away and not walk out on.
"Hello," someone said from outside the door, saving me from my thoughts and Noah. It seems the person has been knocking, but I just didn't hear any of it.
I speed walk to the door, swinging it open before I realize I didn't ask who it was first. My survival instincts are on the floor.
"I just got a text from Liam, he's at your door. Sorry, I didn't inform you way ahead of time. He said he was driving towards the hotel, so I asked him to help deliver what I got you."
Liam, slam the door on his face, jump the balcony, take a flight back to Paris, no, take a cab or train, or subway, whatever to Aunty Lina's. Sounds like a good plan. No, it's not. Yes, it is.
"Olivia," Noah calls out, scaring off the contradicting voices in my head that leave me alone to face no other person but Liam, standing poised in a jort that shows off his tiny written tattoo just above his knee, that he paired with a black tee and a fucking smirk on his face.