The Tribuo - Book II

 

December 21^st

            I woke up because I could’ve sworn I’ve heard someone slamming my front door. I didn’t want to wake up because I was having this awesome dream – something about summer, honey, and lakes. Then I’ve heard the door slam, and the lakes were gone, and so was summer, but not the sweet smell of honey. It was still right here, playing around my face.

   I peeled my eyes open and blinked in confusion. What the hell? Then I realized that the smell of honey was coming from the wave of strawberry-blonde hair that spilled all over my face. I also realized that the hair belonged to Katie who was snoring softly on top of me, one of her arms somewhere behind the pillow, while the other was resting on my shoulder. I turned my head very carefully and saw the BSG logo on the TV. Then I realized that both of us were still lying on my couch, and we were fully dressed. I almost got confused, but then I remembered.

   We watched a hell of a lot of BSG last night. I think it was around 3:30 in the morning, when I felt Katie’s head on my shoulder. At first, I thought she was trying to make out or something – yeah, me and my ego, I know – but when I looked at her, I saw that she was simply asleep. So, I muted the TV and turned on the subtitles. Apparently, soon after that, I passed out myself.

   I lay still, enjoying her warm breath on my neck, and I was amazed that I didn’t feel a slightest desire to kiss her or anything. It was like falling asleep with my little sister if I had one. She stirred slightly in her sleep and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, ‘Matt.’ But then she was silent again and I just shrugged it off. I am complicating things, I thought. DeeDee was right.

   Then my phone started to ring very shrilly and I gritted my teeth. Katie murmured something, and then she was awake.

   “What…” she muttered with confusion, and then she inhaled sharply and sat up. Well, tried to. Since she was lying on top of me, she ended up losing her balance and got caught between my leg and the blanket. I started to laugh. She stared at me with huge eyes, but then blinked when she saw that I was still wearing my jeans and sweater. My phone kept shrieking.

   “I need to get that,” I sighed and slid off the couch.

   Katie brushed her hair off her face, looked at the TV, and then her eyes weren’t panicky anymore. Good, I thought, grabbing my phone; she is not going to try and kill me or something.

   “Hello,” I said and winced when I’ve heard a very shrill, hateful voice.

   “You, bastard!!”

   I carefully moved the phone just slightly away from my ear. Good God, that was loud…

   “You lying, cheating son of a bitch!!” she kept raging. “You are a pig! I can’t believe you! You are…”

   “Ellie, stop screaming,” I said patiently, but I don’t think she even heard me.

   She kept screeching into the phone, and finally, I sighed and walked into the kitchen where I started making coffee. I got water, clean filter, got the coffee can out of the storage – she kept screaming. Finally, after I pushed the Start button, she paused for air, and I quickly asked her, “What the hell are you talking about?”

   “I saw you!” she screamed with fresh energy. “I saw you this morning, Andrew! You were sleeping with some little slut!!”

   Ah, okay. So I didn’t dream the door slam. Apparently, I never locked the front door last night; Ellie walked in this morning, and saw Katie and me on the couch. I sighed when I remembered that both my arms were wrapped firmly around Katie. Yeah, it probably did not look good. I guess the fact that we were dressed, didn’t matter much.

   “Ellie,” I said patiently and she ignored me completely. I thought about letting her scream, but then decided no way, screw this.

   “Ellie, shut up!” I barked.

   To my utter amusement, it worked and she stopped screaming immediately. Thank God.

   “Ellie,” I said in a softer voice. “I am sorry about yesterday and the day before, okay? I am also sorry that you came to the wrong conclusion this morning…”

   “Wrong conclusion my ass!” she hissed. “Look, I know that you are a sex-crazed maniac, but to go ahead and…”

   Okay, now I was pissed off.

   “I am a sex-crazed maniac?!” I interrupted her. “So, I am the one who can’t keep my hands to myself, is that it? I am the one who is constantly driving you up the wall, getting into your pants, and then stopping in the middle? Oh, wait! No… It’s you!!”

   She started to say something, but I interrupted her again.

   “Ellie, shut up! I told you that you got everything wrong, and I am not going to apologize for something that never happened… I am not going to…”

   “Screw you!!” she screamed and hung up the phone.

   Well, I hemmed to myself, if you would, then we wouldn’t have this conversation, would we? For some weird reason, I felt energized and quite amused. I wondered if all I needed to do was to spend one night with a girl, watching a sci-fi TV show all night. Could this be? Am I actually free of Ellie? Wow… I need to call DeeDee; she will probably throw a party or something.

   “Is everything all right?” Katie asked me, walking into the kitchen.

   Her hair was brushed and braided. I smiled at her.

   “Everything is great,” I nodded and she smiled back.

   …That whole day felt like a holiday to me, for some reason. We walked to Dairy Queen, got into a snowball fight – for someone who hated snow, Katie was surprisingly good with snowballs – and watched TV. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so carefree and genuinely happy. It was great.