Bad hosts

The door is unlocked when I get home and I know it's Bella inside. Courtney and I always lock the door.

"Bella is that you?" I still ask while entering the kitchen. The fridge is wide open and empty bear cans are dumped on the table, yellowish liquid spilled all over it. Empty sandwich wraps are splattered on the wooden linoleum floor. I ignore the slight hyperventilation at the mess because this is not something done by Bella. The thought shoots my panic graph through the ceiling.

"Heyyy El! How are ya?" A throaty voice makes me turn around. The vision of Leo, Bella's boyfriend, isn't as relieving as it's supposed to be when I see a known face in my empty house. He's wearing a pai rof indigo trousers and only that. His skin overfilled with ink, makes it hard to make any shape out of his body but it's quite well built. I look away at the mess on my floor.

"Hi Leo. Where's Bella?" I force a smile on my lips.

He takes a step forward before answering my question, coming to stand right in front of me.

"She's taking a shower, I made her dirty," he winks, inducing a disgusting turn in my stomach. "But hey! Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a while." He reaches out to lightly pat his hand on my back.

The fear and discomfort that I didn't feel when Ethan hugged me or Aeson touched my cheek, fills me up as soon as Leo's hand come in contact with my skin. The temporary relief from this phobia is finally wearing out, I realize not so happily before cringing away from his hand.

"I have been where I'm supposed to be," I almost hiss out. I can't help being unreasonably rude to Leo. I tried to control the urge but it feels like an inbuilt application you can't uninstall.

"Chill out Miss Rudy pants! I meant why haven't you been at the parties lately?" It's weird that he even noticed that, given the fact that he literally swam in bear in the few parties I have been to.

"I just had other stuffs to do," I say dismissively and start cleaning the kitchen. He moves and starts grabbing the bear cans with me, deliberately, it seems, touching my hands couple of times in the process. So I start cleaning the floor instead.

"So, how's life?" He attempts to make small talks.

"The usual," I answer shortly.

"How's your boyfriend?" He asks raising a teasing eyebrow at me.

I stare back at him, confused and irritated. "Boyfriend?"

"Yeah! That hotshot blond. What's the name again? Oh yeah Mike! Isn't he your boyfriend? Or did you guys break up already?" If I didn't know better I'd think he's genuinely interested. Maybe this is one of the reasons I don't like Leo. He seems too interested in people's life rather than taking care of his own girlfriend.

"Mark is not my boyfriend," I tell him while dumping the wrappers in the bin.

"He's not?" He looks at me wide eyed with a wicked grin. His pierced tongue is visible between his teeth. "He sure as hell acts like it," he adds.

"He's my bestfriend," I snap.

Thankfully, before he irritates me to death, Bella jumps down to the kitchen, wearing just her towels. I bet she didn't realise I was home. "Who's your bestfriend?" She asks while walking herself around the table where Leo stands. He scoops her up and squeezes her butt real hard. Bella audibly moans and he starts kissing her parted lips with his tongue all out in the open. Jeez!

"You," I whisper to myself and walk out of the kitchen. While walking up the stairs to my room, I hear Leo saying something like "She is one rude bitch."

Bella slaps something, which I assume is his arm and says, "Shut up! She's my friend."

I shut the door behind once I'm inside my room.

I soon realize I'm starving but the last thing I want is to go downstairs and witness their aggressive sexual scenes again. So, instead I sit in front of my tiny study table, pull out my books from the bag, avoiding any side thoughts and get on with my studies. I am well prepared for the finals, not precisely just because I want a good CGPA but because I simply like to keep myself busy and studying literature is the best possible way.

After an hour of linguistic researches, I finally drag myself downstairs to make dinner. No one is in the kitchen to my relief, so I quickly engross myself in making dinner. I plug in my iPods and turn on the music. Lifting beats of 'sunflower' by Post Malone bombard into my ears.

I am chopping the onions, moving my body in sync to the lyrics when I have this weird feeling, like earlier today in the water side.

Turning around, I jump to see Leo leaning onto the fridge, hands crossed across his chest, holding a bear can. His face stretched into a grin that makes me feel uncomfortable.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I almost shout at him.

"Whoa! Don't you have a swear jar or some shit?" He speaks in a half drunk tone.

"May I help you with anything Leo?" I ask him as politely as I can manage to keep up my sarcasm.

"Yes, I was thinking if you could help me crack," he says with a wink. Is the nut out of his fucking shell?

He grins to see my scowl. "Hey, hey! Cool down Miss Rude, I was just asking if you could help me crack this bear cap," he holds up the can still ridiculously grinning. "It's really tight you know? Why? What'd you think I meant?"

I feel an unadulterated urge to smack on the top of his head with a hammer and squeeze shut his stupid grin.

"I can tell that you're not man enough to open a bear can but I'm busy so, suit yourself," I tell him and return my attention back to my onions.

"You will come around one day" he says from behind me and strolls upstairs. I let go of a breath I didn't realise I was holding.

I am soon done with making dinner and wrapping them up in foil. I retire back upstairs after that, wondering why Courtney isn't home yet. I lie on my stomach on the bed for a while before ending up reading the thesis book I got on Wuthering Heights. My recent theory doesn't sound so appealing anymore. I find myself wondering if Healthcliff wasn't so badass, if he made an effort to confront her clearly enough that he wanted her and assured her happiness, maybe Catherine would have been able to get over her racism issues or whatever issues she had afterall. I shut the mental analysis on the topic when I realize it's reminding me of a certain someone. I keep sidetracking his thoughts untill I fall asleep thinking that the name Aeson seems a little familiar.

Courtney jerks me awake, what seems like after a few minutes. She is sitting at the edge of my bed with the foil wrapped dinner in her hands. I sit up on the bed feeling a little disoriented and shaky. I panic thinking if she heard me say something in my sleep.

"Thought I'd make you dinner tonight," Courtney says in a triumph voice. I immediately relax.

"You just brought my dinner upstairs," I correct her, but I'm secretly grateful that she did. I don't want any more awkward conversations with Leo.

"Which is a big deal for someone who barely manages to pull themselves upstairs. Now c'mon let's eat. I'm famished."

We chit chat for a while after dinner. She tells me how Susan and she were eating in McDonalds when Ethan rushed through the doors looking for Susan. She tells me how Ethan almost had tears in his eyes. That's when I vaguely wonder how Bella's narration would have been if she was the one breaking the news. She would have told me Ethan cried so hard, he had to clean his nose with Susan's dress.

We usually have this type of long conversations when Bella's not around. Her family lives here in Los Angeles but she doesn't share a great bonding with her mom and step-dad, so here she is, cuddled beside me being the perfect company for a loner.

She was half way through sleep when she says, "You know El? I have always wondered what happened to you but I will never ask. You know why?" Her words startle me even when I know she is barely conscious.

"You should sleep now, it's getting late," I tell her and move to turn off the lights.

She holds onto my wrist softly and continues anyway, "Because for years after my dad died, moaning in pain and for my mom, fighting with cancer while my mom was getting happily married with her boyfriend, I never wanted to talk about it. I hated it when someone brought it up. I thought that was the only way to forget it. But Eileen it took me a while to realize that your mind never stops bringing it up. The more you confine it, the louder it gets in your head. I am waiting for you to realize that and finally cry your heart out. Trust me, that's the only way you can really move on. I had to--," she trails off slowly muting her voice untill only her lips are moving and then she falls asleep.

"Thank you Courtney," I whisper in her ears and she stirs a little. I slowly get up and remove her home shoes, cover her with the blanket and turn off the lights.

Something she said caught upto me. I tossed in bed thinking about it untill the pills stimulated my nerves. I never cried over that night. I never moaned in agony for the injustice that was done to me. I have always just avoided!