Party 'til you pass out / When the party's over

Alison

It had been a week, but butterflies still whirled my belly when I thought about Oliver's lips on mine. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense and I still had no idea how it had happened. One moment we were talking about music, and the next we were kissing - and sadly disturbed by that guy who walked in.

Trying to focus on the work I was doing on my laptop - editing some photos I took for a magazine - I bit my lip hard to get rid of the memory of Oliver. But nothing helped with that, and my lips were still tingling when I sighed in annoyance and closed my laptop. I rubbed my face and covered my eyes with my hands for a while.

Why? Why did he kiss me? It wasn't that we had never kissed before, but this last time was so different. It was innocent, soft, almost caring. That time at Oliver's house party had been hard, lustful and just to get his ex, or whatever she was, jealous.

A long while passed while I just sat there in my old room in my parent's house, staring ahead of me and thinking about Oliver and everything that had happened the past few weeks. Rain softly ticked against the window, and I only came back to life when it had gotten dark and colder, and my mother was calling from downstairs that dinner was ready.

I got up and stretched, my body stiff from sitting on the old desk chair. I shivered and put on a vest, getting down and welcoming the warmth in the kitchen just when my mother put dinner on the table.

'There you are, I nearly thought you had left the house,' she said, pushing back a strand of loose hair in her face.

'No, just working,' I answered, smiling at her. I got some plates from the cabinet and set the table while my mother called my father, who had been watching soccer in the living room.

'This looks good, Linda,' he said with his deep voice, kissing my mother's cheek as he sat down next to her. My mother smiled.

'Thanks Hugh, it's your mother's recipe for roasted chicken.' I listened to my parents sharing pleasantries to each other, smiling to myself at how much in love they still seemed to be after nearly thirty years of marriage. I stayed silent while eating, my mind wandering off to other things that made my appetite disappear.

'Are you okay, honey?,' my mother then asked. I looked up.

'What?'

'You've been so quietly lately, and you seem to be not that hungry. Are you feeling well?' My father looked at me too now. I nodded, staring at them with surprise.

'Yeah, I am fine. I've just been busy and I am tired, that's all.'

'Well, it hasn't been nothing for you, in the past months,' my mother said while adding another bit of salad on her plate. I frowned.

'If you're talking about Brian, then -'

'Not only that,' she said, not looking at me as she put the salad cutlery down. 'I was talking about that friend you've been visiting in the clinic -'

'Oliver is not a friend,' I said sternly. My mother shut her mouth and cocked her head at me.

'Than what is he? Since you've been driving up and down all the way to Leeds, only for him.' Her eyes gave me a meaningful look and my father took another bite of his chicken while his eyes went back and forth between me and my mother.

'He's just... He has no one else,' I muttered, staring at my still nearly full plate and denying my feelings for him. I pushed it away and sighed. 'His band and his parents didn't want anything to do with him after what happened and they made me his emergency contact, because we're not related in any way other than a professional one, and they thought that would be easier.' I crossed my arms over my body and sat back in my chair.