When Confined

© 2024 Diane Ascrit

The quote "You made the cat angry, you do not want to make the cat angry" in Chapter 23 was last week's hidden reference. These words were uttered by none other than Puss in Boots in his eponym movie.

Do you think Puss in Boots would go along with Princess Wendy? 😂

Onto to the next chapter and Easter egg...

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☎️ CHAPTER 24: Magic healing nuggets☎️

I clicked on 'accept the call' the moment my phone started ringing. I was not a nervous wreck. Not at all.

I was not pacing in my living room like a mad woman.

Placing the phone on my ear, I counted the seconds in my head. One. Two. I didn't manage to utter a single word: not even a hello or any other cool bro synonyms. Three. Four.

Noah was the one to break the silence, "Hey."

He sounded weird. Was he as nervous as me?

"Are you deliberately deepening your voice?" I called him out.

I grimaced immediately. Way to start a conversation, Ilana.

After a pregnant pause, his voice rose again, normal this time, similar to what I remembered from school corridors, from Mitch's party and from yesterday, minus the drowsiness.

"Is it working?"

"No," I laughed, releasing my body from all tension and nervousness. I didn't think I would feel at ease talking to him so quickly, but my fading laughter was proving me wrong.

He got to hear my voice and my laugh today, I thought, recalling the time when Noah made me laugh in class and complained about not being able to imagine it. My cheeks heated at the souvenir.

"Soo, how is it going?" I asked, restraining myself from ending my sentence with a 'dude'. It was too early in the conversation for that and he was probably still digesting my 'Yo yo yo' greeting message.

"Not great, to be honest," he admitted, sighing. "This quarantine thing is hard. I feel lonely. Everyone's life just keeps going outside, mine doesn't."

I didn't interrupt him, he was on the verge of getting something off his chest. I stopped pacing in the living room and settled on the floor. Behind the window on my right, the night was pitch black.

"I've always had a tendency to get into slumps, with the after-effects of a tournament or during winter. Being confined isn't helping. This week with Niall and without my parents was awful. I," he paused. "I found mini bottles of booze behind the fridge. A lot of them."

He stopped again, sourly chuckling, "Very stupid of me, never again. Coach would kill me, and I wouldn't be able to go through another hangover like today's."

When the pause got longer, I asked, "Would you like to tell me more about what's bothering you? What weighs you down the most?"

I couldn't help him if I didn't understand him and I got the feeling he mostly needed an attentive ear. His friends were MIA, his parents were in a prickly set up, his little brother was just nine.

No one was there to look after him and I found that unfair.

Noah was silent. I added, my scientific brain taking over, "And when I say weigh down, I'm not talking about gravity. What weighs you down the most, spiritually. Well, actually, it could be physically too, as in physically stuck in a room, But not physically, in the Physics sense of the term. Not gravity, but life."