The Art of Forgiving - A Uni File Short (The Uni Files)

by Bloom, Anna

  “Want me to make you something?”

  She scowls at me and slides her feet back out from under my thigh. Damn it. Then gets up from the couch and walks back towards the kitchen throwing, “I am more than capable of feeding myself,” tartly over her shoulder.

  “What the fuck are you doing, you loser?” hisses Meredith. “Stop talking and rub her bloody feet or something.”

  Ah ha! The foot rub – I had forgotten about that in my repertoire of skills.

  Lilah marches back in with two boxes of mince pies and a big vat of cream. She plonks herself back down on the sofa. Okay, I am not going to get a ruler out and measure, but she is infinitely closer this time.

  I watch as Lilah sets about tearing open the box of pies and slides the plastic tray out onto her lap. It might be completely my imagination but I am pretty sure she breathes in a little as she does. I can’t help but grin.

  “What you grinning at.”

  You.

  “Nothing.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I have one?”

  “Sure,” she slides the packet towards me. “You have to do it like this.” Lilah takes a mince pie and dips it in the cream, like a proper biscuit in tea dunk. She then shoves it all in her mouth in one go.

  My god I love this girl.

  “Well if that is how it is done,” I smile. I think she tries to smile back, but her mouth is jammed with mince pie. I grab my own, dunk, and shove.

  Then I start to laugh. Pastry flies everywhere and cream dribbles down my chin. Lilah also starts to laugh with her hand clamped over her mouth. This makes me laugh even more, and whilst it is very amusing that we are both spitting pastry everywhere, I am also aware of the fact that I can feel a bit tickling my throat and I am pretty sure I am going to choke. I am not sure about Lilah lifesaving skills and I am worried I am going to be killed by a mince pie. I can see it now: A newspaper front page recounting all the rock stars that have died before me at a tragic young age due to drugs and drink. Then it would list me. Benjamin Chambers – Killed by a mince pie.

  I jump off the sofa and dash for the kitchen where I manage to spit the mince pie into the bin before Lilah who is hot on my heels walks into the room.

  “Shit. I am so sorry.” she says. She starts to rub my back to ease my coughing. I have actually finished coughing but I keep up the pretence for a moment or two, just so she keeps touching me.

  My cheeks are flaming red, from the near death experience and a heavy dose of embarrassment; I straighten up to look at her hoping I don’t still have cream on my chin.

  Lilah looks hard at me for a moment, her gaze quickly reading the whole of my face and then she reaches a hand and slides it along my cheek. “You okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I guess I just don’t have that level of pie eating skill.”

  She starts to giggle, her hand still against my cheek. “It takes a lifetime of practice.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Fancy a drink?”

  “Got anything stronger than sherry?”

  She makes a strange ‘pfft’ sound and leads me by the hand back into the lounge. I may have nearly been killed by a pie but right now I would say it was worth it. I head back over to the sofa as Tristan coughs, “Loser,” under his breath at me. I send him a quick zap sign as I settle myself back down. Lilah follows me after raiding what must be their liquor cabinet with a bottle of Whiskey and a bottle of sherry in either hand.

  Okay then. Drunk it definitely is.

  “Shall we just get plastered?” she says. She sits down and places her feet right into my lap, alarmingly close to my crotch, which is only too quick to notice.

  “Uh,” I squirm in my position a little. “I think drunk sounds good, but do you think I need to check the turkey?”

  “Nah. Sod the turkey. It’s got hours yet.” She starts to fill tumblers with half scotch and half sherry. This combination has ‘messy’ written all over it.

  “What temperature is it on?” The food provider part of my brain is starting to realise that we are going to need sustenance, other than killer pies, at some point soon.

  She looks at me, her semi smirk lifting up half of her lips. “I honestly don’t know what you are talking about. I just cranked the dial and shoved it in.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Shut up, Ben, and bloody drink.”

  So I do.

  It’s dark outside and I have completely lost all sensation in my legs due to Lilah’s Christmas cocktails when my stomach gives an almighty rumble. I am rubbing Lilah’s feet, slow soothing circles on the base of her foot. She looks to be enjoying it. Well actually she looks asleep, her eyes closed and a small smile playing on her lips.

  “I’m going to check the turkey.” I lean over and whisper, my lips a hairsbreadth away from kissing her neck.

  “Mm?”

  “I’m going to go and check the turkey.”

  “Mm.”

  I lift her feet from my lap and squeeze myself out from under them. I have no idea where Tristan and Meredith are, they are missing from the lounge which leads me to believe they are in Tristan’s bedroom doing all the stuff that I want to be doing.

  I am peering into the oven surveying the mess Lilah has made of the turkey when I feel her come and stand right next to me. She stares in through the immaculately clean door too. I don’t believe this oven has ever been used before.

  “How’s it looking?” she asks.

  “You’ve killed it.” I straighten up and look at her trying my hardest not to smirk at her dire cooking skills. I clearly fail because she scrunches her face at me in response.

  “What do you mean killed it?”

  “It’s burnt on the top, but raw in the middle. Have you basted it?”

  “What the heck is basting?” she asks, but before I have time to explain she waves her hand at me and carries on. “Well, how do know so much, Mr. I Can Cook Bloody Everything Perfectly.” She pouts. Good lord that pout.

  “Well, Miss I Can’t Cook to Save My Life.” I start to giggle which ruins my retort somewhat. “My mum taught me.”

  “The only thing my mum taught me was how to drink gin.” Her words are bitter, but she also manages an impressive drunken wobble as she says them and I literally cannot hold in the burst of laughter that blasts out of my lips.

  Lilah starts to giggle and reaches a hand onto my arm to steady herself.

  “Well, I reckon she has taught you well.”

  “I think so,” she sniggers some more.

  “Shall I take over the turkey?”

  “Yes please. I am really hungry. How long do you reckon.” She leans down to stare back through the oven door. I move myself lower so our shoulders are touching.

  “About quarter past twelve?” I say.

  “Shit.”

  “Shit.”

  “Fancy another drink?”

  “May as well.”

  I am a little concerned though, at this rate even I might be too drunk to get the turkey out of the oven.

  When we get to the lounge Tristan and Meredith have stolen the big sofa I was attempting to make my moves on. Bloody bastards. Tristan smirks at me as he catches me glance around the room trying to work out what to do next.

  There are only armchairs left, and although she succumbed to a foot rub, I don’t think she will be up for sitting on my lap quite yet. The thought is a little appealing.

  Lilah puts some music on her iPod and starts blasting it about the lounge and walks back over to the middle of the room where I am standing and just kind of throws herself on the floor.

  “Why are you hanging around like a spare prick at a wedding?” She lights a cigarette and throws me up the packet which I grab out of the air before they take out my eye.

  She has such a way with words.

  I fold myself down onto the floor next to her and pick up the lighter. “Shall we play a game?”

  “For Christ’s sake, what time is bloody dinner?” Tristan breaks his lip
s away from Meredith’s to ask.

  There is way too much snogging in this room and I am not participating in any of it. I glance at Lilah and notice that she is staring at my lips slightly. “12.15.” I tell Tristan without taking my eyes off Lilah who is still focused on my mouth.

  “You’re kidding. Can’t you just turn it up?”

  “Nope.”

  “Yes,” says Lilah.

  “No.” says Meredith.

  Lilah and I are locked in a stare-off turkey stalemate. I don’t know what started the staring, well I was thinking about snogging but now we seem to be embroiled in a turkey discussion. I give a sigh and tear my gaze away from Lilah and towards her infinitely less attractive brother. “If we turn the oven up, the bird will dry out and it will be shit. Be patient.”

  “You are such a gay.” Tristan throws his comment across the room and Lilah starts to laugh which makes me flush. It’s not my fault my mum taught me how to cook a turkey.

  “Who fancies scrabble?” Meredith suggests.

  Lilah gives a groan. “I am only playing if Tristan promises not to be an arsehole about it.”

  Meredith laughs. “He won’t, I am here to keep him distracted.” She demonstrates just how she plans to keep him distracted by climbing onto his lap embarking on another rally of tonsil tennis.

  Great.

  Lilah gives an awkward laugh which I duplicate and we both send each other lingering looks for another suspended moment before she breaks the magic by saying. “Guess I should go and get the scrabble then.”

  I think she is going to get up and walk to one of the sideboard doors but instead she just crawls herself out of the room and down the hallway on her hands and knees. She is laughing and so am I, but then I realise she must have gone to her bedroom . . . the room I have never been allowed in. What I really want to do is follow her down there, lock her in and not let her out again until we have all this sorted. Not until she has agreed to be my damn girlfriend properly, and she has also agreed to move to the states for the summer and be my proper girlfriend on a permanent basis and most definitely not until we have had sex. A lot.

  I don’t follow her, I just sit there like a dick waiting for her to walk back through with the scrabble box. This time she is on her feet but still grinning in a lightly inebriated way. Oh okay a very inebriated way.

  “Look, love birds, you can only play if you promise to stop snogging,” she says. Lilah bangs the box down on the floor which makes the lid bounce off and letter squares fly everywhere.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” they both say at once.

  They don’t though. One hour later and their game plan basically seems to be ‘Lose by Snogging.’ It’s not a bad plan and one which I would like to adopt, but sadly, instead of snogging we are trumping them by a hundred clear points.

  It’s ridiculous, I’m sitting here with Lilah, the love of my life, and we are making small talk over a game of scrabble like two people who do not know each other at all. Two months ago I thought we would be a thing, forever.

  I have no idea what to say to her. We are lying on the floor, shoulders touching, legs pressed together, staring at our letter squares like two teenagers at a school disco trying to ignore the people snogging around us.

  I turn to her, about to say something, anything, when she shifts herself up onto all four’s. “I’m going to change the tunes,” she says. Getting up from the floor with a noticeable wobble she sways her way over towards the iPod. Two seconds later I am scrambling after her, my hand over hers to stop her scrolling through her endless supply of teenage music.

  “Can I play for you,” I ask.

  She stops with a start and looks up at me. We are so close together, there is just mere millimetres separating our bodies and the space between us zings with electricity.

  “Uh, yes.”

  I could move myself forward just one more inch and place my lips against hers. I so want to. The need to feel her mouth against mine knows no bounds. I don’t though. “Good, I’ve been practising.”

  I pull myself away and turn quickly into the hallway leaving whatever moment that could have been hanging there.

  I walk back in, settling on the floor and start to unclip my guitar case. As each clasp pops open I am acutely aware of her sitting crossed legged in front of me. Our knees practically touching as she watches me with a sharp interest.

  “Did you write this?” she asks.

  As I start to tune my old guitar all I can think is, ‘What the fuck am I going to sing. I did not think this through at all.’

  I pause for a moment and decide to speak the truth. “No.” I give a shrug with my words. She is watching me closely reading whatever words she can see written on my face. “I have shamelessly stolen it. Seems that when it comes to you I find it hard to say the words.”

  This is true. There are no words for Lilah at the moment, well not Lilah with me, and that is the only thing I like to write about. Instead I have been playing the same song since the 9th November when our story took a tragic turn.

  I pick out the opening notes to Three Doors Down’s “Here Without You,” concentrating on the strings for a few moments. Not like I need to, but I am scared to watch her face, worried about what I might see there. I don’t even know if she will recognise the song, and if she does whether she will understand what it means to me – that I will never be able to live without her. That’s just not an option that is viable to me.

  I feel open and exposed, but my need for reassurance outweighs my concern that she will read me too easily. Before I’ve even played out a few bars I lift my eyes to hers. I find her with tears sliding down her cheeks. I am so shocked I even miss a couple of notes, which has never happened to me before. I’m tempted to stop, but then I remember the message I am making with my song choice and start to sing instead.

  The whole time I sing I try and put my feelings into the words, which is nowhere near as easy as you would think. By the time I’m on the last verse I’m struggling to get the words out. Watching her cry right in front of me is a killer. Lilah McCannon never cries, she drinks vodka instead, and now she is sitting in front of me with tears spilling down her face all because I did some dumb fuck thing when I wasn’t thinking. There is something beautifully tragic about her tears and like a clanger the enormity of what I’ve done hits me.

  The girl who was meant to save me is broken because of me.

  And I have been sitting in Dorset sulking? Seriously Ben. Man the fuck up.

  “Why on earth are you crying? Was it that bad?” I ask when the song has finished. My throat is so tight, it’s a miracle I am able to breathe let alone sing.

  “It was beautiful thank you.” She jumps up from the floor and heads into the kitchen where I hear her banging around the pots and pans.

  I start to get up but Meredith puts her hand on my shoulder, “I’ll go, Ben. I reckon you have done enough.” What the hell does that mean? Have I done enough in a good way or a bad way?

  Later. So much later, the turkey is finally frickin’ cooked. Lilah and I have been right next to each other since my impromptu song. Her body constantly touching mine in casual passing, but I have no idea what it means.

  Tristan is half cut and trying to carve the bird. This basically translates to the fact he has hacked the hell out of it.

  Lilah’s roast potatoes are just about edible and we drink four bottles of wine as we shove our overdue dinner in our mouths. Yes that’s right. A bottle each on top of our whiskey and sherry cocktails.

  Meredith has her head on the table and Tristan is trying to get one of those ‘Emotion Reader’ fish out of a Christmas cracker to lie flat on his hand.

  Lilah pushes back from the table and gives a reverberating groan. “I don’t want to be gross but I feel really sick and need to undo my jeans.”

  She swiftly unbuttons her low jeans, I laugh and push back from the table, undoing my own. I can feel her eyes on me. Well that’s one step closer to getting our clothes off togethe
r. What the fuck is wrong with me?

  “Thanks for saving Christmas dinner, Ben.” Lilah swirls last dregs of wine around her glass and drains it down.

  “You’re very welcome.”

  She bites her lower lip a little and then pushes back from the table, rising unsteadily to her feet. “Uh, my god I need to go to bed.” She makes some awful groaning noise and reaches one hand for the table to steady herself.

  Her eyes catch mine and I shift uncomfortably. Come on Ben. . . This is what you have been waiting for. . . You complete arse.

  “Can I grab the couch?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Smooth Dick of the Year Award goes to me.

  “Nah, it’s cool you can share with me,” she says. I stare open mouthed but she avoids all eye contact and zig zags to her bedroom.

  “Night guys.” I say to the others and then chase after her.

  “Keep it down hey?” Tristan calls after me.

  I wave my hand at him, and as I shut Lilah’s door behind me I can hear them both shouting “Aaaah.” Luckily she does not hear. She is just standing in the middle of the room. It’s the first time I have ever been in here and I take a moment to pivot on my heel and look about, whistling as I do. It’s massive with just a bed. Nothing else. Just a giant bed.

  My brain is instantly bombarded by about a million dirty thoughts all at once. “Minimalist huh?” I manage to say around a smile which I hope does not look leery.

  “Yeah, I am a no fuss kind of girl,” she says turning to face me.

  She so is. I take my eyes off the room and focus on her. It might be the unnecessary bottle of wine but the air seems so heavy it feels like I can’t fill my lungs with it. “I know,” I say eventually.

  The next moment happens in slow motion because I swear I am not expecting it at all, but Lilah just hikes her T-shirt up over her head and slides her jeans down her legs revealing a mind-blowing hot pink underwear set.

  What the fuck? Did I miss something?

  She dives under the duvet and for a moment I stand there wondering what it is she wants me to do. She says nothing, so in lieu of instructions I strip off my own jeans and unbutton my shirt, leaving on just my boxers and T-shirt. Then with the stealthy motions of a jungle cat I slide myself onto the bed before she can change her mind and tell me to sod off.