It's Thursday evening and we're not expecting anyone, but there's a knock on the door.
Mum and I are sitting in the living room, each minding our own business. We look at each other briefly when we hear the knock, but she doesn't seem to know who it is either.
I shrug, deciding that I will probably have to go open the door anyway.
When I do, I stand face to face with my mate. She stands there, at least a head smaller than me, and just looks up at me patiently.
'Are you gonna let me come in?' she finally says, a little smile on her lips. I just nod and move aside, closing the door after she steps in.
'Mum. Sheila's here. We'll be upstairs.' I call into the living room, not wanting to deal with mum making fun of me about how I behave around my mate.
I lead the way to my room, my mate following me as I go and I wonder what she's doing here. There's no way I'm complaining, far from it, but I just don't understand. She's never mentioned anything about wanting to come over ever, but here she is.
A few minutes later, I sit on a chair in my room, while she sits crosslegged on the bed, curiously looking around.
'You're not into memorabilia much, are you?' she jokes, still letting her eyes examine everything.
'No, not really.' I laugh, because it's true. After moving here, I decided not to keep much of my stuff if it's gonna be that hard to let go every single time. I like photographs and still have all of mine but those I would never openly display, they're just for me.
'It's a shame. I always think spontaneously remembering a specific moment when looking at something randomly standing around is really precious.' she says absentmindedly. I shrug. I can't really disagree with her, but what she says are private moments for me only. The other thing is that if I forget things, I'd like to think they weren't important enough to remember. And if I do want to remember something, that's what the photographs are for now.
I do have to admit though, the room is quite empty and boring. There's just all the necessary stuff, I don't have much else. My room has always been a place for me to go back to and relax and for me, that just comes easiest without little stuff in every corner. It would just make me miss home so much more.
'Why did you come by?' I ask, and notice too late how offensive that sounded.
'Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, just... I didn't expect you at all.' I smile sheepishly, my hand rubbing the back of my neck. It's a bad habit and most of my friends and family already know I do it when I feel uncomfortable.
'It's fine, don't worry.' she waves it off, 'I just feel like I've not spent enough time with you. You're my mate too and I want to get to know you.'
Immediately, I can feel my heart beating faster.
'We've been on dates?' I reply lamely.
She just laughs and it's such a clear sound, I find myself just mindlessly smiling at her.
'Still. Couples are friends too. So I wanna hang out.' she decidedly says. Again, I can't help but smile at her.
'Alright, mate. Any suggestions?' I ask her, one of my eyebrows raised in a challenge.
It's not like I can't just casually hang out with people, because that would be seriously weird, but I can't imagine what my mate and I would do to just casually hang out.
She seems to, though, because she just points at the PS4 I had foolishly decided to buy last year. Foolishly, because I'd had a PS3 before and never used it and spending money on a PS4 was both a complete waste and utterly unnecessary. I've yet to use it for anything other than watching movies and listening to music.
'I can see GTA from here.' she smirks.
'I happen to be an avid GTA fan, so how about we just game a bit today, order a pizza and just have a nice time, okay?'
I just nod. GTA is something I wouldn't have expected her to be impressed by. I personally don't think the game is that amazing, but she really seems to want to play it, so I give in.
I turn on the PS4, put in the game and hand her a controller.
We sit shoulder to shoulder on my bed, playing furiously, because even if I don't really like the game, I can't deny how much fun I have playing with her.
When she wins repeatedly, she decides to hit me in victory and I just laugh, because now she is so different than the girl I thought her to be. Now, she's even more amazing.
At some point, mum shouts up that she'll leave for a bit and I just shout back to let her know we'll be alright, but keep my eyes on the screen to try and at least win once.
My mate has tied her hair up in a messy bun, rolled up her sleeves and taken off her socks; she calls it comfortable-battle-mode. I was rolling around my bed laughing when she told me and I still can't believe how amazing she is.
She is so down to earth, sitting here next to me with her tongue sticking out while she is concentrating on the game, winning over me every time because I just can't take my eyes off her long enough to play properly.
The door bell interrupts her and faster than I can even follow with my eyes, she leaves the room and runs downstairs to get it. My mate loves pizza and she can't even deny it.
I chuckle and follow her, finding her already in the kitchen, the pizza box lying on the table.
'Do you have like a pizza cutter or something?' she asks, looking at me like lost puppy.
I just reach past her into a drawer to get the cutter.
We eat quite messily. The pizza is really good, but the top keeps sliding off the base, so it's going everywhere. We're laughing like two maniacs, which makes us take even longer to actually finish it.
We don't, deciding to put some away for mom. Instead, we grab some crisps and head back upstairs.
My mate wants to give me another chance to win over her. I just shake my head and follow her. In all honestly, I've never played GTA since the first time I tried a few years ago. The game we're playing now came with the PS4 and was cheaper than the console alone so I got it. Again, never played it, but I don't have the heart to tell her. She seems to have so much fun today and I don't want to ruin that.
'I give up!' I groan after hours of GTA. She just laughs.
'You're such a wimp." she just comments, punching me in the arm as if that's alright. It's not like it didn't hurt either. She's of alpha blood, so of course she's strong. I rub my arm to get rid of the sting, not honestly hurt anyway, but wanting to pretend just for the sake of it.
'Let's try some demo's then.' she suggests and I just groan again.
It is fun, playing like this, having a lazy night (yes, night) in, but I'm more of a outdoors person. Or if indoor, then definitely not hours of gaming.
But I can't really deny my mate anything, so I just agree and we try out different mini versions of games.
Some of them I'm actually better at than her, which doesn't seem to sit well with her at all. She insists on trying as many as we can, making a competition out of who can win more. Some of them aren't even competitive, but she somehow still finds a way to declare a winner, usually her of course.
It's when, at the final game, she accidentally kills her own character that I can't help but laugh my heart out at her face. We were even before, but now it's my win over all and her speechless face is to die for.
My head is probably as red as a tomato by now, but I can't help it. It's just too funny, she doesn't even move anymore.
She still doesn't say anything, but instead decides to hit me to try and make me stop laughing. It doesn't work, really, only makes my laughing fit worse, but five minutes in, I have her pinned down so I can laugh freely.
I stop immediately though when I realise that my mate is lying underneath me, looking at me with these large eyes. I blink a few times, before my head instinctively moves towards hers.
I still have her hands in my grip, so she can't move much. However, she still manages to be the one to connect our lips by pushing her head up.
My eyes close in bliss and I just let go. My lips move with her in a slow dance and all I want is for this to never end.
She slips one of her hands out of my grip, hugging my midsection to her before running her hands up and down my back and my side. I can't help but groan into the kiss, then let my free hand glide down her arms to rest on her cheeks.
We only pull apart when we both need to breathe desperately.
I'm aware that we're panting, but my focus is on the intense eye contact we share.
It takes a moment, but then I move away from her slightly, just enough for her to sit up again.
She moves her hand to my face, caressing my cheek slightly.
'Thank you.' she says, smiling, but I can see something is troubling her. It hurts, but this is my mate, so her feelings come first, always.
'What's wrong?' I ask quietly, not looking away from her eyes.
She sighs deeply, then closes her eyes briefly before answering.
'It's just... I feel guilty.' she finally admits, but when she sees how painful it is for me to hear this, she quickly continues.
'It's not just with you. Every time I'm with Raphael, I feel guilty too. When I'm with neither of you, I feel like something's wrong. I can't escape it and nothing I do feels truly right. This just now. It was beautiful, but I still feel guilty. I can't help it.'
I can tell how defeated she feels and it tugs at my heart. There's no way I can help her with this, not really. I wish I could, I wish there was something someone could do, but I'm beginning to fear there isn't.
Up until now, I've only ever thought about how Raphael and I were dealing with this, not once did it cross my mind that my mate might be feeling confused as well.
'I'm sorry.' I say, lowering my head in shame. Why is this so hard? Cannot the three of us get mates as easily as everyone else? Why is it us that we need to suffer so much?
'It's no one's fault. No reason to apologise.' she says, smiling again.
'Listen, I know you've been trying to get along with Raphael and I know it's hard too.'
I glance up at the sudden change of topic, hoping it will at least cheer her up a bit.
'Would you do something for me?' she asks.
I nod immediately, there's not other answer to this, really.
'Can you come over to stay at the house on the weekend? Me and my family are meeting friend and Raphael will stay back. I want the two of you to get to know each other. See, I think the both of you would actually make really good friends, so please. For me, okay?'
I really don't want to go. I honestly, really, don't.
But she looks at me with those eyes and there's nothing much I can do about that.
I groan and agree.