Steps

The room Elizabeth had organized for me really was beautiful. She admitted to me that she had been working on it since just before discovering that she was pregnant, telling me that she had been planning to invite me out in hopes of at least smoothing over the anger and resentment between Cameron and I.

She had painted the wall a Robin’s egg blue, which I would have assumed I didn’t like, but as I stood in the room and looked around it, noticing how the early morning sunlight streaming in through the blinds reflected against it, I became a fan. She had set the bed with a white duvet and sheets that matched the colour of the walls. There were a few black and white pictures hung up on the walls, )mainly of trees or the corner of someone’s face, you know, the “artsy” ones?), and there was a dresser with a mirror sitting against the far wall. The room had it’s own bathroom, and a rather large sized closet that looked almost naked with the scarce amount of clothes I had brought with me. It was much larger then I had expected the room to be, although, their house was bigger then I had expected, and I could hardly even believe that after years of throwing his life away in the party scene, Cameron now lived in one of the nicest houses I had seen in my entire life.

I had wasted as much time in my room as I possibly could. I had escaped downstairs early the night before, and even though I had been awake for almost three hours now, I hadn’t emerged from the room. The smell of pancakes drifting into my room from the upstairs kitchen eventually became too much for me to handle, so, with a sigh, I stood up from the edge of the bed and opened the door, making my way upstairs.

My mom was flipping pancakes on the stove while Elizabeth sat in one of the chairs in the kitchen, rubbing her large belly tiredly. Cameron and my dad weren’t in sigh, which caused me to let out a sigh of relief before I stepped into the kitchen, smiling to my mom and Liz. “Morning.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Good morning, Hanna. Did you sleep okay? Was the bed alright?”

I let out a small laugh, walking into the kitchen to ask my mom if she needed any help before answering. “I slept wonderfully, thank you.”

She nodded. “I’m glad. I tried every bed in the mattress store to make sure I snagged the right one for you,” she told me.

I grabbed the container of strawberries that my mom had set out and started chopping them up. “Well, I appreciate it.” I glanced up at my mom. “Where are dad and Cameron?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re outside. Cameron’s showing your dad the new shed he built and showing off the property.”

I nodded, putting all of the chopped up strawberries into a bowl so they could be be put on top of the pancakes if someone wanted them. “I really liked the pictures you hung up in the room for me, Liz,” I told her.

Elizabeth grinned, “Really? I’m glad. I remembered that the last time I saw you, you were taking a photography class at school and you were really into black and white pictures. I wasn’t sure if you still were or not.”

I tilted my head to the side a bit, trying to think back. “Oh, yeah. I hated that class. I never took the pictures I was supposed to, I always got caught up taking pictures of my friends. I always made Peyton model for me because she was so photogenic.”

My mom smiled. “You were always very good at portraits. It’s too bad you gave that up.”

I twisted my mouth to the side and nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

There was a pause in the room, giving me a moment to glance behind me and steal a glance at the time before I smiled at my mom and Elizabeth. “I’ll be back. I just want to go call Sidney,” I said, escaping from the kitchen before Elizabeth could ask who Sidney was.

My cell phone had spent the first night on the charger, and when I finally turned it on I was more then happy to find a few text messages from Peyton, Max and Jordan that all told me they missed me. I dialled Sidney’s number in, almost nervous as I waited to see if he was going to pick up.

“Hey,” he greeted, sounding both tired and excited.

I let out a sigh. “Hi. I miss you.”

Sidney laughed, “I miss you too. How was your flight?”

“Long. My dad snored for the first two hours, then complained about the guy behind him who was snoring for the last three.”

“That’s basically how I imagined the flight going,” he admitted. “How are things with your brother?”

I paused, biting my lip for a moment. “Actually, not as bad as I had expected. We haven’t really talked too much, but he told me that he didn’t want to fight and wasn’t who I thought he was. I’m not sure I believe it, but he hasn’t said anything horrible to me, yet.”

“I told you he had probably grown up,” Sidney teased. “I’m happy things are going okay for you. I was worried.”

I smiled, leaning back on my bed. “I wish you were here. I’ve gotten used to having you around in the morning, or seeing you right before I fall asleep, or at least talking to you. It’s only been a few days and I already miss you so much it’s ridiculous.”

There was a long pause on the other end, and for a second I thought that I had scared him away by seeming so needy. Finally, I heard a sigh from him. “I know. I feel the same way. I couldn’t sleep the first night you were gone, actually,” he admitted shyly. “I, uhm, I was actually wanting to talk to you about that.”

“You wanted to talk about missing me?” I asked, half kidding.

“Well, kind of,” he admitted. “I was just thinking about how one of us is always at the other one’s house, and how we’re always together anyways and…well, I need to move out Mario’s place eventually, and I was looking at a few houses.”

I frowned, “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Sid.”

He let out a nervous chuckle on the other end. “The house I’m looking at, Hanna, it’s really big. Too big for one person, and I know that you like the Dupuis’ basement, but you mentioned awhile ago that you did want to move out pretty soon. I guess I’m trying to tell you, or ask you, if you…if you maybe wanted to move in with me?”

I was silent, thankful that he couldn’t see me because I had no doubts that my face was pale with shock. Peyton’s words about how many big steps she feared Sidney and I would take in a short amount of time surfaced to the front of my mind, and I must have been completely silent for a good few minutes, because Sidney nervously said my name, clearly fearful that I had hung up on him. “Sorry, I’m still here,” I said. “Are you sure you would want to do that? I mean, we’d see each other all the time then. And I don’t really have the money for that.”

“I would be paying for it. I make so much money that there’s really no point in me even asking for you to pay rent,” he explained. “The house is in a really nice area, and it has a lot of property so we could have people over. Peyton could stay there when she comes to visit, so could your parents.”

I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment. “Sidney, that’s a really big step to take.”

“I know. But, I want to take it. I mean, unless you don’t want too,” he added nervously.

“Could you at least send me pictures of it or something? I mean, what if I don’t even like this place?”

“Then we’d look at other houses,” he replied. “I can email you some pictures of it, no problem. I just…I don’t know, moving in together just seems to make sense, you know? We basically live together now, I’m always at your place or you’re always at mine. It wouldn’t be that different.”

I thought about his point for a moment. It had gotten to the point where I would often just stay at his place, or he’d stay at mine. I had grown accustomed to waking up and finding him in the kitchen, making eggs or pancakes, or brewing coffee, and I was used to having him come from a game and crawl into bed beside me and nuzzle his face into my neck while he told me about the game and the names he had been called. When I really thought about it, moving in together wasn’t such a mountainous step to take at all. It was more of a convenience, in some aspects.

I finally let out a long sigh. “It does make a lot of sense,” I agreed. “I kind of wish you hadn’t been looking at houses without me, though.”

“I’ve been looking at houses for the past three years, this one just caught my eye a few months ago,” He told me. “The only thing that stopped me from buying it was that it was so big. I figured it was a waste of money to buy a house that size when I was the only one in it.”

I smiled slightly, the smile almost falling away when I heard my mom yell for me upstairs. “Listen, Sid, I have to go eat brunch with my family. I’ll probably call you tomorrow, or maybe the day after.”

“Okay. Say hi to your parents for me,” he said, his voice seeming softer then before. “I’ll send over those pictures for you to look at,” he promised.

“I look forward to seeing them,” I told him, standing up from my bed with a sigh. “I miss you.”

Sidney laughed, “I miss you too. But I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, right?”

“Right.”

“Try to enjoy your time there, okay? There’s no point in you being miserable for the entire visit,” he reminded me, letting out a sigh afterwards. “I love you, Hanna.”

“I love you too. I’ll talk to you later,” I promised, pushing the end button and making a bit of a sad face, already missing his voice.

The sound of my mom yelling for me again caused me to toss my phone onto the bed and race upstairs, taking a seat at the table and waiting for my dad and Cameron to finish washing up before they came to join us.