FicWad

July 8th, 2006

My fingers trembled when I hit the button and the phone started calling Jared. If it was because of nervousness or anger was a mystery. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two emotions topped with a hint of expectation.
I really wanted to hear what Jared had to say, even if it was possible that it would hurt. Jared had already made me feel stupid and totally exposed once - which meant that he wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

The signal sounded for the fourth time before something clicked in the other end and I heard tiny breaths coming from the phone's speakers. The tongue-tiedness I got was severe. I couldn't force a single bloody sound to roll off my tongue. Sometimes that happened when I got very nervous.
The wait for him to start talking and begin the conversation was excruciating. Couldn't he just blurt out what he wanted? I really expected him to hang up when I didn't say anything.
Maybe if I furrowed my eyebrows and snarled he would somehow feel how angry I was with him. Is it possible to send telepathic anger to someone?

"Mandy? I tried calling you earlier," Jared said slowly. His voice crackled a bit in the phone since the coverage here isn't the best. But thanks to technology we can do wonders, so I won't complain about the fact that Jared sounds like a robot when I'm talking to him through the phone.
It wasn't like I expected everything to work perfectly here in the middle of nowhere. Even if my parents' farm wasn't located too far from the city Parker, it was still somehow isolated from the rest of the world.
Devices like cell phones, computers and fancy esspresso machines had not gotten the chance to prove how amazing they were here. Basically the only 'modern' electronic thing used in my parents' house was the TV.

It was like my mum and dad had got stuck in time twenty years ago and stubbornly ignored the fact that the world evolves and things change. Sure, it had its charm, but I was afraid that they in a near future would be forced to bring the present into their home. They were getting older and needed the convenience which the machines and devices could provide them.
Now it wasn't really a problem since mum only was fifty-seven and dad sixty-six years old. But what would happen when mum couldn't take care of dad anymore? When she too needed assistance?
There would come a time where my dear parents would have to accept and learn about inventions which could make their lives considerably easier. That day could be knocking on the door soon. We never know what fate has got in store for us.

"I know. That's why I called you back," I stated humdrumly and played with a lock of my hair absent-mindedly. Sometimes Jared didn't come off to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. He chuckled briefly as he acknowledged his own mistake and I could imagine how he got those small fine lines next to his eyes when he laughed. Perhaps he scratched his bristled cheeks and rolled his eyes too. It would be a typical Jared-thing to do.

"Where are you?" Jared then asked. A barely audible sigh slipped out of me as I let the lock of hair go and instead dug my fingers into my lace leggings-covered thighs.
There was no need to beautify the situation I was in and I didn't want to lie to Jared and tell him that I was sipping on a drink next to a pool either. He had already seen me at my worst and rejected me. Why would I try to make myself sound like a bargain when he didn't even want me?

"I'm at my parents' place in Arizona. But, why do you care?" I asked, trying to sound as cool and unaffected as humanly possible. It was not the right place nor time to give my feelings away. Sure, I still liked Jared even if he had made me feel like I was worth something when he clearly didn't think much of me at all. You don't tell a girl that your relationship is merely built on sex if you want her to stick around.
I can't even give myself a good reason to why I had decided to call him. Some things you just can't explain.

"I care because I do. It's as simple as that," Jared started, "How are you then?"

How I am? Fucking fantastic considering that I broke up with my boyfriend only to get rejected by my lover. That I'm staying with my parents and don't have an income just makes everything so much better. Oh, sarcasm.
That he even dared to ask me that question was a ridicule.

"I'm good. Actually, I've never been better," I snapped sarcastically and growled.

"Mandy, I'm sorry. I think I might have made a mistake when I said those things to you." His voice was so apologetic and soft. The words enwrapped in fluff were hard to believe.

"Go on," I ordered weakly and suddenly felt drained of spunk. Whatever he was going to say would be unexpected. That he could play with my mind just like that was unforgivable. Quite frankly the worst of crimes.
If he could play my strings easily he could control me like a doll. That could never happen in a million years. I'm supposed to be a lot stronger than that.

"When you came to me that night, I was caught off guard. I can't even remeber what I said clearly, but know that it wasn't nice. It wasn't me who spoke! I think I like you," Jared said and sounded vulnerable, like he had just put his heart on a plate and was unsure of whether or not I would stab it.
With those words I got more confused than I've ever been in my entire life. Was he pulling a prank on me?
Jared is, after all, an actor and can easily just pretend like I mean something.

"Prove it," I said coolly and smiled at my own smarts. This was a waterproof way of seeing how serious he really was about his feelings.

"Fine. I'll come to Arizona this weekend and take you to a nice hotel. We can spend two days all alone. Together. I'll prove myself worthy then," Jared said with such determination that I knew that he had already made up his mind. It was Monday today, which gave me a lot of time to prepare myself for the weekend. It could work. It could actually work.

"Don't bother booking a room at a fancy hotel. We're going to do this my way. You'll stay in the xenodochia here on my parents' yard," I started with a sly grin on my lips, "Are you still in?"
That would definitely make Jared's head spin. From what I had experiened, Jared wasn't used to living under primitive circumstances. Seeing him out of his element, actually getting out of his comfort zone for my sake, would be proof enough.

He sighed loudly before saying, "Fine!"

"Great. I'll give you the address later. See you at the end of this week then," I twittered. There was no way in hell that he would get away from ditching me like that without having to pay for it. I had a feeling that Jared wouldn't have the time of his life on the farm. Hell, that man was used to makeup-artist and stylists, but I would make him get some dirt underneath his fingernails.
If he actually tried to fit in then would mean a lot more than sweet words did. Actions sometimes speak louder than words.

"Yeah. Take care," he said. I pressed the red button on my cell phone and put it down on the wooden desk in my room.

I raised my fist into the air like a gesture of victory. The small laughs and squeals escaping my mouth could not be stopped as the happiness just washed over me. I guess the saying that you have to hit rock bottom before everything turns brighter again is true.
Maybe Jared wanted to be with me. Maybe I would force myself into forgetting about what he said that night. We could be the new hot couple which the tabloids fought to get pictures of.
Jared and I would take slow strolls on the beach, when the beautiful sun was on its way down, with paparazzis' cameras trying to catch our smiling faces. Bliss.

I was so giddy from what Jared had told me when I slipped the purple dress I was wearing off and kicked it into a corner. That piece of clothing would have to get burnt. And while it was turning to ashes in the dancing flames, I would laugh and let my time with Gabriel just vanish into smoke. Some people handled breakups by cutting or dying their hair, but I would deal with it by getting a new dress.
The dress had to be cursed. I had it on when Gabriel proposed, Jared turned me down, I slept on the disgusting hotel's sofa and when I arrived to my parents' farm. Everything bad had happened while wearing the damned dress.

And then there was the leggings. The black sinful lace leggings. I smirked and slowly ripped them off my body. Since they were quite thin it didn't require a lot of muscles to do so, and I was thankful for that. The effect wouldn't have been as nice if I got exhausted from ripping down halfway down my legs.
Now they weren't leggings anymore. It was simply a piece of nothing, just the way I wanted it to be.

With my clothes off, I sighed softly to myself and climed onto the bed and crawled underneath the covers. It didn't take long before my nose stopped picking up the disturbing stale smell of the room and I fell asleep.
What woke me up was loud knocks on the door to the room. I grunted and reluctantly fluttered my eyes open. For a moment I forgot where I was, looking around the room with panic in my eyes, liked I had been kidnapped by the mafia. The reality soon caught up with me though, and I just shook my head.

"Are you awake?" mum screamed from outside the door after delivering a final knock. I cleared my throat once before even thinking about answering her. Every time I wake up I tend to sound like a boy going through the puberty voice change.

"Now I am," I called back, my voice cracking slightly, with a soft smile on my lips. I heard mum chortle to herself.

"Dinner is ready downstairs," she said. The sound of her footsteps walking down the stairs said that she was on her way to the kitchen. Had I really been asleep that long? When I fell asleep it had only been twelve noon.
Gosh, sleeping later tonight would be hard. It always is when you have taken a nap during the day.

I removed the covers from my body and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, letting them swing a couple of inches over the floor before lowering them further. Then my feet collided with the cool wooden floor.
I got out of bed on wobbly, newly awakened legs and crouched down next to the pile of clothes. I had just thrown everything in the suitcase out on the floor before falling asleep. Now I needed to find something to cover my body with. Mum would surely not appreciate me feasting on her food without clothes on.
My hands flipped garments as I searched for something to wear. I soon found a pair of tattered and bleached jeans shorts and a white tank top to put on.

When I got into the kitchen mum had already put plates on the table. She had gotten out of her housecoat and wore a knee-length wrap-around skirt and a sheer white blouse.

"The stew is in the big pot and the mashed potatoes in the smaller one," mum explained, poiting towards the stove where two pots and a frying pan were placed. I nodded, grabbed the plate off the table, and made my way to the pots. The meatstew was one of mum's specialties. It was a rich, creamy and brown sludge with big chunks of beef in it. It did taste a lot better than it looked though.
I put a decent amount of it on the plate along with a small pat of mashed potatoes. In the frying pan laid vegetables - covered in grease.

"Mum, you didn't have to fry the poor vegetables in a sea of butter," I said jokingly, leaving the vegetables in the pan. Don't say that I'm afraid of fatty food, because I'm not. It simply didn't look tasty. The calories in the simple meal was probably equals the whole day's recommended intake of calories.
I sat down at the table and watched how mum scooped up ridiculous amounts of her food on the plate to the point where it got so much food on there that drops of the stew landed on the floor. Cringing, I smiled at mum as she sat down next to me and started digging into the meal.

"Isn't dad going to eat?" I asked while picking my fork into the mashed potatoes absent-mindedly before putting the yellow substance into my mouth.

"His legs have really gotten worse, honey. He can barely walk to the bathroom and back on his own," mum said sadly and grimaced. I didn't doubt that for a second. Even if dad back in the days had been lying about his legs, they would most definitely be bad now. Since he had been lying down for years the muscles in his legs would be atrophied and close to non-existing.

"I was thinking that you could bring the food to him after we've eaten. Then you two can have a chat," mum continued. I nodded and took a big mouthful of the meatstew. It was strange how welcoming they were, my parents that is. I had basically shut them out of my life for years and they just took me in with open arms. They were good and caring people and I had to thank them for everything good that ever happened to me.
Still I was hiding something from them. I hadn't told them about what happened to me and Gabriel and knew that I soon had to.

Mum hated cheaters, so she wouldn't be happy at all. She would forgive me though, since I'm her daughter and that is her job. But she would never approve of such things. She believes in having one man - and one man only.

"Thank you so much for the food," I said after finishing the plate. I put my plate, fork, knife and glass into the sink. Then I grabbed a clean plate and started scooping up food on it for my dad. This time too, I decided to ditch the soggy vegetables. He would be better off without them.

"I'm going to the stable and that's where you'll find me. I probably won't be in until late tonight," mum explained and smiled warmly. I nodded. She always went to the stable a couple of hours every day. It seemed to work like therapy for her.

"I'll do the dishes, so don't worry about it," I told mum, who mouthed a 'thank you' and walked away. The house didn't have a proper dishwasher, so I would have to use detergent and a good old dish-brusher to get the plates clean. It was old-fashioned hard work and I felt myself kind of enjoying the thought of doing things like they used to be done back in the days.
It was calming to not have thousands of devices flashing and beeping everywhere. I hadn't even realised the fact that they could be a factor of stress until now.

With the full plate balancing in my hand, I walked up the stairs and further down the corridor until I stood outside mum and dad's bedroom. I could hear voices coming from the TV inside and pushed the door open. There laid dad with the cover covering his body all the way up to his chin. He looked at me and smiled. The gray tufts of hair on his head stood out in every possible direction.

"Mandy!" he hummed happily.

"I brought food," I said and walked over to him and put the plate on the bedside table. Dad's belly had definitely gotten a lot bigger since it towered underneath the cover like a mountain. Mum's cooking didn't only affect her own waist-measurment.
Dad smiled and smacked his lips together. His face was wrinkled and the skin looked like it was thin as a sheet of paper. The bright green eyes were bloodshot and the lips cracked and chapped.

"Great. I'm starving," he said merrily. I helped him to get into a sitting position by piling up pillows as a support for his back before placing the plate in his reach. Dad started eating, occasionally shooting me a warm glance before turning back to the food and the TV.

"I'm happy you decided to visit us," dad said, not bothering to take his eyes off the fish being caught on the screen.

"So am I," I lied. If I did have another place to go to, I would. A thirty year old isn't supposed to be staying with her parents. It's simply embarrassing. Dad chuckled as a fisherman on the TV dropped the fish back into the sea by accident. Soon he had managed to finish the entire plate of food and put it back onto the bedside table. To my surprise, he then turned the TV off by clicking on a button on the remote and turned to face me.

"How are you doing?" he asked kindly, his big green eyes focused on my face.

"I'm doing just fine," I lied, again, "what about you?"

Dad rolled his eyes before saying, "I'm fine, but not going anywhere."

We both turned silent for a while before he opened his mouth again.

"I remember something you told me a long, long time ago," he said with a distant look on his face, like he was reliving a memory.

"What did I say?" I asked cuirously. He shook his head and laughed briefly.

"When I asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up you told me that you wanted to be a ladybug. Because you wanted to be beautiful. You wanted to fly."

My lips twitched. I couldn't remember ever saying that, but I didn't doubt for a second that it wasn't true. A ladybug? Well, I hadn't turned out to be a ladybug. If that's good or bad, I don't know.
I gave dad's head a loving tap before picking the empty plate up and exiting the room.

Was I a ladybug or a woodlouse?