There was someone at the door. Cec never shared her address with anyone who would want to pay a visit to her. Mia knew, but she had to protect both Cece and herself, which meant she would never come to this neighbourhood. The only ones who remembered Cece's existence in this apartment were her landlady, the delivery boy from the grocery shop and the pizza boy from the pizzeria around the corner.
Cece contemplated ignoring the bell. She had done that before, she could do it again. The problem was that the situation had changed. She waited for the bell to ring again. She picked up the phone and thought of making a call. She stared at the keypad for a long time. Who should she call? Police? She had lost her faith in them. Mia? She had already bothered her too much in the last few days. The last two people she could think of were Luke and Ravi. The two of them were the only friends, who were still in touch with her, and who were not related to her by blood.
As she speed dialled Luke's number, she felt silly. What was she going to tell him? "There is someone at my door and I don't want to open it," she muttered to herself, "What an idiot!"
The bell rang again. She disconnected the call and did the sensible thing. She put her eye on the peephole and sighed.
It was just her landlady.
Seriously, what was she thinking?
She opened the door and threw her a bright smile. "Hello Mrs. Hobbs. I was just going to call you," she said.
"Planning to go somewhere?" Mrs. Hobbs asked. Her eyes were on the backpack she had prepared on her bed. She was not a nosy person, it was just the matter of her rent.
"Just for a couple of days. My friend is getting married. I was wondering whether you could water my plant?" she asked, while preparing to get her bag and locking the door.
"I have no problem, but leave some contact numbers. I don't want to worry about next month's rent. Also, leave the key with me."
She was a straightforward person, and Cece loved that about her. She handed her over the key and said, "Thank you so much. I have already transferred this month's rent to your account."
"Good. Your friend is here. That was the reason I was coming to look for you. Looks like you haven't told him your complete address," Mrs. Hobbs said, narrowing her eyes. She looked at Cece up and down, suspicion hued her expression.
"My friend?"
"Yes, a tall, young man is waiting for you downstairs."
"What young man?" Cece walked out of her apartment and leaned out of the balcony. A white suv waited for her on the street, and a smiling Oliver leaning his back on the car. She waved him and turned to face Mrs. Hobbs.
"Thanks, Mrs. Hobbs," she said, gesturing politely for the woman to leave. She was already having a mess of a day, she didn't want further mess. She descended to the street to meet Oliver almost right after Mrs/ Hobbs came down. "Hi, what are you doing here?"
"How are you? Are you alright?"
Cece didn't think a few simple words would affect her this bad. It had been a very long time since somebody asked her whether she was okay. Mia talked to her regularly, so did Luke and Ravi, but lately the conversation revolved around workplace frustration and the future plans. They all had their goals, Cec had lost hers. So, at a point, even that discussion felt diluted, perfunctory version of a friendly chat. Her pent up emotions welled up to her eyes.
She looked down and said, "Of course I am okay. Why would you ask that?"
"Are you going somewhere? I can drive you wherever you need," he said, eyeing her backpack. He wore a comforting smile, it made Cece's heart warm. She could ask for a favour from this man, couldn't she? She nodded.
"Just drive me to the bus stop, then I will find my way," she said once settled inside the car. She buckled her seatbelt and looked at Oliver, and with utter astonishment she noticed how beautiful he looked. His eyes twinkled as he nodded to her, lips twitched with a half-hidden smile, the dimples on his cheeks unapologetically remained there making her heart flutter.
Almost a decade back, Cece wrote a very similar character to quench her thirst for a perfect boyfriend. It was her first ever love story, about a young girl named Cecelia who fell in love with a very charming, beautiful man. He was tall, handsome, and the owner of a heartwarming smile, much like this man. The height of coincidence was that his name was Oliver too, Jamie Oliver, named after Cece's favourite British Chef. she couldn't help but smile a little as the thought crossed her mind.
Those days she'd run back home as soon as her school ended, just so that she could write another romantic one-shot centering Jamie and Cece.
"I take that as an okay, then?" he said, breaking her trance.
"What?"
"I said that I will drive you wherever you need to go. You don't look so well, and I am not feeling great about leaving you alone."
Cece felt all the sweet memories being sucked away by the other thought, and the small voice in head that constantly asked her to leave. She said, "Once again, I am fine, and I have no problem with your idea, but I really don't want to impose. You don't have to leave everything just to drive me."
It was just too much to ask.
"Don't worry about that. Today I have a day off from my work, and I will be more than happy to drive you around the whole city if you agree to it." He smiled again, a little brighter, and continued, "I love driving on days like this. Everything seems so different when it rains. It's like the familiar place we live in—"
"Transforms into a new place," Cece reminisced, there was a line like this that she wrote for Jamie Oliver. Only, it was Cece who said it to Jamie, while Jamie drove her to the school taking the longest route possible.
"I saw you earlier today, you were walking very fast, and you looked sick. I called you but you didn't hear me. Here I should tell you that I came here to meet a friend and I was not stalking you or anything," he was still babbling. Cece heard only half of it. "So I went back to my friend's place, took my car and came to your place to find out if you're okay. You looked so pale that it scared me for a while."
"I am pale most of the time, so that is a trait of being Cece," Cece joked.
"So tell me, how's life going on?"
Cece thought of some concise words, and failed miserably. In the past three years her social skills have plummeted in a way, it seemed impossible to recover from it. She cleared her throat and said, "Everything is going the same way it has been. Nothing new or exciting enough." That is, if you didn't count meeting your parents' murderer and signing a contract with him.
A silence of two minutes fell inside the car.
"This is where you ask me how my life is going," Oliver said, breaking it.
"Sorry, I was just lost in my thoughts. How is your life going on?" Cece asked. She was embarrassed, but that was something she could recover from.
"Well, work is the same, frustrating and rewarding both at the same time. Last month a friend of mine got married, and I went to the wedding alone because my date was tired of waiting for me. This morning I had a killer sandwich, and yet I am hungry. What about you? Shall we grab something to eat?"
Cece heard every word he said carefully before breaking down into laughter. "I'll be lying if I say I am not hungry."
"Good, let's eat something." Oliver decided they should take a stop at the pizzeria where Cece ordered most of her late-night pizzas, and said, "This place has good reviews."
"They deserve it. Their pizzas are heavenly," Cece agreed.
They ordered pepperoni pizza and took a seat beside the window. Cece checked the time on her phone. It was quite late for having a pizza, but she didn't have either breakfast or lunch. It was a good thing that stomach didn't grumble in his earshot, or else she would die of shame.
"It's like a date, don't you think?" he asked out of the blue, making Cece choke on the water she was drinking. "Oh no, I am so sorry. That was not my intention." He handed her over a box of tissues.
"That was a pretty sneaky way of taking someone out for a date. I mean, first you should ask me out properly."
"Right," he nodded and took her right hand into his own. Looking straight into her eyes, he said, "Cece, do you think we can go out sometime, and have some fun? I promise I will make it worthwhile for you."
"Just the first sentence was enough. The second one shows how desperate you are," Cece replied, pulling a smirk on her lips.
This felt good. Better than before. A girl of her age should spend free time like this, not making plans of running away.
"Would it freak you out if I say I actually am a little desperate, because I couldn't stop thinking about you since I first saw you?"