A Memory Faded - [Twelve]

The time for which Alex was ill passed quickly. The freak bad weather stopped just after she had gotten better, which was good news. And it was the weekend that followed when Alex was having her stitches removed. The nurse who had been dispatched to do the relatively simple job tried to cut them out, but they had tightened because Alex’s skin had healed up very well.
“Damn, girl, you heal too quickly.”
“Hmm.”
Alex found herself unable to respond properly. The sensation of the stitches pulling against the underside of her skin was weird and it made her feel warm and delirious as she sat on the couch in the living room, half-watching the Formula 1 race on television. Forty-five minutes passed before all of them had been removed. The nurse smiled at Alex and showed her the stitches.
“You wanna keep ‘em?”
“Uh…no thanks.”
“Suit yourself then.”
The nurse put the stitches in the bin beside the couch and stood up, zipping up her bag. Turning to Alex, she said, “Look after yourself, hear? I don’t want to have to come back again anytime soon.”
“I’ll be more careful, I promise.”
“Good…bye, hun!”
“See ya.”
Sighing, Alex took her cellphone from her pocket and dialed Fletcher’s number, with a sincere hope he wasn’t already in town. If he was, she’d have trouble finding him.
Fletcher turned over in his bed and looked across at his cellphone, vibrating on the table. Picking it up, he yawned and answered the call. He told Alex he’d meet her outside her house in about twenty minutes. He heard her sigh as she said goodbye and felt guilty. She pulled out her iPod and scrolled down to her Saosin album. She’d be able to listen to a majority of it if he took as long as he said. But he was rushing, a fact unbeknown to her. Jumping around his bedroom trying to pull on his black drainpipe jeans, wishing to whatever he believed in that he hadn’t eaten that extra slice of cake the night before. Grabbing the first band t-shirt he found in his wardrobe - an old My Chemical Romance one, with a picture of an electric chair on, captioned with the darkly humorous phrase ‘Take it like a man’ - he grabbed a black and pink studded belt and tried to thread it through his belt loops at thirty miles an hour. Racing down the stairs, he tripped and rolled into the telephone table at the bottom, steadying it as quickly as his brain could react. Grabbing his Etnies sneakers and pulling them on, he went into the kitchen and took a granola bar from the cupboard. Turning without remembering to shut the cupboard door, his head caught the corner.
“Dammit!”
“Fletcher!” his mother shouted, “Mind your language!”
“You should’ve heard what I was gonna say. See ya!”
“Fletcher can you pick me up a quart of milk from the store, please?”
“Mom, I’m going out with Alexandra, It’ll go sour if I go get it!”
“Oh, okay. I’ll do it later then.”
“Bye!”
The door slammed shut and Fletcher ran down the sidewalk to where Alex was stood. She pulled the headphones out of her ears. She looked at him with a smile, but also with disdain.
“Hey…what’s up?” he asked, “Alex?”
“Fletcher…I haven’t seen you for so long…”
“Alex…I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy.”
“Busy with what?”
“High school, Alex. Like everyone else.”
“Oh…right. I was getting paranoid.”
“About what?”
They stared into each other’s eyes and Fletcher picked up what she was trying to say. His face softened and he put his pale arms around her. She hugged him tightly, and then she felt like saying something. But her mind stopped her before her heart took over.
“Let’s go then,” she said, changing the subject present in her head, “Coffee time.”