My Fake Boyfriend

Depleting Esteem

I was a little scared staying over at anyone's house. This was the first time I've done this. Besides, I was a little on the edge. I mean, I didn't even know if Aaron was okay with this. He didn't say anything about being okay with me staying the night.

"Excellent!" Sam chirped happily before gesturing to the stairs with a hand.

"Well, none of the guest bedrooms are cleaned out yet so I assume you won’t mind sleeping in Aaron's room?" she questioned, and I blushed at how direct she was. At this, Aaron took his attention off his phone, which he had spent the previous minutes texting on, and looked at his Mum.

"What?" he asked, confusion in his tone and Sam scoffed loudly.

"Get off that phone already and show Alexis where she'll be staying," she said with an eye roll. When Aaron didn't get up, she moved over to him and started ushering him out of his seat.

"Go on! Show her to your room!” 

With that, she was off into the kitchen, scrubbing the dishes. I asked her if she needed help, but she told me I had helped enough and that was that. With her gone, Aaron raised his eyebrows, confused by what had just occurred.

"Okay?" he drawled before he let out a sigh, putting his phone in his back pocket and moving towards the stairs. In turn, I just stood there awkwardly; I didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to start following him, or just stand here until I'm told where to go? How did this usually work for others?

"You coming or what?" Aaron said from his position on the stairs, the top half of his body turned as he looked at me and I merely frowned at his words.

“Well, a little instruction would be nice,” I grumbled and, instead of responding, he sighed before turning his body fully to the front and running up the stairs. 

I followed slowly, thinking about how his behaviour had done a complete 180. I knew it was just an act for his Mum, but I had hoped we could still be civil despite it all. I thought back to the argument in the cafe and I wondered if he was still mad about the cruel words I had sent to him. It was true that he had apologised but I had not, but nor did I feel the need to. My brain was hurting from all the thinking, and my head was throbbing. 

All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep.

I came to the door I had seen Aaron go into and I briefly thought of what his room looked like. There had been a saying I had seen once that denoted that the appearance of someone's room was a clear indicator of the individual's nature. I hadn't been able to test the theory as I never had the chance to sleep over at other people's houses.

Shaking my head free of thoughts, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

The room was not at all what I had expected. I had expected a pigsty with trinkets of his conquests hung all over the draws and bed.

That was nowhere near.

The room was clean. Not neat, but clean as though no one went in it, and I briefly wondered how he had maintained such a large area. The walls were cream, and nothing was on them. Nothing except for the TV that hung from the wall that faced his bed: the bed was on one side of the room and on the other side was a desk. 

I mentally scoffed at the ironic sight when he hardly even attended classes.

It had a laptop on it and a pencil jar. The wall opposite the door had a big window, giving us a nice view of the other nice homes he lived near. There were some wardrobes near the window, probably containing his clothes and a bathroom attached to his bedroom. In the far corner, there was a small sofa with cushions on it and I let out an awestruck sigh. This was not what I was expecting. This room was big and clean and was not messy as I had thought it would be.