Tethered Hearts | ✓ | Books 1 & 2

Episode 47| If The Walls Could Talk

Sophia's P.O.V.

I avoided sleep. 

The clock, hanging over Bryce's television, made it evident to me that I should be in bed. It was past two AM. Any practical girl would've gone to sleep by now. I drew to the conclusion that I had past practicality and pushed further into idiocy with every minute I sat down here.

I came to the living room fifteen minutes after Bryce left. I had tossed and turned, replaying what I said and what he said, coming up blank as to what I could've done differently. I couldn't see it in his eyes, but I felt a disconnection after we had sex and came back from the rooftop.

I wasn't going to go back on what I said to him about only liking him. If anything, I was closer to yelling instead of floating on to cloud nine at what he said.

Everyone knew that saying "I love you" or anything remotely close to that after sex was unoriginal and probably the most ingenuine way to do it.

Having him say it didn't take any gravity away from what he told me though.

I took that word seriously. When I used it, meant it with all of my heart. I didn't want to play with Bryce's emotions as if they were a game.

I need to get my mind off this, was what I thought when I got out of bed and headed downstairs. I was desperate for a short distraction.

After surfing the channels, I saw that I had entirely missed Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Which disappointed me. Even though the show hadn't been on for more than a month, I was beginning to look forward to watching it whenever I had time.

When nothing interesting showed up on the three big networks or Fox, I was delighted that Bryce had cable since every late-night show was done when I came downstairs.

We didn't have cable at my mom's place for the longest time. Back in Middle School, I remembered how I had asked my mother to invest in cable TV.

She was convinced the only reason I wanted it was because of the MTV ads, promoting its new network. I eventually got her to cave and buy into it.

I had to say, having some of my favorite singers and musicians shout "I Want My MTV" was reasonable enough for me to get whatever they were promoting.

Bored with what the TV provided, I walked up to one of the tall wooden shelves adjacent to the TV. Something else Bryce owned -  that I didn't - was a VHS Recorder. His TV didn't have a built-in VHS player, like at my mother's house, but it did have one that was placed underneath the screen.

When I visited Bryce's apartment in September, that was when I first noticed the tall shelves of VHS tapes he had, and some without cases that were clearly recorded here and not bought from a video store. The ones that were bare from a protection case had white tape on the side and the title of the show that was recorded on it. 

The TV show Dallas stood, mainly because he more than four VHS tapes of it. I loved that soap opera growing up and was sad to see it end two years ago.

I went back to looking through his tapes. I saw something else that was marked 'X-Files' in black ink, but I didn't know what show or movie that was. I had never heard of it.

Probably porn, my dirty mind assumed.

Kneeling so I could come to eye level with the lower shelves, I picked up one tape that had 'Growing Pains' written on the spine.

Bryce watching the show Growing Pains was more of a surprise than him telling me that he thought he was in love with me. He didn't seem like the type to watch a sitcom.