I don’t have a receipt while I’m writing this because we didn’t get dinner together. We actually went to the monthly showcase to hang out. We stole each other’s popcorn and ate pizza in the cafeteria. After that, we came back to my dorm to watch television. We decided to watch movie trailers online. There’s one that she wants to see – so I’m going to buy tickets for this weekend. I hope that she likes the surprise. I’ll tape the receipt in once I have it.
-_~* Week 4 *~_-
Santiago fiddles around with his watch and kicks a pebble lazily at his feet. The bench is cold, even through his jeans, and he tries to focus on that rather than how long it is taking Caroline to get to the campus. Half an hour ago he had asked her if she wanted to walk around the monthly showcase that the university hosts for the various organizations founded by its alumni, fraternities, and sororities. There are tons of cool booths, plus the art and music clubs tend to set up stations to raise money, so it’s a nice way to make connections. Or least that’s how it gets advertised to the student body.
Realizing that he had time to kill after she quickly accepted his invitation, “I will do literally anything to get out of this damn house,” he’d returned home to change into something – nicer? Unable to explain it, he’d felt in that moment that he shouldn’t just wear his everyday clothes. Now he’s sporting his newest pair of gray chinos with a black thermal. Maybe it doesn’t look very different from his usual garb, but it is more presentable – especially with his freshly combed hair.
The worst part about having changed, though, is standing around while people bustle about from booth to booth, stand to stand, carrying on with their evenings. Caroline should’ve been there ten minutes ago, having quoted that she’d only be twenty minutes “tops.” Though, admittedly, Caroline is a ‘late to everything’ kind of person.
A text buzzes through his phone asking if they can meet at the popcorn stand, that she had walked up with a group of girls so she wouldn’t be wandering around on her own. Santiago isn’t blind the different threats posed to women, especially young and carefree ones that have confidence, which Caroline has in abundance, but he doesn’t have the ability to empathize and feel the fear that she must face. The best he can do is be understanding, and he shows it by meeting her near the popcorn stand closest to the parking lot she prefers to use.
“Oh, sorry ladies, I just saw a friend of mine,” she says airily before separating from the group. He hasn’t even seen her yet, her voice filling his ears, and forcing his head to turn in her direction. A smile spreads across his lips before he’s even given his face permission to show that he’s happy to see her.
Caroline looks like a balloon as she walks up to him, her cheeks puffing out and her eyes crossing awkwardly in contrast to the angle of her head. It is the silliest face he’s ever seen anyone wear, especially walking away from a group of people, and he feels compelled to wave at her politely as she approaches. It is likely that she doesn’t even see it with her face so contorted, but it’s the thought that counts.
Nearly plowing him over, Santiago has to hold her in place and physically turn her as they start walking to nowhere in particular, though popcorn did sound really good. “Let’s find a different stand,” he suggests.
“Ugh, please?” the dramatically loud groan is unexpected. Still, he understands what she’s trying to accomplish with he dramatized response. Well, he thinks that he knows, anyway. Offering his arm, Caroline accepts it eagerly.
Tonight, he cannot help but notice, Caroline is wearing a loose dress with leggings and knee-high boots. It’s not necessarily not her style, though she doesn’t look totally like her usual self either. There’s no denying that she looks lovely, perhaps in the same way that he looks just as nice next to her. Santiago wonders if she also tried a little harder to dress up.
“Listen, you should probably know before we buy our popcorn, but I definitely won’t be sharing. Popcorn is my favorite snack,” Caroline admits, a joyous sound emitting from her tone. The way she grins is contagious, infectious, and he can feel himself mirroring her without trying.
“That’s fine with me,” Santiago says coolly, tightening his arm against his side, pulling Caroline closer.
Time proves that the showcase, while amazing for a variety of different reasons, is not an ideal hangout place. Santiago and Caroline get into a bit of a ‘popcorn stealing’ war, trying to sneakily grab fistfuls of popcorn whenever the opportunity arises. It’s good fun until all of their popcorn is gone, of course, and they’re both starving.
The idea to grab some pizza from the cafeteria is a shared one, though Caroline is the first say that she’s glad she thought of it while they’re eating. Greedy, and apparently starving, she took three slices on her plate – all of which she’s nearly devoured in just ten minutes. “So – what do you think of these hangouts and dinners and stuff? Helping?”
Caught off guard, he nearly chokes on the partially chewed pizza in his mouth. “What do I think of them?”
It turns out that she was trying to ask if their partnership was working out; did he enjoy being around her. Santiago assures her that he’s found her friendship to be one of the highlights of his current life. She came to him without argument or complaint when he was losing his mind in the middle of the night. They went for greasy food to cure his insecurities. He’d never had a friend be so good to him.
“This is invaluable,” he comments, gesturing to the space between, indicating the pair of them as a unit. Imagining an alternate reality where he skipped grief group, where he fought his way out of attending; an alternate reality where he wasn’t worried about the money and just waited until he turned twenty-six to utilize it, it’s all empty in comparison. Doctor Anya Kuvaar certainly wasn’t wrong about the value of friendships with people that can share the burden of grieving. He never would’ve believed it, despite everything he knows in contrary.
“So, would it be cool if I complained a bit about something?” her question hangs in the air awkwardly, as if she ever needed permission to share her grievances. After last week, he had hoped that the door would remain open between them. Did it close? Was there something that made her think that she couldn’t? Santiago nods without an expression, confusion still rushing through his head.
Earlier that evening at the apartment she shares with her ex-boyfriend, his girlfriend was hanging around before he came home from work. Apparently, she was cleaning up since she doesn’t have to work while she’s in school, which Caroline announces like a question rather than a statement of fact. Everything about the way she discusses this new girlfriend of Casper’s makes it clear that she despises this woman. “Today she was just really weird and it made me want to vomit.”
“If I may,” Santiago starts, biting into his pizza absently, then finishing before chewing through it, “what did she say?”
“She told me that she thought I have the perfect bikini body. I wasn’t wearing anything like a crop or tank. Why did she even say that?”
“Jealousy?” he suggests, not really thinking it super out of place. It is unwanted attention, obviously, and it wasn’t her place to say, he gathers, but perhaps it was just bad timing on a compliment she’d been intending to give for some time. Casper’s girlfriend surely must be a bit uneasy about his ex living with him.
An eye roll and a shrug indicate that she’s obviously considered it enough but doesn’t want to discuss it any further. Santiago wants to ask if his response is why she has recoiled. “Maybe, but she has the most uncomfortable way of showing it.”
Familiar in the way that it takes up all of the space between them, silence settles into its usual spot. It isn’t uncommon, though it never truly was, though it is far less intrusive than it used to be only weeks ago. Santiago and Caroline often will rendezvous in the cafeteria between classes and just enjoy the comfort of familiarity. While he finishes his second piece of pizza in the transitional break in the conversation, Caroline begins curling the edge of her plate and fiddling absently. Santiago can’t take his eyes off of her, even though she can’t seem to make her eyes meet his.
“Sometimes I wish I faked my death too, you know,” her soft announcement almost isn’t real to him. It can’t be real, can it? He’s just told her how valuable her friendship is to him. Is she really crushing him like this?
Santiago matches her low tone perfectly, “Do you really believe she’s alive somewhere?”
It isn’t the question he wants to ask her, but the question he wants to ask is selfish. He didn’t want to be selfish in the face of something as serious as this, this, this – denial. Doctor Anya has been talking about how denial is different for everyone in the way it shows up. Caroline had mentioned the fact that he waits for texts that aren’t coming, and he’d mentioned her ‘faked death’ theory. It was supposed to be playful but the reflection changes in light of her most recent statement.
“I didn’t get any closure. None!” the words fall out in an emotional huff from her lips. “It feels like she’s still hanging around somewhere waiting for me to come to say ‘goodbye’ to her. If I don’t get to say ‘goodbye,’ then my last words to her have to be ‘I’ll see you at dinner. Chinese tonight!’ That’s not good enough.”
She keeps explaining how this was the way they spent their Friday nights. Caroline always worked early shifts during the summers to get a break from the evenings from the school year, and their special treat for themselves was eating Chinese takeout. She was going to pick it up on the way home from work. There was no call to warn her that she would arrive at an empty apartment and a neighbor telling her that that ambulance had been there a short while before and advised calling the nearest hospital. Hearing her recount it is horrifying. Santiago has to aggressively wipe his mouth to hide the fact that he’s tearing up, crying.
What is there to say? Apologies of every kind would be easy, but they would be unwanted. Caroline doesn’t need someone to say ‘sorry’ to her again. Nobody did anything to cause this terrible pain to her; it is simply the way of life. He could tell her about the fact that he understands what it’s like to be in so much pain, wishing for the dead to come back to life, but she won’t want to hear that either. Instead, he settles on carrying the conversation on as if it is something perfectly normal to discuss.
And it is, for them. “The last thing I said to my parents was in a text message. I asked if they wanted me to order an extra pizza for them. They never liked the fancy food from their dinner parties. They hadn’t replied and I didn’t think it was out of the ordinary, and I should have.”
Caroline reaches across the table as his voice catches. “I should have been worried.”
“Look at me,” she demands, back to her full volume now. He obeys, not necessarily because he wants to submit to her, but because he knows he’s going to find comfort in her eyes. “This showcase blows. I don’t want to go home yet but we have a few hours before curfew. Do you want to go watch a movie at your place and get our mind off of our unhappy endings?”
What a way to end the night, though? They start walking back towards his dorm, arm-in-arm, discussing the benefits of watching a comedy show over classic cartoons. It is nice, and Santiago tells her that because she deserves to know. No matter how alone she feels without her grandmother, he will be there to comfort her for as long as she will have him. Comedies or cartoons? It doesn’t matter.
Not really.
The next chapter is ready for your hungry eyes. Give it a read while you’re already visiting my blog, yeah? Just click right >>here<<
Acknowledgements
I can’t believe I had forgotten to mention my great pal, Ouranose, who always gives my stories a read through to make sure everything is cohesive and clear for the readers. She does a phenomenal job and I can’t imagine doing this without her support and mindful eyes. If you haven’t read anything she’s written, you’re missing out. Plus, she makes are for her stories too! Seriously, go to her blog and give her some love!
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