I’ve had some good friends in the past, but being friends in high school is a bit different than being an adult with friends. Nineteen going on twenty doesn’t exactly qualify me as a super adult, but I’m adult enough to know that there’s a difference. We have lives to prioritize now. I guess that’s why I just thought Caroline would want to keep her distance. She came over without warning, dinner in tow. Maybe I don’t know a thing about having good friends.
-_~* Week 7 *~_-
Santiago’s head is pounding. All of his work for the weekend is done. His professor canceled their lecture for tomorrow, which means a long weekend is lying out ahead of him. Normally that wouldn’t have felt so daunting, but that was before everything that happened with Caroline.
They had seemed to be on almost ‘okay’ terms when leaving Grief Group on Monday, but she hasn’t texted him at all since then. Since he has no way of knowing whether or not she’s still angry with him, he’s been afraid to reach out to her and invite her to their usual dinner plans. This week he’d really wanted to take her somewhere with comfort food – as a sort of an apology? – but that wasn’t happening. Not now.
Irritated by his headache, irritated with himself, and irritated with the amount of time he’s going to be on his own thinking about every bad thing that could make him angry – Santiago moves as quickly as he can manage to shove the headphones into his ears to create the ‘simulation of isolation.’
Not that being alone in his bedroom wasn’t enough.
It’s just that it wasn’t.
Gamble: Your bad advice is our [pause] paychecks? Thomas: This opening is real honest – Jordan: And real bad. Corey: Nobody can help this introduction or make it worse. Gamble: As the brother with the worst name – Jordan: Second worst name – Gamble: Try putting the name ‘Gamble’ on a job application, bro. Jordan: Do you forget that our parents named me Jordan Morton? Nobody wants their names to rhyme. Corey: Our apologies if you are one such person, by the way. Jordan: Why don’t we just tell you who drew the short sticks this week so we can get past this really petty fight of ours? Thomas: Jordan and Gamble Morton are both ridiculous names. Gamble: Easy to say when your name is Thomas. Corey: Well, Thomas and I drew the short sticks, which means we had to anonymously ask for advise about our arbitrary problems on the Internet and follow the worst piece of advice provided to us. Jordan: Which – should there be a warning ahead of this episode? Like ‘my problem was that my dog is still humping everything’ as a warning?
A couple of quick buzzes interrupt the podcast. Normally he would’ve thought that it was Caroline, but with her silence all week, he wrote it off as someone asking a question from his lab group. Deciding that he doesn’t need to be the first to answer every single question, he hits the small switch on the left side of his phone so that nothing else interrupts the podcast.
Thomas: That’s not the kind of warning that comes before a podcast. Gamble: Yeah, they usually just mark it as being “Explicit” or not. So, I guess I have to ask how detailed your problem actually gets. Thomas: This damn dog just keeps humping things everywhere, right? That’s a thing animals do when we take away their private bits and alter the way that they work, and I certainly don’t blame them, but it’s unsightly, right? Gamble: Yes. I hate when you bring ‘Chelsea’ over – which, by the way, is a human name. Why did you name this animal ‘Chelsea’ like she was your daughter? Corey: I think the better question is – why did you name a Chihuahua ‘Chelsea,’ because that opens a lot of doors. Jordan, Gamble [together]: Chelsea the Chihuahua Thomas: Listen, Chelsea is an ex-girlfriend’s dog. She named this rat masquerading as a dog, but I couldn’t let her go back to the pound, so I’ve learned to love this four-legged sausage creature. But she humps everything all the time and it’s disgusting. I brought over a dude friend for drinks and it was late, right, because we worked late, and Chelsea just pattered in and started humping the couch pillows while we threw back some vodka. It was so awkward! Corey: How did you even post this question online? Can you read it to us? Thomas: So I hopped on a couple of different forums and used this same blurb, and you’d be surprised by the answers, but let’s first, yes, hear what I wrote, because you are not going to guess the bad advice I got for it. Thomas [cont’d, reading from forum]: I have this crazy Chihuahua that was fixed several months ago and she is still humping everything in sight. Even worse than how gross it is to watch her doing this, I know she’s doing it to everything. How am I supposed to bring company over knowing that they’re going to probably touch something she was humping that I haven’t had a chance to sanitize? Jordan: Wow. Corey: Very – ew – I can’t unhear that. Now I’m thinking about it and I have regrets. Gamble: Let’s make a pact right here, right now, to never go to Thomas’ house for drinks again. All family Christmases now have to happen at my house. Thomas: I am not even ashamed or opposed. Please never come to my house again. Corey: Do I even want to know the solution? Could the bad advice really be worse than knowing that your dog has humped something that I’ve touched? Thomas: Let me say this – PETA is about to be all over this episode, and not in a good way. Gamble: You’re kidding. You’ve got to be kidding. Corey: We’re about to regret ever starting this show. I just know it.
Something in the air shifts, and it makes Santiago uncomfortable, so he props himself up on his elbows. The only way into his room safely is through his door. It is still shut, though. Assuming that he’s imagined the shift, Santiago lays himself flat across the entire mattress and resumes his podcast – isolating himself again.
Gamble: I am ready to hear the problem you needed advice for. Surely it can’t be weirder than that right? Corey: No! Mine actually seems kind of tame in comparison now. Thomas: Nothing is worse than a fixed dog humping everything you own. Gamble: I have to respectfully disagree, but, like, I can’t necessarily disagree. You would have to really be smart about outshining this dog-humping thing that Thomas has to address. I can’t even believe I’ve said the phrase ‘dog humping’ so many times, which is unsettling too. Corey: My arbitrary problem… Gamble: I’m ready. Corey: My farts smell really bad so I need someone to tell me how to stop this from ending every romantic endeavor in my life. Thomas: Did you write it just like that? Corey: I included a story about the proof of my issue so that it would bring out the serious advisors. Jordan: I can’t decide if the farting is worse than the humping. They’re both so awkward and uncomfortable in a lot of ways. However, they’re both natural experiences too. Gamble: I think that the advice that they followed is really going to help us decide who had it worse. Not that it’s a competition or that we keep score – Thomas: But you do, apparently. Jordan: Yeah, you guys make charts and email them to us. It’s wild. Gamble: So – who wants to share their advice first?
The air moves again, and this time Santiago knows he’s not crazy. He rips out his headphones and stands up, just in time to see his door fly open.
“What the hell? I hollered for you to come to the living room like five minutes ago!” Santiago’s roommate, a bulbous sort of radish-looking guy, is hovering in the doorway with his arms crossed. His name is Harris, but he prefers to be called Harry. It’s befitting, he supposes, what with the X-shaped scar in the middle of his forehead. His younger sister threw a screwdriver and he got in the way of its destination ‘as the story goes,’ apparently.
“I was listening to my podcast,” Santiago declares – lamely? lazily? loosely? He’s not sure how to describe his tone of voice, but it probably doesn’t sound very kind. Living with Harry hasn’t been the best. Santiago’s first roommate from last year dropped out after the first semester, which had also happened to Harry. As a result, Harry was moved to Santiago’s dorm to clear up a room– and now they are roommates again this year.
It’s not that there’s anything specifically bad about Harry. He just lives his life very different from Santiago, and it makes for a lot of discomfort. For example, Harry doesn’t have any issues walking around in his underwear and leaves water bottles in every room so that he’s never thirsty. If there is something that does get on Santiago’s nerves, it is probably the “house meetings” that he holds on the “Third Taco Tuesday” of each month.
Harry groans and gestures down the hallway, at something that Santiago obviously can’t see. “Well, this weird chick is here sitting on the kitchen counter kicking the cabinets. I can’t focus with her banging around like that!”
“Why didn’t you just send her to my room to begin with?” he asks.
Shrugging his shoulders, he replies plainly. “I don’t know who this chick is!”
“Send her back!” Santiago hisses, irritation becoming thick on his tongue. “Don’t bother us, either.”
There is no wait time, though, because Caroline heard him and is already rounding the corner when Harry starts to leave. She has a grin on her pink lips and a high ponytail on top of her head, and Santiago feels a lot of his stress melt away when he makes eye contact with her. “Hey,” he mutters.
“I brought N.E. Time Noodles for dinner. You got paella, and if you want me to stop ordering traditionally Mexican and Spanish dishes, probably just answer my texts next time.” Dropping the bag on the end of the bed, Caroline makes herself at home while Santiago closes the door behind her. He’s never been past the doorway of her apartment, and she hasn’t been anywhere but the living room couch. She hasn’t even used the bathroom when she’s visited. And now – all of a sudden – she’s in his bedroom. It’s weird.
It’s unexpected.
But it’s not unwanted.
Santiago grins. “Honestly, you can’t go wrong if you continue to make food choices that way. It’s a racist stereotype, for sure, but I’m giving you permission to make that assumption about my dietary preferences.”
Everything is just easy again – as if they were never in any sort of argument. Without hesitation, she talks about how on Tuesday they debuted her ‘Lazy Days Horchata’ and the ‘Frappe Roll’ drinks on the menu with the cinnamon cheesecake and ‘turkini.’ Each of the items has been successful individually and in pairs, so Bryan has been ecstatic about the results so far. “He hopes you’ll come back to the Taster’s Night right after Thanksgiving, by the way.”
“I kept such bad company, though.” There is no use in trying to lie about it or pretend that he didn’t have to take any responsibility for it. At the end of the day, he could’ve privately spoken with Caroline or Bryan rather than being sarcastic and rude. For all the wrong they did by making him uncomfortable, his retaliation was just as uncalled for as the provoking action. “Besides, you’re the one who actually executed the recipes.”
“Nah,” she mumbles through her mouthful of half-chewed noodles. Once she swallows, she continues along the same thought. “We’re one heck of a pair. A dynamic duo, dare I say?”
He wouldn’t have expected her to say that considering the week they’ve had, but he is truly happy to hear it. Even though he was fully aware of how important his friendship to Caroline was becoming in his life, he hadn’t known how much he looked forward to everything involving her. “I don’t know about that, but I hope that it’ll be true someday.”
Caroline pokes a leg out and tries to kick him as he joins her on the bed. “Shut up,” she blurts. “We got into a disagreement but we’re fine now. Don’t be dramatic.”
Is that all it was, though? Santiago isn’t sure. It seems to him that Caroline really wanted him to open up to her and it’s had him wondering why he hasn’t done it yet? When would the right time be? What would he open up about? Where do they go from here – from a place of closeted resentment? What about Caroline’s shutting him out and blowing everything off?
“No,” Santiago says with deliberate thought in his calm tone. “We got into a fight and I think we need to talk about it instead of brush it off.”
Caroline’s eyes go wide, brilliant and glistening under the dull light of his table lamp. What the emotion is behind them, he can’t say for sure, and that motivates him more to make sure that this conversation happens. It’s been six weeks now, and its time to start figuring out what makes Caroline really tick.
“Okay,” she decides, loosening her body and sinking further into his mattress somehow. “Let’s talk. We’ll start wherever you want.”
Santiago grins, ready for the next stage of their friendship. There are so many different places that he could start, so many different things that they should talk about, but there’s only one thing that he feels like discussing first. Something that’s been itching the back of his mind, and he draws in a very sharp breath before the question slips out of his mouth.
“Why weren’t you bothered by your co-workers making the assumption that we are dating?” It just didn’t add up. When her co-workers were doing it, she wasn’t talking about how she could watch out for herself or barring her teeth in protest, like she did with Kayla. Instead, she defended them – saying that they needed to verify that he was good enough for her. Why was there a change? Why did she react so differently? He just wants to know.
“Well…” Caroline sighs.
Yes, there is another chapter ready. You should read it now 😉
Acknowledgements
Huge shout out to Ouranose for letting me read this aloud to her and for reading over my shoulder so that it could be edited. I forgot that it was Thursday so I had thought I had another day to get this done because, oh boy, it’s been one heck of a week already. Anyway, if you need another break from reality (like I often do) – visit Ouranose’s blog because it’s got that GOOD-GOOD over there.
Last week I had to delay a story posting by several days, and so it’s pretty cool when you know that before the post doesn’t show up. You can avoid being disappointed by liking my Facebook Page.
If you’re super interested in the bonus content, or in financially supporting this project, I have a Patreon that you can check out! And I do think that you’d enjoy the stuff that I post there. I try to update the bonus content twice a month, so there’s always something cool and exclusive to be enjoyed there – for as little as $1/month!
Comments