my hyperfixation diary

There’s no novelty mugs, no knickknacks from Lucy’s college years, no potted plants, no paintings or little figurines that Kate was worrying wouldn’t fit on the shelves with her things.

She didn’t need to worry, though. Lucy makes four trips and then stands in the living room with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. She declares herself moved in and immediately goes to the drawer filled with take out menus; it’s a pho night.

Kate stares in wonderment for a moment. Four trips and that’s it? Her apartment is empty? Not that it would take Kate long to pack up her apartment, really, but it would certainly be more boxes. She’d have to pack the planters, the mugs, the baskets of blankets, the candles, the small collection of books, the stack of games she keeps for the possibility of a game night. It would take Kai and Jesse’s help, at least. But Lucy did it all by herself, up and down the elevator like she was going on a weekend trip, not moving an entire life from one apartment to another.

“I just don’t need a lot,” she tells Kate that night, a sheet pooled around her waist as she lays back on her pillow. “Work, gym, and you. I wasn’t kidding.”

Kate doesn’t need a lot either, but she does have small things. Jane bought her an orchid in a yellow pot that thrives in the living room. She has a few things from Northwestern on a shelf nearby. A stack of books on a side table. Three mugs with silly slogans she got as a gag gift in D.C. that she used to hide in the back of the cupboard before she didn’t care if Lucy saw them. A novelty, oversized fork that hangs by the stove. Just a couple of things that give her apartment a version of a personality without overwhelming things.

Kate ran a finger over the swell of Lucy’s hip and they hadn’t talked about it again.

-

Kate doesn’t notice it at first, rushing in the morning because Lucy rolled across her just before her alarm went off and they got caught up in each other. She needs to start putting her foot down because she’s been nearly late to work too many times since Lucy moved in. But every time she thinks about telling Lucy they can’t, they have no time, Lucy tosses those curls over her shoulder and bats her eyes and smiles that slow smile Kate always gives in to.

So she misses it, sitting on the kitchen counter. She doesn’t see it until later, peeling her silk shirt off with a groan as the fabric sticks to her skin. It was a hot day and she spent too much of it running around. Her texts say that Lucy is finishing up a few notes but she’ll be home soon—home, Kate thinks, smile unconscious—and can Kate please make fettuccine Alfredo if they have the right ingredients? Kate opens and closes the refrigerator and cabinets and they have the basics but she’ll have to go back out to get cream. She fires off a text to have Lucy stop and pick up a few things and finds a wine glass, pouring herself a drink.

When she puts it down on the counter she sees it: a small, golden set of letters, interlocked seamlessly so she can barely tell where one ends and one begins. A K&L so small that she could fit in the center of her palm. It’s tucked next to the coffee maker, inconspicuous. Kate frowns, picking it up and turning it over. She didn’t bring this home, and logically it could have only been Lucy who did, but when did she put it on the counter? Was it here yesterday? Just how unobservant has she been lately?

She holds it for another moment before placing it gently down on the counter where it was. A fingerprint shines on the golden surface but she doesn’t wipe it away. Something about erasing it makes her chest ache with an unknown feelings. She tucks it back a little, tighter to the coffee maker, and makes a note to ask Lucy about it.

Lucy barrels through the front door 10 minutes and half a glass of wine later, already laughing as she launches into whatever Jesse did to Kai today and Kate forgets to ask Lucy where the K&L came from, too caught up in her whirlwind and the bruising kiss she pulls Kate into to remember it.

They don’t have fettuccine Alfredo but Lucy, standing behind her at the kitchen counter as Kate lazily stirs peppers and onions and Lucy presses even lazier kisses to her shoulder, doesn’t seem to mind.

-

Things start appearing.

Kate thinks she might be going crazy, honestly. Every time she looks around, more things pop up. She finds a bonsai tree on the coffee table one night when she gets home from work and Lucy is stretched across the couch, snoring. A new candle is burning on the counter when she gets back from her Saturday morning surfing. A bobble head pops up on Lucy’s nightstand that looks suspiciously like Jesse. Kate blinks and the tissue box in the living room has a strange Dallas Cowboys cover on it that she didn’t realize you could still buy. Then there’s a caricature of the two of them Kate doesn’t remember sitting for tucked onto the wall with all of their degrees. An NCIS mug finds its way into the cupboard and behind it is one with “Aloha Hawai’i” on it.

Kate looks around their apartment and wonders how Lucy keeps sneaking things in without her noticing. Or why she’s sneaking them in the first place.

But she doesn’t mind them. She does thinks the bobble head is creepy and she makes Lucy turn it to face the wall whenever Lucy’s hand snakes across the sheets to Kate’s thigh. But the rest of them, things her mother would probably turn her nose up at, don’t bother her. They’re cute, if a little kitschy. They bring a little life into their home, pops of color that Kate wouldn’t have thought to bring in herself.

Lucy doesn’t say anything about them either. She just keeps adding things: a wooden sign for the bathroom with a giant palm tree on it that takes Kate a week until she decides that no one sees their bathroom because no one visits; a three-candle holder sprayed a deep teal color that Kate thinks looks like the ocean before a storm: a new coffee pod container with a subtle rainbow on it; a small hand-painted pineapple.

Kate just lets these things pile up in their apartment and silently brings Ernie the bobble head after its beady eyes follow her around her bedroom in her towel.

-

“Okay,” Kate finally declares when she comes home to find a small clown figurine on the counter next to the wooden, painted bowl Lucy bought to house their oranges. “We need to talk.”

Lucy looks up from peeling one of those oranges and her brow furrows. “That’s never good.”

Kate frowns before it clears. “Oh, not like that.” She follows her words with her hands curling around Lucy’s waist and pressing a kiss to the top of Lucy’s head. She points to the clown. “About this.”

“You don’t like clowns.”

“I do not like clowns,” she confirms. “But I meant, where are all these things coming from?”

Lucy looks confused. “Where is what coming from?”

Kate sweeps an arm across their apartment and things Lucy has been bringing home. “All of this. The knickknacks. The trinkets. The… clown statue.”

Lucy brightens. “Oh, do you like them? Not the clown, obviously. I will get rid of that. Ernie is strangely afraid of clowns, too.”

“I didn’t say I was afraid. They’re just unnatural,” Kate insists. She shakes her head, getting back on track. “But where are they coming from?”

Lucy shrugs. “Everywhere. Whenever I see something I think you might like, I pick it up. This place was a little… boring. It needed some personality.”

Kate frowns. “It wasn’t boring. I just... wasn’t here a lot.” She leans one hip against the counter. “So you were just going to fill our place with ‘personality’ until we suffocate under screen-printed blankets and dog statues?”

“Well, you never said anything about them.”

“Neither did you.”

Lucy shrugs again. “I figured you’d say something if you didn’t like them.”

Kate softens. She tucks some of Lucy’s hair behind her ear. “I like them. Most of them,” she amends. “The sign in the bathroom is not my favorite. But the rest of them, I like,” she rushes to add. “I just didn’t think you were someone who liked those things. I mean, you literally brought nothing but clothes and shoes when you moved in.”

Lucy abandons the orange, turning until her stance mirrors Kate’s. She looks thoughtful as her gaze slides towards the open balcony doors. “My house growing up was… spartan. Not that it was empty, but we were doing the minimalist thing before it was cool. And so I never had these things. The knickknacks, you know?” She meets Kate’s eyes. “I told myself that when I had a home, I’d do the opposite. I’d get all the weird little things I saw, that I liked. And I’d buy them and fill a whole place with them.”

Something softens even more in Kate’s chest. It melts, warm and slow, through her body. She smiles softly, hands reaching for Lucy’s waist and curling in her shirt. “So you bought them now.”

“I have a home now,” Lucy says simply. “I didn’t before.”

Kate tugs Lucy forward a few inches until their hips press together. Her forehead drops to Lucy’s. “I love them. Well, except—“

“The clown and the bathroom sign,” Lucy finishes. Her lips twitch in a smile. “Noted.” She presses up on her toes, their lips brushing. “What about a different bathroom sign?”

“How about no bathroom sign?” Kate counters. She presses their lips together with more purpose. “And a no bobble head rule.”

Lucy laughs softly. “I’ll cancel my order, then. It’s a shame. You would have been a cute bobble head.” She unwinds from Kate’s grip, picks up an orange slice, and crosses the apartment, grinning.

“That’s not funny, Lucy.” Kate frowns when Lucy only smiles wider. “That was Jesse,” she accuses. “I knew it! Lucy, that was so creepy!”

Lucy laughs and pops an orange slice into her mouth. “I was going to fill the apartment with the team until you said something,” she admits. “But I guess they can go in Ernie’s lair.”

Kate rolls her eyes as Lucy disappears into the bedroom. She looks around the apartment—at the K&L by the coffee maker, the Cowboys tissue box, the half-filled “Aloha Hawai’i” mug, the coffee pod container, the collection of candles growing at the unused end of the counter. All little things Lucy picked up, picked out for them.

Trinkets, knickknacks, souvenirs, baubles—it would take Lucy more than four trips to move out now. And Kate agrees, it makes it look like a home in her with all these things, these novelties handpicked by the woman she loves.

Lucy hums from the bedroom and Kate smiles to herself before she catches sight of the clown figurine. Her smile twists into disgust and she picks it up, opening the trash can and dropping it in. Some of these things she can live without.