My Home is deep inside the mystics

“No, don’t worry about it,” Caroline said in that sing-song voice, as her fingers swiped the display downwards. She and I had been reading through a posting by her friend that lived in the capitol. In my head, I read the phrase ‘must be able to tolerate the smell of oil paint’ and I wondered if it would be a good idea to take up Caroline’s offer.

“Look, Em. The flat she’s renting is literally five blocks away from your new office. Pria’s a cool girl. Putting aside the mess she makes from all the paintings she does, you’d love living with her,” Caroline told me as she zoomed in on a provided map on the want ad. She scrolled further down and we looked at pictures of the flat. It was, indeed, rather spacious for a single person. Paintings lined the deep blue walls of the otherwise empty apartment.

“All right, fine,” I said. “I’ll take it. What’s your friend’s name again?”

“Pria Marjolaine,” a teethy smile greeted me as she shut the tablet’s display and reached for her phone. I could see her scan her phone’s contacts and her smile somehow faded as she did.

“Can’t you come with me?” I asked sheepishly, feeling like a child. I heard her laugh just before she could tap the call button.

“That’s sweet,” she said, looking over. She didn’t say anything else and so I sat there, on her bed, quiet. I could hear the faint ringtone, as Caroline called this friend of hers I’d never even heard of. You would think that, after being her flat mate for two years, I would know most everything about her. It was just like Caroline, to suddenly and conveniently just happen to have a friend in the capitol, right in the part of the city where I was to be transferred for work. It was just like her to have never talked about this girl named Pria until now either.

“Pri? It’s Caroline. I saw your want ad and I know someone who’s interested in taking up the offer. Yeah, she doesn’t mind the smell of paint. Yes. She’s moving out there for work,” I couldn’t help but feel like a stranger as Caroline’s voice seemed to have transformed. There was a certain fondness, as if Caroline had been missing this girl named Pria all this time and had only wanted a good reason to call again.

“Oh, she’s sweet, don’t worry,” Caroline turned towards me and winked. “Yes, like I said, she’s getting transferred because of work.”

Caroline’s sentences turned into phrases soon, and at this point, I no longer listened. I felt invisible, somehow.

“Thanks, Pri. You’re the best,” Caroline finally hung up and settled her phone down. She got up and smiled at me again. “D’you wanna have pizza delivered?”

“Y-yeah,” I said. I’d almost forgotten where I was.

The pizza came around 15 minutes after we had placed our orders. After stuffing ourselves, we retreated to the couch and skimmed through the channels. Nothing good seemed to be on. That, however, was the least of my thoughts. I kept wondering who this Pria was and why Caroline seemed so happy to hear her voice again.

“You’ve never mentioned her before,” I asked her, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Hm?”

“Prim or… what’s her name…” I said, pretending to not know the girl’s name. That was a lie. I knew the girl’s name precisely. I had been thinking about it so much, about how the sound of it rolled off Caroline’s lips like honey. For the past hour, nothing but the name ‘Pria Marjolaine’ swam through my mind. I didn’t realize I could despise the sound of a name before.

“Pria,” there she said it again. I felt the hairs on my back stand on end. “She’s an old friend from college.”

“Uh huh,” I said, too shy to ask more questions.

She looked at me and smiled, as if to say ‘just ask me already’. Then, she looked away and I could see the TV’s light reflecting in her eyes and on her soft skin. She bit her lip and I felt my world go into slow motion.

“She and I were roommates at our university’s boarding school. We became best friends, even though we only ever saw each other at our rooms. She was an art student and I was a literature major. You could tell how that went.”

“No, I can’t,” I said. “How did it go?”

“Well,” she laughed. “We were both artists. True, it was different forms of art, but art nonetheless. She would paint day and night about her grievances and the little beauty this world could offer. I would write about the magic of a moment and about the tortures of everyday life. It was…”

“Was..?”

“…intense. The very definition of living for the moment.” she breathed heavily as she said this and I could feel myself vomit a little. Yet, I could not understand why I felt so revolted by this secret friendship. Was it jealousy? Was I just a roommate, something less of what she and Pria had? I’ve heard of people sharing the same home, yet never even stopping for a moment to share a word. Was I just another person in her life? I couldn’t get over it.

“So, what happened?” I said. It was too late to stop asking now.

“She got really good. Some artists over at the capitol inducted her into the art scene over there and so, she had to move. She had an art show just last week, she said,” there was a hint of sadness in her voice and it seemed to pierce my chest, too.

“And you?”

“I stayed here, writing,” she told me with a smile and a pat on the head, as if she had been talking to a pet this entire time. She stood up to take the pizza box in front of us, I assumed, to throw it out. I watched her silhouette as she crossed the dim room and over to our kitchen. Never have I ever related to a pizza box so much in my life. I felt like I was being thrown out of her life, too.

I thought of how long I would be away from her and it made my chest ache. I thought of how these might be my last days with her, until the day I move out to join her Pria. The outline of her body, the shadow of it peeking from the thin shirt she wore—my shirt—made me think of the scent she leaves on my bed sometimes. The sound of her footsteps as she made her way across our hardwood floors made me think of the way she sings in the shower sometimes. All these things made me miss her, and I hadn’t even left yet.

That night, I was kept awake, thinking of how Caroline and Pria must have been speaking, all this time. To me, it seemed like betrayal. That short phone call made me feel like Caroline and I were nothing more than two strangers under the same roof, after all. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to ring true. I had never met her family; I had never heard of any of her ex-lovers. I didn’t even know about her friends, apparently. I just knew that she was a writer—one who liked the colors of auburn and moss green; who smiled at dogs as they passed our sidewalk; and one who had a fondness for spicy food that I could never understand. She was one who always woke up calmly from a nightmare and carried amulets in her pocket for good luck. I paused and thought of what Pria must know about Caroline and I realized I didn’t know anything about my roommate at all.

I gripped my sheets and forced myself to sleep.

In the morning, I woke to the sound of the phone ringing. Groggily, I crawled out of bed and rushed to the flat’s foyer, but it went to voicemail before I could pick it up.

The voice that came on was low, but somehow comforting.

“Hey Carol? It’s Pri. I was just gonna say, the day that your friend is gonna come fly out is the day before an art show. It’s a joint art show. Belle and I are running it. You’d love it. So…” it felt like it was going to go on forever. Should I take it? Should I answer the call?

Before I knew it, my hands were reaching for the phone.

“Hi, I, uh, this is… Emmie.”

“Oh,” I heard her, loud and clear, and I could tell I had caught her off guard.

“I was just trying to… leave a message for Carol,” she said.

“Oh, Caroline.”

“Yeah, Carol. Is she home?”

“No.”

“Hm. Well, I guess I’ll call again later,” she hung up immediately and I didn’t know what to make of that call. I let my fingers linger on the phone as the dial tone rang through the silence of my flat. No sooner than I had turned did Caroline come in through our front door, carrying what looked like a tiramisu.

“Surprise!” she said with a huff. “I was going to make pancakes, but I figured your favorite cake would be better or something.”

“What’s this for?” I walked towards her and placed my hands on the transparent plastic box. I could see her hands tremble. It must have been cold outside. I looked up to see that she isn’t turning to look at me. I watched her bite lip. Her words were fumbled, but to me, it was clear as day:

“Well, you’re leaving soon. I wanted to make it sort of… okay.”

My next few days were spent with her. Whenever I wasn’t at work, at the advertising firm in my grey cubicle, I was at home, with her. She would twirl her fingers through my hair idly, as her other hand held a pen to write her stories. On nights when she didn’t want to write, we would stay in her dark room, lit only by the dim moon.  Those were my favorite nights, when her scent and mine seemed to mix in the sheets. I would feel her lips, lightly brazing my skin as I cradled her head in my shoulder. I would hear her voice in the stillness of the room, singing a lullaby I had never heard of. I would hear her whisper, saying ‘I hope you fall in love with the city’ right before she would drift off to sleep and leave me with my heart beating fast against the soft skin of her cheeks. It was dreamlike, but better.

Then, the night before my flight to the big city, she ushered me into the dark room. There was no moon this time, and only the light from a far away street lamp seeped into her windows - a sleepy yellow against the darkness.

“Come,” she told me. “Stay with me.”

“No writing tonight?” I asked, feeling her soft hands in mine. She climbed into her bed and under the sheets. I followed and she crawled close to me, wrapping her warm arms around my waist. I felt her shake her head against me, telling me ‘no’. I closed my eyes. I was hers again, just for the night. My breathing steadied and I could not think of anything else but the feeling of her hair tangling up in my fingers and the touch of her breasts as she pressed against me, tightly.

We were quiet for a long, long time, until the sheets shifted and her head left the nook of my neck to hover over me. I could barely see her in the dark. I could only see her eyes.  They were so earnest, in that moment.

“Keep this a secret for me, please,” she said, in a small, hushed tone. Then, she came closer and started kissing my forehead. I had closed my eyes at this point. I could only feel her lips, softer than I had ever imagined, trailing down my nose, to my cheeks and finally to my lips. Her lips shivered as she kissed me, so fragile and terrified, as if they might break should I ask her to stop.

So I didn’t.

The night passed me by in a blur. It only felt real to me, in the early morning, when I woke up in her bed half-dressed and ridden with her love bites. She woke up beside me, yawning, telling me she’d drive me to the airport in a barely audible voice. We drove off soon after, loading my suitcases in the trunk of her small car and I sat in the passenger seat. She greeted me with a kiss as soon as I put my seatbelt on. We barely talked on the way there. Perhaps we didn’t have to. Perhaps I would only feel sadder if we did.

I wrapped my scarf around my neck a bit tighter, trying to hide the marks of her kisses. She laughed when she saw me from the corner of her eye, her lips stretching to that fanciful smile I knew so well. That was the most of a conversation we had at that time, and she didn’t speak to me until I was just about to check my bags in.

Closely, she whispered, “a secret, remember?”

I nodded, not knowing what to really say. It was like she had claimed me, but not really-- hers, but not entirely. Her hands felt warm against my cold, nervous cheeks. Suddenly, my parting felt real. I knew that I would never find this warmth elsewhere. I knew that I would miss it intensely, especially tonight and in the nights that will follow. Even more so, I will miss it in the mornings, when the cold seeps into my very bones… when not even the warmest cup of coffee can dispel the chill.

“Farewell, Em,” she smiled and kissed me lightly, leaving a bit of lipstick on my lips. She brought her hand to her cheeks and heaved a sigh before turning to walk away. My goodbye hung frozen in the air between us. I could only watch her walk further and further away from me. I came over to the airport to check-in somewhat dazed, barely even realizing that I had already gone through all the procedures until I finally got to the departure area. The image of Caroline walking away from me lingered in my mind and I could not help but wonder if it were a good idea, really, to leave so suddenly. It was useless now, to think of such things, but I could not help myself. Now that Caroline had done what she did—had kissed me in the dark and asked me to be her secret—I could not get over it. She had not, once, told me she loved me as we kissed and this bothered me. All she had said was to “keep this secret”, and I did not know what exactly it was that she wanted me to keep secret. Was it the kiss or was it the possibility of her having feelings for me? Who was I to tell anyway? So many things puzzled me, and soon my time to board the plane came.

As a mini update, I am now obsessed with amazingphil and danisnotonfire (great) and, of course, my unhealthy obsession with let's-players is ongoing-- like a train rushing into a set of tracks that goes straight into a pit of shame. 

Also, there's my thesis, but who gives a flying horse, really *nervous laughter*

thestratospheric replied to your post “Okay so the other day, I went to school and I got to see a bunch of...”

at least it wasn't "hail hydra"? HAHAHA

good point yes

So our thesis professor released our syllabus and I've already marked all our deadlines

the other day, I went to school and I got to see a bunch of people for the first time after the break

and there's this girl (we'll call her Pau) and I actually am in pretty good vibes with her since she's pretty cool and sweet and stuff

and when I come over to her to hug her, she pulls me in and whispers in my ear "Join Commres Society"