One. Two. Three. Four. Abed counted the steps from his chair to the kitchen.
Six. Seven. Eight. He needed to refill his bowl of cereal. He didn't know what else to do. Troy had left 14 minutes ago and he had heard Annie leave earlier that morning. She was always the first one up.
Abed turned around. One. Two. He could hear his feet on the floor. It was Saturday and since both Troy and Annie were gone he supposed he would just spend the afternoon watching tv. Abed sat down and looked around at the empty apartment. He felt a pang in his chest that surprised him. He was lonely.
Abed scrunched up his brow. He had spent a lot of time alone before he made friends at Greendale. Apparently, they had changed him; he was starting to rely on them. Abed wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
Taking a bite of cereal, he turned back to the tv. He tried letting the characters fill up the strange empty space in his chest. He tried letting their voices echo through his head. Nothing lasted. Five minutes later his chest still felt empty and his mind was back on his friends.
He wondered what they were doing at that very moment. He knew Troy was spending the day with his parents. He was probably greeting them right now, smiling and laughing. Not lonely. Abed quickly tried to take his mind off of Troy.
Annie. Abed didn't even know where she was. She left around nine. That was 92 minutes ago. He'd been asleep until he heard movement in her room. He listened to her tiptoe across the floor and open the door. He had taught himself to recognize her quiet steps. He liked to know where she was. Just in case.
He hadn't gone back to sleep after she left. Abed had just laid there, thinking about his dream and listening to Troy's breathing on the bottom bunk. Abed blinked his eyes, trying to bring himself back to the present. He took another bite of cereal and tried to shut off his brain.
He'd dreamt about her again. Annie. It wasn't coherent. It was just her. Her legs. Her fingers. Her hair falling onto her shoulders. He didn't know what it meant - he didn't want to know. It was just beautiful and graceful. It was just Annie. It made him happy and that was all that mattered.
The sound of a key in the lock startled him. He breathed in deeply and watched as Annie entered. For the briefest moment, Abed felt flustered; it was if she had caught him doing something he wasn't suppose to. He quickly rearranged his face into its normal stoic indifference.
She turned to face him. Her arms were wrapped around two bags of groceries. Her fingers, long and splayed, crinkled the brown paper.
"Hey Abed," she said with a smile. The tone of her voice tilted up at the end of his name. He loved that sound.
"Could you help me put the groceries away?"
Abed waggled his eyebrows at her, but her back was turned and she didn't notice. Of course, milady, he said to himself, pretending to be Jeff. He was sure that Annie would prefer if Jeff was there to help her. Strong, collected, and convincing Jeff wouldn't just help Annie - he'd do it for her. Or he would convince her to do it all herself. The more Abed thought about it, the more he assumed it would be the later.
He got up and walked over to her. He watched as she stacked a pile of items for him to put away. They all went in cupboards that she would need to climb on the counter in order to reach. It made him feel needed, and he liked that.
Abed looked down at her from above. He liked to think of Annie as tiny and fragile. He knew that wasn't true. She was small, but she definitely wasn't fragile. She was tough and independent, but you couldn't see that from looking at her. He looked at the slope of her shoulders. She had put her hair up, which was a rare occurrence for her. He could see the freckles on the back of her neck.
She turned to face him, breaking him out of his spell.
"You were up early," he said to her.
She laughed, "Not that early!"
"It's Saturday," Abed said pointedly.
"I couldn't sleep."
Neither could I.
He didn't say it aloud, he didn't want her to know he'd been listening to her get up. He felt like it was a secret, and he wanted to keep it for himself.