As the door slams behind you, you wince at the noise it creates. With a headache like yours, every sound sounds like a gunshot. You toss the keys into the bowl on top of the dresser adjacent to the door and immediately regret the decision to throw them; the high pitched jangling doesn't seem to help the throb in your temples either. You kick off your shoes haphazardly and immediately collapse onto the sofa. You close your eyes and rub your forehead; you remember your papi telling you that rubbing that area can help with the headaches. Something about relieving the tension in the nerves there but you're not sure, you're not a doctor. The moment of silence is quickly broken by a rumble from your stomach. You groan. Though you're incredibly hungry, you really aren't in the mood to get up and make something for yourself. You think of home and how you would just call out for Mami and she'd fix you something. She'd bring it up to your room and stroke your hair, willing your headache away. But she can't now. She's 500 miles away and you're in your rundown apartment alone.
Eventually the hunger gets to you and you push yourself up and roll off the couch, literally. You're on the floor and normally you'd laugh at how drunk you must seem, even though you haven't touched a drink in ages. You wait for a familiar voice to call you a dork and pull you up, but yet again you're reminded of your loneliness. The owner of the voice you're expecting for is back home, back with your mum, back where everything was right.
Living on a waitress' salary means living on a lot of instant noodles. Last year you relished eating such foods; being the head cheerleader and all round top bitch meant you had to keep watch of what you ate, but now you have no choice. You're sick of instant noodles. You hate their artificialness and you can taste the preservatives and everything feels plastic in your mouth. Still, food is food and it satisfies your stomach for now.
After finishing your substitute for real food, you decide to take a long, hot bath. That'll help your headache. Well, at least you hope so. As you let the hot water fill up the bathtub, you undress quietly, tossing your waitress uniform into your overflowing basket of old clothes. You chastise yourself for forgetting to do the laundry and make a quick reminder to do it before work tomorrow. You pour in some lavender oil into the bathtub. Though you know you probably shouldn't waste your earnings on such things, you allow yourself this one luxury. Baths are important to you and an important part of your routine, they have been for years. You slide in carefully as possible, quickly noticing that perhaps the water is a bit too hot, but at the same time grateful for its heat. You close your eyes once again and lean your head against the rim of the bathtub, allowing your body to melt into the heat, the aroma soaking into your skin and filling up your senses. This could be perfect, but you know it's missing one thing. Or, well, one person. The moment is ruined by your thoughts of her, and your body aches for her touch. The best you can do for now is imagine. Imagine her holding you, massaging your scalp, trailing her fingers up your arms, drawing lazy circles in the water. But you know that all the imagination in the world is nothing compared to the real thing.
You get out of the water once it starts losing its heat. You dry yourself and slip on a pair of shorts and one of her T-shirts. It's large on you, but that's why you love it so much. And perhaps because it smells so much like her. You can't describe the smell. It's what summer smells like. It's what rain smells like. It's what grass and trees smell like. It's what Brittany smells like.
Though you know you should be spending your time looking for some potential acting jobs; that is the reason why you've moved to New York, you decide that tonight is not the night. Though your headache is nearly gone, you can still feel a dull ache. So you decide to head to bed early. You hop into your bed, and pull the covers over your shoulders. Your IPod is on your nightstand where you left it last night, and every night before that. You turn on the playlist named 'Home' and allow the music to consume you. Your wrap one arm around your torso and one arm grasps onto the opposite shoulder. You don't know whether your body does that so it knows what it feels like to be held, or so it knows what it feels like to hold someone else, but it does it out of pure memory regardless. The music is the only thing preventing you from over-thinking things; back when you first arrived in New York, you found that dark thoughts constantly filled your head and prevented you from sleeping. However, the music does nothing to block out the nightmares you have.
Nothing can.