Authors notes: I'm posting this here instead of in the first chapter. Hello, how are you? Thank you for reading my work. I would be very thankful if you left a review. The story will be written in short snippets, at least to begin with but it is a work up to a mystery/romance theme.
Emily was ripped from her dreamless sleep on Saturday morning by a loud knock on the door.
"Hello, Emily, are you awake yet?"
She got up from bed and shuffled for the door. Hanna beamed excitingly at her when the door was opened and shook a goody bag that she had in her arms.
"I got you bagels and some coffee. You still like Americano, right?" Hanna said.
"Yes. Of course. Thank you Hanna. You didn't have to. Really." Emily looked a bit nervous stricken around. When she had given Hanna her address she was expecting that the blond would pick her up and they would go to a café together. She wasn't exactly expecting her to come barging into her room and she wasn't really sure that she wanted to have that conversation. Not now. Possibly, not ever.
"So, is it a bedroom-first apartment?" Hanna asked and looked around the room. "Do you have a kitchen or a dining room where we could sit down and eat?"
"Uhm, the thing is, you're sort of looking at it," Emily said awkwardly. When Hanna's face turned into a big question mark, Emily gave her small demonstration. "The thing in the far corner, that's my kitchenette. And in the corner next to that there is a pull out table and a folding chair. I had two actually, but one of them broke down. But don't worry. I mostly eat at the caféteria at campus."
"But, do you have a couch or anything..." Hanna said and put her bag down.
"Well, you just put your stuff on it," Emily answered. "It's also a bed. I can't really fit both in here."
Hanna seemed to be at a loss for words.
"I'm so sorry Emily. I didn't mean to imply that..."
"You know, forget it. It doesn't matter," Emily smiled. "Whatever it was that you were expecting."
There was an awkward silence. Something hung between them but neither of them could completely catch what it was.
"You know what," Emily said. "You can take the chair. I'll just sit on the bed."
A few moments later the two women had devoured the bagels and were zipping lazily on their coffees. Hanna had moved to the sofa and was leaning her head on Emily's shoulder.
"So, basically the grant that they provided was generous. But it doesn't mean that it covers all cost. The tuition is pretty hefty," Emily started counting out on her fingers. "And then of course I need food and lodging. And then there are the text books. They made me buy a new version of a text book that I had when I dropped out, but I swear it's just the same book with the chapters rearranged a bit."
"I suspected that as well when I was looking over some of the older versions of the text books that I bought for my online classes," Hanna let out a hearty laugh. She stared at Emily defiantly. "What? Do you think that Spencer is the only one that can do some calculative comparisons? I'm not pursuing an MBA degree so I can push pencils around Emily."
"Yeah, I know," Emily said. "Sorry. It's good to see you finally allowing yourself to be ambitious. I sometimes felt that you played yourself a little dumb back in Rosewood."
"It was a surviving mechanism Fields," Hanna leaned back on the couch. "So, how did you come by this...cozy little place?"
"You don't have to try so hard to say nice things about this place. I know it's sort of dumpy. The guy that lives upstairs used to serve with my dad. He got injured a couple of years back and had to retire. He and my mom started talking when he showed up for my dad's funeral. No Hanna. Nothing like that. It's just, he lost his wife to cancer back in 2009 so they liked emailing each other. Talking about the grief and stuff. He has a daughter my own age that used to live here but she moved to Pennsylvania some time ago for work. So he offered me the room for a meager fee, which is great because I was getting really desperate to find a place in my price range, which was really raining on my parade."
Hanna giggled.
"It's a figure of speech Hanna!"
"I'm sorry. Okay I'm not sorry."
"You're such an idiot sometimes."
Hanna and Emily stood outside the apartment and hugged goodbye.
"I'm really sorry that I have to leave so early," Hanna said. "The woman I'm doing my mid-term project with just called and she is freaking out. Apparently she's not getting anything that I wrote."
"No problem. Just call me next time before you show up at my door."
"Yeah, maybe we can go somewhere."
"Yeah, I'd like that."
"It was nice catching up with you Emily," Hanna said while getting into her car. "You can call me any time. Compared to the distance that used to be between us, since I moved to California we're practically neighbors. So don't be a stranger."
Emily waved Hanna off and watched as her car disappeared behind the turn.
"I won't. Not anymore."