Two movies later (one rom-com, one crime based thriller), and Emily is half asleep. She's also hyper, which, how do you even do that? Anyway, she's mumbling through her speech, but I can hear her going on about swimming. It's not raining anymore, but there's water puddles everywhere. I went to the mail office between the second and third movies and had to walk extra carefully so I wouldn't get my feet wet. Flip flops weren't exactly my brightest idea.
"But, like. Really though. I wanna swim. Please." She just kind of repeats herself in a whiny way that's a cross between endearing and irritating.
"I understand that you want to get your swim on, Ems, but you're basically a zombie right now," her pout makes her look like a fish. Which is ironic, considering. "Look, I'll take you when you're a little more... alive."
"You promise?" Her eyes aren't even open.
"Sure," the corners of her lips upturn just slightly before reverting to a straight line, "I'm gonna take you to my room so you can get some sleep, alright?"
She nods into my shoulder and lifts her arms the same way a little kid would to signal that they wanted to be picked up, so I do just that. Slinging my right arm under her legs and my left around her waist, I start to make my way towards the bedroom. Her head burrows into the contours of my neck, and she ends up kicking over a couple boxes along the way. When we get to the bedroom, she tightens her arms around my neck before asking me to stay.
"This is my house, I'm not going anywhere." I say with amusement lacing my tone. Emily nods and wraps herself around my pillow, gripping my hand until I start to lean onto the bed. She just kind of looks at me, and the sunlight streaming in through the blinds makes her eyes shine a shade brighter. It's like the over dramatized, intense styled stare that people give each other in crappy indie movies that no one bothers to watch. Except, not stupid, nor typical. There is an intensity to it, though, that shifts the air a bit in a way that I'm not used to.
Soon enough her blinks grow longer and her breathing gets quieter before she nods her head into my pillow, loosening her hand's grasp around mine.
I don't really understand why the people in the movies look at each other the way they do, or how they fall into weird habits like watching the other person sleep. Because being here, next to Emily while she prances around in a world of make believe, feels like I'm encroaching into foreign territory.
So I just lay there, fidgeting as silently as possible, sleepless in the middle of the afternoon.
"Jesus fuck, that's cold!"
"As much as I admire your colorful vocabulary, Santana, there are other matters I would like to discuss than that of the temperature of whatever it is you're feeling."
"Oh, how I've missed you." Rachel's never been too good at patience.
"And how I've missed your biting sarcasm. Really, I don't know how I've made it without you. Anyway, if we could get past this and move onto the questions?" Her voice raises expectantly, and I consent her to go on. "Yes, so, starting out with the most important thing; are you being safe?"
I can't really help but laugh because, safe? What even? But then Rachel spurs on about my health and well being, and that my safety should always be my number one priority. But then, "scratch that, number two. A vast knowledge of musical theory and history are quite necessary if you want to be interesting to anybody, ever," so.
But whatever. "Since you mentioned it, Rach, I meant to call sooner. It's gotten pretty bad, actually. The prostitutes living next door roped me in, and now I'm involved in an escaped prison gang that goes by the acronym JMQ. I forget what the letters all mean, but I think it's something like 'Juicy Meth Queens' or some shit. I'll ask."
There's a pause on the other end of the line, which means that Rachel is counting down from ten, and then her voice rumbles through the speaker. "Glad you're getting on with the neighbors." I can practically hear her eyes rolling through the phone. "You mentioned a girl, didn't you?"
"The prostitutes are women, yes."
Her sighs do this thing where they gradually get louder the more irritated she gets. It's hilarious.
"I was refering to your voicemail, actually. Something with an 'E'. Emma?"
"No."
"Eve,"
"No."
"Elphaba,"
"God, no."
"Ellen,"
"No."
"Esther,"
"She's not a psycho, murderous ladychild."
"Elanor,"
"You suck at this game."
"Elisa,"
"Her name is Emily."
Brief silence is met before, "Hm. Emily. I believe that means driven," I feel obligated to shake my head at that, because really, Rachel would have name meanings stocked in the crevasses of her brain. "What's she like?" I must have paused longer than necessary, which led to more questions. "Is she pretty? Do you like her? She's single, right? Does she have family in New York? What does she like to d-"
"Rach, could you stop interrogating me for two seconds? She's really cool. She's easy on the eyes, yeah. I haven't really asked if she's involved with anyone or whatever, but I mean, we're sort of on a date, and I don't think sh-"
"You're on a date? You've been there for literally two days."
"Yes, I am, and yes, I have been."
"Well, where is this Emily? It's rather rude of you to be on the phone while she's trying to engage in conversation and the like, Santana!" My laugh sets her off more.
Honestly, I just really miss the girl. Rachel's my best friend, and that whole absence makes the heart grow fonder piece is annoyingly true. I miss her yelling at me, and tackling me with questions, and actually tackling me. That girl is a ball of energy, it's crazy. I mean, I know I sound gross because it's just been a couple of days, but me and Rachel were honestly never apart. Especially the week before I left. We tried to spend as much time together as possible. There was only one night that we weren't together, which was that Thursday. Every other night we stayed at Rachel's house with her dads, usually watching movies and eating some disgustingly healthy tasting vegan meal she or the Berry men made. Most days they treated me more like family than my own did.
Cutting off my laugh, I finally answer her before she starts to ramble, "Don't lose your shit, Sweets. Em fell asleep after we watched some movies, so I went to check out the pool down the block. Where the water, as I previously mentioned, is cold as fuck."
Another pause (read: another countdown from ten), and then Rachel is telling me to be careful, and have fun on the rest of my date.
"Will do, Rach. Talk to you later, yeah?"
"Of course. In the meantime, take care of my city. Love you, Tana."
"Yeah, yeah. I love you, back. Later, Chel."
Rachel hangs up and I start the walk back down the street, and slowly but surely, I make it back into my apartment before Emily wakes up. It's only been about an hour or so since she fell asleep, give or take. I tried to let sleep take me under, but my legs were restless and my mind was racing.
There were still a lot of people I had yet to talk to, so I wanted to at least start. Now that I had checked in with Rachel, I could start working down the list of my friends in Lima. But that could wait.
Dropping my phone on the side table next to the door, I start towards the boxes again. I want to try and organize before I get complacent and the place starts getting messy. I think the worst part of this is realizing how hard this is going to be. Going from being seventeen and having little to no responsibility, to eighteen and living on my own. Obviously some things need to change for this lifestyle to work. As I unpack, I kind of just wish my dad was here. Or that I was there, in Ohio. He always made sure I was taken care of, no matter the cost. And I guess in a way, he's still doing that. He's still looking out for me.
It only would have gotten worse if I had stayed. With the berating I would have received from not only my mother, but from my grandmother, eventually I would break. The women that I spent seventeen years of my life watching, idolizing, they would have torn me apart. And okay, I know it's not exactly great news, but I didn't think that being me, being gay, would warrant that I leave the state and lose the people that I thought would never stray. They resent me now. Even though nothing has changed, even though I'm the same person I was two years ago, they dropped me. And that kind of really fucking sucks.
Four boxes later and I'm too distracted to really organize, so I retreat to my bedroom. Emily's still asleep, but she's sort of twitching, the same way Brittany does when she's having nightmares. If that's the case, I don't want to deal with an emotional Emily, because who knows how that could end up. Sliding into my former spot on the bed, I nudge her arm with mine until she nods her head into the pillow like she did earlier. She stops twitching, but she doesn't wake up.
"Em," I whisper, looking at the surrounding walls instead of where her eyes could meet mine again. "Ems, wake up." I'm pretty sure she's awake when she shifts her legs, but it's blatant when she groans.
"But why," she frowns and turns her head into my pillow, drawing in a deep breath. Luckily, she doesn't see me roll my eyes.
"Uh, cause you wanna swim. That's what you came here to do, believe it or not. So, I would like to take you swimming."
She turns over to face me again, curling herself into a ball around my pillow again, "How long have I been asleep?" then she looks outside the window to get a sense of what time it is.
Shrugging, I answer her, "Maybe an hour and a half? Not too long," this time her eyes dart around my room in search of a clock, "it's almost seven."
"Oh, shit. I'm sorry, I stole your bed and denied you of having basically any fun," She bites her lip and gets this far away look on her face. I wish I had half of a clue about what ever it is that's going on in her head.
"Nah, that's cool. You still up to swim?" Her eyes find mine again, but not the same way they did earlier. It's like she's not here, but I don't know where she's gone.
"Would you hate me if I asked for a rain check?"
The way my eyebrows furrow and my lips purse probably isn't reassuring. "Not if you have a kickass explanation."
She's the one shrugging this time, "When my roommate has to work the morning shift, I try to be in before ten so I don't wake him up."
Oh.
Alright.
I nod a little too excessively before putting my big girl panties on and using my words, "Oh. Alright." Way to make an ass of yourself, Lopez.
"Um, yeah. But, I could probably sneak in? If you really wanna go tonight, we can go tonight. Really." She looks guilty, and like, that's not cool, so I shake my head again and insist that it's fine.
"I totally understand. Rachel would have my ass if I did that to her, so I get that. We can reschedule," the confusion on her face wipes the small smile off of mine. "What?"
She looks around my bedroom and her nose scrunches up a little when her eyebrows come closer together. "Who's that?"
Before I know it's happening, I'm shaking my head again. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. "Rachel, she's my best friend, I was basically living with her before I came here," wait. "Well, she and her parents. She's really crazy about her sleep schedule and all that."
Emily nods, but there's this tension now, and what the fuck is that?
"She sounds interesting. Is she coming to visit you anytime soon?" Emily asks, nodding during the first half of her response.
I shrug, "Hope so. We're still trying to figure it all out."
"Can I meet her? If that's alright with you, of course," She puts her hands out in front of her, palms up.
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I don't see why not. Why?"
There's a lot of shrugging going on here. "I just think it'd be cool to meet someone from your hometown, especially your best friend." Her smile is so real, and I don't know how she can find common ground between a soft smile, and a grin that could take up half of her face.
"Yeah, cool," I smile back at her, and honestly, how does she do that? "Anyway, let me walk you home." She quirks her brow but smiles all the same, and we both move to the living room so she can gather her things. Within five minutes, we begin our trek to Emily's.
The walk back is relatively quiet, aside from talk of the movies we watched and the possible details of when our next date would take place. Her hand is in nonstop motion while locked with mine, though, which takes the conversation in another direction.
"I'm pretty sure you've changed the way you're holding my hand seven times now," I bump my shoulder with hers and she ducks her head, and that only makes her look cuter.
"I have this thing," she looks at me with serious facade before giggling and moving her gaze back to our feet, "I can't stop moving when I'm nervous, or excited, or anxious."
I laugh, too, but mostly because as she said that, her fingertips glide against the back of my hand. "So basically, you have to move your hands like you're jonesing, or what? You explode from the all the energy?" She shoves me with her shoulder before her laughter booms out of her chest, and our voices mix together until I'm not sure who's laughing.
She gives a nod, pushing her lips up into a frown, "Essentially, yes. I will literally combust."
We laugh almost the rest of the walk to her place, our fingers dancing together the whole time. It's kind of ridiculous.
Too soon, though, we end up at her door. It's like a twenty minute walk from mine, so that's fairly convenient. We smile at each other like total idiots and she reaches into her back pocket for her keys. She pulls them out, but she doesn't put one in the lock. Instead she looks at me, the same look she gave me before she fell asleep, and her smile grows.
"I had a really good time today, even without the swimming."
I smile back at her, kind of wishing she didn't have a roommate and that we were at the pool down the street from me, or even still in my apartment. "You're beautiful."
Well. That wasn't exactly on the list of things I planned to say, but it wasn't a lie, so.
It's like she can't stop smiling, and I really like that. I like her smile, and I like that I put it there.
"That's sweet. You are too, San." My eyes roll. I can't even help it at this point. She pulls me in by my other hand, and then both of them are released. Her arms wrap around me instead, and mine follow suit. With hers around my neck and mine around her waist, she pushes her nose against my neck. One of my hands drifts up and rests on her shoulder from behind. She smiles into my skin, and then presses her lips forward, kissing me just under my jaw.
Oh.
Okay.
She pulls away, and I swear she's blushing. We smile at each other again, and I wrap my fingers around her forearm, kissing her cheek before releasing her again.
"Goodnight, Ems."
She nods, still smiling. "Night, Santana."
