It happened unexpectedly and so wonderfully. They finally met, face-to-face, at the apartment complex's pool. He hated water, but since she spent so much time at the pool, he decided he might as well at least sit pool-side.
She was startled to see anyone else there; he knew she usually swam alone. She could swim perfectly fine, but she preferred to cling to an oversized pool noodle, dipping her goggled face under the water to watch the patterns the water's reflection made on the pool walls. She watched him appreciatively as he set up his stuff on the fake grass near hers, likely appreciating his physique; he was (usually) as athletic as she was sedentary. He sat poolside in his trademark turtleneck sweater, watching the small waves of the pool. He was athletic and naturally skilled at most things he tried, but terror was holding him back from going into the water. But maybe, for her.….
While he was still paralyzed with indecision and—dare he admit it?—fear, she had swum up to the fake grass where he sat. Supported by her large purple pool noodle, she hovered in the deep end, gently treading water.
"Hi!" she greeted him cheerfully. He looked around for a moment, unsure whether she was addressing someone else—but of course, there was no one else here.
"Hey," he replied, trying to keep his voice casual.
"The water's nice." An invitation.
Temptation wrestled with fear and trauma. Before he could think about it, he blurted out, "The last time I was in a pool, I broke every bone in my body, for the second time. My girlfriend—my ex-girlfriend pushed me." He decided not to share about having almost drowned as a kid, at least, for now.
"Oh." Horror. Had Trent made a mistake in revealing that? Was she thinking, what kind of man must this be, for a woman to break all his bones?
But then she said something unexpected—"You poor dear!"—and looked like she might cry, like she was tempted to climb out of the pool and embrace him, perhaps kiss away his sorrow and agony. "Bad breakup?" she wanted to know.
He blinked, taken aback by her compassion. It was almost overwhelming, because it wasn't what he was used to. "The worst," he said truthfully. "I loved her so much, and she—" He choked up, unable to continue.
She pushed her noodle away and hoisted herself up out of the pool, then sat beside him and tentatively touched his hand. It was the most soothing balm he could imagine, and it radiated from his hand through his entire body.
"It's really brave of you to come sit here," she said. "You know, I've seen you round the complex. You're right under me, aren't you?" The pool was still residents-only; California had only recently reopened and a lot of businesses were playing it safe. They weren't supposed to be closer than within six feet of each other, but she didn't seem to mind.
"Yes," he said. "That's me, Trent, your downstairs neighbor."
Her eyes lit up with glee at having been right. "I'm Cygnet. I've seen you coming and going." She'd also doubtless seen notifications about him on her social media—subtlety wasn't always his strong suit—but whether she'd genuinely forgotten or was being tactful, she didn't mention it.
And just like that, he was in. They had an easy chemistry, something he'd never experienced before. This felt right, this felt real. She didn't think he was a "weirdo face" or "repulsive", no. She complimented his athleticism, imagined he would take to water like a fish when he was healed-up emotionally. She liked the color of his hair, how soft and shiny it looked. She thought he was fun, and funny, and other marvelous things he filed away in his mind as he floated on a cloud of bliss.
When they got out of the pool, she added him on Facebook and followed him back on the other social media sites they were both on, and then invited him up to her apartment to hang out some more. He was ecstatic!
The apartment was a mess, with sealed cans they hadn't bothered to put back in the cupboards, and baby toys strewn round rather than confined to the 60-square-inch playpen in their living room. They had a small personal dishwasher on one of their countertops and multiple racks of drying dishes on every other available space, including atop the tray of the baby's high chair.
She introduced him to her husband, who seemed nice enough, and the baby, a one-year-old who was just barely learning to walk. The baby seemed to take after his father; his head was covered in tiny ringlet curls, while his father wore his hair in locs. They had similar facial structures, although the father had dimples and the baby did not. The baby had his father's nose and his father's laugh and—as he giggled up at Trent, Trent noticed—his mother's almond-shaped eyes. Unbidden, the lyrics of a song came to Trent's mind:
Your eyes, your eyes, I can see in your eyes, your eyes…
He remembered the first day he'd seen Cygnet, in her Make Me Wanna Die T-shirt. He wondered if she still had it.
The baby—Elior—was trying to climb into Trent's lap the second Trent sat in the "guest chair" Cygnet set up for him, on the other side of the end table from her recliner.
"He likes you," the father—Clarence—cooed from his desk in the corner of the room. Trent smiled back at Elior as Cygnet picked him up and cuddled him.
"He'll probably cry if you try to hold him though," she observed. "He likes new people, but he's picky about who gets to pick him up."
"A-deh," Elior agreed. Cygnet sat down with him, rocking him a little in the rocking recliner, and turned on the TV. They watched a movie Elior had unwittingly bought on Xfinity when playing with the remote, one of the cute Disney cartoons. Clarence didn't seem too thrilled, but he conceded it was better than watching You for the third time.
After the movie was time for Elior to go to bed, then Clarence decided to go for a grocery run. Elior had just switched to whole milk, Clarence explained, and they were almost out. That reminded Cygnet that she needed to boil some more fruits and vegetables for Elior's solid meals, and after that, she invited Trent to her studio to check out some of the projects she was working on.
The studio was cozy, with a pile of twin-sized memory foam against one side of the wall, various textile projects pinned to the walls, and sets of DIY drawers and shelves housing other craft projects and books. There was a task board pinned to the wall with sticky notes taped to it, over a desk that housed two laptops—one for recording media and one for everything else, Cygnet explained. Trent found the effect altogether charming.
"Do you sleep in here?" he asked, indicating the memory foam, with its triangular support pillow and man-sized teddy bear.
"Sometimes," she replied airily. "The AC in the master bedroom is loud, but Elior likes to wake up and babble in the middle of the night. It doesn't bother Clarence unless Elior outright starts crying, but it's a little harder for me. Sensory issues."
"It's comfy," Trent noted, settling down on the foam. Cygnet smiled and brought one of her computers over. She went through the various projects she was working on and how each one was categorized on Etsy and her band's merch shop on Facebook, indicating various things round the room for emphasis. He watched her, watched her move, watched her talk, and decided he was falling deeper and deeper in love with her. They stayed up all night watching You together. Trent told her that his ex had a younger brother who bore an uncanny resemblance to Paco.
At about 5:30 the next morning, their marathon was interrupted by Elior's wake-up cries. Cygnet handed Trent the computer and stumbled out to collect Elior, change his diaper, warm his milk, and feed him. The walls were thin enough that Trent was able to hear Clarence asking her if she'd stayed up all night again. She affirmed that yes, she and Trent had stayed up all night watching You, and later they were planning to read the books together and compare the book characters to their TV counterparts.
"You need to sleep," Clarence insisted. Cygnet agreed—she'd go to bed in their bedroom, Trent would go back to his own apartment, and he could come over later for their new book and media club, where they'd consume all the disturbing and/or "girly" stuff Clarence had no interest in.
Over the next few weeks. Trent managed to make friends with Clarence too. They played Magic: The Gathering together (Trent went out and bought his own deck after hearing Clarence try and fail to engage Cygnet in conversation about an online version); they went to the park and practiced sword-fighting with padded batons; Trent even talked the both of them into letting him take care of food and housework. He naturally excelled in almost everything he tried and presented an interesting challenge as an opponent both in Magic and swordplay, which surprised Clarence. Soon it was like he, too, was a part of the family. He could play Dark Souls with Clarence or Spiritfarer with Cygnet; even Elior warmed to him to the point where Trent could change his diapers and carry him without a fuss.
She and Clarence made up fun little songs, sometimes songs referencing other songs, based on what they were doing at the time, often to troll each other. Trent picked up the habit, too, and his songs fit in just fine with theirs. He felt that he and Cygnet were on the same wavelength regarding everything, from what they would have for dinner to what they thought about various fictional characters. He agreed that Joe Goldberg had an overly-charitable view of his love interests, and he noticed that, while Cygnet loved and embraced her female friends in real life, she was highly critical of women on TV and in books. She angrily referred to Guinevere Beck as a flighty, self-absorbed airhead, for example, though she adored Love Quinn, at least, the version of Love in the show. She didn't have a high opinion of Love from the second book, or of Mary Kay DiMarco from the third.
He was doing all of this out of love for Cygnet. She wasn't going to let him break up the family (not that he was dumb enough to try), so he would have to become a part of it. There was a possibility in his mind that, because both of them had displayed polyamorous leanings in the past, they could even become a throuple. Trent's interest was always single-target, but in theory, he didn't mind doing what he had to do to remain close to that target.
When he did go back to his own apartment and take time to think, he thought about how wondrous and rare it was that he was being accepted so easily. Clarence hadn't batted an eye at his wife inviting Trent over, nor at them staying up all night watching Netflix together. Despite their past issues (which, as Trent knew from reading Cygnet's diary online, were numerous), they trusted each other implicitly now. Clarence and Cygnet had vastly different interests, but they were still reasonably compatible as a couple. It felt like home here, in a way Trent couldn't explain.
Unlike Rebecca, Cygnet appreciated him for more than his cooking skills. She was warm and loving. She hadn't invited him to bed with her, and he wasn't presumptuous enough to ask, but the way she treated him was more than enough for him to believe that someday, perhaps, he had a chance at being more than just a neighbor and friend. She wasn't looking to cheat on Clarence, and Trent wouldn't ask her to, but there was definitely something there….