Chapter 3: "Come Down Now," They'll Say.
After spending a few blissful silent moments together, the girls begrudgingly parted and exited the car. Paige opened the trunk and Alex lifted the box that held her clothing. Paige grabbed the other and after awkwardly trying to reach up to pull the trunk down, decided it was best just to come back out to close it.
The two girls turned and looked up at the house. Alex inhaled the brisk air deeply, and blew out a cloud of breath.
"Ready?" Paige asked her.
"More than ready," came Alex's reply. She smiled at Paige and proceeded towards the door.
After several failed attempts to open the door without setting the boxes down, they giggled to each other and Paige hit the doorbell with her elbow.
"Paige! Alex! What took so long? Come on in!" Marco, beaming, ushered the girls in, holding the door open for them. He closed the door behind him then continued. "Alex, your room is the second door on the left," Paige shot Alex a little shake of her head while Marco continued, "Make yourself at home! Oh, I'm so excited. Living with my three best girlfriends? If I weren't gay, my pa would be so proud." Alex smirked, "Yeah, and if we weren't either."
"Umm, Alex, first door on the right, hon. Marco's mistake." Marco turned and smiled knowingly.
"Oooo la la," he said and walked into the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, "Breakfast in 10, okay?"
"Sure, Marco, thanks," Alex replied. She shrugged her shoulders and said "Shall we?"
"We shall, Miss Nunez." Paige smiled ever so sweetly at Alex and led the way to her room, both with boxes in hand. Paige paused on the stairs to shout to Marco to close the trunk of her car.
Alex sighed contently to herself. The stairs felt familiar underneath her feet. They felt like she had been climbing them her whole life, which seemed ridiculous to her because there hadn't even been stairs to her and her mom's apartment. She figured that this feeling was because this was what life was supposed to be like and what her life should have been like. She wished that she had lived in a house. She wished she could have climbed up the stairs each night as a kid, after kissing her parents good night. She wished that each morning, she could trudge sleepily down the stairs, have a breakfast of eggs and bacon, and be driven to school by her mom or dad. She wished that every Christmas morning, her parents would make her wait eagerly at the top of the stairs before she could charge down to open her presents. But no. She had spent almost every evening tucking in her drunken mother on the couch, clearing beer bottles from the coffee table, then exhaustedly making her way to the tiny room that jutted out from the side of the kitchen. She had spent every morning making a sloppy breakfast for herself and her mother, who cringed in pain when the lights were turned on due to a heavy hangover, and stepping outside to begin her long walk to school. She had spent every Christmas watching her mother and her friends and boyfriend drink themselves silly, then tended to her unconscious mother once they had left, present-less and feeling neglected. As she reached the last step, she looked back down at the stairs, thankful for them in a way.
"Umm, Alex, what's wrong?" Paige was alarmed at Alex's glance toward the stairs, which she mistook for uneasiness.
"Nothing!"
"Good, I thought you were going to run back down the stairs and out the door for a second there."
"Hey," she said, making sure to catch Paige's full attention, "I told you, Paige. I would never."
They turned into the first door on the right and set the boxes on the bed. Paige made room for Alex's clothes in her drawers and in her closet, then helped Alex find a rightful place for all her things. She pulled out a pair of Alex's hoop earrings and held them up to her ears, looking in the mirror. She made goofy modeling faces and then said, "Hmm, what do you think? Could I pull off the bad girl Nunez look?"
"Oh, no, Michalchuk. There's only room for one bad girl in this relationship," Alex said as she appeared behind Paige in the mirror, wrapping her arms around her waist and resting her chin on Paige's left shoulder. "Besides, I don't like to share." She playfully pretended to bite Paige's chin, really only chomping at the air, gave her a little squeeze with her arms and then returned to the box. She pulled out the cowboy hat, and turned around.
"Now this? This could work. Ain't nothin' better than a cowgirl, eh?" she said as she placed the hat on Paige's head and winked obnoxiously. Paige giggled. Alex turned back to the box again. Paige's eye caught sight of the smaller box in the mirror.
"Hey, let's look at some of this stuff," she pleaded, and grabbed hold of Alex's arm, dragging her towards the bed to sit down.
Alex looked around, bewildered. "But Paige, where's the couch? And the fireplace? And I thought you said I'd be with a cute girl?" she said, trying her best to be serious.
"Once again. I'm hurt. You got me. Ow, it kind of burns this time," Paige said in the same monotone voice that Alex had heard before. Alex laughed and sat down next to her. "Seriously, Paige, you said we'd look at it five years from now."
"Well, I don't know, Alex..." she trailed off, looking again at the stack of pictures in the box. Her eyes fixed upon one in particular. It was a picture of Alex in her room. It was a tiny room. Alex sat on the bed, which was really more of a mattress on top of a box spring, with a hand outstretched trying to obscure the camera's view of her. She looked so...what was the word? She looked fragile, slightly irritated. She searched for a word that combined both of those, but then gave up. She looked back up at the Alex who sat before her. How different she looked now. So strong and vibrant and beautiful. She looked more closely at the picture. The walls, which should have been white, were a slightly yellowish color, and where they met the ceiling, they were stained brown from leaky pipes. Paige bit her lip. She felt a guilty pang in her heart - why didn't she ask Alex to move in with her sooner? At once, Paige sprung up and sneakily retrieved an old Polaroid camera from her closet, leaving Alex sitting on the bed. She spun around, snapping a picture of Alex. Alex's first reflex was to throw her hand out to hide her face, just like in the old picture, but she failed.
"Paige! What are you doing?" Alex laughed. Paige sat down on the bed next to her, smiling devilishly while shaking the picture until the image appeared and trying to keep it from Alex's attempted snatches.
"If you think you're keeping that picture, missy, you are oh so wrong." Paige stopped shaking the picture. She held out the two pictures for Alex to see. Alex looked at them, puzzled. They were so similar but so different at the same time.
She compared the two pictures. She was in a bedroom in both. The difference? In the old picture, it was a dirty bedroom. Dark and dusty and grim. In the new one, it was clean and bright and comfortable.
She was sitting on a bed in both. The difference? She was sitting on a dingy homemade bed in the old one with a tattered black blanket, and she was sitting on an actual bed with a clean and brightly colored comforter in the new one.
She was trying to cover her face in both. The difference? She looked annoyed in the old one. That's because it was probably Jay who took the picture. She was laughing in the new picture, though she looked a little bashful. That's because it was Paige who took the picture.
Alex smiled, looking down at herself and shaking her head. Then she brought her eyes up to meet Paige's. Paige bit her lip, eagerly and nervously waiting for Alex's response.
Alex contemplated how she should react. She always leaned toward some sort of sarcastic response, that was just her nature, but at this moment she thought it called for something more sincere, though still playful.
She sighed. "Paiggggeee," she drew out the name, "why are you always right?"
"You're looking at a practiced and perfected know-it-all here, hon. It's just who I am," Paige replied with an air to her voice.
Alex rolled her eyes. She noticed that she rolled her eyes a lot when she was with Paige. But it wasn't the way she rolled her eyes when she was with Jay. Jay deserved a nasty eye roll with almost every other comment he made. The eye-rolls that Alex sent Paige's way were always playfully and flirtatiously sarcastic. Alex snatched the camera from Paige's hand with her left hand, grabbing her newly vacant hand with her right, pulling her down on the bed.
"Smile," she said and turned to kiss Paige on the cheek as she took the picture. Alex shook the picture until the two girls appeared, brunette and blonde hair, overlapped and spread out on the comforter, Paige sporting a fully satisfied grin at the realization of Alex's lips on her cheek. They remained laying on the bed, looking at the picture contently.
"Does breakfast in 10 mean anything to you two?" Marco called out from the bottom of the stairs, exasperated. Paige and Alex laughed. Paige lifted herself from the bed and stood up, reaching out a hand. "Come on, hon." Alex accepted Paige's assistance, with the picture still in her hand. An grin formed on Paige's face as she snatched the picture from Alex's hand and headed towards the mirror above her dresser. She tucked the picture in the corner of the mirror as Alex walked towards her.
"In commemoration of our first day as official roommates, I place this picture here in the honor of Miss Alex Nunez, the source of all my pride and pleasure, so that we may look back upon this day as the beginning of something great," Paige said triumphantly, displaying an Oscar-worthy grin.
"You are so incredibly cheesy," Alex smirked, although she was positively glowing inside. She looked closer at the picture.
"Oooh wow, she's cute," Alex said, pointing to Paige in the picture. She felt she hadn't quite reconciled that bit of sarcastic banter they had had before.
"LADIES! IF I HAVE TO ASK ONE MORE TIME..." They grinned at each other, and proceeded towards the kitchen to eat their first official roommate-ish breakfast together. At least that's what Paige called it.