Early September

Tension Rising

It was a Monday morning, and Aelita filled the tea kettle with water, and put it on the stove. She was making tea and oatmeal for herself and Jeremy while he was in the shower, as had become routine since she'd been laid off. Taking care of most of the domestic activities helped her feel a little more like she was contributing to the household, and gave her something to do between sending out resumes. While waiting for the water to boil, she packed Jeremy a sandwich and a few other odds and ends for lunch, then walked over to the couch and booted up her laptop.

The sound of water from the shower stopped running right as the tea kettle started whistling. Aelita chuckled to herself, both impressed with her timing, and slightly amused at Jeremy's predictability. She finished breakfast preparations right as Jeremy could be heard walking out of the bathroom.

"I've got tea and oatmeal on the table," she called out.

"Thanks, Aelita. I'll be there in a second," Jeremy replied from the short hallway that led to the bedroom and bathroom. A minute later emerged, fully dressed, looking ready for the day. The two of them sat down to eat. Before Aelita was laid off, the two geniuses would often spend breakfast bouncing ideas off each other for their respective projects, but with Jeremy being the only one working, much of the appeal was lost and lately breakfast was mostly eaten in silence.

"Alright, I'm headed out," announced Jeremy once his oatmeal and tea were gone. Aelita walked with Jeremy to the door and wrapped her arms around him.

"I love you. Have a good day," she encouraged. Jeremy sighed.

"I love you too, and I'll try. Dr Lowell has been especially ornery for some reason lately." The two broke the hug and shared a brief kiss goodbye. Aelita handed Jeremy his lunch, then he left. She sighed and mentally prepared herself for another day alone.

Before doing anything else, she brought up a streaming service and turned on her favorite techno station at a volume loud enough to be enjoyed, but not so loud as to annoy the neighbors. She had done that once and felt awful about it!. As the bass drum started kicking in she started bobbing her head and swaying to the rhythm. Without music to listen to, she knew she would have started going crazy already! Returning to the dining area, she cleaned up dishes from breakfast while dancing slightly to the beat, then returned to the computer.

She logged into her email with the hope that she might have a reply from one of the several jobs that she posted her resume to, but sighed when all she saw was spam and junk. After deleting the unwanted mail from her inbox, she shut down the music, closed the laptop and headed over to the bedroom to get changed and ready to go do a little bit of shopping.

On her was back home, Aelita was happy to have found the ingredients for chicken parmigiana on sale. A few years back Yumi seemed to have developed a taste for Italian food. She spoke highly of the dish and Aelita wanted to give it a try. After arriving and putting the groceries away, she started to get out rest of the necessary ingredients until she realized that she had a problem as she spied the clock on the microwave... it was only lunch time and she had no idea what to do until it was time to start on dinner! She's already deep cleaned and organized the apartment. In addition, her research on virtualization had completely halted without access to a lab. The young woman sighed and hugged herself and was reminded of yet another frustration that she hadn't expected when she was first laid off... With as much time home as she now had, she had taken up boredom eating and it was starting to show. Letting her arms slump to her sides to avoid feeling her now slightly larger tummy, she sighed before making her way to the couch and flopped down to try to take a nap just to pass the time.

A couple hours later, Aelita woke up and was glad to see that the front room clock showed that it was time for her to start on dinner. She had just put the chicken into the oven to melt the mozzarella cheese that was on top, when she heard the door open. Making her way to the front room, she grinned widely when she saw her fiance.

"Hi, Jeremy!" She exclaimed, walking over and giving him a big hug.

"Hi, Aelita," he replied, wrapping one arm around her, and running his fingers through her hair after getting the sense that she needed a little extra care. His fiance squeezed him a little tighter, deepening the hug for a few moments more.

"How was work?" The young woman asked after the two of them separated. Jeremy groaned, making her frown.

"Dr. Lowell was in a particularly bad mood today..." he replied. "How about yours?" Aelita's frown deepened into a scowl and Jeremy suddenly wished he hadn't asked.

"About as good as it was going to get. I got some running done, but that's about it."

"Well, Dinner smells good!" Said Jeremy, trying to change the subject. "What is it?'

"It's chicken parmigiana. Yumi told me about it once and the ingredients were on sale," replied Aelita. Jeremy was happy to see a slight smile on her face. "It's almost ready. I just need to season the pasta and pull the chicken out of the oven." She started to turn away, but Jeremy stopped her for a moment, tilted her chin up and kissed her softly.

"You're amazing. You know that?" Aelita smiled, but only a little.

"Thanks, Jeremy." She turned away and returned to the kitchen while Jeremy went to the bedroom to change.

The two of them ate quietly for a long while, but Aelita broke the silence right as they were about to finish.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing our friends on video chat for the reunion," she said, hoping to create conversation.

"You know, I've been thinking about that," replied Jeremy, his odd response confusing Aelita slightly. "If we asked my parents, maybe they could help us..."

"No, Jeremy," interrupted Aelita. "Your parents are wonderful and I know that they'd gladly help. But you know they're not rich, and they're already helping with more of the wedding finances than they should have to."

"I could at least call and ask..." Jeremy started, but was interrupted again.

"Jeremy, NO!" Snapped Aelita, all her pent up frustration coming to a head. "I'm tired of feeling like I'm taking advantage of them!" she grabbed the plates and started to storm off to the kitchen. Before she left the dining area she turned back. "I wish we were able to make it too, but it's not going to happen this year. That's just reality!" Aelita finished the trip to the kitchen, dropped the plates into the sink and took a deep breath to calm herself. After glancing back toward the dining room for a moment, she let her head slump. She felt bad about snapping at Jeremy when he was just trying to help. Through the doorway, she could see Jeremy getting slowly getting up from the table, clearly upset himself, and head toward the front room to presumably try to get some programming done for work.

Later that evening, Aelita went to the bedroom to go to sleep. Her and Jeremy hadn't spoken since dinner, and he was already in bed. Aelita got changed and crawled in next to him. He moved enough that she could tell that he wasn't asleep yet. Despite the tension, she still snuggled up to him, though he stiffened noticeably when she did.

"I love you, Aelita..." Jeremy whispered tentatively.

"I love you too, Jeremy, but we can't keep going on like this... I can't keep going on like this. I'm going crazy here, and something's going to give." Jeremy sighed, but Aelita felt him relax a little.

"I know..." was his reply as he wrapped his arms around his fiance. "I hate seeing you upset."

"I don't like being upset, but I've just been so frustrated with everything. Things were supposed to get better once when we got our degrees, but... here we are."

"I know." Aelita cuddled further into Jeremy's arms and he held her tighter. "Hopefully things get better soon."

"Me too, Jeremy."

The two fell asleep still worrying about what the future would hold.