Together, Apart

by Erin A. Craig

  I’m loud. She knows I don’t read. I like dogs, she likes cats. I don’t cook.

  She thinks I’ve been watching her through her window. That’s six strikes.

  Blow this shot, and I’m out, I know it.

  So I run back through my complex’s lobby, but Gail, the front desk person, cal s for me.

  “Bastian, hey! You got something here.”

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  Because Gail was uber-paranoid about germs before the virus, she’s triple extra uber-paranoid now that quarantine is in ful force. After pul ing out two wipes, one for each hand, she uses them to lift up a white round baking dish as big across as my hand. I catch a faint whiff of tomato sauce.

  “What…” I begin, not understanding, “What’s that? Is it for me?”

  “Some girl left it a few minutes ago. Said it should be eaten hot. She didn’t look like a delivery person. I don’t know what it is. Eat it at your own risk.”

  I lift the lid and smel , taking in the scent of basil, cilantro, meat, and tomato sauce. I close my eyes and ful y bask in the best thing I’ve ever smel ed. This is no frozen lasagna. This is the real deal. I take the dish in my

  arms careful y, avoiding my left arm so I don’t melt my cast, cradling it like it’s a newborn baby.

  “Thanks, Gail. Real y. Thank you.”

  My stomach growls greedily as I ascend the stairs, and I can’t wait to get to my room to ful y enjoy it. But first, I have to find a way to get this paper bag through that window. And then it hits me.

  That’s it!

  “Hey!” I cal out after flinging open my window and waving. She’s exchanged her sweatshirt for a loose white T-shirt that ties in the front. Same bel -shaped hair, same big brown eyes, same comfortable, curled-up position she sits in by the window. She sees me and opens the glass.

  “You admitting defeat?” she asks as I hold up the baking dish.

  “Just from the smel alone, I probably should,” I admit. “It’s already amazing.”

  “Taste it!” she urges. Her face seems brighter today, glowier. I know that look anywhere. It’s the look of someone immersed in their passion. Maybe cooking is hers like aromatherapy is mine.

  “So,” I say, “before I get to your gift—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” she says, “Not a gift. A contest entry. We’re stil competitors, don’t you forget.”

  I grin.

  “Stubborn, are we? Okay, ‘contest entry.’ I have to get you mine. I couldn’t get through the front door, but I’d say I should have clearance to toss this bad boy through your window like your cat jumped through mine.”

  She laughs.

  “Seriously? Weak.”

  “Hey, you want me to enter this contest or not?”

  “I don’t know if I trust your throwing skil s,” she says.

  “Got a better idea?” I ask.

  She hesitates for a moment. I don’t want to admit that I’m hoping she says she’l meet me at her front door, but…I am. But I’m also not, because deodorant has been a thing of the past since I’ve been home al day, and there’s no way I’m meeting her smel ing like…like this.

  “Catch,” I say, leaning out the window holding it in my hand. She leans forward with arms extended and says, “Fine, but toss at your own risk. If you miss, you’re out.”

  Believe me, I know.

  My forehead is dotted with sweat, and my hands are clammy.

  But I fling the bag, aiming at her planter box, and it goes sailing through the space between us, closing the gap. Everything seems to happen in slow motion. It spins in the air as it sails toward her.

  BILLIE VS. THE BAG

  I reach out, stil in disbelief that this kid just tossed me his contest entry.

  Either he real y doesn’t care if he gets my number, or he has a lot of faith in his tossing—and my catching—ability. The bag hits my fingertips and bounces off, and my spirit drops, but I lean farther out the window, farther than I’m comfortable, to reach for the bag.

  BASTIAN VS. DISBELIEF

  I stare in disbelief at this girl, who’s gone from being the annoyed kid across the al ey who keeps cal ing the front desk to complain about my dog, to the girl who’s about to fal out a window to catch something I made for her.

  BILLIE VS. DISORIENTATION

  I can’t believe I almost fel out a window for a boy I just met.

  But here I am, staring down at him with one hand cradled under the bundle he threw to me, and the other hand clamped around the edge of my window, holding me inside the building. Ruby walks over the bay window cushion, meowing her I told you so—I’m sure that’s what she said in cat-speak. I clear my throat, curl up next to the window, and catch my breath.

  He’s stil sitting there by his window, chin on his fists, staring at me with the lasagna dish between his elbows, lost in thought.

  “Hey,” I say, holding up the paper-bag-wrapped gift in my hand. It feels like something hard is inside. Maybe gumbal s? Strangely shaped gumbal s?

  “Swap on the count of three?”

  As if I’ve caught him daydreaming—and I might have—he startles and pul s the lid off his lasagna. I can see the steam rising from here.

  “Smel s good, gotta say,” he says. “Knew that was basil.” And before I can even get my bag open, he’s spooning the first bite into his mouth. He shuts his eyes, leans his head back, hands up in surrender.

  “You win,” he says. “No contest. I give up. This is bomb. You sure you didn’t order this straight from Italy?”

  “That mean you don’t want my number after al ?” I ask, reaching into the bag and pul ing out…“What are these, cookies?”

  My tongue brushes the cookie just as I hear his “No, don’t—!”

  I cough, recognizing the combinations of smel s right away. It smel ed so much like shortbread, I thought it might be. But no. Just shea butter. Fresh herbs. And what smel s like cocoa butter too.

  “I agree, this tastes terrible.” I cough. “You lose.”

  “It’s hand butter!” He laughs. “Y’al don’t read labels over there?”

  I rol my eyes and look into the bag. One, two, three, four, five, six hand butter bars shaped like flowers, and one smal white square of paper. I pul it out and read the careful handwriting.

  I think you’re beautiful. And cool. And I have a surprise for you. Text me?

  And there’s a phone number listed below.

  “Sneaky,” I say, smirking at him.

  “Doesn’t sound like a no,” he says, hands up, before spooning another generous helping of lasagna into his mouth.

  “We’l see,” I say, smoothing one of the flowers over my hands. The oregano scent comes through against the cocoa butter, making these smel like herbaceous sugar cookies. With everything that’s happened, I know I could use a friend.

  But I like a tease.

  So I leave him with one last smile before closing the window gently, and I turn to my room. My hands are shaking and sweaty. I take a long deep breath and crawl under the covers—back to my safe place. And then I do something I hope my therapist would be proud of me for.

  I text him.

  Me: You win.

  Him: <3

  My whole face goes hot at a single emoji. Real y, girl? I ask myself, rol ing my eyes at my own softness. But two more texts come through that make me even more shy. A screenshot, and an invitation. Pacific Northwest Fal Herb Festival. Tickets limited. Learn to cook with herbs fresh and dried.

  Food, drinks, and aromatherapy.

  Him: Thought we could learn to cook together.

  I don’t recognize this boldness I feel bubbling from me, but I love it. I go and find the link to my grandmother’s lasagna recipe from my mother’s blog and send it to him with the caption:

  Me: Why wait?

  I think I might have discovered another circle of Hel : Quarantining with your horrible, messy, way-too-loud, way-too-obnoxious roommate, who thinks the middle of the night is the perfect time to blast a
Spotify playlist.

  We’ve been roommates since she answered my Facebook post about needing one after my sophomore year on-campus housing fel through this past summer. I remember clicking through al of her pictures, thinking she looked normal. Nice. Pretty, even.

  I could not have been more wrong. Wel …not about the pretty thing, but literal y everything else. She’s been the very definition of annoying since move-in day, from dishes left piled in the sink to using up al the hot water in the shower.

  Aside from just our daily spats between classes over stolen food and taking out the trash, her friends give her some pretty strong competition for the top slot of Most Irritating, as they join her in obliterating our living room every Saturday night. I joined them once and left after half an hour, covered in Tom Al en’s heaping plate of chips and queso after he drunkenly tripped over his own two feet.

  I guess that’s one good thing about quarantine. My living room is stil intact come Sunday morning.

  Groaning, I grab my pil ow and press it down over my head, trying to block out the music that’s blaring its way into my room from the kitchen.

  Or trying to smother myself. Either would be a solution.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and turn onto my right side. Then my left. Then my back. But it’s no use. The steady bass stil manages to make its way through, bopping any chance I have of completing another REM cycle right out the window.

  Ripping the pil ow away from my face, I fumble around on my bedside table for my phone, the screen lighting up with a tap of my thumb. I squint at the glaring numbers, my rage nearing a rol ing boil as 3:03 comes swinging into focus.

  I…am going to kil her.

  I rol out of bed and jam my feet into my slippers before angrily wrestling with a hoodie, my arms getting tangled somewhere between the neck and armholes, the congestive fleece upping my frustration tenfold.

  Yanking open my bedroom door, I storm across the living room, turn into the kitchen, and make a beeline for the black Bluetooth speaker on the wobbly, Craigslist-bought kitchen table. My first instinct is to launch the speaker across the room, but I opt for just flicking the power button off, the song cutting sharply off into silence.

  Final y.

  I spin around to see Mia lounging on the counter, elbow deep in a bag of my Doritos, her long, dark hair pul ed into a messy bun. She stops chewing and holds the bag out to me, her fingers coated in bright orange dust.

  “Dorito?”

  I rol my eyes and snatch the bag out of her hand.

  “Seriously, Mia? What about now seems like a good time to start playing music?” I say as I rol the crinkly red bag back up, slamming it back onto my side of the snack shelf.

  She swings her legs, calves hitting the cabinet underneath her. “I dunno.

  Got done with studying and the apartment seemed a little quiet.”

  “That’s because it is three o’clock. In the morning. It’s supposed to be quiet.”

  I watch as she smirks and hops down off the counter, her cool blue eyes giving me an amused once-over. “Why? You got somewhere to be tomorrow?”

  I glare at her. “For your information, I have two Zoom classes.”

  “Two Zoom classes,” she mimics, reaching out to tug at the two heather gray drawstrings of my sweatshirt until they’re perfectly even. The close proximity startles me for a second. Maybe two. Final y, I swat her hand away, my heart hammering angrily in my chest. “You do know you can just like…

  turn your camera off and sleep during those.”

  “How are you not failing out of school? Isn’t your major molecular biology?”

  “Because I stay up at night to study,” she says, motioning to the room around us, the edge of her right hand stained blue from her after-hours note taking. “Obviously.”

  “Wel , maybe if you studied during—”

  She lets out a big, dramatic yawn, stretching loudly, the noise cutting me off midsentence. “Sorry, Al ie. You know how much I love chatting with you, but I am just exhausted,” she says, like I’m the one keeping her up. “Think I’m gonna head to bed.”

  You have got to be kidding me.

  She slides past me and I watch as she saunters off down the hal way to her room, the very picture of innocence.

  I stand there in shock, too angry to form a coherent sentence.

  “You—I…”

  “Night!” she cal s from her doorway, giving me one more infuriating smirk before flicking on the light and disappearing inside.

  “Stop eating my Doritos!” I manage to get out before the door clicks shut behind her.

  Stop eating my Doritos. Real y?

  “That’s the best you could come up with, Al ie?” I mutter to myself as I stomp back across the living room to my bedroom, determined to get at least

  a few more hours of sleep.

  And to work on my comebacks.

  —

  I wake up the next morning feeling like crap.

  My alarm blares noisily next to me for the fourth time, my phone tangled somewhere in my striped sheets. Flopping onto my side with a frustrated groan, I dig around to find it, the sound cutting out with a tap of the stop button. Even though my first Zoom class of the day is only ten minutes away, I burrow back into my warm comforter, wrapping myself up like a burrito.

  My eyes land on a Polaroid picture of my fluffy brown rescue dog, Jericho, his tongue lol ing out as he keeps watch over the neighborhood from the front steps of my childhood home.

  A sharp pain radiates across my chest, a wave of sadness and anxiety crashing into me as I stare at the familiar red brick house and worn black shutters just behind his squirrel y little head. Just like I’ve been doing for the past couple months, I push the unwanted feelings as far down as I can manage, and then flail out of my covers, angrily de-burritoing myself as I swing my legs over the side of my bed.

  I set up my laptop and go to the bathroom before zipping into the kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal, the clock ticking closer and closer to class time. As I’m shutting the refrigerator door, I catch sight of the speaker on the counter.

  I stick my head out of the kitchen to peer down the hal at Mia’s closed door before tiptoeing over to it. Flipping it over, I claw at the black battery cover, trying for a solid thirty seconds to get it to open.

  “Come on…” I mutter, wincing as I nearly break a nail off, the tiny plastic door flying through the air and clattering noisily on the counter.

  I smile to myself as I grab the two double-A batteries, pocket them, and quickly return the cover to the back of the—

  “Morning,” a voice says from behind me.

  I jump about a mile and whip around to see Mia opening a crinkly silver Pop-Tart wrapper, her chestnut-brown hair pul ed into a low ponytail. “Oh,

  hi! Morning!” I say, way more chipper and friendly than I ever have to her.

  She slowly takes a bite of the brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart in her hand, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at me.

  “I, uh…” My eyes dart down to the cereal bowl on the counter. I walk quickly over and scoop it up, walking backward out of the kitchen. “I gotta go…I have class…Zoom class…”

  She raises one of her eyebrows at me as I scurry off to my room, slamming the door behind me.

  “Could you be any more suspicious?” I mumble as I plunk into my swivel chair.

  Class has already started by the time I realize I forgot to get a spoon.

  And that Mia was eating one of my Pop-Tarts.

  —

  I wish I could say that taking the batteries out put an end to her middle-of-the-night kitchen DJing, but it absolutely did not. I do it every single morning for a week, a smal pile forming in my top desk drawer, but it doesn’t make a difference.

  I stil get woken up at three in the freaking morning to the sound of overly autotuned vocals and a beat that belongs firmly in the club, not in my apartment hours before sunrise.

  And every night, I storm out to see Mia, apparent owner of a l
ifetime supply of double-A batteries, lounging on the counter, swaying to the music, and eating my food.

  Two nights ago, it was handfuls of popcorn. Yesterday, she was picking al of the marshmal ows out of my Lucky Charms like an actual psychopath.

  Which is maybe why tonight…I can’t even get to sleep. I toss and turn for hours, jolting awake every time I drift off, my heart hammering in my chest, my sheets wrapped tightly around my body.

  Feeling trapped, I push my covers off and stare around at the dark room, my eyes landing on the Polaroid picture. I can barely make out the red brick house behind it.

  Sighing, I climb out of bed and go over to the window, the light from the street lamps just outside bathing my skin in a warm yel ow glow.

  Everything on the other side of the glass is eerily quiet and stil , even for this time of night. Not a single car passes by. Not a single person walking on the street.

  I peer across the way, to another apartment building, and find some comfort in the flicker of a TV screen, a few stray lights on, but the anxiety stil claws at my chest.

  How long wil I be stuck in here?

  How long wil the world be like this? Without any clear future, the

  “normal” of a few weeks ago impossible to go back to.

  I didn’t even like going out that much, but I’d kil to set foot in a coffee shop. Or a bookstore. Or even go to the movies. Heck, I’d even splurge and spend a week’s worth of grocery money on an overpriced popcorn drenched in butter and a soda that’s mostly ice.

  I wonder when it wil even be safe to go to a movie theater again? Or a concert? Or a—

  Like Mia can sense my inner turmoil, I hear the music begin to blare from the kitchen. The singer has barely started singing before I bust out of my room, skid around the corner into the kitchen, and grab the speaker, poised to smash it into a hundred pieces.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mia says, her blue eyes wide, her hands outstretched like she’s just come across a rabid squirrel and wants it to know she means no harm. “Allie. Put the speaker down.”