Together, Apart

by Erin A. Craig

I hesitate, holding it over my head for a second before slamming it down on the kitchen table between us, the music cutting out abruptly. “Then stop playing music at three in the morning, Mia! Jesus, do you have an unlimited supply of batteries or something?”

  My hands wrap around the wooden chair in front of me. “I am tired. I am tired of being woken up every single night. I am tired of taking classes online, and not being able to go outside, and not knowing when things wil be okay again. And I’m tired of being stuck in this stupid apartment with you.”

  She throws her hands up, exasperated. “Wel , if you hate me so much, you should’ve just gone home to quarantine. I mean, you’ve been miserable

  since you came back from Christmas break. I thought you’d jump at the opportunity to get out of here.”

  Home. The red brick house, Jericho on the front steps. The exact thing I’ve been trying not to think about.

  The word instantly sends my heart rate into triple time, my chest constricting, the panic attack I’ve felt haunting every waking moment for the last three weeks of lockdown final y blindsiding me. I take an unsteady step back and reach out to grab the wal .

  Mia’s demeanor instantly changes. Her blue eyes study my face, her dark eyebrows furrowing as she steps around the kitchen table, moving closer to me.

  “Hey, Al ie…”

  I turn on my heel, folding my arms tightly across my chest, trying to contain it…trying to keep it in…but it’s no use. I start to shake, my teeth chattering as I pace back and forth across the living room, everything too raw.

  Too bright.

  You’re okay.

  Everything is okay.

  I register Mia in the doorway of the kitchen, her face fil ed with concern.

  “Talk to me,” I manage to get out, my breathing coming out in staggered gasps, the white wal s closing in as I walk back and forth across the hardwood floor. Back and forth.

  “Um. What’s your favorite color?”

  “Yel ow,” I say as my eyes jump around the room. Faded carpet. Lamp.

  Striped socks. Hole in the toe.

  “Birthday?”

  “October twenty-third.”

  “Coffee or tea?”

  “Uh,” I spin around on my heel. Flat-screen TV. Worn gray couch. White Converse by the door. “Iced coffee, hot tea.”

  I pul at the col ar of my oversized T-shirt, and Mia strides over to the window, yanking it open, the cool air drifting across the room. I go over and slide down on the wal underneath it, the wind tugging at the top of my head,

  strands of my blond hair whipping around my face. Mia sits down next to me, a few inches away, her hand resting on the worn wood in-between us.

  Something about her being so close calms me.

  Reflexively, I reach out, my fingertips sliding into the palm of her hand, the skin smooth and warm and comforting.

  “What’s your favorite season?” she asks as our fingers intertwine, grounding me.

  “Fal . I like when the leaves change.”

  “Same,” Mia says, her thumb softly tracing circles against my pointer finger, around and around, over and over again. “Favorite movie?”

  “Booksmart.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, a jumble of scenes from the movie dancing behind my eyelids as I try to focus on my breathing without accidental y causing myself to hyperventilate. I count silently in my head as my lungs rise and fal .

  Four in. Hold for seven. Eight out.

  Four in. Hold for seven. Eight out.

  I can feel the panic slowly begin to fade, becoming more and more manageable with every exhale, the tightness and pressure in my chest and head gradual y starting to release its grip.

  “Which of my friends do you hate the most?”

  I almost crack a smile at that, a backward basebal cap and brown eyes popping into my head. “Tom.”

  “Queso incident?”

  I nod my confirmation. “Queso incident.”

  “That’s fair,” she says, stifling a laugh before continuing. “Coolest place you’ve ever traveled to?”

  “Grand Canyon. We went for my seventh birthday. It was…unreal.”

  “Favorite food?”

  “The pizza at Mario’s on 13th Street. They have two-dol ar, two-slice Tuesdays. It’s to die for.”

  “Aren’t you lactose intolerant?” Mia asks.

  I open my eyes and turn my head to look over at her, surprised she knows this random bit of trivia about me. “Wel …I said it was to die for.”

  She smiles at that. A real smile. Not one of her passive-aggressive, midfight smirks that makes my blood boil.

  It lights up her whole face, her blue eyes brighter than I’ve ever seen them, a dimple I’ve never noticed before appearing on her right cheek.

  “Mario’s is pretty good, but there’s a pizza place back where I’m from that makes a mean Hawai an pizza.”

  I grimace. “You would be the kind of person to like pineapple on pizza.”

  “Guilty as charged,” she says, not one-upping me for once. I watch as she looks away, tilting her head back to rest on the wal behind us.

  I take one more slow breath in and hold it, my eyes registering the straight line of Mia’s nose, the ful ness of her lips.

  When I let the air go, I final y feel back in control of my body.

  “This is…so crazy.”

  “What?” Mia asks. “Us actual y having a peaceful conversation?”

  I laugh, nudging her arm lightly. “That. But also everything happening in the world right now. Quarantine. The coronavirus.”

  “Murder hornets,” Mia adds.

  I nod. “Some days it feels like the freaking apocalypse.”

  “What a way to go. Holed up in an apartment, stuffing ourselves with Pop-Tarts and cereal.”

  “Stuffing ourselves with my Pop-Tarts and cereal,” I correct.

  Mia grins at that, the dimple reappearing. “Stuffing ourselves with your Pop-Tarts and cereal,” she echoes.

  We both fal silent and I realize I’m stil holding her hand, her fingers folded gently over mine.

  I notice a thin scar running from the base of her pointer finger al the way down to her thumb, the raised, pale skin standing out against the olive of the rest of her hand.

  “What happened?” I ask, nodding to it.

  Mia glances down, tilting our hands to get a better look at the scar.

  “Nothing interesting.” She chuckles to herself, shaking her head. “When I was a kid, one of my older brothers ran over it with his bike and shattered three different bones. I had to get surgery and everything.”

  I grimace at the mental image of that. “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Four. And three sisters. I’ve got a pretty big family.” Our eyes meet and she shrugs, the corner of her mouth ticking up into a soft smile. “That’s partly why I play music at night. Too much quiet kind of freaks me out.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  “Annoying you. Obviously.”

  I rol my eyes and swat at her shoulder. She laughs, dodging out of the way, seven siblings’ worth of practice behind her.

  “You must miss them,” I say, and her face grows a little more serious, her eyebrows jutting down.

  “At least half of them,” she jokes, but the light doesn’t ful y meet her eyes. There’s definitely a lingering sadness there.

  “Why didn’t you go home?” I ask.

  “I couldn’t.” She sits up a little straighter and lets out a long exhale. “A last-minute, cross-country plane ticket was way too expensive. I would’ve had to sel at least one kidney to pay for it.”

  She doesn’t ask why I can’t go home, but I find myself wanting to tel her, wanting someone to share the weight of it for just a little while.

  I take a deep breath, the words I’ve been holding back for months tumbling out. “My parents pretty much disowned me over Christmas break.”

  Mia’s eyes widen in surprise, and she turns to look at me.

/>   “They’re, uh.” I look away, swal owing. “They’re super religious. Always have been. Church-every-Sunday, hosting-Bible-study-on-Fridays, Harry-Potter-is-blasphemy kind of religious.” I laugh, thinking back to a random retreat I went on my freshman year of high school where we had a two-hour-long sermon on the sanctity of marriage and the horrors of premarital sex. “I even signed an abstinence pledge when I was fourteen, which is the Catholic school version of sex ed.”

  Mia doesn’t laugh at that. She just watches me, her expression concerned.

  “Anyway, I came out to them on the last day of break, and they pretty much told me to never come back because I’m, you know…a massive disappointment who’s going against God’s plan for my life.” I squint, trying to keep it together. “Which, I mean, I knew they’d say. I even packed my bags before tel ing them because I knew they weren’t going to be okay with it.”

  My voice cracks on the last word and I swal ow, my vision blurring as tears begin to stream down my face. What a terrible price to pay, just so I can be ful y and completely and honestly myself.

  “I just think maybe I secretly hoped they would find a way to be okay with it, you know? Okay with me.”

  A sob escapes my lips and Mia’s instantly there, her arms wrapping around me, as the panic and the hurt and the sadness I’ve forced down for months finds its way to the surface, the pressure of quarantine squeezing it out.

  I don’t know how long we sit there for.

  Me, crying like an actual baby, definitely getting snot on her black sweatshirt.

  Mia, gently rubbing my back through al of it, her black, snot-covered sweatshirt smel ing like the vial of sandalwood perfume in our bathroom cabinet, warm and woody and comforting.

  Soon, the tears start to slow, a heavy tiredness setting in as two thoughts crystal ize in my mind.

  The first thought is that, deep in my bones, I know I’m going to be okay.

  It may hurt for a while—in fact, it wil probably always hurt, some days and moments more than others—but I’l survive. This isn’t going to break me or change who I know I am.

  And…the second thought is, as her arms tighten around me, my eyelids slowly closing, that…I don’t hate it. I don’t hate sitting here, my face pressed into Mia’s warm, sandalwood-smel ing shoulder. I don’t hate the way her hand feels in mine, and the way she always knows, good or bad, exactly what to say.

  I don’t hate her.

  —

  I wake up the next morning on the hardwood floor underneath the open window, a fleece blanket over me, and one of the lumpy pil ows from the couch tucked under my head.

  I feel something on my forehead, and frown, peeling off a fluorescent pink sticky note and squinting at the loopy cursive.

  Couldn’t wake you up. Gone to get groceries. (Shocking, I know). Be back in a bit.—M

  I smile at the tiny M, rubbing the spot on my forehead where the sticky note had been, last night washing back over me, my stomach fluttering with butterflies as I think about…

  Beep, beep, beep!

  I rip the fleece blanket off, fumbling around until I find my phone, the screen lighting up to show my 10:05 a.m., YOU’RE LATE FOR CLASS alarm.

  Oh crap. I jump up, the butterflies floating straight out the open window as my back splinters into a thousand pieces, a night of sleeping on the floor taking its tol .

  Throwing the blanket and the pil ows back on the couch, I limp-run into my room, closing the door behind me and sliding into my desk chair. I manage to log in before the actual lesson starts, saved by my Calculus II teacher wrestling with technological difficulties and slow Wi-Fi.

  I try to pay attention and take notes, but I find myself distracted by every little noise on the other side of the door, my head swimming with thoughts of Mia.

  About halfway through the lesson on parametric equations, I final y hear her come back, the front door creaking open, the sound of her feet shuffling back and forth across the floor as she sanitizes everything in the hal way before bringing it inside.

  I pul my eyes away from my professor’s face, holding my breath and listening as she moves, from the entryway, to the kitchen, and then eventual y back to her room, the door closing behind her as my heart dances noisily around inside my chest.

  I’m so deep in thought I barely realize when class ends. And even after it’s over, I don’t budge from my seat.

  In fact, I hide in my room for most of the day, trying, and failing, to study for my Art History exam on Monday, my new and unexpected feelings much easier to deal with when I don’t have to see that smug smirk and those cool blue eyes and the newly discovered dimple on her right cheek that appears only when she smiles.

  Sighing, I pul open my desk drawer and stare at the pile of double-A batteries sitting at the bottom.

  I rol my eyes and lean back in my chair. Get ahold of yourself, Al ie.

  Never in a mil ion years would I have predicted this. A crush. On Mia.

  Infuriating, annoying, keeps-me-up-al -night Mia.

  But I can’t help but feel like…something shifted between us last night.

  Al of our months of head-butting and frustration and animosity changed shape into something else entirely.

  For me, at least.

  Does she…could she…feel the same way?

  I groan, in part because my back decides to hit me with an alarmingly painful post-floor-sleep twinge, and in part because I am stuck in an apartment for the foreseeable future with a girl I thought I despised, but real y like a whole heck of a lot.

  —

  My room is stil dark when I wake up.

  Rubbing my eyes, I reach out for my phone, the il uminated screen blaring out 2:53, only minutes before Mia’s usual middle-of-the-night, post-studying kitchen pop concert.

  I rol over on my side and stare at the faint light trickling into my room from underneath the door frame, my ears straining for the familiar music that’s blared its way across our apartment every night for over a week.

  I wait and I listen, tossing and turning.

  3:00 comes and goes. 3:05. Then 3:10.

  Soon, it’s almost a quarter past, and there’s stil nothing. Only an earringing silence.

  Is she awake?

  Curiosity gets the better of me, and I pul back my covers and get out of bed, padding across the floor to my bedroom door.

  I pul it open, peeking outside to see that the kitchen light is on. Creeping across the living room, I pop my head around the corner to see Mia in a staring contest with the toaster oven, two slices of cinnamon raisin bread getting steadily crispier on the other side of the glass.

  My stomach flip-flops at the sight of her.

  She’s humming away, a pair of white earbuds sticking out of her ears, the cord looping its way down to her cel phone, tucked safely into her back pocket.

  A pair of earbuds?

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  I storm across the kitchen and pul the left one out of her ear, shaking my head in disbelief. “Mia. You’ve had these this entire time?”

  She jumps in surprise at my sudden and very unexpected appearance.

  “Jesus, Al ie,” she says, clutching at her chest. “It is three in the morning.

  You can’t just sneak up on someone like that.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Uh…yeah,” she says, her eyes flicking down to the earbud in my hand, and then back up to meet my glower.

  “And you didn’t use them because….?”

  “Because if I’d used them you wouldn’t have come out here to yel at me every single night.” She leans closer and grabs the earbud back from me, the corner of her mouth ticking up into that familiar smirk of hers. A smirk that’s more charming than infuriating now, the dimple on her right cheek appearing as it transforms into a smile.

  I rol my eyes, but I can’t help but smile back, something about her words making me feel the tiniest bit hopeful.

  “Why would you want me to c
ome out here and yel at you every single night?”

  “Wel …” She swal ows, her voice trailing off. “Wel , with quarantine and al , you’re pretty much the only person I see. And you’re in your room most of the time, so, you know…it can get kind of lonely.”

  I nod, the twinge of hope from a moment ago snuffed out in an instant.

  She turns her attention back to the toaster to watch the cinnamon raisin bread. We’re both silent for a long moment, staring at our reflections in the tiny glass door.

  “Also, it doesn’t hurt that I’ve been harboring a bit of a crush on you since move-in day.”

  A what?

  I whip my head around to look at her. “Since move-in day? Move-in day, Mia?”

  She grins and glances over at me, knowing exactly what’s coming.

  “You literal y broke the elevator on move-in day. I had to carry al my stuff up the stairs.”

  “I didn’t break the elevator, Al ie. It’s not my fault that thing is ancient! I held one button for a little bit too long, and the entire elevator shorted out,”

  she says, throwing her hands in the air. “How was I supposed to know that was going to happen?”

  “There was a sign! Literal y right above it.”

  “In like eight-point font!”

  “Oh my God, you are so annoying,” I say as I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing them. “Why do I even like you?”

  I freeze, the both of us realizing what I just said.

  I slowly open my fingers to see Mia’s cool blue eyes, one of her eyebrows raised, that charming, infuriating, blood-boiling smirk plastered on her face.

  “You what?”

  I pul my hands away. “Oh, don’t smirk at me, Mia. You think because I

  —”

  She kisses me, her lips cutting me off midsentence. It’s quick, and sweet, and sends the entire room spinning, my legs and my arms turning into Jel -O

  as her hands find my waist.

  We pul apart and she smiles at me, that dimple on her right cheek appearing.

  “You know,” I say, reaching up to lightly touch her cheek. “I don’t think I’d want to be stuck in an apartment during a global pandemic with anyone else.”

  If someone had told me a week ago I’d be saying that, I’d have cal ed them crazy.

  Mostly because there was a hidden truth that I had refused to ever acknowledge.