physiotherapy | awsten knight

3: cosima

October 11th, 9 weeks before the incident

tw: description of sexual harassment
(tw will be put directly before the paragraph)

Otto's arm was slung around his girlfriend's shoulder as she leaned forward, laughing.

Cosima had just managed to spill the lukewarm soup that the cafeteria served all over herself. She groaned at herself and at her friends who teased her for her clumsiness.

"Seriously, how do you manage to spill something every day?", Grace asked in bewilderment.

"I honestly don't know.", Cosima sighed, trying to fix the stain on her t-shirt with a napkin.

Otto, Grace and Cosima have been inseparable for almost two years now. In her first semester, Otto and her had almost been in every single course together and a couple of days into knowing him, he had introduced her to his girlfriend, Grace.

Like every good best friends meeting story, Otto's and Cosima's first encounter had been awkward. Otto had accidentally elbowed her in the boob when he turned around too quickly. According to him, it had truly been an accident, but Cosima still sometimes jokingly says that this was Otto's icebreaker, to have an excuse to talk to her.
The rest was history.

"Cool", Cosima stated ironically, "Now I'm going to work with a stain on my t-shirt that looks like literal liquid puke."

She worked at "The Right Step"; A Houston rehabilitation centre. She was there 20h a week; it helped her pay rent. She started last semester and it was quite interesting. Mostly she acted as a domestic worker, other times though she would sit in during a patient's counselling session. Those were far more interesting to her. Sometimes she would become really close with the patients. Most of them were really nice to her and grateful for her cleaning and her company. Generally, her experience there was very rewarding and valuable.

The only downside of her job was all of the walking she did during it. The property was quite big and the building had several stories and a lot of rooms that all needed cleaning. So basically, she was usually able to get in twice as much exercise as she had to, every day she worked there.

For when Cosima needed to walk a lot she had a knee brace. Years of playing basketball had basically ruined her knee. It was always hurting when she strained it for too many hours a day. She had never gotten it checked out though, out of fear that something was seriously wrong with it. And if that was the case, she would actually have to do something about it.
But putting her knee brace on allowed her to indulge in the illusion that that will fix all of her problems.

Cosima actually still played basketball; she has been since high school. Her best friend back then made her tag along when they were 12. Since then, she had won a couple of medals and cups, most of them with her high school team.

When Cosima moved out of her parents' house, and two hours away from her hometown to Houston, she looked for a new team to join.
There she met her other two close friends: Malory and Jamie.

Malory went to nursing school and Jamie was becoming an interior designer. Cosima loved Jamie for her profession and insisted that if Cosima ever built her own house, Jamie would have to have a hand in it.

*****

After a long five hours of working at the rehab clinic, Cosima invited Otto and Grace over.
Some would think that being friends with a couple must be exhausting or weird, but they were angels to be around. The dynamic was never awkward, mostly because the couple never seriously fought or if they did, they never dragged Cosima into it.