𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 ✓

FOUR

-

"How's your day been?"

Kelly sits across from me on the floor. Our coffee table is decked out with pizza cartons and half-empty glasses of Sprite. I sigh and lean back against the couch, my neck bending over the edge of the cushion. Kelly knows how annoying work can be for me.

"Exhausting," I simply reply before getting back up and taking the last piece of my pizza.

"I just cannot imagine how you do nothing every day but fight with that guy," Kelly chuckles and takes a swig of her drink. I shake my head, chewing, trying to correct her.

"I bet you like him and tease him to cover it up," Kelly says, and she clearly means it as a joke, hence her sarcastic tone. However, I still nearly choke on my pizza and cough so much I see stars for a second. My roommate runs her finger through her short hair that used to be a buzzcut and tilts her head, concerned.

"You good?" she makes sure, and I cough while nodding. I take a sip of my Sprite and try to calm myself down.

"I definitely don't like him," I say with a scrunched nose, "He is annoying and acts like he's better than everyone."

"It was a joke, Charles," Kelly chuckles. Only she is allowed to call me that, but only because she started that two weeks after moving in and cannot be convinced to stop. This girl is stubborn like my childhood dog who always had to go outside to eat.

"I know," I raspily retort, "Just seemed so ridiculous to me."

"He does look good though," Kelly sighs, "If I were straight..."

"Kel," I groan, "Stop that. No more talking about him."

We eat the rest of our pizzas in silence, FRIENDS running in the background. I don't pay attention to it, yet I know exactly what season is on right now. I wearily grin while refilling my glass. Chester meows so loud I bet the neighbors could hear and makes Kelly and me laugh. Why can't it always be like this? Calm, fun, light? Instead, my life is mostly dark, sarcastic, and exhausting.

-

A few hours pass, Kelly is on the phone with her almost-girlfriend, and Chester and I lay on my bed, and for once, he's silent. Okay, he's sleeping, but I still appreciate the lack of his constant meows. Caught up in my thoughts, I scratch that one spot behind his ear that makes his leg twitch like he was a dog, and grin to myself when it does.

On my laptop, music is playing. My speaker broke a few weeks ago and I haven't gotten a new one yet, so for now, ABBA is playing at medium volume from the weak speakers built in my laptop. I take a deep breath and lean back against my headboard, a wooden one with fake ivy vines attached to it, much to Chester's joy. Once, he almost ripped all of them off when he discovered that they moved when he nudged them.

"Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen," I mumble along to the song that's playing right now and wish I was seventeen again. Almost done with school, no annoying job, enough friends to populate a good house party and so much free time. Here I am, at 26, working a nine to five job, living with a roommate and her chatty cat, spending my days bickering with either one of them, or my favorite colleague, Mr. Golden Boy.

My curls are up in something that possibly could be described as a messy bun, and it feels like it's already falling apart again. I curse my mother for inheriting that thick, curly hair of hers. She's in Morrocco visiting her family right now, while my dad is somewhere in the Bahamas with his new wife. Being an only child, I'm basically all alone in this country now.

"Knock knock," Kelly rips me out of my daydreams, and I look up to her shaved head peeking into my room through the ajar door. She arches a brow at the sight of Chester laying peacefully on my lap, my fingers running through his fur, and smiles with an expression that says 'I told you you'd like him.'