My Ex is My New Boss

Part 5

The music playing loudly all over the apartment, made it clear that Paula was at home.

"Is that you, Dani?" Paula shouted from her room, trying to overcome the noise.

Then she came out, wearing her unicorn pajamas.

Her cute short pajamas matched the lavender shades of her hair, which was chin-length and wet after a shower.
The colorful tattoos on her arms, were also in pastel shades. She looked like some kind of a psychedelic fairy...

Paula took one look at my face and paused the music clip that was playing on our TV.

"Everything okay, Dani? You look like something is bothering you. Need to watch 'Reality Bites'?"

Despite the relatively short time Paula and I were roommates, we got to know each other quite well.
From two strangers who had to share an apartment, we have become true friends.

She walked over and gave me a quick hug.

"Tell me everything, I have some time before I have to start getting ready for work"

"I want to see a bit of the movie first, do you feel like it?"

"Totally!" She went to put it on TV.

The first time we watched the movie 'Reality Bites', was the first week I moved in to the apartment.

At first, I was a little annoyed by the new roommate my cousin found me.

I was less bothered by her hair, which was dyed bright green at the time, or the piercings, tattoos, the crazy clothes she wore..I actually liked it all,
But I was a little put off by the lack of attention I got from her.
She looked angry and barely spoke to me,
so I decided she was mad at me for being the one who lived there now, instead of her previous roommate, who was forced to leave the apartment for some reason.

Then, on one of my first evenings at the apartment, it turned out that Paula and I were both in the living room area at the same time.
The TV was open on some random 90s movie with Winona Ryder, 'Reality Bites', about friends sharing an apartment after college.

We both started watching the movie out of boredom, and Paula immediately decided that the character of Winona Ryder is responsible and ambitious like me, while Paula completely identified with her cynical and slutish roommate, who has an endless series of one-night stands and keeps a list of their names.
Paula was inspired by the idea and also began to maintain such a list...

After watching the movie together, the ice broke between us, and Paula told me that some guy she had a huge crush on, just dumped her and that her bad mood was not related to me at all.

We talked a lot that evening and really connected, even though we could not be more different from each other, both in character and lifestyle.

We decided to create a little tradition of our own, that whenever one of us is nervous, sad, or undecided about something, we watch that movie together. We convinced ourselves, that it somehow helped us figure out and solve any problem in some magical way, and strangely, it usually worked.

After ten minutes of watching, I got up. "Do you want some herbal tea?"

"Sure. I bought fabulous chocolate chip cookies today, at the new place "