Bitter (wlw) (txs)

fifty-four

Sarah's apartment was pretty near to where both college and work were, and I had to admit it felt a bit weird to be in that area in the evening.

"You came!!" the blonde greeted me as she opened her front door.

"Hi El!" Mei soon after joined, wrapping her arms around Sarah's waist from behind.

"Hi" I said, actually strangely happy to be there.

"Come in, everyone's already here" Sarah moved to the side so I walked in.

The apartment looked quite new, a beige parquet floor and white walls extending in the whole place. Groups of people talking to each other were scattered around, probably about fifteen in total.

"This place is nice! There's something cozy about it all" I observed.

"Yeah, I'm honestly really glad to have found this place. My bank account is a little less glad about it" she chuckled. "There's usually five of us here so rent is not too exaggerated, but still. Although recently there's basically been a sixth flatmate" she turned towards Mei.

"Shut up" she laughed, giving her a quick kiss. "Don't listen to her" she told me.

"It's okay" I giggled, refraining myself from joking about knowing something about spending lots of time at your girlfriend's house.

"Before you ask, I don't really know what the plans for the evening are" Sarah added. "I just wanted to take advantage of the fact that all of my flatmates were away and invited a bunch of friends. We just ordered food and there's plenty of drinks in the kitchen"

"Sounds good" I said, looking around. Everyone there seemed genuinely nice and not scary like most people our age I'd encountered parties and stuff. Maybe the few years difference between us really did make a change.

"I was gonna joke about everyone here being slightly older than you and Mei but I realized it's nothing compared to-" Sarah started to say but luckily stopped herself before making the situation worse.

"Huh?" Mei asked as I just stared at the blonde, petrified, my heart suddenly beating way faster than a few seconds before.

Before anything else could happen, a familiar voice came from behind us.

"Hi Ellie! I'm glad you came" Maya appeared at my side.

"Hi Maya" I just managed to say, with a slightly shaky voice.

"Why are you all looking so weirdly confused right now?" she asked, amused.

"Uh, Sarah made a joke I didn't really get, I think? Something about older people" Mei shrugged.

"Oh, yeah, it's an inside joke between us" Maya readily said. "Right Ellie?" she laughed, playfully hitting my arm.

"Yeah..." I faked a laugh, surprised at her actually trying to help me in that situation.

"Fair enough" my friend luckily didn't question it any further.

"You know, spending so many hours working confined to a small space leads to shitty jokes" Sarah agreed, soon before someone audibly called her from the kitchen. "Sounds like someone needs me" she sighed.

"It's probably people asking where to get more alcohol" Mei scoffed as she followed her girlfriend.

"Thank you for...saving the situation, I guess" I told Maya once it was just the two of us.

"No worries" she chuckled. "I figured Sarah had said something dumb just by your face"

"I kind of froze" I laughed.