Belonging - an adopted by Hamilton sequel

15th of April, 2021: Making plans

15th of April, 2021: Making plans

The sun had just started to go down, and the darkness was slowly retaking my view from the window of my dorm. I sat by my desk, with my nose deep into manuscripts for a class I was taking. My phone rang, and I flipped it over to see who it was.
To no surprise, it was Dom's name that lit up the screen, trying to reach me on FaceTime.
I took the call without a doubt, and his face popped up on my screen.
Him calling, and me calling him, had somehow become normal over the last couple of months.
"Hi", I said, feeling happy to see his face.
"Hi", he said back, smiling brightly. "What are you doing on this lovely Thursday?"
I angled my screen so that he could see the piles of books, papers and highlighters that were covering my desk in an organized way.
"Studying", I replied. "You?"
"Same", he told me, showing his computer. He was sitting on his bed, in the least ergonomic position possible.
"The fact that you are doing your last exam ever in less than a month is crazy", I told him, and as I said it, I felt a bit jealous. I still had two years left.
"I've just got to pass", he jokingly pointed out, but he sounded slightly stressed.
"I have never heard of you failing a class", I told him, trying to convince him not to worry. "You always pass"
He rolled his eyes.
"I do want to remind you that I actually study hard to pass", he replied, to which I laughed.
"I know. But you're also really great at taking exams, you don't get as stressed as I do-", I explained, until he softly cut me off.
"I mean, like when you're there, you can't do anything else but do your best. So what's the point of stressing?", he said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Sometimes I wish I could get some of your view on the world", I pointed out, smiling at him.
"What do you mean?", he asked me.
"You're just... here. And you're so easy. And the world doesn't intimidate you as much. You just do stuff", I said, slowly composing the explanation. He laughed.
"I'm not like that all the time!", he exclaimed, finding my explanation a little funny.
"I know, I know!", I said, giggling now. "But it rubs off on me when I'm with you"
That made him grin.
"Even now?", he asked me curiously.
"Even now", I admitted.
"You know, I'm actually going home this weekend, if you want to meet up? Like we've done earlier, masks, two meters apart, covid tested-", he asked me, looking excited.
We had met up two times in March, before he had essentially moved back to Syracuse. He and his friend Owen had managed to get a short time lease on an apartment until the end of summer, which was perfect as the two of them were graduating in May, and Dom had got an internship there over the summer.
"Sure!", I replied, before having even thought about it. "I mean, I still have to get tested for school every day"
"Me too", he pointed out, reassuring me.

We both knew it was risky to meet up.
I had gotten vaccinated last week.
He hadn't been able to get an appointment yet.
Yet every particle in my body wanted to see him.
Even if I couldn't admit that to myself.

"I've missed you", I told him. "It's going to be nice to actually see you, and not like on a screen", I added, feeling as if I had to explain my sudden longing for him.
"I've missed you too", he said, as I stopped speaking. He was smiling. I was too.
The door to my dorm opened after a light knock.
"Hey, I'm back! I got you those ice teas you always get", Emily exclaimed as she entered our room. "I've never seen them in there before, but I suppose the demand has gone up since you moved in", she explained, smiling mischievously at me. I cracked a laugh.
Her red hair was in a ponytail, and she had pinned back her fringe. It was still wet. She was wearing a big sweater over her training clothes, having just come back from swimming practice. I suppose she must've stopped by our local store.
"Thanks, Em!", I said, a little embarrassed to be talking to Dom in front of her.
"Oh, is this Dom?", Emily said loudly, teasing me kindly as she popped up over my shoulder to put down the small pack of four ice teas on my desk. I could hear Dom laughing over the phone. "She's very secretive about you. I had to hear about you from Sepi!", and the comment made Dom smile even harder.
"I'd say that I'm surprised, but I'm not", he said, giving me a kind look, before turning to Emily to introduce himself. "Well, I'm Dominic"
Emily smiled.
"Dominic. I'm Emily. Roommate", she said.
"I don't know if it gives you any peace, but I have heard about you", he pointed out.
"Only good things I presume?", she asked, wittingly.
"Of course", Dom replied, without a doubt.
I always found it interesting to see how he easy he made conversations.
"Alright. I'm gonna hang my swim stuff to dry in the bathroom, just so you know", Emily nodded, and walked to her side of the room to unpack her backpack.
"Yeah", I replied. I really liked how considerate we were about each other. Like the way that she always told me when she was hanging up her swim stuff, even though I knew she did that almost every day.
I looked at him, a little unsure about the situation. I always found it strange when friends from different friend groups met.
I put on a smile.
"Well, I'll see you this weekend then?", I asked him, trying to wrap up the phone call as I didn't really want to speak more in front of Emily. He nodded, looking excited.
"Yeah. I've got you a late birthday present", he told me. I instantly felt my cheeks get warm.
"You didn't have to get me anything, Dom-", I replied.
"It's just something small", he said. "Don't worry", he added, because he knew I had already started to worry.
I hadn't even realised it myself, but I had unknowingly began to tap.
"Okay", I managed to say.
"I'll text you the details", he assured me. "And I'm sorry, I do really have to study now"
I smiled.
"Me too", I replied, sighing at the pile of books and manuscripts. "Bye, Dom", I said, even though part of me didn't want to hang up.
"Bye, Ruthers", he said, and with that he hung up.
I put my phone down, and continued to tap.
"He seems nice", Emily told me, as she emerged from the bathroom, and I could hear that she was smiling behind me.
I turned around as I stood up from my chair.
"He's the nicest person I know", I told her, trying to not make a big deal of it, while I was letting a small grin take over my face.
"You're smiling-", Emily pointed out.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Sepi said you two used to go out", she continued to tell me, once again, teasing me - but in a nice way.
"Yeah. In high school. But I suppose Sepi also said that we broke up?", I said, teasing her back.
She rolled her eyes.
"And you're seeing him again?", she asked me, mischievously smiling at me.
"We're just friends", I defensively told her, as I sat down on my bed.
"I didn't mean it like that, Rue-", she said, realizing that her blunt and excited questions had annoyed me. "I'm just glad you have someone. He seems like a good person. I mean... I really don't want a rerun of Sam"
His name made me shake my head.
We rarely spoke about him.
"Sorry, me and Dom, it's... it's just complicated", I told her, as I tried to stop tapping but somehow routine after routine piled on in my mind.
"I'm just saying, he seems good. I just... instantly had a bad feeling about Sam", she added, shrugging her shoulders, sitting down at her bed after dumping everything that wasn't soaking wet out from her backpack on it, in order to organise her backpack for the next day. Like she always did after practice.
I looked down at my tapping hands.
"I'm just not sure, Em", I told her.
She cracked a laugh.
I looked up at her sudden laugh, surprising me with her reaction.
"I've been unsure all my life. I've worried about competing, training, not doing enough. I poured my heart into school and this-", she exclaimed, gesturing towards her backpack and the clothes she had now thrown on the ground to get into the laundry basket. "That I got so confused and stressed when everyone around me started liking people and got into relationships. It was like I had missed out on this big thing that was so obvious to others. And I think that when I finally stopped worrying about all those things that I hadn't done or missed out on, I felt better. And sure, I might be 20 and have never kissed anyone. But I feel less unsure", she told me, looking up at me with a smile I could only describe as brave.
I nodded, keeping eye contact with her.
"I'm sorry you feel that way", I told her, still tapping, but in a slower manner.
"It's fine. Before I used to think there was something wrong with me, but now I know that I just need a bit more time", Emily said, shrugging her shoulders. "I think that's what tipped me off about Sam. It just went very quickly, and he didn't seem quite honest", she continued.
I turned my head down to look at my hands.
I was tapping.
Like always.
But ever since Sam, I had tried to hide it more.
"I think I felt lonely. Like... like you said, pretty much everyone around me is in relationships, so in a sense, I was supposed to feel lonely even though I wasn't. And so, when he showed some sort of interest, I clung onto him because I didn't want to be lonely", and as I said those words, Emily walked over and sat down next to me on my bed. She put her arm around my shoulder, and let me lean my head on her shoulder.
"But he's gone now. And you're not lonely", she quietly said. "Right?"
I nodded, because it was the truth.
Last year, I might have felt lonely even though I wasn't.
But I didn't feel like that anymore.
"Growing up is weird", she told me. I cracked a laugh, and then she did too. She patted my shoulder, and we let go of each other's embrace.
"Yeah", I replied, and then I took a deep breath.
"So you like Dom?", she asked me, hesitantly, after a while.
I slowly nodded.
"I never stopped", I told her, without a doubt.
"Why'd you break up then?", she asked me carefully.
"It's complicated", I replied, because it was. Part of me knew why, but I didn't want to admit that why to her.
"And he's not like Sam?", she asked, waiting for me to confirm.
"Not at all. He's just... Dom. My Dominic", I said before I had even processed my answer, as I looked at her freckle-y and energetic face. She was smiling.
While I said that, I was picturing him in my mind.
His glasses that were always a bit on the wonky side.
His flappy, dark, curly hair that he always waited far too long to cut.
His kind smile.
And her reply to my floating answer made us both break into laughter that lasted at least for a couple of minutes.
"Well, if you wanna go see him, like properly and not just two meters apart with masks, I'll flippin quarantine with you, because I wanna see this play out"

—————
Hiya!🪻
A fun little chapter for you all. A chapter that I have been clinging onto for a while because I've been wanting to finish the following chapters to make sure this one works with them. Standard me😌

Anyway, I hope you liked Emily and her official introduction. I've named dropped her in an earlier chapter without an explanation, but here you go. I also hope you like reading about how Rue slowly opens up to the idea of getting back together with Dom, all while in the midst of the pandemic💛

So what have I been up to in the last few weeks when I haven't posted? Well, I have started a couple of new courses which is always quite stressful. This time I actually have a course where we are working with a real client, which is both super fun and really scary. I also went and saw the first Swedish translation and version of Waitress, which was absolutely mind blowingly good. I loved the translation of you matter to me into du lyser för mig which basically means that you are a light to me. And this weekend my choir had a concert! We've been doing Mozart's Requiem for this term, and the concert hall was absolutely packed. It was amazing because I've worked so hard on getting all of the parts right, but I think I will have Lacrimosa and Kyrie stuck on my mind forever now🙃

With that said, I really hope you liked this short chapter. I'll see you in the next one🌿

Have the loveliest of days,
Sincerely,
H