Under Control.

chapter fifty.

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'Come to the show this Friday.'

The voice down the line is Julian's, and it's pouring through the receiver of Nora's work phone, in her office, at a reasonable hour on a Monday morning. So, the world might be ending. Or this could all just be an elaborate hallucination.

'W—what?' Nora is standing surrounded by a few small boxes, some stacks of paperwork, and a temporary pass waiting for her on top of it all. The office she's in used to be hers, but it's not anymore, and so if Julian had called any later — let alone tomorrow or the next day — she wouldn't have been around for him speak to.

And that's because two weeks ago, she'd quit. It happened three days after the morning they had spent lying together on the floor of her apartment, falling apart and picking each other back up again. And today was her last day.

'We're playing a show downtown on Friday. We're trying out some new songs — some of the stuff we've been recording for the new album. You should come.' Julian sounded so casual down the line, and Nora didn't know how she was supposed to feel about it, or anything. And with her unsureness came a dizzy kind of numbness that went straight to her gut.

'But, um, why?' Nora wasn't trying to be difficult, she just genuinely didn't understand what was happening. And adding to that was the fact that she was about to be jobless with barely four months worth of savings to make her rent. So, essentially, Nora was a swirling mess of anxiety and confusion.

'Because we're friends, remember?'

Friends. They were friends — that's what they'd agreed. They'd cried together, kissed in a crumpled mess on the floor, and then laid in the dark until words formed out of the brokenness of them, again. And then, they'd promised to try being friends.

'Where is it?' Nora's words come out sounding unlike the shape of them. They sounded like — 'No, please, I don't want to do this, I don't think I can...' — but they both ignored the fact of it and carried on in spite of the fact that this was the worst idea that either of them had come up with, maybe ever.

Julian tells her and for a brief flash, Nora hears the undercurrent of uncertainly in his voice. And for some reason, that makes it a little easier for her to say yes.

And so then it's decided — Nora and Julian are friends. And she's going to a show on Friday, to celebrate her new unemployment, as well as all of her other mistakes.

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'Fuck you doin'?'

'Uh, buying milk?'

The deli aisle at the grocery store is not the likeliest place in the world for one to find Albert, and especially not lately. But at the same time, it's not-not, either.

'It's eleven am on a Tuesday,' Al was holding a bottle of vodka in one hand (at eleven am on a Tuesday), and a block of cheese in the other. And so it went without saying that he was in no real position to be judging anyone else about their life choices.

'So, you haven't forgotten how to tell the time, then? Just how to use a phone?' Nora was broken on the inside enough to spit poison first thing in the morning, but not so much so that she was immune to the flash of guilt that lit up Albert's face at her sharp words.

'I've been meaning to call you,' He placed the bottle down on the nearest shelf, resting it up against a pot of yoghurt and some cream, and then he gave her shoulder a squeeze while he tried to make amends. 'We've got a gig downtown this Friday. You should come. Please? Pleeeease?'