The Beauty in Time

36

೫𝙴𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚊೫

I have bad days. Everyone has bad days, it's just what happens with life. You have your bad days, and there's nothing you can do but push through them.

But I also have good days. I love those days. They make up for the bad ones. My good days, as it turns out, are often the days I spend with Matthew.

Sometimes though, I'm in the middle of enjoying my good day alone. I bake, I lounge, and if I'm really feeling up for it, I take a bath. I normally am more of a fan of showers than baths, so they're pretty rare for me. Once in a while though, I like to just run a burning hot bath and throw in too many bubbles, wearing a nice face mask, a messily done bun, and with candles lining the bathroom counter and the ledges inside the tub.

The lights are off, it smells like baked goods, and I'm about to fall asleep in the tub. I should be worried that I'm tempted to fall asleep in this body of water where I could easily slip under, but I'm not. I think I'd be okay with that way of death. It's too good to get out now—

My phone begins playing a long segment of a guitar riff. I groan at the sound of it, eyes snapping open. I look over at my glowing phone sat on the floor right beside the tub, grumbling to myself as I sit up, roll over, and very awkwardly struggle to reach for my phone, unwilling to climb out no matter how uncomfortable it is to reach like this and how much water drips out of the tub while I roll around and stick my arm that was just in the water out.

I scowl at Matthew's name on my phone, but I answer it, swiping across the screen with a soapy thumb. "What?" I snap as I lift the phone to my ear.

"Hey," He greets casually. He's used to my snapping. I don't answer like this that often, but sometimes he must know he catches me at the wrong time and he isn't phased. "Are you home?"

I sigh deeply as I readjust in my bath. "Yeah." I tilt my head back to close my eyes again.

"Okay, cool. Mind if I come over and get some parmesan?" I think I can hear his door shutting in the background.

I frown. "Parmesan?" We share a lot of things like eggs, milk, and flour, but neither of us have ever asked for cheese like that.

He chuckles. "Yeah, I need it for dinner. You have some, right?" I can hear him pressing my code into my door, and I hear the door open not just in the background of our call, but out in the other room. "Where are you?" I hear his voice on both ends too.

"Taking a bath." I admit absently, watching the door closely as a light is flicked on and pours in beneath the door.

"Oh." He replies quietly. "Sorry." I don't know if he really is sorry or not, but I hear him shuffling around through the phone. I hear a few particularly loud noises out from the other room, but mostly rely on the phone to talk to him. "If you haven't eaten yet, you're welcome to come over and have some pasta."

I groan loudly. So loud, he could probably hear me from the kitchen. The walls aren't exactly thick in the first place. "But then I have to get out, and I just warmed my water back up." I return dreadfully.

"I can put it in a container for later." He decides, solving the problem quick. I sigh because he solved the problem.

"Well, will you take Dizzy with you? She's been crying at me." I ask, sighing again just because I no longer want to be in the bath but I also don't want to go through the process of getting out.

This is why I hate baths.

"Sure. Is she in there with you?"

"No. She's probably, like, in the living room." I guess. She hasn't been crying for a couple of minutes, but I know for a fact she'll start again as soon as he leaves.