"Nia." Her name softly fell from his lips and she soaked in his sweet breath like a pancake to syrup. Her eyes were low and she was watching his chest rise and fall. She couldn't look at him just yet. She was frozen in place.
With just this brazen...
The following Saturday Nia was sitting cross legged in her bedroom wrapping vases and glass trinkets in newspaper when her apartment's buzzer went off.
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Nia had felt cooked propped against her bed as sweat rolled from her baby hairs to her brow even as cold air blasted from her air conditioner's vents while she packed vehemently. She had tried to keep her balcony door open that morning and soak in the last of the summer, but the city's humidity crept into her place and it had warmed up like an oven.
It was the last Saturday she'd spend in her apartment's sacred solstice in a long time and she couldn't figure out who could possibly be interrupting it. Moving or not, Nia's Saturdays had always had a ritual like so much of her life but now that she was upending that, everything — even her apartment — had a revolving door of change.
Amidst it all though, Nia was back to feeling like herself. More than she had in a long time, though nothing was the same anymore. Maybe throwing herself into the overwhelmingly huge project of her moving internationally was consuming her time and energy and allowing her to disassociate but she didn't care. It was a welcome distraction.
Nia made her way to the intercom to check whether it was her property manager coming by to finalize her subletting agreement or Sarina was popping by with Zach because she was in the area or maybe the moving company got the dates wrong ...
All of those options were Nia's brain's way of saying it better not be who she thinks it is.
And of course it was.
"Who is it?"
"It's me, Ni." Malcolm's voice boomed with a recognizable bass even coated in static as it echoed through the cheap speaker. Unforgettable even after weeks of not hearing it.
Nia wasn't really ready to talk to Malcolm yet. It sure as hell wasn't on her to-do list, but Malcolm always dealt with her on his terms. She knew she didn't really want to continue to allow him to treat her that way, but she didn't know how to stop it from happening. She didn't even know if she wanted to allow him to be her friend anymore at all. She hadn't given it much thought before today because she didn't want to give it much energy. Her life lately demanded that elsewhere. Deep down Nia knew that if all he wanted was a friend out of her, after seeing her differently, vulnerable, naked – she couldn't be his friend.
And maybe she was avoiding the conversation; it would be an inevitable awkward reconnection where everything ended and died. A final box on their friendship, within her list of life, had been pending. The looming gravity of the choice to cross out Malcolm forever in finality carrying a weight Nia realized she hadn't been ready to release. But hearing him and knowing he was close made her heart beat anxiously, and her limbs finally feel the load crushing her. Nia felt tired of holding onto Malcolm. She could feel her grip on him loosening, like she was ready to drop him, let go of what had happened, and move on.
