Myocardium

Part 20

When my shift's done, I return to our apartment with nothing but Rafael on my mind. What if he's actually planning to kill me? Nah, that's totally unreasonable. But...what if?! No...okay, okay, calm down! He. Isn't. Planning. To. Kill. Me. But what if he doesn't want to hang out with me and genuinely just agreed out of pity for my pathetic ass?! Damnit, this thought is even worse!

I check on Sasha and Daisy, who are both still sound asleep, before I sit down on our grey, comfy sofa. I retrieve my phone from my pocket and...surprisingly - no, even shockingly, I have received a new message. What's even better is that it's from the only person I'm more or less actively speaking with. Rafael.

It's a picture. Not knowing what to expect, I hesitantly click to open the message and, while praying that it's not going to be a damn dick pic, am met with a photo of a fricking adorable white, fluffy puppy, who's lying on someone's...or presumably Raf's lap and smiles at the camera with his pretty brown eyes and his pink tongue sticking out, snout resting in what looks like Rafael's cupped palm. 

Man, this dog looks like the most content puppy I've ever seen. Must really miss his owner too, I bet.
The description that comes with the picture reads "Hey, just found this pic of Marshmallow on my phone, thought I'd share :)".

Simply reading this text from him makes me smile and forget about all the feelings inside of me.
It takes me a while to find something appropriate to answer without sounding completely dumb or childish. In the end, after re-typing my message a thousand times, I end up sending the words "Aww, what a cute doggo! He looks like such a sweet puppy :)".

I scroll through the rest of my contacts, most of which are unused. Sasha, Daisy, Joe...Mom, Dad. Yeah, I never brought up the strength to delete their numbers, even though they probably belong to other people already. I mean, it has been years.

Between the little number of contacts, I see some of my debt-connections and Joe's buddies. Nobody else, really. Except, of course, Rafael. The fact that I have the honour of having his number makes me chuckle as I lie down on the sofa to rest a bit. But first, I decide to check Rafael's profile-picture, he seems to have uploaded it. It now shows a picture of him, professionally, or at least  taken. 

He looks as stunning as ever, leaning against a piano with his messy curls, all black outfit and glasses. I've never seen him wear glasses in person, maybe he's usually wearing contacts? Next to the icon his profile picture creates, I see his account info of the messaging-app we use. 

Active since: September 20, 2017. Last month? Damnit, my phone must be mistaking his sign-up date with the last time I updated the app itself. I always have troubles with this old model. Maybe it is time for me to get a new phone? Then again, I am not sure how necessary that would be, apart from a few glitches and minor bugs, it works just fine. If it gets the job done, then why renew it, right?

If I'm really meeting Rafael tonight, I sure need all the sleep and rest I can possibly get. Wow, I never would have thought in a hundred years that there'd be a night where I'll give up a few hours of sleep to meet another person,...like, an actual human being.
God, the thought of meeting him for real makes me incredibly nervous, what if it's super awkward? What if I accidentally mess everything up? What if he hates me after we meet? Man...there's so many ways to fuck it all up.

Regardless, a few hours later I find myself sitting in class once again. It dawns on me that, to the outside word, I must seem like such a generic, tough boy with nothing too interesting or secretive about him. Yeah right.

"Hey there", 'his' words sound through the room and almost give me a mini-heart-attack. Heck, I almost forgot that we have lectures with him. Jesus, his voice startles me. For a second, I stare at him in utter surprise before I snap out of it and actually pay attention to all the things he explains to us. To be honest, he makes it easy to be interested in his lessons, he has his ways of naturally making them more appealing for people our age. This lesson's topics are common illnesses and the difference between bacteria and viruses. Doesn't sound too interesting, but trust me, Rafael makes it more than interesting.