Snapshots | ✓

Five: Micah

Saturday, October 11th, 2014

For the first time in months Micah had a day off. He didn't have anything that needed to be done. The apartment was clean, he had groceries, everything that needed to be typed up had been typed up. He wasn't much for watching TV or movies, and wasn't going to socialize if he didn't have to. After his morning workout and a shower he took down the unopened box that had been sitting at the top of his closet since last Christmas.

He'd always enjoyed puzzles. That was part of the reason he took a job trying to piece together bits of information to determine when the next terrorist attack would be coming from. But before he'd started doing puzzles where lives hung in the balance, he'd filled his days with simpler kinds of puzzles: Rubik's cubes, Sudoku, crosswords, word searches, and the good old fashioned jigsaw puzzle. Every year his siblings would buy him a new puzzle and take bets on how long it would be before he had the chance to do it. He snapped a picture of the open box on the dining table and sent it to the group chat with all four of them. He was 96% sure Leo, the baby of the family at a year younger than Misha and himself, had won this year.

He had half of the border done when Hayes woke up and shuffled her way towards the bathroom. He got up and started the kettle, knowing she would want tea once she was done, then returned to his spot at the table.

Two minutes later, just as the water finished boiling, she came padding into the main area in an oversized NYU sweatshirt and shorts. She stared at him for a solid thirty seconds before tilting her head. "Are you doing a puzzle?"

"I am."

"That's funny," she said, smiling sleepily and continuing to the kitchen.

He smothered the tiny flicker of warmth in his chest. "Why is it funny?"

"I don't know," she replied, picking a mug after a moment of deliberation. "You're a big tall macho guy and you're doing a puzzle at 9am on a Saturday."

"Macho?"

She dropped a tea bag into the mug and poured the hot water over it. "Yeah. Muscle-y, grr, tough, I-go-to-the-gym-on-a-regular-basis. And don't try to deny that, I heard you leave and come back already and your hair's still damp from showering."

"I don't think going to the gym and doing puzzles are mutually exclusive activities."

"They're not exactly complementary either."

One side of his mouth pulled into a smile against his will. "That's a fair assessment."

They fell into the companionable silence they often defaulted to as she finished preparing her tea. She sat at the table and looked at the scattered puzzle pieces. For several moments she watched in silence as he continued putting the border together, tilting her head to better see things from his perspective. Then she pointed to one of the border pieces he was missing. He glanced up at her, struggling to suppress a smile, but moved the piece into its spot. Another moment later and she pointed to another one.

"Stop laughing at me," she said into her tea.

"I didn't say anything."

"You don't need to, I can feel it."

She pointed to a few more pieces as she finished her drink then left, disappearing back into her room.

--

By 3pm the border was done and the rest of the image was starting to take shape. It was a celestial map with depictions of what each constellation was supposed to represent. Every time Hayes had passed by she'd lingered for a few moments, sometimes moving pieces around or tapping a piece and pointing to a part of the puzzle that had already been put together.

The sixth time she passed by she didn't go back to her room, instead hovering in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room for several minutes. Micah had looked at her a few times but she hadn't noticed, too absorbed in looking at the puzzle from a distance. She was chewing on her lower lip but wouldn't move any closer. It was distracting; not in a bad way but in a way he wasn't entirely comfortable with. She was on the verge of completely derailing his focus.

"You're welcome to join me," he said, drawing her attention to him.

"Are you sure? This is the first thing I've seen you do for fun since I moved in."

"I'm sure."

She joined him at the table, crossing her legs under herself in the chair. Her hair was in pigtails with the shortest bits at the front pinned back with bobby pins as they weren't quite long enough to reach the elastics. He hadn't noticed how uneven her hair was until now, and given how polished her look was most of the time, he was surprised.

"The puzzle isn't solving itself," she teased, putting another piece into place.

"Is your hair supposed to be all different lengths?"

"No, but that's what happens when I impulsively cut my own hair."

He placed another two pieces as he tried to settle on an appropriate response. "What triggered that?"

"I hated where I was in my life so I chopped off all of my hair and enrolled in grad school. Well," she paused, scrunching her nose for effect. "I dropped out of the University of Chicago's law school first and then enrolled in the new program."

"Not the worst way to deal with that particular issue."

"My mom was pretty horrified about the hair but she got over it once I got it fixed by a professional. My dad was too mad about me dropping out of law school during my second year to notice my hair for almost a week, and when he did notice he just said I looked like my mom when she was my age."

"That must be a compliment."

She laughed. "How would you know? You've never met my mom."

"Intuition," he said, recovering after he'd realized his mistake. He turned his attention back to the puzzle and tried to ignore the sideways glances she kept throwing his way. He wasn't one for blushing but he was very, very close to losing the fight with his mortification this time.

"Did you just indirectly call me pretty?" she inquired archly.

"I may be your roommate but I'm not blind," he responded, forcing his voice to be steady. There was no reason for Hayes to know that his throat was tightening from embarrassment.

She smiled. "Thank you. You aren't hideous yourself, not that anyone but your roommate would know that since you never go anywhere."

"I think I'll put 'not hideous' on my resume," he said, ignoring her jab at his social life. She snorted with amusement and they both returned their focus to the puzzle.