Definition Diner

13. optimistic pessimist

Saturday September 28th

Three knocks on my bathroom door is what wakes me up. I manage to open my eyes wide enough and look at my phone to see that it's only 6:35am.

The sound of the shower curtain opening is what makes me get up from bed and walk to the bathroom.

Shan and I share a jack and Jill bathroom.
From the moment I moved in with her we wanted to create a space where we pretended that we didn't live together. We wanted to have a space where we weren't sisters, but we're best friends.

Because as nice as it is to have your best friend be your sister, it's also nice to have a separation.

The space was for serious topics. A place where we wouldn't judge but just listen.

That space had been the bathtub of our bathroom. We would just sit in there and talk. It was a even playing field for us since it was the one room in the house that only we shared.

I open the door to find the nightlight in the bathroom illuminating Shans figure in the tub. Curled into a ball.

"We haven't done this in a while." My voice was barely above a whisper, still waking up.

Whatever she wanted to talk about had to be important if she either got up this early or stayed up this late.

I stepped over the edge of the tub and sat in the space next to her. A towel was already on the bottom of the tub, saving us from a wet butt. She relaxed more once I was stationary, resting her head on my shoulder instead of in between her knees.

Seeing as Shan was the one who wanted to talk, I wasn't going to until she did.

She stayed silent for what felt like forever. I had to keep pinching my arm in order for me not to fall asleep, the dark bathroom only lit by the small nightlight wasn't helping.

"I like him."

"What?" Who was she talking about? Why did she wake me up to tell me she had a crush on someone? My poor bed, I left it. The one thing alerting me to not get up and go back to sleep was the fact that Shan had a new crush every other day, and if she wanted to talk to me about one then that meant it was serious.

She lifted her head off my shoulder and rested it on the wall behind her. "When I started talking to Nate I didn't expect to like him. I really like him."

It took me a minute to process her words. "Well I did find you with your tongues down each other's throats."

A sigh left her mouth. "That was before I even started talking to him."

"Shan, you mean to tell me that you only started talking to him within the past two weeks and you're already having a big enough breakdown about liking him that you woke me up at the butt crack of dawn when I could be getting precious sleep."

My blunt words were not what she wanted to hear.

"Y-yes. But that's not the point."

"But that's kinda the point." The look that she gave me told me to shut up.

I gave into her death stares and try to make myself comfy seeing as it looks like I'm going to be here for awhile.