Ours

22- Taren

Spring came early this year. On Valentine's day, the sun was shining with I brightness I hadn't seen since last September. Alexander and I had taken advantage of the warm weather, going on a walk together in the park. Halfway through our walk, he asked if I could play the piano for him, and so we set off on a journey to find a bar or building that had a piano for me to use. It took us the majority of our afternoon, but we managed to find one in a subway station. Alexander sat beside me and watched me play silently for almost ten minutes, an intense look of concentration on his face. When I asked him if he wanted to learn anything, he asked me to show him a little bit of Für Elise, and so I did, guiding his fingers to the correct keys and showing him how to cross over the notes smoothly. 

Since then, the weather has only been getting brighter and brighter, the snow slowly melting away as flurries of snow give way to delicate showers of rain. 

That's what the world looked like on Taren's birthday. Three days into March, and it was already raining. The sky was a lame blue-gray, clouds hanging over the entire sky. Early in the morning, I knock on our adjacent door, a small box in my hands. I heard the sound of shuffling, before the door swings open to reveal Taren in a pale blue hoodie, hood pulled up over his untamed bleached hair. He squints at me, then at the box in my hands, then back up at me. But before I could say anything, he says rather smugly,

"Happy Birthday," 

I blink at him, for a second almost doubting I had the right date. "Did you just...?" 

"Wish you a happy birthday before you could wish me one? Yep. I did," When I continue to stare at him, he shrugs, his eyes still half-closed with tiredness. "I like to do that, it throws people off." 

I shake my head, chuckling to myself. I hold up the box, glancing through the door at his ever-messy room. "Mind if I come in?" I ask. 

He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets before he slumps his way back to bed. He sits down, cross-legged, and glances up at me with his eyes barely open. As I start to hand him the box, he holds up a finger to stop me. He turns and wraps his duvet around his shoulders, adjusting it so he's almost entirely cocooned, just his face sticking out of a pile of blankets. He shuffles around a little bit on the mattress, then nods. "Okay." He says, "I'm ready,"

I roll my eyes as I hand him the box. He unwraps it to find a card. I watch his eyes widen slightly as he reads it. 

"You bought us a Netflix account?" He asks in disbelief. I nod, smiling slightly. His face suddenly turns serious. "You know this is a big step forward in our relationship, right? I really like you, babe, but don't you think we're moving a bit too fast?" I scoff at his odd humour, rolling my eyes again. He laughs, putting the card back in the box. "Seriously, though, thank you. That's awesome."

"No problem," I say, "Hopefully I can avoid viruses on my laptop now." We laugh, and I ask him if he has any plans for tonight. 

"You mean now that I continue to not be the legal drinking age?" He replies, "Oh yeah, I'm going to go absolutely crazy. Might pop open the fruit juice, who knows?" He shrugs. "No, not really." 

"You want to use that, then?" I suggest, gesturing to the box. "Have a little movie marathon?" 

Taren smiles at me from his blanket cocoon. "Sure." He says casually, "Sounds good." 

~

"Cheers!" I say, raising my can of Sprite in the air. "In honour of the Christening of this brand new Netflix account, I'd like to say a word of thanks to the best roommate, and person, I'll probably ever meet. Taren, you've helped me discover myself, and you've been patient while I did so- even though some of the answers were literally right in front of me. I owe a lot of things in my life to you, and I've only known you for about eight months. I am excited- and utterly terrified- of what you'll bring to it the longer I get to know you." 

Taren clinks his cup of fruit juice against mine ("For the bit," He had said), announcing, "Cheers to me, bitches!" He drains his cup easily, throwing it over his shoulder once it's empty. "May I just say that I am flattered, but why'd you make a toast if it's just the two of us?" 

I shrug, picking up the cup from my bed before any excess juice can spill on the sheets. "For the bit," I say nonchalantly. 

"Fair enough," 

I grab the hat that's sitting beside me, shaking it around a bit to shuffle the papers inside around. Taren and I had each written a bunch of movies on slips of paper and thrown them in the hat. Our plan was to go through as many as possible before one of us fell asleep. Taren supplied far too many sugary sweets and drinks, and I knew that he was going to crash before me. But, he seemed committed to staying awake. He wanted to 'win', he said. This thought in mind, I hold the hat out to him. "Care to go first?" I ask. 

"Gladly," Taren replies, pulling a name out. He laughs triumphantly when he opens it up, showing it to me joyously. 

"Hellboy?" I groan, before typing it into Netflix. "Did you choose that specifically because I fell asleep when we watched it last?" 

"First of all, it's a good movie," Taren says, shuffling around in yet another blanket he's wrapped himself in. "Second of all, yes, I did, because I want to win."

"I never said it wasn't a good movie, I only fell asleep because I was exhausted! I had just spent six hours studying at the library! Besides, it's not my fault that the movie has a slow start!" 

"It opens in World War Two-" Taren says as the movie starts playing. 

"With terrible CGI and an indecipherable plot," I shoot back before the opening narration. 

We manage to make it through four movies before both of us feel sick enough that we couldn't continue even if we wanted to. As Taren stumbles away into his room, I call out after him. He turns, eyes half-closed and bleary. 

"Seriously. Happy Birthday. You deserve it," 

Taren throws me a weak thumbs up, but I can see that the smile on his face is genuine.