Lockdown Summer

XIII. Anybody Home?

Lockdown Day 100

I had the worst hangover in years. This one lasted for days. And it wasn't even because I drank too much.

Things around the house went on as if that stupid night never happened, which was understandable since only two out of three here were involved. She and I got through day after day as if those seconds in that crampy hallway were just something I imagined. But I knew it happened, she knew it happened, we just acted like it didn't.

And I hated every bit of that aftermath.

The other day we were alerted by a call from Dennis, who's already back in this city but on a mandatory quarantine before they let him out into the world again.

The tension inside me grew even stronger after that news. I've gotten so used to this house with just Pablo, her, and me. I felt afraid because it's going to change again with the other two coming back, even if we haven't heard about Andrei's return.

Dennis would ask me, how's it going? And I'd explode inside with all my nerves. I can't just tell the truth without him going berserk. Should I casually say, hey, man, I'm very attracted to your cousin, and, oh, ten days ago, we almost kissed, and not expect him to at least punch me in the face? I don't think so.

He considered her a younger sister, whom he trusted us to treat as such as well. Dennis is like a part of my family. But Rica, sorry to say, isn't one to me.

She came into the room this morning from that door only she and I had access to.

I just finished the last of my work and shut the computer down.

"What?" I asked.

"Dennis is probably on his way here now."

"So?"

"Let's address the elephant in the room, once and for all."

I turned around and stood up. I waited for her to say something about what happened—or what almost happened—between us.

Instead, she said, "I'm looking for work again. I may move out of here in a month or two."

"How about that project you and Pablo have going?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I'll talk to him about it. But you guys will also start to go back to at least some new sense of normal. I don't see it running for long anyway."

But how about the fun they're having? Or the fun we're having?

"The elephant is still in the room," I said.

She dropped her shoulders and leaned her back on the wall by the edge of the doorframe.

I just noticed how long her hair had grown since the lockdown. The tips ran down to her chest area. She usually had them tied whenever she's just inside the house. And she was, almost all the time, just inside this house.

I won't go through how ridiculously long my hair or Pablo's had been since. They even mocked me the other day when I tied the front ends with a rubber band and said that I looked like a Shih Tzu.

I also just noticed the dark circles under her eyes, which weren't prominent before we got busy with the income-generating sideline project.

"You don't have to move out," I said.

She sighed and rubbed her palm on the other arm. "I..."

Then we heard what sounded like the bang of the front door.

"Anybody home?" Dennis called from downstairs.

*****

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