2 AM

Hey, guys. I think I started writing this short sometime in January and if I had not discovered the draft last night, I would not have remembered finishing it. And, well, I got impatient so I tried to wrap it up today. I might edit it somewhere sometime so consider this a work in progress (including my lazy title). But I hope this is decent enough. Enjoy! And, oh! Tell me what you think.

Fourth Part.

She sucks in her breath again and feels the folds of her sheets in the dark, letting the coolness rub on her burning skin. Her ready-made blue satin dress has covered her up after all, just like what the sales attendant said, except for a few areas where it starts to skimp – the tear from the slit showing right above her left thigh. She presses her thumb over the purple spot on her knee and winces. She forgets where she got the bruise, although she does have a slight memory of her driving Paul’s minivan.

Paul. Her mouth twitches sourly as she remembers the name.

“It’s two in the morning.” Lara stands by the door frame, her right hand coming to her hip, and her other clutching several sheets of paper. Nicole stares at her, blinking slowly as if she were fighting the urge to close her eyes. As if her ears are not burning and her chest isn’t too tight to breathe. She blinks slowly, trying to recall how her roommate suddenly appeared in front of her.

“I know,” she whispers, half-wondering how she got home.

She rolls off from the bed before sprinting to the bathroom to throw up for the third time in the last two hours.

“You think you could get away with this because I always let you in the gate even though it’s way past curfew. I have a life too, you know. I’m not studying every night so you can come in whenever you want to.” She pauses tentatively, eyes hovering at her roommate’s black bra strap dangling loose from her right shoulder. “You look like a mess, by the way.”

“I know,” Nicole manages to squeak out before another gurgling sound from her throat and into the toilet. The smell of booze and vomit clings to the atmosphere. Lara pinches her nose in annoyance.

“You’re gross.”

She blinks back hot tears. “I know.”

Her head spins for a moment before she actually drops her head back on her pillow, and her roommate’s voice slur into nothing. The tear on her blue satin slit zips an inch higher.

First Part.

“Hey,” his sweet deep voice rings through her ear. She sometimes makes mental comparisons of it with their favorite hot chocolate Paul's mom used to make. She bites her lips.

“It’s two in the morning.” She reaches for her bedside clock just to make sure. She wants to sound annoyed but she couldn’t help smiling. She misses him; two in the morning doesn’t bother her at all.

“I know,” he whispers. “Open up. I’m outside.”

“Say what again?” Nicole rubs her eyes and starts clambering down the hall towards the bathroom to brush her teeth. The last thing she wants lover boy to remember this hour is her morning breath. She grabs the nearly finished tube of toothpaste and squeezes in panic.

The bun she had on the whole day has made her hair wavier than usual, she realizes; she presses the fringes to her forehead and sighs. Perhaps it wouldn’t bother him. Perhaps he’d overlook the uncoordinated purple tank top and blue pajamas. Perhaps he wouldn’t even notice.

“Paul,” she calls out to him who is conveniently leaning on a silver minivan, both his hands occupied with a few bags. She checks her hair with the car window for the last time.

“McDonald’s. I remember it wakes you up the fastest. So which one’s first? Fries?”

“I love you.”

He winks before scooping her into the minivan’s roof, her long and wavy hair brushing against his cheeks.

Second Part.

Nicole slumps herself into the mountain of pillows on her carpet – the ones she’d missile-thrown five minutes ago. It has been four days since her disastrous date with Paul. To her, anyway. The picture of the disinterested look on his face that day does not leave her head. What was wrong with her? She wanted to ask. It appears to her that the longer they spend time with each other, the more she notices him glancing at his phone; his “Huh’s” increased by a third. She looks at the mirror and makes mental notes on her appearance: a stubborn dot of acne bore itself on her chin like a shiny bead, and her hair falls flat with grease.

“For the nth time, you look fine, Nicole,” Lara putters, exasperated, her eyes half-leaving the stack of books on her study desk.

“Fine. Okay. Just fine. Probably why he scooted over to the next hot girl in his class. Because I was just fine.” Nicole presents herself to her roommate and frowns. She can feel the grease on her face now, too.

“He’s good for nothing, okay? And stop making your world revolve around him. I mean, look at you!” Lara clutches her wrist and starts fixing her hair that has hopelessly stuck on her tear-stained cheeks. “You are so much better off without him. Sometimes I wonder what you see in him.”

“I wonder, too,” she half smiles, although it doesn’t hide her bloodshot eyes and the swollen, purple spot just below her chin.

Third Part.

The tension on her jaw and the tightness of her hands wrapped around the steering wheel turns her knuckles white. A streak of mascara stains her cheek, and in her head is a waging battle of ramming the minivan to the nearest tree and driving forever. Her phone beeps for the seventeenth time now. She’s always liked the details, he had said. Like remembering how many times he tapped his leg before he finally asked her out to the movies. Like how many times he said I love you the day they first fought. Sixty-seven. Or, like how many times he called the day after their last fight. Zero.

Her phone beeps again as she hurriedly pulls over the driveway. Eighteen now. She finally picks it up and decides to read the message. “Give me the car back,” she grunts before sweeping the back of her hand up her cheek to wipe another tear that escapes. How long has it been this way?

She stumbles over the bag of trash graciously blocking the entrance to their apartment. Her eyes have failed her yet again. It was difficult to try to find the way home with a bucketful of tears spilling from her ducts after all. Her knees sting so bad, but not as bad as how her chest feels. Burning. Perhaps it was all a mistake. Perhaps if she had believed him when he said they were just friends even after she caught them making out in his minivan, everything would still be alright. Perhaps she was too dramatic for this. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps it was all in her head. She gasps for air before turning the knob.

Fifth Part.

“Thank God for cafes that open overnight. Macchiato!” Nicole announces, waving two cups in front of her roommate after she pushes the door open with her foot. The room is cool like the air conditioning has been turned on for hours. She shakes her head, remembering she used to have a miser of a roommate.

“Careful. I don’t want that spilling on my desk,” Lara says, not looking up, but grinning. She is hunched over a stack of papers. Again. Her hair swept up in a clean bun. “And thank you! I’ve been dying to go get coffee but I just cannot not finish this first.”

“Wow, what’s with you?” Nicole asks, putting down the coffee. “No exams?”

She shakes her head. “Sketching time.”

“Good idea. About time I did something too, you know. Clay modeling? Whittling?”

Lara hums her response and the silence continues to hang in the air. Not painfully, though. Peacefully, like when you walk into a room with a mother lulling her child to sleep. Peacefully, like when you finally rouse from your bed and realize you’re off for the day. Nicole smiles at herself. At the childishness of the recent months. At her foolish spirit. At her roommate finally getting her nose off her books for one night. She picks up her coffee to her lips and makes a little sip. More cream than usual. She doesn’t like cream, but this time she doesn’t mind.

“You forgot the muffins you said you’d buy?” Lara asks, breaking the silence in the room. “Do you want me to get some? I think I’m done. What time is it?”

Her head still wants to float with her thoughts for a few more minutes but her roommate is looking at her. Like she is getting impatient. Like she is suddenly into time and clocks but does not want to read one. Like she is concerned her roommate has gone deaf.

“It’s two in the morning,” Nicole whispers and she feels a buzz in her pocket. A faint one.

Half-wondering but half-hoping, she digs into her pocket and takes out her phone. Maybe she should blame her phone for dying, but she chuckles at her own silliness and at the blank screen – turned off and useless. To her, anyway. For now. Or tomorrow too, who knows? She slips it back before checking the time again. It’s 2:01 in the morning.