The Temporary Roomie by Sarah Adams

I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’m a dead man walking, and I feel that metaphor in so many ways. All night my thoughts circled around Jessie, looking at our conversation from every angle and wondering what I should have done differently. I spooked her, jumped too many steps ahead at once. I felt a tinge of friendship and got greedy. I wanted it all—to know everything. I would have stayed up all night downloading as much information from her as she’d have allowed.

My own desire to know her sort of shocked me. I didn’t realize until the moment I was given a morsel of kindness how much I’ve been repressing my hope of…friendship…a relationship…a civil acquaintance with Jessie? I don’t know what to call it. Some mix of all of those.

Now, I’m in the kitchen making breakfast, and Jessie hasn’t come out of her room yet for the day. I heard her come down around 1 AM and watch TV, still struggling with insomnia. I listened to that entire episode of Seinfeld trying to get up the courage to go out and talk to her again or sit down beside her and finally watch together like we had planned.

If I had to guess, I’d say she’ll hide away all day. She’ll punish me for trying to push the line. Get back over there in the ‘I hate you’ zone. I don’t want to be in that zone anymore. I don’t want to fight so much. Those few minutes of real conversation were not enough, and it only scratched the surface of what I want from her. Now, I feel like digging, uncovering everything I can about Jessie. I’m an archeologist, and all I need is someone to get me a shovel and one of those little dust brushes.

I crack four eggs, whisk them, and pour them into the pan. They sizzle and pop, and their aroma fills the air. I scramble them around in the pan, and just as I’m dumping them out onto a plate, I hear footsteps behind me. It’s Jessie. My heart hammers, and for reasons I don’t fully understand yet, I feel like smiling at the sight of her here in the kitchen. She’s not punishing me.

She’s wearing a pair of jeans and a simple tight grey t-shirt, her bump sticking out like a little basketball. I look at her, and she looks at me. She blinks, I blink. Since she doesn’t make an attempt to say anything, I don’t dare speak either. I don’t know what I would say, honestly. I’m sorry? I’m not. I do want to know about Jessie’s mom, and her dad, and her family, and what her favorite color is, and if she had to have braces in high school, and if she stays all the way to the end of the movie credits or gets up and rushes out before the line builds up.

I watch Jessie’s eyes drop to the eggs on the plate I’m holding, and I see the desire in them. I grab another plate out of the cabinet and slide half of my portion onto it. She watches closely with a hesitant brow. Trying not to make any sudden movements, I set the plate down and slide it across the counter toward Jessie. Her lips press together as she surveys the scrambled eggs, like if she accepts them, she’s accepting more than just breakfast. She’s right. It’s a peace treaty in the form of squishy, delicious, yellow proteins.

Never has my kitchen felt so quiet and yet so loud at the same time. I can hear her breathing. I can hear my own heart beating in my ears. Something is different between us today, and every cell in my body is hyperaware of it. Neither of us is saying anything, but I don’t feel like we have to. This is our truce. We do nothing but bicker and fight, and this is us saying, Let’s not ruin anything with words today.

Jessie delicately picks up the plate and then lifts a bite of eggs to her full, soft pink lips. She grins around the fork, and I’m mesmerized as I allow myself to watch her with new eyes. I’ve always had a filter around Jessie, a yeah-she’s-cute-but-her-heart-is-cold-as-ice lens I viewed every encounter with her through. Now, I’m seeing her without it, and there’s vulnerability, and fear, and a painful childhood. There’s humor and strength, and playfulness. Now that I’ve taken off that filter, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to put it back on. Jessie is starting to make sense to me, and she’s only becoming more beautiful as she comes into focus.

We both finish our breakfast in silence, practically staring at each other the entire time, and it’s oddly the most comfortable I’ve been in forever. She has to get closer to me to put her plate in the sink after she finishes her eggs. My back is leaning against the portion of counter just beside it, and I’m not going to move. Jessie comes forward slowly, one foot in front of the other like she can sense this thing humming between us and is scared to get too close. I watch her every step of the way, and she watches me. Without words to distract us, we’re each highly aware of the other.

The hairs on my arms stand on end when she sets her plate in the sink and her arm brushes against mine. She pauses beside me, both of us facing different directions, and slowly her eyes rise to mine. I hold my breath. What now? her gaze asks.

I shrug lightly and smile.

She smiles too, and it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s light filtering into a desolate, damp cave. It’s the first taste of watermelon in summer. It’s a monarch butterfly landing on your finger.

And just like those things, it’s fleeting.

I’m staring at her mouth when her smile fades. She backs up, nods briefly, grabs her keys off the counter, and leaves the house. All I can do is frown at the front door and spend the rest of the day obsessing over this silent interaction. I’ll replay it a hundred and two times in my head, trying to decipher if it meant something, but the truth is, it was probably nothing. Maybe I’ll wake up later and realize it was an odd dream. Either way, I know I won’t be able to look at Jessie the same after this.