CHAPTER 22
“Hey, what are you working on?” Samantha asked, sitting down next to her at one of the long tables in the main part of the shared office space building.
“Filling out my apartment paperwork. I got the email that my application beat out all the other applications, so I can read and review the terms and conditions, lease, and all the addendums. After I send them my arm and my leg, I can select a move-in date and have my own place,” Harlow replied.
“You’re moving out of Larissa’s house?”
“Yeah, of course. Why?”
“Nothing. I guess I thought you’d stay.”
“With Larissa? Why would I do that?”
“You know why, Harlow. And I’ve seen the two of you around here. I thought maybe you were moving toward having the inevitable talk that all of your ex-girlfriends have been waiting for.”
Harlow laughed and said, “You make it sound like you are all in a group chat, and you give each other updates on who I’m with now or who I’m not with, in this case.”
“Not exactly. But I bet the moment you put anywhere on social a picture of you and Larissa, saying you’re a couple now, all of us will collectively say, ‘Finally,’ out loud to ourselves and maybe create a former-girlfriend support group or something to help us process our emotions together.”
“It’s not like that. You know that when I was with you, I was with you.”
“I know you were mostly, but you couldn’t exactly give me your whole heart.
I’m sure it was the same for the other women you’ve been with.
Kind of hard to do that when you are in love with someone else, and that someone else is your best friend.
You’ve apologized a bunch, so I’m not saying this to get another one out of you.
I just really thought you’d stay with Larissa. ”
“She asked me to move in.”
“And?”
“I said no because of insert obvious reason here.”
“Oh, she asked you as a friend,” Samantha concluded.
“Yeah. She suggested we become roommates. I’d make the guest room my room, and we would wake up every day around the same time, have coffee or breakfast, talk about the day ahead, go to work, and when we’re done there, I’d come home, and she’d be in the kitchen or living room, and we’d have dinner and watch a movie like we did last night. ”
“Too couple-like for you?”
“Yes,” she stated. “I know I need to tell her. I will. But I just can’t. Sometimes, I think I’ve finally got the courage I need ready to go, and I’m going to tell her, but she’ll say or do something, and I can’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like she offered to go to a baseball game with me just because she knows I love it.”
“That bitch,” Samantha joked.
Harlow laughed and said, “She hates sports, but she’s offered to go and not ask a million questions. She just wants to hang out with me doing something I like.”
“Well, that’s good of her, I guess. But why couldn’t you tell her how you felt, then?”
“Because I’d be giving that up. If she says she doesn’t feel the same way, there’s no way she’d want to go to a baseball game with me. Or, if she did, it would be awkward.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions there, Harlow.
Just tell the girl already, find out her answer, and if she’s not into you, you deal with the consequences.
It’s got to be better than whatever it is you are doing – sitting here, trying to get an apartment that costs an arm and a leg, apparently, when you’d much rather stay there and watch movies with Larissa every day for the rest of your damn life. ”
“We woke up together this morning,” she shared and closed the laptop. “We fell asleep on the couch, and I woke up with her holding me.”
“So, you’re extra scared right now, huh? You’ve got that fight or flight look about you. Makes sense now.”
“Yes, obviously. I mean, what if I’m the one who pulled her arm around me when I was asleep, and she woke up like that, thinking I–”
“Have feelings for her? Yeah, you wouldn’t want that, would you? A little real honesty between the two of you,” Samantha teased.
“I sat at a bar for hours last night because I didn’t want to go home to her.”
“No, you absolutely did want to go home to her, but you were afraid. It happens.” Samantha shrugged.
“Relationships are complicated, and you’ve known her forever.
I get it. I just think it’s time, Harlow.
” Samantha sighed. “I’m about to say something contrary to that, but you look so pathetic right now, I feel like I should offer.
I’m going bowling with some friends tonight.
I know it’s lame, but we usually drink beer and have fun for a few hours.
None of us is any good, so we mostly roll gutter balls and make fun of each other.
We like to play four on four, so the timing works, but one of my friends canceled.
Would you like to be the fourth person on my team and go bowling with me tonight?
We can eat fried food, drink, and embarrass ourselves.
It’ll get you out of the house you share with Larissa for a few hours.
Maybe she’ll even be asleep, and you can avoid her when you get home. ”
Harlow laughed again and asked, “Why are you enabling my bad behavior?”
“Like I said, you look pathetic right now, and I feel bad for you. Plus, I need the fourth. Up to you, but let me know soon because I need to call around if you’re a no.”
Harlow thought about it for a few seconds but decided to politely decline the offer. Then, she looked at the door to the lobby as it opened and saw Larissa walking in with her bag over her shoulder and her eyes roaming the room. Larissa smiled when she saw her, and Harlow smiled back at her.
“I’ll be there,” she stated, changing her mind. “Text me the info. I’ll be out of here in about an hour. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, no problem. And I saw that, by the way,” Samantha said and stood up. “Hey, Larissa.”
“Hi, Samantha. How are you?”
“I’m good. Just wrapping up and heading home soon.”
“Have a good night,” Larissa replied.
“Thanks. I’ll text you,” Samantha added to Harlow.
“Okay. Sounds good,” Harlow replied and opened her laptop when she realized that she had no idea if the program she’d been using for the paperwork she had to sign had saved her progress.
“Everything okay?” Larissa asked as she sat down next to her.
“Yeah. Why?” she asked back and found that the program had saved.
That was good because she was already on page thirteen of thirty-two of this document, and she had to initial every page, so it had taken forever to get this far. Harlow wasn’t the kind of person to sign a legally binding document without reading it all the way through, so that took longer.
“You look deep in concentration there.”
“Oh, it’s my lease stuff.”
“Lease?”
“For the apartment we saw. I got the email this morning that they’d accepted my application, so I have to sign all of this and get it turned back in to them by a deadline, or they give it to someone else.
Then, I have to sign other paperwork and pick a move-in date that also happens to work for them, or they give it to someone else. ”
“You got it?” Larissa asked.
Harlow looked over at her and said, “Yeah. I’ll be out of your hair shortly.”
“You’re not in my hair now, Harlow,” Larissa replied.
“Harlow, your guests are here.”
She looked up to see Samantha packing up her things behind the main desk and two women standing in front of it, turned to face Harlow and Larissa.
“I’ll get them. Do you need a minute to finish this up?” Larissa asked.
“I’ll have to save it and return to it later. I thought I’d have enough time to get through it before they got here, but it took longer than I expected.”
“Because you always read every page, and sometimes, write down questions to ask if you don’t understand something.
” Larissa smiled at her. “Why don’t you just finish up and join us when you can?
This is more important than the interview anyway.
It’s a place to live, versus helping me on some silly book. ”
“Hey, it’s not silly,” she defended. “It’s something you care about.”
“Yeah, but it’s not school, and it’s not going to do anything, like make me real money or help people.
It’s more of a passion project. I don’t even know if I’ll go through with it.
I might just use whatever reliable data I get from these interviews in my paper, if I can, and not write the book at all. ”
Harlow squinted her eyes at Larissa and said, “You had lunch with Aggie today.”
“Yeah. Why?”
“She got into your head, didn’t she? Tell you not to do this?”
“She just suggested some things.”
“Like that you should focus solely on your dissertation and school?”
“Not solely, no. But she’s right: I need to finish it soon. You’ve said the same thing, too.” Larissa stood up. “I don’t want to keep them waiting, Harlow.”
“Don’t let her get into your head. If this is important to you, you should do it. Work on both. If anyone can do it, it’s you. You know you’re amazing.” Harlow smiled up at her.
“Take your time, okay?” Larissa placed her hand on her shoulder. “Meet us in there, if you want, or just head home and finish this. Either is okay. I don’t want you to lose the apartment, okay?”
“I’m good. I’ll be done soon. I’m almost halfway there, and some of these pages are just for signatures. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes?”
“Just come in whenever. And you’re amazing, too, you know?”
Larissa smiled at her and walked off toward the two women.
Harlow watched her shake their hands and show them through the door that led to the room they always reserved before she returned her attention to the paperwork in front of her.
She checked off a box that she understood that if she got bed bugs in the apartment, she was fully responsible for getting rid of them, that she understood that the unit, as well as the whole building, for that matter, was non-smoking, and when she finally finished, she looked up and found that the lobby room was mostly empty.
She glanced down at the clock on her computer, saw that it had been about thirty minutes, checked her phone next, and saw a text from Samantha with the time and location of the bowling alley, along with a second message.
Samantha: For being such a pain in my ass, you’re buying the first round for everyone. That’s at least two pitchers, Harlow. And I want curly fries.
Harlow laughed to herself and then made sure that the paperwork file was actually sent before she closed her computer, put it in her bag, and made her way into the back part of the building after telling Samantha’s replacement at the desk that her friend had her badge, so she couldn’t get in on her own.
He looked up at her like she hadn’t even been the first person that day with the same problem and walked over to let her in.
“Thanks,” she said and decided to buy him a coffee or something later because he looked like he hated his job, and she could relate. “Hey. Sorry, I’m late. Am I interrupting?” she asked when she opened the door to the room.
“No, you’re fine,” Larissa replied. “Amber, Sandi, this is Harlow. She’s working on this project with me. She just had to take care of something before she could join us tonight. Is it all right if she sits in on the rest of the interview?”
“Sure,” Amber said.
“Thanks.” Harlow moved around them and took the seat next to Larissa, setting her bag down on the floor. “You don’t have to catch me up or anything. I read the questionnaire you submitted.”
One of the reasons it had taken her so long to get done with the paperwork for her new place was that she’d paused midway, curious about who they were interviewing that night, and she’d read the application Amber and Sandi had submitted.
Amber was twenty-nine, and Sandi was forty-two.
They had met at a wedding for a friend they unknowingly had in common and hooked up that very night.
According to their questionnaire, they’d both had a lot to drink, but when they woke up, they decided to keep in touch.
Not long after that, Amber had found herself needing a place to live, and Sandi had offered her a guest room.
That sounded familiar to Harlow. After a few weeks of living together, though, Amber and Sandi had hooked up again, and they had been together ever since.
If Harlow remembered correctly, that was three years ago, and now, they officially lived together as a couple.
Yeah, Harlow could only dream of that. For one, she was about to have her own apartment, and once she sent in that deposit and first month’s rent, that would be it – it would be too expensive to break the lease.
She knew that because she had just read that part of the paperwork.
It was only a yearlong lease, though, so if she did tell Larissa how she felt and Larissa felt the same way, they could live apart for a year, and she could move in officially as Larissa’s girlfriend in a year.
In that moment, for some reason, she looked over at Larissa, who was smiling back at her awkwardly.
“What?” Larissa gave a little laugh.
“Nothing. Why?”
“You’ve been smiling at me weirdly.”
“Oh, sorry. Just… happy to be here. Sorry for the delay. I’m moving and had some paperwork to fill out.”
“No problem,” Sandi said. “We just bought a new place together, so we get it. You always think you’re done because you’ve finished signing everything there could possibly be to sign, but then, they throw something else at you and tell you to sign that, too, as your hand is about to fall off.”
Sandi laughed, and Amber looked over at her.
“It’s the first time I’ve owned anything, besides my old crappy car, so I had no idea it was that bad, but she’s right. My hand was killing me after we signed everything. I could barely get the key in the lock of the house we just bought.”
Amber laughed at her own joke.
Harlow wished she owned something, too. Her car was hers, but it was so old now, and she’d bought it used to begin with.
She was ready for a house of her own. Well, she wanted a house that could be made a home with someone else, and as Larissa asked her next question, Harlow thought about how she could possibly make that home with Larissa and no one else.