"Are you hungry?" He asks, unlocking his apartment door without letting go of my hand.
"Cam, buddy!" A Chinese boy trots down the hall with a large pizza box even though it's only ten. "Wanna share? Who's this? Oh, girlfriend, right? Katherine, right? I'm Ollie."
"Hi," I'm holding his hand with both of mine, and he squeezes reassuringly.
"Yeah, this is my girlfriend, but no thanks. Have a good Christmas if I don't see you." He smiles a quiet, friendly smile and opens the door.
"Bye," I wave and follow him closely into the entryway.
"Want a snack? Something to eat?" The kitchen looks the same as it did this summer when we visited; new marble counter tops and scuffed hardwood floor from before Gabriel was born. The same leather couch we fell asleep on so many nights when we watched movies and were too tired and too comfortable to disentangle ourselves and fall into bed.
"Water?"
"Coming right up." He fills up a tall glass with ice cubes and water from the Brita pitcher. His fingers brush mine as it changes hands and the touch sends a tingle, the comforting kind, down my spine.
He pours leftover tea from the teapot on the stove (I love that he uses teapots so much) and we sit together on the couch. We face each other, backs against opposite couch arms, cradling our respective drinks and watching each other.
"How'd your finals go?" He asks, his head tipping into the couch back and his mouth creeping up into a hesitant almost-smile.
"Pretty well, I haven't gotten my marks back yet but I studied a lot." The glass is cold, and for the first time in what feels like a long time, my insides aren't.
"So..."
"You called me here, you go first."
"I'd rather if you did."
He smiles, then I smile. He knocks his ankle against mine and we sit there like that.
***
{ there will be many balconial-esque convos so be prepared for lots of feels }
anyway shameless self promo here we go
my collab account with my very favouritest person exoticinsanity (see what we did there??) has published the intro to our first story!!
it's a book of open letters called "drunken shakespeare" {extremely misleading title but we liked it so it stuck} {it was developed at like 9pm a couple saturdays ago}
so anyway i'd appreciate if you'd take a looksie ;) i'm so excited i can't breathe bye
YOU ARE READING
Conversations From Afar
Short StorySEQUEL TO BALCONIAL CONVERSATIONS | In which Katherine and Cambriel suffer the ups and downs of a long distance relationship | Wattys 2016 | cover by the fabulous @kdkellow
