Expectations

Chapter Four

„Why?" Karlie groaned in frustration and pushed herself back on her desk chair. The chair rolled backwards and was stopped by the carpet on the floor. She stared at the laptop screen from the distance, squinting to read the error message it was showing.

"Fuck this" she mumbled as she steered the chair back towards the desk. "I need more coffee." She went into the kitchen. As she was waiting for the water to boil, she looked around the room. Blank walls, not a single plant on the window sill, and a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink. The only eye-catcher was a polaroid of her and Taylor on the fridge.

She poured the boiling water on top of the ground coffee in the pot and sighed. "I need to get out of here."

After moving out of student housing, this apartment had been the next best thing she could find. It wasn't ideal. It was on a busy street. There was a construction site nearby that started making noise at 6 am every morning. The neighbors were loud, though she had never seen them in person. She had known as soon as she had stepped in that this wasn't a forever home. It wasn't supposed to be. But for some reason, living here was lonelier and colder than she had imagined.

She went back into the room and started pacing back and forth, looking everywhere but her laptop screen. The room was bigger than her dorm room, but less cozy. Might have something to do with those unpacked boxes in the corner, she thought and sighed again. I miss Taylor.

She went to the window and looked down onto the street. Traffic was busy as usual, and the people on the sidewalk were hurrying along. It was already beginning to get dark, and it was drizzling. She put her arms around herself, craving warmth.

At least tomorrow is gonna be exciting, she thought and went back into the kitchen. She poured the coffee into one of the mugs Taylor had given her as a move-in gift, and grabbed the almond milk from the fridge.

Unexpectedly, her phone started ringing from the other room. She startled and nearly spilled the beverage. She rushed to get the phone. It was Kimby.

"Hey Karls, what are you up to?" her younger sister asked cheerfully.

"Ugh ... just doing some work" Karlie said non-chalantly.

"Sounds good. How's it going?"

"I don't know, honestly ... I ran into a problem with the formatting earlier and don't know how to fix it ... I think I'll have to go to the office tomorrow and have one of the others look at it."

"Oh, okay" Kimby simply replied. She knew how much her sister hated going to the office and tried to work from home as much as possible.

"Why are you asking, though?" Karlie asked.

Kimby hummed. "Kari and I wanted to take you out for dinner tomorrow."

"Oh."

"You wanna come?"

"What's the occasion?"

"Well," Kimby started. "Reputation comes out tomorrow, that's a reason to celebrate."

So the twins had had the album release on their minds, too. Of course they had, Karlie thought amused.

"And second of all," Kimby continued.

Karlie interrupted her. "You didn't say first of all" she joked. Talking to her sister had lightened her mood considerably.

"Shut up Karlie. And second of all, I know you're miserable in that little apartment of yours and you need to go out more."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are, and you're a bad liar at that. Jeez. I don't get why you don't just take up Taylor's offer to move in with her and-"