Disastrously Simple

Chapter 3

"I'll take her home sir" Nora heard a distorted male voice, above her head. Everything sounded so distant, but she couldn't see anything. The honking from the cars sounded like she was hearing them through a pillow. Maybe she had a pillow on her head, that's why she couldn't see.

"I think we should call the police" said another male voice and Nora opened her eyes. She felt like everything was turning around, like she was holding a camera upside down and now she was trying to adjust the focus. She was looking at a male jawline, from below,  right above her head. She tried to stand up but she realized that her head was resting on the thighs of that man.

"Police? Is it because I'm black, isn't it?" said the man she was resting on. Nora tried to stand up again but her head was heavy. The man felt her movement and looked at her. "Nora are you okay?" he told her. It was Connor, her neighbor. He lived on the 2nd floor of her block of flats.

The other man kneeled in front of her and asked her if she had called an Uber. She nodded, not being able to say anything and feeling terribly confused. Connor helped her raise her body and he was holding her arms, until he was sure that Nora could stand still in her own.

"Do you know that man, miss?" the Uber driver asked her. Nora nodded again, still not understanding. "Then I apologize sir. You would do the same thing if a girl called your Uber and you found her passed out with a man wanting to take her home." said the driver to Connor. Connor thanked him and he went towards his car, holding Nora.

When they went inside his car, Nora hugged him. "I've never spotted a friend of mine outside, in London, and you were there at the perfect time. Fuck, I feel like I was hit by a car." she told him. He smiled and started the car.

"You would indeed be hit by a car if you'd fallen a few steps closer to the street. You were lucky you fainted right in front of my workplace." he told her. His workplace, right. He was wearing a suit and tie. Nora had never seen him wearing something else beside ripped jeans and sweaters. He was so different. She couldn't imagine Connor, who was at a different party every night, could wear a suit at his job, or even have a job that made him wake up at 8am. She couldn't think of a job that would suit Connor, she thought of him to be unconventional. But he owned a car. In London. He wasn't that unconventional, eventually.

"Are you staring at me?" he asked her, smirking. Nora immediately looked the road in front of her.

"I'm just wondering why you're not working as a photographer, interior designer or dancer" she told him. Something out of all these would definitely suit him. Connor laughed.

"You know me well enough for someone who just speaks to me in the elevator or the front door."

"For 4 years!"

"Yes, for 4 years."

They laughed. They didn't hang out at all. Whenever they met they were exchanging weird jokes, like they were friends, but Liv believed they were flirting. How could Nora be flirting with Connor? His girlfriend was a model. Literally, that was her job. Nora didn't have a problem with flirting someone in a relationship, she had done worse things, anyway. But not with Connor, she could never compete with his girlfriend.

"So what do you do that makes you wear a suit?" She asked him. For people like Connor, wearing a suit would probably be a torture.

"Are you ready to be thrilled and jealous of my job's creativity?" he told her and Nora nodded, laughing. "I don't think you are really ready Nora, you have to convince me."

"Come on, don't make me beg!"

"Oh, no, I'm not that kind of person." he said and smiled at her, biting his lower lip. "I'm an accounting manager."

They laughed again. Nora could never imagine that. That job suited someone named Stanley, with a failed marriage, with one or two kids that never spoke to him because they only met during dinner and they were on their phones.

"That's something I could never imagine for you" she told him, still laughing.

"Is it because I'm black?" he told her dramatically and Nora hit him on the arm. "Sorry, I like saying that, it makes white people uncomfortable."

With that much laughing in a 5 minute drive, Nora had almost forgotten everything. Why wasn't she hanging out with Connor more? She would try that from now on, to convince Liv, at least, that she had friends to go out with. Or convince herself.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked her and she nodded. "Was it from fatigue?" he asked again.

"From anxiety." She responded and sighed, realizing she immediately needed her anxiolytics. She also needed to have fun. And she started thinking all the reasons why she didn't. Suddenly, her "satisfactory" job, became a life boat she was using until the big ship would arrive to save her. She always knew that, but she didn't mind, until then. Her money, that were just enough, no longer seemed enough. She couldn't save money, for a time in need or her post-graduate studies. Her social life was no longer interesting. Average sex with even more average random people wasn't fun anymore. Only Liv was left for her.

Everything was short term in her plans. Basically, she didn't have plans. She was just dragging time. Until the weekend, then until Christmas, then until summer. Every year. And then? "I don't have anything keeping me" she thought. And she didn't know whom she wanted to keep her. Keep her from falling? Keep her in London? In life? She shook her head to abandon the last thought.

For the time being, she wanted to go home before another panic attack, that time in Connor's car.

............

"Nora please, get it off your head! Have you seen Melissa?" Liv told her when Nora came home and described to her friend how a faint in a busy road of Finsbury, made her realize she should hang out more with Connor. Melissa was Connor's girlfriend and Liv felt like a left out 12 year old every time she met her in the building.

"Liv! I don't want to take him to bed. I want us to be friends."

"That tall girl will stomp on you like you were a cockroach. Are you following her on Instagram? She has like 100 times more followers than we do, so she's a bitch." said Liv and showed her Melissa's Instagram profile.

The girl was the prettiest Nora had ever seen. Her skin and body were flawless. She hadn't uploaded a lot of pictures with Connor and the ones she had, had hashtags like #myman #handsoff #couplegoals, etc. Nora just wanted to be friends with Connor. She would even cope with Melissa's presence, she didn't mind.

"What you're saying in internalized misogyny. We embrace all women, no matter how different they are from us." said Nora to Liv with a teacher style and Liv rolled her eyes.

The truth was that Nora really wanted to approach Connor in a friendly way. Although he was her type. Actually, any guy with a nice body, good at flirting and a nice smell was her type. But the point was that she just wanted someone to hang out with and have fun, so as to not have to turn to the pills she bought.

She went in her room and put the pill bottle on the side table. She looked at it with a sad face. "Are you going to be my friends?" she said and burst into tears. She didn't want Liv to hear her and get sad. She almost buried her face in the pillow and started crying even more. She was crying for those stupid pills, for her classes, her job, her pointless nights and all those weekends she was longing for and always left her disappointed. Everything she was longing for was disappointing her. That's why she never wanted something "a lot". "A lot" seemed to her like it fitted in drawer, it's never "a lot", so why wanting it?