Chapter Twenty-One: "Screams Bloody Murder."

MY CURTAINS WERE pushed to the side. The snowfall that was broadcasted to stay light all morning wasn't happening. Instead, the sight in front of me was granted with the heaviest snowfall I've seen since March. My blanket was bundled around me and my laptop was set on a pillow. I had myself right up against the headboard with clothes strewn across my bed.

I sat up further, adjusting my laptop as I listened to Yasmeen speak on video chat. Next to her on my screen, Mariam had her glasses, flicking through pictures on her camera. She had shown us the variety of pictures she had managed to take for The Cadeus, but second-year kept her busy to not take as much as she wanted to.

Yasmeen had a scowl on her face as she ended her story about her little brother, "And then mama was like, 'no it's fine' as if Abdel didn't run off in the first place."

"You're lying." Mariam and I said in sync.

"No," Yasmeen grumbled. "Was I this annoying at nine?"

"We didn't know you when you were nine." I pointed out.

"True." She mumbled, shifting her laptop so we could see her lay on her stomach on her bed.

Mariam had switched from her camera to her phone, one thumb in her mouth as she typed with her other hand. Yasmeen didn't notice, focusing on me. "You're not lonely? Or feeling lonely?"

"No," I said. "I've had company."

"Iman's been doing his job?"

"Actually, Aven has been doing Iman's job," Yasmeen's eyebrows rose. "Still can't believe you told Iman I shouldn't be alone or else I would metaphorically combust or whatever--"

"I did not say that."

"You basically did," I argued. She meant well. This was her odd way of telling me that she loved me. I wasn't objecting to it at all. 

"Well?"

"It's been a fun few days," I admitted.

"Then my work here is done." Yasmeen grinned. Her attention moved, likely to Mariam who was typing frantically on her phone, her camera now discarded.

"Mari, who has you occupied?" Yasmeen asked.

"Kyle," Mariam locked her phone, giving us her full attention.

Oh.

"You're seeing him?" Yasmeen asked.

"Actually, he's on his way to pick me up."

Oh. Well, fuck. Here goes nothing.

"How's, um—how's Kyle?" I asked her. I sounded way too enthusiastic for my liking. Or any of their liking because my best friends looked at me like I asked them what's 2 plus 2.

Mariam's eyebrows went up at my question. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," I said with a shrug. Again, more enthusiastic than I was going for. I was an idiot.

"You're asking me that like something is wrong, Jaime," Mariam said, taking her glasses off and putting them in her case.

"I'm wondering how you guys are. You're still, uh, with him, right?" Stupid question. She had said she was literally going out with him. She was getting ready as we were speaking. 

"Right," Mariam said slowly. "It's going fine. We're fine."

"Okay," I nodded excessively. This wasn't helping. Theatre never appealed to me growing up. I was not a good actor. Nor a good liar. And it showed. "Good."

"Anything else you want to add?" She asked cautiously.

Yasmeen's eyes ping-ponged between us on the screen.

"I want you to be careful," I said. "That's all."

Mariam's eyebrows knitted. "Why? Kyle's not a bad guy or anything."

Choose your words carefully, Jaime. Very carefully. My hands folded themselves on top of the other without thinking. Probably because I didn't want to see them shake under the idea of some kind of confrontation. I hated this. "I don't think he is. I don't want you to get too attached to him. That's all."

She blinked at me once, waiting for me to elaborate.

"He doesn't seem like the type to be in a relationship, you know? And you're not exactly the hookup kind of girl."

It was true. Mariam was a long-term dater. She had attached herself to Kyle quickly, faster than she had with Iman, faster than she had told me about any guy she had dated before starting university. But my words didn't help. If anything, she got offended. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you hooking up or being casual with someone doesn't make sense," I admitted.

"Well, it's making sense now because what Kyle and I are doing is going great. Actually, I'm about to go see him right now." She rolled her eyes. This wasn't going well. By the way she yanked off her sweater, it looked as if she was about to leave the room and this conversation. 

"Mariam."

"No," She took a deep breath, getting up now to put her sweater away before she turned back to me. "Stop assuming the worst, Jaime. Not all guys are like Malcolm, okay?"

I made a face. A face that coincided with the bitter taste in my mouth. "What the fuck does Malcolm have to do with this?"

"What the hell is wrong with Kyle?"

She didn't get to ask that anymore. "No. Go back to Malcolm. Why are you throwing him in my face?"

She was irritated but now I was getting even more annoyed by each reaction she was giving me. "I think you're projecting."

"I am not projecting," I said, my heart beating fast in my chest. "I'm saying that I'm wary about Kyle. That has nothing to do with Malcolm. Why the hell would you think it would?"

"Because Malcolm was someone you hooked up with and--"

"And what? I had feelings for him? And I moved on when it wasn't reciprocated? I'm saying that you can't easily do that. It took you forever to even move on from Iman."

The mention of Iman seemed to rile Mariam even further but that wasn't where I wanted to take the conversation. I wouldn't bring up Immanuel again. This conversation was about Kyle.

I shook my head, changing my words quickly before she could respond. "You are a long-term girl and Kyle doesn't seem like a long-term guy. I don't want you to get hurt."

"You don't even know him," She said. "You think because you spend so much time with his roommates suddenly you know him personally?"

"Do you?" I asked her without thinking. My attitude matched her own at this point. It's been about three weeks since she even heard of the man. The hell was she going on about?

"Guys--" Yasmeen spoke up, but Mariam cut her off with vexation coating her voice.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It hasn't even been a month since you've been talking," I said. The words weren't coming out the way I wanted them. With her emotion rolling off of her in waves and my own making me take deep breaths between her speaking, I couldn't tell what direction this was going in. "You think you know him? That's he's not putting up some kind of façade or something?"

"Again, you don't know him."

"Okay, I don't," And I wasn't planning on getting to know him better. I didn't care about him. I needed to get back on the right track here. "But Laurence and Aven do. They've known him way longer than you have and the things that they say--"

Her phone blared in her hands. She looked down at her screen, her brown eyes still holding agitation that I felt even kilometres away from her.

"Mariam," I said, attempting to get her attention. She typed back on the phone. "Mariam."

She didn't glance back at us. Instead, she ended the call, removing herself from the video chat. My jaw dropped. In surprise. In irritation. A mixture of both clouded my mind. "Are you kidding me? Over fucking Kyle?"

Yasmeen looked equally surprised by Mariam's action. The strain she left on our relationship by the simplest thing she could do on her laptop made my heart sink. It sunk mostly for her because, since Laurence, Aven and Iman had given me the same energy when it came to the topic of Kyle, I was really hoping that the outcome wouldn't be like the stupid romance novels Laurence's sister reads about changing the guy.

"She'll come back," Yasmeen said, typing frantically on her phone.

Mariam didn't come back. I didn't bother messaging her as Yasmeen continued to do so. By the time we had hung up the call, I was annoyed. Too bothered to memorize equations for organic chemistry and opted to lie down in the living room as I ate a bowl of grapes and flicked through social media in an attempt to calm down.

Moving past pictures of friends from home, acquittances I've met once on campus and never spoke to again to many other things, my phone screen was interpreted by a call that, for the second time tonight, made me hear my heartbeat in my chest.

"Why are you calling?" I asked, completely skeptical. I had seen him this morning. I had every right to ask him why the hell he was calling.

"What the hell?" Aven laughed, the sound going straight to my toes, making me bite back a grin of my own. Too easy for me to feel better. 

"I saw you today."

I was difficult but Aven didn't care. Aven knew me and he fought me bite for bite even if it wasn't with intensity, it still managed to stimulate my mind. "And I can't call you because I already saw you? Do you want me to hang up?"

"Yes." I lied.

"Okay."

He hung up on me.

My jaw slackened. The audacity of this man—

He called back.

"Now, a proper greeting." He demanded. In the same tone when he had during Halloween when he told me to sit down. The same tone he had used last night in the car. That same tone thrilled me more than I wanted to admit out loud. It made me shift on the couch and turn to my side.

"Why are you calling?" I asked again with the nailbed of my thumb in my mouth.

"I'm calling because Dev wants to know if you're coming over on Sunday to watch a hockey game with us."

Oh. "At the arena?"

"No, here at the apartment. He said you promised to watch a game with him."

My mind flashed back to that day with Laurence and Dev, the three of us sitting on the bleachers at the Rec Center. "Sure, I'm down."

Shuffling filled my ears followed by a lower murmur between male voices. When the conversation ended, it was followed by a door closing shut and more ruffling that told me that he'd taken a seat.

He wasn't going to hang up. He wasn't going to end the conversation.

I wasn't going to stop myself from overthinking this entire thing, I sat up, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder as I shifted my blanket around me, my TV completely forgotten. "Did you call Clara?"

"Yeah," Aven said, more shuffling on his side. "She had a whole show-and-tell day at school. She talked about it for like an hour before deciding that some show was better than her brother."

"So, you two are a lot alike," I concluded with a laugh.

"I don't think she'd be entertained by Glee though. She sees two people kissing and she screams bloody murder. I remember one time in the summer she was eating breakfast and our mom kissed our dad bye as he was going to work. Clara screamed so loud I ran downstairs thinking someone had broken into the house. She's so dramatic."

"Again, so you two are a lot alike."

Aven scoffed. He must've been shaking his head, wanting to come up with a rebuttal. I could see that; the way he'd look down at the ground before looking up at me, ready to deny. Instead, he settled for asking, "How was work?"

As I explained the customers I had dealt with, rolling over to my stomach, Mariam had managed to cloud my mind. Could I have gone about it a completely different way? Or was she being overdramatic? Over a guy she barely knew. A guy where literally three sources had handed me the signs and rang the warning bells right in my face.

It hasn't even been a full hour since the conversation had occurred but immediately, like always, with all fallouts, I was in turmoil. Worse than that stupid strain between me and Clayton.

This is what I get for confronting and conquering.

"Jay." Aven's voice cut through my thoughts, easily shaking me back to the present. "Hey, you okay?"

"I'm fine," I assured him, no part of me even believing myself. I had said it too quickly. Worst actor in the world award most definitely would be handed to me.

"What's wrong?"

"Not--"

"Don't say nothing." He demanded and my breath knocked out of me at his tone. "You don't sound like yourself. Even though the rant of your day, you didn't sound like yourself. What's wrong?"

"I," I sighed. "Mariam and I...I don't know. We got into a little argument over Kyle." I all but spat out the man's name.

He wasn't expecting it either. "Seriously?"

"I don't even know, I'm..." I shook my head, holding the pillow to my stomach when I rolled onto my back. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You sure?"

"Mmhmm."

He waited for a beat. "One question."

"Shoot."

"On the Jaiyesimi scale of fights, how bad was it?"

"The actual fight itself was like a three, maybe a two," I admitted. "But the feeling it left me is a high number."

"On what scale is the feeling?"

"It's not the positive emotion scale if that's what you're wondering." Change the subject. "Are you at home? It's quiet."

"Yeah," He said. "Dev went to a party."

"You didn't wanna go with him?"

"Social battery is at a low." He admitted.

"Oh, please."

"Are you doubting me?"

"Are you doubting me?" I mocked. "You talk to everyone. Whenever, wherever."

"I'm feeling drained." He said. "I don't have the energy for that. And stop fighting with me."

"I'm not fighting you," I said, my lips quirking up in a smile.

"You are," I knew he was smiling. Probably playing with that stupid chain of his around his neck. The dimple digging into his cheek. To add to the effect, his voice had gotten lower. "You always do."

I cleared my throat, grumbling, "You always use your argument tone and then say something really long to confuse the shit out of me."

"Jay."

"No, no, no. Don't say my name like that. Don't use the argument voice. I'm too tired for that." I mumbled, turning my head into the pillow. "Talk about something else."

"You know what I wanna hear?" He asked me.

"What?"

"You on the piano."

Oh. I lifted my head from the pillow. I wasn't expecting that. It's been a while since I had played over at the music rooms. "Aven."

"I know, I know. You don't like it when people ask you to play considering Iman practically forced you last time."

"It's not that," I said. "I don't mind. I need to be in a mood to play the instrument. Maybe you should play the piano instead."

"I would if I could. Blast you away with my skills."

My lips rose. He couldn't play a single instrument. That would be fun. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I'll teach you the basics then."

"Good. On that note, what are you doing tonight?" He asked me over the phone.

"Nothing." The anticipation brought on by his question had me sitting up. I wanted to see him again. As if I hadn't seen him this morning. This Aven addiction was driving me insane. "Does that mean you're up for being a piano student?"

"Yeah, you want to meet up?"

I heard the front door open.

Larine came in. Her 5'11 stature was hunched over as she took her shoes off. At first, I wouldn't have paid her any mind when she was taking off her shoes, but it was the way she was doing it. In a hostile motion.

Then I saw her face. Besides being flushed, anger and rage were visible with the sight of her tears as she hurriedly ran the back of her hand over her eyes as if rubbing them hard enough would stop the oncoming tears. But they weren't. Right then and there she let out a gasp her hands coming to her mouth.

I was off the couch in a second. "Aven, I have to go."

Concern coated his tone. "You okay?"

"It's not me. I'm okay. I'll call you tomorrow." Without waiting for a response, I hung up the phone, tossing it onto the couch as I ran over to Larine.

She was wiping her face with the back of her hands again, crying and without another word, I reached for her, wrapping my arms around her. She cried against my shoulder, her body wracking in devastation clear with each sound she emitted. I didn't recall the last time I had ever spotted someone cry so hard in my entire life, but this wasn't a cry over a loss, over a test, something minuscule.

This was heartbreak. And the way she wept made me never want to experience it this strongly ever in my life if I didn't know that falling in love with someone gave me a chance to what I was witnessing. But my feeling didn't matter here. Hers did.  

We moved to her bedroom. The room was similar to my own with fewer posters, but clothes were strung out on the bed as if she had been in a hurry to leave. She let me go, sniffing hard as she took her jacket off, flinging on the bed in a haste.

"We broke up," Her voice was scratchy. "Actually, no he broke up with me."

"Larine."

She stopped in her footsteps. She couldn't look at me. I think she was trying to hold back tears, rapidly blinking and staring up at the ceiling. "Actually, no he said 'you're boring, Lar. I want to end it.' And then he kept saying how much he wanted to fuck my friend. He was drunk but the point still stands."

My heart dropped with her own. "What the fuck?"

"My exact reaction. But it wasn't like it was the first he's said this. At least not to me because his friends were right there. Unfazed and awkward. Obviously, he spoke to them about it before so I'm the only one new to this news. He was going to end it anyway, but he didn't have to say that. He didn't have to fucking say that."

"He didn't." I agreed.

A laugh left her lips. One filled with disbelief as she finally looked at me. "I don't know what to be more upset with. Him breaking up with me or him saying that I'm boring or the fact that he had been planning to break up with me for so damn long or that's all along he just wanted to screw my friend like what the fuck? Couldn't just pick one?"

"You're not boring," I told her.

Larine sniffed. "Jaime, you don't even know me."

She didn't know me either but that didn't matter here. I needed to tell her the truth based on intuition. "I know what I'm saying won't go into your head and that this will eat you up inside, but I swear you're not."

The tears didn't stop. They weren't going to. At least not tonight. "I want to throw eggs at his Audi. I want to take his hockey stick and break it with my bare hands. I want," She took a deep breath, visibly calming down as she moved her blonde hair out of her blotchy face. "I want food. I haven't eaten since, like, ten."

I knew what I liked whenever I faced some type of sorrow. Pain. She was going to need a thick blanket, tissues, support and comfort. I whipped my phone out, already making my way to the UberEats app. "You like McDonald's?"