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“I don’t know… it’s just… I don’t think he’s…” Fig trailed off, drumming her fingers on the kitchen counter absently, not noticing that it had caught Clammy’s attention until the grey shape pounced up, hanging onto the edge for a second before falling and sprinting away as soon as he hit the ground.
“Good enough…?” Aelwyn supplied, rolling her eyes at Fig’s blatant jealousy.
“Yeah,” Fig agreed, not watching the screen of the computer closely enough to catch the sarcastic expression, “I mean no! Like, that’s up to her, Adaine can date who she wants, and like, she seems to like him, and they have a lot in common but…”
“But you don’t like him?”
“...Not really…”
Aelwyn sighed. Fig was just as bad as Adaine. While at first the rare calls between Aelwyn and Fig were about Adaine; either Aelwyn checking up on her sister and worried Adaine wouldn’t be honest if she was doing badly, or Fig asking for advice on how to cheer her roommate up, or how to distract her is she was stressing badly over something.
However, they found that they got along fairly well and would often end up calling just to talk, Aelwyn enjoyed their conversations. This one was an exception.
It was so tedious and similar to conversations she’d had with Adaine that Aelwyn honestly wasn’t paying too much attention; something about Adaine being late coming back from studying with someone called Zayn at the library.
“Why?”
“Well… he’s… it’s just that… I don’t know, like objectively he’s fine but then there’s just something… he’s…” Fig gesticulated with her cast-clad arm as she tried to verbalise her thoughts.
“... dating Adaine?” sighed Aelwyn, “or at least you think he is?”
“What? No, no, that’s not why I- I don’t care about them- no! Wait, what do you mean ‘think he is’? Isn’t he?”
“No.”
“So, then, what? Wait, how do you know?”
“Why do you care? I thought that you didn’t care if they were dating?”
“I don’t, Just… curiosity…”
“Right… curiosity. Well, as you’re curious, my sister is not dating Zayn. I know that because of two reasons. Firstly: she’s known him for a month or so and I haven’t seen her pining over him once. And that girl can pine-”
“I haven’t seen her pine before?”
“That’s because you’re blind,” Aelwyn muttered, so low that Fig couldn’t hear her, “Well take my word for it. Secondly: I know for a fact that she is in love with someone and it isn’t him,”
“Wait-”
“You keep saying wait, I’m not going anywhere,”
Fig stuck her tongue out, making Aelwyn laugh.
“She’s… she has a crush?”
“No. She doesn’t have a crush, nothing so childish; she is in love. Head over heels, madly, has already imagined their wedding, all encompassingly in love, virtually to the point of stupidity.”
“Oh…” Fig felt weird, like coming in out of the cold and warming up but then still being able to feel the cold settled deep in your bones.
“So, nothing to worry about, Adaine isn’t dating Zayn,”
“Right…”
“Try to contain your relief,”
“What? Oh, i’m sorry,”
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah, yeah- I… no?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I don’t need an elocution lesson right now,”
Aelwyn raised her hand in mock surrender.
“So, you were upset because you thought Adaine was dating Zayn-”
“I wasn’t-”
“Yes, you were. And now you know she’s not. Because she’s in love with someone else.”
“Yeah…”
“So? What’s the problem?”
“I- I don’t know? Why was I upset about Zayn?”
“I have no idea.”
Fig was too in her head to catch the blatant sarcasm in Aelwyn’s voice.
“Who is it?”
“Hmm?”
“Who is Adaine… y’know?”
“In love with?”
“Hmmm,”
“Why do you care?”
“I just… I just do?”
“I can’t tell you, I’m sorry.”
“Why does the thought of her being in love with someone else make me feel so… uncomfortable?”
“ ‘Else’?”
“What? Oh, um, someone other than Zayn.”
“Right,”
“Is there something wrong with me? My best friend is in love and… I hate it. And I don’t know why.”
“Don’t you?”
“What?”
“Fig, think about it: if you’re sad about someone dating or being in love then…”
A few moments, and Fig’s mouth slowly fell open.
“Oh… shit…”
Aelwyn pursed her lips, considering her options as she watched Fig’s cogs turning slowly.
“Adaine is driving up to see me and Sam for a few days, over the winter break next month maybe you should come with her? A couple of days together on the road might help you… work things out.”
“Umm, yeah, maybe, thanks.”
“Listen, I’ve got to go; work’s starting soon but, if you want to talk about… everything, you can message me, ok?”
“Yeah… thanks.”
“You good?”
“Hmm? Oh, right, sure; see ya,”
“Goodbye,” Aelwyn smiled and hung up, Fig didn’t see her groaning into her hands and rolling her eyes.
“Sam?” she called from the computer.
“Yes, love?” Sam replied, walking into the room, her green and light blue dyed hair up in a messy ponytail.
“If I have to lock them in a cell together soon, will you be my alibi if I get charged with kidnapping?”
“Like you were any better when we started,” teased Sam, hugging her girlfriend from behind and leaning down to kiss her forehead.
“At least I knew I was in love with you, I just didn’t know what to do about it,” Aewlyn’s hands took Sam’s which were draped around her shoulders.
“Thank goodness I did,”
“No one should be as cocky as you are right now,” Aelwyn rolled her eyes but brought Sam’s hands up to kiss them.
“I should be, I’ve got the greatest girlfriend in the world,”
“I think I might argue that point,”
“Can’t let me have anything can you?”
A few hundred miles away, Fig sat in silence, closing the laptop with a soft thud which echoed through the empty room.
“Huh…” Absently, her uninjured hand began tracing the pattern Adaine had drawn on her cast.
She really wasn’t sure how long she sat there, only broken from her comatose state when the door clicked open and Adaine came in, dropping her keys in the bowl beside the entrance as she closed the door behind her, resting her back on it with a sigh; her face was flushed and her hair was wild and windswept, but she managed to flash a brilliant smile at Fig before looking down to her feet.
“Oh hey, Clammy,” She grinned as the grey cat immediately began rubbing against her legs and purring loudly.
“Hi,” She said, once more turning to Fig, “I’m sorry I’m late, the bus was just taking forever. I was going to test you but my phone was dead, anyway I was-” Adaine cut herself off when she noticed Fig’s distracted expression.
“Hey, Fig? You alright?”
“Oh, um, yeah, fine…” Fig tried to make a coherent response but all she could really do was stare at her roommate like she was seeing her for the first time
Oh, shit.
“You sure?” Adaine crossed the room and stood in front of Fig’s seat, taking her hand not encased in a cast in one of hers, the other brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
“You seem a bit… off?”
For a second Fig was frozen, she felt her lips and throat go dry and palms begin to sweat as her gaze flicked from Adaine’s eyes- Adaine’s beautiful eyes, down to her lips (her lips which were very close to her own) and back up.
She could feel her heartbeat rise, feel how her breath became shallow. Biting her lip, Fig blinked and tried to wrench her gaze away from Adaine’s but it felt like there was an indescribable magnetism to Adaine’s eyes that kept Fig frozen in their soft, yet somehow burning, glow.
“Yeah,” Fig’s voice was in a low whisper and she swallowed, forcing a carefree smile, “I’m good, just, uh… tired, been having a hard time sleeping,” She shrugged her broken arm lamely.
“Makes sense,” Adaine’s face was still concerned and Fig pulled away, standing up.
“Yeah, actually, I think I’m going to go try and, uh, catch up on sleep, so um, see ya!” With that Fig turned and walked to her room, going just slow enough that she wasn’t technically running away.
Closing her door behind her, Fig leaned back on it and gracelessly slid down to the floor where she sat and tried to process… things.
Unfortunately the one thing her mind was able to come up with coherently was:
“What the fuck?”