Work Text:
“Isn’t it kind of funny that we never figured out what we want to do with our lives?”
Britta turns her head to the side and lowers her sunglasses so that Jeff can clearly see the judgment she’s casting upon him. “What on earth do you mean? I think I know exactly what I want to do with my life.”
They’re sitting beside the pool in their shared apartment complex - they each have their own units, but they live on the same floor. Whenever one gets tired of the other, they can either kick them out or go back to their own space. The set-up doesn’t make sense to many people, but it works for them, as is the case with most of what they do.
“Do you?”
“Rude.”
“No, really, do you?”
Britta sighs. “Yes, I do. I want to make enough money to support myself and do what I want, but not work so hard that I stress myself out. I want to spend as much time as I can with you and our friends. I want to travel and see more of the world, but come back home to my cats and my record player and mug collection. And sometimes, I just want to have time to do nothing.”
Jeff nods slowly, like what she said is really rolling around in his head. “Sure. But, like, I don’t know what I want to do. I am a community college law professor. But I don’t want to be.”
“You’re missing my point.”
“How so?”
“What I’m doing for work doesn’t matter to me. Work is work. As long as it allows me to live the life I want to outside of it, I don’t really care.”
“Right, but…what do I want to do with my life?”
Britta lets out a short laugh. “Are you asking me seriously?”
Jeff shrugs. “I guess.”
“I mean, it seems like you want a lot of the same things I do. Just time with your friends and some kind of peace.”
He goes quiet and looks out over the almost unnaturally blue water stretching out in front of them. After a moment passes, he responds.
“Don’t you ever feel like you were supposed to want more than that? Like, you had all this potential that you never lived up to, because you didn’t want to?”
“All the fucking time,” Britta says, accenting it with a strangely warm smile. She takes her shades all the way off and folds them slowly, then sets them down on the small table between their lounge chairs. “That’s part of why it’s freeing. Everyone who ever told me I was going to grow up and do great things or that I was wasting my potential when I stopped caring about school and dropped out…I’m not letting their expectations for me define my happiness. Yeah, sometimes, I want more. I want my own house or a better job or for work to be less chaotic. And sometimes I wish that I had stayed in school and gone to a normal college and done what I was ‘supposed’ to do. But if I’d done all that, I never would’ve met you. We wouldn’t have started the study group, we’d never have done all the things we did, and I wouldn’t be sitting by this pool, getting sunburnt with you right at this very moment.”
“We put on sunscreen…” Jeff mumbles.
“And we’re still gonna get burnt because we’re both white as hell,” Britta retorts. “Point being, I do feel like that sometimes. But if I’d have been more than this, then maybe I wouldn’t have this, and I’d rather have this than think about a version of me that did everything she was supposed to do and doesn’t have anyone to love.”
“Aw, you love me?”
Britta rolls her eyes. “You act like I don’t ever say it.”
Jeff gives a thin smile and looks down at the pavement. “Sorry. I’m deflecting. I guess I just…I feel like I never figured out what I wanted to do with my life because I feel like I was supposed to want more. But I don’t. I’m happy working for a crazy dean who I love, and working with crazy coworkers that I love, and coming home at the end of the day to cook dinner for my crazy girlfriend and her many cats that I love.”
“Many? If you think two is many-”
“Any more than one is many, Britts.”
“I think you need to look up ‘many’ in a dictionary.”
“I think the definition changes when you apply it to the number of cats you own.”
Britta sighs. “Well, the way I see it at least, we both figured out what we want to do with our lives. It’s just not what anyone told us we should want.”
Jeff smiles, and reaches over to where her hand is resting on her chair. He takes it and squeezes it gently, in an oddly tender expression of affection.
“I think you’re right. And…I think I’m gonna put on more sunscreen. You don’t seriously think we’re gonna get burnt today, do you? I mean, it’s a little overcast anyway…”
Britta laughs and shakes her head. “Jeff, your face is already a little red. Just accept it.”
“I refuse.”
“Then don’t, see if I care.”
They settle back onto their chairs and Britta picks up her sunglasses from the table. Right as she opens them, Jeff abruptly sits up and reaches for their pool bag.
“I mean, an extra layer can’t hurt. And especially at my age? I’ve got to maintain my complexion!”
Britta laughs again. “You know, I think other Britta’s life is way more boring, that’s for sure.”
“Yours isn’t?”
She looks over at him, currently sitting on the edge of his chair, frantically shaking his bottle of SPF 70 and trying to wring the last few drops out of it, and smiles.
“No. How could it possibly be?”