Chapter Text
Hey, Blue! You up?
Blue can make up the words, but the cell phone seems so far away from her spot on the bed the text might as well be a shiny blurry image. Eyes open, eyes close. What time is it again? 4:37 AM.
No. no.
Eyes close again, and an invisible indoors breeze makes Blue pull her once outstretched arm back into the cozy layered cake she’s made out of her blankets. It’s good to stay still, the clock is running, but there’s no place to run to. The body has gotten enough heat to not crave another blanket. It’s still dark outside. The windows are damp with the cold humidity, and the heater sings it’s hum. The curtains are grey and still, catching the attention of Blue’s once again open eyes as they roam around the dull room. The carpet is a lighter shade of grey. The once cozy looking floor now taking the appearance of a glacier in Blue’s mind.
Open. Close. Open. Close. Not being able to go to sleep again, Blue decides to wake up at the unholy hour of..what time is it? 4:58 AM. An inner countdown starts to display. 3, 2, 1, but it’s meaningless. Blue just cuddled up in a warmer position in her bed, more warmth, but touching spaces of the bed her body hadn’t throughout the night, her foot shivers. 3, 2, 1, swallowed by the blanket. Hey, Blue! Where are you? Did the blanket swallow you whole? Two pairs of black eyes pop out of the brown woven fabric blanket, with a head full of hair that calls desperately for a bath and the pull of a brush. Final countdown. But first, the countdown to mentally prepare for the final countdown. Since when was getting out of bed this hard? Perhaps it was the white noise around combined with the chilly atmosphere. Maybe it is the way the room is so clean, so empty and gray that it looks like an average American hotel room. It’s weird. Blue thinks. The first thing that came to her mind comparing the room to the one in her imagination was Holiday Inn, but those rooms had paintings, nice shades of brown, patterns, a huge tv or maybe two, depending on wether in was an in or suite. This room had none of that. After that distracting thought, the final countdown began. 3,2,1, there! Good job, Blue. You’ve finally sat up and now your legs hang from the bed. For an eight degree Celsius night, sleeping in shorts and a spaghetti strap white shirt are the interesting choice of clothes. How do you manage to still sweat at night?
Blue’s feet hit the carpet floor, and for a moment, it feels funny. Her right leg displays the dramatics of staying seven sleeping hours in the same position, going into what feels like static. Blue imagines this static as colorful, all over her leg and now, her vision too. You stood up too quickly, Blue; the world is now comparable to TV static. She stretches her arms as much as she cans, trying to get some balance of herself. Right foot takes a tentative step forward, as if stepping on dangerous ground and facing a dangerous consequence. The consequence is loss of balance, but that’s unlikely. The carpet is devoid of any object that may cause a fall. It’s just the brain tricking you into believing things you know are fake. Fake, and this room is real.
What is real? Blue begins to look around as the static view vanishes. The curtains, the carpet, the desk, the bed, the window, the papers, the wall, the door, those are real. I am real, and awake.
Not awake enough to remember the static leg, one misstep and stumbles. No fall though, Blue is awake enough for that. Her gaze falls on the papers taped in the door, now she knows what to do today.
Two baths a day. One from before the day starts to freshen up and re-start, one at the end of the day so get rid of all the mess and relax. First bath of the day, shower head on, water hot. Blue gets off her night clothes, tossing them to the side before regretting her decision and picking them back up to place them in the dark grey basket. Sandals on, she goes in. The water feels warm, soothing and the pressure is on point. Smoke is beginning to gather below the lights.
After the shower, Blue wraps the towel around herself, getting out of the shower and the sandals and into her slippers. In front of the mirror, a thought comes back to her: what was that message from earlier? Perhaps it was something important, perhaps it isn’t. If it was, at least she had the excuse of “why would I be awake at four AM?” Hands full of droplets coming from her arms, she picks up her phone to see the message. It 's Julie. Julie!
The excuse is invalid now, for all Blue has done to maintain her state of calmness is thrown out the window. The droplets in her hands make it hard to get the password of her phone right. Face ID didn’t work when the phone had turned off. Blue was biting off a swear. She decided to be patient, count to three (Too lazy to count to ten, huh?), and dry her hands properly. Blue didn’t even notice how her towel was slipping off from around her. Who cares, Blue? You live alone, well, not soon.
“I’ll be hitting the coast in 4 hours.”
The coast, wasn’t it easier to say The Valley? The 956? Well, it was Julie’s choice. Her message was plain and simple, very straight to the point. She would be getting to the airport soon enough. Hopefully she would hitch a taxi, that would avoid an awkward car ride with just the radio reproducing any currently trending song. Or maybe it would be even more awkward to have Julie (Whom Blue has never seen before in person) just come into her home and settle in with her. Just this once, Blue thought, he made a silly mistake, but it isn’t Julie’s fault.
Texas was dry. Very dry. Actually no, bipolar, Julie thought. Texas was very bipolar. She had—in one day- froze in the morning, almost got blown off by the wind in the mid-day, melted in the afternoon, soaked by night. Why Texas? Why? Julie heard it got way hotter the more south you go, but she wasn’t any weather specialist. She didn’t listen to herself. It was way too early anyway, wasn’t it better to skip the cold? Perhaps her new roommate- who did Mr. H assign her to again? Some Blue girl.
Julie had moved from Chicago to a little-town-no-one-knows-about in Tennessee, and now..Brownsville, Texas. That was the south of the south. Southiest city in the United States of America, or so it looked like in globes. Julie didn’t know. She saw this move as both convenient and worrying. The beach! The island! The tiny business! Spanish! Julie didn’t know Spanish. Perhaps she could go to Mexico too. Yet, Julie knew even less about Mexico. She was so ashamed of what she didn’t know that she refused to say a thing- she was too stereotyped.
It’s too early to invade her little house, Julie thought. Well, maybe not that tiny. Surely, for Blue to accept her moving in there must be considerable space. Julie looked at the clock, it was still in the four AMs. Too early, way too early, Julie. Julie decided to sleep in and get out late. Blue would most likely prefer her not showing up early.
Blue had changed into moderate clothing. Jean shorts and a T-shirt with an octopus on it. The house was clean and gray, the room that would soon be Julie’s, the one diagonal to hers, was clean and empty and set to go. Blue never had breakfast, it was her nauseous. She had always been like that and never knew why. With a blanket around herself, and the cold of the house, Blue started to think. Julie was moving to her place for a reason, but could she even help her? Was Brownsville good enough? Why not the island itself or Port Isabel? Why had Mr. H assigned Julie to her when he knew Blue had no experience in any of this? No aspiration, or motivation, or even connection to what she was about to do.
She would try, for Julie’s sake, but Blue was no therapist.