“It’s okay. It’s really fucking weird, Danny.”
I hear his sigh of relief, just like when we were trying to work out our schedules for the week, and wonder if now’s the right time to probe him about ex-girlfriends and previous relationships.
Probably not.
Some other time, I decide. Or maybe after a couple more glasses of wine, at least.
“And for the record, I don’t—I never—expected you to be perfect.
I don’t like you because you always shave your legs and get your eyebrows threaded,” he says, teasingly, warmly. “And for the record, you fart in your sleep. Kind of a lot.”
“Oh my God.”
My face burns and I bury my face in his chest in absolute horror.
Danny laughs, though, drawing me closer to his side. “I just mean, I don’t want you to . . . pretend to be some version of yourself you’re not, I guess? I’m not. There’s making an effort to dress up for a date, and then there’s faking it all. I like you for you, Isla. The person. Not some—I don’t know, some polished Instagram persona or curated Bumble profile that you think I’m interested in.”
I peel my face away from his sweatshirt to look up at him, not sure how to respond to that. Is that really what I’ve been doing? Giving him a persona, instead of a person?
Danny kisses me, softly, sweetly. His lips still pressed to mine, he says, “I know we’ve got a long way to go, Isla, but can we agree to . . . talk, about stuff? To be ourselves, communicate a little better? Or try to, at least?”
My heart swells.
I nod, whispering, “Okay, deal,” and kiss him again before settling back into his side, each of us nursing our glass of wine as we lapse into quiet.
To be brutally honest, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about being more upfront and honest with each other. This could open a whole new can of worms. (Well, probably cans, plural, judging by the way I blew up at him yesterday.)
Something tells me that you should probably wait until a little later on in a relationship to be so “warts and all” about things, and outright telling your partner exactly what it is they’re doing to annoy you, and I’m not sure that it’s the best thing to do when we’re literally trapped here and can’t do anything to avoid the other one if either of our feelings gets hurt.
But, maybe, he’s got a point.
And I guess it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?
Honestly, it can’t be worse than letting everything build up to breaking point, which was my approach at the start of this week.
Maybe it’ll even stop us ending up like Zach and Serena down the hallway in a year’s time, sniping at each other and having screaming matches—assuming we last beyond the end of this week, that is.
It’s comforting how much he obviously wants to try to make things work.
What’s important, I realize, is how much we both want to make this work. That’s what’s making all the difference here. Maybe neither of us is ready to say The L Word, but the fact we’re both trying so hard proves how invested we are in this relationship, how much we mean to each other.
He’s so quiet, I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing as me.
Instead of asking him, though, I twist around in my seat to face him better. I set down my wine, cupping his face in both of my hands to kiss him, shivering at the sensation of his tongue against mine.
And in spite of how badly I’ve handled things this week, I find myself wishing he didn’t have to leave so soon.
apartment #6 – ethan
Chapter Twenty-nine
It’s automatic, the whole process of editing a video so that it’s ready to upload on my channel. Cutting out the um s and ah s and the too-loud breaths, adjusting the white balance and the audio. It’s not exactly mindless, but I’m so used to it by now it’s not exactly mentally taxing either.
Needing a break, I walk away to get myself a coffee, and my mind turns back to Charlotte, and my pathetic attempts at a proposal speech. I got so in my head about it yesterday that I ended up vegging out on the sofa watching movies all afternoon, instead of doing literally anything productive; I’ve been trying to make up for that today. Now, I take off my glasses to rub my eyes, feeling a slight headache coming on from the glare of the computer screen.
I’m no good at putting words on paper, as was obvious after another ten pages of notes yesterday I quickly tore out, scrunched up, and dropped in the recycling bin in the kitchen. I considered asking some of our friends for advice, but the problem is that they’re all our friends, mine and Charlotte’s. After four years of being so devoted to each other, it was inevitable.
And I’m not sure I trust any of them to keep it to themselves while I figure it out, to be honest. There are a choice few people—like her sister Maisie, or like my best friend Jack from my old job—who know us both so well that I know their advice would be invaluable, but I also know they would only start dropping hints to Charlotte, too excited to stay schtum.
So I’m in this alone.
Well, except for Reddit.
I create a throwaway account and ask for advice in one of the forums I visit a lot, but while everyone’s very supportive and encouraging, the clearest bit of advice I get is “just be yourself!” which honestly is not that helpful.
I’m no good at putting words on paper.
As I’m standing in the kitchen making myself a drink and thinking about the video I need to upload and schedule for tomorrow, I realize suddenly what I am good at.
Coffee in hand, I sit back down in front of my computer and switch on my camera. My vlogging setup is ready from the video I recorded first thing this morning, and I switch it all on mainly out of habit, even though I could probably get away with just my iMac’s webcam for this particular video. Still, I turn on the light boxes and spend some time readjusting the curtains to reduce the glare, then settle back into my chair.
I hit record.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath, looking at myself on the screen and nodding. My hair’s standing up more than usual and my shirt is a little rumpled. I straighten my glasses and gulp.
“Okay, Ethan, come on, you can do this.”
I was never good at public speaking.
I used to do my best to get out of giving presentations at school.
I got so nervous doing one to my tutorial group of a mere six students in university that I actually threw up. Whenever I meet strangers for the first time, I get so in my head trying to not make a bad impression, at the very least, that I think most of the time they think I’m just being standoffish and rude. (Lucky for me, Charlotte’s a natural charmer, and good with people, and it’s easy to ride on her coattails when we have to mingle with strangers at our friends’ weddings and stuff.) I started making video diaries years ago, after a suggestion from my therapist, who thought it would help with my social anxiety—and would at least help me get through the video interview stage of all the jobs I was applying for during my final year of university. And she was right: there was something about talking to the void and interacting with a handful of total strangers on the internet that was strangely comforting.
I was only supposed to try it out for a month, but I kept it going even after I stopped seeing the therapist, and once the video interviews for jobs were out of the way. I started putting more effort into the channel, investing in better equipment, devoting more time to learning how to edit properly. I thought about what I actually wanted to make videos about, and figured out what I actually liked doing, cross-referencing that with what got the best response from my gradually growing audience to decide what to make the focus of my channel. Eventually, I found my niche: video games and nerd culture.