Not-Valentine's Day

"I like it."

She was looking out the window now. It was dark, but this far into the city there were plenty of streetlights. "You've got a pretty good view, too. I can see the park from here. And the lake. Wow, this place is a steal."

"The view is pretty good," I agreed.

She glanced over at me, then, and probably noted that while I'd agreed with her, I wasn't staring out the window. I'd let my mind, and my eyes, wander a bit.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Sorry," I responded, glancing away.

"Don't be," she responded, then surprised me by standing and reaching high, her dress stretching across her curves delightfully. Then she struck a pose, hand on hip, her bare calf extended out of the slitted skirt. She smiled straight at me. I gave her a wolf whistle, and she laughed.

"So, what were you looking at?" she asked again.

"You," I said, and suddenly my heart was beating a little faster.

"I'm getting to like Not-Valentine's Day," she responded, smiling in a way that made my heart flip. "It's a good excuse to wear a dress."

My tongue had, by this point, gotten ahead of my brain. "When you look that good, who needs an excuse?"

Mona suddenly looked a little embarrassed. "Me."

"Why?"

"It... makes me uncomfortable when people look. When I know people are looking at me. Even if they're probably not looking at me, I feel like they are, so putting on something like this kind of triggers all the social anxiety. So I don't wear, um, things." She gave me a quizzical look. "I've told you this."

I shook my head. "I don't think you have." It made sense, though; I'd rarely seen Mona in anything but jeans, sweats, t-shirts and hoodies. I just assumed she liked being comfortable.

"Okay, well, I don't."

"Except..." I started.

"You're different," she corrected, "you looking makes me feel, um..." she waved her hand, looked away, and trailed off.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I really wanted to know how me looking made her feel. I really wanted to know how this conversation made me feel.

"And Zack," she blurted out, "I don't mind when Zack looks, he just doesn't... doesn't like dresses."

"Then he's an idiot," I responded.

Which was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Mona was suddenly glaring at me.

"Everyone's entitled to their own opinion."

Okay, that escalated quickly. "That's not what I meant, you-"

Mona interrupted me. "Can you... not? Again?"

I'd meant she looked good, not that Zack was an idiot. Mostly. Okay, Zack and I didn't get along. He didn't seem like a bad guy, just a guy who wasn't sure of himself so he had to announce how awesome he was to everyone around him to make up for it. In many cases, especially around Mona it seemed, that meant announcing how much more awesome he was than whoever had just spoken. It bugged me, but I wasn't the one dating him so I'd kept my opinions mostly to myself. Mostly, because they'd slipped out occasionally; there's only so many times you can answer "so what do you think of Zack?" with a noncommittal noise before your best friend starts to get suspicious.

"Okay," I conceded.

"Like you and fucking Country music."

"I get it, I'm sorry!"

Mona dropped back into her seat, her arms and legs pulled in tight like she was protecting herself. Closed off. I wasn't sure what had just happened; we'd been having a moment, then... something. I'd said something wrong, or she'd said something wrong, I don't know.

We ate in silence again, but this time a lot less friendly. It felt like we were in different rooms despite being five feet away across the table, and there was an uncomfortable something growing between us that was making my skin tingle and my gut clench. Mona forked the food into her mouth slowly, robotically. I didn't feel hungry anymore.

I took a drink.

"How are things with Jennifer?" Mona suddenly asked. My gut clenched more; I wasn't sure if she was still angry or extending an olive branch; I hoped for the latter. It sounded like the former.

"They aren't, sadly," I admitted, talking like nothing was wrong. "Never really were. We tried a few dates, but it didn't work out."

"Oh?"

I shrugged, pushing my curry around the plate. "Chemistry. We didn't have it, although she certainly seemed to have a lot with me. She seemed into me, and I realized I wasn't that into her."

"Actually into you and you dumped her?"

I tried to explain. "Yes, but it wasn't the kind of into me that's going to last. Apparently, she'd been mooning after me for a while, and had this huge, massive-"

"Rack?" Mona interrupted.

"What?"

"Breasts. Boobs. Funbags. Gazongas."

What the fuck? "No! A huge crush on me!"

"She does, though, they're like..." Mona paused and held out her hands like she was cupping a pair of basketballs in front of her, "she's smuggling puppies under there."

Making fun of people to their face was Mona's thing, behind their back was not, and body shaming really wasn't. She'd said it herself more than once: personalities you could help, but bodies you were stuck with. What the fuck, Mona? This was not the olive branch, this was her trying to piss me off, and it was working.

"She was nice enough but she just... always wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. She didn't seem to have an opinion, but I think she really just wanted me to like her. I wanted her to be herself, because I'm not into that and it wouldn't have lasted."

"Girl with giant gazongas wants to do whatever you say and you break up with her?"

I glared at her; I didn't like where this was going.

Mona didn't seem to notice, though. "I mean, sure it wouldn't have lasted but you could have done whatever you wanted for-"

"Mona, what the fuck?" I interrupted, staring at her. This wasn't Mona, that was a very, very un-Mona-like thing to say; taking advantage of someone was definitely not okay with her. Where the hell was this all coming from?

Instead of explaining, though, she gave me a goofy grin. "Gazongas," she said again, stretching the word out as she hefted another pair of imaginary canines.

"Fucking stop, already."

"I mean, look at your track record: Emily, Jennifer, Lily, Shannon? First girl that comes along who actually wants you and you break up with her so fast it-"

"Monica," I snapped, "just because you're dating an asshole doesn't mean you have to be a complete bitch!"

Mona still had her mouth open, and it hung that way for a moment before she snapped it closed. She stared at me, just stared, for the longest ten seconds of my life, then quietly stood and left the room. I heard my bedroom door close, gently.

Well fuck.

I'd meant it. That's what probably shut everything down at that point, the fact I'd meant what I said. Zack was an asshole. Mona was being a bitch. I'd told her how I really felt, and, well, this. I'd never shut Mona down before, but we'd never had a fight like this before. We'd had disagreements, arguments, but this is the first time I'd felt well and truly angry with her. It was like she was trying to hurt me, trying to make me mad, and Mona only lashed out when...

Oh.

Mona didn't always handle hurt well. I'd hurt her when I insulted Zack, so she lashed out. She'd tried to hurt me back until I bled. This wasn't about Jennifer, she hadn't been attacking Jennifer behind her back she'd been attacking me to my face. I'd hurt her, she hit back, and she'd kept going because she didn't know how not to.

Now if I could figure out why it hurt her so hard.

Well shit

I needed to get out of my head. I couldn't keep sitting here, staring at the walls; I needed something to do. I started packing up the dinners, including the curry we hadn't even bothered to pour out of the takeout bowls, and shuttling it all to the kitchen. I packed both away, mine in the fridge and hers, labeled, near the door. Then I started cleaning dishes. I had a dishwasher, but I needed something for my hands to do so I scrubbed the dirty forks and the basically clean everything else. I filled one sink with hot, soapy water, found a sponge, and got to work.

It didn't take long, so I started unloading the dishwasher and scrubbing those dishes, too. It had been a couple of days, but there still wasn't much so it didn't take too long to run out, again. So I started over, dumping what looked the least clean in the sink and letting it soak while I scrubbed the rest.

Mona came out of the bedroom as I was starting my third scrub. I heard the door open and close, then the sound of bare feet on the hallway carpet. She didn't make eye contact when she came into the living room, didn't say anything, just came around the counter and into the kitchen to stand next to me. She'd borrowed one of my hoodies and had her chin buried in the neck, her hands buried in the pocket. The hood was off, though, and her face was blotchy, the way it got when she was angry. Or crying.

We stood next to each other, staring out the window at the lights across the park, while I finished the dishes a third time. Just stood, quietly. This was her olive branch; Mona wasn't great with saying the right thing, so she wasn't saying anything but she was trying. I finished the bowl I was working on and set it down. My turn.

I poked her with my foot. "Sorry," I said.

Mona was silent for a moment, her face still half buried in the collar of my hoodie, then she poked me back. "Me too," she responded.

We stood that way for another minute, watching the lights. Then I felt Mona move again, felt her lean over against me, her shoulder against mine, and she said, quietly: "I hate you."

The knot in my stomach, coiled up tight since Mona had left the table, suddenly released. It let go of my throat, my chest, my gut, and the ripple of release washed out all the way to my fingers and toes. It felt almost as amazing as her shoulder on me.

I leaned over into Mona, each of us supporting the other's weight. "I hate you back."

===== Not Not-Valentine's Day, April 20th, 2017 =====

"Hey, stranger, been a while."

I glanced up to see Mona smiling down at me, the setting sun behind me casting a golden light on her hair and face but making her squint, too. It also cast a golden light on my blue hoodie, the one she'd walked out wearing on Not-Valentine's Day and hadn't given back since.

"I'm sorry, but this seat's taken," I told her, "I'm waiting for someone, although she's running pretty late."

She kicked my toes. "Then stand up, she can have the whole thing to herself."

I did, and Mona met me with a hug. It was quick but fierce, Mona squeezing me tight while I returned the favor.

"I missed you," I said, surprised when the words came out; it had barely been two weeks.

"I missed you too," she responded, letting go and stepping back.

"Want to go for a walk?" I asked, expecting to catch some shit about being old people walking in the park. It was a nice afternoon, though, sunny and in the 60s, and I wasn't going to waste it.

"Sure," she said instead, turning down the path. I took a few quick steps to catch up.

We walked in silence for a little bit. Mona had set up this get together, calling me last night out of the blue at nearly ten. She wouldn't tell me why, other than it had been a while, but I knew her well enough to know she had something she wanted to tell me. Which was stressing me out a little, especially since she seemed to need to work herself up to it.

Then Mona leaned in and bumped me, shoulder to shoulder. She still didn't say anything, just bumped me, and I suddenly knew it was going to be okay.

"So um," I began, grabbing for something to start her off, "sorry to hear about you and Zack." Which probably wasn't my best choice, I realized, but we hadn't had much chance to talk about it; the two of them had broken up a week ago, but like I said we hadn't seen each other in even longer. It wasn't the kind of thing you discuss in text.

"No, you aren't."

"No, I'm not," I admitted. "Was it bad?"

"I don't really want to talk about it," she responded, and then did anyway. "We didn't really work, we were just into different things. That wasn't all of it; I felt like I had to be someone else around him, and it was someone I didn't really like."

"How'd he take it?"

She shrugged. "He wasn't happy about it. He looked like he wanted to say some things but didn't. I didn't even realize I was going to do it, honestly, until just before I did. I'd asked him something else and when he told me no I just... realized it. A lot of the stuff that had been bugging me snapped into focus."

"What did you ask him?"

Mona didn't answer right away. I glanced over and she wasn't looking at me, she was looking off towards the sunset with an intense expression. Despite my nerves, I let her be while she worked out whatever it was. She'd speak when she was ready.

"So my dad knows a guy who runs a business in my field," she started.

"What's your field again?" I asked

She glared at me. "He's got a lady who's going on maternity leave, five to six months overall, and he wants to hire a short-term replacement. He could use a temp, but my dad..." she trailed off.

I waited.

Then I felt her hand slide into mine and her fingers curl gently closed. This was new. This was very new. A tingle shot up my arm and I nearly tripped on a seam in the concrete.

"It would be good experience, and it would look good on a resume," Mona went on, pretending not to notice me being a klutz. "You know I'm not having any luck, I've been temping for the last two years doing random crap. It would be good. And it would only be five or six months."

God her hand felt amazing. "Sounds great, but it also sounds like you want something from me. What are you asking? Permission?"

She looked frustrated. "I don't know, yes? I guess? This..." she flailed her free hand for a moment, looking for words. "You're my best friend. It's going to be six months."

"You don't need my permission."

"Then maybe I just want you to tell me it will be okay. It's six months."

"Or five," I pointed out.

"Or six," she responded, "and that's a long ass time."

"Are you going to come back after?" I asked.

"That's the plan. The girls and I have already talked about subletting my room, so I'll even have a place to come back to. We could probably get more than I'm paying for it and it would still be a steal."

"Then what's the problem? Go!"

"Damn it, Steve, the problem is I'd miss you," she said, squeezing my hand. "I feel like we've been... I feel like this last year we've been drifting apart, like I'm losing my best friend. I'm always busy, you're always tired, and then with Zack? I didn't feel like I could bring him around."

"I didn't like him very much," I admitted, as if she didn't know that already.

"The feeling was mutual. When was the last time we had a movie night? Or karaoke?"

"Karaoke sucked," I reminded her.

"Shut the fuck up. When's the last time we went curling? Or stayed up until midnight bullshitting? I feel like I've been losing you and if I go away..." her hand continued to flail but was losing steam rapidly.

I stopped walking, pulling Mona to a stop with me. Then I wrapped my arms around her and dragged her in for a hug. Her arms snaked around me. She was warm, she was comfortable, and she made my heart start a mosh pit with my ribs.

"I like this," she murmured, "I don't want to not have this."

"How long have we known each other? Four years?" I asked.

"I'm bad at math," she responded, lacing her fingers together behind me and squeezing. I squeezed back.

"Four years," I said, agreeing with myself. "We can survive five months."

"Or six," she added.

"Oh, well, I don't know about six. Five I can do, but six? I don't know if I'll make it that long."

She kicked me in the shin, which is quite the feat when you're hugging someone. "I fucking hate you."

"I hate you back," I responded, kissing the top of her head.

I hadn't been planning it, it just sort of happened. We both froze when I did it, then Mona was pushing against me, burrowing her head into my chest. I heard her gasp, then pull in two slow, shuddering breaths.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Mona shook her head.

We didn't speak again for a bit, just held each other while Mona cried quietly in my arms. I still had my lips on her head, my nose buried in her hair. I felt like cheering. I felt like crying. I felt like a lot of things all at once and I didn't know which one was right; something was changing and it wasn't just Mona's living arrangements.

She smelled amazing.

A pair of joggers split, moving around us, then regrouped on the other side still talking about baseball.

After a while she stopped shaking and I loosened my arms. Mona took a few sniffing breaths and stepped back a bit, unwrapping her arms but sliding her hand back into mine.

"You okay?" I asked again, not sure if I could answer that question myself.

"Better," she responded.

"When do you leave?"

"In a week. I know, I'm sorry, I've been sitting on it. I just didn't know if I wanted to go!"

"You want to go," I told her.

She made a noise at me.

"Before you do, though," I began.

"What?"

"Can I have my sweatshirt back?" I asked, tugging at it.

Mona shook her head. "No."

"No?"

"I look better in it anyway."

"That's true, but it's my favorite one," I pointed out.

"I know. That's why it's mine now."

I squeezed her hand. "Then you'd better bring it back, preferably with you in it."

===== Definitely Not Not-Valentine's Day, November 10th, 2017 =====

"I'm coming," I yelled, as if the phone could hear me. I could hear it vibrating its way towards the edge of my dining room table (they always go for the nearest steep drop onto a hard surface). I tossed the towel I'd been holding and grabbed the phone just as it made its last suicidal lunge, but the vibrations stopped as it hit my hand. I swiped at it and put the phone to my ear anyway.

"Hello?"

Nothing; a glance at the screen showed me one missed call: Monica Lott. Crap. I texted back a reply: "Sorry I missed you. Call when you can." Then I set the phone down and sunk into the chair next to it, because for some reason my heart was trying to pound it's way up my throat.

Mona had finished her short-term gig a week ago, and after a week wrapping things up and hanging out with her family she was on her way back north. She'd left this morning, with a plan to lay over in Redding before making the last leg of the trip. I was excited, I was terrified, I was I don't know what.

I'd spent more time at Mona's apartment than I spent at my own the last week of April, either helping her pack her things or just hanging out with her and her roommates. Mostly her. We'd watched TV, movies, badly attempted gourmet recipes, not attempted karaoke, and avoided talking about the fact she was leaving in a matter of days. Mona had always been a touchy person, but that week she'd found any opportunity to poke, kick, brush against, or lean on me. The last night, watching a movie neither of us gave a shit about, she'd climbed into my arms on the couch and we'd stayed up way too late that way, cuddled close and talking about nothing that I can even remember. The next day we didn't bring it up, I didn't know what it meant, and then she left.

We didn't talk about it while she was away, either, whatever it was that was going on between us. I know, that seems dumb but she never brought it up and I didn't want to force the conversation if it made her uncomfortable. Okay, that's kind of a lie: I was scared. I was scared to bring it up when she was a thousand miles away, I was scared that it hadn't really been about me, or that I was wrong, or things would sour before she got back, or that she'd get offered a position and suddenly never be coming back. I was scared shit would go wrong.