Good morning! Time to get dressed.
I get myself up off the bed and fight the wave of usual dizziness as my blood goes back to all the regular places. I stretch my back, then rotate at the waist a few times, feeling my ribs and spine crack in a melody of wow, I’m getting old.
Through my closed curtains, I can see the light of the sun dying to fry my eyeballs, and I again stare down longingly at my bed, hoping against hope they were big strong arms that could rock me to sleep.
Wake up, DiNovro. Your life can’t be like Sera’s – freaking fairy tale perfect.
I grab my phone off the nightstand and head on over to the kitchen. My appliances are greater than great after the mint they cost me, but hey, after working two jobs for the past ten years, hell yeah, I’m going to start spending towards my dream kitchen. What takes the cake is my awesome espresso machine, dotted with Juventus stickers – my only ode to my favourite soccer team – when I have time to watch them play.
I make a perfect cappuccino and sit at my counter to slowly sip at it. I’m rudely interrupted in the complexity of flavour dancing over my tongue when my phone vibrates and I get Sera’s faced plastered on my phone under incoming call.
“DiNovro residence,” I sing-song as an answer and get a snicker on the other end. It makes me smile.
“Hey, Katie,” Sera says in a bright voice. Now that I think of it, her voice is always bright, even if she’s had a bad day, she always puts on a face for me when we call each other. It’s only when I see her face when I can tell how hard she’s trying to keep it all together.
“Oh, shit. Just gimme a sec-” she cuts off, but I can still hear her; she’s probably just moved the phone away from her face without thumbing the mic.
I listen to the cacophony coming from her – and Hunter’s – apartment. I look around my empty place, seeing without seeing the high-end furniture, the prestige that I try to wrap myself in to try and disguise that my place is as interesting as a tomb.
More noise comes from the line, and I can just imagine Matty running around like Satan’s spawn, causing havoc and basically driving my best friend and his dad crazy.
I like little kids – two hours at a time, and after they’ve had a meal in them.
I swear to God, kids are the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met. How the hell can you appreciate fine dining without trying the food that doesn’t look or sound so good? My zia Angelina says that when I have the right man, I’m going to want to have kids, and because they’ll be mine, I’m going to love them more.
I call bullshit. Big, smelly bullshit. Plus, I don’t intend to have kids, or get married.
“Hey, K! You there? Sorry, about that. The little guy couldn’t find one of his new sneakers I bought him.”
“I see,” I tell her. I really wasn’t expecting this side of her, as she slowly becomes a mom. Not this fast anyway.
When we were younger, Sera and I both talked about it, living across the street from one another, having kids at the same time, husbands who would become best friends. That was a dream of a little girl who bought in to the whole true love thing, like it was the end all of everything. No, no, no.
This isn’t Twilight.
“Yeah, it was like Armageddon, you know?” She coughs, then clears her throat.
“So, listen, hey, what are you doing up so coherent this morning?! I guess you already dosed yourself with caffeine. Want me to come over and make you some pancakes?”
I can’t help but grin. Sera makes epic buttermilk pancakes. She makes the buttermilk from scratch, too, and for some reason, it seems to make all the difference.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll make myself something small.” I take another delicious sip of my cappuccino. “Watcha need, Delos?”
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to call to ask for anything in particular. I just wanted to know if you were going to go to the hospital this morning to go see Dean.” She puts emphasis on the guy’s name and I let myself have an eye roll to put all other eye rolls to shame, because Jesus Christ, real life is not meant for this many Supernatural references.
“Yeah, I’m going to head over there in twenty minutes or so, see how he’s doing.” More cappuccino down my throat and into my tummy, warming me from the inside out. I check the time on the clock on my stove. Dean should be up by now.
“Sweet. I know we didn’t get to hang out yesterday, so I was wondering if you’d like to spend the day with me and Matty? We’re gonna go to the bookstore after we have breakfast.”
“Sera,” I say, licking foam from my upper lip, “where in hell are you going to put any more books? I’ve seen your bookshelves, and every nook and cranny has been disabused of the notion of being a free agent. What are you going to do? Kick the kid and MacLaine out so there’s more room for your books?”