Love Like This

I walked down the hallway, counting the steps till I reached her door. I knew she was back in town for now, at least, and I hoped that she wasn’t busy. I knocked on the thick metal door of her apartment, staring at the maroon carpet as I waited for her to open the door.

“Coming!” Lizz yelled. She sounded breathless. I stayed silent until one of the large double doors was pulled back revealing the same Lizz that I’d last seen three months ago. She blushed. “Hi, Claudia! I wasn’t expecting you….” She looked over her shoulder and pushed up the sleeves of a black button down shirt that couldn’t be hers.

“Sorry. I was on this side of town and I heard you were back and…” I trailed off, only to hear the voice of a man within Lizz’s apartment.

“Tell whoever it is to go away!”

She turned again, shook her head, then grabbed my hand and pulled me into the room. “Garrett, this is Claudia Trohman, my best friend.” Garrett was at least six feet tall. He had messy brown hair and blue eyes.

He nodded politely, blushing as he stood behind the tan couch, wearing a pair of boxer-briefs. “Claudia, this is Garrett Hedlund, my boyfriend.”

“Nice to meet you, Garrett,” I offered. I left out that Lizz was constantly talking about him when she called me from various tour dates and that I had already figured out I interrupted them while they were having sex and I knew that he was just hiding a boner.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said, his voice deep. “I’ll be right back.”

Lizz blushed. “So what brings you here on this fine day…?” She was embarrassed. I could tell. I decided to make it more awkward for her.

I shrugged as she led me to the kitchen. “Oh, you know… I just have perfect timing. I like interrupting my best friend when she’s fucking her boyfriend.” I grinned innocently.

She nodded at a stool and I sat in it as she went to the silver fridge and opened one of the doors. “Do you want something to drink?” I knew she was avoiding responding to what I had just said.

I nodded. “Yes, please.” I paused. “And I was just kidding. I just needed someone to vent to about Trick.” She grabbed three beers before she turned around and walked over to the counter I was sitting at. She handed one of the glass bottles to me and smiled.

“Thank god! I was still trying to come up with a story for… Well, you know. Sorry about Garrett, by the way.” She shook her head. I twisted off the top of my beer and took a sip as she rolled up the sleeves to her elbows.

I heard footsteps behind me, but I knew it was just Garrett. He walked into the kitchen, fully clothed, I might add, and wrapped his arms around Lizz’s waist, kissing her cheek. “I figure you’ll need some time. I’ll be back later.”

She nodded and pressed her lips to his; I busied myself the marble countertop. I waited for him to walk away, staying silent until I heard the large metal door close. She turned and put the third beer back in the fridge before she opened hers.

“So… You and Patrick?” she asked, drinking some of beer after.

I shrugged. “You know how for a while we were unofficially together?” She nodded. “Well, that ended like seven months ago, and then he got this girlfriend that was REALLY pretty…” I glared at the counter. “But she’s a total bitch and completely wrong for him.”

Lizz walked around the counter and walked towards the glass wall, opening a sliding door and leading me to a balcony. She sat on one of the black metal chairs and motioned for me to sit on the other. “Yeah, I’ve met her.” She shook her head. “She’s a total slut.”

“I KNOW!” I exclaimed.

Lizz shook her head again. “I’m not done…” I watched her, waiting for her to continue. I resisted the urge to interrupt and mention the bruises on her legs. I’d save that for later. “She cheats on him all the time. I think she has like two kids—she doesn’t even have custody of them. They’re off living with their dad in England or something….”

“I knew it!” I exclaimed, eyeing the ring on her left hand. “Is that a diamond?” I raised an eyebrow.

She blushed. “No. It’s topaz.” She shrugged. “He got it for my birthday.”

“I really fucking hate that whore,” I cursed.

Lizz nodded. “He was going to call me later. I’m told he was going to dump her, but I don’t know…” She trailed off. “And since next week is Yew Near’s Eve, you should come over. We were gonna have a party. Patrick is coming….”

I raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that I want to see him?!”

She shrugged. “You’re in love with him.” She raised her bottle to her lips and I raised my eyebrow again. It was different than mine.

I decided to go with a drastic change of subject. “Is that cream soda?!” Her eyes widened and she nodded slowly.

“Don’t tell Garrett!! I wanted it to stay a secret until after the New Year! Please, please, please don’t say anything!”

I tried to put together what she was saying, but she just wasn’t making sense. “Don’t tell him that you were drinking cream soda?” I asked slowly.

She leaned forward and held her head in her hands. “That party last month got a little out of hand and we… You know… But he forgot to….” She looked up. “Please don’t say anything.”

The phone rang inside. “I’ll be right back,” she murmured before she got up and went inside. Slowly, I summed up everything she had said.

And then it hit me. I got up and ran inside, hugging the petite twenty-three year old. Her eyes went wide. “Yeah, Trick. That’s cool. I have to go. Party’s still on for next week. Don’t bring anyone, though.” I raised an eyebrow. “Bye.” She quickly hung up.

“Congratulations!!!!” I exclaimed. “When exactly are you going to tell him?”

She plopped down on the couch, putting her feet up on the arm of the sofa. She didn’t even fill half the couch. “I was thinking at the party… You know, after the whole Happy New Year shit… I figure he’ll be drunk by then and I can get away with Sprite and cream soda…” She nodded to herself as I sat on the other end of the couch.

“You’re hoping he won’t remember, aren’t you?” I asked. She nodded once.

“Wanna spend the night?” she asked. She eyed her bedroom door and I halfway wondered what she was thinking. “The guest room is sound-proofed. If anything happened in my room, you wouldn’t know…” She smiled innocently.

“I don’t have clothes.”

She pursed her lips. “I’ll be right back.” She got up and skipped to her bedroom, closing the door behind herself. I looked around her apartment as I waited for her to come out. There were tons of pictures; several of them were from when I helped out with her band. On either side of the doors that lead to the hallway were pictures of Lizz and Garrett.

There were awards and trophies on shelves and a wall of CDs by a stereo. The floors were hardwood and burgundy carpet.

“These should fit you. They’re brand new…. I got them three years ago and never used them… Ryan, that asshole drummer of mine, thinks I’m ten times bigger than I am. And by bigger, I mean he was making fun of me being short.” She pouted and tossed a pair of black and red skull pajamas at me.

I just laughed. “I’ll be right back.” She pointed me towards the guest room and I wandered off in that direction. Surprisingly, they fit perfectly. I left my black skinny jeans, grey tunic, and white vest on the bed.

We talked on the couch about everything that had gone on in our lives for the next hour or two until Garrett came back. I was halfway jealous that I didn’t have a guy like him; it was so obvious he was head over heels for her.

He was completely oblivious to my presence when he came back; he looked around the room, his eyes searching for her the second he walked through the door. And when he caught her eye, he took four long strides, picked her up, and kissed her. I could hear them whispering to each other, but I tried to block it out.

I mumbled an “I’m going to bed,” then quickly left the living room and hid in the guest room. The guest room was completely different from the rest of the house. There was a king sized bed that had baby blue sheets and a navy comforter, along with at least ten pillows in varying shades of blue. The headboard of the bed was faux leather in black, and there was a black, wooden nightstand with a lamp on either side of the bed.

There was a mirror on the door, and a flat screen TV on the wall in front of the bed above a short shelf. The wall to the left of the bed had sliding mirrors that led to a walk in closet, and to the right of the bed, on the far side of the room, was a desk that matched the nightstands.

I crawled in the bed and made myself comfortable. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

* * *

Lizz was wrong. The room might have been supposedly “sound proof”, but I could still hear them. I had the TV turned on and put on some action movie, hoping the gun shots or whatever else would drown them out. It didn’t.