Catch Up With Fate

Class was starting again on Monday and I wanted to have my living arrangements sorted out by then. One weekend wasn’t a lot of time to do so but I was hoping that one of my college friends, or someone they knew would be looking for a roommate. If not, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

By this time information about the argument/fight had travelled to Germany. There was a lengthy email from my mother that sounded like she had talked in depth to my sister already. It did a lot to make me feel oh so much better about the situation... I was about to just ignore it, but then composed a few lines telling her that it was between my sister and I and that some distance was what I needed at the moment. I didn’t expect her to understand but maybe she would at least give me a little bit of space like I asked for.

Our parents had been surprisingly supportive of our semester abroad, but only until we decided to change it from one semester into two. They didn’t really believe the fairytale CC was supposedly living at the moment and I couldn’t blame them, it was a little too good to be true from an outsider’s point of view. There was nothing they could do but stick it out now, they weren’t mad or cruel enough to completely cut off their support. We were in for a big lecture come June though.

After dealing with that, I went back to trying to sort out my living arrangements. Unfortunately I reached the end of my list before I had found a solution and so I gave up for now and treated myself to a nap.

I was still in bed when my phone rang not much later in the afternoon. With a deep sigh I rolled over and grabbed it, letting out a surprised grunt at the caller ID.

“Hello,” I answered slowly.

”Hi Tasha, it’s Marc.” Thanks Captain Obvious, I can read...

“Hi Marc, how’s it going?” I replied, easily letting the standard greeting flow from my lips.

”I’m alright, how about you? Did you get to Chicago? How are things?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered with a shrug that he couldn’t see. “It’s strained, I’m managing somehow. Right now I’m at Sharpie’s, see how it goes.”

”Maybe once class starts it’ll distract you a little,” he offered. ”Have you talked to them at all yet?”

I pursed my lips. He was obviously just trying to be a friend but I didn’t want or need any more sympathy and advice, I’d already gotten more than enough from everyone else. Now that I wasn’t in New York anymore, it was even more obvious to me that nothing would develop between us. That kiss was... It happened and at that moment it had been good and maybe even right, but I hadn’t spent the past days wondering about it and yearning for Marc to finally call. New York seemed so far away now. Truth could be found in the saying: out of sight, out of mind.

“Not really, I’m trying to avoid confrontation until things have calmed down a little,” I told him finally. “How were your games? I completely forgot to check!”

A sure fire way to distract Marc and let him talk without me having to give much input was to ask about hockey. It worked on almost everyone, except for the select few that could see through my ‘sneaky maneuver’ like Niklas, Sharpie and C.A..

When Marc had to go, he promised to call again within the next few days and told me I could call him at any time if I needed anything. He made it so apparent that his interest was still high even if I was back in Chicago that I felt bad. It wasn’t his fault that New York was now a memory that left behind a bad taste.

My phone showed that I had a new text after we hung up, which turned out to be Viktor asking me to call him as soon as possible. Promptly I did just that.

”Hi Tasha,” he answered the phone and I quickly returned the greeting.

“Hello Viktor. You asked me to call you back?” Trying to find a place to stay without success all day had left me with little patience so I cut straight to the chase.

“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said and I held back a groan.

“If Niklas asked you to talk to me about CC, you’re out of luck. I don’t want to talk about it,” I told him immediately.

“It’s not about that, I promise,” he assured me quickly but I could tell that I’d come on a little strong.

“I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood to have another person nagging at me about that,” I sighed.

”No nagging,” he promised with a chuckle.

“Thanks. Okay, so what did you want to talk about?”

”Do you have a place to stay yet?” he asked and surprised me.

“Uhm, what?” Confusion never left me very eloquent. Of course I knew what he meant, I had spent much of the day trying to solve just that problem after all, but I couldn’t think of a reason why he would ask about that.

”When we had dinner at Niklas’ a few days ago you said that you would try to find a place to stay for a while, until you were ready to talk to your sister. Have you found one?”

“Uhm, no, unfortunately. No one’s got any spare rooms left, I guess,” I answered him finally, still confused.

”I do,” he said simply.

“What do you mean, you do? You have a room free?”

“Yea. I got a spare room that I’ve never used for much, furniture’s all new. If you want you can have it,” he explained and though I knew the reason for his call now, I didn’t feel any less confused or surprised.

“Are you serious?” I brought out before I could stop myself. He laughed.

”Of course, I wouldn’t offer if I weren’t,” he assured me. ”So what do you think? Do you want to come over to look at it first?”

I gulped. Then gulped again. This seemed too easy.

”What are the conditions?” I asked, trying not to show my suspiciousness.

”There are none. I got a room free and you can have it if you want.”

“Uhm... okay, I guess. I mean... I can’t quite believe it but if it’s fine with you to have a girl living in your spare room for a little while...”

“That’s fine, I’m hoping you’re a little neater than myself, you know,” he joked and I let out a half-snort.

“Sorry, but probably not,” I told him.

“Damn... oh well, we’ll work it out. Do you want to come over and take a look at it? It’s got a bed and a dresser, but you might need something else?”

“No, no, that’s fine. I mean... thank you so much, Viktor, I was trying to find something all day, and this is really great.” It was hard to process that from one minute to the next my problem had been so easily solved.

“You’re welcome, Tasha,” Viktor said. “Do you need me to come pick you up? Are you at Sharpie’s place still?”

“Uhm.” I had to shake my head and snap myself back into focus. “No, I think I can borrow Abby’s car maybe. I’ll text you in a moment, I gotta ask her.”

“Sure. I’ll text you my address. See you in a bit, Tasha.”

“Yeah. And thanks again, Vik.”

After we hung up I sat in bed for at least five minutes and couldn’t quite wrap my head around this. Then I got up and got dressed, thinking to myself that although this seemed too easy and had come out of the blue, all I could do was to accept Viktor’s offer. It was too perfect to pass up and I didn’t have any other options. I was worried about how it would be to share an apartment with a guy and also how CC would react to me moving out for an indefinite period of time. In the end I needed it though, some distance to get an overview of things.

Abby and Patrick were in the living room cuddling on the couch but I didn’t feel like I had interrupted something, because they didn’t make me feel that way by scrambling apart like a lot of other people would have.

“Uhm, Abby, could I borrow your car again?” I asked slowly.

“Of course. Where are you going?” She got up to give me her keys.

“Vik’s place, he said I could have his spare room until, you know...” CC and I made up or something. Hopefully.

“Viktor? Are you serious?” Patrick chuckled. “Wasn’t far off, was I, eh?”

“I don’t know, which part of I don’t want to date did you not understand? I mean, you went to college, you can’t be that stupid,” I glared at him. He immediately shut up as his wife laughed.

“Told youuu,” she sang and handed me her keys. “If you need help getting your stuff over there, Patrick will be more than delighted to help you.”

“Thanks,” I chuckled and left.

.

Viktor was right, the spare room really only consisted of a bed and a dresser with a few boxes of stuff in one corner that made it obvious he rarely used this room. But this was something, more than anything else I had come up with, and sharing the one bedroom apartment with my sister had cured me of being picky.

“Do you think it’s okay?” he asked and I nodded.

“Definitely. I don’t know how long I’ll-“

“That’s fine, I don’t need it back at a certain time. You’re free to leave whenever you want,” he told me.

Then I dared to ask the most important question. “What about rent?” It was the most important question because I really didn’t have much, if any money to spare. Paying rent for two places was going to be a challenge, but I wasn’t going to be a bitch and leave CC hanging. In the end I was the one who couldn’t deal.

“You don’t have to pay, Tasha,” Viktor assured me quickly and went on before I could interrupt him. “I mean, I don’t use this room and it makes no difference basically if it’s used or not, at least not to me.”

“I can’t just live here for free,” I protested that just didn’t seem right.

“Well, it’s my room so I make the rules,” he grinned at me. “Maybe you can cook once in a while and help with the cleaning, that’s all I want.”

“But-“

“No buts, that’s it, take it or leave it,” he continued to grin and I had the suspicion that he enjoyed having this power in his hand at the moment. I couldn’t force him to accept rent, right? But that just didn’t seem right to me!

“Ugh, fine,” I agreed finally and he smiled triumphantly.

When Viktor smiled, you were in trouble. I did my best to keep everything under wraps, but I wasn’t dead and thus not immune to this handsome Swede’s smile. Just like I wasn’t immune to Corey’s, or given it was one of the rare genuine ones, Kaner’s.

“Cool. You can move in as soon as you want. I’ll get a second set of keys made for you, until then you’ll have to stick with the spare.” Viktor produced said spare keys from his pocket and handed them to me. “Downstairs and apartment doors.” One round and one square key made it easy to remember which was which.

“Uhm, thanks.” Well, that was quick.

“Do you need help getting your stuff over here?”

“Yeah,” I nodded slowly. “Sharpie offered, too.” But there was something else I had to do first and I dreaded it. “I gotta talk to CC first though.”

.

I called ahead and asked if she was even home which she wasn’t, but she immediately agreed to meet me at our apartment. She didn’t tell me she was bringing C.A. but I should have known. Great.

With C.A. there, the mood was tense and I didn’t feel as comfortable to speak freely, which sucked. Maybe I could have gotten her to understand and not get mad (or as mad) about it, but with him there I had little hope. I almost contemplated talking to her in German but he would complain, and CC would insist that whatever I had to say he could hear too.

“So what did you want to talk about?” CC asked almost eagerly and I could see that she hoped we may already be able to put this aside. No such luck, just looking at C.A. made me want to hit something. Preferably him.

“I know you’re not going to like this but it’s something I need to do until I can... we can work this out,” I started. She looked confused. “I’m moving out. Just for a little while, not permanently, just until the smoke has cleared, so to speak.”

I think the only thing she heard was that I was moving out and I think that was the only thing that mattered to her. The hurt look on her face hurt me too, this wasn’t going to be easy for her, but somewhere deep down I felt justified because maybe she could feel a little bit of the pain I was feeling.

“You’re moving out?” she repeated tonelessly. “But... why? I mean, I understand you’re mad but you don’t have to leave.”

“I do. I need this, CC, I need to be away from this, so I can think about it. I need some distance right now,” I tried to explain. “It’s not permanent, I just need a little time to myself right now.”

“What she means to say is that she’s taking the easy way out and running away,” Jon said with a dark look towards me.

“That’s not true! I’m not running away! I just need some space!” I protested, angry that he felt the need to butt in again.

“Space from what, Tasha? You’re mad at me for asking her to come back early, but now that you could be spending more time with her you’re leaving? You can’t have it both ways, Tasha.”

“This is exactly the reason I need space! You’re always butting in, you always need to get involved, there’s no way for us to figure this out between the two of us because you just can’t keep out! Maybe you don’t want us to figure it out, huh? You want her all to yourself, don’t want to share. Well, what’s going to happen after this semester? We’re going back home and then? Screw this. I’ll get my stuff tomorrow.” I stood up and turned to leave.

“She’s staying,” Jon sneered, I stopped dead in my tracks.

“It’s not decided yet, nothing’s definite,” CC jumped in immediately, giving her boyfriend a dark look and me a pleading one. “I haven’t planned anything, I promise.”

She was desperate not to make it worse than it already was, but I couldn’t deny that I believed she was at least thinking about it. Maybe I was going to lose my sister to this man, to this city after all. The thought was too painful, I had to leave. Before I did though I turned to her.

“Ich hab dich lieb,” I told her, having resolved that I would never leave a family member or close friend during a difficult time or argument without telling them I loved them.