Little Girl Blue - 𝐖𝐋𝐖

𝐈. Ludus- Two

I awoke to humming. It was the type of thing that felt taboo, in this case at least. You hum when you're content or excited and you can't help but express it in some annoying, nonverbal way. But you don't hum when you bring a random girl home, offer her your couch, and are cooking her breakfast. No. That's not right.

If it wasn't last night then it was then, that morning, when I knew Jane was different. Of course, I later came to learn that she hummed no matter the circumstances and I learned even later than that, it was always the same song.

"Breakfast." She walked towards me with a plate and sat on the edge of the bed. She had changed from the pajamas she had on last night and was wearing another satin set, this one cream and lined with black. Her her was swept into a bun at the nape of her neck, in the sunlight I could see her eyes better. They were much more green than I originally thought, and they were beautiful.

She stretched out along the mattress, which last night we had trouble setting up after many attempts of tugging and pulling from beneath the couch. She was drunk and eventually got tired and stood still to watch as I struggled. When she snapped out of her daze, she ran off to find some sheets and a blanket.

It hadn't been used in years so it cracked when you turned over and had an awkward lopsided shape, but it was a bed.

I ate for awhile as she watched in silence then went back to humming and moving around the kitchen, whether cleaning or preparing another cup of coffee. I was surprised she wasn't hungover and slumped over a toilet. Even last night, when we were walking home from the bar she held herself well. Drifting from the sidewalk a bit but always rebalancing herself and acting as if it didn't happen. I just followed slightly behind watching the drunk women in her pajamas guide me to her home at the edge of the city.

"How long have you lived here?" I had finished my breakfast, swirling bits of the bacon in the pool of yolk. I walked into the kitchen where her back pressed against the sink and a mug was hovering over her lips. It was a short walk, in fact the home was really quite small, but I suppose it was just her. I reached around and placed my plate in the sink.

Her eyes peered at me from above the rim, "I moved back at the beginning of the year, actually."

"Oh?" The house was old. A smell hung around that was of aging paper and tobacco. The walls were cracked, the floorboards were no better than the bed. But she seemed to have no disliking to any of it. It was warm and comfortable and for the foreseeable future, all that I had. "Isn't it a bit...oddly placed?" Last night, though in the dark, I could see at the end of the street a house. It stood alone with grassy fields as it's backyard. It looked like a barn, very small and fragile with an attached garage and a sad porch with a single rocking chair. If I had seen it any other day, or even at a different time of day, I would've thought it to be haunted or vacant property.

"Well, I guess. But it's not far from the bar or the grocery store or the gas station." A sip, "Besides I'm not much of a city person anyway."

I placed my hands in the pockets of the sweat pants she had given me. They were large, being that her hips and thighs had more shape than mine and she was a taller. We had to fold them at the waist a couple times to make it work. "But it is far away from the school. I imagine the commute isn't great."

"It's not but I took the last year from teaching off."

"Oh." I said again.

She placed her cup next to my plate in the sink and turned on the faucet.

I cleared my throat and picked up a rag, ready to help her dry the dishes. "I'm sorry about last night. I'm not normally so disoriented."

She laughed, though it lacked any amusement. "No need to apologize but don't get into the habit of lying." She began to scrub the dishes with soap, "And you have always been sort of... disoriented." In a way it was true.