Afternoon Shifts

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     It's raining when Rowena wakes up on Sunday. The sky is grey and her room is humid.

     Beside her, Ruth's hair is a matted tangle of fine spun gold on the pillow, her hands tucked under her cheek, her eyebrows almost invisible. Inconceivably blonde. She looks too young, like the prepubescent teen Rowena had known in middle school with skinny wrists and skinny knees.

     Ruth stirs, opening her eyes slowly. The sheets fall with a quiet rustle as she sits up and stretches her arms above her head, like a content cat bathing in morning light, all golden. "This would be the perfect opening scene to a cheesy rom-com flick," she mumbles nonchalantly.

     Rowena rolls her eyes. "Minus the part with your disgusting morning breath," she replies,  swinging her feet over the edge of the bed and standing. One of her socks seems to have gone missing during the night. "And besides, I only accept love confessions on Mondays. It helps get me through the week."

     "I feel like you've been waiting your whole life to say that."

     "My whole life is a snappy one-liner, Ruth. It comes naturally to me."

     Ruth runs a hand through her hair in exasperation, now fully awake, but it gets caught halfway through in a large knot. She yanks at it half-heartedly. "Say what you will, but your search history says otherwise. Best comebacks, witty retorts how to?"

     "Orlando Bloom address, life size Legolas cutout for sale?" Rowena quips.

     Ruth gives up on her quest of detangling her hair and sets her hands on her hips. "Excuse you," she says, but it's a little hard to take seriously when her hair is matted and sticking up in a cowlick at the back, "everyone is in love with Orlando Bloom, okay? It's perfectly normal."

     "Okay," Rowena says, unconvinced. She doesn't really get the appeal. At least, certainly not to Ruth's extent. She shifts onto her socked foot, the tiles of the floor cool against the bare one. "But more importantly, what do you want for breakfast?"

     "I don't know. Maybe just something light, like a banana and a few strawberries?"

     Rowena feigns a look of resignation and gives Ruth a once-over. "That was a trick question, skinny bitch. We only offer frozen waffles and ice cream for breakfast in this house."

     Ruth groans and holds her stomach, but the beginnings of a smile are twisting on her lips. "Have pity on me," she says, falling back onto the duvet. Her foot hits the empty pizza box at the foot of the bed, where the two of them left it last night before promptly collapsing into a food coma. "My food baby from last night is still developing."

     Rowena laughs. "Well, now you'll be expecting twins."

     "Twins! How am I going to tell my parents?" Ruth pulls an overly-exaggerated face that looks more constipated than distressed. Although, she supposes, constipation is a very valid reason to be distressed. "They'll be so disappointed in me."

     Rowena makes a noise halfway in between a moan and a giggle. "How terrible," she says.

     "Wow, when did this get so ridiculous?"

     "About the same time you said we were in a cheesy rom-com flick?"

     "I never said we were in a cheesy rom-com flick," Ruth refutes, now perched by the bedside table so that Rowena can make her bed properly, "I just said it seemed like the setting of this could be one."