Page 37 of The Heat of Us

I’m just trying to give myself a fighting chance here.

Mind if I text you from time to time?

Too much too soon? Fuck.

Hazel

I dunno, a gaming b-boy doctor sounds out of my league. But sure, I’d like that.

I had to concede that I owed Juno big time.

11

BEN

Texting Hazel got easier on my nerves. She liked memes with dirty humour. Animals doing cute things did not elicit the squealing I was hoping for. Animals doing human-like things, however, did.

I treasured the sobbing, wheezing voice note I received when I sent her a video of a cat waddling along on two legs.

Quite a niche taste, Hazel had.

We didn’t talk much about our lives, our designations, our realities. I didn’t even know what she did for work.

Instead we looked to find ways to make each other laugh, think or recoil in disgust. Revelled in the mundane and minutiae of everyday life. Giving each other little bits of ourselves in the process.

Hazel

I have a weird little lump on the side of my foot

I can’t get a good look at it

Doesn’t really hurt but it’s kinda red?

Send me a pic

She didn’t reply for a long time. Then she sent me what I assumed was her foot, entirely covered by a piece of paper on which she had written NO FEET STUFF.

I am a medical professional!

Hazel

And a pervert clearly

I started my residency at St Elizabeth’s and continued to pick up traces of her scent at the gym. I stuck with the alpha-only hours and obsessed a normal amount about which of the omega-only blocks of time she might be attending.

Why do peanuts come with a warning label saying they may contain peanuts?

Hazel

It’s not a lie though. They MAY.

Label. Peanuts. Ingredients. 100 percent peanuts. Warning label. MAY contain peanuts. What else could it contain?

Our hopes and dreams for a healthy parental relationship

Touché

That had been one ‘deep’ topic we’d touched on. Turned out being bombarded with texts and calls from parents who did not understand why we didn’t want to speak to them was a shared experience.

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