Page 1 of Meet You in the Waves
CHAPTER 1
ajay
“You just about packed for your trip home?” I asked Dane, my best friend and roommate as I leant up against his doorframe. Dane looked slightly frazzled, his usually styled black hair standing up on end as he stood by his bed in our two bedroom apartment, suitcase splayed open beside him.
“Just about,” he grimaced, sitting down heavily beside a pile of unfolded polo shirts. “But Dee will be here soon and I plan on giving her a very thorough farewell before I go. Sorry but also not sorry in advance for all the sound we’re about to make.”
“Isn’t she coming down the coast to see you in, like, a week?” I laughed.
“Yeah, so?” Dane shrugged with a grin.
“You don’t think you can last out an entire week without your girl?”
“Have you seen my girl? That would be a hard no,” Dane returned, pumping his eyebrows suggestively. Ah, Dane and Dee, Dee and Dane, the two most intertwined and loved up couple I had ever known. They had been dating since year nine, the cliched high school sweethearts who had so far managed toextend their romance a year out from graduation and with no end in sight. A love for the ages if ever there was.
“Well, what about you and Kira?” Dane returned. “You planning a farewell to remember before you head home for the summer?”
Ah yes, Kira. My girlfriend.
Was it weird that I had not even thought about her once all day as I packed for my own return home to my family who I hadn’t seen in nearly a year? Probably.
“I saw her yesterday,” I shrugged.
“Dude. You’re not going to see her until school goes back in five weeks,” Dane pointed out.
“I’ll cope. Don’t forget not everyone is as loved up or as codependent as you and Dee,” I reminded my best friend as I had done many times over the past twelve or so months that Kira and I had been together. Yeah, we were also the cliched high school sweethearts but I was the first to admit our relationship was still very much stuck in the glory days of year twelve.
I wasn’t exactly looking towards building a future with Kira but I also hadn’t done anything to put an end to us. I had just kind of assumed it would peter out of its own volition but so far it hadn’t even though Kira tended to stage some drama or other which resulted in a temporary break up on a semi-regular basis.
I mean, people didn’t really end up with their high school sweethearts, did they? Other than in Disney movies perhaps. But Dane and Dee were kicking against that narrative, their relationship only moving into hyperdrive in the past year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dane kicked me out of the apartment so that Dee could move in with him. Probably would have done it already if he hadn’t known it would have left me homeless. Sydney was a crazy expensive city to live in.
No, me and Kira were not a long term prospect. It had been fun albeit a hell of a lot more drama filled than I would haveliked. But my heart just didn’t yearn for Kira the way I knew Dane’s yearned for Dee. Maybe I just wasn’t wired that way. To love someone so desperately I couldn’t imagine a day without them.
Twelve months with the same person felt like such a long time. I also knew the longevity of our relationship was really down to two factors – my general apathy and the fact that Kira and Dee were best friends, just like Dane and me. Theawesome foursomeas the other three insisted on calling us. Kind of ensured we would be forever thrown together in this possibly too close-knit, slightly overdependent little friendship group we had going on.
Even if maybe I thought about different things from time to time. Even if maybe I had started secretly hanging out with a few of my other uni friends whenever I had the free time between my course work, guitar tuition and the part-time barista job I had picked up at The Local Brew. Even though sometimes I felt a little suffocated by the awesome foursome friendship group I couldn’t see a way out of.
Nothing that a long summer break back home wouldn’t help to fix at any rate.
A knock at the front door interrupted our brief conversation and I smiled at my friend as I went to answer. Dee was standing in the hallway, long brown hair swinging in a pony tail and slightly breathless from her walk up the stairs.
“Ajay,” she smiled at me, stepping forward to give me a one armed hug and a peck on the cheek.
“How are you, Dee?” I returned.
“Good,” she replied, smoothing out her pony tail. I didn’t hold her attention for long as Dane came into view and she sent that dazzling smile of hers his way. “Hey you.”
“Hey, beautiful girl,” Dane replied, a soft smile on his face as he leaned up against his doorframe. Yeah, would have soundedcorny coming from anyone else but not Dane and Dee. They were just that kind of way.
“You seeing Kira tonight?” Dee asked, attention half back on me as she held her boyfriend’s hand.
“Nah. Need to pack for my flight home tomorrow,” I replied. “Early start and all that.”
“Bet she would have loved to see you before you go. Five weeks is a long time to be away from each other,” Dee told me, a suggestion and a little bit of light judgment in her tone. It was one of the great reliefs of my life that Dee and Kira did not live together. If they did, I doubt I would have had a minute to myself based on how often Dee came to the apartment.
And yes, I could hear my thoughts in case you were wondering.
Dee squeezed my arm as she brushed past me and I turned back to the kitchen as I heard Dane’s bedroom door close firmly behind them. I picked up the TV remote on my way, turning it on to whatever was showing and went to make myself a cup of coffee. I was grateful as hell to Dane for letting me live in this cute loft apartment with its exposed red bricks and industrial black steel beams, not to mention its bright, funky new kitchen. The place was owned by his parents, and Dane charged me only a small token rent for the room I took.
