Days

      Day 450: Today I went to work, mundane. The usual. It was Wednesday so I had pasta for lunch, but I added hot sauce. Big mistake and I regret my decisions. After work I dropped by The Roost and talked to Jerry, per usual. He was excited about the football draft coming up, I wasn’t too into it. Though Dad has been calling me about the Jets and some kid named ‘Zach Wilson’. Telling me to remember his name. Oh, course I remember the name, if Dad tells me to remember something I’ll remember it.

           Day 451: Today I went to work, mundane. The usual. It was Thursday so I ate lunch with Armani. She rambled on and on about a story she’s writing, I was supportive but indifferent. I stopped reading novels after college, it’s all the same. After work I dropped by The Roost and talked to Jerry. He briefly mentioned something about an app he was using but didn’t elaborate. I got a call from Stephan again, no idea why he even bothers. I don’t know anyone who’s that persistent to get back together with their ex.

Day 452: Today I went to work, mundane but it was Friday, so I was counting down the minutes. I didn’t have enough ingredients at home to make my usual Friday lunch so I ate at that café down the street. It was weird, breaking my schedule. Hell I almost opted to not eat at all. After work I grabbed a beer at The Roost, normally I wouldn’t but Jerry was persistent. Something must have happened because he was more chatty than usual. At first, I thought it was about the draft, Jerry had no team allegiance, but he always got excited about sports. But no, apparently some woman came in after I left and she hooked him up with a friend of hers. It’s not my place to say how sketchy that sounds.

Day 452: Today I woke up early to do some cleaning, it’s bullshit how dust piles up on something because you don’t use it. Bullshit. Though my apartment wasn’t as dusty as it normally was, good job past me you did good. I ended up at The Roost again, not sure why. I know that during the day it’s fairly quiet, so maybe that’s why. I managed to get Jerry out from behind the counter to play some pool with me. I won, obviously, nobody beats me! Though I left before it got too dark, all the douchebags come out on Saturday nights.

Day 453: Today I went to church even though I stopped believing in a God years ago. It felt wrong not to go. After all, humans are a creature of habit. And speaking of, once that was done I met up with Lala at a different bar called Crossroads. The conversation was mostly memories and nostalgia from high school, though that isn’t necessarily bad. Though she did bring up her husband and her daughter. Which turned into her telling me I should start dating again. So, I told her, “The day I become a lesbian is the day I date again.”

And she had the gall to ask, “Wait, so you weren’t before?”

I laughed, I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t.

Day 459: Today I went to work, mundane. It was Friday and I finally had the ingredients to make my Friday lunch. There is no better feeling than having the exact amount of ingredients to make a meal. Nothing lost, nothing wasted. After work I went to The Roost, a little pep in my step. I must’ve woken up on the right side of the bed this morning, eh? But also, Stephan said he would finally stop pestering me. Thank God, I hate clingy people (which, surprisingly, wasn’t the reason we broke up). But as I walked down the stairs into the establishment there was already someone at the bar, sitting at one of the stools and talking to Jerry. A woman, with a leather jacket that said ‘High Voltage’ on the back of it. I hated her already.

Day 460: Somehow, I ended up back at the bar the following morning. Jerry invited me; said he was trying out a breakfast menu. I told him, “No one comes to a bar for breakfast.”

And he said, “Some people do. Can’t have them just eating bar peanuts.”

But as I walked down the stairs that damn woman from yesterday was at the bar eating a plate of pancakes. “Pretty good, the bottom one is a little stale,” she told Jerry. She completely ignored me until I sat down next to her, “Good morning pretty lady!”

I wanted to slap her.

Jerry put down a plate of pancakes and I ate it, who would say no to free food. But… the bottom pancake was a little stale.

470: She wasn’t that bad. She could be insufferable, but she wasn’t the ‘Dangerous Biker Dyke’ I thought she was. She was actually kind of a dork. When I walked in she was rambling on about how a writer she looked up to read one of her stories. I asked what she wrote and she clammed up until Jerry said, “Oh she writes fan fiction.”

“Jerry that was a secret!”

I knew what fan fiction was, I never indulged in it. I always thought it was for teenage girls to write about their weird fantasy’s. But the plots she had in some of her works (from what she told me) have range.

“So yeah, the leader has stage three syphilis and the rest of the gang know he’s going crazy but can’t do anything about it because if they do they all get arrested!” she explained as I tested more of Jerry’s breakfast food.

“Wait, which one is this again? The one where Yosuke is a pothead?” he asked.

“No no no, this is the western one,” she clarified, “the one where Yosuke is a pothead was a one shot with minor shipping in the back.”

I speak many languages, but whatever they were talking about was not one of them.

Jerry paused. “Is it Chie and Kou-”

She slammed her hand onto the counter. “Of course, it’s Chie and Kou! Who else would it be? Spunky athletic nerd and the guy who’s crushing on her? Hells yeah!”

Why did those names sound familiar?

“I respect your ship but you’re wrong, Chie is obviously a lesbian.”

“I know that but a girl can dream! Plus, I like shy guys.”

“I thought you were a lesbian?”

“I would go Bi for Kou Ichijo.”

“But… he’s not… real?”

“Are you talking about Persona 4?” I asked abruptly.

They looked at me like I grew a third eye.

Day 474: What was she doing to me? When I told her I played Persona 4 like, forever ago, her eyes lit up and started asking me about my favorite character and who was on my team. (Kanji, Teddie, and Naoto. Obviously). But because of her I pulled out the old PlayStation 2 from the depths of my closet.

We exchanged contact information and she would start inviting me placed. My Saturdays turned from my day of rest to my day of hanging out with her, Jerry, and his new girlfriend. And the more I learned about her the dorkier she became. And the more I loved it.

“What’s your zodiac sign?” she randomly asked me.

“Virgo I think? Why?” I asked back.

“Just seeing if we’re compatible, I’m a Sagittarius,” she said as if that explained anything.

“It’s a bunch of nonsense.”

“Well, I believe, a little anyway. Not like, I but one hundred percent absolute faith. More like, ok it exists but if I want to date someone, I won’t let some stars stop me, you know?”

I didn’t.

Day 602 (I think): The leaves start to turn, it’s fall now. Holy- it’s been forever since I’ve written in this thing. What has that woman done to me? How do I explain the last summer and a half? I guess I’ll start from where I left off?

Over the summer she and I, hooked up, if that’s the right word. I rarely drink but just being with her was intoxicating. We went back to my apartment and the next thing I knew she was making me breakfast. One thing led to another and… well, Lala had that shit eating grin back on her face when I told her.

It all moved, way too quickly. I was scared if I’m being honest. I was so used to years of routine and schedules. But with her anything could happen. She was always asking me if I wanted to go somewhere, to hang out or call it a date. She got me playing the Persona games again, which I thought would never happen. She showed me the world of visual novel games and I learned to origin story of the ‘High Voltage’ jacket. Seriously, she’s a dork. Or, well, my dork.

No idea how, or why, but in August (about two months ago?) she moved in with me. My apartment which was mostly bare but tidy became a mix of her nerd stuff and my stuff. You don’t know a person until you live with them, that much is true. I learned that she went to synagogue on the sabbath once a month. It was weird seeing her dress up semi-nice and come back and go straight to bed.

She showed me that another Persona game came out, the long-awaited Persona 5. We would play together on the couch even though it was a single player game. We argued for hours over who had the best character arc. Personally, I resonated with Makoto a bit too much. Meanwhile she resonated with quite a few characters. Personally, I think she’s none of them because she reminds me of Chie from Persona 4. She bought a jacket which is the same one that character wears! Such a dork.

“Ok ok ok. But Kou though,” she would bring up at the most random times.

“You realize you’re crushing on a seventeen-year-old Japanese boy, right?”

“I was sixteen when the game first came out! I was in the right age range!”

“I’ll never understand you.”

“I just think you’ll never understand the language of fandom.”

That was an actual conversation we had.

She also got me back into novels. I would proofread her fanfiction (or ‘fics’ as she called them), and I would point out grammatical or continuity errors. She then called me a ‘Grammar Nazi’ but thanked me anyway. Then she opened a box of books she brought when she moved in and said I could read them.

“But if you dog-ear the pages or destroy the jackets, I will end you. I don’t care how much I love you, that’s actual murder!”

That somehow lead to me becoming a beta reader for Armani’s book. Honestly, it was the most me and her connected in a while. And the book, so far, wasn’t half bad either.

Anyway, I’m going to stop doing this. I thought it would help me when I started a few years ago. But looking back, it was kind of sad. I had almost no one. But now I do, and I’m happy. So. Yeah.

Bye.