Worlds Apart

“Hey Milo!” Sarah yelled trying to get his attention even though his door was closed and he looked like he was hard at work with some loud music. She yelled from her balcony hoping he would just know she was there. Milo was her next door neighbor, and since the day he moved in, they had hit off and spent nearly all of every day together. Quarantine had kept them from going to each other's houses, although Sarah had asked, maybe they should stay together during this time to keep each other company. Milo declined saying they were right next door, there wasn’t any need. They tried sneaking over to the others house, and it worked for a while but that stopped working pretty quickly. Turns out they still got lectured from the local police officer about staying at home and social distancing, and since they were already on their laptops all day working, they resorted to yelling across their balconies to chat. It was something they didn’t do before, and didn’t seem like something other people did, so eventually it became their thing, a fun way to end the day. Milo looked like he was still hard at work, but Sarah didn’t care much so she ran down to her backyard and grabbed a couple rocks to throw to get his attention. When Sarah went back to her balcony and looked over again, she threw the rocks, they didn’t make much of a difference because he had his big chunky red headphones on. Ironically the ones Sarah had bought him for his birthday a few months prior to the pandemic. Sarah rolled her eyes and resorted to her laptop to facetime him. She was bored out of her mind and just wanted to unwind and talk to him. “Hey, finished yet? I miss you.” She made a cute puppy dog face, making Milo smile. “Hey S, I'll be done in a few minutes. Talk soon, Bye.” he hung up and Sarah rolled her eyes. The workload was getting bigger as quarantine weeks passed, but right now it was time to talk, not work. She shook her head and walked back to the balcony with her phone mindlessly going through her photos, until she felt a rock hit her arm. “Hey! That hurt!” She laughed. “Excuse me Miss, but you threw them at my window.” 

“Whatever. What were you doing that was so much more important than me?” 

“Ahh nothing important. CoCo missed you.” He changed the subject.

“Aww, tell CoCo I missed her too.” 

CoCo was his parrot, and in the beginning, that was the only reason Sarah would go over to his house, because she loved his bird, and the bird didn’t get mad at her when she pet her. It was a great beginning to a long lasting friendship between Sarah and Milo. 

“What do you say we go break the rules and go for a walk?” Milo asked her. She just gave him this look. He was the one who didn’t want to break any rules, yet here he was trying to break one when they got really strict. “I'm not trying to get fined. This right here is just fine for me.” Milo looked sad, but continued talking. “Want to play catch?” he tossed a rock up in the air and caught it with his left hand. “Just don’t throw it at me.” he added laughing. “No promises,” Sarah smirked, throwing the first rock back at him as he threw the one in his hand. She had to jump high to catch the rock, and almost fell backwards in the attempt. Milo bursted out in laughter, asking her a bunch of random questions to distract her even though he knew most of the answers. 

“What's your brother's job? How old is your sister's dog? What elementary school did you go to? What's your major? Can you count to ten upside down? Do you ever wish I didn’t say no to your quarantine offer? What's your favorite color? Is the sky blue?” Sarah landed flat on the floor. “Do you?” she asked, she had only really understood one of the questions, the one she's wanted to know since he said no. “Do I what?” he asked clueless. “Wish you agreed to quarantine with me?” Everything turned serious for a while. “Well, yea. Sometimes.” Sarah smiled, ”Well now, i'm still sad you said no last time, so no.” Milo frowned. “All the time actually,” he muttered. Sarah had just been playing when she said no to him but she could see how sad he was when she said she had changed her mind. Nevertheless she decided to mess with him a little more before telling him to come over. “I’m actually too heartbroken to talk actually now that you remind me.” she said, looking down. “I’m sorry S.” He said. Sarah hid a laugh, hardly letting him see the smile lingering along her lips. “I’m kidding silly.” she looked up laughing. “But really though, as much as I would like for you to come over and hang, I don’t think you can.” 

“So what’s the plan then?” He asked, with a slight lifeless tone. She was sorry, but she didn’t say much. “Well, my boss wants me to re do our website so it will attract more online customers. Can I email you what I have so far?” he nodded. “Yea sure, whatever you need.” Sarah ran into her house and grabbed a hoodie from her bedroom. “Sorry i'm stealing this.” she had a sly glimmer in her eye when she saw his eyes widen. “What? I’ve been looking for that hoodie all over!” She knew it was his favorite, Black with rainbow splashes all over, she slipped it on top of her dark red T-shirt and dark grey ripped jeans “Oops I’m wearing it now, I guess its mine.” Milo rolled his eyes. “I need that back S.” He asked. “I mean your really far, I can’t exactly just hand it to you...” she grinned. “You owe me a hoodie when we get out of quarantine.” 

“Yea yea, thats years away.”

“Just like we're worlds apart?”