. three rings

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This is a usual Friday night for Freya. Curled up in her pajamas by 9pm with a movie or tv show playing, it's about as exciting as her life as a single mother gets. Sometimes she had Naila's warm body against her, but tonight she had resisted the urge of her daughter's company and had wrapped her up in her own Frozen sheets. But there's still a warmth to the room. The honey faux light filled the tiny room and her sheets are doubled as she gets cold at night. The neutral colours her landlord had painted the room are given character with snapshots of her life, there's obviously a few pictures of Nick in there. It's difficult to not feel the effects of the mini oasis she had built. Nick looks less disheveled with a few hours sleep in him. When he sits on the bed she doesn't bring her legs back, which she would have if she were still bitter. "Okay," she says after a moment of thought, agreeing to the bargain. Cooking and that horrible foam pit place was a better deal than she'd get making her own. "I forgave you about two hours ago anyway. She's fine, I'm fine, it's fine."

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Sat on her bed, the smell of Freya's perfume lingering on in the air, he's not surprised that she's not too keen on the idea of moving in together. Quite apart from how much of a lifestyle change that would be for the both of them, the difference from her place to his was a stark reminder of her maturity vs. his immaturity. August and Nick had decorated their place with vintage movie posters, wires were tangled across the floor from various old school games consoles, they left their laundry out for days after it was dry and they kept their pantry stocked with Doritos, protein powder and Twizzlers. This was the bedroom of a woman who had her life together, it was fresh and airy but warm and inviting too. He made a mental note to give his place a spring clean. A broad smile breaks across his face as she accepts his apology. He's relieved that he doesn't have to do any more begging, not because he was unwilling to but because it seems like she knows it was a genuine mistake. "I am really sorry, you must have shit yourself," he said,  imagining how horrible that call must have been. "I'm still learning how to do this stuff, how to like... parent. It's different from being the cool uncle, I don't know how you've managed it so well all these years."

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So many things have been left unsaid that an awkward tension hangs in the room. At least, she thinks it does. She wonders if Nick feels the same heaviness in the air. She feels underdressed in her shorts and weirdly shameless though they are covered in sheep and moons. When she looks up at him, she tries to read what he's thinking. He's awkward, of course, but it's hard to say if that's due to weeks of avoidance or because she tried to kick him out.  She frowns while listening to him. Her brow wrinkling as she surveys with concern. She didn't know it was so difficult to parent and thought he'd been doing it all along. Though maybe there was a difference not that there was some legitimacy to his claim as a parent. "I did. I thought my heart was going to break," she admits, the stress of it all weighing heavily in her chest. "I don't mind you getting fucked up," she feels as though this needs to be stated, "so long as it doesn't involve Naila and you are 100% sure she's covered." She bites her lip thoughtfully, "and you're doing a great job. You know this is your only fuck up."

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As Freya speaks to her heartbreak at getting that phone call from the school, Nick feels a pang of guilt sharper than the rest. The ghost of Rafi is always somewhere in the background of his mind and he imagines that he’s all the more present in Freya’s. He realises too that his phone had died, meaning she had no means of contacting him to put her mind at ease... for the first time the real severity of the situation hits him, and he can feel all the panic, stress and rage she must have felt. “I’m so sorry,” he says for the millionth time. He looks her in the eye this time, not following it up with any excuse. “It was thoughtless of me, not just the forgetting but everything that came after. I’m sorry.” She tells him he’s doing a good job and like the golden retriever of a man that he is, he feels a warm glow from the compliment. “I’d never have gotten fucked up if I’d known it was a Naila day,” he says, meaning it. What he doesn’t say is that he should have double checked days with her, but he hadn’t because he’d been avoiding her. Glancing away, he runs a hand through his hair. “How’ve you been, anyway?” he asks, trying and failing to make the question sound normal.

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Nick keeps groveling and she sways her head back and forth impatiently. She closes her laptop, admitting defeat and presuming if the apologies are going to continue, Nick is going to stay on her bed. "It's okay," she's reassuring, her eyes softening on him. Despite what it make look like, Freya was very good at holding grudges. Especially when they involved wronging her loved ones. If Nick were anyone else she'd have shut him out and changed the keys, but because Nick was a genuine and caring person he was difficult to hold anything against. So she let's the residing bitterness float away and moves the laptop to the side table. "I know you wouldn't," she expects to remind him several times about future pick ups, her paranoia would take over and she'd become an annoying nag. He looks awkward as he pulls his fingers through his hair and she imitates his awareness by folding her legs and crossing them. "I'm a little sad," she shrugs and pouts, "I slaved away at a hot stove and no one ate my crappy spaghetti." She offers a humorous smile. "But other than that, the usual. Tired and I should be doing homework, but I'm not. How about you? Did you have fun getting fucked up?"

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Her understanding is somehow worse than the anger. Now that he's realised the full consequences of his actions he wants to be punished for them, any sense of bitterness he felt at her being pissed has dissipated into a need for retribution. It was a negative consequence of Nick's niceness-- his desire to do good could lead to him being unnecessarily harsh on himself, which would be tolerable if it weren't for the fact he'd launch full-force into martyr mode as a result of it. Freya had clearly forgiven him and he'd made amends, but he still wanted to keep on with the contrition, determined to hold himself to impossible standards of goodness. But he made himself stop. He was his best self around Freya, able to understand his fuck ups but not to dwell on them. That was 100% her. She called him on shit but she forgave him for it too, a luxury he knew she didn't afford everyone. "Kafka will eat it," he says, offering her a weak smile. Of course her cooking wasn't that bad, but it was easy to play up the stereotype of white food being bland, and even before she and Rafi split Nick had loved to tease her about her white girl cooking. But laughing with her makes him sad. He wants to be normal, to return to the comfort of their close friendship, but it feels broken now, first by their lust and now by his neglect. "I did," he says, smiling fondly at the memory, "it was just nice to hang with August and have him be nice to me for once."

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Freya moves a pillow behind her and rests her back against her headboard. Curiosity makes her throw Nick a pillow, encouraging him to get comfortable but also waiting for him to come up with an excuse to leave. The past couple of weeks had been weird. Words were spoken and feelings shared in California, but they seemed to be forgotten or ignored once they hit familiar soil. Nick's avoidance worried her, as she was afraid they'd ruined a good thing by getting too close. But also, a part of her was disappointed the ideas that were discussed were only ideas and not actually apart of their storyline. She bows her brow at the suggestion of the pit bull eating her dinner. "Well, there's enough there for a family of ten so he should be good for food for a while." She doesn't like the tension hanging in the air. They're too stiff for them and it feels like they're splitting at the seams. "That's surprising, did California give him brain damage?" She hates this small talk. Her fingers pull at a loose thread on her duvet and she looks away from him then pulls her focus back. "Hey Nick," the string gives a little and she leaves it, her fingers pressing against the plush of her bed, "are we okay?"

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Unexpectedly, Freya chucks a pillow at him. With reflexes that have been sharpened by his nap, he catches it, holding it for a moment as he decided what to do with it. As he was sitting upright with nothing but air behind him, there was no clear use for it, which could only mean that he meant it as an invitation to get comfortable... cautiously, as though entering a hostile environment, Nick stretched out on her bed, propping the pillow up underneath him as he lay horizontally across the bed, the two of them creating a right angle. It was the easiest way of easing in without risking any physical contact. But why was he avoiding physical contact? He felt so weird, so out of sorts, that he couldn't even begin to answer that question. "You're underestimating his appetite," he says, hating this. It was like talking to the moms at the school gates, good natured but ultimately dull chat. "No, no. But MDMA might have," he said, glancing up at her for a reaction. Freya elicited a strange dual response in him when it came to his partying-- on the one hand she never judged and so he trusted her completely to tell him when it was getting out of hand, and on the other he felt guilty, since he was enjoying his twenties in a way that her motherhood had meant she never could. Nothing could prepare him for the directness of her question. Catching his breath, he felt a little winded by it, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to answer it. "Yeah!" he said, too enthusiastically, his voice an octave higher than it should be. "Of course. Always."

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Her tired eyes watch as the large man positions himself awkwardly away from her. She feels gross. Not in a sick way but she feels like a gross and unattractive person. Her own position reflects his discomfort as her arms fold, closing herself off like he's closing her off. She laughs a little at his MDMA comment, she'd never done more than weed but gets the gist of it. She watches him for a reaction to her question. He squirms and eventually when he opens his mouth, it's not the answer she wants. Nick was the king of expressing his feelings. Was he not being honest or did he just have no feelings to express. She tries to not look bothered by it. Her fingers go back to yanking at the string, and she looks back down trying to think of a more direct way to get at him. "It's alright if you regret it, you know. Or if you don't, but dont want it to go anywhere either. I'm not going to hold it against you, we're not sixteen."

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This was such an alien situation for him. He was struggling to make a connection with the one person in the world he felt closest to. Usually Nick could strike up a real connection with literally anyone, the kind of person who could talk to someone on the subway and make them feel at ease, someone who talked to teachers and made them rethink Naila's naughtiness, who managed to turn Tinder conversations into heart-to-hearts. He was a natural born counsellor, and to fail now, when it should have been so easy, made him feel helpless. Freya doesn't really react to his fraudulent response, though he can sense her dissatisfaction with it.  This is definitely compounded by his comedown. Having spent the night pouring out all his love for August, he had overdosed on affection, the two of them reliving every even vaguely positive moment in their shared history and talking over each other in their determination to express their mutual affection. He could do with a tab now. He sighs heavily at her next question. "Freya," he says eventually, his tone exhausted. "Are you insane? I've never had sex with someone and not wanted it to go anywhere." In retrospect, this was not the right thing to say to make someone feel special. He sighed again, falling back onto his back and running a hand over his face. It was hard not being able to express himself, he wondered how people coped with this on a daily basis. "I mean obviously I don't regret it and obviously I want it to go somewhere. You're the one who told me to hold off, this is me holding off."

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Nick very obviously does not want to be having this conversation, or any conversation at all. Freya feels his exhaustion and frustration just by looking at him. She wishes there was a way to wave a wand and make him feel more up than down. She wants to wrap him up with her, but it doesn't feel like the most appropriate solution. Although she's irritated by Nick's non-response, she feels empathy for him. Though she's never had a comedown, she's sure she has been there emotionally. Her eyes go off and on him as she waits for him to put his words together. She makes a mental note to print more pictures of Naila, as she's grown so much since the photos on her wall were taken. The bed moves slightly as he dramatically falls onto it and she's slowly unthreading her duvet. There's a permanent frown on her face as she considers what he's said. She's felt more lonely than she ever has these past few weeks; the absence of her friend turned accidental lover created a huge gap in her day to day life. "I didn't mean to forget it," she must look like she's about to cry, but she's just concentrating on what to say. "I just meant slow. Not a standstill"

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Nick hates himself for creating this situation. What had he expected when he cooled off on her so considerably? It had been easy to pretend that he was just busy and not really avoiding her, but no one would buy that. His avoidance of her texts, calls and accidental meetings was so obviously intentional he might as well have told her he was avoiding her, and of course it was eventually going to come to a head. He also hated himself for being so wrecked the night before, he could really do with choosing his words more tactfully than he was able to now. Sitting up, he looked at Freya properly for the first time that day. She looked beautiful, her doll like features cast in a warm glow by the lamp on her bedside table. She also looked like she was going to burst into tears. Unable to see her like that, Nick finally shook off some awkwardness, pushing her along so he could bundle up next to her in the bed. "Hey, hey," he said quietly, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in close. It felt good to have her body against his. He kissed the top of her head, giving her a squeeze. "I'm sorry. I know I've been weird, I just freaked out... I'm not good at slow, I only know how to be all or nothing."

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Similarly to their last conversation about feelings, Freya is struggling to put hers into words. But unlike the last time, Nick is maybe trying to be vague... Or just very low, but at this point it seems intentional. Freya is trying to steer the conversation which is unusual for her. She feels like she's going to steer it into the ditch though, and is relieved when Nick catches her struggle. "No, I'm okay," she protests vocally but her frame melts into his when he pulls her in. She sighs deeply, ignoring her mind screaming at her for acting so desperately and relaxing into him. "You can be good at slow," she coaxes, her knees falling against his thighs. "We already know each other, so we can skip a few spaces. We can start on the fourth date."

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Feeling her melt into him puts him at ease. It also allows for some of the old Nick to return, his natural instinct to nurture finally kicking in. She's tiny against him and it makes him want to protect her from the world, but then she teases, her legs falling against his thigh... his mind wanders, he glances down at her lips, he briefly thinks about pulling that sweater off of her and letting his actions speak for him. But the conversation's too real, he knows it has to be said. "Fourth date is deep relationship territory for me," he says and it's a joke, but also not a joke. Nick treated relationships like they were something to burn through as quickly as possible, immediately thinking of everyone as The One before realizing too late that even if they had been, he had suffocated the relationship before it ever had the chance to flourish. It's why he had avoided her the way he had, too scared that doing anything else would put their friendship at risk. "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I need firmer boundaries than that. We're either doing this or we're not, I can't do the whole lukewarm, slow start thing. It's just confusing."

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While Nick is usually always dating someone, prior to California Freya hadn't truly been physical with someone since Rafi. She'd been on dates and flirted online, but being intimate terrified her. She'd barely let a guy kiss her goodnight in fear of being bound to someone. Nick was easy in a way that wasn't without effort. He was work before they had even started, but she could tolerate it because she knew she loved his soft heart and knew that they could rely on each other without expectation. Their preexisting bond is the only reason she'll agree with him. This conversation is making her heart beat so fast she could be having a heart attack and every where their bodies meet feels electrified. She's aware of Nick as he speaks and can feel the breaths it takes for him to get there. She swallows hard and let's a little sigh transport from her chest to her lips. "Okay, but you'll have to show me how to do that."