Funny Little Love

What Did He Do?...

48

ALEX

The ruffle of blankets Lizzie and I are sharing is the only distinct sound in the room after the episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine stops playing.

Lizzie usually seems pretty excited when we watch any of the episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine from any of the seasons.

She loves that show.

I figured she would be equally excited to watch one of the episodes today.

So I set my homework aside and assured myself that I'd complete it later at night and then made Lizzie invite me over to her house for a Brooklyn Nine-Nine watch party.

I planned that we would probably binge watch a lot of episodes the entire evening and I'd hoped that would cheer Lizzie up.

Lizzie hasn't been to school for a couple of days at a stretch even though she's not exactly sick.

I have checked up on her several times I came here to this house to meet Shawn and every time she's either in her room on her bed sadly staring at her laptop or in the kitchen fixing herself a quick snack.

She is a fitness enthusiast, so she also likes to go to the gym routinely as much as she can but considering what Shawn told me, she has not been doing that either.

She is not going to school, she is not going to the gym and she also hasn't been responding to my texts that much recently.

I figured it was probably something like a mental reaction to Mrs. Hoffmann being in the hospital but I don't think it's just that anymore.

It's something more. Something serious.

Something which she does not want anybody except herself to know.

She has always had this habit of trying to conceal things about her own life even if keeping those things to herself would hurt her.

She doesn't want to bother others with her own personal problems.

She has had this habit since she was a kid and not to be bragging or something, but I have always managed to help her open up and help her feel better.

Normally, she doesn't hide things from me. Normally, I just have to ask her and she just spills on her own.

This time, it's something different. She seems distant to me and I don't like it.

She is usually a cheerful person who loves to make stupid jokes and seeing her like this, how she is right now, doesn't make me feel great and concerns me.

"Gina Linetti is the queen of sass." I say, trying to break the silence.

Of course, I mean it. I love Gina, I love everyone on that show but the thing is Lizzie likes them too, it's her favorite show but she is not displaying remotely the amount of interest that she usually does.

My face is turned to my right side towards Lizzie so that I can focus on her face.

I just see her slightly nod in agreement to what I said.

Lizzie and I are laying side by side, upside down on Lizzie's bed with the weight of our bodies on our torso or rather our abdomen with Lizzie's laptop placed in front of us on the bed.

There is a huge white anti-clockwise open circle arrow on a grey background on the screen of the laptop indicating that the episode is over and clicking on that arrow would start the episode over from the start again.

Lizzie is on my right.

"You okay?" I ask, as softly as I can.

Lizzie doesn't respond.