A Writer's Death

five

After Arilyn's emotional breakthrough of sorts, the rest of the night was quiet. She was exhausted, and content to sit between Daveed and Rafa on the couch, eating pizza and binge-watching Robin Williams films. She laughed lightly as the guys poked fun at her love for pineapple pizza ("Ari, only out of my great love for you will I ever order this atrocity," Daveed had chided in jest).

She had no luck convincing Daveed that he should sleep in his bed. Reluctantly, she watched as he set up the air mattress in the living room. He wasn't having it though, so she slept in his bed that night.

In the morning when Arilyn woke, she was thankful that it was a Sunday, and they didn't have to go into the theatre. She wasn't ready to face the others yet to explain her curt behavior. Instead, she got to relish the smell of coffee brewing. She walked out sleepily and found Daveed with two brown paper bags.

"Morning," she yawned.

"Hardly," Daveed laughed. "It's a quarter to noon."

"Shh, it's still morning, it counts," Arilyn sat on the couch and tucked her legs up to the side. "Whatcha got?"

"Breakfast burritos and donuts. And Raf's making your coffee."

"Man, you didn't tell me I'd get spoiled if I stayed with you," she grinned, hiding the guilty conscience that screamed she didn't deserve it, or that they were doing too much.

"Hey. Family takes care of each other, and you're all I got in New York." Daveed insisted. Of course, she thought, of course, he would see through her. It was annoying, really.

"Aw, forgettin' about me already, man," Rafa asked, walking in the living space with two mugs in hand. He set one on the coffee table and sent Arilyn a wink. A smile surfaced just before she felt her cheeks heating up, the telltale sign she was blushing. "I wasn't sure how you took your coffee." He told her.

"Black is fine. Caffeine is caffeine, right? Thanks," she leaned forward and grabbed it, savoring in the warmth against her hands. How she was always so freezing was beyond her.

"No problem," Rafa sat on her left side as Daveed started pulling out the breakfast burritos.

Arilyn happily took hers when he passed it to her. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd had a good breakfast. Normally she would grab a granola bar, get a latte, and go to the theatre as soon as she could. So, a quiet Sunday morning in, eating a most likely high-calorie breakfast and drinking coffee on the couch was a nice change of pace. She dared think it almost felt domestic if she weren't careful.

"This is so good," she said through a mouthful of burrito. "Gabe would be disgusted by me eating this." For a moment she let herself think out loud before she realized how screwed up those words were.

"Did he ... tell you what to eat?" Daveed asked.

"Wouldn't let me do the shopping. Told me when to eat. I wouldn't eat without his permission." Arilyn admitted.

"Holy shit. That's fucked up, man," Rafa said quietly, seeming thoughtful himself.

"Yeah ... I don't even wanna know what my phone looks like right now – I haven't checked it since yesterday morning."

They finished their breakfast in silence, the sounds of crinkling wrappers and slurps of coffee being the only ones to fill the room. It wasn't comfortable by any means, she noted, but the only threat she could feel was the looming knowledge that Gabe had probably sent an ugly chain of texts and even worse voicemails.

When the trash from their meal had been tossed and her and Rafa's mugs were over half-empty, Daveed spoke. "Y'know I hate to ask, but what do you think about picking up your things from the apartment?"

"Not great." She answered immediately. "But I can't afford to just replace all my things. And I need to get my name off the lease too."

"How do you do that?" Rafa asked.

"Um, basically New York requires me to get an Order of Protection to be able to break the lease. It would be easier if I'd done that and told the landlord about all this before leaving, but ... anyway. Hopefully, Mr. Langdon will be reasonable about this."

"What if he isn't?" Daveed asked hesitantly.

"Then it goes to court. They'll probably require me to pay the rest of my rent, but as long as I can get that Order of Protection, it should work out. It's more a matter of time than anything, I think."

"Are you gonna press charges on this douche?" Rafael asked.

"I don't know," Arilyn shrugged, looking at him. He was on the edge of the couch, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. "I want to, but..."

"Well, hey, that's a whole other bird, whole other stone," Daveed said. Arilyn laughed breathily at his upcycled use of the famous turn of phrase, even if it wasn't completely refined.

"Yeah, something like that." She sighed. "First things first, I'm gonna bite the bullet and check my phone."

note - sorry this chapter is like super super short, my bad.