I was lost in the moment. My stomach was churning, hurting almost, against my rapidly beating heart. It was hard to describe the feeling, I guess seeing someone you love after so long can do that to a person, I had read about this, but never felt it for myself.
The moment was interrupted by the chuckling of Alexa. Pulling back, I looked at her with a puzzled face, not sure what might have elicited this response in her. I was practically on cloud nine and... and she was laughing?
"Sorry, sorry! It's just... why are you in your pajamas?" Her face broke out into a smile as she looked me over, an entertained look in her eyes.
I was suddenly looking down at the carpeted floor, having forgotten that small detail. Coming down here had seemed so urgent to me and the simple idea of changing into something more appropriate seemed like too much for me.
"To be fair, I didn't think this building would be so... extravagant." With the last word, I spun in a circle to take in the full room. It seemed almost like a whole office building in itself. The blinds were pulled shut over a large window covering almost an entire wall, but the sunlight still broke through the near transparent fabric.
The office was something I never would have guessed Alexa would work in based on her personality. I guess when some girl outside of a gay bar rescues you and then you have to drag them back to your apartment you don't imagine an executive office being their place of work.
Alexa giggled and nodded. She put her hand on one of my shoulders, turning me around to face her. "Hey, how about we meet at your house when I get off work? We can watch a movie or something." Her voice was filled with excitement as she spoke causing me to nod eagerly without thinking much of it. Her voice seemed to have a sort of magic around it.
"Good. I have a meeting, but I'll see you around six, yeah?" She asked happily. I watched her walk out of the room and down the hall until she disappeared and I could no longer see her anymore. That was when the reality of the situation began to sink into my stomach.
Alexa was coming to my house. Granted, she had been there before, but this was different. Hungover and making breakfast in my kitchen totally does not count as truly coming over to my apartment because it looked as though a tornado had torn the place to pieces.
I rushed from the building to my apartment, thinking of the many things that needed to be cleaned or picked up or organized. The disinfecting alone was a week long job and god knows Jenna was going to be no help.
As soon as I slammed open the door of the apartment, Jenna looked up from the tv show reruns to look over at me. I'm sure I looked similar to a crazed animal practically foaming at the mouth, but how I looked was the least of my worries.
"Oh my god, why are we such... pigs!" I demanded, frantically grabbing blankets and clothes off of the floor along with wrappers and other trash strewn about the floor. I had no idea where I was going to possibly even put the array of items littering my arms resulting in me just dropping them on the floor again.
Jenna got up from the couch walking over to where I had gone on my knees to attempt to sort through the items. "What's gotten into you. Please don't tell me it's-"
"Alexa is coming over!" I yelled frantically, quickly swooping up the pile of trash I had made on the floor and throwing it into the closest trash can, but in my frantic hurry only dropped some of the contents in my hands. "I can't get anywhere in this house! This is madness." I complained, tangling my fingers into my hair in pure panic.
"Simmer down there, Lynn. I'm sure we can get this place cleaned up." Jenna reasoned, beginning to bend down to attempt to pick up a dirty clothes pile from the floor. "See? Some of the floor is already looking..." I saw her look to the ground at a spot on the carpet stained orange from I assume a bag of chips that must have spilled forever ago. "Well, it's not covered in trash anymore. I'm sure we can vacuum that." She assured.
I took a deep breath nodding as we continued to clean the apartment as best as we could. Years of build up really builds up you could say. Every time we picked something up another mess was waiting underneath like a never ending mess vortex. It was ridiculous.
"I don't think we're ever going to finish. Alexa is going to have to see how unclean we are and walk straight out." I let out a sigh of defeat, sliding down the wall that was beside me and sitting on a pile of old jackets.
"Lynn, it's only been ten minutes. I'm sure she has to figure out that we aren't the best at keeping things clean eventually." Jenna reasoned, continuing to move clothes into an old hamper, one side beaten up from the many time we had attempted to kick soccer balls into it in a drunken version of indoor soccer.
I moved so I was instead laying down on my back, looking at the ceiling above me which seemed to be the cleanest part of the apartment in comparison to every other part. "I just want it to be clean with no effort put into it." I sat back up again and halfheartedly began to sort through clothes again.
Alexa's office seemed so amazing and looking at my current situation just seemed dull in comparison. A dumb desk job that was amounting to nothing and an apartment we couldn't even keep clean. I just don't know how someone who seemed so successful could ever be impressed with my current living situation whatsoever. She had technically seen the place before but she wasn't exactly in a situation to be judging.
"Maybe she lives somewhere worse. She was just hanging around the back of a gay bar." Jenna's voice brought me back to reality, realizing I had been moving the same shirt back and forth for close to two minutes. I was surprised she hadn't made some comment about my insanity sooner.
I nodded, still glumly moving through the routine of cleaning, hoping maybe somehow Alexa wouldn't mind the current living situation I was in.
---
As soon as it had reached six, I made Jenna retreat back to her own room, instructing her to close her door and bring snacks so she could make herself scarce for the remainder of the night. I loved her like a sister, but Jenna always seemed so much cooler in comparison to me and I didn't want her overshadowing me with her endless supplies of party tricks and interesting stories.
The living room had been improved upon. The dusty grey couch now looked less like it had been found on the side of a street and could fit two people on it comfortably again. The cream colored carpet still had faint stains embedded into the fibers, but it almost looked like a design and with rugs placed around the room strategically, they were harder to see than before.
When I heard a knock on the door, I immediately got up and took a deep breath. Don't blow this, Lynn. God, don't blow this. A smile found its way to my face as I opened the door for Alexa.
Her bubbly face had a smile on it while the rest of her looked as casual as she had when I first met her, but with pants this time. Her hair was now pulled back as she wore a loose fitting white shirt and plaid pajama pants. This version of Alexa felt so much different than the version I saw earlier. For a minute I thought I might have made plans with someone else and Alexa caught wind of it.
"Hey! Hope you have a good movie planned, I came ready to have a good time." Her tone with filled with humor as she lightly nudged me with her elbow and stepped inside. "It smells so nice in here."
Alexa stepped into the living room, immediately claiming a spot on the couch in front of the tv. She grabbed the black remote and began to flip through the channels eagerly as though she expected the movie to magically appear on the tv if she looked through enough channels.
"Yeah, we're watching one of my favorites." I couldn't help but smile at the contagious happy energy that just followed Alexa around whenever she was in a room. It was incredible.
I went to towards the tv, flipping the input so it was instead connected to the dvd player where I had put in 'Holes' beforehand so I had it ready for when she got here.
I claimed my seat beside Alexa, keeping a small distance between us that I decided would be filled at Alexa's discretion. The opposite of what I wanted to do was make her uncomfortable and simply just watching movies for the remainder of the night made that seem like a very real reality to me that I aimed to avoid.
By the middle of the movie though, Alexa seemed as though she was no longer paying attention to the movie as her fingers played with my hair mindlessly. I wasn't sure how I had managed to end up laying across her lap, but my head laid on one of her knees as she talked and I shut my eyes.
I had long forgotten what she was talking about as I was nearly soothed to sleep by her voice, it seeming like heaven with just Alexa and I and no one else to disturb the moment.