The American Roommate Experiment

by Elena Armas

The toll from years and years of trying to keep everything together, contained, always on my own, washed right over me. Head to toes, like a wave. And for once, just for this one time that I was being told those four words, Everything will be okay, instead of being the one using them to comfort someone else, I felt the need to let go.

‘I think I would still be happy working for InTech if I hadn’t found something that I… finally loved. Something that made me understand what really loving what you do is. Something that completed me in a way engineering never did, even if I didn’t yet know and was never unhappy.’ I released all the air in my lungs, feeling like a pricked balloon, deflating. ‘That’s probably why it’s so hard for me to talk about it. Because this new thing, this new dream, seems so fragile. Like I’m holding it in my hands, but the feel of it is so… new, so unfamiliar, that I’m terrified I might drop and shatter it, so I just… stand there and look at it in silence.’

Ballsy. I’d never been called that. Not even once. Cautious, responsible, driven, but never ballsy.

His smile returned. ‘Being used by beautiful women is something I don’t mind in the slightest.’

The yearning to be loved, fiercely. The wonder of becoming someone else’s world. The joy of finding that person – that one person – that… fits. Someone who isn’t necessarily perfect, because nobody really is, but someone who is perfect for you.

I’d been the rock in the middle of the pond for my friends, that person they could count on for a good cry or honest advice. I’d taken any role I’d been needed for, always making sure to be there, to keep a tight grip on any situation or any crisis. Always calm, always in control. That was probably why my job as an engineering consultant had been so… fitting, so natural, when I’d been paid to plan projects, to provide my expertise and advise in the case of a crisis. And that was probably also why quitting that to do what I really loved – something that could be ruled by emotions – had been so… liberating.

And that right there had been my mistake: a miscalculation of what I could or couldn’t take; an overestimation of my control, of what would be experimental or real to me.

‘the best first dates are goofy. Lighthearted. A little silly. They’re about clicking, seeing if you laugh at the same jokes, if there’s a spark there when you do, one that urges you to make the other person smile again. One that could lead to… more.’

‘I’ve never been good with my words, Rosie.’ He came to a stop, his hand brushing my elbow. And only when I turned and met his gaze, he added, ‘But I make up for it with my hands.’

‘You’ll pick a record, but pick wisely, because whatever you choose will be our soundtrack.’

Him, solid and warm. Me, nothing but butter at the contact, molding myself to him.

‘There it is,’ he said, his fingers still on my chin and his eyes dipping down to my lips. ‘Deslumbrante. Como el mismo sol.’

he stepped away, my whole body turning cold at the loss of his body heat.

I had told her once how much I hated how low she set her standards, and I’d meant every word. It infuriated me that someone who brought to life romance heroes, love stories people longed for, wouldn’t expect all those things from real life.

It felt like a moment you know will become a memory before it’s even passed.

Dad’s words came back, Remember to pick the boy that will plant a garden for you instead of just getting you the flowers, Bean.

I wanted to scream. At the world for being so unfair. At him, for going after my heart like this. For making it his in such a short amount of time.

All those women that had had him at some point in the past and let him go had been so stupid. Crazy.

I knew a bully when I saw one.

‘This is not a one-way street, Rosie. You look after me, and I look after you. We take care of each other. We’re a team.’

I was beginning to understand that touching someone you loved was about much more than just that. It wasn’t always about the sparks and the fireworks. Not exclusively. It could also be about the peace it brought you. The comfort. And for all the romances I’d read and the one, almost two, I’d written, I hadn’t known that. I would have never imagined that touching a man could light me up inside and quiet every worry and every noise in the world.

‘Are you comfortable?’ ‘As much as I’ll ever be, ángel.’

Committing it all to memory.

stir me awake with only a whiff.

I want you with every cell in my body. Every nerve termination. Every bone. Every ounce of who I am.

Only when I climbed the steps to Dad’s door had my eyes started burning, readying me for what was to come. And just as Dad had opened it I’d finally broken down.

Life was too short, too brittle, to keep secrets and live in half-truths. Even when we thought that we were protecting those we loved. Or protecting ourselves. Our hearts. Because the reality was that without honesty, without truth, we never lived fully.

I couldn’t even tell if the phone had slipped off my hand until Lina’s voice somehow made it through the haze.