Yes, No, Maybe So - Chapter Eight

A Story of Love, Grief & Toilet Phones

Start the story here:

Don’t mock my song choice for this chapter 😅:

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Photo by Sarah Dao on Unsplash

The Past

Stumbling into the bathroom early in the morning, I tripped over a damp towel. In a fit of sleepy rage, I kicked it. Rocky had left her wet towel on the floor again. We’d been living together for almost two years, and no matter how many roommate meetings we had, I still hadn’t been able to break her of the habit. Growling, I snatched up the towel and marched into the kitchen, intent on throwing said towel in her face, but I didn’t have the chance.

In a tiff, Rocky was throwing cupboard doors open, muttering complaints. Hearing my footsteps, she slammed the nearest door and rounded on me.

“What did you do with my coffee cup?”

“I put it away, since you always leave it out. Speaking of leaving things out—”

I raised the towel in my hand, but Rocky took no notice.

“I leave my cup out so that I can have more coffee when I get home from work. You don’t need to wash it after every. Single. Use. And you never put it back in the right spot, so I always have to go hunting for it.”

“If you want to talk about having to do something over and over…” I tossed the damp towel at her. “I trip over your dirty towel on the bathroom floor every morning.”

“So kick it to the side,” Rocky replied, unconcerned. “I’ll hang it up later.”

“I don’t want to do that for the same reason you don’t want to use a different cup for your coffee. It’s annoying, and I shouldn’t have to just kick it aside.”

A groan rose deep in her throat, and Rocky threw her head back. “I haven’t had my coffee yet, so pardon me if I didn’t notice my towel falling on the floor. What’s your excuse for constantly moving my mug, hm? Because I know for a fact that you don’t drink coffee.”

Blood thrumming, I marched to the cupboard situated directly above her coffee maker. Throwing the door open, I gestured to two shelves of nothing but coffee mugs. “They’re all right here, genius. Where they’ve always been!”

Ire rising to meet mine, Rocky joined me by the cupboard and mocked the sweep of my hand. “I’m not talking about those, AJ. I want to know where my mug is!”

I pressed my fingertips into my eyes until I saw stars behind my lids. “They’re all your mugs, Rocky!”

“Forget it!” She slammed the cupboard door in my face. “I’ll get Starbucks today.”

“It’s just a mug,” I retorted. “Unlike your towel, which is going to kill me one day when I trip over it and brain myself on the sink.”

“Maybe that will improve your personality!” she shouted as she left the room.

The drama didn’t end once we stormed off to our respective jobs. As good of friends as we were, we each had a bit of a petty streak in us. Rocky’s pettiness manifested in malicious compliance. She started hanging her towel on furniture and other hooks around the house. Towel draped over the back of the couch. Towel hung over my jacket in the coat closet. Towel hooked on the knob of the pantry door.

Her response was, “Well, it’s not on the bathroom floor.”

When I got petty, I reverted back to the quiet girl who just smiled and nodded while other people went on and on. At one point, Rocky told me that it was kind of like talking to a statue until she figured out how to get a read on me. Even then, she claimed that my unintentional silent treatment felt passive aggressive. I could only assume that intentional silent treatment felt even more so. On one of Rocky’s nights to make dinner, I merely hummed and shrugged at her every suggestion. Not even being served cold fish sticks could convince me to drop the quiet act.

Our feud was still going strong on the night we were supposed to have dinner at Hayden’s house.

“Hello, and welcome to Professor Black’s mansion, which definitely isn’t haunted!”

Hayden ushered us into his living room with a grand sweep of his hand. He was dressed as a butler: his character in the latest murder mystery party game. I was dressed in my best Victorian widow costume that I could cobble together from the thrift store. One of Rocky’s characters—because we all had to play at least two—was a wealthy lord; her fake mustache kept peeling on one side.

“Please be seated in the parlor,” he said with another grand gesture. “The host will be with you shortly.”

Placed strategically around his living room were props. A leatherbound journal, a letter opener and wax seal, a candlestick, an empty glass bottle labeled Rat Poison, and a fake pistol.

While Hayden left the room to pretend to fetch the host, Rocky and I sat down on opposite ends of the couch and waited in silence. This was…awkward. Maybe we should have postponed our game until Rocky and I were on better terms. Too late now, though. Hayden was already in character, and I hated to see that crestfallen expression on his face whenever something he was really looking forward to fell through. So, as long as she didn’t get snippy with me, I would be civil tonight.

Hayden returned two minutes later, doing his best to look stricken. “I’m afraid I must announce that the professor … has perished.”

I gasped theatrically. Rocky, on the other hand, refused to play along. Resting her chin in her hand, she watched us with a bored look.

“The widow did it,” she accused in a lackluster tone. Dropping the act, Hayden’s shoulders sagged.

“Do you feel okay, Rocky? Because we can do this another night. I’ll have to make room in the fridge for the food, but—”

“Don’t put the food away,” I interrupted him. “She feels fine. She’s just sulking because she’s mad at me.”

“Ah.” He slumped into an armchair. “So … should we just have dinner and postpone the game?”

Rocky side-eyed me. “If we don’t play the game, then AJ may go back to giving me the silent treatment.”

“Not like you care what I have to say,” I sniped back.

Her jaw dropped. “That is so not true, and you know it!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Hayden’s face droop heavy with disappointment, but that wasn’t enough to cool my temper. Crossing my arms, I glowered at Rocky. Blood rushed to her cheeks, making her look like a blonde tomato.

“Anna Jeffries, you take that back!”

Hayden couldn’t have looked more confused if he tried. “Uh…she didn’t actually say anything that time.”

“Yes, she did!” Rocky insisted. “She thought it.”

He looked between the two of us, clearly unsure what to make of this. Finally, I rolled my eyes and admitted, “She’s right. I did think it.”

“Ha! I knew it!” Rocky’s finger appeared inches from my nose and waved imperiously. “I still speak your weird silent language.”

I smacked her finger away from my face, which started a pitiful slapping war between the two of us. We each leaned our faces away from the chaotic flapping of hands.

“Would you two stop and shut up for two minutes!” Hayden yelled as he attempted to push us apart without getting slapped himself. “Do I really need to remind you guys that you’re such good friends that you, Rocky, can apparently read AJ’s mind?”

She scoffed. “It’s not that hard.”

He turned his stern expression on me next. “And AJ, how many friends do you have an encyclopedic knowledge of?”

Sulkily averting my gaze, I muttered, “One.”

“The problem is that you two know precisely how to get under each other’s skin, but you don’t bother talking about it.”

I was about to object and say that of course we talked about it. That was the problem, we were doing nothing but talking about how annoyed we were. At the last second, I stopped myself, because I knew that wasn’t what Hayden meant. Arguing and having a productive discussion weren’t even close to being the same thing. Rocky and I talked but only to hurl verbal hand grenades at each other.

The truth was, we never talked it out whenever we got on each other’s nerves. In the past, the two of us bickered and then went to our separate homes to ignore each other for a day. When we next met, everything would be back to normal. Now that we lived together, we couldn’t do that anymore. The farthest we could get from each other was opposite ends of the house; given that we shared a bathroom, we were bound to run into one another before we had cooled off.

The old way no longer worked, and we hadn’t bothered to figure out a new way.

Rocky moved first. She jumped up from the couch like the cushions were on fire.

“Maybe we should postpone the game. I’m going to go home and turn in early, but you guys have dinner, play board games, and just … have fun.”

She sounded so unlike herself that it left a rising sourness in my throat, not so different from heartburn. She grabbed her stuff and left so fast that she was halfway out the door before I’d even stood up from the couch. Ever the good host, Hayden saw her to the door. When he returned to the living room, he was alone. Suddenly, the house felt much too quiet.

“Sorry about that,” we both said at the same time. Hayden laughed, and I found myself reluctantly smiling.

“It’s okay,” he went on. “These things happen.”

“They didn’t used to happen to me and Rocky. We never used to fight like this.”

He shrugged and sank back into his chair. “I meant what I said earlier. All you guys need to do is iron out some wrinkles.”

Right, but how to do that?

“Maybe wait until tomorrow, though,” he suggested. “Give Rocky some space. In the morning, things will look brighter. I promise.”