The weekend after the electrifying day I had with Naomi and Yosefin, I had enough time to contemplate my choice of whether I should go on a date with Naomi. I decided that we should go out on the condition that we take it slow as we have done so far. She agreed with me one hundred percent. We were still testing the waters about what we do and don’t like about each other. Yosefin was right to call me out on liking Naomi enough to want to date her after a few weeks. I considered it when I made my decision. Plus, I didn’t want to have another Kat moment where I was blinded by short-term lust.

I took Naomi on dates and so did she when it was her turn. She went to parks, and various restaurants new restaurants, and watched movies in her apartment. On some of the days that we weren’t going to places, I brought her to my home so she could get familiar with my parents before we decided to call it official. My parents seemed to be fine with her. They liked her personality and found her funny. On the other hand, my sister, Vanessa, didn’t seem to understand why I would be with Naomi instead of Yosefin.

When Vanessa got wind of Naomi coming over, Vanessa had to throw her two cents at us in the middle of the foyer. She believed that it was a matter of time before Yosefin and I would be boyfriend and girlfriend. I tried to tell her just because we were close, doesn’t mean we should be together. She refused to believe that according to what she saw and a conversation she had with her during the time I asked her to help paint my room. She told me what I already knew. Yosefin had feelings for me. But, she didn’t know how deep they were. They didn’t know the complexity of our friendship.

As the weeks passed, Yosefin slowly showed signs of what I considered mild depression. The more time I spent with Naomi, the less time I spent with Yosefin. I had a feeling this would happen. Most of our time talking was on the phone. On some days, Naomi came to my job after her workout to eat lunch. Her nighttime job made spending time with me during the days possible. During class, Yosefin was reserved and mostly kept to herself. There were only a few particular times she would spring up. One, was when Naomi wasn’t around, the second was when we were doing projects in class and lastly was when Naomi let us hang out together when she felt like she was hogging me.

At the beginning of October, Yosefin asked if I could spare some time after school to listen to another rant while we were in class. Once my classes ended, I headed towards the den where Yosefin was waiting for me. I took the elevator since it was clear instead of the stairs. It was kind of cold that late morning. The stairwell didn’t have air conditioning or insulated walls, but that didn’t bother me. She was sitting on a bench on the phone in front of the elevator I came out of. She didn’t see me because she was looking off to her right. I intentionally walked over to her, hiding in her blind spot then sat on her left side.

“Was zum Teufel? (What the hell?)” She said after jumping and gasping. She frowned, shook her head, and softly growled at me.

“Who’s on the phone?” I asked only moving my lips.

“It’s nothing, James. My friend surprised me.”

“I’ll wait over there,” I mouthed, pointing at the den. I got up and almost walked passed before she brought me back to sit down. She gently grasped my index and pinky finger on my right hand with three of her fingers.

“Um, I could come. That’s if they want me to.” James’s voice was a bit loud coming through her phone. It sounded like he was talking gibberish but some words were hearable. She continued talking with him even though he was the main one chatting. I felt like this was going to take a while so I got myself comfortable and sat sideways. She glanced at me twice with the side of her eye. The first glance was directed at my face. The second glance was long and was looking somewhere down my body. “James,” she sighed then leaned into my body, squishing my arm against my ribs. I had to put my arm on top of the couch to get comfortable. “How about I come Sunday, okay?”

“Great!” He said. Since her phone was inches from my face, I got to hear the last bit of her conversation. “I’ll tell them you’ll be coming.”

“Kay,” she said with no emotion. “Bye.” She hung up the phone before I heard him say he would talk to her later, and then she let out a long-winded sigh with her head pressing against my chest. “My life fucking sucks.”

“Whoa! What’s wrong?”

“I just don’t like it.”

“Like what?”

“You,” she pointed at me. “You and Naomi. Dating James. This fucking distance between us. I hate it!”

“I don’t like it either. I guess this is how things go.”

“Please,” she said, holding my cheeks. “Don’t forget me.”

“What? Never,” I said, holding her hands. “That’ll be impossible.”

“Are you sure?” She tucked her head down into my chest and cradled into my body. Her knees were pulled up into her stomach while her arms were crossed over her chest. She looked like she was bracing from the cold but she was warm to the touch.

“Yosefin? Are you okay?”

“Can we chill at my place?”

“I thought you wanted to rant about something,” I reminded.

“I do,” she said after laying the back of her head in my lap. “But I want to talk about it in my room.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said in my head. This was the second time she wanted to rant about something. I had a feeling if I went to her room, I wouldn’t be listening to a rant. Her acute smile had a deceiving motive behind it. And the fact that she was blushing wasn’t helping her innocence. I knew she wasn’t having a good time seeing me date. It disrupted mostly everything we did together and it caused her to act more clingy. If I went along, there would be a high chance we would do something unwarranted.

“Come on,” she said as she sat up and took hold of my hand.

“No,” I said, gently taking her hand off mine. “You can tell me here.”

“But,” she said, holding my hand again. “I wanna tell you there,” she playfully whined while rubbing her shoulder on me. “It’s private.”

“There’re private rooms we can go to.”

“Stop it,” I sighed. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Yeah?” She bit her lip while trying not to increase her smile. “Is it wrong to want that while I rant?”

“I have a girlfriend now, Yosefin.”

“What?” She said with no emotion. Her smile instantly dropped. Her eyelids opened more the more she stared at me. “Josh... what?”

“Well, Naomi is basically my girlfriend at this point.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“You’re lying. I thought y’all were taking it slow... testing the waters.”

I had to remind her that it had been a month since Naomi and I made that decision. She laid out all the cards of who she was. The bad and the good things about her personality, and questionable things about her dress-up fetishes I analyzed for a month. It was a match made in heaven that was a stroke of luck.

Yosefin was lost for words hearing me explain. She sat next to me, frowning without taking her eyes off me. Never once did she blink. Her eyes were glistening in the lights all around us. When I stopped in the middle of my explanation to ask if she was okay, she stood up and turned around with her left forearm over her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I need to go,” she said then ran down the stairwell.

I tried going after her but I lost her on the second floor. She was nowhere in sight. The hallways were long and there weren’t that many students walking about. She couldn’t have run in any direction without me seeing her in the distance unless she bolted to the first floor. There were two exits down there. One led to the courtyard while the other opened to a small parking lot between the two main garages. I had a feeling she took that path to the garage so I ran over there to see if I could catch up to her. The second I got out of the elevator, I saw the back end of her car driving out of the garage.

“Screw it,” I said after thinking if I should call her.

For three freaking weeks, Yosefin wouldn’t talk to me. I gave up after the first week. I didn’t want her childish behavior to get to me and get in the way of me dating Naomi. Yosefin had to understand that I was committed and that she should do the same with James. Ever since we started, I didn’t get much news of her progress with him. All I had to go on was that they were talking and he was interested in her despite the lack of going out. I told Naomi how she was acting towards me while I was at her apartment looking at her show off a costume she bought. It was a sexy vampire countess Halloween costume she was going to wear for a friend’s party. My mind was too focused on Yosefin to admire.

“I don’t know what to say to her,” I said.

“I’m sorry but, she got some serious issues,” Naomi said. “She needs a wake-up call.”

“Got any suggestions?” She hummed up a thought as she looked at herself in the mirror nailed to the closet door. It took her another minute to think of something.

“Double date!” She cheered, pointing at me repeatedly with her fingers. “You, me, James, and her.” My only concern was how difficult it would be to try speaking with Yosefin after three weeks of silence and avoidance.

“Could you ask her if she’d want to try that?”

“Sure,” she happily said. “I’ll tell her about it tomorrow in class.”

Tomorrow came and at the end of class, Naomi brought Yosefin to a corner of the classroom to speak with her in private. I waited outside for what felt like five minutes before they walked out. My back was turned when Naomi touched my arm. Yosefin didn’t bother saying hi to me. She went around the corner when I looked.

“What happened?” I said.

“She’s still coping with what you said,” Naomi said then looked down the hallway where Yosefin was for a second. “She’ll get over it.”

“I hope so. I want to talk to her again.”

“You’ll get the chance. She agreed.”

Namoi drove us to a hipster theme restaurant in the inner city we never heard of as a way to spark up conversations once we got James and Yosefin. She believed if everyone was in an unfamiliar place, it would make us talk nonstop. The pictures on my phone of the place seemed cool. It was bright and colorful. The reviews praised this place to the high heaves with mostly positive reviews. I was feeling optimistic that this would bring Yosefin back to the living and stop her endless silence.

We arrived on time. I saw James talking with a woman with short dirty blonde hair. She was in overalls that rolled above her ankles over a mustard yellow shirt. When I got behind him and close enough to see who he was talking to, I was shocked beyond belief. It was Yosefin. We locked eyes for what felt like five seconds before she looked down at the ground.

“Yo! Hey guys!” James said, waving Naomi and me down. “Great to see you guys!”

“Thanks for coming you guys,” Naomi said before hugging James. Yosefin stepped aside to what I saw as an avoidance of being hugged. I shook his hand and thanked him for coming before putting my focus on her. She was still looking at the ground but had her hands in her pockets.

“Uh, James! Come with me and let’s get our seats.”

“Sure,” he said with so much glee it made me squint at him. Yosefin chuckled but tried to play it off like she didn’t. Once they walked in and the door closed behind them, I spoke to Yosefin after weeks of no contact. I didn’t want to bring up why she stopped talking to avoid any unwanted drama or her walking away.

“What made you want to do that?” I asked as I was about to touch the hair near her forehead. She grabbed her and held it near her forehead before gently pushing it away.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“Well, it makes you look cute.” Her lips curled in her mouth. I saw her forearms flex as if she was clenching her fists. I also noticed hair growing out of her forearms. She always kept them shaved since I have known her. It wasn’t odd to see but factoring that with her haircut felt suspicious. “Yosefin,” I whispered soft enough to make her look at me. “I’m worried about you.” I held her arm and grazed my finger lightly through her forearm hair. “And I miss you.”

“Can we just... not have this conversation?”

“Why?” She walked inside the restaurant without giving me an answer. I was stunned. I didn’t step inside until Naomi waved me to come in five seconds after Yosefin got in. I didn’t want to seem sad around them, so I walked in with a fake smile on my face.

Naomi and I tried our best to keep everyone talking to avoid having any awkward moments. James spoke nonstop. He actively engaged with us about anything we thought. I got to know him thoroughly. He sounded like the perfect guy I couldn’t be for Yosefin. I didn’t understand why Yosefin wasn’t jumping for joy when she was around him. It looked like she was in her distant world. When one of us tried to get her attention, it was like she was partially deaf. There was a lot of “huh, what, yeah,” and, “hum,” from her. Even he had to ask why she was acting strange. She said she didn’t want to be here and asked if she could go home. When he didn’t want to leave, things got heated quickly.

“I’m not done eating,” James said. “I haven’t gotten my dessert.”

“I don’t fucking care. Take me home.”

“Yosefin,” he said then stuffed his mouth with food. “No.”

Yosefin slammed her head on the table and crossed her arms around her head. Our silverware and plates jumped from how hard the impact was.

“Yosefin,” Naomi said after letting out a gentle sigh.

“What?” Yosefin said with her head still on the table.

“Not to be blunt, but could you stop acting like...this.”

“Excuse me?” She raised her head and looked directly at Naomi like she was filled with disgust. Her lips were pressed into her mouth and her eyebrows were lowered above her eyes. That face made me snap. I had enough of her childish behavior and openly called her out on it. “I don’t need to hear this.” She sat up fast enough to nearly knock over her seat.

“Yes, you do! You’ve been ghosting me ever since I told you she was my girlfriend. What’s your problem?”

“You wanna know my problem?” She said, walking around the table to stand over me then repeated the same question. Naomi clutched my arm, somewhat pulling me into her body. I saw Yosefin take three glances at her. The muscles in the forehead relaxed the second she tucked her head and sighed. “I’m such a Dummkopf (fool),” she mumbed as she walked away towards the exit.

“What did she say?” Naomi asked us. James shrugged his shoulder. “Joshua, what did she say? I didn’t hear her.”

“I’ll go talk to her.”

I found Yosefin sitting on a bench near the entrance with her face in her eyes. She was quiet and still. Her breathing was slow yet heavy. I walked in front of her to make myself known before I took a seat.

“Go away,” Yosefin whispered with an eerie voice that sounded like a ghost speaking from the beyond. I unlocked my phone and put it on her lap.

“You might as well call the cops and have them arrest me because I’m not going anywhere,” I said. She carefully locked my phone and placed it between us. “It’s just us, for now. Talk to me, please.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Will you ever?”

“Just,” she sniffed and rubbed her nose. “Not at the moment.”

“Yosefin,” I said after putting my phone back into my pocket. “You’re really scaring me right now. What’s going on with you?”

“A,” she paused then said, “lot.”

“Am I the problem? Am I being a bad friend?”

“No,” she immediately answered, looking directly at me. Her hand grabbed my thigh when she turned. She pulled her hand away when we both looked down. I tried to put it back but she didn’t want to leave it there. She settled on putting it down on the bench, leaving her knuckles touching me.

“So, I don’t have to worry about that?” She shook her head, no. “Whatever you’re going through, I’ll listen,” I said to try and make her open up. “Help me understand.”

“No. I need to figure this out.”

“Figure what out?” I was beginning to get agitated again by the constant redirection. My patients were running thin but I kept it cool to keep asking questions. “What are you saying?”

“Before things get shitty between us, I want you to know that I’m grateful to have you in my life.” My heart suddenly dropped into my stomach and skipped a beat. “Whatever happens, don’t take it to the heart, okay?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“Everything,” she answered after Naomi and James stepped outside the restaurant.