LIGHT A FLAME

“Um, hi, it’s me…“ I cleared my throat, not really knowing where to start or what I was even planning on saying because I had honestly never thought I would be in that kind of situation. Ever. “I know, it says your name on the display.” Amara laughed and I would have found it funny but I didn’t even feel real right now. This didn’t even feel like my life or my body. "What’s up, Stef?” Amara continued.  “Uh…“ I could hear one of my friend's kids in the background and her mate, Gabriel. I was probably disturbing their bedtime routine by calling so late in the evening, but I hadn’t had a choice… hadn’t exactly planned any of this. The thought of Amara and her family being at home, safe and without their lives in shatters, almost made me cry. “I kinda… I…" “One second.” My friend interrupted to say something to Gabriel in the background while I fought back my tears, almost about to choke on them. “Sorry. What did you say?” “Uh, I… I, just… you know how my roommate and I got in a fight and I… Ehm, my gig got canceled and… and I couldn’t… he kicked me out.” I finally brought it out.  My cheeks immediately filled with the blood of embarrassment upon having to admit it, say it out loud, because it made it even more real. Not like standing at the bus stop with all my belongings in the middle of the night in the rain hadn’t made it real enough already. “Oh, wait… what?! Where are you now? Do you need me to pick you up? You can stay with us, I’ll come and get you, okay, Stef?”  There was relief spreading through my body upon hearing this, having Amara offering so quickly and unbothered, as if she was already on the way to her car. And for a moment, it all felt a little bit better, a little less dramatic, and I managed to hold back those tears until I was lying on Amara’s and Gabriel’s couch in the darkness at 2 in the morning. *** “Aunt Stefanie, are you gonna play with us? Pleeeease?” The little girl was making huge puppy eyes at me, and I would have loved to say yes, but if I didn’t finish this application, I probably never would. “I’ll play with you when I’m done with this, okay?” I told Nina, the older one, and she put on a pouty face but accepted it anyways, stomping off to her bedroom with her little sister tagging along like a puppy. “How’s it going? Do you need any help?” Gabriel asked from across the room, sorting out some cupboards in the living room I knew that neither he nor Amara would have ever kicked me out, but I still couldn’t help but imagine what sort of conversations they were having about me whenever they were alone. After all, it had been a full month of me living on their damn couch, with around 5 job interviews I had messed up, and probably 20 applications I had sent. I did try to help as much as I could; I cooked for everyone a lot of the time (not with my own groceries, but…), I helped clean, I babysat the kids, and did their laundry, and well… I was basically their maid and nanny, if I put it that way. But I still felt pathetic about it, and quite awful and useless, nevertheless. It also didn’t help that I wasn’t getting any more gigs lately because I literally never had the time and I would have felt guilty focusing on my music now when I was living off of my friends with my own bank balance of less than enough.  “Alright, I think… but I always think that.” I tried to joke, but I honestly didn’t really feel like laughing right now and the sympathetic look Gabriel threw at me from across the room wasn’t really helping with that. “Tell me if you need any help, okay?” Gabriel offered again and I thanked him, on the very edge of getting demotivated yet again. We both worked in silence for a while, I was just typing away and then deleting everything and Gabriel was cleaning and throwing out stuff. The girls’ voices faintly came from the other room as they were playing. Amara was out somewhere, a meeting with her publisher or something, I hadn’t really been listening before she had left. My best friend, Amara, was an author, not a famous one, but enough to actually make some money from it, and she also had her yoga classes that she was teaching, and a million different hobbies and people she knew and basically, she could decide what to do with her time, and when.  Gabriel was a high school teacher, he didn’t have the same flexibility, but their jobs and lifestyles seemed to work out perfectly together, also with the kids and everything and… yeah, they weren’t rich or anything, but they had a decently sized apartment, and they had each other, they had semi-normal relationships with their parents, they had sweet children and, in short, it seemed like the perfect life to me. The life I would probably never have, probably also wasn’t suited to have, maybe didn’t even want to have, but it still seemed a lot better than being both jobless AND homeless. I just counted myself lucky that I still had space in my friends’ lives as well, although I kind of knew I would never have to worry about that. They had always been my friends since we had been teenagers, and now they kinda were my life-saviors as well. “Hey, did you ever call back your mother?” Gabriel asked randomly at some point and I threw a quick look past my laptop screen to where my friend was clearly stuck between throwing away some old board games or keeping them. The sort of problems I longed to have instead. “Um, no,” I told him honestly after a moment, feeling just a tad uncomfortable. “I had nothing to say.” “Maybe she did.” Probably. “She could’ve texted me, if it had been important she would’ve.” Also, I couldn’t tell her I was living on my friends’ couch after losing my shitty-paying job and getting no gigs, and not being able to pay the rent two months in a row. My old roommate had given me a fair amount of warnings. I wasn’t mad, I honestly just felt guilty for it all. “It’s already been an entire day, she probably forgot again.” “Are you gonna pick up the next time she calls?” Gabriel kept on pushing and I was annoyed but I couldn’t be because it wasn’t Gabriel's fault and also, I pretty much owed him my entire life. “Maybe. If I feel like it.” Now I sounded like a douche, but I had my reasons and Gabriel knew them. “I just… I’d rather wait. Until I’ve at least got a job and… just to have something to tell her.” “It’ll work out soon, Stef, I’ve got a good feeling about it.” Now Gabriel's voice had gotten all nice and soft and I felt a little comforted but I also hated it a bit, because it made me feel incompetent. I WAS, but… it wasn’t a good feeling. “Maybe I should’ve just taken the job at-“ “No, trust me, you shouldn’t have, somebody else is gonna say yes. And it’ll be a job that doesn’t pay s**t for all its shitty hours. Besides, they will always have an opening there because no one can stand to stay there for very long.” They had been the only people who had said yes to me, at this creepy bar where I would’ve had to work exclusively night shifts, and of course, it wouldn’t have worked out anyways while I was living here, but Amara and Gabriel had also come up with different arguments as to why I should’ve said no. So I had, and it had kinda felt wrong to be picky in the situation I was in, but now I was a little glad in hindsight. “I can still ask at my school about those guitar lessons and-“ “No, thanks, really, it’s fine, I… I’ll find something. I don’t know if I could teach guitar to kids.” And how embarrassing would it have been to have Gabriel get me this job and me failing at it? “You taught Nina!" Gabriel argued, and I shrugged. “One song. I don’t think she enjoyed it very much, I think she felt sorry for me.” Now I had to laugh at the memory.  Nina was six years old, so she kind of understood what was going on with me, but not really, but in the beginning, it had been obvious that she had been trying very hard to keep me company whenever. Jenna was only four, she was really just adorably excited that I was here and if Amara and Gabriel would’ve let her, she would’ve slept in the living room with me every single night. “Nina is like that, but she loves you, Stef, you know that. We all do.” Gabriel's smile was a bit cheeky, but it was obvious he meant it, and I felt a smile forming on my face as well, just for a bit. “It’ll be fine.” “I hope so…“ I mumbled, trying to concentrate on this stupid application again. Well, it wasn’t stupid of course, but it made me feel pretty stupid because I was failing it at. It had been six years since I had been in school after all, and the only thing I was used to writing was lyrics for songs that no one wanted to hear. But my pity party was already over again, and I really needed to get this done. *** I did send the application in the end, even with Jenna coming to sit on my lap after a while, trying to type as well, and Nina wanting to unpack everything that her father had put in the garbage bag already. Gabriel told me it was fine if I just played with the girls while I made dinner later, and though I felt a bit bad at first, the girls were absolutely thrilled. “I wanna be the horsie!” Jenna decided the second they got in her sister’s room, and I was just happy that Nina decided not to throw a fuss right now. “I wish I had a real one.” “They cost a lot of money and we don’t have any space, we will never have one, that’s what daddy said.” Nina shrugged, and I already had my mouth open to say something, but I had no time. “But I want one...” Jenna pouted, staring at the pink stuffed horse in her arms. “Or a unicorn. Or a dolphin. Or a hamster!” “You have Belle.” I threw in, referring to their pretty old cat that Amara and Gabriel had had for years. She was usually outside during the day, but sometimes I would wake up to her almost suffocating me as she was sleeping on my face. That was my life now. “Belle doesn’t like me. Look, she hurt me.” Jenna held up her finger to show me the tiniest scratch. “She’s so mean.” “You pulled on her tail, Jen. Belle doesn’t like that. And she only likes mom.” It was true, the cat seemed to be the cutest thing in the world when she was around Amara, but if anybody else wanted to touch her, it was pretty much a war declaration. “When I grow up, I’m gonna have a dog.” The older siblings continued. “Me too! Can we have a dog together?!” Jenna asked, all excited, and I saw the look on Nina’s face, trying to wordlessly beg her to just say yes, and she rolled her eyes a bit, but then she shrugged. “Fine. But I get to be the dog today.” And with that, she grabbed her stuffed dog and Jenna suddenly didn’t seem to like her horse very much anymore, but she stayed quiet. “Aunt Stefanie, can you be the bunny?” “Obviously, that would’ve been my first pick.” I joked, but the girls seemed excited and pretty much, that had been my entire last month. That and a few internal breakdowns and failed job interviews. They played for an hour. I was kinda tired but I tried not to let it show, although I was really relieved when Gabriel called us over and Amara was finally back home. I never watched them kiss on purpose, not because I was jealous or it made me feel lonely, but rather because it always reminded me that I was basically taking away my friends’ privacy by being here, all the time. Well, of course now they could go on dates all the time because I was here to watch the kids, but still. “By the way, Stef.” Amara started when we had all sat down, and Jenna had finally given up on her fight against the vegetables. “I’ve got you a job interview.” “That’s… What? Where?!” At first, I was excited, then I was scared, and then, I was terrified. “My publisher’s firm. I’ve had this meeting today to discuss my new novel and… anyway, the guy I met with told me they were looking for somebody, and no one’s applied yet so I suggested you and he seemed pretty happy about it. You would have to do an internship first, but it’s paid well and he said he’s pretty certain they’d give you a contract. You could just try it out, you’d still have to officially apply but you kinda already got the interview. If you want it.” Amara was making it sound appealing, and Gabriel looked happy about it too, so what choice did I have, really? It’s not like I had anything to do, and it was just an internship for now. “Yeah, of course, that’s… thank you." I meant it, but almost immediately, I could also feel my nerves acting up like crazy. So far I had only had bad news after interviews, except that one bar, and I was starting to get a little hopeless. “I’ll give you his email address later, and you can look at what they wrote about the internship.” That no one else had applied for… but honestly, I really couldn’t be picky anymore. “Daddy, what’s an internship?” Nina asked after I had thanked Amara again, and Gabriel spent the rest of dinner trying to answer all her many questions, and in the end, it somehow all came back to them negotiating how many Paw Patrol episodes they could squeeze in before bedtime. I was a little nervous sending my application two hours later, but if I would have to use connections now to get a job then I would just have to suck it up because these were desperate times.