The Garnett Diaries Preview

Dear Diary,

There was nothing I hated more than waking up to rain. It always made me more tired. I spent a few seconds cursing the skies for deciding now was a good time to rain in the first place and made the daily struggle to roll over. I watched the fan blades chop the dust particles in the early morning light, like I didn’t have anywhere to go. What gender am I today? Another thing I hated was my gender being difficult and not picking a side. The light raindrops falling on my window distracted me from my thoughts before the already pale sunlight dimmed behind a large cloud carrying heavier rain quickly behind it. I watched the two large drops that had landed on my window race, collecting smaller drops along the way. Guess it’s a gender neutral day. Damn body...

I looked over to the bright red light glaring off my cheap alarm clock that I didn’t even bother setting last night. 7:13 AM. Great. I sat up from my comfortable spot, examined my surroundings and contemplated going back to sleep. Why is everything grey today? Since I needed to be in LA in a couple hours, I definitely wouldn’t sleep long if I went back to sleep. I got up and walked into the main hallway, tripping over various dirty pairs of pants I had laying around my room. My beautiful roommate, Ethan, was passed out on the couch in the living room and that could never be a good sign. He was sleeping in his underwear and cuddling with an empty quart of Half Baked ice cream, which was usually his break-up go to. He would need some support at around 3 p.m. when he finally rose from his ice cream coma. My phone vibrated in my hand as the default ringtone droned on. Sophie, my childhood friend, was calling from home.

“The number you have dialed-” I started in my best monotone voice.

“Cut the shit, Kirvah!” Her voice was refreshing in my homesick ears. I lightly shifted Ethan closer to one end of the couch so I had enough room to sit next to him. “How’ve you been? I feel like we haven’t talked in years.” Even though I’d talked to her maybe a week before, I hadn’t been in her presence for 6 months now and every time I talked to her, was like meeting her all over again. “Hello?”

I was so busy reminiscing, I’d forgotten to respond. “Yeah! Right! I’m doing great,” I stammered. Her laugh was beautiful.
“You’re such a turd.”

I could almost hear my eyes rolling in my skull. “Oh, fuck you.”

“If I gave you the chance, bet you wouldn’t take it.”

“You’re right.” Demisexuality at it’s finest. I decided to tune her out and instead listened to the Detroit autumn breezes through her phone and mourned sitting in her basement watching musicals on Netflix like we used to do. At least, we did until that one weird summer in our junior year...

“Thanksgiving is coming up,” she sighed.

“Yeah. I should be back for at least 5 or 6 days,” I lied. There was no way I had enough money saved for that, plus I couldn’t get the time off work. I expected her to say something, or at least sound kind of excited, but she fell silent. “Hey, are you okay?”

“What? Yeah. I just…” She took another somber deep breath and paused. “…I miss you a lot.”

“I miss you too.”  I stood up and walked back into my cold room. I leaned back on my door with the handle in my hand, letting the soothing sound of rain fill my room before Sophie interrupted it with her voice.

“The movie festival just passed.”

“What? I could have watched with you through Netflix or something!” How dare she let my second favorite holiday go by without reminding me? How could I forget my second favorite holiday? It’s not like I had shit to do!

“You were at work,” she reminded gently.

“Oh…” I sighed and climbed back into my bed, tucking my pillow under my chest and pulling my laptop in front of me. “Sorry...” There was a moment of silence and I swear I heard sniffling. “No crying, okay? I’m not dead. Just far away.”
“Who the fuck was crying?” She laughed it off. “If you were here we could cuddle though!”

I rolled my eyes again, but this time she laughed as if she just knew I was doing it. “Shit, I have to go Kurve,” she added sadly.

“Alright. Call me later!” I tried to sound happy.

“Love ya! Bye!”

“Bye.” Even after my phone beeped to signify the end of the call, I couldn’t move the phone from my face. I wanted to say hello and have her voice boom through my phone like it had when she’d yell at me for being anti-social when she was having a party, or when I wasn’t at school for a few days and she thought I’d died, or when I stopped talking to her for a while and she demanded to talk to me so we could sort everything out.

I buried my face into my pillow and rolled over on my back to look at the boring white ceiling. My mind drifted to that random summer with Sophie. She had been extra close to me for something like 3 weeks before she kissed me at some random party. Of course, by that point I was basically in love with her and I had no reservations in that moment or any of the moments following. The next morning, when we were both lying in my bed, she told me she just “wanted to experiment” like I was just some random person. I felt so hurt I cut off almost all communication with her for something like 3 months. At some point, she got tired of me ignoring her and she called my phone to let me know she was coming over. She complained about how our friendship shouldn’t have changed over that and I had a movie cliche breakdown telling her how in love with her I was. The pain on her face from realizing she’d hurt me like that almost made me feel guilty. After I’d calmed down, we sat and talked through everything in a more relaxed manner. I jokingly threatened to end her life if she did that to me again and she agreed. While our friendship was never quite as close, she was the support I needed back then.

The rain lightened up and I noticed a change in the lighting from outside. I should still bring my umbrella. With a sigh, I decided it would probably be a good idea to start getting ready for this stupid support group meeting. Slowly, I stood up and slumped into the bathroom, peeling cloth off my skin as I went. The hot water felt like a thousand light kisses on my skin that I needed to keep me awake after attempting to sleep over Ethan’s obnoxious crying the night before. I forgave him as I wrapped one of the soft towels he’d bought for my bathroom around my body. Satisfied, I left the bathroom and sat down to moisturize. The breeze from my fan made me miss the heat from my blanket and the heat from my shower, but there was nothing I could do about either now. I walked into my closet and picked out one of my favorite outfits from the top of my dirty clothes pile. I pulled on my favorite jeans and my solid black V-neck t-shirt. Since it looked like it might be a colder day I decided to throw my We the Kings sweatshirt on and my matching grey and pink shoes. I stuffed a couple things into my small black cross body purse and walked into the main room to grab something light for breakfast.

Ethan had adjusted so that if the small blanket covering him had fallen off like it was threatening to, I would see more of him than I would ever want to. There were portraits of our families hanging side-by-side above the fireplace and small pictures of us as kids scattered under them in an array of colors and faces. The large windows on either side of the fireplace had thin white curtains covering them that we would let sway in the summer breezes. The large TV was in an old armoire neither of us wanted to use, so we cut some space into the center of it and converted it into a media station, holding all my gaming equipment. Ethan mumbled something into my decorative pillow that matched the couch, the small rug under the wooden table and the armoire.

“If you drool on my pillow, I’ll kill you in your sleep,” I spat playfully. He grabbed the blanket that was barely covering him and rolled over, covering his body -- well, everything but his toes. I gathered a few things, my wallet, my phone, my keys, and an umbrella, and stuffed them into my small purse. I draped it over my shoulders, letting the long strap cross my body and hang on the opposite side. I did one final mirror check and exited the room prepared to survive the rain.