Ugh. 

“Moving Day” 

A Tale of Where We’re Going

By Byron Lin

[Set on June 3rd, 2012]

“Wonder what it’s like when you’re living with someone like me…” - “1000 Julys” by Third Eye Blind

“River, you are SO lucky I love you.” Missy hollered in a very un-Missy-like way. 

“Um, I love you too?” River responded. 

“I mean—” Missy whirled her hands at River’s closet, momentarily too aghast to speak.  “Why?! How! Explain.”

“What?” River sounded defensive. “It’s my closet. What’s there to explain about it? I keep most of my clothes and shoes in it. Like everyone else does.”

River’s entire apartment was cheerfully chaotic. Almost as if a whirlwind with ADHD lived there, not a person. Some of it was already like that when she got there. And River, being the eccentric little weirdo she was, leaned into it. These ludicrous conditions were incompatible with Melissa Hemlock’s fashionista sensibilities. 

“It’s horrible!” Missy jabbered on a shudder. “I should call a team/family meeting about this.”

“If you were Henry, you’d call it a war council.” River somehow didn’t giggle.

“Babydoll, I want to go to war on your entire apartment. But I’d settle for conquering your closet. And speaking of Henry, you’re still planning on moving in with him.” It was an emphatic question phrased in the form of a loaded statement. 

“I am aware,” River said. A smile flickered across her cute face. 

“And you’re going to inflict this on him?”

“Oh come on. Missy, he won’t care. At least not as much as you clearly do.” Plus, Henry was indulgent for basically anything that would make River happy. He’d somersault to bring her a fist-sized chunk of obsidian or a tiara of jade if she wanted them. 

“He might care but he won’t say anything about it.” Missy said. It was true - Henry was a master of hesitation. “He’s too much of a chickenshit for that.”

“Yeah, he tends to be like that.” For once, River agreed with her, instead of pushing back someway. 

Missy sighed, releasing some of her exasperation. “Bringing all of the things in here, along with all of your other stuff out there -” she pointed to the cluttered living room - “is unwise.” Missy put a hand on River’s shoulder. “Something has got to give, sweets.”

“Well,” River pushed her glasses back up. “You’re evidently the expert here. What do I do first?” Now she sounded a bit aggravated. 

“I mean, how did you manage when you first moved in here? You know, when you came here from Arizona? Separate things into piles.” Missy gave her a look as though she were praying for patience. River took this as her cue to gaze over at the wider apartment. The bedroom was still more or less intact because she wasn’t leaving until tomorrow. Similarly, the bathroom just outside the bedroom was also as it had been. But the living room was filled with rearranged furniture that was either being donated or somehow else removed. Henry, Marc, and Edo had promised to come move shit around for them. Brandon had agreed too, although he sounded more excited about it. Team effort!

It was move-in day for River when she first got set up here, in this apartment where they are now. She hadn’t met the previous tenant except for a quick exchange where she got three sets of keys: one to get into the building and one to get into her actual apartment and one as a spare key, just in case. River gave that spare to Brandon, who was helping her move in. He didn’t have to deserve it or earn it first. She trusted him. That alone was enough. And he trusted her. He was her first best friend in Maryland. They found their way to each other a couple times face to face, but mainly through the airwaves of cyberspace. He entered her life at a turbulent time, and it was when she needed him the most. 

For some reason, the bathroom had pale blue paint. Maybe the previous tenant did it? Either way, it was nice. It felt homey. 

“I don’t know why you have such a big collection of cable knit sweaters, but where do you want them?”

“Why does that matter, Brando?”

“Well, they’re men’s sweaters.”

“So what? Men deserve to be comfy, too.”

Something about that comment made Brandon flush bright pink. But he didn’t say anything else. At least for a minute. “So, um, where do you want them?”

“I danno, why don’t you pick? Surprise me.” 

Thus, Brandon shrugged and picked a spot: into one of the kitchen cabinets. It was right there, and there was plenty of other stuff to gather and then put in their proper places. Kitchen stuff. Desk. Ancient laptop that could hardly be called a laptop; River would be better off using a fucking typewriter, honestly. Bedding, linens, speakers. Can’t forget the speakers. They were too bulky for River to have shipped here from California. So naturally, he gifted her some. “Housewarming present, of course.” He had told her. “Proper ones, for your record player.” That earned him the first kiss on the cheek from her he’d have. But not the last. Not by a longshot…

Anyway, at one point Brandon mentioned something about his brothers or his other friends coming over to help them, but River countered with “I don’t want to impose” which, to be fair, he could understand. There was enough going on already, and she didn’t want to feel overwhelmed. Again, something Brandon could totally get. Plus, he was secretly pleased with that sentiment. She’d be a guppy for his brother Jason if she met him. Even Brandon knew how much of a shark Jason thought he was.

“Riv -” Brandon said, startling her, “Wait, can I can you Riv?”

“Yeah? Duh, I’ve already started calling you things that are only partially your name.”

“Your toothbrush is in your hair.”

River’s eyes went wide as they slid over her forehead. “Again?!” she shrieked. 

“At least it’s not toothpaste,” Brandon said, gently chuckling. He walked over and swept the toothbrush out of her hair. “That would be way harder to get out.”His hand lingered on her cheek, for only a moment too long, but then he glided it down to lift her chin slightly. “Yeah, nothing else there. You’ve got an ink blot on your cheek though, somehow.”

River sighed. “That doesn’t surprise me.” She pressed her hand up against his, so that she held it in place for a heartbeat or two. “Be a dear and wipe it off, could you?” He obliged her. At last, mostly everything was unpacked. The last two items that were unpacked and set up were River’s bass guitar and her record player. Brandon ordered them pizza and breadsticks. Then they sat down on the couch to kick back for a bit.

“Sorry I can’t have any beer delivered, Maryland is squaresville compared to Arizona.” 

“Squaresville, I like that…Oh, that’s okay! I don’t really drink, anyway. I’m not like those other boys and girls who are all jazzed about underage drinking. The record! The record for the record player. It’ll be all sad and stuff without a vinyl to dance with.”

“What do you want to do while we wait for dinner? Listen to music? Surprised we didn't do that this whole time.”

“No, it would’ve been too much noise. We wouldn’t be able to hear each other talk if I put on Black Sabbath or King Crimson while we worked.”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah, impaled on nails of ice, all that,” Brandon replied. 

“You gotta give it up to Greg Lake, that was one impressive scream.”

“Jump-scare, more like.” 

“That too,” River giggled. She retrieved one album. But she hid it out of Brandon’s view, so he couldn’t tell what it was. And River was practiced enough she could skip to a certain track without needing to let it spin all the way through. Just another trick she had for concealing whatever song she wanted to play.”

“Hey, what -” Brandon said, but as the first notes of the selected song started to play, he didn’t need to ask. It was “All I Wanted” by Paramore. It wasn’t a love song; in fact it was the opposite - a breakup song. But regardless, the richness of the music, the power of the lyrics, and the lushness of Hayley William’s voice spoke to them despite that.

“All I wanted was to dance with you,” River said, with a hint of a sob. 

Brandon comprehended the deeper meaning of her notion.             

So he got up and approached her. This closeness was a different kind of intimacy. 

Both of them felt an ember stirring. It was an odd, unique sensation. Why? Because they both felt it at the same time, but maybe for different reasons. Maybe. Same thought, different process. 

“Wait, what if I’m in love with Brandon?// Wait, what if I’m in love with River?”  

By the time the song ended, the moment was gone. Not lost, just tabled. At least for now. 

 ~