The thing about being home was that there was nowhere to disappear to.
At her university dorm, she had her room, her own schedule, the simple freedom of closing a door and having it mean something. Here, the walls were thinner in a way that had nothing to do with the walls. Her mother always seemed to be in whichever room Alya had just decided to settle in. Her father had a particular radar for when she was on her phone for too long, not because he said anything most of the time, but because he would find a reason to walk past. Slowly. Twice.
It wasn't malicious. That was the thing she always had to remind herself. It came from the same place everything came from: love, and the specific fear that love produces in parents who believe the world is mostly something to be protected from.
She knew this. She had made her peace with it, more or less.
It was just a lot, sometimes. To be known this well and seen this little.
𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑
It was early evening. Her mother had knocked on her door twenty minutes ago and said your food is ready in the tone that meant it had actually been ready for a while and Alya had missed the first window. She went to the kitchen, fixed her plate, and took it back to her room the way she usually did — her family wasn't really a dining table kind of family. Meals happened when they happened, plates carried to wherever you'd been sitting, the television murmuring from the living room, everyone in the same space but doing their own thing.
She settled cross-legged on her bed with the plate balanced on her knee, phone propped against her pillow. She wasn't texting Seth. She was just having it nearby. In case.
Her father appeared in the doorway.
He did this. Not knocking exactly, more a presence in the frame, like he was checking that the room still contained what it was supposed to contain.
"You're eating in here again," he said. Not a question.
"The living room TV is loud," Alya said, which was true.
He looked at her for a second in the way that meant she had noticed the phone but wasn't going to make it a conversation yet. Her father operated on a delay. She noticed things and then waited to see if they resolved themselves before deciding whether to intervene. It was a method that had served him well for twenty years of parenting and drove Alya completely insane.
"Don't stay up too late," he said.
"I won't."
He lingered for exactly one beat longer than necessary, then left.
She exhaled.
Her phone buzzed.
Not a text. It was a notification. Seth had sent something in the app, a reaction image she hadn't seen before: a cartoon cat sitting in a tiny cardboard box with an expression of complete spiritual devastation and the caption me pretending I have my life together.
She made a sound. A short, involuntary noise that was almost a laugh before she caught it and pressed her lips together hard.
Alya: what is this?
Seth: found it and thought of both of us simultaneously
Alya: why does that cat look like it's seen things?
Seth: because it has. we all have. the cat understands
Alya: the cat is not okay
Seth: none of us are. that's the point of the cat
Alya: 💀💀
Seth: are you eating?
Alya: how did you know
Seth: you type slower when you're doing something else. I've noticed
She paused with a piece of chicken halfway to her mouth.
He had noticed how she typed when she was distracted. She wasn't sure how she felt about being that readable to someone she'd known less than a week. She put the chicken down and thought about it for approximately three seconds before deciding not to think about it.
Alya: yeah I'm eating. you?
Seth: already ate. my sister cooked which was either very good or very ambitious depending on which sibling you ask
Alya: which sibling are you?
Seth: I said it was good obviously. I'm not trying to die
Alya: smart
Seth: I'm occasionally smart yes
She smiled at the screen. Caught herself doing it. Looked up.
Her father was in the doorway again.
She did not know how long she had been standing there. Long enough, from the look on her face: not angry, not suspicious exactly, just that particular expression parents got when they had seen something they were going to quietly file away for later. Calm on the surface. Processing underneath.
"Dad," she said, keeping her voice completely even.
"Your mother wanted to know if you want more rice?"
"I'm fine. Thank you."
Her father looked at her for a moment. Then at the phone. Then back at her.
"You're smiling," he said. Simply, as a statement of fact.
"It's a funny video," Alya said, the lie arriving so quickly and smoothly it barely felt like one.
Her father had the particular skill of looking at someone in a way that suggested she knew the exact shape of what they weren't saying. He had been doing this her whole life. And Alya had spent nineteen years learning to hold eye contact through it without flinching.
"Okay," her father finally said. And left.
She waited until she could hear her father's footsteps in the hallway before she let herself breathe again.
𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑
Seth: you okay? you went quiet
Alya: yeah sorry. my dad came in
Seth: oh
Alya: yeah
Seth: the slow walk past thing or the doorway appearance thing
She stared at the screen.
Alya: …the doorway appearance thing. how do you know about the slow walk past
Seth: 😂 I have younger siblings remember. I know all the parental surveillance techniques. I invented half of them from the other side
Alya: wait you used to check on your siblings like that?
Seth: I was seventeen and paranoid okay. that's not the point
Alya: that's so funny I'm sorry 💀
Seth: the point is. doorway appearance. did he see the phone?
Alya: yeah
Seth: he say anything?
Alya: he said I was smiling
Seth: …and?
Alya: and I said it was a funny video
Seth: smooth
Alya: I thought so
Seth: so I'm a funny video now
Alya: don't push it
Seth: 😂 okay okay
She set the plate aside, appetite mostly gone, not in a bad way. Just the way food becomes less interesting when something else is more interesting. She lay back against her pillow and looked at the ceiling.
Seth: can I ask you something?
Alya: you keep saying that and then asking anyway
Seth: okay I'm asking without asking then. how strict are we talking? like 'phones at the dinner table' strict or 'full background check on everyone you talk to' strict?
She considered this.
Alya: no dinner table. we're not really like that
Alya: more like. they have a specific idea of what my life is supposed to look like and they care a lot about making sure it stays that shape
Seth: and talking to random guys from Discord at night is not part of the shape
Alya: talking to anyone they don't know about is not part of the shape
Seth: so I'm a secret
She looked at that word on the screen. It sat there feeling slightly larger than she'd expected.
Alya: you're a conversation I haven't mentioned
Seth: that's a nicer way to say the same thing
Alya: I know
A pause. She waited to see if he would do something with it. Maybe make a joke, push a little, say something that would give her a reason to build the wall back up. He did none of those things.
Seth: okay. I'll be a conversation you haven't mentioned
Seth: for now
She read that last part twice. For now. Two words that could mean nothing or could mean something, sitting there without explanation, not quite a question and not quite a statement.
She didn't ask him what he meant. She wasn't ready to know yet.
Alya: goodnight Seth
Seth: goodnight
Seth: tell the cat I said hi
Alya: 💀 goodnight
She plugged her phone in and set it on the nightstand, face up out of habit. The apartment had gone quiet the way it always did at this hour. The particular settled quiet of a house where everyone had returned to their own corners for the night.
She thought about her father in the doorway. The way he had said you're smiling like it was a thing that required explanation. Like happiness was a variable he needed to account for.
She thought about Seth saying for now and leaving it exactly there.
She turned over onto her side and pulled the blanket up.
She fell asleep faster than she expected to.