She should have been asleep an hour ago.
This was a fact she was aware of in the vague, unconvincing way you're aware of things you have no intention of acting on. The lights were off. Her phone was supposed to be charging on the nightstand. Instead it was in her hand under the blanket, screen brightness turned all the way down, which was the kind of compromise that fooled nobody but felt necessary anyway.
They'd been talking since nine. It was now past midnight.
She wasn't sure how that had happened except that it always seemed to happen. The conversation finding a rhythm that made time move differently, an hour passing in what felt like twenty minutes. They'd started on something completely stupid, a ranking of the most unhinged anime filler arcs, and somehow ended up an hour deep into a conversation about whether ambition was something you were born with or something that happened to you.
Seth: I think something happens to you and then you decide to call it ambition after the fact
Alya: that's kind of bleak
Seth: it's realistic. nobody wakes up one day just. driven. something scares you or impresses you or humiliates you and then you start moving
Alya: what scared you?
A pause.
Seth: watching my dad work a job he hated for fifteen years without complaining once
Seth: anyway
Seth: what about you? are you ambitious?
She thought about it honestly.
Alya: I think I am. I just haven't had a lot of room to find out what direction yet
Seth: because of the atmosphere?
Alya: yeah
Seth: you'll figure it out when you get space
Alya: and if I don't get space?
Seth: you'll make it
Not you'll find it. You'll make it. She looked at the distinction and tucked it away.
They drifted after that, lighter topics, easier territory. She was starting to feel the specific heaviness behind her eyes that came right before sleep when her phone buzzed again.
Seth: can I say something?
Alya: you literally never ask before you say things
Seth: I'm asking this time
Something in the shift made her more awake.
Alya: okay
Seth: you're actually really pretty
She stared at the screen.
Seth: like I know I haven't seen you properly but from what you sent... yeah
She had sent exactly one photo. Three days ago. A cropped, carefully angled shot she had spent longer selecting than she was willing to admit. She had told herself it wasn't a big deal. She had told herself it was just a normal thing people did.
Alya: lol okay
Seth: that's not a response
Alya: it's a response
Seth: it's a deflection
Alya: same thing
Seth: it's really not though. I said something and you went lol okay which means you either don't believe me or you don't know what to do with it
She pulled the blanket up higher.
Alya: I know how to take a compliment
Seth: okay so take it then
Alya: …thank you
Seth: was that so hard
Alya: yes actually
She sent it before she could decide if it was too honest and then lay there looking at the ceiling waiting for him to do something annoying with it.
Seth: 😭 why?
Alya: because you said it like that
Seth: like what
Alya: like you were just going to say it and not make it weird and I'd have to just. receive it normally. with no warning
Seth: I asked first
Alya: "can I say something" is not sufficient warning for that
Seth: what's sufficient warning?
Alya: a subject change. a funny meme. anything that gives me time to prepare
Seth: prepare for what?
Alya: for—
She deleted that. Typed something else. Deleted that too.
Alya: it's late
Seth: 😂 you were going to say something and you stopped
Alya: goodnight Seth
Seth: Alya
Alya: goodnight
Seth: okay wait. one thing
She should have put the phone down. She did not put the phone down.
Alya: what
Seth: you don't have to do the whole. deflect and shut it down thing. I'm not going to make it weird
Alya: you're already making it weird
Seth: I'm being normal
Alya: this is not normal conversation
Seth: I think you just don't get complimented enough and it's messing with your ability to receive it like a regular person
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Alya: that's an insane thing to say to someone
Seth: is it wrong though
A long pause. She lay there in the dark looking at the question. Outside she could hear the faint sound of wind against the window, the kind that came down from the mountains at night when the temperature dropped.
Alya: …go to sleep
Seth: okay
Seth: but I'm right
Alya: GOODNIGHT
Seth: goodnight pretty girl
She put the phone face down on the mattress.
Then face up.
Then face down again.
She lay there with her eyes open in the dark, blanket pulled all the way up to her chin, feeling about fourteen years old in a way that she found deeply undignified for someone who was nineteen and considered herself a reasonably self-possessed person. The wind kept moving outside. Somewhere in the apartment a door clicked shut.
He was not wrong. That was the problem. She got told she was pretty occasionally, in the performative way people said it when they were trying to get something or when it filled a silence. Seth had said it like he was reporting a fact. Like it was information he had gathered and was simply sharing, take it or leave it, no agenda attached except the one she was busy trying to pretend she hadn't noticed.
I think you just don't get complimented enough.
She picked the phone back up.
The thread was quiet. He had actually gone to sleep, or was doing a very good impression of it.
She put the phone on the nightstand properly this time, plugged it in, and closed her eyes.
She didn't sleep for another forty minutes.