When I'm not with you, think of you always
As soon as she saw the little blue button switch from ‘follow’ to ‘requested’ Rio closed the app like it was about to blow up her phone. Regret washed over her immediately and she dropped the phone onto her bed, dragging her hands over her face and pulling almost painfully at her eyes.
She should have just gone back to the café and thanked Agatha in person, that would have been more normal, right? Or would that have come across creepier?
Maybe she could pretend that she left something at the café so that if Agatha was working she would have a plausible excuse to be there and if she wasn't working, Rio wouldn't come across as a stalker because she'd have a very real reason for being there?
But then, if she saw Agatha she would have stalked her in real life and social media.
Fuck.
Maybe she could stand outside the café and watch for Agatha without being seen? That way she would get to see her again but Agatha wouldn't know and therefore wouldn't think Rio was stalking her or being weird.
Now that's fucking creepy, Rio thought, that's crossing the line.
Sighing, she kicked her bed sheets off of herself and made her way out of her room, dragging a hand through her hair and picking sleep out of her eyelashes.
When she stumbled into the kitchen, Rio was grateful to hear the sound of the coffee machine already running as well as seeing Lilia poking at something on the stove. Judging by the slight smell of burning Rio would guess another attempt at pancakes had been made.
‘Morning,’ she mumbled, picking out her favorite mug from the cupboard next to the stove, wrinkling her nose as the smell of burning increased tenfold, before walking the few remaining steps to the coffee machine, ‘what are you making?’
‘Ah, uh, cazzo, fuck, merda.’
‘Mmm sounds delicious,’ Rio says, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. She was a bit of a bitch before coffee.
‘I was making pancakes,’ Lilia said, ‘ma apparentemente non è possibile per me, perché sono fucking stupid.’
Rio only hummed in response. Despite living with Lilia for most of her life, her only understanding of Italian came from her knowledge of Spanish, which, unfortunately, really didn't help that much, especially with the speed at which Lilia would talk.
‘We still have cereal, yeah?’ Rio asked, opting not to spit out a harsh comment about Lilia’s many failed breakfast attempts despite feeling one clawing up her throat. She really was a bitch before coffee.
‘Mi dispiace, mia diavolina, I will go and buy us some bagels. Finish your coffee.’
And just like that Lilia was out the door, dressed in her pyjama pants and an eyesore of a jumper that really shouldn’t be worn outside the comfort of one's own home, pausing only to give Rio a light kiss on her head and pick up some cash that had been acting as table decor for almost three weeks.
As the door banged shut and Rio took her seat at the tiny wooden table sitting in the middle of their kitchen, now full coffee mug in hand, she sighed deeply. She really did love that mental woman.
Relaxing easily into the twenty minutes of solitude she had been granted, Rio sipped her coffee and flicked through one of Lilia's witchy subscription magazines that had been left open on the table. She dragged her eyes over the horoscope page, reading Lilia’s and Alice’s but avoiding her own; she was more than happy to tease Alice about ‘a potentially life changing but mysterious new romantic interest’ but she’d sooner hang herself than let a crappy piece of paper tell her what was going to happen to her.
When Rio had reached the end of the magazine without any sign of Lilia's return she decided she should probably retrieve her phone and check to see if Agatha had blocked her yet.
So, cup of coffee in hand, Rio returned to her bedroom and searched through her bed sheets until she felt her fingertips brush against the cool plastic of her phone case. Wrapping her hand around it, she left her unmade bed and returned to the bright lighting of the kitchen, keeping her phone off until she had returned to her seat.
In an attempt to calm her fast-beating heart, Rio gulped down the last dregs of her coffee. Surprisingly, that didn’t help in the slightest.
After a beat of complete silence Rio decided to stop being so fucking dramatic and just look at her phone. It had only been maybe ten minutes since she had sent the request but she was dying to see if Agatha had accepted it yet.
Turning her phone over in her hands, she pressed the power button, making her screen light up and revealing three notifications.
Ali
Morning ri, you manage to get any of that work done? More specifically that piece due monday for psyc that i'd really like to copy pretty please
And…
ags (@agathahark.ness) has accepted your follow request
ags (@agathahark.ness) has requested to follow you
Rio felt her face break out in a massive grin and she promptly ignored Alice's message in favour of looking at Agatha's account, not before accepting her request, of course.
Opening the other girl's account, Rio was now free to scroll through the six posts Agatha had published - the oldest being a mirror selfie from three years ago, which she clicked on eagerly.
Agatha's face filled her screen and Rio felt a little like a dog who had just been offered a whole turkey. Meaning she was practically drooling.
She couldn't help herself from zooming in on Agatha as she scrolled through some group photos. The brunette was absolutely gorgeous and Rio was ready to DM her just to beg pathetically for a chance to take her out on a date, in fact her fingers were dangerously close to the ‘message’ button and quickly developing a life of their own. Thankfully, Lilia burst through the door, bagels in hand, preventing Rio from doing anything too insane.
‘Ta da!’
The older woman placed a box of four rainbow-coloured bagels in front of Rio, who was too concerned with locking her phone and trying to act like she hadn't just been salivating over a hot girl to do more than squeak out an embarrassed ‘Thank you!’
Lilia, as always, was already too busy doing something else (gathering spreads for the bagels) to really notice Rios strange behaviour, giving the brunette a chance to gather herself and throw her phone somewhere on the old leather sofa opposite her. By the time Lilia returned to the table with her arms full of butter and jam and some old jar that probably belonged in the bin Rio was sitting very normally and was completely and utterly present.
Except Rio had accidentally liked Agatha's most recent post and was unable to stop thinking about it.
Also, she so was not sitting normally but that really was a null point.
—
After shoving a bagel into her mouth at an inhumane pace and stuttering out a ‘grazie mille’ around a half chewed mouthfulRio grabbed her phone and legged it to her room, collapsing on her bed and scrambling to unlock her phone.
She didn't realise how deep she had sunk her teeth into her lower lip until she felt sharp pain as she bit down harder.
Agatha had messaged her.
She was tempted to just delete her account, never return to the café and pretend nothing had ever happened, but her rational brain kicked in, reminding her that she should probably delay impulsive decisions until she had actually read the message. So, taking a deep breath and removing her teeth from her bottom lip, she clicked on the notification and opened her DM’s, her screen filling with a singular message:
Ags
You’re the girl with the crazy eyes who fell asleep, right?
Could be worse.