Myocardium

When my shift is finally done, I return to our apartment with nothing but Rafael on my mind.

What if he's actually planning to kill me? 

No, now that's totally unreasonable. 

But...what if?! 

No...okay, okay, calm down! 

He. Isn't. Planning. To. Kill. Me. 

But what if he doesn't want to hang out with me and genuinely just agreed out of pity for my pathetic ass?

Damnit, this thought is even worse!

I make my first stop in Sasha's, and then in Daisy's rooms, who are both still sound asleep, before I sit down on our grey, comfy sofa. 

I retrieve my phone from my pocket and... surprisingly - no, even shockingly, I have received a new message. 

What's even better is that it's from the only person I'm more or less actively speaking with.

Rafael.

It's a picture. 

Not knowing what to expect, I hesitantly click to open the message and, while praying that it's not going to be a damn dick pic, am instead met with a photo of a fricking adorable white, fluffy puppy, who's lying on someone's, presumably Raf's lap and smiles at the camera with his pretty brown eyes and his pink tongue sticking out, snout resting in what looks like Rafael's cupped palm. 

Man, this dog looks like the most content puppy I've ever seen. Must really miss his owner too, I bet. 

The description that comes with the picture reads "Hey, just found this pic of Marshmallow on my phone, thought I'd share :)".

Simply reading this text from him makes me smile and forget about all the negative feelings inside of me. 

It takes me a while to find something appropriate to answer without sounding completely dumb or childish. In the end, after re-typing my message a thousand times, I end up sending the words "Aww, what a cute doggo! He looks like such a sweet puppy :)".

I scroll through the rest of my contacts, most of which are unused. Sasha, Daisy, Joe... Mom, Dad. 

Yeah, I never brought up the strength to delete their numbers, even though they probably belong to other people already. 

I mean, it has been years after all.

That's simply how things are. 

Forgotten. 

Overwritten. 

Between the little number of contacts, I see some of my debt-connections and Joe's buddies. Nobody else, really. 

Except, of course, Rafael. 

The fact that I have the gained the honour of having his number makes me chuckle as I lie down on the sofa to rest a bit. But first, I decide to check Rafael's profile-picture, he seems to have updated it. 

It now shows a picture of him, professionally taken. 

He looks as stunning as ever, leaning against a piano with his messy waves, all black outfit and glasses. I've never seen him wear glasses in person, maybe he's usually wearing contacts? 

Next to the icon his profile picture creates, I see his account info of the messaging-app we use. 

Active since: September 15, 2017. 

Last month?

Damnit, my phone must be mistaking his sign-up date with the last time I updated the app itself. I always have troubles with this old model.