Only when I least expected it, when I had lost myself to an entire afternoon of retrospection, would Mariam cluster-text me about wanting to know what happened. I called, but she sent it straight to voicemail! “We were out at the farm,” she wrote. I knew right away what she was talking about: the last two years her family went on a two hour drive to get vegetables and homemade bread – I'd even had the fortune of coming along. I knew she was having fun there, riding the horses with her younger brother, having stew at the inn. “Text me all about it and ill answer when I can,” she said, “im just in the car coming back,” but I couldn't.
“Not through text.”
“please! anything!!”
“Call me when you get home.”
“when i get home im gonna shower because im gross and then im gonna hibernate”
“Mariammm, this is serious!”
“write it on LJ! i know its serious, i wanna hear! ill read it when i can”
“I'm not writing on LJ, I'm not telling anyone but you and Giry.”
“who the fuck is giry”
“Paulina.”
“uhh,” she wrote, and I face-palmed, too exasperated to even compose a message, but she answered again. “wait a min, paulina knows already?!!!”
“She answered her goddamn phone!”
“geeeez ill see what I can do, jesus"