Thalia was smack in the middle of what was becoming a strong contender for the worst week of her life. On Monday, she arrived home from work to find a small-ish colony of termites living in her closet. On Tuesday, the exterminator told her that it would be nearly double the amount in her savings account to take care of the problem. On Wednesday, she got her third write-up in as many weeks for showing up late. And today, she found out her favorite lunch spot (an incredibly greasy Greek restaurant near her work) was being shut down for health code violations. At least she would get to see Penny tonight—she was finally coming back from the conference that had been looming over her for the past month. Although Thalia wasn't looking forward to souring her girlfriend's homecoming with the news about the termites.

Thursdays were the slowest day by far at the forty-year-old movie theater where Thalia worked. She used to love it there; it was a local historic site, until it was recently bought up by a chain and renovated into a standard-issue mall theater. They trashed the facade, tore out the film projectors, tried to retrofit upgraded sound systems, and generally made it an infuriating place to work for her in particular. Business was constantly lethargic, and on Thursdays especially, unless there was a big midnight showing (which there wasn't), it was a slow trickle of retirees, stay-at-home parents and their toddlers, and the odd unemployed film buff catching a cheap matinee of whichever classic they were showing that week. And even those midnight blockbuster releases hardly drew a crowd anymore. 

It was Thalia's favorite day of the week. It meant she could shirk her cleaning duties and watch most of a movie from the theater entryways. They were having a Bond marathon this month, so she caught the last thirty minutes of License to Kill right before her shift ended. Just as she was clocking out though, her manager materialized behind her.

"There you are, Thalia."

Thalia twitched so suddenly that she pulled a muscle in her shoulder. She turned around and grimaced. "Oh. Hey, Carla."

"I wanted to discuss something with you," Carla said, an uneasy smile creeping onto her face. "I noticed your little disappearing act today."

"Yeah, and?" Thalia tried hard to keep her voice calm and steady; Carla always took a tone with her that made her stomach acid start boiling. "There was nobody here. I finished cleaning up. Decided I'd take a breather."

Carla nodded. "See, that’s just it. You just decided to take a breather—didn’t even bother radioing. Just vanished."

"Dude," Thalia scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I've been here for almost five years. Do I really need to ask permission to take a break? Can't you radio me?"

"It's not about permission, dude," Carla folded her arms. "It's about respect. And your behavior this week has shown a complete lack of respect. I already had to write you up for tardiness yesterday."

"Ugh. Look, I'm sorry, but can we talk about this tomorrow?" Thalia pushed past Carla and headed toward her locker. "I've had a really shitty week and Penny’s getting home tonight. I promise it won't happen again."

"Fine by me," Carla said, putting up her hands in her tried and true I'm-not-trying-to-be-the-bad-guy pose. "But our GM told me today that the CFO is stopping by this weekend. Word is she's recommending every location to cut hours. Just trying to warn you is all."

"Got it," Thalia grumbled as she grabbed her bag and slammed her locker shut. "Thanks."

The day only got worse from there. Thalia's attempt at beef stew looked like a bowl of charcoal soaked in ketchup, and tasted like it too. Penny never showed up, and when Thalia tried calling her, she only got a text in response (more than thirty minutes later) that read: "Sorry, missed my flight and had to change it to tomorrow. I'll explain later!" She threw her phone across the room and flopped onto the couch in a heap. She laid there for hours, twisting her arms and legs into contortionist poses that only got more and more uncomfortable—feeling nauseous, and not just because of the stew. 

What was Penny still doing up anyway? It was nearly two in the morning over on the east coast. Not to mention that for as long as Thalia had been dating her, Penny had never once missed a flight. She was the type to be at the airport three hours ahead of boarding. Something was up, Thalia was sure of it. She threw on a movie to try and put it out of her mind—Bull Durham, a bit of a guilty pleasure she had picked up from her dad—and managed to fall asleep before the opening credits had ended.

Thalia awoke the next morning still on the couch, her phone still lying where she threw it. The screen had a new crack, the time showed she had overslept, and she had a voicemail from Penny. Thalia sighed and headed into the bedroom, where she plugged in her phone to listen to the message while she dressed for work.

"Heyyyy babe," Penny’s smooth, drawling voice was staticky and crunched, nearly drowned out by a wave of thumping noise behind her. "Sorry I was MIA tonight! I've just been so busy with—" Penny stopped, cut off by someone in the background. Thalia couldn't hear anything except what sounded like dance music. Penny continued talking, louder now. "Hang on a sec! I'm calling my girlfriend back!" She let out a short, sharp laugh. (For some reason, this laugh sent an uncomfortable twang down Thalia's spine and back up again.) "Um—sorry what was I saying? Oh, right, so—I missed my flight this morning, and I was just scrambling to try and get it changed in time, right?" 

She was talking a mile a minute. Thalia couldn't stay focused on dressing. She stood, dumbfounded, in front of the closet, shirtless and with her pants around her ankles. She had forgotten about the termites until she saw a few of them scuttling around on the back wall of the closet. She screamed and slammed the door shut, stumbling back and tripping onto the bed. 

The voicemail continued: "And then Christina—oh, um, Christina is this girl I met on my first day here; such a sweetheart, she helped me a ton with my reports last night. She actually lives really close to us! Small world, huh?—so Christina was like, 'Why don't you just get on mine? It leaves tomorrow night and was hella cheap!' Plus she said that she n' her friends were gonna hit this really nice local seafood place for dinner, so I should stick around at least for the night. And you know how I never get to actually explore n' hang out at these things. So I decided, y'know, what the fuck! Why not? And um," Penny giggled. "Then we were just wandering around n' we found this super cool bar, so we've—" She stopped again, and this time said something indistinct. Did she giggle again? "Sorry, sorry—I'm rambling, I'll fill you in when I get home tomorrow night. Sorry again, Thalia! Love ya!" 

And the message was over.

Thalia listened to the voicemail three more times on the bus to work. No matter how loud she turned up her headphones, she couldn't manage to make out what Penny was saying to that girl, Christina, or what exactly had made her laugh like that. Every time, it seemed to get louder, harsher, harder to ignore. 

The whole day, she tried to put it out of her mind. She had managed to arrive just barely on time, though it still earned her an especially lurid glare from Carla. Thalia tried to dodge her for the rest of the day, to no avail; it was like she could move through walls. Every single one of Thalia's favorite hiding spots was compromised—the maintenance hallway above theater six; the projection booth of theater two, which rarely showed movies since the speakers were failing; the dust-mite infected secondary concessions stand (which was boarded up with plywood)—Carla somehow appeared behind each door with her fake, too-wide smile and glowering eyes. The only place Thalia found any reprieve was the trash closet, but the stench of stale popcorn steeping in soda made it difficult to want to spend much time in there. 

When her shift ended, Thalia was so completely exhausted from evading Carla all day that she had nearly managed to put the voicemail out of her mind. At least, she had until she got another text from Penny: "Just landed! Should be home in an hour-thirty or so!"

Great. Thalia tried typing up a halfhearted response, but thought better of it. What would she even say? Anything she could say would just come off as jealous. And she wasn't jealous—not really, anyway. She was annoyed at Penny's lack of communication, her laissez-faire attitude toward the missed flight, the way she had seemingly completely forgotten about Thalia until she had called. But she wasn't jealous. 

Penny's job frequently sent her all over the country, and Thalia wasn't much of a traveler. The one and only time she had accompanied Penny on one of her business trips, she had spent nearly the entire week puking because of some sort of bug she had picked up on the flight. She also hated sleeping in any bed but her own. The hotel pillows had fucked up her neck, the blankets had made her itchy, and the overly firm mattress had kept her up almost the entire night. By the time she stopped vomiting, it was the last day of the conference—and that final day was even more miserable than the sickness. She was exhausted, encumbered with a thundering headache made worse by the noise in the bustling hotel ballroom. Penny was, of course, as outgoing as ever—greeting every acquaintance with the same giddy giggle and emphatic hug that, to Thalia, seemed a bit too long. 

If she was jealous of anything, it was Penny's ability to make friends so readily. Even at home, it seemed that no matter where they ventured in the city, Penny was sure to have a run-in with some former roommate, or an ex-girlfriend, or a colleague from a different department with whom she was inexplicably close. And obviously, they were always just so stunned by how great things were going for her; impressed by both her transition progress and high-earning status at her company. Thalia always seemed to vanish during these conversations—she was too shy to try introducing herself and besides, Penny would get so wrapped up in the conversations that she felt it would be rude to interrupt.

When Thalia arrived home after her hour-long bus commute, the day had completely worn her out. She stood in front of the pantry in a daze, but nothing seemed appetizing. Eventually, she gave up and collapsed on the couch, falling asleep the instant her head hit the cushion.

Thalia woke with a start, yanked unceremoniously from a dream where she had joined an astoundingly homoerotic softball team managed by Susan Sarandon. Penny was sitting on the other end of the couch, reading a faded, leather-bound book with uneven red stitching along its edges. The title, stamped into the cover in matching red ink, was A Novice's Guide to Time-Bending Hexes. There was no author. Some kind of tongue-in-cheek fantasy novel? Penny was reading it with fierce concentration. She didn't even notice Thalia had awoken until she yawned and stretched.

"Good morning, sleepyhead!" Penny said, sliding in a bookmark and leaning over to kiss Thalia gently on the forehead. "You looked like you needed the rest so I didn't wanna wake you. How was your week?"

"Morning," Thalia sighed and scooted into Penny's arms. "Awful. Have you seen the closet yet?"

"Oh god, no. What happened?"

"Fuckin' termites. Called a guy and he said it'd be almost a thousand dollars to take care of it."

"Gross."

"I know."

They sat in silence for several uncomfortable moments. Penny started reading her book again. Thalia cleared her throat.

"I missed you," she said quietly. 

"Hm? Oh," Penny looked up from the book. "I missed you too. Sorry about the uh—"

"No! No, I'm just glad you could change flights," Thalia said, shifting to get more comfortable. "Um. How was that seafood place?"

"Oh my god it was so good. I haven't had clam chowder like that in years."

"And how was...Christina?"

"Oh, yeah!" Penny's eyes lit up. She carefully placed her book on the arm of the couch. "You'll love her. She's just the sweetest! She lent me this book, actually. I think we're gonna meet up for dinner tomorrow night. You're invited, of course—I told her all about you!"

"Yeah?" Thalia said, uneasy. "What did you tell her?"

Penny paused for a moment, rolled her eyes upwards, deep in thought. "Well, okay, maybe not all about you. But I told her that she'd get a chance to meet you!"

"Oh," said Thalia. "Cool. Looking forward to it."

Another long pause. The air in the living room was thick with suffocating silence—it weighed down on Thalia and choked her. She could feel her face growing red with self-conscious unease. Was there really that little for Penny to say about her? Not a single fun fact or interesting anecdote? She wracked her brain for another change of subject.

"The CFO is coming to the theater tomorrow," she finally blurted. "I might be getting my hours cut."

"Hmm."

"Carla really let me have it yesterday."

Penny didn't even look up from her book. 

"Ugh, and get this—King's got closed down! Can you believe that?"

"I kinda can, to be honest," Penny said. "That place looked like a five-star resort for rats."

"I guess," Thalia said glumly. "I'm gonna miss those gyros though."

"Mhm." 

Penny was still absorbed in her book. It was starting to make Thalia seethe—why was she the one getting the cold shoulder here? She wasn't the one who blew off her flight to hang out with some random girl, or the one who left a rambling voicemail three hours after the fact. Just as she was about to speak up about it, Penny placed her bookmark back in, set the novel aside, and stood up with a stretch.

"Didya make anything for dinner, by the way? I'm starved," she said as she made her way to the fridge.

Thalia's voice came out in a small squeak. "No, I was pretty exhausted after work. There's leftovers from last night, but—"

"Sorry, what was that?" Penny was digging through the deluge of plastic containers stacked inside the refrigerator. She pulled out an exceptionally moldy one; fettuccine alfredo that looked like it was cooked with caterpillars instead of noodles. "Ew. When was the last time you cleaned this thing out?"

"I dunno," Thalia was still mumbling, mostly to herself now. "Maybe if you actually lived here..."

"Can you speak up, please?" Penny asked. She had found the soup from the previous night and was pondering it. "What's this?"

"Beef stew, technically," Thalia said, standing to join Penny in the kitchen. She was grabbing a spoon to dish it out. "I wouldn't, if I were you. Pretty sure it gave me mild food poisoning." 

Penny made a face and put the spoon back. "Is there anything edible in here besides ramen? I thought you were gonna make dinner."

"Well, I did—last night. When you were supposed to be back." This came out more accusatory than Thalia had intended. Penny hung her head and folded her arms.

"I said I was sorry."

"After hours of nothing!" Thalia's anger boiled, building a pressure behind her ears. "You didn't even pick up the phone!" 

"I was busy—"

"Uh huh. Busy with your brand new best friend Christina, getting fancy seafood and going out to bars."

"Only because I missed my flight! And it was a good excuse to get to actually see the city. I've been to Boston twice and I'd never left that hotel before."

"That reminds me. Why did you miss your flight?" Thalia paced a tiny path from the fridge to the couch and back again. Her ears roared; nervous heartbeats pounded blood erratically throughout her head. Her mouth was stampeding far ahead of her brain. "Up too late chatting with Christina? What did you tell her about me anyway?"

"That's not fair and you know it! I was working—I had reports to finish before I left! And I don't see what I have to say about you has to do with—"

"Whatever. I'm so sick of you expecting me to do everything around here while you," she paused to search for the right words. "While you just jet-set all over the country! You're here for what, two weeks at a time? And then you've got another fucking conference."

"It's not my fault you're such a homebody." Penny said this quietly, but it thundered in Thalia's head and reverberated for what felt like hours.

"Sure. Yeah." Thalia turned away. "My fucking bad for not wanting to sleep in a shitty hotel bed half of the year. Sorry I'm not adventurous enough for you or whatever."

"That's not—Thalia!" But she was already halfway to the bedroom. Penny flinched as the door slammed behind her.