They sometimes came in the morning, sometimes later in the day. Some calls even came in the evening, but those Quir flicked away decisively.

They were not a daily occurrence. Once a week, sometimes rarer - and always followed by a message when she did not pick up.

It was easier to reply to the messages than pick up the calls. Words on the screen allowed her to choose her mood and tone like picking an outfit for a date.

The words, the apology and the question were a staple like a dress. Her life events were accessories, carefully curated to not reveal too much but to make sure the connection between her and the caller did not shred over the repetitiveness of her replies.

Accessories like I got a dog, recently - from the shelter I work at.

Like a new pair of earrings.

Conri never asked for pictures. Kiril did, even when Kiril lived with Fenris and Quir and thus had an unlimited access to Fenris and his antics.

Quir was bad at taking and sending pictures, but for Kiril, she had made some exceptions. Sometimes she wondered whether she would make an exception for Conri, if he would ask.

I think I'm doing alright at the University was a different kind of accessory. Shoes, perhaps, more for function than decoration. A part of her had expected te calls to end when she had first told him about getting in the University. Conri had congratulated her, and expressed confusion - of course.

But the calls and messages had persisted.

Perhaps the four-year degree also served as a framework for him, like it did for her. Four years, and she would graduate.

(Four years, and she would move back.)

She had spent the first year waiting for something to happen, and the second year was not going much better. Graduating seemed far off enough to not warrant any immediate attention from her, such as thinking whether she actually would move back.

(As long as she did not examine the thought too closely, it seemed realistic. That she would move back, and everything would go back to how it used to be.)

Holding onto the messages was an expression of both love and selfishness. Love, because she had always loved Conri, and selfishness, because she was lonely. That loneliness made the thought of losing the messages she got every morning and evening close to unbearable.

So she implied. Not promises that could not be kept, nothing that would have counted as lying. Only empty in-betweens of lines she made appear plump and full of meaning.

I want to see you was true.

I miss home was true.

I miss you was also true, but in a way that made her feel like it was a promise - and so those words always got a suffix: -- and Iona.

Conri was more bold, but never to the point of crossing the invisible line between them. It had sat there for as long as Quir had realised Conri was a boy, who saw her as a girl.

I want to see you too. I could come visit, he would suggest every now and then.

This whole city feels emptier without you. Want to make a weekend trip? This he also suggested in many forms, every now and then. Not often enough to feel inquisitive, but often enough to make her feel like he cared.

He said this, too, and it was not a confession, but it felt like one.

It was similar to how she did not have a word for Kiril. A roommate. A friend. A partner in crime. None of those fully fit how Kiril made her feel.

How Kiril let her finish her sentences instead of talking over the ends she trailed off. How it felt like Kiril was always looking straight at her, keen, almost staring, instead of looking away, when she started to stutter. Indecipherable.

In her messages to Conri, Kiril was only ever her roommate.

The words she used for the two of them were as much for clarity as they were for her to hide behind. SImple and clean in meaning, so unlike her emotions behind them.

Kiril was her roommate, just like Nerion was her brother and Magpie was her friend.

Conri was her friend, too - a childhood friend, which was a siilar descriptive word as "roommate" was for Kiril. Clean, clear, crystal on the surface, only muddled waters beneath.

When everything felt too heavy, she daydreamed about picking up one of those calls. She imagined how Conri's voice would sound like; it had not changed, she had heard it briefly in a Christmas group call of her, Iona, Nerion and Conri. His voice was still warm and lively.

The memory of his voice and the possibility to pick up the phone - those were enough. She did not need to turn the possibility into a reality just yet.

In reality as soon as she would tell him everything, there would be questions. She no longer shivered and screamed inside a dark room, but she was still far away from having strength for questions.

That was why all of her longing went into the messages. Into the implications. Into how more than Conri, she loved and missed everything Conri represented - the past she had lost, the life she missed and wanted to slot back into like a misplaced puzzle piece.

Every word, love confessions to the past.

(Don't leave me alone.)

(Let me love you from this distance.)

(Things will go back to how they used to be, one day I promise.)

And so, days blurred into months.