Skylar caught herself staring out the window towards the courtyard below. The beige walls that couldn't decide if they were terra cotta or just painted concrete glowed harshly in the hot, summer evening. The dead tree in the center of the shared patio below rattled as two kids played tag around it, the runner faking left or right while the chaser gripped the thin, brittle trunk, looking to gain a boost from it once their prey finally chose a direction. Skylar tried to smile at the image, but the melancholy of the afternoon was too heavy for her.
It had only been a year since she had moved to this part of the city, three months since she had moved in with Robbie. At the time it had been an exciting decision. Her first time feeling attached to someone enough to tether her life to theirs. It had flown in the face of what she had always thought about herself, that she would be happier living on her own, free to be a nomad in life, wandering from home to home, experiencing every different walk of life she could. Settling down with anyone else was contradictory to this. When she had agreed to move in with Robbie, she had acknowledged that fact to herself, but had subsequently told herself that it was different now that she felt the way she did about Robbie.
He had been such a cool presence in her life. A laid-back junior programmer at a small tech company in town had such a put-together sound to it. He had a steady job that, though it didn't pay as much as one would like in the tech field, at least paid consistently, much like her vocation at the smoothie shop she still worked at. On top of that, he was a skater on the side, living out a strangely out-of-place hobby roughly three decades too late, making videos to post online that would have looked better on a bootleg tape in the 90's alongside the likes of Tony Hawk or Rodney Mullen. He was a man transposed from one decade into another and Skylar couldn't get enough.
She had loved going out with him to the skate parks and watching him with his buddies while she sat and cheered along with the other watchers. That was how she had met him, in fact. One day while walking home to her own studio apartment she had seen the gang out at the park and decided to stop and watch. She supposed it was her own punk vibe, with a pixie-cut that changed colors every few weeks that caught Robbie's eyes. That and her general attractiveness didn't hurt. Skylar tried not to let her own good fortune get to her head, but she knew it was pointless to deny that her petite frame, which she kept fit through cycling and generally keeping herself out and about, with tanned skin, kept that way through secret bouts of topless sunbathing on the roof of her apartment, was a natural gift when it came to catching an eye or more from people she passed.
Regardless of the reason, on the third day of watching the skaters, Robbie was the first to come over to her and introduce himself. Skylar was smitten quickly by his persona, which seemed far less eager to impress than the rest of the guys and girls at the park. They may all act like they don't care, but Robbie had a way of showing that it was true while the others only showed that their actions and drive for attention didn't match their words of saying they had nothing to prove.
Talking turned to dating, which then turned to staying over at one-another's places, and finally evolved into Skylar leaving her dingy and tiny apartment to join Robbie in his dingy and slightly less tiny apartment. It had all been an exciting rush for Skylar. One that she had ridden for the few months they had been living together.
But time rapidly started to take a toll on Skylar as the monotony of being tied down began to reveal itself in full to her. Robbie's unique schedule of working when he wanted to and skating the rest of the time had been fun and exciting for a while. There was always a lack of clarity to when the next time they would be together would be, given Skylar's ever adjusting shift work at the smoothie shop and Robbie's wanton disregard for clocks. Each day, Skylar would wake up and wonder if Robbie would be awake at all by the time she left for work. And if he did awaken before she left, would it be as she was walking out the door, or with hours for them to spend together first? It was all unsure and each night when they were in bed, there was an excitement about what the next day would bring.
But soon even that began to fall into a pattern. Robbie would cycle through moods of working late or working early, always fitting it in around his plans with the skate crew about where and when they wanted to go out. Though Skylar admired that Robbie was a man willing to do what he wanted, where, and when he wanted, it started to become difficult to feel that there was a proper relationship at all.
There wasn't an immaturity about Robbie. Of all his friends, he was the cleanest cut, often looking out of place with his standard male business hair and tendency to wear well-fitting jeans with a flannel or just a t-shirt, depending on the weather. And he always got his work done. There was never a fear between the two of them whether the bills would get paid or not.
But despite all of that, Skylar noticed the trend that the time they spent together was relegated to three times and places: in the mornings when they were both awake and home, in the evenings, when they were both awake and home, and when Skylar had time and energy to follow Robbie out to the skate parks. There were no dates, no shared activities, no meaningful conversations. Simply coexisting with Skylar feeling like she either had to keep up with Robbie or recognize that she wouldn't be seeing him.
It was confusing to Skylar. As she sat there, gazing out the window, she couldn't exactly point out anything that either of them was doing wrong. They both said the nice things couples should say to each other. They were supportive and didn't argue with one another. Neither was cheating or keeping secrets, as far as Skylar could tell. In the bedroom they were incredibly compatible. On paper, everything should have been stellar. But it all somehow felt wrong.
Over the past couple weeks, Skylar had started to notice the magic of it all wearing off. Her excitement about watching Robbie skate was gone, replaced with a more mundane sense of not having anything better to do. What few conversations they had had grown smaller and more routine, relegated simply to asking what the other wanted to eat, or who should shower first based on the day's work schedules. The excitement she had felt whenever he made it home in the evenings had become a more measured recognition of his return. Skylar wouldn't have used the word tedious about it, but she could feel herself having to try harder to find the same happiness that she had so easily fallen backwards into three months ago.
A rattle of keys and a series of clicks at the door brought Skylar's attention back to the present. A measured recognition filled her as Robbie opened the door to the apartment.
Skylar quickly closed her laptop, which had been sitting on the coffee table with the different apartment websites still open and showing what studio options they had available.
"Hey babe, you're home earlier than you thought." Skylar called as she stood up to walk towards the door and greet Robbie dutifully.
Robbie smiled as he set his work bag on the kitchen counter and leaned in to give Skylar a peck on the lips. "Yeah! Turns out the other teams weren't ready with their shares of the project we were all working on so mine gets the next couple days on easy street while they catch up! It's a nice day so I figured I'd head home to do something fun."
