I packed the last six month's possessions into two plaid plastic bags from china. Vanessa's teaching a summer intensive course so she's gone from 8am to 2pm, as I learned today. I'm incapable of remembering any part of her schedule that does not mirror mine, so I have to leave myself notes about it.
I have one next to me that reads "Vanessa will be home at 2pm if she walks on foot."
As the date of my departure inches closer, the mood around our house is a little bit more emotional than usual. Recently it's been me trying to micro-manage the other two. Who follow no discernable linear thought but who are more 'emotionally available' than myself. We spend most of our time fighting over the computer and colloquial english. Tonight Vanessa went out with our Japanese friends to the hammam, which I am banned from till I finish my period. So Latifa and I stayed home to finish the dinner I had started five hours prior.
It took me all day to make fried chicken. At about 10am I googled "chicken strips". The first link led me to something with the words "beer-batter-chicken". An obvious choice. A moment later I settled onthe very second recipe I looked at which was "something-about-honey-cayenne". I didnt even start dissembling the chicken till around five and then there was the de-boning, salt-cleaning, marinating, and eventual knifing, then I had to take a shower. I home-fashioned some bread crumbs (utilizing the mortar and pestle) and substituted leben for buttermilk and vinegar for cider. Who knew, it turned out magnificent. Though Latifa complained that I wouldn't start cooking until she fiegned starvation. Which is true.
I, terrified of the spitting hot oil, instructed Latifa to stay out of the kitchen while I experimented with throwing battered and breaded chicken into the pan from about three feet away. I changed my approach after I got hot oil everywhere. We ate fried chicken, potatoes and watermelon in the kitchen and talked about how much we love our moms, then she went home to hers.

I got caught up in the moment trying to explain to a friend in the states the nature of Latifa and how her life is going to change when Vanessa and I leave. Surely mine will change too, Vanessa's going to Amsterdam for a solid two years, I'm returning to Chicago to work more for less and Latifa will stay here and return to whatever she did before we gave her keys.
What did she do? I've thought about it a lot. I have been to her house and met her family, I have met her boyfriend and a few of her friends. Sometimes she gives me rides on her motorbike and she has a sing-song voice. But I don't know what she did before us. She doesn't listen to or read anything before blurting out a question about the topic sentence and she is almost impossible to anger. She gets mad, but not really. Basically, I've spent almost as much time trying to get her and Vanessa to leave me alone as I've spent eavesdropping on them. Like the time I went upstairs to read and they too went up stairs, to make gnoua music for me. My life is mostly like that. I am butchering her personality, I do her no justice....I have a video of us acting out what it would be like to make out with birds. That might do it.

I got all cried-up and went into Vanessa's room to a)let her know I'll miss her and b)see what she was doing. Then I messaged Latifa about it, expecting a mildly empathetic but sarcastically motivated response. Here is what I got:
"Plz baby dont i cant see u crying and i bet u're strong than this and u should know that i love you whereever u are sweetheart and u'v no idea how much i'll miss you"
Then I was like, "Dog, I am crying MORE now."
And she writes: "u're the best and by the way i'll miss ur other face and the way you made chekin today and how many hours you took believe me when i say i love your talkative mouth"

She's been making fun of "the face" I make all the time, which, combined with this comment, means I have two faces total. Thank you, Latifa, for bringing this to my attention.