Learning to Cope

Page 12

August:

There are a few water bottles at my feet on the floor of Andrew's car, there's a chain with a crystal hanging from his rearview and there's a book bag of clothes in the backseat. He's not as messy as I thought he would be. His car is small and my legs feel a bit cramped but it's still pretty comfortable.

Shit. I fell asleep. I wake up and hear...Is... this is my favorite song. Does he know my favorite song? Or is it a coincidence? "Turn this up" he reaches for the dial and raises the volume a bit. "Do you like this song?" he asks "yeah, it's my favorite actually" "really?" he turns the volume up a bit more. I'm half awake but I start singing along quietly, well 'singing' is a strong word, this song is more like rhythmically talking, not quite rap but I like it.

Almost as soon as the song ended I felt heavy again. I leaned my head against the window and dozed off again, I don't know why riding in a car makes me so sleepy, it makes road trips a pain. "Hey, August." Andrew is very gently nudging me. I yawn and sit up "we're here." "Thank you, I'm sorry I slept through the whole ride." I look out the window.

My apartment building is pretty tall but it looks its age. It's a gray building with lots of ornate details, it probably used to be beautiful but now it's really old and dirty and window shakers hang dangerously out of almost every window. It's the cheapest place to rent in the city, and it comes with furniture so... what can you expect?

"What floor do you live on?" I look at him confused. "You don't have to walk me to my apartment, it's fine." He gets out of the car and opens my door. What a dork. He helps me out of his car and it hurts like hell. "So? Where we goin?" I pause, I don't want to tell him, he'll worry. "I'm on the fifth floor." "okay!" he walks next to me just in case I need to lean on him. I don't know how he became so kind but he is practically a saint.

We walk into the lobby, the tile floor is cracked and broken in several places and the wallpaper is peeling on the walls, to our left is a stairwell and the wall next to it has dozens of small rusty golden mailboxes. "...where's the elevator?" I look at him and gesture to the stairs "no..." he gasps "you were gonna carry yourself up five flights of stairs on your own?" he looks so shocked, I chuckle.