Snowbound

| f o u r |

"This fucking game is garbage from the fucking toilet" I groaned tossing the dice onto the board and hitting all the pieces around.

Leory laughed. "You're still a sour loser I see" he said picking it up and tossing it in the air then catching it again. "Same old same old"

"Shut up. Monopoly just isn't fun with two people." I said throwing my head back. "Otherwise I'd own your ass"

"Well" Leroy burst out in laugher and I just stared at him confused until I realized.

"Not like that you idiot" I sighed, throwing one of my hotels at him. "Get your empty head out of the gutter"

"You're the one with your head in the gutter. I was thinking like you're white I'm black. You 'owning my ass' just isn't sitting right" he teased.

"That's even worse" I groaned. "And not like that either" I couldn't help but smile at him as he picked up the scattered pieces. "You're actually not half bad"

Leroy glanced up at me. "Yea, you too. Who knew all it took for us to get along was complete isolation from the rest of humanity until we're both driven mad by the boredom that we have to"

"Eh it's a bit extreme, but there's no denying it worked" I said shutting the Monopoly box and getting up from the rug. "How many more days do you think we're gonna be stuck here?"

"My bet is still on a week so about two more days"  he said sliding the game under the table. Right, it's been six days already.

"I'm going to be dead by then. Like no offence but I can't take anymore time in here" I said flopping back on the couch. "Is this what a mental hospital is like?"

"Um probably not. I'm sure you'll find out one day though" Leory said sitting beside me. "But it's honestly not the worst."

"I guess so, I mean I get to escape my family...not like they'd care" I titled my head to face him. "You're not much better either though"

He let out a small laugh and looked up at the ceiling. "Neither are you" he murmured, and we both just breathed out a laughed and sunk into silence "You know I do kind of miss this. Us"

I remained silent for a moment because deep down I felt the same. I just couldn't bring myself to say that out loud, because then things might go down a road we'll never be able to backtrack.

"I know. No talking about the past" Leroy sighed. "I just- man fuck this" he suddenly sat up and turned to me. "I think we should talk about it"

"That's a horrible idea, because you and I can never just 'talk about it' and you know this"

"Sure last time we tried it didn't go well, but let's be honest. We'll always have this at the back of our minds"

"And we can just ignore it like we have the past two years" I said crossing my legs. "See how great it's worked out so far?"

"I just can't take it anymore. I don't know about you, but I need closure. I want to know why what happened that night happened" Leroy said. "And I know you do too, but you have a fear of confrontation"

I sat up looking him in the eye. "I am not scared of confrontation" I snapped. "You're just not worth my time, because you did what you did. I choose to cut you off and it was a good decision"

"Ok tell me what I did, because as far as I'm concerned. You ditched me and I didn't do anything wrong to you" he was clearly trying to keep his voice calm.

I took a deep breath, reminding myself not to explode at him. "I only started ignoring you because I was in a place where I needed my best friend more than anything in the world, and he wasn't there. On one of the worst nights of my life you ditched me for your other friends"

"What the actual fuck are you talking about? How would I be there if you 'cut me off' Leroy asked getting up. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Of course I am, but you aren't listening to me" I said following him as he stormed into the kitchen.

"No you're not. And you're right, neither am I" Leory said filling a glass of water. "Our stories don't make sense and we haven't realized that because we're both blind listening"

"The fuck is blind listening? Does that make sense in your head?"

"Basically. You're 'listening' to what I'm saying but you're not actually letting it process and make sense. It's like in one ear and out the other" he said sipping from his cup. "And I'm doing the same"

"Ok so tell me." I said leaning against the counter and crossing my arms. "How do we do this? Because you won't let go of the idea that we can have a little therapy session and everything will be sunshine and rainbows again"

"It's not a therapy session. I'm just saying we should talk through our problems and try understand eachother in order to get along better" I just stared at him with a deadpan expression until he sighed in defeat. "Fine maybe it's a mini therapy session. Can you blame me? My dad is a therapist after all"

"Ok. I'll go along with this little idea of yours because a small part of me just wants to see where you're going with this," I said sitting on the counter.

"Well tell me exactly what you think happened that night, and I'll silently listen without interrupting. Then we'll switch and I'll tell you my account of it"

"Interrupt me once and I'm out of here" I said crossing my arms.

"I won't. I swear"

"I can't believe I'm doing this" I groaned. "Fine. For me it began the day of my dad's funeral..."