Station 429

the night of foster

the night of foster

__________________________________________________________________

It did not surprise me when I saw Colleen coming in the next night to talk to Foster. I knew it would happen because of the conversation the night before. That's how I knew Colleen was starting to need the light Foster shed on Colleen's life.

Colleen didn't say anything; Foster didn't make playful remarks to her. They both weren't in a place to be joking around. Despite talking about what was on her mind, Colleen still felt slightly weighed down by her friend's absence. And Foster's memories of his dad were brought to the surface during the discussion, and he just couldn't shake the image of Colleen crying from his mind.

She sat down on the tracks next to him, but not close enough for their shoulders to touch, like the last time they both had suicide on their minds. They kept quiet for a bit. Colleen welcomed the feeling of the cold nipping at her nose, and Foster thought about how he wanted Colleen to come closer to him and warm his outside as well as his inside.

His thoughts about her were beginning to worry him, but he didn't want to fight it.

"Can we talk about your dad?" Colleen asked bluntly. "Or is that off limits?"

It looked as if Foster didn't hear, but he without a doubt heard her question. He normally would have shot that type of question down, but Colleen always made Foster do irrational things, so he said, "Sure, we can."

"How did he kill himself?"

Colleen knew it was an awfully morbid question to ask, but she wanted to know. She wanted to see if his dad was like her friends.

"He hanged himself," Foster responded, not taking his eyes away from the ceiling, "in his closet."

Colleen winced slightly at the word, unintentionally of course. Even after a year, she wasn't completely used to these types of conversations. Sure, she was good with the surface stuff- like condolences and talking about suicide notes- but the bigger stuff was hard for her to handle.

"What about Naomi and Hope?" Foster asked, looking down at her.

Colleen nodded a little, expecting the question. "Naomi drove her car into a ditch. Hope overdosed on pills."

"Jesus," Foster breathed out. He ruffled a hand through his hair. "She crashed her car on purpose?" he repeated, slightly shocked at how brutal that must have been for her.

"She got drunk first, so it probably wasn't as bad."

"Still."

They fell into silence again. A brisk breeze floated through the station, and the movement of tree branches could be heard outside along with scattered leaves on the ground. From the outside, it probably looked like a peaceful moment between two friends, possibly lovers. But in reality, it was a moment full of question and hurt. It was sad for me to watch.

"I found him," Foster murmured absently, speaking his thoughts out loud. He had never told anyone about that, not even Misty, so when I heard those words from him, it was surprising. It was even more shocking was how he kept talking when Colleen questioned him.

"What?"

"I found him," he repeated, a little louder this time, "my dad, in the closet. I was the one who found him."

"Holy shit," Colleen muttered, looking down and putting her head in her hands. She couldn't fathom the idea of finding Naomi on the side of the road, or Hope on her bathroom floor. The mere thought of it sent her head spinning.

She collected herself enough to look up at him, but didn't have any words to say, really. The only thing she wanted was to be close to him, comfort him that way, so she scooted over to him and leaned against his left side.

When Foster realized what she was doing, he moved his left hand behind her back and planted it on the hard ground. When her body touched his, his breath caught a little, but he decided that it was good for him to feel like that. To feel anything at all was a step up from being completely numb.

Foster felt Colleen's shoulders begin to jerk up and down just barely against his chest, so he looked down at her. "Colleen?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said, beginning to furiously wipe away the tears on her cheeks, but they kept coming anyway. "I just can't stop thinking about them after last night, what Hope wrote in her letter. It just tears me apart and-"

"Hey, hey, hold on," Foster interrupted, causing Colleen to look at him and stop her mindless rambling. "Now, what did Hope write in her letter?"

She took a deep breath and composed herself just enough to form a sentence that could mean something to Foster. "She kept apologizing. Like, every other line she said 'I'm sorry', and she shouldn't have been the one saying sorry. It should have been us. We're the ones who didn't see what she was going through- we didn't do anything to help her feel like she wasn't alone."

Foster instantly shook his head. "You can't put that on yourself."

"It just hurts to know that she felt so trapped and so alone that she thought the only way out was to not be here anymore."

Colleen had stopped crying at that point, which was helping Foster regain his bearings. "She wouldn't have wanted you to feel this way, Coleen. Neither of them would have," he said to her. He mindlessly reached his hand up to wipe away the tears she had missed. Colleen watched as he did so, eyes focused on his black gloves that only covered half of his fingers. "They would have wanted you to live the life they couldn't."

"That's a big weight to carry," she said.

"It is," he agreed. "And it's not fair of them to do that, but we have to continue their story. Otherwise, they'll really be dead, and that's a heavier burden to carry around."

Colleen buried her head a little more into the crook of Foster's arm and sighed. "I'm just waiting for it to get easier, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"It does get easier, right?"

"It does," he assured her, "with time."

__________________________________________________________________

dedicated to lydia (@justlyd) for her awesome writing.

song is wish you were here by hey monday.

let me know if you liked this chapter (even though it was extremely heavy omg).

-abby xx