Collateral Damage

10

Audrey sat up and held herself, staring at the window once more. She leaned back, ordering Alexa to play one of her favorite songs. She sat in silence, somewhat shouting the theatric, melancholy scene she'd created for herself. Her phone glowed alerting her to a notification. She looked over at it, laying back with a heavy sigh. Everyone was quiet, no doubt getting ready for early classes. A few people roamed, drunk, stumbling toward their dorms.

She stood, shuffling toward her drawer, pulling out a cigarette. She'd liked to have said it was a metaphor, like that one guy from Fault in Our Stars. That she was better than that, but she wasn't. She wasn't better than anything. And somewhere inside she sometimes wished, she would light it, and her tired heart would stop, and she wouldn't have these late night thoughts anymore. But it hadn't happened yet, so she lit it up, letting it rest between her fingers, contemplating how bad it was for her already broken heart.

Wasn't it ironic she was born with a broken heart?

It was apt, after all, that she was born fractured. Finally, she put the cigarette to her lips, wincing as it mad contact, mucking her lungs, swaddling the room.

Someone's going to catch feelings. His words echoed in her ears. Were they genuine? Of course not. Alexander was a coward who just wanted to sleep well at night. Everything he did was performative, a little play he wrote for himself, so he could rest in his decency. Though she understood that, the beckoning wind, whispering in her ear: somebody just couldn't be ignored.

He was somebody.
Somebody.
At least she wasn't completely alone right? Even if his touch was empty even if all that was between then was a debt, even though she was just his pet project, guaranteed to be discarded...she had someone for a moment.

The night passed. The day blurred. And he was there again. Waiting as she came from his class. The desperate violence called love had surrounded her her whole life. He rolled his window down, a careless smirk on his face, the wind ruffling his hair.

"Gotta puppy in the back, you wanna see?"

She rolled her eyes, getting in. Alexander looked over at her, noting her silent demeanor.

It took her ages to realize she'd been standing alone, to be truthful. At first, she had her father, and though he didn't treat her well, he didn't treat her so badly that she couldn't delude herself into thinking he loved her.

"Hey?" He elbowed her. "You okay?"

She nodded, leaning on her hand. Watching the center blur. She had half a mind to ask him to start the night. It would backfire though, wouldn't it? Leaving her empty.

He slowed to a stop, and pulled over, stopping at a chili's parking lot. He sat there for a moment, his brows furrowed. Audrey was silent, not really having anything to say.

"I've realized, you're fairly young, and may not know much about hookup etiquette."

He opened the glove compartment. "There's a clean bill of health, and plan B."

Audrey rolled her eyes, something like shame settling under her skin. "Yeah whatever," she grumbled.

He was quiet. "I know this is...odd and probably a little embarrassing. But I need to see you take it."

Audrey stared at him in pure disbelief but sighed, relenting, scratching the water bottle from his hand and downing the pill. It settled in her stomach with discontented swirl of nausea.

It was clear he saw her some needy, unhinged, desperate kind of person, strung out on abandonment issues so desperate she'd try to conceive his child which only served to worsen her mood. Silence was a festering sore between them, and was usually filled with quips and insults.