𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭, cobain

five.

          I SLEPT IN too late. The resonance of my Pixies vinyl reverberated around my room, which I had forgotten to turn off the previous night. I felt a small, pointy object digging into my back, and I flipped over to retrieve the offender—an uncapped pen I had equipped during the late moments I spent drafting a letter to reply to my mother. My notepad was strewn at the foot of my bed, its warped pages sloping between the crack of my footboard and my mattress. As I rose from my bed, I spotted the messy residue of the ink from the pen bleeding into my white nightgown and onto my sheets.

The crimson numbers on my alarm clock flickered the time, one-thirty-two. I grumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I hadn't laid my head on my pillow until the day dawned.

"Erin!" yelled my father, flinging open my door with such force that the doorknob smacked against the wall.

I sat up. "What, what?!"

"You were supposed to be at campus hours ago."

I wavered, registering his comment in my weary mind. "Oh, fuck." I flung the sheets off my legs in a wild scramble and darted to my bathroom. "You didn't wake me up?"

"I just came home," he argued, anger visible on his face. "I expected an adult to take care of her own affairs."

"Shit, shit shit," I muttered in a daze, shoving my toothbrush in my mouth and hurriedly scrubbing. "Will you give me a ride? I don't have time to wait for the bus." Specks of toothpaste flew out of my mouth as I spoke.

My request was futile, as he had already gone downstairs. I groaned loudly, hawking and spitting the toothpaste into the basin. Racing against time, I patted down my wild bed-teased hair and slid a wand of mascara through my eyelashes. I figured I'd have to arrive on campus in my revealing, lace nightgown as there was no time to rummage through my drawers and find suitable attire, so I slung on a coat while I slapped on some lipstick, slipped my bare feet into sandals, and scurried out the front door.

When I stepped onto the pavement of my driveway, the sunlight snaked around me in a sheath-like warmth, forcing my eyes into a narrow squint as I hurried for the bus stop.

"Erin?"

I glanced in the direction of the voice, catching sight of Kurt in his car, idling at a stop sign on the corner of the street. I hastened my pace and hurdled toward him, his unlocked passenger-side door like a silent ally amidst my chaos as I invited myself into his car.

He stared at me in bewilderment. "What are you doing?"

"I need a ride to campus," I said breathlessly, buckling myself. "University of Washington. Drive!"

"Okay, okay." He squared his chiseled jaw and pressed his foot against the gas pedal.

"I'm such an idiot." I immersed my head into my hands, groaning. "How could I forget I had orientation today?"

"So, you're late to your orientation and this is somehow my problem?"

I let out a long, heavy breath. "Well, you're driving me, aren't you? Saved by the rock star."

"Yeah, we're real busy, you know?" he joked. "I'd be putting a lot on hold here to take you to UW." Two cups of coffee housed in the coasters of his Volvo jostled and jolted with every pothole the car flung into, its aroma fighting for ascendency over the murky scent of cigarettes. He indicated one cup with his chin. "Want one? Three sugars."

"Why do you have two?" I asked, enveloping my fingers around the cup, its warmth seeping into the palm of my hand.

"One was for Courtney, but she said she already made coffee at home."