Black Smoke

Celease

When I looked at her, I saw someone who was the friendly type; the kind of person who'd visit random patients just to tell them good morning and such.

"My roommate?" I asked, forcing myself not to sound rude.

"Of course!" She answered back with a small smile. "Don't get me wrong. The minute I saw you, I thought you looked like shit." She giggled, her eyes squinting. "No offense."

"Taken, actually," I replied quickly, doing my best to stay optimistic. A roommate?

She gave a nod and started for her bed just in the other half of the room. "So, who were they?"

"Hm?"

"The guys who beat you up," She clarified, observing my pained expression. "Unless you got in a fight with your ex and her girlfriends all put in their opinion." She stifled a laugh. "Don't worry, I already know one guy who's in here for that exact reason. Except they caught him talking to another girl and, well, you get the idea."

I raised a brow. "What are you-"

"Oh my gosh, kid, why are you in here?" She interrupted. "Haven't you ever had a conversation with someone before? Throw me a bone here, it's been so quiet in here before you arrived."

I saw why, too. My head throbbed from having to socialize. That probably wasn't the actual reason why, but I'd like to think it was. For my sake. "Do you always talk this much?" 

She shot a big grin my way. "Oooh, brooding. I like that. It's always guys like you that are the most fun. You know, you create this shell so no one can break it and get to know the real you, except someone does happen to come along and break it bit by bit. It usually works in those high school romance books I used to read when I was a freshman in high school, but just so we're clear? That's not the scenario for us." The four seconds of silence following this was all that I would gladly remember from this interaction. Or so I hoped. "You do look like you got the snot beat out of you though. Am I close? Was it a family thing? The holidays are right around the corner after all, and-"

"I don't know who they were," I interrupted quickly, hoping it would buy time to not have her voice food my eardrums. "I didn't see them very well."

"Obviously not, I mean, just look at you. They didn't give you a chance to blink I bet!"

I glared at her, although in my condition, I doubt she caught on.

"So, what'd you do?"

"What?"

She scoffed, rolling her eyes playfully. "Oh come on! I'm not saying you're immediately at fault- innocent until proven guilty, right? But I mean- you don't just randomly get jumped. People don't just come out of nowhere and start hitting you for no reason. So what was the reason? Loan sharks? Longtime vendetta?" She suddenly gasped. "Were you being scandalous?" 

I shrugged, scrunching my face in confusion. "Your imagination seems to be your best trait, so I'll let that answer whatever questions you have for me. The endless questions."

"Zayden, come on, pal. You can tell me. I won't snitch."

I narrowed my gaze. "I didn't do-"

"Did you hit on one of their girlfriends?" She asked, tapping her chin while thinking. "Hm, jumping means more I'm sure. Maybe you talked trash about them? Said something cruel and they heard about it all? Maybe they knew-"

"Again- do you usually talk this much? Because if so, I'll be requesting for a different room."

She laughed softly, thinking I picked up her sense of humor.
"Geez, lighten up! I'm just trying to have a decent conversation with someone other than myself for once. Trust me, I'll be out of here in no time."