PERFECT PLACES

Cole (8)

"YOU'RE FUCKING KIDDING ME!"

Cole's eyes were facing the carpet.

"You better be joking Cole, you are fucking joking. Please tell me you are joking."

"Sarah, you know me too well. I can't pretend to be stoned right now. Do I look stoned to you?"

He looked up suddenly, staring straight at her, wide-eyed.

She looked at him for a long time. She stared straight into his pupils. Then she looked down at his leg, tapping incessantly.

Then she plunged her face into her pillow and started crying uncontrollably. Cole could hear her sobbing loudly. He sat there, tapping his foot, listening to her for a few minutes. Then, Sarah sat up on her knees, picked up her pillow, and screamed into it at the top of her lungs. As her voice emptied entirely into the fabric, her torso flailed from side to side.

Cole watched her for another five minutes like this. He was too high to even move around the room normally and he did not have even the slightest clue of what to do. He didn't speak to her, he didn't try to calm her down. He didn't know how he could even start to think of a way to calm her down. After five minutes of crying, Sarah looked up at him again with puffy eyes.

"YOU COULD FUCKING DIE COLE, YOU KNOW THAT? DON'T FUCKING TELL ME YOU'VE DONE THIS BEFORE, THIS BETTER HAVE BE YOUR FIRST TIME. I NEVER THOUGHT YOU WOULD EVER DO THIS TO ME!"

She was screaming into the room now.

"Do this to you? I did this to myself girl, I didn't do anything to you! What do you mean TO YOU?"

"I CAN"T FUCKING SLEEP YOU ASSHOLE! I WARNED YOU! I'M ABOUT TO HAVE A FUCKING PANIC ATTACK BECAUSE I CAN'T SLEEP AND YOU'RE FUCKED UP!"

Cole sighed.

"I did it the first night here, and I've been trying to tell you that ever since you got back. I've felt guilty for every second."

"Then why the FUCK did you DO IT AGAIN!!"

The last words came out as a screech, as if Sarah's vocal box had given up. She was out of things to say already. He was only making her angrier as he revealed more of the truth to her. She couldn't look at him even one more time. It was too overwhelming. She felt like she could panic at any moment.

Another few minutes passed and Sarah was mostly quiet. Her body was shaking silently. Then, with her eyes staring at the wall, she said with a trembling voice, "You know what Cole, go back to your residence. I'm done with you. I'm done. I have nothing to say to you, I'm too tired to yell at you more. I've been trying to get to sleep for the past five hours and I feel like I'm going crazy. I don't know what I'm going to do, I am probably going to stay up all night now and freak out. Go the fuck home, don't even say another word to me. I don't want to see you tomorrow either. I'm not gonna do well tonight, it's going to be really, really bad. I'll definitely be sleeping all day tomorrow and I sure as hell don't want to see you any time soon. Go home and be high by yourself, or go back to the club and do some more lines of coke with your new best friends. I don't fucking care."

She quickly grabbed him by the arm and brought him to the door without looking up at him. She pushed him out of the room, closed the door, and locked it.

"..................Sarah...c'mon girl...............let me back in..."

Her body slid down along the inside of the door until she was sitting on the floor. She started crying again with her head between her legs.

Cole knocked and knocked on her door for the next half an hour. But she didn't move. She continued to sit against the door with her eyes closed, tears streaming down her face. She plugged her ears the entire time and shook her head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

After half an hour, Sarah's next-door roommate opened her door and told Cole to stop knocking.

And like that, he was walking down the hall to the closest staircase to leave.