PERFECT PLACES

Cole (11)

He could hear someone talking in the room as he approached the door. He knocked, and the voice went quiet.

Jonathan half-opened the door and peeked his head out. He was unshaven, in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

"Oh, hi Cole, what's up man! I haven't seen you since the party." Half of his body was behind the door, like he actually wasn't excited to see Cole. Like he was annoyed that someone had come to his room without notice.

"Hey man, I just heard from Sam that you and Jessica broke up recently. I didn't know you guys started dating after the party but I wanted to make sure you've been doing okay?"

"Oh yeah man, it's been ok. It wasn't a bad break-up or anything, it was just a quiet conversation. I've been a bit lonely since it happened but I'm alright."

"Are you sure? You look..... like you haven't been outside in years" Cole said, jokingly. He didn't want to offend his friend, but he could tell that he was out of sorts. Jonathan would have been found dead looking unshaven like this in highschool. He had always been a very nervous person who kept his hair slicked back and his face clean.

"Yeah I've been taking some time off from going out and stuff just to figure out where to go from here, you know? Some shit happened to me and it has only been four months. Thought I would slow things down a little bit."

"Do you mind if I come in man? We could catch up, and maybe we can get you some fresh air?"

As he said that, Cole caught a look on Jonathan's face that was indistinguishable. It had only revealed itself for a quarter of a second, but Cole had noticed it. It was fear. Jonathan did not at all want Cole to come in.

"I.....uh..........um.............sure man. Yeah, yeah I would love to catch up. Do you... want to...like....walk down by the water or something? My room is kinda messy"

"Meh, I was down there last night and I'm kind of sick of it. Dude, I know your level of messy and you are totally exaggerating right now."

Cole nudged Jonathan's door a bit to motion to go in. Not in an aggressive way, but to let his friend know that a little bit of mess didn't bother him. As he did this, Jonathan grabbed the edge of the door quickly and held it firmly in place. Out of instinct, he had put his foot behind it to make sure Cole wasn't able to get in.

"If you want to see messy, like ACTUALLY messy, you should come see MY room."

Cole made a deliberate move to open the door now by grabbing the doorknob. Jonathan didn't resist this time, it would have been too obvious that he was desperate to keep it to himself. Cole knew he was being a bit aggressive, but he had a bad feeling about Jonathan. He seemed very off.

"There's dirty plates all over the counter at my place, and clothes on the ..."

Cole looked up into Jonathan's room. At the back of the room, dozens of pizza boxes and styrofoam containers were stacked unevenly against the wall. He looked over to Jonathan's bed, where he saw three bags of chips and some unmade sheets. There was only one pillow and it didn't have a pillow case on it. He looked over to Jonathan's desk and saw only his laptop. No lights were on. There was a pile of clothes in the corner, about three feet high. The room was messy, especially considering Jonathan's usual standards. The worst part was the smell: it was a strong mixture of body odour and stale pizza. It engulfed Cole as he walked into the middle of the room and spun around slowly. Jonathan had noticed that Cole was inspecting the room.

"I......I know.......I know it's gross man. I just haven't felt like doing any chores at all, you know? I'm even too lazy to bring the pizza boxes down to the recycling. I've just been.... Chilling."

"No worries man, I get it. Life just gets in the way when you're bummed out, I totally get it. How....how did you pay for all this food?"

"Parents gave me some money at the beginning of the year to buy some extra stuff. I've been too lazy to go down to the cafeteria for that shitty cardboard pizza, so I've just been ordering it a lot here. I sometimes get sushi too, if I get sick of it...."

Cole wondered how Jessica had hurt him this badly in such a short period of time. It obviously hadn't been a normal break-up, at least not from Jonathan's perspective. Cole remembered that Jonathan hadn't had any girlfriends in high school. Cole had just guessed that he wasn't interested in anyone back then. He was a good looking guy, when he was clean shaven, but he had never put himself out there. He had always been pretty shy. Maybe Jessica had been his first crush, and he just didn't know what it felt like to be dumped.

"Hey man, I know you're just chilling, and I believe you, but we gotta get this girl out of your head! How long did you two date, like eight weeks? Nothing a few beers and a few months can't fix. Why don't we take these boxes down together to the recycling?"

"No, it's fine man, you don't have to do that. I'll do it later today. You're right, they're kinda gross. But I think going up and down the stairs would be some good exercise."

"You sure?"

"Seriously man, I'm good!"

"Alright, fair enough. Well we at least need to get that girl out of your head! There's hundreds just like her at this place. It's fucking college man! There's gonna be a hundred more parties just like the one you met her at, you'll have tons of chances to find someone new. Trust me, it'll get better. You can't think about her for the rest of your first year here! You still have six more months to flip this around. Why don't we try to erase her from your memory this weekend! We can go out and see what else is out there for you!"

"...............Yeah.......okay. I'll think about it, not sure if I'm up for that yet. But that's a good idea."

"Oh c'mon man! I promise you'll feel better!"

"For sure, I'll let you know. Just text me when you're going out okay? I'll have to think about it a bit first."

"Okay, fine. You don't have to come out just yet, but I promise you it would be good for you! Anyway, if you're not gonna let me take you out to get a little fucked up, at least let me do for you what every sane person should do after a break-up. You got any photos saved of Jessica?"

"Uh, yeah, probably have a few. Why?"

"We gotta wipe those man! Those are toxic and just bring up feelings you do not need right now. Tell you what, give me your password and you don't even have to do anything. Give me a shot at your photos album and it'll be like she never...."

Cole had sat down at Jonathan's desk and opened up his laptop to get started. On the keys of the laptop there was a small bunch of papers stabled together. Cole picked it up in his hands. He guessed that Jonathan had hidden the papers in there on purpose: no one ever shut their laptop on their school work like that. He guessed that Jonathan did not want him to see whatever this document was, and that he had probably hidden it as soon as Cole had knocked on his door. So Cole read the words on the first page as quickly as possible, before Jonathan reacted and took the sheets from his hands or told him not to read it.

"Dear Mom and Dad and Julia" it said at the top. It was a hand-written letter.

"I didn't want it to end like this, but it was the only way. I hope that you don't have to come into the room and see me. I hope someone else gives you this letter and just tells you what happened.

First of all, I'm am so, so sorry. You were always amazing parents, and Julia you were a wonderful sister. But I'm going to explain in this letter why I had to do it, and explain that my pain was too burdensome to keep going. I know I will cause you a lot of pain...."

Jonathan grabbed the letter forcefully from his hands before Cole could read any more.