Fragile Little Things ?

03 hiding

On the fourth Tuesday, he didn’t show up.

I hadn’t realized just how much of a constant the stranger was becoming until he’d fallen out of his routine. At 7.45, there was still no sign of him. I swapped places with Mae, who yelled at me from the storeroom while packing deliveries.

“Indigo, why do you look like someone’s killed your cat?”

Her voice distracted me from the unsettling ache between my ribs. “I don’t have a cat.”

“Well if you did have one, and someone killed it, you’d be in the exact depressive state you’re in now.”

“Why would someone kill my cat?”

“Indigo darling, you’re missing the point here.”

“The point?”

Mae wiped her soiled hands on the front of her apron, walking over to me. “You, my sweet friend, are sexually repressed.”

I made a face. “What?”

“How long has it been since—”

“Mae, my mood has nothing to do with—”

“HA! So you admit you’ve been in a shitty mood lately?”

I paused for a second. Had I really been so transparent? Now that I actually thought about it, I had been getting tired and numb of my day to day life.

I’d even gotten bored of mindlessly scrolling through my phone.

The most exciting thing to happen to me this week was my anatomy test.

My life was, for lack of a better word …lame.

This was particularly bad when you considered that I lived in one of the world’s busiest cities. There was never really an excuse to be bored in New York. I glanced at Mae. “I admit I have been…inactive.”

Her eyes lit up.

Mine widened. “Wait! I didn’t mean sexually!”

She laughed. Then paused, looking at me as if to ask ‘so are you?’.

 I huffed a breath. “You know what I mean. I haven’t been with anyone since…” I sighed. “Mae, what do you want?”

“We just finished an anatomy test, no?”

“…Yes. So?”

“Let’s get wasted!”

I smiled. “Mae, no.”

“Mae yes!”

A chuckle escaped my lips. Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed a bit of alcohol in my system. To feel something other than the emotional equivalent of TV static.

“Alright. When?”

“Tonight. Delta Phi—”

I sighed. Not another frat party. The last one she’d dragged me to, someone threw up on me and I almost broke my arm.

“Oh come on.” She waved a dismissive hand. “They’re not that bad. Besides, I heard they’re not diluting their stuff. And it’s free.”

Right. Free booze was currency amongst broke college students. But going to Delta Phi would mean bumping into familiar faces. And to be honest, I didn’t really want to see anyone from campus while drunk.

But one look at Mae’s pensive expression amplified that dull ache at my chest and I decided, what the heck. It was now or never. I wasn’t about to spend another night falling asleep to Netflix or studying.