Alone at Six

The smell was the first thing that hit me. A mixture of candles, something like a library, and a oddly sweet smell I couldn't place all mixed. It traveled a little ways down the hall and was strangely pleasant, maybe even welcoming.

Then you catch sight of inside her room and understand why.

Three full sized, old fashion book shelves were squished side-by-side in one wall, every space taken up by books except for a small space in the middle where a purple bared cage sat. There were so many books that they began to pile on the floor in huge, teetering stacks next to the shelves.

Across the room pushed into one corner was a bed with brown sheets mixed matched with green pillow cases and a sort of parquet designed gray comforter. A big green bear sat atop a body pillow looking worn and broken, like a limp, dead body.

Above the bed was a CD player with cords snaking out to different speakers in different places of the room. Hanging above was a mesh-like black net hung from the ceiling with animals of all different shapes and sizes. Along with that there were different kinds of shoes hung to the ceiling and walls and poster boards with quotes tacked up with them.

A small stand held a TV that looked dusted by disuse stood next to the door. Across from which was a old brown dresser with different types of lotion and candles scattered across the top. A jewelry box panted red to obviously cover up the original polka dots threatened to tip onto the small shelf of new candles below. Empty candle jars that flooded onto the floor and built up into a carefully structured towers had faint color shining through the open window behind it.

Only a patch of the light blue wall was visible over the handmade and store bought posters and bumper stickers hanging. There were dart boards, chains, and up-side-down dead flowers there too, pined over it all. I smirked triumphantly when I noticed a Black Veil Brides' poster pined over Tokio Hotel and Common posters.

But her CD collection amazed me the most. Row after row of shelvs were hung on the wall, filled with CDs to what seemed like no end. As I walked over to examine it closer, I saw it was in alphabetical order starring with The Academy Is.

The familiar tune of Alkaline Trio's Calling All Skeletons surrounded me as I found the CD case and was about to pull it out to refresh my memory on what was on it.

"Andy!" Cole's call of distress stopped me and I flung around to see what unlucky bastard had slipped through the window only to find a lonely Cole with a hand over her chest, as if she'd seen a ghost. I relaxed as Cole let out a sign of relief. "Your hands are still blood covered."

She was right of course and I made sure to look and not touch anything as she went through the bottom drawer of her dresser. She came out with a striped white washcloth and a clear bottle with some sort of clear liquid in it. Dampening part of the cloth with the liquid, she told me to pull down my lip.

"This isn't going to kill me, is it?" I joked.

"Can stinging kill you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well I'll say something nice at your funeral."

As I smiled I could feel my lip pull apart where it had been cut. Cole's head not only split it in the center but had somehow managed to make every single tooth make deep cuts in my lip.

"Silent a second." She said as she gently pulled my lip down and started wiping over every cut, slow and efficient. It stung like hell and I normally would have resisted, but kept still for her touch and leaned down so she could get off of her tiptoes.

She was quiet and didn't even seemed phased by the familiar screams coming from outside of the window. Her eyebrows was serious, like this was life threatening; hands calm, like she'd done this a thousand times; eyes worried, like she knew she would mess up; and mouth open in a dazed way with her tongue darting rapidly through it, like she was having a conversation with no one.

I also noticed a bit of color bouncing around with her tongue. A piece of candy would have fallen out by now and anything like a marble was to big. Without thinking I reached out to her, took her chin, tilted her head up and pulled her chin down so her mouth was about halfway open.

Realizing what I did, I quickly asked a question before she did, rather difficultly with her hand still pulling on my lip. "Cole, you have your tongue pierced?" As I let go I realized that my fingers had gotten blood on her.

"Uh, yeah." She said before sticking it out. "It was a fifteenth birthday present from my dad. He said no to the eyebrow piercing, Snake bites, Angle bites, and labret. This is the only thing he agreed to."

"I think you'd look good with any of them. But you're really pretty without them, they'd get in the way of the whole natural pretty look you have." My thoughts came out of my mouth before I had a chance to filter them, my mind beginning to race with excuses. But none good enough came to mind quick enough."Uh, I kinda got something on you, right there...."

With my mind racing, I hadn't noticed Cole's face which has turned a slight shade of red but still far from the color of blood. "Uh, Thanks Andrew. Here, look down and let me fix your nose." She said the words uneven and quick, the bashful expression clear on her face.

She cleaned my nose in silence but a faint smile played on her pulled in lips, like a shy kindergartner that was told they were nice by the boy that borrowed her crayons. Come to think of it, she look like a little kid a lot of the time, especially when she smiled. Her cheeks were so big they pushed her eyes slightly closed, I could only imagine what would happen if she smiled wide enough.

"There." She said and let go.

"What, no band aid?"

"Sorry, I think your saliva might destroy it. How about a lollipop?"

"Grape please." Totally thinking she was kidding, I laughed as she pulled a grape lollipop out of the bottom dresser drawer. "Wow, do you have a stethoscope down there too?"

She smiled as she pulled out a brightly colored blue and yellow stethoscope. "Prepared for anything. Now I have to wash my hands to get ride of these Andrew mouth herpes."

"You love them!" I yelled down the hall to her.

As she washed her hands I walked over to examine something I had noticed earlier. In the back of her collection of empty candle jars, there was a colored spot. Maybe just a sent she didn't like or had misplaced. Pulling it out it made a odd sound, as if it were fill of marbles. It was a odd color too, seeming to just be a sea of crayons and oddly light to be almost full.

I peeled off the lid and found a sea of technicolored pills.