Alone at Six

"Yeah, the haircut's hot, but this has got to stop! Good shoes won't save ya this time!" No matter how many times I knocked on the door, all I heard was this. I'd made it to the front door before Jake had even pulled onto the road, being too impatient to wait at the light. "I think you're gonna find with everything combined that the time's running out of this line!" The voice yelling melodically from inside stopped when I called Cole on her cell.

"Andrew!”, she exclaimed. "Why aren't you here yet? You have three minutes and I already made pancakes and eggs, so you better hurry your ass up!"

"I'm outside, smartass.” I laughed at her as the rented car pulled up. "I've been knocking for three minutes.”

"You have not!” The door swung open and the monster of rubber Cole called a phone fell to the ground, probably denting the floor, as she flung her hands into the air. In a purple Care Bear nightgown, Spongebob boxers, and white sports bra made visibly by the slipping neckline, she looked almost like a little kid; only hotter… and high.

"You are here!" As a pleasant surprise, she threw her arms around me, her messy hair making me want to hunt down a brush and fix it. "Where are the others!?" Immediately she jumped through the doorway and into the yard, bear-foot. Upon spotting them she ran to the car, flung open the door, and pulled them out one by one, pushing them up the porch steps and into the front door. "Get a plate! Get some food! Make Africans hate you!"

Soon enough, we were sitting in Cole's living room eating the mountain of food she had prepared, somehow filling us all before it was all gone. I was just as astonished as everyone else at how talkative a few pills had made Cole, but I think I was more worried than them. Everything in my power was done to insure that she wouldn't puke them back up or pass out. I made her eat more after she said she was done and I brought her continuous cups of water. Though, I'm not sure if it helped much; she eventually had me pinned down with her pencil thin legs to keep me from standing, not that I minded.

"Cole...." Jake turned from the computer screen that he had lit up, making me realize just how dark it was with only one lamp on. With what was on the screen though, I only thought about that for a moment. "What is this?"

"Oh," she smiled over at the blatant gay anime porn on the screen. "That's the yoai I was reading, Not Equal."

"....Is Yaoi code for homo cartoon porn?"

"Kinda, it's just love stories with boys. Not all of it has porn and it's barely ever porn without plot. I just think it's so cute! Speaking of porn!" Cole shot up, disappointingly removing her legs from my lap. "I gadda get dressed, what time is it? Five? We have time!"

Before I could ask what for, she had darted up her stairs.

"Your girlfriend's a crackhead." Ashley announced, getting a chorus of agreement from even me.

"Sandra!" Cole's voice came from upstairs. "Sandra, I need your help!"

Sandra gave me a lazy look, still tired from being woken up early and eating a giant breakfast.  I stood up to take pity on her and because I wanted to be the one to help Cole. I was just as good as Sandra, probably better since it was Shark Week. Plus, I wasn't going to have her hitting on Cole, even playfully. Cole's mine. Period.

"Not you, Andrew!" Cole shouted then paused for a moment, a giggle barely audible. "That rhymed... I need Sandra!"

We all gave Sandra the same look. She sighed and pushed off of the couch, taking the lazy option and crawling up the stairs, almost giving up halfway through. When she came bumping back down on her ass, she had a tired smile on her face that said 'I saw something so stupid it was funny’.

"Your girlfriend," she said, pointing at me, “is a retard. She's a bipolar, crackhead retard."

"Hey," I snapped. "Watch it and she's not my girlfriend." Though I hated to remind myself of that, I had to get used to that fact.... For now.

A minute later Cole came thudding down the stairs in a white long sleeved shirt, a odd pair of white shoes, her normal baggy white pants with chains, and a gray jacket in hand.

"Come on," she ordered breathlessly. "Let's go.”

Even my confusion didn't let me hesitate as I followed her out the back door, everyone else trailing behind like fat snails. Without answers to any of our questions, she led us to the woods behind her house and started to weave through the trees.

"Uh, you know what?" Ashley said. "It's too early to be fucking around in the woods. I'm going to sleep in the car."

The rest of the guys agreed, Jinxx turning around after giving me a wink and a sly look. Whatever he was planning, it would either bring me great misery in the days to come or border on orgasmic for the mind.

"I'm going whether I'm followed or not!" Cole's voice yelled from somewhere beyond the trees. I couldn't see her as I followed, but I heard whatever random song she was singing. Soon, I could glimpse white twisting and turning in front of me and I eventually caught up to her. Like me, she was panting, with a huge Cheshire smile on her face.

"We're almost there," she huffed, breaking into a sprint. Not seconds after she stated this, a massive rock, or rather a small crag, came into view and she broke into a run, clearing the muddy water surrounding it in one bound. Effortlessly, she climbed up using some invisible handholds, quickly reaching the top. I looked up at her, feigning a impressed look when she looked down to hide the fact that I'd been staring at her ass, remarkably filling out the baggy pants.

"How is this even here?" I asked as my hands searched for grip. "There's nothing but trees around here."

Cole shrugged as she took my hand and tried to help hoist me up. "I don't question solid things. I just be happy that they're there and..... solid." She stomped her shoes against the rock to emphasis and pointed at me. "Question solid things, you do not."

I held up my hands as if she had a gun to me. "Okay okay, question we will not."

"Are you mocking me? The mocking I like not." Before I had a chance to say anything, she began to twirl uncontrollably, spinning dangerously close to the edge. Every time she came within a few inches, I'd grab whatever I could and pull her back to the middle.

"Cole..." Thinking it was useless to ask what she was doing, I asked the next question I could think of. "Why are we here?"

"Nothing to do, nowhere to go… so you might as well have an adventure."

"Um, not to be bitchy, but how it this much of an adventure?" The view was wallpaper worthy. Nothing but trees and a turning pink sky shimmering in one direction, a seemingly peaceful and homey town in the other, but heart warming images like this didn't call for adventure, at least not the good kind.

"In a society that has abolished all adventure, the only adventure left is to abolish that society." She stopped spinning and fumbled around for a bit with a frown on her face. "But since I don't know how to abolish society, I figure if I just do something slightly random and sporadic I might think of a way… or maybe crumble a building or two. Plus, I don't like to stay at home."

She began to spin again as I laughed. "Could have fooled me. You know, with the staying out to all hours and heading to school so fucking early."

Falling on her ass after some more spinning, she looked up at me and answered in an erotically labored voice. "Wanderlust is what it's called."

I plopped down next to her, sitting as close as I could while hoping that our progress from yesterday wasn't lost and this wasn't just a trick. The slightest shock left a warm tingling feeling as our jackets brushed, making me feel like a twelve-year-old girl's favorite song. "Wanderlust? Sounds dirty."

"Perverted fuck." She laughed as she playfully nudged me, sending more unhealthy shock waves through my chest. It took too much to keep from wrapping her in me again, only this time with no intention of letting her go. I swear, I was going to pass out from exhaustion.

"It's… a strong or irresistible longing or impulse to travel,” she quoted, not seeming to notice the sudden wave of heat. "But I think it's more like you're homesick for a place that doesn't exist, so you're left to try and find it on a meaningful lark. God, that sounds terribly depressing!" She laughed, laying back with a soft thud. "You have to talk to such a cliché person. I'm sorry for that."

"I don't have to talk to you." Painfully reminded of the day on the field, I mimicked her position and smiled over at her. "I want to."

"Oh." She looked at me, blinked, and waited awhile before saying, "aren't you going to ask?"

"......Ask what?"

"Why I don't just leave!" She darted up so fast I got scared she might fly off the rock and shot up myself. "Why I don't just leave and go feed my wonderlust!? How long have I been diseased with this? When was this terrible feeling injected into my veins? Has it been there for a month? A year? A decade? If so, why did I waste my time with a extra year of high school instead of just up and leaving!? I'm smart enough for it; I could get a job anywhere! Why the fuck don't I just get a car and run?"

Though she seemed to be asking these questions to herself, I asked. "Why stay?"

Sighing, she slouched down, looking worn and slightly scared, as if what she had said was shocking even to her and it had taken every ounce of energy she had to get it out. "When you've spent so much time by yourself, the journey alone doesn't mean much, and the destination means even less. So, really, it would be a waste of time. I'd feel the same way in a different place, and wouldn't that just be a waste of a perfectly good adventure?"

For a moment, we were quiet. Me trying to understand exactly what she was saying, and her just trying to gain back all the energy she'd released. Where was this sudden burst of.... whatever it was, from? A cocktail of pills in her system right now or a need to tell me everything, I wasn't sure. Hopefully it was the latter. I didn't want her to feel comfortable with telling me about herself just ‘cause some combination of drugs programmed her to. I wanted her to be able to tell me every aspect because she knew she could.

Climbing out of the burrow of my mind, I noticed the almost-tears in Cole's eyes, immediately making my heart sink. "Want a hug?" It was the only thing she's ever told me that made her happy.

She sucked in her lips and nodded wildly, not stopping until my arms were wrapped around her freezing body. Luckily she didn't cry, but she didn't say anything more and avoided looking at me, leaving us in silence again.

"I'm sorry." She eventually spoke in a tentative and unsure voice. "It's just..... sometimes I feel like spitting out my life story to anyone who I matter to. And I don't have many people like that.  And I know I must matter to you in someway. I mean, when you really matter to someone they'll always make time for you, no excuses, no lies, no loopholes, they're there. You came over to my house at four AM because I admitted that I was lonely and had possibly overdosed."

"Cole, there's something about that..." She was telling me this, I at least had to admit what I found. If she knew she meant something to me, then I wanted her to also know that she could trust me. And that meant telling her everything. "In your room the othe-"

"I know." Her words came out quickly, obviously not wanting mine verbalized. Noting the slight harshness in her own voice, she added, "you left bloody fingerprints on everything. The headphones, the jars, the picture. Can we just.... not talk about that?"

"But why? Why would you have all those....?"

She sighed. "There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. You realize you're not special, you've only by chance come into existence, and you're now slipping silently out of it. Some exciting, mysterious future you may have looked forward to is either no longer seen as a possibility or already lived, understood, and disappointing. It happens to everyone. Whether you're Ryan, Andrew, Ashley, Logan, or you're Cole. All the sadness is yours to live with, all the loneliness, all the problems, split ends, burnt hands, and the aching body. It takes away from everything that you once thought you could be. Then the people who you like stop liking you. They move on, and you feel like you've lost something; youth, vitality, beauty, faith, life. Even though your so young. The world forgets you and then you remember you're transience. Losing characteristics one at a time, you realize you never had many. All you think about is going, but not really to a specific place. Wonderlust. Just keep going until you're somewhere where this isn't true. Just driving and keeping the time it has taken. Now you're here at six-one-three. Now you're here at six-one-four. Now you're gone. And then you accept it, kill yourself, or you stop looking in mirrors. I haven't decided which one I wanted to do yet."

"That seems like a pretty easy choice."

She looked over at me and raised a eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well," sitting up straight, I sighed and put on a intelligent facade. "You're obviously too damn pretty to stop looking in mirrors. You're obviously too damn pretty to kill yourself. And you're obviously too damn pretty not to accept it."

"That last part made no sense."

"It didn't? Sorry, I was too focused on how damn pretty you are."

The blush that covered her face almost caused me to tackle her again. Damn, if I was going to be around her, I needed to work on my self-restraint. Or make her mine. Preferably the latter.

"We should go,” words eventually stumbled out of her mouth. "School and all that."

I laughed at this. She still planed on going to school.

"What's so funny?" She asked, hands on her hips but face still red. "I'm going to school, yes. Friday, don't you have stuff to plan for it anyway? You only have two more days." With that, she grabbed the end of the rock and swung down, somehow landing on her feet and not scratching herself.

Fuck, she did that with some flourish shit. Was I gonna let this chick show me up? Cole smirked at me before turning the way we came. "Don't try to be cool. It only works with me."