Uncharted

I hung around after Des fell asleep. I kept poking my head into his room, making sure he was okay. When I wasn’t checking on him, I was trying to clean up the mess he had made while he was having a fit. Glass shards were everywhere as well as puddles of beer. I know it wasn’t my responsibility to clean up after Des but I didn’t know what else I could have done that would have kept me from thinking about how fragile and broken Des looked when he crumbled onto the kitchen floor.

I kept thinking about all of the things he said to while I was wiping beer off the walls. Mostly, I kept thinking about what he had said right before he passed out. “I’m sorry.” I assumed he meant for the mess at the time but the more I kept thinking about it the more I kept applying it to other things he’d done to piss me off or hurt my feelings.

Eventually, Cooper came back while I was mopping the floor. He stood in the doorway, looking utterly confused. His blue eyes were darting around, looking for Des. “Where is he?”

“He passed out in his bed about an hour ago.” I said, standing up straight to look at Cooper.

“I’m really sorry about this.” Cooper sighed, pushing his hand through his light brown hair. He seemed to be a loss for words. In short amount of time I knew Cooper, he was never at a loss for words. That’s how I knew this situation was a lot worse than I originally thought.

Cooper finally shut the door and walked over to the couch, he sat down and stared blankly ahead. I followed suit, and sat one couch cushion away from him. “Is everything okay?” I asked, knowing damn well that it wasn’t.

Cooper opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. It was like he was having and internal battle with himself, trying to figure out if he should say anything or not. Finally, he did say something. “I don’t know.” He ruffled his hair up, which I learned was a nervous habit. “He’s fine most of the time, but sometimes he just…isn’t. And this is what he does.” He held his arms toward the coffee table that was covered in empty bottles, and the living room which was torn apart.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. This is just how he is. It’s how he always has been, even before…you know the break up, it’s just what he does. Like, how sometimes you just need to cry…only Des doesn’t he cry he gets annihilated and trashes his surroundings.”

Then I felt stupid. There I was feeling bad for him, thinking he was still upset about his ex. I thought he was some kind of heartbroken tortured soul when in reality he was just like every other guy I knew, emotionally constipated.

“Good.” I deadpanned. “I have work to do.” I stood up from the couch and fished the key out of my pocket and tossed it at Cooper, still feeling like an idiot for being so sweet and caring to that emotionally challenged ball of testosterone. Asshole.

“Fuck work. Hang out with me.”

I simply raised an eyebrow “What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. Anything. We can watch a movie, or go out, or just talk. I’m up for anything.”

“Definitely don’t want to go out.” I said quickly, thinking back to what happened on Friday night.

Cooper threw his head back and laughed loudly, obviously having seen me at my worst. I laughed then too, realizing I had no idea how I had even gotten there the night before. “Okay, so we’ll stay in.” he said quieting his laughs.

“How did I even get here last night?” I asked, still laughing.

“Des was trying to walk you back here, you passed out and he had to carry you the rest of the way. Had a fucking laugh at the one. He was carrying you like a bride.” Cooper laughed even louder this time. “You looked like a dead fish!”

“Shut up!” I said defensively but continued to laugh with Cooper. I am well aware of how fucked up I look when I’m drunk. I’ve seen pictures. I returned back to my spot on the couch.

“So what else has been going on in your life?” Cooper was up and rummaging through the refrigerator at this point.

I sighed, nothing I could really tell him about. I couldn’t very well tell him I was contemplating not being friendly with him anymore. That would be awkward. “Nothing really. Just working and getting so drunk that my neighbor has to find me and carry me home I guess.”

Cooper chuckled, coming back into view with a plate of leftover food that looked disgusting. Whatever made him happy. “Nothing new and exciting?”

“No.” I scowled at how dull my life was. “Well I haven’t heard from my boyfriend in a week, so I guess there’s that.” I said sadly.

“A week?” Cooper shouted, even though his mouth was full of food. “Where the fuck is he?”

“Wish I knew.” I said bitterly, looking at my phone hoping it would light up and notify me that I had an incoming call but it didn’t. “He hasn’t even been responding to my texts. The last time I heard from him he was going to meet with a record company. So…who knows.” I said sadly.

“Maybe you should…”

“You know what, I’m not even that worried about it. I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation.” I said quickly, not wanting to hear Cooper suggest breaking up with Dylan. Long distance relationships were hard for this exact reason; it was hard to communicate constantly. I’m sure his phone was broken or something. He wouldn’t just ignore me, we loved each other.

“Sure.” Cooper said shaking his head and turning on the television. “Don’t sit around and wait for him though. You don’t deserve that.”

For the rest of the night Cooper and I sat on his couch and watched shitty horror movies. I continued to think about the same things that I’ve been thinking about all week plus what Des had said and then what Cooper had said. Don’t wait around for him. I didn’t know exactly what he meant by that and I didn’t want to ask because I was afraid of the answer.

&&

For the next month, Des avoided me like I was the plague. He wouldn’t even glance at me when we passed each other in the hall or when we happened to be in the elevator together. I realized I was never going to be okay with him hating me for no reason, so instead of trying to figure out why he hated me I just tried to ignore him to the best of my ability.

Even when Cooper had invited me to his annual Halloween party Des made a point not to acknowledge the fact that I was there. I even brought Elle with me, knowing damn well that it’s almost impossible for men to ignore her. Yet he did, he glanced at her quickly and then turned his attention back to his friend who was dressed up like Batman.

I figured he was just embarrassed of the way he acted the night I came to check on him. I didn’t really know though. I just tried to ignore him as much as he ignored me.

Cooper was outside on his balcony and I was outside on mine, we were chatting casually about our days since we were established friends at that point. Then Des came out and lit up a cigarette, barely even taking notice of Cooper and I as he did so. I couldn’t help but notice that he was extremely well put together considering that it was getting pretty late.

“You have a date or something?” Cooper joked, stomping out the last of his cigarette.

“Yeah.” Des said in his normal growling voice.

“Nice.” Cooper said, sounding entirely shocked but tried to play it off casual. “I’ve got to get going. I have a lot of sick people I need to look at.” And with that Cooper said his goodbyes and was gone.

I felt awkward sitting outside in silence with Des, so I scurried inside. Little did I know how the rest of that night would unfold and how it would single handedly set Desmond on the fast track to ruining my life.