A Life Long Friend

 Kat glanced over as the door opened, and her friend let himself inside. She had been expecting him, of course, and the door had been left unlocked for the sake of not having to get up to greet him. She was perched in her desk, which sat in main view of the TV, where the couch likely should have been. If she'd had any roommates, she was sure it was where the couch would be. But the couch was shoved under the breakfast bar, forgotten about until Daryl came over.

“Welcome to hell,” she mumbled to her computer screen, saving and closing her work. She turned the monitor off and spun in her task chair to look over at him. He was easing his backpack carefully to the ground before he plopped down onto the couch. “So, I take it you aren't going to the reunion?”

“Wow, you're a genius. Where do you get such amazing ideas? Maybe you're psychic,” he said sarcastically. “Mom thinks I'm going.” He pulled the zipper of his backpack open and eased out something that was wrapped in a towel. “I'd like her to keep thinking that.”

“Hey, man, I just confirm whatever she's saying,” Kat assured, tossing her hands into the air in a lazy defensive gesture.

“You're amazing.” He carefully unwrapped the towel to reveal a foot tall glass water pipe, which he put on the breakfast bar right behind his head. He tossed the towel back into his bag and pulled out a torch and a couple small containers. “On me tonight, so long as you swear we're at the reunion.”

“Daryl, I'll swear we're at church if you need me to,” she said with a small grin. “I'm a writer, I don't get paid. You're getting me high for doing something I'd do anyways? I'll take it.” She tried to get a smile out of him, but he was too busy fiddling with all the bits in his hands. “What's going on?” she pressed.

“Nothing, just...” He let out a long breath. “It's just the same old shit about mom, you don't want to hear it again.”

“Well, you're getting me high for doing something that I'd do without payment. So I think I can suffer through it. But I get first hit.” She pushed herself out of her desk chair and wandered around the breakfast bar into the kitchen. The sink turned on, and she leaned over to grab the bong off the breakfast bar behind it and fill it.

“I dunno, I get that high school was the best time of her life and all, but I just think that's pathetic,” he huffed. “I mean, everyone who's life peaked that early was a bully, and I dunno how to come to terms with the idea that maybe mom was, too.”

Kat passed the bong back over the counter and turned to pull open the fridge and grab a couple of sodas. She passed one of those over the bar as well, then went back to her chair, turn it around to face him. “Yeah, sure, but I mean... nothing's gone her way since she got out of high school,” she pointed out, taking a silicon container and a metal tool that he passed to her and cutting herself a glob of goop. She put that to the side and took the water pipe and torch, starting to warm the glass.

“Yeah, because she had me. That's encouraging,” he said sarcastically, getting comfortable on the couch and being careful not to bonk his head on the bar. He watched her take a hit from the bong, and listened to her cough for half a minute before she passed it back to him.

Once she had her breath back, she spoke in a fairly strained voice, her throat still fighting her a little. “That's not your fault.”

Daryl was repeating the process she had gone through, working over the tiny coffee table that was just out of her reach. “Sure, I guess. I just don't see what all this fighting is about. I mean, she wants me to go so badly.” He let out a long sigh that acted to empty his lungs before putting his face to the water pipe.

“Dude, you're stressing about nothing. If she whines to you about it, just point out that you've still got me. And by the time she can start poking holes in that theory, you'll have that job, and you'll be living on that couch.”

Daryl shook his head a bit, letting out a long trail of smoke from his mouth. “Alright, but if it goes south, I get to say I told you so.”

Kat shrugged. “I'm fairly used to it. Remember, my mom's crazy, too.”

“Yeah, but your dad's wrapped around your finger.”

She nodded into her soda a little and smirked at him. “Yeah, he sure is.” The smile faded when he didn't return it, and she tapped his leg with her bare toes.

“You're taking this too seriously. Worrying about nothing. You're tired, and she's gotten into your head. Remember, she's your mom and we love her, but she's still a pill popper and a dramatic bitch.” She turned to her desk and grabbed a remote off of her desk, turning and tossing it into his lap in one fluid movement. “Pick a movie, I'll put a pizza in the oven, and we'll forget that the stupid reunion is tonight.” Daryl picked up the remote, turning it over in his hands and staring down at it. Kat noticed right away that he was not intending on using it. “Spit it out,” she groaned.

“What... if I moved in with you before I got that job?” he asked carefully. “I know I don't have much, but-”

“Yeah, so pick a fucking movie and we'll clean that bookshelf out so that you have a place to put your stuff,” she said quickly. She looked up to meet his shock with a smile. “Dude, come on. We've been best friends for ten years, and you think I'm just going to let you live with that crazy bitch? Food is cheesy mac and ramen until you have a paycheck, though. I'm not made of money.”

Daryl was out of the couch and wrapping his arms around her tightly. She relaxed into his embrace and returned it awkwardly from where she sat.

“Pick a damn movie,” she chuckled when the hug broke. “Not Fight Club!”

“Lord of the Rings, then.”

Kat groaned loudly. “Fine, but only because you're having a bad night! And also because I don't actually intend to help clean that bookshelf out,” she admitted. “Throw all the notebooks at me and put everything else on that table, I'll deal with it later.” She waved her hand lazily and lounged back in her chair, chewing on one of the pull strings on her jacket as she took the remote again and worked on getting the movies going while he turned his attention to the bookshelf.

“You know, mom's definitely going to think we're dating,” he mentioned.

Kat shrugged. “I don't care what she thinks. And I don't want to date you. And I don't want to date anyone. And it's not her business. And she hardly knows me.”

Daryl shrugged a bit and tossed a pile of notebooks her way. She started to poke through them, and was already making a stack next to the bin of the ones that would need throwing out. The calming voice of the narrator chattered on in the background as she did.

“How many of these are full?” Daryl suddenly asked.

“Most of them, probably,” she admitted. “This is why I don't write by hand anymore.”

“I mean some of these are as old as our friendship. Are you sure you just want to throw them out?”

“I wasn't exactly writing anything good when I was sixteen.” She tossed another notebook into the pile. “I'll take pictures of pages with good ideas, but most of these are just trash. Some are just blatant ripoffs of things I liked. Guess everyone starts somewhere, but it sort of makes me want to throw up.”

“Why writing?”

“Why a head shop?”

“I like bongs.”

“I like words.” She shrugged a bit and tore out a page from a spiral notebook, tossing it on top of her keyboard before flicking through the rest of the notebook. It went into the pile, too.

“You know you're never going to get out of this place because of it, right?” Daryl asked heavily. “I mean not offense, but I thought you hated it in Philly.”

She picked up another composition book and started to flick through it, putting her feet up on the corner of her desk. “I do. But I'd rather be doing something I enjoy in a place that I hate than the other way around, ya know?”

Daryl shrugged. “Never been faced with the option.” He carried a small box with batteries in it and a set of headphones to the table in the corner, putting them down on it before going back to the shelves and continuing to sort things.

“Me either,” she sighed. “But I'm not working in retail all my life, you know?”

“You'll work in a call center instead.”

She swung her foot outwards and kicked him in the shoulder. He rubbed his arm out and scoffed in laughter, tossing another few notebooks her way.

“Nah, you know I believe in you.”

“I know, it's the only reason I'm not in tears,” she half-joked. “Some day, we'll have a town house with a garage for blowing glass, and a whole office for me to do anything but write in.”

Daryl chuckled with her. It did sound nice, and almost too good to be true. But it was the same hopeful tone they'd always spoken with when they were kids. “Maybe that's why mom liked high school so much,” he thought out loud. When Kat hummed in question, he went on. “When you're in high school, you have such high hopes for the future. Everything is planned out.”

Kat chuckled a little. “Then she hasn't figured out the secret.”

“And what's that?”

“Never stop having high hopes. Then you never grow up. Never grow up, never be miserable. Being an adult is just being a kid with a license to drive, smoke, and drink. She thinks she's reliving her glory days, when really she's trashing her current days.”

“That's... amazingly poetic.”

“Good, I'll never be able to come up with something like that again.” She tossed another notebook into the stack and smirked. “I should rewrite Peter Pan.”

“I'd read that,” Daryl laughed, sitting heavily on the couch to get distracted by the movie. “Yeah, this is a much better way to spend tonight.”

Kat smiled and turned up to the movie as well. “Yeah. I think so, too.”