" "Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better." "

"Or, as in our case, they shouldn't have cheated and then been surprised when we found out."

"Welcome to B*TCHSpeak. I'm Angel and the other lovely voice that you hear is my dear friend Queen. Together we bring you a podcast talking about life-"

"Love-"

"And everything in between."

"God, that sounds cheesy."

"Hey, you approved it. Now listeners, it's story time, so stay tuned, right after these announcements."

Ep. 15, 10/25/15

Thursdays were the red headed stepchildren of the week in Jordan's rather grim opinion.  

He slammed on his breaks for yet another impatient driver who decided at the last minute that the miniscule space in front of Jordan's car was exactly where they needed to be at that moment.

They were the useless stop gaps, he continued, silently fuming as his car crept slowly forward towards the exit, between the midweek and the weekend. The unnecessary, twenty four hour layover before your desired destination.

Nothing good ever happened on a Thursday, he resolved, his car finally making it to the stoplight that had reduced the cars exiting the freeway to a sluggish crawl.

Nothing good, except this.

Every Thursday, at five p.m exactly, Jordan went to the tiny hipster coffee shop that he insistently denied knowing the existence of. 

It was just before December, during the peak of finals week preparation, and completely overcrowded with people all sporting the same, frazzled look as they alternated between typing frantically on their laptops and staring with blank defeat at the screen in front of them.

Jordan recognized a few people as he walked through the door (after an agonizingly long wait to find a fucking parking spot), the girl with the studded earrings who was always hunched over some sort of gigantic textbook, the angry and exasperated hipster couple who usually sat in front of his table of choice, typing some never ending novel.

The table- his table- was one of the few four seated tables that were next to the window, just outside the cluster of comfortable armchairs and booths that lined the inner circle of the cafe. He liked having the space to spread out his supplies, different pens and pencils that he had bought using his student discount when one of his jobs had been working in the campus bookstore. 

Jordan wanted to be a graphic novelist, had actually wanted this for an exceedingly long time. He'd only been able to work freelance, which didn't pay nearly as much as he thought it would when he didn't have bills, loans, and generally having to buy food to eat in order to continue functioning on a daily basis.

 He'd graduated with a degree in business, to his mother's relief, and had been able to get a job as the assistant manager for a local FedEx, getting paid just enough to make rent and continue to try and freelance on the side. 

And yeah, he really shouldn't complain. He was one of the lucky one's he knew of who didn't have to go back to working for their parents or get a job completely unrelated to his field. It was just...drawing was everything to him. His mom had been supportive, but he could tell it worried her, until he'd switched his major. He wanted to prove to her- to himself, to everyone, - that his art was good enough to be noticed. 

So essentially, his time at the coffee shop on Thursday afternoons was one of the only times he had to prove to  himself that he could still do it, to focus on his one true passion, working on freelance jobs he managed to find, or practice his skills to convince himself that he hadn't made a huge mistake. 

Natalia, one of his best friends, would say that he was in the middle of a case of the dark and twisties. But Natalia had also taken to binge watching Grey's Anatomy, and therefore her judgement should not be trusted.

His name was called at the counter, and he managed to navigate through the obstacle of people and chairs that somehow had managed to completely fill in the time it had taken him to set up his supplies. It only took him a minute to realize why, and he shook his head when he did.

Rain, thick sheets of it pouring from the sky and drenching the people unlucky enough to find themselves under the roiling gray skies. Having grown up in Boston, he forgot sometimes that others were unused to the strange phenomenon of water falling from the sky, had the capacity to lose their shit when it happened.

Already, the windows of the coffee shop were beginning to fog up, and Jordan couldn't resist drawing a tiny smiley face near the windowpane where he sat, before glancing around quickly to make sure the owners wouldn't yell at him for doing so. Volume was increasing as the sudden downpour brought more customers inside, and Jordan reached in his pocket to pull out his headphones, spending a solid minute untangling the damn things, before he plugged in his phone and scrolled through his podcast app. 

B*tch-Speak was a podcast that he'd found through...well. It didn't matter so much now, he thought, focusing hard on the screen in front of him as he took a deep breath. He exhaled shakily, and clicked play, letting the peppy intro drown out his dark thoughts.  

 Recently, his motivation for drawing had been nonexistent, and he'd fallen behind on a few episodes. Between picking up more hours at work and then, well. Everything else that had happened within the past six months, it had been hard for him to sit down and concentrate. 

He'd been playing around with the idea of starting a fresh plot idea. While he had done some short series in the past-terrible things that were hidden away in the bottom of one of his desk drawers, never to see the light of day under any circumstance-he hadn't actually ever tried to hand draw a full storyline. Just the idea of creating something that huge, a cast of characters, settling on a style, making sure all the drawing flowed together, for something that would most likely end up being only ever read by him had always terrified him.

Idly, he started sketching the outline of a woman on the page in front of him. Sometimes, he could find inspiration just in the characters that he drew, creating entire backstories and complex story arcs for them by the time he finished a rough first draft of what they looked like.

Sam, the other half of his best friend duo, always made fun of him for actually hand drawing his creations instead of using the iPad that he had been given as a graduation present specifically for that purpose.

"Get outta the dark ages Bautista." Jordan would ignore him, or try to anyway. Sam wasn't really someone who you could ignore.

He couldn't explain it though, not without Sam and Natalia both teasing him about being even more hipster than he would admit he was. When it came to his sketches, especially the one's that he dedicated himself to doing on these Thursday afternoons, they had to be hand drawn.

Anyway, it wasn't like he had actually gotten past some quick outlines in the past. Looking down at the vague shape taking form on the paper in front of him, no more than a basic skeletal structure, he accepted the probability that today wouldn't be any different. 

There was an insistent buzzing on the table that cut his episode off in the middle of Angel speaking. Seeing Sam's name on the screen, Jordan rolled his eyes and sent it to voicemail. Sam managed to lock himself out of the apartment at least twice a week, and it was Natalia's turn to deal with it. If she wasn't working, she would answer. 

If not then, well. Jordan sighed, staring at his phone in his hand, hoping Nat's self proclaimed psychic ability was working and could tell exactly how much he didn't want to have to drive in the torrential downpour in the height of afternoon traffic. C'mon, Nat. Work with me here.

His phone started buzzing again, and Jordan carefully set his coffee down before swiping his thumb across the screen to answer.

"I swear to God, Sam if you locked yourself out again I'm going to weld the key to your-"

"Not before you buy me dinner, sunshine." Sam's voice, deep and rich, cut him off and Jordan began the process of packing his things together. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two other university students nudging each other and eyeing his table. Judging by the exceedingly full capacity of their book bags and frazzled expressions, two more of the native finals week students hunting for a nest to set up in.

"Besides," Sam continued, "I'm actually at our place now, Nat let me in. We were-yeah, okay or you could just take the phone-" Sam's voice faded and there was a burst of static before Nat's voice came on. 

"We were wondering when you were getting back?" Jordan blinked.

"Why? Did you guys need something?"

There was a pause, and Jordan tapped his fingers on his notepad as he waited, shifting his weight and trying to ignore the hungry eyes of the students behind him.

"Actually," Nat said slowly, "we were wondering if you needed anything." Jordan tapped his fingers a few more times before running his free hand through his hair (too long, he needed a haircut) and frowning.

"I mean, I don't think I need anything?" Jordan half laughed. The table in front of him was still half littered with his art supplies, and he slowly continued packing as he continued the conversation. He had a weird feeling crawling up his spine, tiny spiders of premonition. "Do you know something I don't know?"

There was more shuffling, a vague murmur of Nat's voice in the background as the phone  switched hands again, and then Sam's voice in his ear again.

"It's Thursday, Jay." His voice was surprisingly soft, unnervingly so, and Jordan wondered what the day had to do with-"The seventeenth."

Oh.

Oh, god.

"Fuck." He whispered. "Oh my god. Fuck."

How could he forget? Of all the days in the year, how the fuck could he forget this one?

"Jay? You good? You still there?" Sam's voice was worried now, and Jordan pulled the phone away from his ear, exiting out of the current call to check the calendar.

And there it was. The date staring boldly back at him in perfect HD.

God, who does that? Who forgets a date as important as-

He put the phone back up to his ear, catching the last half of Sam's sentence.

"-not answering. Jordan? Just let me know if you're on the line still or if we need to come hunt you down at that tiny little coffee shop you think we don't know about?"

"I'm here." His voice worked, barely. It was rough and he felt a migraine pounding behind his right eye. "I'm coming home."

"Okay. We'll be here. Hold on, Nat wants to talk to you."

More shuffling sounds.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You're coming straight home?" Nat's voice was firm enough so that the question came out more as a statement. Jordan nodded, biting the inside of his cheek.

"Yeah," he managed to force out. His movements were jerky, crinkling the paper of his sketchbook and tossing his pens in his backpack haphazardly. "Yeah, I'm leaving now."

"Drive safe. It's crazy outside, alright?"

"Yeah."

He hung up before she could answer, tossing his phone in his backpack and zipping it closed before swinging it on to his shoulder and grabbing his coffee off the table in one smooth move. 

The girls who had been eyeing the table took a couple eager steps forward, but something on his face must have made them pause and wait uneasily for him to brush past them before rushing to the now empty spot. He barely registered them, or anyone else he bumped past on his way out of the coffee shop, leaving angry mutters in his wake.

His skin felt too tight, as if it was stretched like worn paper over his bones and made his blood jittery. The warmth in the coffee shop, the jitteriness of his movements caused him to shovethrough the door without looking, pushing it outwards only to have it bounce back and almost slam in his face.

"Ouch!" The voice was surprisingly high pitched, and Jordan blinked, vision clearing. Just coming out from the rain, in a completely sodden black running jacket and  electric blue  exercise pants, was a girl at least a foot shorter than him cradling her wrist to her chest and glaring at him with big, black eyes.

His first thought, as he would later drunkenly retell Sam and Natalia, who would never cease to let him forget it, was simply oh shit, I broke the pretty girls arm.

"I'm sorry!" He blurted out, taking a few steps forward and letting the door fall behind him. "Oh my god, I didn't even see you. I didn't break your arm, did I?" He didn't miss the way that she took a wary step backwards as she slowly extended her wrist in front of her, pulling up her jacket to see the skin. 

Goddammit. Literally the worst person in existence.

She rolled it in a few circles, alternating directions and wincing every so often.

"No, it's fine.Just, watch where you're-" She stopped, pushing curly black strands of hair back as she met his eyes again. "Oh, hey! Jordan, right?" 

He blinked, dumbly nodding his head, and watched as the girl's eyes narrowed. Familiar, he knew her, work? No. Wait...

Dark eyes blazing under a fringe of black curls, frustration as they argued back and forth over her final paper-

"Yesenia." He managed. She nodded, offering a shy smile. 

"Yeah! You were the grad assistant in some of my classes." He nodded again. He knew this, in the back of his mind somewhere. Just like he knew that she was expecting him to say something, that the silence had been stretching for far too long but he couldn't say anything because-

"Right. Sorry, I have to go." He blurted out, shouldering his bag and sidestepping around her, making sure to keep a safe amount of distance between them. He was just behind her when he turned, seeing her confused and slightly irritated expression, "See you around."  

As he turned back around, he saw her shake her head as she disappeared through the swinging coffee shop door. He hesitated for another moment before realizing how ridiculous he looked, and he started sloshing his way through the parking lot. 

The cool rain felt good on his skin as he walked, and he was completely drenched by the time he reached his car, his light flannel five shades darker than it had been originally. Blankly, he resigned to the fact that the interior would smell like wet towels through the next week.

The drive home was silent except for the random hiccuping noise that he heard from his engine every once in a while, and the constant drum line of rain as it pounded a rhythm against the roof of his car. All roads were nearly empty at this point, and Jordan numbly pulled in to his assigned parking space with a brief thought to take his car to be checked out for the random sounds at some point during the weekend.

As he turned off his car, he sat there for a moment, wondering why the sounds were continuing even though the engine was off. It was then that he acknowledged the warmth on his cheeks, the water dripping down the side of his neck that he had stupidly ignored the entire drive.

He used his shirtsleeves to angrily wipe away the tears. Such an ass, so stupid. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

"Question from a listener: 'Lovelies!'-see I wish I could use cutesy language like that without sounding like a total creep, anyway um-'what's the best meet cute that you two have had? Please explain!'"

"A meet cute?" 

"Like, one of those fairytale meetings, where both people meet in a really quirky way.'

"A guy once walked up to me and asked if I liked magic tricks."

"Was the magic trick something about his dick?"

"Surprisingly, no. I asked why, and his response was 'because abraca-DAMN you look amazing.'"

"Jesus Christ." 

Ep. 22,  1/21/16

One of the things that Yesenia had hated about working overnights had been the fact that it had limited her to a mostly nocturnal lifestyle. 

Since having changed rotations at the pharmacy, she was now able to enjoy aspects of her life that she had missed before. Such as, actually having a normal sleep schedule, and waking up at the same time that most other normal human beings did.

That was, except for when her roommate and best friend Sonya was trying to murder her. 

 Sonya, her best friend, the sweetest girl alive, had the terrible habit of burning absolutely everything she tried to cook. So really, it shouldn't have been a surprise when the smoke alarm started blaring, as it did at least once a month without fail, and Yesenia groaned loudly in to her pillow. 

"Sorry!" Sonya's voice echoed down the hall, and after a few more excruciating shrieks, the alarm shut off. Yesenia pressed her face down in the mattress, pulling the covers tighter around her chin to form a cocoon. She debated briefly on forcing herself to go back to sleep, and blindly reached for her phone, hoping that it was at least vaguely after the time known as way too freaking early.

Her phone blinded her for a second, and she narrowed her eyes into slits at the offending object. Rude. And only 5:38 AM.

She was going to kill Sonya.

Blearily, she tossed her phone back on to her bed, hearing it clatter against her headboard. Wrapping her blanket around her like a cape, she shuffled from the comforting darkness of her room in to the harsh, unforgiving light Sonya glanced up at her appearance, and winced.

"I was kind of hoping that you slept through that," her voice trailed off as Yesenia fixed her with what she hoped was a menacing glare. Given the way that Sonya's lips twitched briefly, Yesenia assumed that it was grumpy, at best.

She silently stomped over to one of the kitchen chairs they had bought cheap off craigslist, and dropped into it, pulling her blanket closer around her face to block out some of the harsh light.

Sonya offered her a half smile and held up one of their chipped baby blue mugs.

"Coffee?"

Silence.

"Or, you know, I made food."

Raised eyebrows.

"Okay, I tried to make food. I burned the eggs, but the toast survived this time so that's progress. Right?"

She continued to stare at Sonya silently, willing her peppy attitude to disappear. Annoyingly, Sonya continued to smile at her in a way that was completely inappropriate for the early morning hour, before turning back to the blackened mess that she was attempting to scrape from the pan in to the sink. Yesenia watched her struggle for a minute, a petty sense of satisfaction growing as she did, before closing her eyes and thumping her head down on to the table with a loud moan.

There was a clattering of pans, and then Sonya's voice growing louder as she approached.

"I know, I know. I'm the worst person ever. Here," there was a muffled thump and Iris lifted her head from her nest enough to see the chipped blue mug sitting in front of her. Slowly, she inched it closer to her mouth and took a cautious sip. Thank God, coffee. There were a few moments where the only sound was Sonya scrubbing and the sound of the faucet.

"How'd you get the alarm off so quickly?" Yesenia asked. There was a pause, where Sonya looked at her with big, wide eyes. "Sonya. What did you do?"

Shoulders slumping, Sonya pointed towards the living room, where on the coffee table that usually resided on the far right corner of the room, had been pulled to an innocent stop right beneath the fire alarm. 

Or rather, what used to be the fire alarm, which was now apparently dismantled bits and pieces of plastic that lay sullenly on the dark wood. 

"I couldn't get it to shut up and I didn't want the super to yell at us again so I may have just taken it apart." Yesenia simply stared, too tired to do much more than that. Nope. Taking another sip of the coffee, she gathered her blankets around her and began shuffling the general direction towards her room. "Where are you going?"

"To sleep. Like I would be if my roommate wasn't absolutely insane."

"You can't sleep if you're drinking coffee!" A disgruntled sigh followed her shuffling steps, and then the sound of running water resumed. 

Yesenia yawned, taking another sip of the dark liquid, and wondered on her chances of actually falling back to sleep. Unlikely, she admitted to herself as she placed the mug on her nightstand and then flopped face first on the bed with a satisfied grunt. She gave herself another minute or so of pretending to try to sleep, before rolling over and pulling her laptop out from under her bed and opening it next to her, grimacing at the brightness of the screen before it adjusted to the darkened room. 

If she wasn't going to sleep, then she might as well edit, she decided, logging in and plugging in her headphones. Sonya, as much as Yesenia loved her when she wasn't setting off alarms, didn't have quite the same passion that Yesenia did when it came to editing. 

No matter how you spun it, editing was  dull and time consuming. But where Sonya still struggled to edit an episode of theirs in under three hours, Yesenia had made it a personal mission to perfect her editing skills to finish an episode in almost half the time. After about a year of practice, she was finally consistent on that end at least. 

As she waited for the editing program to load, she idly counted backwards in her head. Had it really been only a year that she and Sonya had been making consistent episodes for their podcast?

They had met Yesenia's senior year of college, when Yesenia received a text message from an unknown number claiming to be her boyfriend Anthony's girlfriend. Several days of texting, a scrapbook's worth of pictures, and a blowout fight at Buffalo Wild Wings it turns out that Anthony had decided monogamy wasn't for him. 

Except, she hadn't been informed of this new development. At least, not until she'd heard from Sonya. 

It wasn't until a few months later that she actually met Sonya in person. They had been steadily texting throughout the entire ordeal, something that she had greatly appreciated at the time even if it had made her nauseous to think about why they were talking in the first place.

 She drove to meet her, only thirty minutes from where she dormed on campus, and spent fifteen minutes in her car giving herself a pep talk. This wasn't weird, so not weird. Just, you know, two girls who happened to date the same guy meeting in a public place to have fun. 

Or something. 

Sonya Patel was taller, with birdlike features. Thin and narrow, with black almond eyes, a thin pointed nose, and shiny stick straight black hair that hung down all the way down to her back. She got up smiling and Yesenia found that she didn't quite have to force herself to smile back. 

Surprisingly, it wasn't as awkward as she had imagined it to be. Sonya was sweet, studying to be an emergency service provider, the youngest of three siblings. Yesenia found their conversations, while superficial, to be fun.

 Fun was good. Fun was something that she'd been lacking for a while. 

They'd gotten along more than she had ever thought they would, meeting each other's friends, going to movies, slowly starting to assimilate each other in to their lives. The podcast idea had actually happened one afternoon while they were driving back from seeing a movie. They had been listening to the radio, and two hosts had been trying to determine whether or not a caller's fiance had, in fact, been seeing another woman. 

As the fiance in question was bumbling through his explanation as to why he had pictures of other naked women on his phone, Yesenia had shaken her head. 

"Can't believe she's doing this on the radio. Could you imagine?" Sonya shrugged. 

"I dunno. There's kind of a justice in doing it in public like that though, if anyone who knows them hears it they'll know what a selfish pig he is." 

"Yeah, true. I just feel bad for her though. They never talk about what happens after you find out, it's like the big reveal is always 'they cheated' and then cut to commercial or the next biggest news." 

Sonya nodded, then pointed towards the road, "Turn right at the light." 

"You mean the one I'm about to pass?" Yesenia checked behind her and then swerved over, barely making the turn. There was silence as they listened to the hosts on the radio joking about what had just happened. Suddenly, she gasped, and turned to Sonya. "Oh my god. We should do our own show about this!" 

 Sonya wrinkled her nose, a confused bird, "Show about what? Also, eyes on the road!" 

Yesenia rolled her eyes before turning back to the street in front of her. "I'm serious. We could totally do our own radio show about what happens after people cheat. I mean, we've already lived it. Our story is unique enough so that it'd be really interesting to others. Why not, right?" 

"You're kidding, yeah?" Yesenia saw Sonya shift to look at her, "Yaz, why would you want to drag all that up? Why would you want to give him that kind of attention?" Yesenia forced herself to let Sonya finish, even though she felt her eye spasm as she clenched her teeth. "Plus, what if somewhere you interview for finds out? You really want to explain that to future employers?" 

"It could be anonymous," Yesenia argued. "We use codenames, we can probably even mess with our voices so they sound differently." She snuck a look at Sonya, who was staring at her, frowning. Yesenia exhaled, turning to face forward. "I want to do it. You don't have to be involved if you don't want to be, but I want to at least see if it's possible."  

Sonya had stared out of the car the rest of the drive. It was only later that night, as Yesenia was preparing to drop Sonya off at home, that she finally mentioned it again. 

"I'm not saying yes," she began, fingers fiddling on the seatbelt, "but I'm not saying no either." 

Yesenia smiled, knowing that this was the first step to her friend agreeing. "This'll be fun, you'll see." 

"How's your wrist?" Sonya's voice interrupted her mid-reverie, and Sonya had to repeat herself from the doorway as she made her way inside Yesenia's room. Yesenia lifted one wrist, rolling it around and wincing. 

"It's alright. Stiff, probably because I've been sleeping on it." Yesenia shrugged. It was more of an annoying twinge than anything, something she forgot until she moved her wrist the wrong way. 

"So weird that it was that guy you know who did that.  What was his name? James?" 

"Jordan. He went to school with me." Yesenia said it casually, eyes on the computer. She knew where Sonya was heading with this. 

"Yeah! Him. I remember you talking about him, how he was the most 'insufferable GA in existence'. I always thought he kind of liked you." Yesenia saw Sonya's teeth flash in the dim light of the computer glow. She made a noncommittal hum, refusing to indulge her.

"He's kind of cute." That got her attention, and she snapped to face her roommate who was now grinning cheekily. 

"What? You've never even met him!"

"Well, you see," Sonya began as she stood from the bed, "there's this really interesting thing that was invented where you can look people up, see what they look like, what their hobbies are, all for free. It's called," She paused dramatically, and Yesenia waited for the smart assed comment that she knew was coming next, "Facebook." 

She groaned, and fell back on to her pillow, ignoring the proud look on Sonya's face as she continued speaking, "His profile picture? Completely adorable. You know, that whole time you were complaining you made him sound like he was a complete troll. He's cute! Like an adorable, dimpled puppy." 

 "I'm not Facebook stalking a guy I have no interest in, who I haven't even thought about since graduation." Yesenia said, studiously ignoring the little voice in the back of her head that unhelpfully recalled the many times that Yesenia had, in fact, thought of a certain curly haired G.A since her graduation. Sonya grinned, and Yesenia scowled at her. So what if Sonya knew she was lying? She could at least have the decency to pretend otherwise. 

"Fine. I have to get to work, I'm covering for Raina today. I'll try and borrow one of those braces that we have if your wrist is still bothering you." Now that it was a little lighter in the room, what with the sun rising, she could see that Sonya was dressed in her typical uniform, black collared shirt with her black, white and red EMS patch sewn in to the arm. 

"Thanks, I'm like ninety percent sure that I'll be okay though. Save some lives." 

Sonya nodded, teeth flashing in a quick grin and tapped the edge of the door lightly. "Always. I'll see you later then." 

"See you." Yesenia rolled back over to face her computer, listening to the sounds of Sonya leaving. Keys jingling, the sound of something zipping up, and finally the door closing, the sound of the lock sliding firmly in place echoing throughout the apartment. 

She focused on the computer in front of her, tapping idly on the keyboard.There were a million things that she had left to do, which included finishing the final edits for the upcoming episode as well as beginning the twelve page case study she had to analyze for her pharmacology class that was due by the end of the week. She reminded herself of this as she opened up a new tab in her browser window. 

She had to do research of course, for the class, but some mindless browsing wouldn't hurt for a few minutes, would it? 

Of course not. Then she'd get it out of her system and be productive. 

And where else do you go to mindlessly browse other than Facebook? That didn't mean that she had any intention at all  to look up a certain person who had a habit of wildly swinging open doors and an overly pretentious personality- I mean, really. Who argues with someone over word placement-

So, no. She would not spend her valuable time searching for Jordan Bautista. Because that would be ridiculous and she was not thirteen and pining she was an adult goddammit and-

Huh. 

Okay, she admitted grudgingly as she stared at his picture on the screen, maybe he was cuter then she remembered him being. At least, she added as she exited the screen and stared at her reflection in the monitor, when he wasn't being a total dick. 

Jordan

He woke up feeling like someone had taken a hammer to his head and the taste of a dead rodent in his mouth.

Also, it was fucking freezing. He blearily lifted his head, tried to ignore the distracting way that it made the room tilt dangerously, and noticed for the first time the pins and needles tingling up his legs. They were hanging off the edge of the couch, which gave him pause. Why the hell was he on the couch?

Squinting, he noticed a blurry figure laying close to him, and could just make out the black fuzzy curls. Sam, laying across the long portion of the gigantic L shape couched that took over their living room that they had bought specifically because it was quite possibly the best couch to nap on in existence.

Natalia's words. She had very specific napping requirements. As he laid his head down, a glint caught his eye across the room. He peered over the edge of the couch, angling his head just slightly and saw the disregarded beer bottles littering the floor, the pile next to him on the couch exponentially larger than the few around Sam.

Sitting up was a bad idea, he realized, as the room spun in a way that he knew it definitely wasn't supposed to. He took a minute, waiting for the nausea to pass, swearing under his breath as it refused, before slowly opening his eyes again. Sam hadn't moved, probably wouldn't for at least another hour or two barring some sort of world ending catastrophe. Carefully, he stood and began picking his way through the disaster zone that was his living room. He stopped by the kitchen counter, seeing his phone lying there and blinking, Several text messages and a few Facebook notifications appeared when he tapped the screen but he focused on the LED numbers instead.

5:38 AM.

He didn't have to work today, so he ignored all the missed notifications and instead focused on stumbling his way in to the bathroom. The light stayed off, partly because he had lived there so long he could easily navigate through the gray semi darkness and partly because, well. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what he looked like in the fluorescent light. 

He already knew what he would see. Black curly hair sticking up every which way. Brown eyes with purple hollows underneath from lack of sleep.

He shut off the faucets, wiping his hands dry on one of the hand towels behind him and stumbled his way down the hall to his bedroom. He managed to kick off his jeans at some point before he slid underneath the covers of his bed, briefly appreciating the coolness of the pillow against his flushed cheeks before he passed out.

The next time he woke, he had to blink a few times before registering the sight in front of him.

Nat was in his bed.

She watched him while he processed this, her cool blue-gray eyes assessing his response. Jordan sighed, too tired to pretend that he was furious, and simply pushed his face back in to the pillow, grumbling. Sometimes Nat was like a child, if you ignored her for long enough eventually she went away.

"You know for a little while there, we thought that Sam was going to have to pump your stomach."

Apparently this wasn't one of those times.

Jordan sighed, shoulders slumping.

"Don't I feel special." He mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut before releasing any lingering hope of falling back asleep.

"Your tolerance is the special one here. I remember when you used to be a lightweight."

"Mmmph." Jordan rolled on to his back, blinking up at the ceiling. Thank god the shades were still pulled shut. Nat wasn't feeling overly vindictive.

"I'm sure that Logan had a hand in it's now extraordinary capability."

Jordan winced reflexively, slamming his eyes shut and balling his hands in to fists by his sides. That migraine he had forgotten about pressed against his temples again. God, he loved Nat but sometimes he wanted to kill her.

"Probably." He finally managed through gritted teeth. He braced himself against his fists and slowly moved in to a sitting position. The wave of nausea that came with it was expected, but bearable. Exhaling deeply, he staggered out from under the blankets, ignoring Nat as he pulled a pair of sweats out from the dresser next to him and slipped them on. They were at the point in their friendship where changing in front of each other was simply a fact of life.

Jordan and Sam had met in college, Sam being assigned to the hall where Jordan was an RA. Sam had the room next to Jordan, and had begged for sanctuary from his own biology roommate, who had taken to holing up in his room for days without leaving for anything more than trips to the bathroom and to pick up the salt and vinegar chips he ate from the vending machine.

"I'm telling you, man. There's a smell, and I swear to God that he's trailing fumes like Pigpen. I just need somewhere to escape the funk." Jordan had laughed, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought. He looked up at Sam through his eyelashes, debating.

"Plus," Jordan added, smirking, "You want to know who the girl who's constantly in my room is, and if she's single or not."

Sam pointed at him, "Your words, not mine."

Speaking of Sam, Jordan mused as he turned around to face Nat, who was sprawled out ungainly over his bed, her hair creating a bright red sunflower spread across his sheets. She said red hair was more intimidating, hence why she consistently dyed it it's copper color. 

"Is Hungover 2 awake yet?" Nat shrugged, playing with the tips of her hair.

"Last I heard he was cursing you out the door as he went to work."

Sam was a physical therapist, and Jordan couldn't even imagine trying to be that active after the amount they had drank last night. 

"Remind me to pick him up some apology ice cream before he gets home," Jordan muttered, swaying as he picked his way carefully down the hall. The mess in the living room looked even worse when he was fully awake, and he doggedly ignored it on his way to the kitchen.

Nat followed a few minutes later, Jordan heard her footsteps behind him on the tile as he pulled out the ingredients for a fried egg sandwich. Always a trusty hangover food, even when it was-he checked the clock on the stove-almost half past noon.

"So are we going to talk about what happened last night or do you want to just continue pretending that this is a healthy way to-"

"Could you just, for once in your life, stop trying to lecture me?" Jordan snapped, spinning around, causing the carton of eggs to wobble dangerously behind him. He winced immediately when doing so caused a stabbing pain behind his eyes, and then internally winced again at the look on Nat's face. 

Yeah, he was gonna regret that one later. 

"Fine," she snapped, flipping her hair out of her face, "You want to play the suffering martyr? Go ahead. Maybe I would stop lecturing you if you stopped needing to be lectured, you ever think of that?"

"Jesus Christ Nat, who do you think you are with your 'better than thou' shit? Like you're anyone who I should take life advice from?" The silence that filled the room was sharp, cutting as the words that they threw carelessly at each other. Nat crossed her arms, looking away and he saw the delicate bones of her jaw working, vein throbbing in her neck. 

The traffic coming from the freeway and occasional bird call were the only sounds that filled the apartment for a few minutes, and Jordan turned around, guilt already eating at him as he poured oil haphazardly on the frying pan behind him. 

"You know, Sam wanted me to just drop it. He said you would come to us when you were ready, but it's been six months and you still can't say his name." Jordan braced his weight on the counter. He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "He's gone Jordan. And maybe I wasn't his best friend, but I am yours and as your best friend I'm telling you right now, this isn't healthy. It wasn't then, it isn't now, and I don't know when you'll see it."

Jordan didn't say anything, simply focused on the menial task in front of him. Crack, drop, flip in that order. He felt Nat's hand slip from his shoulder and waited a few moments to make sure she was gone before turning off the stove and bracing his hands on either side.

He knew she was right. Because of course she was, it was Nat and somehow she was always fucking right. But he didn't have to admit that. He didn't have to agree to the fact that he knew he had been drowning, still was drowning, because...

Fuck it.

He left the mess on the kitchen counter, ignoring Nat as she passed him on the way out the door, on her way to work. He slammed the door to his room shut, leaning on it after he did. His head was pounding, mouth dry as he stumbled his way to the closet. It was decent sized, one of those ones that had a top shelf for him to store things. Shoes, clutter, and the unassuming cardboard box that he had left to gather dust for the past six months.

It was heavier than he remembered, and he wondered briefly if that could be considered enough of a symbolic reason not to open it. Deep down though, he knew it was time. If not because Nat knew the exact words to say to get him out of his head then because Sam would come after him with his ridiculous puppy dog eyes that should not be as effective on a twenty five year old man. 

The first thing that greeted him upon opening the box was a picture. Two boys,  arms around each other and covered in mud and grass. Logan Kelly was on the left, all blonde hair and crinkled blue eyes, while Jordan was on the right, dimples and curls. 

They'd grown up together, Logan and Jordan. They met when they were twelve, after Jordan moved to Lowell from Boston. 

His parents had just gotten divorced, his little sister still an infant at the time, and he'd been wandering around the new complex because she'd been crying and he felt like if he listened to her for another minute he'd become dangerously close to snapping. He was, instead, wandering around the cramped grounds of the Princeton Parks apartments when the sound of a rhythmic thumping caught his attention. 

Curious, he'd followed the sound. The complex was small enough so that he'd only had to venture around a few more corners before locating the source. 

A boy, shorter than him, was kicking a soccer ball against the wall. Jordan watched him for a few minutes. He used to play soccer with his dad back when they were still in Southie. It was one of their traditions, Saturday morning practicing together. 

"You play? Or are you one of those who like to watch?" The boy had noticed his presence, and there was no mistaking the double entendre there, and Jordan felt himself flush. 

"So what if I am?" He called back, crossing his arms. He was intimidating for a twelve year old, he knew that. Kids and adults always thought he was older than he really was. It let him get away with a lot. The other kid waited for the ball to return before facing him. He was grinning, his teeth seeming to take over his entire face. 

"Then this place might actually start to get interesting." 

Logan was essentially exactly who you would imagine the son of two successful lawyer parents to be. Charismatic, with a smart mouth and looks that made all the girls he passed do a double take and then giggle to their friends, sneaking glances over their shoulder at him. 

Logan had always been on the side of the extreme, one of those up or down personalities. When he was up, he was easily the most hilarious and fun person to be around. He was sociable, always wanting to go out and almost manic in his actions.

But when he was down....

Jordan sighed, pulling out the first few items in the box. Dog tags, a few books Jordan remembered seeing on his shelf, and underneath those were dozens of pictures. It was easy to tell who was who in the early years, one boy blond and pale, the other with dark skin and hair.

Logan had always had mood swings, but after coming back from his enlistment, they had been vastly different. His parents were the one's who pushed him towards being in the army, and he'd gone through with it, the idea of being loan free was too tempting to resist. He'd done his four years, deployed in Iraq, and had come back seemingly fine. For a while. He had been on meds before, and they had helped. But after coming back, well. Jordan began taking trips to the medicine cabinet whenever he visited Logan's place, just to see if the pill bottle was being used. 

"You ever see a bridge and want to jump off of it?" Logan asked once. They were hanging out, beers in hand, and Jordan remembers exactly how fast his head had turned to eye his best friend, swallowing hard. Logan was drinking, and raised his eyebrows expectantly. At Jordan's silence, he swallowed and continued. "I mean, out of curiosity. Just to see what it'd feel like? There's a phrase for it, I think. Call of the empty, or something." 

"Call of the void," Jordan had offered weakly, the aftertaste of beer sour in his mouth. Logan snapped his fingers and pointed at him. 

"Exactly. Call of the void."  Logan turned the beer bottle in his hand over. "It's interesting to think about is all. What it would feel like." They had been quiet for a few minutes, Jordan fumbling for something to say. But Logan simply took another drink, asked about Nat, Jordan's sister, his mom, and the topic had been dropped. 

Jordan had worried, had agonized whether or not to tell anyone. But by the time he had gone to visit again, ready to talk about it, Logan was fine, doing better than he had been in a long time. Jordan, relieved, had written it off as one of those somber conversations that drunk people tended to have. 

Logan was dead two weeks after that conversation. 

Jordan hadn't been able to forgive himself since.