Ice Cold

12

Wren Ridley

I always liked the beach at night. It was peaceful. There were no people around to ruin the serenity. When life got too much, or people got too annoying, this was a perfect getaway. And sharing this was not something I had ever planned on doing.

But of course for some fucked up reason I couldn't just leave Landon alone. And of course he had to come to me with his self loathing.

I knew as soon as I smelled the alcohol on his breath how this night would end, with me taking care of him because he drank his emotions. What I didn't expect was the severity of his emotions or the gut-punch feeling as he was close to a mental breakdown in my dorm room and as cried beside me in the car.

There was something more going on with Landon than I had originally thought, something that seriously ate at him, a self hatred that had been instilled in him.

And a feeling gnawed at me. A feeling of sympathy or guilt, I couldn't tell, but I'd never admit to it.

Landon let out a shaky sigh and I kept my eyes facing forward. I didn't want to look at him as he cried, and he wouldn't want me to either.

"I'm so tired," he said in barely a whisper.

"Go to sleep then," I replied, though I knew that wasn't what he meant. He was tired of everything, not just physically tired, but emotionally drained.

We had both finished our fries and were now just sitting and staring at the water, my book playing in the background to fill the silence, but I hadn't been paying attention to it.

Landon did fall asleep eventually. When his breathing evened out, I looked over at him to see that his eyes were closed and his face had softened. When he was asleep he looked at peace. He looked so much younger without the lines of anger on his face and it reminded me that he and I were only a year apart. He was only eighteen and burdened by all that anger.

I forced myself to look away from him, uncomfortable with the way I was starting to pity him and feel guilty that I had contributed to the anger that plagued him tonight.

I didn't know why I cared. I knew I shouldn't. He was not someone who deserved my sympathy that I rarely ever gave out. Not after the way he had treated my brother.

That was why I had to look away from him because if I kept looking at him, I would forget that. I would see his face looking so innocent and forget that damaged his anger had caused.

It was one thing to be physically attracted to him, it was a whole other to start feeling anything other than that.

Landon had been asleep for a while before I started driving back to the city. I put my audiobook back to the last part I remembered and listened the whole way to Landon's campus.

He stirred awake just before we made it back, but he didn't say anything. When I parked the car outside his building, Landon didn't move for a moment. I wondered if he was going to start screaming at me again, or start crying.

But he just looked at me and gave me a slight nod before getting out of the car and going into his building. I watched as he walked inside and walked into the stairwell before I drove off.

I tried to keep my mind off of him while I drove back to my dorm building. I didn't want to think about the way he cried or the way some strange part of me wanted to comfort him but had no idea how.

I should have just kicked him out of my room. Then I wouldn't be thinking about him at all and all would be right in my world. But there was this strange pull that made that impossible.