“Come on-” he knocked at the door again.

Silence.

He scowled in the hallway outside of her room as his temper tried to get the best of him. “Look! You better make a fucking grunt or something to let me know you’re okay in there before I knock down this effin door in my Own fn house!” he roared.

She snort-laughed under the pillows she had piled on top of her head.

“I heard that!” he laughed and boldly peeked his head into his best friend’s room. “Good! You didn’t die.” he grinned. “So get your ass up now,” he growled. Spinning on a dime as usual.

“You were just fn laughing!” she groaned. He dodged the pillow she threw at his head. 

“Yeah, and I was about to kick down a door I was gonna have to pay to fix the moment before that! You know how emotional I can be, now get up! Let’s go-”

“Look, Mister ROTC~ I’m not…I’m not ready to-” she muttered as she listlessly looked around the room she didn’t even recognize anymore.

“To what?” he fussed. “I didn’t even tell you what you were getting up For~” her favorite mean little Filipino besides her aunt sang out sweetly, trying to lure her out of the depression she’d wallowed in for what felt like forever to both of them.

She looked around her barely decorated room at the oddly chalky, oppressive light of another afternoon in the hell that was a Cincinnati doing it’s best to strangle or suffocate her, depending on the breath. “What am I getting Up..for?” 

“To go see your boy~” he murmured.

“My Boy? What boy?” she muttered, momentarily confused. “Who the-There are so many-“

“From your lips to God’s ear,” he chuckled, “But I mean yer Boy– yer Boy- You know…tha guy! The dude- the One who- “

Her head whipped up when it hit. “My boy- the- you mean-”

He looked at his G-shock watch and pressed the sides of it. “I’ll be in the car. You’ve got five fuckin minutes or I’m going without you,” he called over his shoulder as he sauntered downstairs and out into the driveway.

---

“Fuckin’ sniper-” she huffed four minutes and fifty-six seconds later as she slumped into the passenger seat of his hopped up, navy blue trans-am.

“Hey! Language! Not in front of the Lady, you freakin’ pirate!” he admonished his best friend. “Apologize!”

She groaned.

“Do it! Or I’ll take my mean lil ass right back in tha-”

“Fiiiiine! I’m sorry, Bessie! There! Ya Happy?”

He tried to turn on the engine. “Maybe she didn’t appreciate your tone?” he shrugged.

“Really?! For- the love of-” she drummed out her frustration on the dashboard, got her bearings and cooed at the blatantly feminine deus ex machina that always kept them alive no matter how crazily they veered off path in her. “ I’m sorry Bessie… I’m just still-”

He cut her off, just in case she was gonna start bawling again. “She knows, and-” he grunted as the engine turned over, “she gets it. She forgives you for your sailor mouth- onto the picture show!”

---