A Wall Between

Chapter 13

Today's temp job had been bad and all Cooper wanted to do was vent, but it was date night and he knew Abra and Ellie were going straight from their job to romantically ride around on the ferries for a few hours. But that was okay. Date night meant Sasha, and Sasha was a good listener. Cooper picked a bunch of bright pink flowers from a bush on the way home.

Cooper got back to the apartment building and knocked on Sasha's door without even bothering to stop home first. It was as the door was opening that he realised his mistake.

Cooper wanted to cry. He said he'd come by at six and it wasn't even five yet. Sasha was going to think he was doing this on purpose or that at very least that he was extremely inconsiderate. Maybe he was inconsiderate. Why couldn't he stop and think for two seconds before he did things?

Cooper squeezed his eyes shut for a couple of seconds and then sighed and opened them again. "Sorry. I'm early. I just— I don't know. I'll come back later."

"Are you okay?"

Cooper forced a smile and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, just. Rough day. I picked you these flowers."

"Thank you," Sasha said as he took the flowers. "Do you want to come in?"

"You don't mind? I can come back later..."

"No, it's fine."

Cooper entered the apartment and flopped down on Sasha's bed while Sasha filled a glass with water and put the flowers in it. Cute.

Sasha turned around and leant back against the counter. "Why was your day bad?"

"It was mostly my fault, honestly."

"Yeah?" Sasha walked over and sat down next to him on the bed. He was wearing his kitty pyjamas. Cooper wanted to cuddle him.

"Yeah," Cooper said. "I do temp work, which is the only thing that really works for me because I get too bored with normal jobs, but it can cause some issues especially with me being... well, me. I was at a new place today and the manager was explaining things and giving me a million steps all at once and then getting annoyed when I kept coming back and asking him about things he'd already told me. So I was like, well, can you write it down for me and he said no and I was like... what an asshole, right? He doesn't want me to keep asking him shit but he won't write it down, so what the fuck."

Sasha nodded.

"It was only just now, on the walk home, that I realised I could have just written it down myself. That was probably what the guy was thinking. Like... if I want it written down, I can take notes myself. I'm not very good at note taking because I find it hard to split my attention between two things, but it's a tool I use all the time and he wasn't, like, an awful person. He probably would have helped me if he'd seen me genuinely trying and struggling. But no, I just forgot taking notes was a thing I could do for an entire day."

"Do you have to go back again?"

"Yeah, on Monday," Cooper said. "Two more days."

"What are you going to do?"

"Honestly? Just talk to the guy. Tell him I have problems with these things and that I didn't mean to be difficult. I find that if you don't tell people why you're struggling they tend to assume the worst and be super judgemental, but if you do most people are actually pretty decent and will do their best to help you." Cooper pulled Sasha's weighted blanket over him and curled up under it. "Which is actually kinda fucked up, because I talk to people who get labelled as slackers or unreliable and there's usually a good reason. Like, they miss work a lot because they have a serious medical condition and they have to go to their appointments, or they didn't get any sleep because they spent all night dealing with a family emergency or whatever. But if they don't feel comfortable bringing their personal life to work or they don't know how to articulate what they're struggling with, people just assume they're lazy or whatever."