A Wall Between

Chapter 31

After leaving the barbeque, Cooper, Abra, and Ellie had looked up local events and ended up at a random school fete. Cooper had splashed out and spent two dollars on a lucky jar. He hadn't opened it yet because he wanted to do it with Sasha.

He'd been a little worried that Sasha wouldn't want to see him for days after the barbeque had taken so much out of him, so it was a relief when he received a text from Sasha seconds after he stepped through the front door asking him to come to his room.

Sasha was sitting on his bed, knees up against his chest, when Cooper stepped into the room.

"Look," Cooper said, holding up the jar so that he could see. "Treasures."

"Oooh."

Cooper sat down next to him so close that their shoulders pressed together and emptied the contents of the jar onto the bed. There were some little packs of Fruit Tingles which they immediately broke open and started sucking on and a flowery hair clip that Cooper slid into Sasha's hair. A tiny toy car, some stickers, and a braided string bracelet in shades of green and blue that Sasha tied around Cooper's wrist with clumsy yet careful and patient fingers.

Once they'd gone through everything, they lay down together and Cooper pressed his forehead against Sasha's chest.

Sasha's fingers gently explored strands of Cooper's hair. "Are you tired?"

"I'm... mm," Cooper said. "Life's a lot sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah. I know."

"It's hard to rest when your brain doesn't really do that. I'm laying here like this, and it's so nice, and there's still a part of my brain telling me it's Movement Time. I don't want it to be movement time."

Sasha reached out and grabbed for something and then pressed a small object into Cooper's hand. It was the little toy car. "Movement time."

Cooper smiled as he spun the wheels. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Sasha was silent for a long moment, his fingers still fiddling with Cooper's hair. "Cooper?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to live here? Well, not here. The place down the street, I mean."

"Well, yeah, we want to, but I think I'll count myself lucky if we can get a two bedroom apartment somewhere. We're pretty damn poor, Sasha."

"Yeah." Another long pause. "What if you got another roommate?"

"Maybe?" Cooper said as he fiddled with the wheels on the toy car. "You're the only person we know who's looking to move and you wouldn't want to live with us, and a stranger is... risky."

"Oh. Why do you think I wouldn't want to?"

"Uhh. Because you haven't said you would want to, I guess?"

"Oh, yeah. That's a good point. Honestly I was hoping you would have more insight into what I want than I do, but I guess that's unreasonable."

Cooper sat up and looked down at Sasha. "Are you saying you might want to live with us?"

Sasha shrugged. "Would you guys even want me to?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't we?"

"I'm not as social as you all are."

"So? We're all different. You don't have to be the same as us."

"I think I might want to live with you, if I can have my own room. My parents said I get enough to pay the rest of what you can't, so... we could do it. We could all live in that house together."