A Wall Between

Chapter 8

At around seven that night there was a knock on the door to Sasha's apartment and his first thought was that it was one of the resident drug addicts and he was going to die. His second, more realistic but still overly pessimistic thought was that it was someone who was going to shout at him for something he'd done wrong.

It had been several seconds and Sasha hadn't moved and they hadn't knocked again and maybe they'd assume he wasn't home and go away if he ignored it. But then he realised if he did that he'd never know what they wanted and it would haunt him for weeks. He could not let that happen. He crept to the door and looked through the peephole.

It was Cooper. Sasha opened the door immediately.

Cooper was not wearing pants, but he was wearing a T-shirt, which was more than he'd worn during two thirds of their prior interactions. Cooper looked nice without his shirt on, but it was very distracting and it was hard to keep his eyes where they were meant to be. Especially since Sasha always struggled to maintain eye contact.

"Okay, so, first of all I'm sorry for just showing up at your door at night. That's weird and probably annoying and I wasn't going to do that, or— I was going to do that, and then I realised it was a bad play before I got to your door, but then I'd already shut my door and it locks automatically and my roommates are out and I still wasn't going to bother you but it's cold and I'm hungry and I don't have my phone and I think my roommates might not be back for a couple of hours..."

"Do you want to come in?" Sasha asked when Cooper paused for breath.

"I mean, only if you want to hang out. If not it's totally fine, but if I could borrow a jumper or something I would really appreciate it because I'm freezing my balls off."

Sasha opened the door wider and stepped aside. "No, it's okay. You can come in."

Cooper grinned. "Thanks, Sasha."

"Mmhm," Sasha said as something that wasn't quite anxiety squirmed in his tummy. Cooper had said his name!

Cooper looked around the small room and then went and sat down on the bed, because there was nowhere else to sit. "You can tell me to go away at any time if you get sick of me, okay? Like, I realise you probably wouldn't because even if I say it's fine that still kinda feels like a confrontational thing to do so you know, I'm fully aware this is a shitty position to put you in, and— oh, thanks," Cooper said as Sasha draped a blanket over his shoulders. He hugged it around himself. "Is this a weighted blanket? It feels heavy."

"Yes," Sasha said. He felt like he should be saying more after Cooper had talked so much, but he only needed one word to answer the question so he wasn't sure what else he would say.

"It feels nice. You know, I always wanted to try one to see what it's like but they're pretty expensive, right?"

Sasha leant back against the kitchen counter on the other side of the room. Would it be weird if he sat on the bed as well? "That one wasn't, but it's not full length so I can't use it to sleep with. I just use it during the day."

"Yeah, it seems like it would be good for that. So, how long have you lived here?"

"Uh... about a month, I guess."

"Huh. We must not have noticed you at all the first like... two weeks after you moved in."

"Mm," Sasha said as he contemplated whether or not he wanted to tell the truth. "I was trying not to be noticed."

Cooper pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his folded arms on them. "Why?"

Sasha regretted bringing this up. Explaining his thought processes to someone else made him feel stupid. "I don't know."