Balconial Conversations

82 // katherine helpful

I lie draped across the couch as my mother hurries about the room, prepared to meet her new friend at the pier market.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" She asks, winding a translucent pink scarf around her neck and smoothing her hair.

"I'm good. Have fun," I press play on the remote and While You Were Sleeping starts.

"Why don't you hang out with Cam, or something. You shouldn't spend the entire day alone, sweetheart."

"I'll think about it."

"Okay, okay." She makes a hands-free gesture, and backs out. "I'm gone, don't do drugs."

Not a minute passes before someone is knocking at the door violently. I contemplate answering, then change my mind and raise the volume of Sandra Bullock at the train station.

"Kat, answer the door I can hear you watching the movie." It sounds like...

Him. He's at my door. Right now.

I roll off the cushions, and stagger to the door in my purple boxers and t-shirt ensemble.

"Hey," I say to Cam who stands in the hallway with giant circles under his eyes and a crazed look. His cable knit sweater is askew, but not as much as his hair is.

"I can't study. I can't think. I'm going to fail." He says, pushing into the apartment with a tower of notebooks, his laptop and a pile of yellow hi-lighters. He walks right past me to the living room and collapses on the couch. "Matty is practicing for his play and drinking grenadine and it smells weird and he's loud and I can't concentrate."

I wander back to the living room and stand on the rug. "So... what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know," he looks perplexed and stressed and miserable. "I need help."

"But... I haven't taken these courses, Cam." I think I look perplexed. He dips his head and stares at the paper pile on his lap; it's beginning to slip to one side and he wraps his arms around it.

"I have notes, so many notes, and practice questions. You could quiz me, if you... if you don't mind. I can't read anymore or I'm going to shoot myself in the face." Oh my gosh, he looks like he could cry.

"Um, okay. Lets go to my room, though, you can spread out the notes on the bed." I start back down the hallway and he follows. I stare down at my braless chest; I think the shirt is black enough and loose enough that it doesn't show anything.

I sit cross legged by the pillows, and he drops the pile on the centre of the bed. He sits on the end, carefully, with his feet touching the floor. "I'm sorry for this... I just didn't know who else to go to. Milo is visiting his family in Edmonton."

"Don't worry about it. What do you want to study first?"

"Um, Biology is the first one."