Color Blind

Chapter Eleven

AN: I owe this song a lot-I'd caught a nasty case of Writer's Block when I got the album. It came on, I put it on repeat and stayed up all night on a writing binge. Anyway, thank you, Pearl Jam. Here's Of The Girl.

* * *

Greek. Yes. Greek sounded just perfect tonight.

Nancy looked in the mirror and mussed her hair up just a tad. She was small enough to pass as a child if she dressed in baggy clothing and didn't do her hair. As of late, she had been grateful for that.

She wondered randomly how Cole was doing. A second later she chased that thought out with a mental butcher knife. Cole had no business being in her head.

The Greek place was empty and she was back home within half an hour. Thank goodness for that. There was no reason to hang around outside. It was cold and rainy.

Well, it was always cold and rainy, so that was a lousy excuse. But it would do.

She dug into her pasta salad

Mm, carbs. Put some weight back on.

and looked at the microwave. She really did need to clean it. There had been an accident and now the inside was coated with cheese. Maybe after dinner she'd run the vacuum and clean the microwave. It had been a while since she'd cleaned. Finals had come up and derailed her plans for housekeeping. Stupid finals. She was pretty confident on all but her math one, though, so that was something. It could have been worse.

She really did like pasta salad. Perhaps she'd get Janet's recipe for that good dressing...the addictive one that she swore was made with cocaine.

The TV droned on in the background and she changed it over to the cartoon channel. She'd been watching an old show-black and white, she didn't remember the name-but it was over. Bummer. It hadn't been half bad.

Cole wormed his way back into her head and she rolled her eyes. Why was she thinking about him? Why was she supposed to care? He was a patient. A very nice, funny patient, yes, but a patient. A heroin addict. A man

Boy. Admit it, he's still so much like a child.

that she saw maybe twice a week, for a very brief amount of time.

If she wasn't careful, this could be really bad. She'd read about incidents where people got involved with addicts to try and 'help' them. Those never turned out good for the sober people. She didn't want to be known as someone with an overactive nurturing instinct.

 Friendship was allowed. Anything past that was not allowed. Ever. Not with a sober person, and certainly not with a junkie. Friendship was pushing the envelope as it was.

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For the first time in a long time

Or maybe ever, what do I know?

Cole Martin was thinking about a girl. To be very specific, he was thinking about Nancy.

He liked Nancy, he'd decided. Not like-like, just...like. She was nice to him. And for some reason, it was very easy to make her laugh. He had to wonder if she was just being nice to him, though, because she didn't laugh at everybody's lousy jokes. Just his. That was fine.

He yawned and looked up at the ceiling. How was he supposed to make friends, anyway? He hardly ever saw her. Besides, most sane people didn't want to make friends with...

No. He'd just let things play out on their own. Thinking about it would only stress him out and make him tired. He was tired enough already without extra.

Sean was working late tonight. Cole was grateful for that. He still wasn't feeling well

I should probably mention that.

and he'd narrowly escaped being slammed against the wall a few nights back. He still had the bruises on his arms, but he thanked God for the neighbor who had come over asking about their power. His had gone out.

He snuggled into his oversized flannel shirt and closed his eyes. He wanted to draw, but he also wanted to avoid getting a black eye if Sean caught him at it. He had an appointment tomorrow, after all.

That brought his thoughts back to Nancy. He let them stay there this time. That was a safe topic, one that wouldn't give him nightmares or anything.

How was he supposed to talk to a girl? He'd never talked to many in high school. Hell, he'd talked to two of them, really. The one from that party hadn't really spoken as much as she'd shared the booze

It wasn't bad booze, either.

and dragged him into bed with her. That had been the first and last time he'd gone that far, and he didn't think he wanted to go that far with Nancy. Not at first. Maybe not ever.

Getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren't you? Friends first. Don't push it.

He'd worry about this in the morning. For now, he just wanted to go to sleep before Sean got home. Sean usually didn't wake him up on purpose, so if he was asleep, he would be safe.

Hopefully.