Worst Kind of Wrong

Chapter 5

Fuck, why is she crying? And on her birthday...

I think she's arguing on the phone with someone, so she doesn't really need my help. But there's no way I'm going back to sleep right now.

I have to know if she's okay. After all, that's what any neighbor would do.

I walk out of my apartment and across the hall to knock on her door. I look at the watch on my wrist and realize it's one a.m. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to knock on someone's door at this hour. But I hear her footsteps, so there's no escaping now.

She opens the door and looks surprised to see me. She also looks devastated, as if she's just received bad news. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying.

"I'm sorry, this is weird" Good fucking point, Conor "But I heard you yelling, and I thought it would be better to see if you were ok"

She looks at me for a few silent seconds and I realize immediately that I shouldn't have come. I'm invading her privacy and I would hate if someone did that to me.

But suddenly, she starts crying again and I feel terribly useless. Fuck. I approach her, because what the fuck am I supposed to do, and open my arms to hug her. I feel her trembling in the embrace and I press her body against mine. And I know that she's in pain but fuck... it feels good to have her in my arms. 

I also want to make her stop crying. Watching her cry makes me feel like shit and I know why.

It's because that's what I felt whenever Sarah cried.

"Hey..." I take a step back to look her in the eyes and lift her chin, forcing her to look at me "Do you want to talk about it? It's ok if you don't. But maybe it will make you feel better"

What I say is a real cliche and I don't even believe it, because when I feel bad, I never want to talk to anyone. But I want to know what's wrong with her.

"It's just..." she starts talking, trying to control her breathing at the same time "I..." She brings her hands to her chest and breathes deeply. She repeats it a couple times, closing her eyes and I can tell something isn't right. Her face starts to turn red, and she goes inside the apartment, and I follow her, trying to understand what's going on. She opens a drawer in the living room and nervously messes things up.

"What's going on, Charlie?" I ask nervous, not knowing what to do.

"I'm ..." breath "I'm asthmatic and I can't remember..." breath "where I put the inhaler" she says slowly.

"What?" I rant "How come you don't remember?"

I break all the rules of good manners and start looking everywhere in her place for the fucking inhaler. I start getting more worried when I see Charlie stop looking and sit on the couch trying to control her breathing.

I go close to her and kneel between her legs, trying to get her to look at me.

"Charlie, come on. You have to help me. You really have no idea where it might be?"

"I'm trying..." breath "to remember... My house is a mess"

Yeah, no shit.

"Then, what can I do? Maybe I can run to the drugstore" I stand up, finally finding a purpose for my presence here.

"There's no time for that" she says and my pulse speeds up at her sentence.

"Please don't say shit like that"

I go to her room and start looking in the most obvious places. Bedside table, drawers, but nothing. Then I go to the bathroom and open all the cupboards. There are dozens of useless creams and shit, but not a fucking inhaler.