R.I.P [MXM]

Chapter 4

[SIMON]

Interesting. I thought as I watched Chris pray from my corner of my room. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would have the pleasure to watch someone do that. It looked interesting — and completely ridiculous.

He had been kneeling at the side of his bed with his eyes closed and his fingers moving the beads of his rosary for half an hour. What exactly did he have to tell God about? Or was the prayer just that long?

After a while he stopped, putting the rosary on his bed before opening his eyes and turning his head. He blinked in surprise when his eyes met mine. He probably wasn't expecting me to be watching him like a tourist attraction.

"Umm," he muttered, scratching the back of his neck as he picked up his rosary and prayer book and got up from his knees. He then sat on his bed, still staring at me with his beads held tightly in the fist of his hand.

"I'm not a creep or anything. I was just fascinated, that's all," I said, making things clear. I watched as he nodded his head in response to my words, and the frown on my face eased a bit.

"So, you do that every day?" I asked. I usually wasn't awake when he was, or I was using the bathroom.

"Yes, I pray every day," he answered as he closed the prayer book he was holding before placing it on his bedside table. He then placed the rosary on top of the book.

"Why?" I asked, sitting up on my bed. I had a hangover, so it was hard to concentrate so I was squinting, and for a strange reason, my head hurt so much that I couldn't pass out like I usually did. I had gone out with Ashton last night, and now it was Saturday morning. I was just relieved that it wasn't a weekday, so I didn't miss any lectures.

Chris frowned at me a bit before looking down at the carpet beneath his feet He looked like he was thinking about how to answer my question. I found the side of my lips twisting up in a smile. He doesn't even know why he prays, ridiculous.

"It's comforting," he said suddenly as he got up from his bed. "Talking to someone who values your existence is comforting."

I found myself chuckling a bit, making the slight frown that he had on his face deepen a bit.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to control my laughter, "but who listens to your prayers?"

"God."

"And what makes you think he's even real?" I asked, and Chris just stood there and stared at me. I decided to poke him further, wondering if he would explode in fury. "Has he ever spoken to you back? Has he ever done anything for you?"

"You know, I don't want to have this conversation," Chris said as he ran a hand through his thick curls. I smiled a bit at him, shrugging before looking away from him.

"That's fine by me," I said, and soon after I heard footsteps, and then the sound of the door of the bathroom we shared closing shut.

He seems irritated. A voice in my head said as I chuckled a bit again. I got up from my bed. I then ran a hand through my dark hair before yawning and rubbing my eyes, so they wouldn't feel so heavy. My head was still pounding, and I was in desperate need of sleep.

Maybe I should take sleeping pills. I thought, heading over to my drawer to go through it. Ashton had the extra keys to my room and he came in quite often. He would take or leave things behind, and he tended to rearrange or move things out of sight, and that's why at the very moment I was having trouble locating where my pills were. As I searched through my drawers I found some pictures I had taken a while back with Ashton, and some other pictures I had brought with me of me and my dad. I smiled, picking one of them up. I hadn't really seen my father physically in two years — since I got into college, and I'm not even sure if that was a good or bad thing.

I put the photo away, not wanting to look at the man that shared the exact same features at me. It was like looking at a mirror. I was so like him that I might as well not have a surrogate mother. Looking at the picture had made me a bit confused, and uneasy. I missed my father, but I didn't miss the ideas he had poisoned me with — his racist ones.

Eventually, I found my sleeping pills. I didn't take them right away, deciding that I should take a shower or bath after Chris, so I stopped smelling like a cup of beer had been poured on me. So, I just lay on my bed and read through my messages with Ashton as I waited.

Ashton.

If only he felt the same way about me, my life would be complete.

"They're violent and ignorant. They're just born that way — Niggers." I sighed, shutting my eyes when my father's words sipped into my mind out of nowhere. He had been driving me back from school that day and we had driven through a clash between protesters and the police. It was embarrassing to remember that I just used to eat my father's words up — that I used to think like that too. Leaving my little town and going to college had pulled me out from that mindset. For one, my father wasn't overseeing me anymore, and I was in a more diverse environment where I lived day to day with the people my father saw as inherently inferior and violent.

My mindset changed, but with that change, it became very uncomfortable to be around my father, so we grew distant. I wondered what he would even think if he knew my roommate was African American.

ASHTON:

You're awake!

SAT, 12:43 PM.

I looked down at my phone when it buzzed with Ashton's message. I smiled, making to reply.

ME:

Yes, I am.

Typing...

Also, why the fuck did you move my pills. It took me forever to find them.

SAT, 12:44 PM.

We spoke for a while, exchanging tests until Ashton had to leave to go somewhere. I put my phone away, then I sat up on my bed again before letting my eyes dart around the room. Chris' corner was well kept and clean as usual. The only thing that really stood out on his side of the room was the stack of prayer books on his bedside table. I chuckled again, remembering how defensive he'd gotten at my question.

Christians. I thought. Yeah, my father had a bad side for them too, but I tended to agree with him on that broadly.

He's still in the shower? I groaned when I realized that Chris was in fact still in the bathroom. What in the world is he doing in there? A baptism? I wondered, getting up from my bed before walking over to the bathroom door. I had planned to bang on the door with my fist, but the sound of sobs partly covered by the sound of the loud shower threw me off my initial plan. I frowned in confusion before pressing my ear against the wooden door, and sure enough, I could hear the sobs. Chris was crying.

Was it what I said? I wondered, starting to feel a bit self-conscious and cruel. I pulled away from the bathroom door before walking back to my bed, no longer interested in getting him to hurry up.

It can't be that, right? It must be something else, right? I thought, but even that made me curious about what other reason could possibly be the cause. A few more minute past and Chris walked out of the bathroom in a bathrobe. He walked to his side of his room and tried his best not to show any skin as he changed. Watching him struggle to do that was usually hilarious, but I wasn't sure how to feel about that anymore.

"Sorry," I found myself saying when I got up from my bed to head to the bathroom. Chris looked over at me like he was confused about why I was apologizing. I just shrugged at his reaction before walking into the bathroom and shutting the door behind me.

My worry that it was something that I had said that made him cry had been debunked by his reaction, but I couldn't help wondering what it was if it wasn't me.

I shook my head in the shower, sighing as I ran my hands through my wet hair to work shampoo into it.

The biggest question was — why the fuck did I even care?