Despite it being four o' clock in the morning, a car horn blared loudly from below, but it was uninterrupting. He should have been asleep. Not so much because of the hour, but because over the past three days he'd gotten less than twelve hours of accumulated sleep. Instead, though, he sat shirtless on a bed that was not his own as he ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch and watched Popeye. As a child, he wasn't really allowed to watch much television, so he couldn't help but wear a small smile on his face as he gazed at TV screen. The girl who slept next to him, the one he'd been staying with for the past few days, was huddled in an arrangement of blankets, her back to him. Her name was Hannah. She wasn't a complete stranger, as they'd met a few weeks ago, but he still didn't care enough about her to notice how she was probably freezing since he had almost every window open. Killens glanced over when she rolled on her back and tapped his leg. "Hey," she said. "You wanna turn that down? I'm trying to sleep." She gestured towards the TV and Roman raised his eyebrow.
"You need to get up early and do something?"
"Well, yeah. It's fucking Thanksgiving. I have to visit my family. I'm pretty sure I've told you this half a million times." And he was sure she had too, but still he only nodded as if it was the first time hearing it because in all honesty, he'd forgotten about Thanksgiving. He still wasn't entirely sure what the purpose of the holiday was. He knew it involved turkey and pumpkin pie, and that you ate with family, but that was really about it. Roman found the clicker and turned the volume down, trying to focus on the show again, but he could feel Hannah's eyes on him. "You never told me what you were doing," she inquired, to which he didn't say anything. "You must be visiting relatives too, right?"
"I don't--," he began. Before he'd stopped, he was going to say that he didn't have any family here. Which wasn't exactly the entire truth. His grandparents were still in New York, he was sure. But everyone else was in England where it'd just be the day before Black Friday for them. All that was too much to say, and too much information, so instead he settled with, "No. I'm not."
"Why not?"
"I thought you were going to sleep." He frowned.
"Well, now I'm up," she said as she sat upright. Her eyes danced around the room as she thought, opened her mouth, and then closed it, clearly trying to decide whether or not she should say what she was thinking. When she finally did speak, there was a clear bashful, unsure tone. "Look...If you don't have anyone to go see, come with me. Like to eat with my family and stuff. It'd be cool."
Killens smiled some and chuckled which only awarded him with a harsh look from Hannah. Even he knew how inappropriate that'd be. Just from the way she had been acting around him, Roman could tell she thought this was something more, and her naivety wasn't his problem. He should have figured that staying here would send the wrong signals, and now here she was inviting him to meet her family. Seldom things did he find funny, but this was laughable. Hannah sat up and pushed his arm.
"I don't want to meet your family, okay?"
"You don't have to be an ass about it."
"I'm not being an ass--you're just being ridiculous. I mean, why would I want to meet your family? I barely even know you."
In the next moment, the bowl of cereal he'd held in his hand was pushed onto him and a violent, "Fuck you," erupted from Hannah. Roman shook his hands which were now soaked in sugary milk and soggy cinnamon squares. "You knew me enough to stay in my fucking apartment, eating my god damn food, and running up my damn electric bill with all the TV you've been watching." As she yelled, Roman stood up and looked the other way to roll his eyes. He headed towards the bathroom to take a shower, but Hannah intercepted him. "No," she said. "You're dismissed. You can go. Find somewhere else to wash that attitude of yours." Killens stood in front of her for a long time as she blocked the entrance to the bathroom. She shoved him back enough for him to stumble half a step. "Go," she said, pushing him back just as he was in the midst of turning away, which in turn caused him to trip some. He spun around quickly, his nostrils flared. "Don't--" he started before she slapped him. "Or what? Or what?" she yelled. He only shook his head and turned away.
As he pulled on his shirt and shoes to the sound of her fussing at him, he worked to control his temper. It wasn't so much that he was easily angered, but he knew what she was doing. She knew he fought; it was at one of the matches that they'd met each other. She was really like the rest of them. They saw him as broken, as able to be fixed and softened, and whenever there was conflict, they dared him to get angry and expose his other side. That's what Hannah was doing as she pushed him out the door and slammed it behind him. He tugged at the roots of his hair hard enough to cause some pain and exited the hall and into the crisp November night. It was then that he realized he'd forgotten his jacket upstairs, but there wasn't any going back now. It took twenty minutes to walk back to the apartment--twenty-five when he decided to smoke before going inside. His exhaustion was finally hitting him, and he was thankful for it so that by the time he was finally in his room, he'd barely had enough energy to kick his shoes off before collapsing on his bed and falling asleep.