chalk_pisarapen

Cole grew up in a fairly small city, though his childhood was relegated to a rundown house on the edge of town. His house was always filthy, his parents were always fighting, his siblings rarely talked louder than murmurs, his older siblings would fight among themselves at dinner. His clothes were old, thrifted hand-me-downs, he never ate school lunches because he couldn't afford them and he didn't have anything to bring from home. He was relentlessly bullied and outcasted, choosing to not speak to anyone for his last three years of high school.

Basically, his home life sucked, his school life sucked, but Cole managed to hold onto hope. He was smart, in advanced coding classes and spending afternoons on the library computers studying computer science and similar things that interested him. And sure, maybe having your only friend be your little sister is a little pathetic but it's better than nothing.

His first semester of college was more or less the same, except he flew way under the radar and could go weeks without talking to a single person. Lonely? Yeah. Peaceful? Absolutely. His roommate hadn't shown up to the dorm once the whole semester, and while he was a little disappointed to not have an easy person to talk to if he felt brave, the privacy was great.

Until he got back from winter break and there was a random person in his room.

Sebastian had tried to back out of dorm life at the last second. He never moved in and instead stayed in his friends single room for the first semester. Sebastian eventually got tired of it and bravely decided to investigate his dorm. Him and Cole barely get along for a good while, Sebastian is hesitant to let him in and Cole is struggling to work up the nerve to try. With a little outside force, the ball got rolling and the two became attached at the hip.

Cole thinks Sebastian is brilliant. He's so creative, his art is so beautiful. Cole finds himself filled with nervous energy around Sebastian, and not the kind that has made him break down in classrooms in the past. Once he had Sebastian's trust, everything else came easy. Sebastian and Cole could spend hours cooped up in a mess of blankets on the floor, watching films Sebastian could rave about endlessly, or doing nothing at all and drinking in each other's presence. Maybe Cole worked on his latest coding project. Maybe Sebastian scribbled designs in his sketchbook. Maybe Sebastian spent the hours painstakingly capturing the way the low lamplight hit Cole's face on the page.

Cole's friendship with PJ might be equally encompassing. They have vague things in common, a rough childhood, bullying, and father issues. The thing that makes them, them is mainly how natural it is to spill their guts to the other. Cole and PJ went from being acquaintances to knowing intimate details of the other's life surprisingly quickly, they just seemed to click. Cole and PJ are both insomniacs, both overthinkers, and the biweekly debrief in PJ's van off campus well after midnight does wonders to help the load off each their shoulders.

His close knowledge of PJ's inner workings makes him see Rory in a different light. What he'd normally write off as a bubbly girl comes off more to him as a coping mechanism disguising how she's barely holding it together and can't stand to not be responsible for one second.