her new limited edition violet nikes

I have a friend named Rita. She lives in West Hollywood. Her apartment has a walk-in closet filled with sneakers. She circles the globe on jet planes, dipping down in places like Tokyo, Stockholm and Beirut to get a hold of some rubber-soled treasures.

She's told me that she's spent many nights in the closet arranging the sneakers. She's tried organizing them by colors, by price and by names.

She likes to wear sneakers when she fucks. Which she rarely does, because she's also terrified of germs. She's one of those girls that has to use 15 napkins or so, when using a public restroom. First, she covers the seat with them, then she uses a couple to hold the flusher, then the door knob of the stall, the faucet and finally the restroom door.
Today Rita and I had lunch together at the In'n'Out. Except she only got a water. She was supposed to comfort me, but I ended up having to comfort her.

First, she talked about every square inch of her new limited edition violet nikes that she'd ordered off the Internet.

Then she told me that she thinks about dying all the time. That she imagines that dying would feel like the most intense orgasm, followed by a warm pool of soft darkness.

I asked her why.

She said that the anti-depressants only have caused her to gain weight and that therapy is a waste of time and money. And that the world is cruel and hideous. And that her parents never loved her.

I love you, I said. But it was a lie. A white lie, yes, but nevertheless a lie.

I don't love her. I don't even know why I am still friends with her. We've grown apart since high school. We have little in common apart from our age and hometown. She's boring and self-absorbed. And she's cheap too. The kind of person who says; you owe me a dollar fifty.

But still, I don't want her to think about dying.

As for myself, I need to stop sulking.