32...

Bryan slowly and quietly followed Frank back in to the bedroom. Frank found a pair of jeans on the floor and quickly put them on over his striped boxers. He began to tuck in his Sonic Youth T-shirt before thinking better of it and pulled it back out again. He went to the milk crate in his closet and pulled out a pair of socks. He moved back to that chair at his desk, fully aware that Bryan was watching him, but ignoring him all the same. He forcefully straightened out his socks by slapping them on his thighs and then roughly put them on.
“Frank, man.” Bryan tried in a calm voice.
“What?” Frank looked up with anger pounding from his eyes.
“What’s really the problem? I mean you’re not really pissed about the stupid porn story are you?”
Frank got up and began rummaging around for his shoes. He found one, picked it up and began spinning in a small circle, attempting to sniff out the other. After about forty-five seconds of this, Frank threw the one shoe down on the floor and sat down again.
“I don’t know Bryan,” Frank said, his voice lightly marked with faraway tears. “I’m fucking beat. I’ve been on this crazy roller coaster morning and I think I’m starting to lose it a little. I feel completely out of control, and the fact that I try to hold it together and act like my life has some semblance of normalcy makes me feel like driving a spike through my head.”
Bryan had found Frank’s lost shoes sticking out of a pile of laundry. He grabbed it and the thrown one and gently handed them to Frank.
“And yeah, the stupid bathroom fuck story was just the last straw. I know it’s not a big deal, and I know it’s supposed to be cheesy, stupid, raunchy porn for sad suck suckers to rub one out to, but… I don’t know…”
Frank was looking out the dusty and encrusted window high up on the bedroom wall. Bryan could see his mouth fighting with the words trying to come out, as if he were tasting them before serving.
“For a second there it represented abject fucking failure in a way that… I could see this round window set in a stucco wall that was somehow the embodiment of expectation…”
Bryan was sort of waiting for the joke, but realized it wasn’t coming. He didn’t think that Frank was talking to him anymore, and frankly he couldn’t understand what he was trying to get across anyway.
“…I knew that desire will destroy you, but at the same time, in a very real way, desire is the only thing that will keep you going. It’s like this beast that eats itself and survives. No, it’s like this flower that just keeps opening up on itself and you keep seeing these rows of paper-like petals, in glorious colors and you keep thinking, there can’t possibly be more coming. But it just keeps opening out… And I realized that man, I can rationalize my way out of anything, and where does it fucking stop? Where do I stop it? I just kept seeing this hall of mirrors… No, this endlessly opening flower, and I flipped out a little bit.”
He looked up at Bryan as if he were lost and shook his head a bit. Slowly his eyes cleared and he looked down at the shoes in his lap. He began to put them on.
“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said, as he slowly laced up.