Daybreak | IC Inbox.

[awooligan]

CLIFFORD NORMAN
UN: REDRIDINGHOODIE

STATUS: grade 11

ACCOLADES: n/a.

BIO: name's cliff. let me know if you'll buy cigarettes and shit for me, we can work something out.

© TESSISAMESS

Comments

[awooligan]

[It's something he's done before -- to her, in fact -- this dismissal in order to move on. He'd like to be able to grin and call her such a bad liar, but smiling is just about the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, Cliff crosses the room and interrupts her busywork by taking a seat on the bed she's trying to neaten up.

Worrying people isn't something new to him, but it's different from a friend. Not...worse, because there's an instinctual shame from disappointing his mother. It made him feel smaller and reminded him just how much of a child he still was and how hard he'd have to work to make it up to her. With Coco, it's guilt and his own worry that rise up and make him frown at her.]

Don't. It's not nothing. [Not with how frayed around the edges she still was after knowing he was here and fine. And why wouldn't he be? More confusingly, why would it...matter so much to her... He feels like this might be something he'd be able to work out, if only he wasn't so tired and useless right now.] I'm okay. And I'm not -- I'm not going to get mad anymore, I promise. [If that was why she was trying to hide it.] What did I do?

[kept_his_letters]

[She stops her work the moment he sits in the middle of it. In all truth, there wasn't much work to be done anyway. She hadn't slept.

But now she has no shield and she flounders in place, not quite able to look at him.

It brings another pang of guilt and shame to hear him say he won't get mad. She's made him feel like that. That's her fault. She wishes, so badly in that moment, that she could be more like Mamá, stronger.]

It's not you. I really am just being stupid.

[Her hand goes to rub at her arm, he gaze on the floor.]

You were gone. You've been helping me and we know it's dangerous and then you just... didn't show back up. And I worried.

You've helped so much... I want to be someone you can count on. But I blew it. And now I'm going to seem like the crazy girl who freaks out when people leave for five minutes.

[She laughs and sniffs and finds a new place to stare that isn't at him.]

[awooligan]

Oh.

[The word is breathed more than said, and he notes how strange it is that he feels heat behind his eyes while his hands go cold. Useless hands that won't even reach out to her to reassure her. Stupid.]

It wasn't five minutes, though... Sorry, I was so wrapped up in my own shit, I didn't even think about that. I didn't think anyone would...notice. I guess. [Which sounded ridiculous, now that he thought about it for two seconds. Who just doesn't think about it when someone they're living with doesn't come home? And to do that to Coco in particular...

Cliff, as is his habit when awkward and nervous, brings his foot up to pick at his shoe, and averts his gaze as well.]

I had to go to the infirmary. I wasn't, uh, feeling well. I should have said something.

[kept_his_letters]

[She shakes her head.]

No. It's okay. I don't need to know your business all the time. Not everything is a big conspiracy. I just need to learn to relax.

[In the future... that's what she'll do. That's what she tells herself that she'll do. Though she doesn't know how anyone could simply go without notice.]

Um. Are you feeling okay now, at least?

[awooligan]

[She says it’s okay, but is it... The way she’d looked hadn’t been okay at all, and he feels rotten as hell about it all. He gives a tiny bob of his head.]

Yeah. Just tired now, but I’m okay.

[He looks from his shoe to his own bed, which seems far away and doesn’t smell as nice, because he’s a weird guy that smells a girl and thinks about how nice she smells, now. Stupid idiot wolf. But it’s even weirder to stay here.]

I really should have at least texted. [Not that he could have, for a good chunk of that time.] You aren’t being...any of those things you said. If I really had been missing, I don’t...know what I would do. [His family wouldn’t know. They might not ever know, if he disappeared the same way her dad did.] I’m sorry...and thanks. For caring.

[kept_his_letters]

[She nods.]

That's good.

[It's good. He's okay. It's fine.

She doesn't mind him lingering. At last, she takes a seat herself, leaving just a bit of space between. She starts to say that things happen and texting doesn't always work out, but her words die when he defends her from herself like that.

And then the what-if...]

If you really went missing then... then I'd find you. [She looks up, looks at him, even if the boldness of the statement is a little scary.] That's what friends do. Right?

[awooligan]

[He takes her sitting by him to be a good sign, switching to resting his cheek on his knee so he can watch her. When her eyes meet his, he can’t help the smallest, awkward smile. She shouldn’t have to take something like that under her wing, just like she shouldn’t be having to deal with her father’s mysterious disappearance, but...it’s nice to hear. And he doesn’t doubt that she’d try, if she was able to remember him.]

If you say so. [She’s too good... Soft sleepy dog brain wants to curl up beside her, but just thinking about that is mortifying.] Thanks. I’d find you, too.

[kept_his_letters]

[I think you already did.

The thought passes through her mind unbidden. She doesn't let it out. It sounds like too much to her, if it even makes sense at all.

Her foot swings from over the bedside and she bumps her sandle-- showing off her painted nails the way she likes-- against the side of his bright neon shoe.]