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]

[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.]