I know HOA One Shot Day was yesterday, but I barely got hold of the my laptop. And, yes, I didn't have the story ready because I'm a fucking procrastinator. btw, I'm sorry if I made Patricia somehow out of character. Well I hope you enjoy, this was going to be shorter but it came out longer... better for you, right
Patricia had had enough.
She was done. Done with her family, which clearly didn't work. Done with her sister, perfect as always. Done with her mother and her need for Patricia to be just like someone else. Done with everything, done with her life. And that's pretty much what leads her to grab her things, throw them into a rucksack and get the hell out of the so-called house.
She just ran, ran and ran. She was scared. She had always been scared of running away. She had thought about it before, she had wanted to do it since she was 12 but she was always so afraid… and sometimes she was glad she was so terrified of it. But it had been different, this time, she didn't think about it, as always. No, it had been a rush decision.
She found herself on the woods, which she was sure were barely 3 blocks away from her school. Not really that far away from home.
Even if she wasn't tired, even if she knew she could go farther, she sank to the ground. A tear rolled through her cheek and that was the end. No more tears, she just sat there. Patricia was sure it has only been a minute when she heard him:
"Well this is new. A young lady, alone in the woods" she looked up, a boy––he couldn't be older than her––stood there, staring at her all the way from the top of a tree.
"It tends to be groups of teenagers, or maybe a couple" he continued, his spiky beach blonde hair moving with the wind as he, now, sat on the branch in which he had been standing. "You seem much more interesting, to be honest"
An American accent, Patricia noticed.
She wondered how could she be interesting, what was interesting about her. Her curiosity, as always, won and she found herself asking "how am I interesting" she didn't even think she was worth talking to. She thought––knew––she was plain boring.
She looked down, just for a second, to grab her bag and when she looked up he wasn't there. He now sat at the bottom of the same tree. He, though, was still smirking.
"How-"
He cut her off "to answer your question, well..." he stood up, stare at her for a while and then head towards her. Patricia started panicking; she wasn't comfortable with people––especially the opposite sex––getting to close to her.
He stopped when he was barely an inch away from her, and started circling her. "Lets see what we've got here" he kept walking around her and all she wanted to do was ran away from him "Troubled kid, right?" a smirk played on his lips as he continued "you have a sister... a twin, you don't exactly get along with her. Your mother wants you to be as her... she is perfect, in your point of view, and you are kind of a rebel. You get somehow along with your dad, but he travels a lot so you barely see him"
Patricia's mouth was wide open, how could this boy know so much about her. How could he know about her dad, mum and sister––the members of her broken family
"Am I right?" Patricia didn't answer, she couldn't bring herself to actually say something or even move. Though, he still smiled widely "also" he added, "you are sixteen and you were trying to run away right now"
He was still grinning, but he had stopped circling Patricia long ago. He was now standing in front of her, his arms folded on top of his chest.
"What are you" she didn't intend for it to come harshly but it did.
"I'm not a what for your information," he said. Again, he was on top of the tree he had been before "I'm more of a who"
She wanted to say something, anything, but she didn't. She was Patricia Williamson, she always had comebacks at her disposal but for the first time, in a long time, she had none.
"See ya later, Patricia" with that he disappeared
...
It was 2AM and she was staring at her room ceiling, thinking about the mysterious boy.
After the boy disappeared, she had grabbed her back and returned home. She doesn't even know why she returned––it felt like she wasn't even in control of where she went––but she knows that she was welcomed with the honeyed voice of her sister "oh, thanks god. Patricia where have you been, I've been so worried about you". She just ignored her, climbed the stairs, and went directly to her room.
He had known pretty much all about her and the way he disappeared and appeared a couple of yards (or standing in one of the branches of a tree) away, still bothered her.
He was nothing like the boys from her school. Of course, on her school there were the jocks, nerds, prankster, etc. but no one was mysterious. Though, there was Jerome Clarke, he was a mystery. Not a lot of people knew something about him; it was quite probable that half the school only knew his name––because of the constant calls to the principal office-but nothing more. Hell, she had known him––be his friend––for almost 8 years and she still knew so little. Still Jerome didn't disappeared, nor did he know your life from just looking at you. No, Jerome wasn't like the blond boy. The boy was so much interesting. The boy was a mystery.
Slowly Patricia started falling asleep.
"See ya later, Patricia," he had said. Patricia couldn't help but notice that she had never given him her name
...
"I knew you would come back"
She turned around; he was leaning against a tree trunk in all his glory. She didn't understand why she had come back, she didn't even know if she would find him here again, but she returned. And apparently so did he.
"Do you live here" she asked. It was a stupid question but she asked it anyway.
"Do you mean here, like in the woods?" She nodded "no, of course not"
Patricia walked to where he was and sat. She could hear her sister's voice disapproving of what she was doing-because you shouldn't talk with strangers-but she couldn't care less. For her surprise he sat next to her.
"Why are you here then" she asked
"I dunno. I come a lot here and I knew you were going to return. You are not like all the other people who meet me, they tend to say a few words and leave, either running or walking. And once threatening to call the police" he didn't seem to laugh at this, he wasn't grinning. He just got the ghost of a smile.
"Did they come?"
"Who?"
"The police"
"Oh no. They did not" he said grinning a little bit "and even if they did I wouldn't have been here anymore"
You're Going Down by Sick Puppies started playing from her phone since someone was calling her. She pulled the phone out of her jacket pocket and groaned.
"Piper calling" he said as she pressed 'end call'. She looked at him strangely, so he add "your sister"
"I know!" she exclaimed "but how did you know her name. What do you do; read minds or something?"
"This time" he said, his smirk bigger than ever "I just saw the caller ID"
...
Patricia returned to the same place, at the same hour for three whole weeks. Everyday he would be waiting for her.
Even if it had been 21 days since she met him she still didn't know his name (she had asked for it the first couple of days but he always said something and disappeared. Eventually she realized that it was pointless to keep asking). He had told her a little bit about his parents––her mother lived in America and he, now, lived, here, in the UK with his dad––he had end his little story with "Fuck Parents" Patricia couldn't agree more. He wasn't in exactly the best terms with his dad, and he didn't see her mum anymore. He was somehow like Patricia; they both had trouble with their parents. She learned that he also liked Sick Puppies; they spent one of their meetings just talking about it and the other listening to them.
He still was a mystery. He still disappeared every once in a while. He still was as the first time she saw him. She liked it. She liked this boy.
On day 22, after he showed her a river not so far away from their rendezvous point, she said:
"Would you ever tell me your name" she blinked. He wasn't there.
She sighed and turned around "I'm starting to learn your tricks" eventually there he was. How had he gotten to the top of the tree was still a mystery to Patricia.
"I've come to realize that, yes, yes you are" he said, she blinked, he was in front of her
Her green eyes locked with his brown eyes. Brown was probably to simple for this guy. Yes, maybe she has only met him 3 weeks ago, but 'simple', clearly wasn't a word to describe this mysterious boy.
His face got even closer to hers, an inch at much "Who are you" she repeated as her eyes closed. She wasn't really comfortable with the proximity.
"Eddie" she felt his lips so close to hers, but his voice like a whisper fading away.
She felt him behind her, his lips close to her ear. She wanted to turn around, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. His voice still like a whisper "call me..." she couldn't feel his body behind her, not even near.
She opened her eyes, and she found no one, anywhere. She was alone as she heard the echo of his smoky voice say "Eddie"
She returned the next day, and the next and the next. He never appeared. After 4 days she gave up. She never returned (well maybe she would return every once in a while to see if he was there but he never was)
Patricia wondered what was so important about she knowing his name, that she could never see him again. She wondered if he didn't want to see her again. She thought that maybe he had returned to America. All she wanted was to see him again. Hell, she even thought that it had all been her imagination.
But 2 months later, on a Monday morning, she woke up and a green post-it fell to her face. Still half asleep, she grabbed the paper and was about to throw it away when she saw something written on it. In a messy cursive letter it said:
I've been hiding, drowning
I've been running, starving
I've been feeling nothing
I'm consciously unconscious
Why am I filled with hate?
I like to blame my parents
I'm sure you do the same
Swallow the hurt
Spit out the jerk that's too afraid
It was a song by Sick Puppies, one of her favourite songs. Below the lyrics there was another thing written, this time the letter wasn't cursive but it was still messy,
Meet me (you know where)
-E
How was it? Did you like it? This is my first time writing Peddie so...
if someone wants to know, this is the original ending (after he tells her his name and disappears) :
She never saw Eddie again
I would like if you could tell me what ending you thought was better. I still have doubts about it since I was more comfortable with the original one. But I also wanted a somehow happy ending
:D
PS- I just realized, 5 days later, that i had the days all mixed up. The thing is that I wrote this in disorder. The first thing I wrote was when he tells her his name (that used to be the story. Trying to know what his name was. It was even going to be called, the story, Eddie, Call me Eddie) So yes, I already went back and edit it so it had the days right. Thanks for the amount for support I've gotten for this story.