title: ceiling cracks
summary: Lives tend not to piece themselves together when they need it the most. — MonicaIsaac, drabble.
a/n: i haven't read tfios in ages, so this might not be very accurate. sorry. hope you enjoy.
i.
"He's kind of dorky, you know," her friend tells her with a wrinkled and upturned nose. She ignores the girl, pretending that the boy sitting in front of her is going to be her knight in shining armor.
You see, she doesn't just think a girl can dream. She aims to make those dreams reality, because she's in love, as sure as her shoes are glued to the floor.
ii.
Two years later, she finds herself alone in a janitor's closet with him, and suffice to say, it's awkward at first. She breaks the silence with a nervous giggle and some sarcastic remark that falls flat, and he grins back at her. "How'd you end up here?"
"Hiding. The parents are conferencing with Mrs. Stein."
He nods, understanding what a nightmare the algebra teacher is, and says the librarian kicked him out when he was staying late. "It's a mortal sin not to let a person read," she says, and he agrees.
iii.
When she comes to him six months and eight dates later, her mascara's smudged all over her eyelids and she's doing that funny, sad little hiccuping thing. Her parents are going to divorce.
He swallows back I have cancer and kisses her until the pain goes away (never).
iv.
They trace the cracks in her bedroom's ceiling, where her parents stomped too hard upstairs, and he tells her he's going to have surgery soon.
She reads aloud a sappy romance novel to him, all the way until the hero dies. Then she stuffs the book in the trash can and holds herself together because after all, he's the one with the problems.
v.
"I can't do this."
He's blind, he's going to drag her into the dark and up through the cracks in the ceiling, and she doesn't want to face them. He's alone, in his eyes, and it's going to spread — and she can't hold herself together anymore.
Like a bird, she's flying out the door as soon as the words pass her lips. She doesn't look back.