Another chapter. Put this in your pipe and smoke it.
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In the days following her time at the park, as the seed of her idea took root in her mind, she kept an eye out for anyone she knew was in the group. Frustratingly, she wasn't having much luck. It was like she could only run into them by accident. Or like, how often she ran into them was the reverse of how often she wanted to run into them. They were everywhere she looked when she wasn't actually trying to find them, but now?
Aggressively kicking a can in front of her, it skittered down the sidewalk and into the road. She rolled her gaze across the mostly empty streets, searching for any sign of her prey. Almost every time she ran into them, she ran into them in the city; so she'd been coming out to the city every day for the last two weeks. Not just for that, because she wasn't that desperate, but she could keep an eye, and an ear, open without obsessing.
They were honestly some of the best weeks she'd had in a while. All that time spent away from her parents was doing her good, and she was discovering new and interesting things in the city every day, but that didn't make it any less annoying when she couldn't find the people she was looking for.
Huffing with mild annoyance, Maggie turned back the way she came. She might have more luck closer to the entertainment centers. She ran into them walking around that one residential area before, but Maggie doubted they were there for any reason other than the painted buildings.
She rounded the corner. "Come on, really?" Only to rear back in surprise as three of the people that she was just trying to find turned the corner at the same time. They flowed around her without stopping. "Couldn't you have just played like a normal person?"
She froze for half a second, not sure what to do, until she slowly turned around to face their backs. They stopped at the bus stop a ways down the street, and curls of irritation wafted through her body. Dang… She'd hoped to get them separate from each other. What she wanted to do kept shifting as her emotions fought a battle to supremacy inside her. She didn't want to get into a whole thing with three other people, but she Did want to talk to them. She could find one of them later, but they were waiting for the bus now, and it would be weird if she followed them onto it. She didn't know where they lived, and she honestly didn't think showing up at their houses randomly would be a good idea. She could just search for them another time, but thinking about how long it took for her to find them this time made her hesitant to leave.
"If they didn't want people climbing on top of the scenery, they should have built a ceiling."
Eeeh… Screw it. Tentatively she began following behind them. Skirting around the wall of the stop, she sat down in the furthest corner away from the three. She'd wait until they stopped talking before she said anything, but she took the opportunity to look them over from the corner of her eye.
"No… No." Something Anne chastised one of the two blonds. Mary Anne? "Nobody else does stuff like that, why would they?"
"Do it? Or build a ceiling?" Maggie was beginning to recognize the blonde speaking. "People would do it because it's fun and it provides a tactical advantage over the other players. They'd build a ceiling if they didn't want their players to have fun or be smart." She didn't know the girls name, but she vaguely remembered her from that time at Deaf Metal.
"No, they'd build a ceiling to prevent stupid people from suing them, after falling and hurting themselves." The other blond interjected, amusement coloring her tone.
"Ack!" Highlights clutched her hands over her heart. "You're both teaming up on me? How is that fair?"
"Oh, so now you care about rules and fairness?" Irritation and humor mixed evenly in the younger girls voice. "How's it fair to the other players if you hide somewhere they'd never think to look?"
"Well that's just their fault isn't it?" Highlights shot back. "There's nothing stopping them from climbing on top of things like I did. Rules are for two things; making sure that all the players have a good time, and breaking… Also, all's fair in love and war." She added, obviously as an afterthought.
"Yeah? How about I just don't invite you the next time me and Carol play laser tag?"
"You'd be so cruel?" Highlights gasped, drawing back in exaggerated shock.
"You did get us kicked out." The taller blond, Carol, mentioned reasonably, as the bus pulled up in front of them.
"Hey," Oh, uh… They were leaving. Crap! "Let's be honest here, I got spotted on a camera, security alerted the manager, and the manager kicked us out. I had nothing to do with it."
Crap, dang, crap! She hadn't even gotten the chance to talk to them yet! She found herself moving to follow them and aborted the motion, leaving herself awkwardly squatting over her seat. "Hey." Someone said, though Maggie didn't have any idea who. As the three turned to look at her though, it dawned on her who spoke. Uh… She felt her face flushing with frustrated embarrassment. "I need to talk to you." She rose the rest of the way to stand.
None of them said anything for a few seconds, and Maggie felt almost a bit light headed as her blush spread from her cheeks to her ears and neck. "Oh…" The taller blonde, Carol, finally said, bewilderment coloring her tone. "Okay… But… We kind of need to go." She thumbed towards the bus waiting on the street behind them. "Is it seriously important?" The timbre of her voice told Maggie that she didn't consider that to be likely, but she was willing to give Maggie the benefit of the doubt.
"Maggie, right?" Something Anne asked.
"Yes." She answered, not trusting herself to say anything else without it coming out stupid.
"Okay, well…" Carol pulled a piece of paper from her back pocket, the receipt to something, and fished out a pen as well. "We can't talk right now, but here's my cell phone number." She pressed the paper against the side of the bus, and scribbled it down. Turning, she handed Maggie the scrap of paper. "So call me later, I guess…" The three climbed into the bus. "Bye." She waved politely as the doors closed.
The paper clutched between her fingers, Maggie watched the bus pull away.
I've been reading the Mistborn series.
In the days since she'd gotten the older girls number, Maggie almost called her five times. She stared at Carol's contact information on her phone, her finger hovering over the call button nervously. This wasn't how she thought things would go. She didn't know what she thought would happen, but she'd always imagined herself in steady control of the situation… This wasn't that.
Working her jaw, she held up the phone and almost pressed the call button for the sixth time, then huffed in aggravation. This wasn't… This was stupid. If she didn't do anything than nothing would ever happen, but she had to wonder; was this still worth it? … Yeah, it was… Sighing, she firmed her resolve and finally pushed the call button for real.
Bringing it up to her ear, she flopped down onto her bed, staring at the ceiling while waiting for the dial tone to end.
"Hello?" Carol's voice sounded into the silence, and Maggie froze. For a moment, her mind went blank. "Is anyone there?"
"Uh… Hi, I mean… How's it go-" She stopped herself. What was she doing? She took a calming breath. "This is Maggie." She started again. "From the other day."
"Oh… Right, yeah. I remember you. You were at the bus stop?"
"Yeah."
"So… What did you want to talk about?"
"I… Uh…" She didn't know how to ask. "It's kind of complicated…"
"Well, I have some time."
Her eyes darted around the room, as she worked out where to start.
"So I, um…" Maybe it would be best to start simple. "I saw you, and another girl, kiss the same boy… So… What's up with that?"
"…Why?…" A spike of panic staked her heart, as she heard the suspicious, and subtly hostile, undercurrent in the other girls voice.
"No, I…" She rushed to reassure the other girl, even though she didn't know the reason behind her hostility. "I'm not… I mean, I don't…" Exhaling heavily, she spent a few seconds just breathing to gather herself again. "I'm not your enemy." She settled on. "I just… I was just curious."
"Okay." Maggie sighed in relief as Carol's hostility drained away, even though the suspicion remained. "Well, I don't feel comfortable talking about it over the phone. Do you know where Roasted Gold is?"
"Yes?" It was only a thirty minute walk from her house.
"Meet me there in an hour." Then, to Maggie's surprise, she hung up.
If you're so inclined, give me your analysis of Maggie's personality in the comments. I'm curious to see how well I'm doing in conveying it.
The bell jingled merrily above the door as Maggie stepped inside. The smell hit her like a wall, and she inhaled deeply. The roasted, bitter, and almost chocolate sent filled her lungs, and steadied her nerves. A quick look around revealed Carol sitting at a table in the corner. The older girl waved to her when she looked over and Maggie nodded back, before getting in line.
It might have been more polite to take a seat across from Carol as soon as she arrived, but she didn't really care. If they were meeting in a coffee shop, she was going to get coffee. If Carol couldn't put up with that, and she left; that would suck, but Maggie wasn't willing to compromise on this. With the way things were going so far, she needed something to calm her nerves.
Coming to the register, she rattled off her order and stood by the pick up counter until her drink was done. The first sip was heavenly; it smothered her senses in bliss until her butt found the chair across from the girl who called her here. After that, it still helped, but she couldn't quite lose herself in her drink while being pinned under the other girls intense gaze.
"So," Carol paused to take a draw from her own mug, her eyes capturing Maggie's own over the lip of her cup. "You had questions about my relationship with Lincoln." At Maggie's answering nod, she continued. "What do you want to know?"
That was a good question… The last time she'd asked, she worded her question badly. The problem was that she didn't know enough to ask for specific information, so… "What is it?" She settled for rephrasing what she'd asked an hour ago.
"That's… A complicated answer, and not one I'm willing to give until you tell me why you want it." Carol watched her intently.
Well… She had more than one reason for doing it, but at the moment her strongest motivations were, "I like figuring things out." It wasn't often that she felt she had to explain herself to another person. "There's everything on the surface, but that stuff is only there because of, and sometimes in spite of, what's happening underneath. And the surface is so shallow. I don't get how anyone can claim to understand anything, if they're only looking at the most obvious parts, and I… I want to understand." She took another bracing sip of her coffee, the warm richness helping to sooth her nerves.
The girl across from her sighed heavily. "Alright, well…" Her eyes unfocusing as she thought, she stared off into the space to Maggie's right. "It's something different for each of us, I think." Absently, she brought the mug back to her lips and took another draw. "For me… I never really expected to be a part of it in the first place, but they're my friends." Her eyes refocusing, she turned them back to Maggies.
Was… That it? "But you… Kissed him."
"Yeah, look." Carol sighed again. "I'm not really comfortable talking about my romantic life. Some people are, but I'm not one of them."
Romantic? So wait, "You're dating him?" For real? It was her first guess, but she still couldn't help her surprise.
Exhaling in irritation as she realized what she'd let slip, Carol took another sip of her coffee.
"What about the others?" She continued when Carol shook her head. "They're not?"
"No." Carol shook her head again. "I mean, I'm not telling you about their relationship with him. Ask them yourself, if you really want to know."
Nodding, Maggie wondered if Carol realized how much she'd revealed by refusing to answer the question. She was perfectly willing to discuss her friendship with the group, and only clammed up when romance came up. That combined with the fact that she saw him kiss Haiku too, a detail that Carol seemed to have forgotten about, told her that Lincoln's relationship with every member of the group was probably romantic.
It was… She felt herself relax, a certain satisfaction flowing through her at having figured it out. She savored another mouthful of caffeinated goodness. Now though… Well she had everything she needed, so she kind of just wanted to leave. She couldn't though, not yet anyway, not if she wanted her idea to have a chance of success. She couldn't leave a bad impression.
"You said that it was different for everyone, so leaving out anything to do with your dating life, what's it like for you?"
Snorting in amused surprise, Carol cast a critical eye over her. "You know what? I don't think I'm going to answer that either, sorry." And she actually sounded a little apologetic, which Maggie sort of appreciated.
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Chapter notes:
I'm experimenting with emotional descriptors that I've never used before. I'm not sure if they'll work, but if they don't than the worst that'll happen is that the writing feels slightly off. Like "Curls of irritation wafted through her body." I figured that if you could describe an emotion has having a physical presence, then… Can't you just continue with the comparison? What's the closest physical sensation, or effect, to the intricacies of emotion?
Carol sees the group as… Well there's no perfect comparison, but it's something between the eye of her storm, and a stabilizing presence. She feels comfortable and happy. Like the group is an oasis that she can visit any time she wants to destress. One she feels the desire to protect… Yeah… It's fairly complicated. I could explain it better, but that would take up a lot more space. Also don't take any of my comparisons at face value… Or take them with a grain of salt, I suppose. They were all rough approximations of her actual, truly complicated, feelings.