Mom and I talk for what feels like hours but by the time she offers for me to spend the night, it's only midnight. I consider staying with her but it'll just make the morning awkward. And I don't think I can sleep right now. I'm too wired from all the talking.
Instead of taking her up on the offer, I give her my phone number and tell her to call or text me in the future. Dad never gets a hold of my phone anymore so it's safe for her to. And besides, I can put her number in as a fake name if she ever calls me.
It takes a bit of convincing but mom takes my phone number before hugging me goodbye. She stands at the open door of her motel room and waves when I pull out of the parking lot. I glance back toward the motel a couple of times but I can't tell if she's still standing there or not. God, tonight was so fucking weird. I didn't expect mom to show up on one of the shittiest days but she did and I think it's made me feel a little better about everything.
The drive back to Amity Park takes longer than it should cause I end up on a couple of backroads, thinking shit over. It's almost four by the time I pass by the sign telling me I'm entering the town limits again. I don't want to go home just yet and I don't know anyone that would be up this late. Or early I guess.
After a second or two of debating, I pull over and make a U-turn. There's nothing for me to go home to right now and I can already tell I won't be sleeping anytime soon. My mind's too filled up with everything mom and I talked about to ever hope to rest right now.
I somehow find myself at the outlook Danny introduced me to. God, it feels like forever ago that we were sitting on the hood of my car and stuffing our faces with great food. Even though I'm sitting the way we were, there's no food and there's no one to share this silence with. Or maybe there is. Fuck, I should have let Kwan in on this a long time ago. When mom's letter first showed up, I should have told him. He's the one person in the world I can pour all my shit out to and not feel weird about it.
Kwan's phone goes straight to voicemail and I don't know if I'm disappointed or not. At least this way, he doesn't have to deal with my stupid shit instead of sleeping. I try him again and send a text just to see if he's awake but there's no answer. I'm not surprised – Kwan's the champion of sleeping in on the weekends.
My chest is aching and I don't think I can be alone any longer. I need someone to just be here. Even if we don't talk about my shit and we just talk. Or maybe if we don't talk at all… I just need someone next to me right now.
Danny's name is underneath Kwan's in my recent text messages and I hesitate only a second or two before I tap on the conversation. I feel bad about ditching him after the game but I couldn't help it. I really hope he understands. If mom hadn't shown up, he and I would have gotten something to eat and my night would have been a hell of a lot different.
I scroll to the bottom of our conversation and chew on my thumb nail as I read over Danny's last texts. He doesn't sound upset about me suddenly ditching him and part of me is hoping that he's not. Cause I really don't want to fuck up with him again.
From: Danny Fenton
Okay
From: Danny Fenton
You're okay though, right?
From: Danny Fenton
Hope you're having fun with whatever you're doing :)
God, he sounds so fucking hopeful and I really hate to be the one to tell him that not only was I not exactly enjoying myself while I was dead-silent these past few hours, the visit from mom has put me back at square one. I really thought I'd gotten over the fact that she left me and the pain of having to let go of her nearly killed me. After tonight, I almost wish it had.
I tap out a message to Danny and press send before I can talk myself out of it. Kwan's not answering and I can't deal with this silence anymore. I don't want to go home yet but there's nowhere else for me to be. I'm really alone this time. And I don't think I like myself enough to be alone.
To: Danny Fenton
You still awake?
Not everyone has insomnia like me so I'm surprised when Danny responds almost instantly. I hadn't actually expected him to be awake so it throws me for a second when 'yeah' appears on my screen only seconds later. It makes me take a little longer in my response and I second guess myself a dozen or so times before I send it.
I don't want to come across as desperate but fuck, I really am right now. I don't want to be alone anymore and Danny's awake anyway. I really hope he's not tired of listening to a pathetic quarterback whining all the time.
To: Danny Fenton
I'm at the viewpoint you showed me. Can't sleep and feeling really fucking lonely
I can't even begin to imagine what he must think of me. I'm too pathetic to deal with my own shit so I get other people to help me through it. He hasn't known me long enough to have to help me handle my shit just yet but this is me and I'll drag anyone into helping me if I can.
Why the fuck can't I just deal with this on my own? It's not like this is even a hard situation. There was a lot of hope and promise with the conversation mom and I had. I have a real chance at getting away from my dad sometime soon. It's more hope than I've ever had and I don't fucking understand why my chest feels like I'm being crushed and why every breath I drag in feels strangled.
Fuck, what's wrong with me? Tonight was okay. Good, even. Mom looked so much happier now that she's away from dad and there's a chance that I could have that too. This was a good thing and I guess I'm not used to good things cause I can't fucking deal with this.
My phone startles me when it vibrates again in my hand and god-fucking-dammit, what did I ever do to deserve Danny giving me the time of day? He's too good to be friends with me and I feel guilty for pulling him away from whatever he was doing at this hour. But not guilty enough to tell him not to come and that's definitely another reason why I don't deserve him as a friend. He's not as selfish as me. That's obvious from one damn text message.
From: Danny Fenton
Gimme a few minutes, I'll be there
I'm still staring down at where the high school is, squinting occasionally to see if I can make out any shapes, when Danny's headlights pass over me. I don't turn back to look at him. Partially cause I'm too lazy and partially because I don't want him to see how pathetic I probably look.
Danny parks his car next to mine and only when his door opens do I look his way. He turns off the engine and there's a minute of silence before he's out of the car and slamming the door shut behind him.
As soon as he gets closer to me, it's obvious why it took him a minute to get out of his car. Danny smiles broadly as he holds out a paper cup toward me. "Figured we could use some caffeine since we're both probably not gonna be sleeping tonight." He slides up onto the hood with me and leans his back against the windshield when I take the coffee from him.
What the hell did I ever do to deserve Danny as a friend? Someone who shows up when I can't sleep and brings coffee and… god, someone that's so fucking kind and doesn't think I'm an idiot. I've done a lot of shit in my life but I know I haven't done enough to deserve anyone as kind as the boy sitting next to me.
"So, is this a normal 'not sleeping' night or is something bugging you?" Danny asks softly, quietly sipping from his coffee. I don't think he has any idea how simple that question should be. I don't have to tell him everything but I feel like I should at least explain why I'm sitting here at the ass crack of dawn, waiting on the sun to rise.
I blow out a breath, turning my gaze toward the sky. The stars above us look so clear tonight and I catch Danny tilting his head back to look where I am. There are so many things I want to tell him and my first instinct is to stay quiet. To not say anything at all and just let Danny think I'm too exhausted to talk. But I'm not that tired and I'll only get better at phrasing my thoughts the more I do it.
"Can I tell you something?" I ask, looking toward Danny. He immediately meets my gaze and nods before I have time to take the question back. Shit, I guess I'm doing this. I turn toward him a little, folding one leg underneath me as I leave the other to dangle, occasionally brushing the bumper with the inside of my ankle. "I was gonna come find you after the game. I was actually on my way to where I left you wh-when uh… when someone stopped me."
Danny nods for me to continue but this time, the words are stuck. It's not that I don't know what to say this time, it's more like I can't. Or maybe I just don't want to. I've always taken the easy way out but I can't let myself this time. I want someone to know about this shit.
"Uh… it uh… m-my mom was there," I practically whisper, watching Danny's eyebrows lift before I drop my gaze to my coffee. There's no distinctive label on the cup and I guess he got it from the only gas station in Amity Park that's open at this hour. I take a sip to distract myself and try not to make a face. It's bitter as fuck but it's drinkable.
I run my thumb along the lid of the cup in the silence, trying to figure out how to sum up everything we talked about. I don't really want to tell him any of it but at the same time, I do. I want to get it off my chest or maybe just out of my head for the night cause I can't fucking think about it any longer.
"Are you okay?" Danny asks, his voice gentle in the quiet still blanketing us.
The breath leaves me as I look away from him, trying to hold on to some façade of strength. I can't think straight when my mind turns over everything that mom and I talked about tonight. And I hate that it has me completely jumbled up and confused. It's just mom. Seeing her again shouldn't fuck me up so badly.
"I don't… I don't think I know what okay is anymore," I mumble, running a hand through my hair in the silence that follows. I don't know what to tell Danny, it's not like I'm okay right now. Even though our conversation was okay and I should be too, I'm not. I'm just not and I don't know how to be. I don't know why seeing her fucks with my mind but I hate it. God, why does everything have to be so complicated?
Danny exhales and scoots closer to me, resting his hand on my knee. "I'm sorry. I can't… imagine what you're feeling right now. That's… a lot of shit for you to deal with." He exhales out and I can smell the coffee on his breath when I turn back to him.
It's a hell of a lot of shit to deal with. Add tonight to being alone in my house for however long dad decides to stay away and it's a fuck ton of shit to deal with. I can't even begin to tell Danny everything I'm going through and the one person that I could didn't answer his damn phone.
I push my fingers through my hair again, dropping my stare from his face. I can't look at him anymore. There's too much I want to tell him and I can't. I wanted tonight to go differently. I wanted to get some food with Danny and relax for a few hours before I went home. Despite wanting to see mom every day since she left, I wish she hadn't shown up. Why tonight? After all this time away and calling me three days ago with the cryptic "soon" when she mentioned seeing me, why tonight? Maybe cause tonight was a game night and dad hasn't been to one of my games since junior year?
"Your uh… your friends were talking about some kind of game tomorrow?" Danny says more like a question, his blue eyes looking almost black in the darkness surrounding us. I guess he's trying to distract me from this shit and I'm all too welcoming of a change of topic.
"What game?" I ask before leaning back against the windshield again. When Danny showed me this place, I never expected it to be somewhere I come to when life has fucked me over. Lately the only reasons I've been here are because of mom. Fuck, I didn't want my shit to taint this place too.
Danny shifts next to me, sipping from his coffee before he responds. "I think it was flag football. Jeff was pretty insistent that I come. Even when I told him that I'm not good at sports." He shrugs when I look back at him. "He said he'd wear me down."
I snort. "Yeah, that's Jeff." I blink up at the night sky again before I look toward Danny. "You should come though. You don't have to play, you can just cheer me on. Y'know, since I'll be kicking their asses and all." I don't feel like joking around but it comes out naturally and even though I say it without a smile, Danny still laughs softly.
"I don't know…" He runs his fingers through his hair, darting his gaze away from mine. I hope he's not saying no cause of something my teammates said. They can be a handful sometimes and Blake never knows when to shut the hell up. I love my friends but sometimes, they can be hard to take. Unless… this has nothing to do with them.
Danny glances at the movement when I set my coffee down between us and turn toward him again, sitting cross-legged to face him better. After a second or two, he mirrors my position, cracking a smile when I roll my eyes.
"You don't have to come if you don't want to. I get it if it's like… if it's a problem," I say softly, aiming to make him feel at ease with telling me. But he gives me a funny look and I realize he has no idea what the hell I'm on about. "Fuck, um… you said that you're allowed to skip gym now? Cause of your anxiety or whatever?"
Danny's expression relaxes and a soft smile comes in place of the confusion. "Oh, yeah. It's not… sports don't bother me, Dash," he says softly, taking a sip from his cup before he goes on. "Well they… they do trigger my anxiety but… it's a long story." He hesitates a second but adds, "Stick around long enough and I'll tell you."
He quickly becomes interested in the sky again and even though it's dark out, I can tell his face is flushed. I don't think I've ever seen anyone blush as adorably as he does. And I don't know why the sight makes me grin.
"You uh… you know you don't have to talk about this, right?" Danny asks, sparing a glance at me before he's focused on the stars again. I can't tell if he's trying to get the conversation to turn in a different direction so I don't bring up the fact that he's embarrassed. He steals another glance at me and this time, his gaze lingers as he speaks. "If it makes you uncomfortable, we don't have to talk about it."
Uncomfortable? Why the fuck would it? I don't think Danny's capable of making me feel uncomfortable at this point. He's pretty much cool with everything and honestly, anyone that can tutor me in algebra and not think I'm an idiot will never make me feel uncomfortable.
"Why would it bother me?" I ask and I'm sure the confusion is on my face now, erasing all traces of the previous grin.
Danny's flush deepens and he traces the lid of his cup with his index finger. "Um… c-cause I know you don't exactly know how to deal with it and trust me, you're not the only one. It's just… a lot to take in, I guess. Most people don't really want to hear about it either, s-so it's okay. Actually, most people wouldn't-"
"I'm not most people," I say before I even realize that I'm thinking it. But it's true, I'm not most people. I don't give a shit about how I feel about something. If Danny wants to talk about this shit, I'm cool with listening.
He shakes his head, letting out a soft breath. "No, I know that. It's n-not just that, Dash." He shoots me an apologetic look and I don't have time to figure out what it means before he's speaking again. "I just… kind of figured it might make you uncomfortable cause you... might be dealing with it too. And I know plenty of people that have it and don't want to talk about it. S-So, I get it."
No, he doesn't get it. I don't even know if I have anxiety like he does, it's just guesswork on his end and an attempt at understanding on mine. It's not like I've been diagnosed or whatever. It's just a thought and I don't give a shit if he wants to talk about dealing with it.
"Danny, I don't care," I tell him, shrugging when he meets my gaze again. "Seriously. It doesn't bother me if you talk about it. You can talk to me about this shit or anything else whenever, alright?" I give him a smile and reach out to touch his hand for some kind of support.
I don't think either one of us realized just how much energy is still crackling in the air between us cause of Wednesday but as soon as my fingers brush by his, it's like electricity runs through both of our veins and instantly, we're pulling away from each other. Shit, we almost kissed only a few days ago, we can't be touching like that. Damn it, why didn't we kiss?
My brain's running a thousand miles per second and I can't really breathe, suddenly realizing how close I'm sitting to Danny. We're just a few inches apart and fuck, do I actually want to kiss him? I wanted to then but I guess I thought it was the moment or whatever but sitting here with him now, I wonder if it was really just the moment. Shit, I don't really like Fenton, do I?
Somehow, we're able to get past the awkward silence that immediately followed our fingers touching and even though I still kind of want to kiss him, I push those thoughts away for now. Instead, I listen as he starts pointing out stars. He tells me things about every one of them until the sun starts to rise in the sky and he's out of constellations to talk about.
Our coffees are long gone and it's eight before either of us mention getting breakfast. I'm pretty sure neither one of us want to leave this place but we agree to drive over to the last remaining McDonald's in this town and get something to eat.
The place is basically dead and the teenager working behind the counter looks like this is the last place he wants to be on his Saturday. Danny and I each order another cup of coffee and sausage biscuits before we retreat to a table at the back.
I don't think I stop to breathe between bites of the biscuit and I'm crumpling the wrapper when Danny finally speaks, his own food only half-gone.
"So, I have to ask," he says quietly, tracing the lid of his coffee with his finger before he looks up at me, something akin to an apology in his expression. "What are you going to do about your mom?"
The exhale I make is louder than I thought it would be and I turn my gaze out the window, trying to decide how to respond. I have no fucking clue how I'm gonna handle this with mom. I wasn't expecting to see her this soon and I really should have been. If I'd been ready for this to happen at any moment, maybe it wouldn't have fucked me up so badly.
"You don't know yet, do you?" Danny asks, still speaking softly like he's afraid to disturb the quiet. He lets out a breath of his own but his is gentler. "It's okay, I understand. You don't have to figure out any answers yet, I just…"
He suddenly reaches out and grabs my hand, squeezing my palm tightly, and I look toward him as the electricity sparks between us again. Danny's eyes are almost flashing as he speaks, anger clear in his tone. "I just don't want you to think that any of this is your fault cause it's not. It's just not, Dash. I don't know what she said to you but if she told you that she left because of you, it's bullshit, okay? You're not… you're not responsible for her."
I don't know how to respond. I've spent the better part of ten months kicking the shit out of myself, completely convinced that I had something to do with mom's absence from this town. It never mattered what Kwan said or what Valerie told me after she found out about my dad, I always managed to make myself believe that it was still my fault that mom pulled a disappearing act. And here's Danny. Innocently asking me not to believe something I've spent months drilling into my head.
"Yeah, I know," I mumble, unable to hold his gaze as the lie spills from me. I've gotten so used to bullshitting, it just comes naturally now. I don't even think Kwan can tell when I'm lying anymore. It was probably easier before mom left. But I've put up walls since then.
Danny shakes his head, his gaze dropping to our hands, still clasped in one another's and stretched across the table like we reached for each other at the same time. But he did the reaching and I just let him take my hand. "No, you don't," he says, his voice soft again. "I-I don't know you that well, Dash but I'm really good at reading people. You don't… really believe that it's not your fault. Even if it's small, there's still a part of you that thinks she left because of you."
Well. Fuck me.
I tug my hand from Danny's and he lets me retreat before he meets my stare. "It's okay, Dash. I get it. You want to believe the best about her but if she didn't do anything wrong then it has to be you. It's just not fair to blame yourself. You're too good to do that." His face flushes in the stretch of silence between us and he quickly busies himself with his food again.
"So, you coming today or what?" I ask, watching him over the rim of my coffee cup.
Danny looks disappointed at the sudden topic change but he nods after a second or two. "Sure." He takes a small bite out of his biscuit before giving me a smile that holds an apology. "You might have to convince me to play but… I'll definitely be there."
I don't know if it's cause right now, he's the only one that knows about my mom's sudden reappearance, or if it's cause it's him but I'm really fucking happy that he's gonna be at the game today. Even though it's just with my friends and it'll probably only last thirty minutes before someone starts bitching about someone else cheating, I'm still really glad that Danny will be there.
A/N:
Yoooo! Thanks for returning for another week of this angst, I'm glad you're here.
Getting the elephant in the room outta the way first, whaaaaat'd you guys think of Dash realizing that he might actually like Danny? ;) I know you've all been waiting for that – I'd love to know what you're thinking.
I've been loving reading all of your comments and thoughts about Dash's mom. It's really awesome to read through any speculations you have or just generally what you think about certain character's actions.
Not a lot of plot development in this chapter, mainly just interaction between the boys but I know how much you guys like that. Things are progressing agonizingly slow in this but I can promise you that the angst and heartbreak to come are definitely worth it.
The title of this week's chapter comes from 'Bored To Death' by Blink-182. I could go on and on about how great their new album is but I'll leave it at this: I've been listening to it non-stop since I first heard it and it's SO good.
Thanks again for checking out this week's update. I'll let you guys get back to the rest of your Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever you're reading this. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did, let me know? I'd love to know your thoughts on anything with this update or past updates or whatever.
I'll see you guys next chapter!
