Location: Outside Woosh HQ Availability: Open to All
River stood leaning up against the wall outside of the back alley of the building, staring up at the slightly cloudy sky and watching an airplane pass overhead. They’d just gotten a surprise call from their grandmother, which had worried them enough at first for them to end up rushing to the nearest outside place and calling back. Luckily, it wasn’t anything important, but their heart was still beating much too fast. Attempting to calm down, they took a few inhales and exhales, putting a hand on their chest to try to steady their breathing. Darn it, why did they have to get so worked up over the simplest of things? It was probably about time for them to be getting back inside the building, they had a shoot soon, but they still weren’t fully composed yet. No one else seemed to be around, which made sense, since the back alley wasn’t used all that often. However, the creak of a door caused River to lower their head and stare at their shoes, trying to present as if they hadn’t been panicking. “I’ll be back inside in a second, sorry. Just trying to clear my head,” they said, tapping a finger against their leg as they continued to stare down at their converse sneakers. They didn’t particularly want to look up and see who it was, since there were a lot of different options that were potentially a problem when it came to different coworkers finding them out here.
Dorothy made is somewhat of a habit to get out of Woosh as much as she could. The entire place felt suffocating sometimes. The good vibes posters and the colorful paint on the walls to distract its employers from the truth: that they were making meaningless content and the fact that the company wasn’t as fun loving as they claimed to be from the way it portrayed itself. But mostly, Dorothy just didn’t like being around most of the people at Woosh and she made that quite clear. She often went outside the Woosh offices just to get a break from all of the drivel inside of it. Today was one of those days.
She didn’t even notice River until they spoke up and said something. “Don’t apologize.” Her voice was curt. “You don’t have to explain yourself or apologize. Don’t shrink yourself.” Dorothy had never been the kind to apologize for who she was, what she believed in or what she was doing, and she certainly wasn’t the kind to shrink herself.
