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@glasshcldhigh
- to the nights like these
multifandom multimuse, wb andi, 25+, featuring ocs and questionably-canons. heavily headcanon based. highly selective. low energy, low effort, low priority, low tolerance. i was born in Old Fandom and hold to Old Fandom rules. plotting welcome, pantsing preferred. pickerwheel of muses here.
site. opens. memes. threads. writings. headcanons. wishlist. promo. other blogs : mazie. reapers.
like--oh, hi, not dead, just still deep deep deep in CofD shit--like. i'd love to add trista here since she occupies almost as much brainspace as mazie right now. but like, her whole thing is that she didn't have anyone before she died. her parents and sister were at the other end of the state (granted not a large state, but a few hours nonetheless) and she was never particularly close with her sister anyway, thanks to the 8-9 year gap and wildly different personalities. court turned out more like cynthia, and tris and david got on bc they were both bookish introverts whose idea of bonding was cleaning their shotguns on the porch in silence together. her closest relationships were everett, the vampire who wanted her as an asset; calvin, the kind barista at her favorite coffee shop who remembered her order (and was in love with her, but she didn't know until far too late); and the girl she shared a library study space with, who would exchange little treats and presents with her, but whose name she never caught, and who disappeared before the end of the school year. that's it, that's all tris had, which. makes rping her with anyone else difficult. and she's still in an active game, so i don't want to like. bring her here as she is now and have things get. messy, plot-wise. so i'm just. sitting and teakettling and. anyway i've added tallulah's cofd verse here, but she does have some serious uncanny valley stuff going on, as happens with changelings.
Listen. Maybe I'm obsessed with Tinz.
like clockwork i s2g. two years, new obsession. not that i'm not still insane about dustverse (or gri.shaver.se, or...) it's just. brain is absolutely consumed by CofD. very possible--likely--that i'm gonna spend the next two years fixated on this system. i've already ported my heavy hitters over, so i might add those verses here (mazie, unsurprisingly, has two. rei also has two, technically, but i'm not sure that i want to use her changeling setup tbh.) i've also got a few new ones kicking around bc of course i do. probably won't add my current pc bc her history of Having No One is important to what she is now, and her future is... still being decided. but that's where i am, that's where i'll probably be for. um. a While. feel free to join me, i'm happy to Share Game Resources if you're interested!
he smiles at the recognition, a small, tight thing that belies his discomfort. he'd perfected the expression shortly after project homer went live, unused to being in the spotlight in the way the crew was thrust, and he finds it falls into place with ease. but there isn't anything he can do to hide his surprise at the news that his name had been cleared. there's a foggy memory hovering at the edge of his mind of the discovery that his suit had been recording; of his final words. he watches rei, curiosity brimming. nothing good can come from her twisted expression but, if he's been absolved, it means the skeld made it home. what more could there be?
“ t… two. ” the horror of the situation overcomes him. if she's right, if she's not just fucking with him, only jay and kane made it back to earth. it means there really was another imposter and it killed the rest of the crew and – ay dios, he's gonna be sick. max leans forward, feet planted on the ground, fingers lacing behind his head, elbows perched on his knees. his ears are ringing and he knows she's still talking but he misses most of it, fighting for his life against this spiral. “ fuck. ”
but a few pieces do filter through, belatedly, and when he looks up to her, his eyes are shining, burning with unshed tears. “ you don't have to do that, ” he croaks against the tightness of his throat. he straightens up, despite himself, running his hands over his face as he tries to compartmentalise… all this shit. “ i can't ask you to put me up just b'cause i crashed through your store. ” max pushes to his feet, already less unsteady than he'd been. “ you have plans, and i… ” he trails off with a helpless shrug, arms hanging limply at his side. what the fuck else is he supposed to do besides break down after news like that? his lips twist, uncertainty betraying him. “ i don't know… i'm sorry. ”
“Sit,” she snaps, gesturing, “your ass back down. First off, you can’t be going around 2020s London looking like that. Second, me having plans and someone else having plans for me are two very different things. I am only deigning to appear at my own birthday party because it’s Peg and I love her. And I want to stay on her good side. If anyone else dared to try it, I’d blow them off without a thought. And third, you’re not asking, I’m offering. And not just ‘cause you crashed through my store, okay? I was where you are—out of time, out of place, out of money. If I hadn’t stumbled into the right pub at the right time, I’d probably be dead by now. Peg helped me find a place and get this store going.” Basher helped in… other ways.
Her irritation fades as quickly as it arrived. She leans closer, reaches out to take his hand. “Hey. It’s a lot, I know. And I just gave you some… fuckin’ awful news. Whatever you need to do, alright? I still got some hours before Peg’s expecting me, I just wanna swing the animals home and get changed, which won’t take more than fifteen, probably. And if I’m late, well, it’s not like I agreed to a party in the first place.” She shrugs, uncaring.
Rei glances over her shoulder, and Rex jumps on the futon to get closer to Max. “Look, if you need some time alone, I can give you that. I got a tea chest up front, I can get some water going, and when you’re ready you can come up for something to drink. It’s a little bit of a maze, a few stairs involved, but I’m sure a military man like yourself has a decent enough sense of direction to find the front of my shop.”
Ok but what if i did bring trista over here.
homeward bound and so, so sleep deprived. I'll try to tap out some drafts either here or on mazie this weekend, but brain is currently monopolized by game pc.
🐝 * ― 𝑵𝑶𝑵-𝑽𝑬𝑹𝑩𝑨𝑳 𝑨𝑵𝑮𝑺𝑻 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑴𝑷𝑻𝑺. ( some triggering content ahead. add " + " to reverse the action. )
[ wipe ] sender wipes away receiver's tears [ hurt ] sender hurts receiver with words [ lonely ] sender finds receiver alone in a dark room [ wounded ] sender patches up receiver's wounds [ crying ] sender finds receiver crying [ help ] sender runs to receiver when they scream for help [ nightmare ] sender wakes receiver up from a nightmare [ dying breath ] sender talks to receiver before dying [ hold on ] sender pulls receiver into their arms [ anger ] sender takes their anger out on receiver [ argue ] sender gets into a heated argument with receiver [ scared ] sender scares receiver [ sick ] sender cares for receiver while they are sick [ palm ] sender places a hand on receiver to stop them from doing something [ fight ] sender gets into a physical fight with receiver [ comfort ] sender tries to comfort receiver [ blood ] sender notices that receiver is bleeding [ collapse ] sender collapses into receiver's arms [ pressure ] sender puts pressure on receiver's wound [ slap ] sender slaps receiver in the face [ panic ] sender helps receiver through a panic attack [ lie ] sender catches receiver in a lie [ sobs ] sender sobs uncontrollably while receiver holds them [ hiding ] sender finds out that receiver has hidden an injury from them [ death ] sender just died, receiver finds out [ chin up ] sender lifts receiver's chin to stop them from hiding their tears [ fears ] sender talks to receiver about their fears [ scream ] sender screams at receiver [ coping ] sender teaches receiver some coping mechanisms [ loss ] sender is there for receiver after they've lost someone important to them [ needs ] sender asks receiver what they need [ bullet ] sender takes a bullet for receiver [ bruises ] sender finds bruises of unknown origin on receiver [ rainfall ] sender finds receiver out alone in the rain [ hospital ] sender wakes up in a hospital bed and finds receiver sitting by their bedside [ intrude ] sender walks in on receiver treating their wounds [ calming ] sender tries to calm down receiver [ inspection ] sender holds receiver's face while inspecting an injury they got [ rescue ] sender carries receiver to safety [ clean ] sender cleans blood off of receiver's body
he peeks an eye open to watch her, unsure what she could possibly mean by business. it's not like he should be much a burden. if the bookstore is in order, he should just be able to have someone from MIRA pick him up. if she needs to meet her friend, he'd be more than understanding if she put him out ; he could look up his father and surprise him with a visit before subjecting himself to whatever nelson could poke him with to figure out how he ended up back home.
“ ‘21? ” max isn't cluing into the reason she seems so concerned until she spells it out. his confusion morphs into a shock of dread the more he watches her ; the more she explains. like she'd dumped a bucket of ice water over him and shorted out his spacesuit. he can't help but to prop himself up, scanning her face for any indication she's taking the piss.
“ i don't... i don't understand. ” time travel? that's not real. christ, maybe he did die and this is all some purgatory-adjacent joke ( because an afterlife is somehow more likely than a rift in the space-time continuum, right? ). “ how... what? how is that even possible? i mean, i - i guess i can't really talk because how the fuck did i end up back on earth at all when i'd just been halfway across the galaxy, what, ten? twelve hours ago? but this... ” max groans, lying back down as he covers his face with his hands. “ you're telling me i won't be born for another seventy-five years? jesus. ” he drags his hands down, rubbing at his chin and looks at her again, pleadingly, “ if you were already beyond the ‘40s before you landed here, that means the skeld should've made it back before you left. we were scheduled to come home in ‘45 — tell me they made it? ”
“Skeld,” she repeats, and half a dozen realizations fall into place. “Oh, you’re Red! Lieutenant Rojas! Oh…..” Even more bad news to deliver. She squirms a little, anxious, and Rex reluctantly leaves Max’s side to rest his head on her knee. Fuck, it’s weird, looking at a man whose last words she’d listened to roughly ten years ago, knowing he must have just said them himself. Fucking time travel. “Ah. Um. W-Well,” she hedges, “the ship made it back, and you were posthumously cleared of all charges. Dying… declarations can do that.” Awkward, awkward. She rests a hand on Rex’s head.
“Uhm…” Her expression is all twisted, one eye clenched shut, as if bracing for impact. “There were… only two survivors left. Uh, the captain and the… engineer, I believe. I don’t remember a lot of specifics, but I know it was a shitshow there for a while.” Her expression shifts closer to disgust. “Nelson pivoted from space travel research to—… well, to time travel.” And that’s how she ended up here, but that’s not something to get into right now.
“There’s a chance, maybe, that someone will come for you if they can find you. But then, I’ve been here five years and haven’t seen anyone other than you.” She shrugs. “But I mean, I’m not the wrongfully convicted first mate of the Skeld disaster, so, hard to say for certain.” Her bastard of a husband hasn’t found her; she’s not entirely sure how she feels about that. Rei sighs, pulls her elastic tie out of her hair, then finger-combs it back up. “Look, I’m not kicking you out on the street to fend for yourself. They’ll fucking shred you to pieces. There’s the futon here,” she gestures to what he’s lying on, “and I’ve got another in my office at my flat. I can’t ask tonight because she’ll get cross with me, but… tomorrow, I can ask Peg to scare up some papers for you.”
he looks sufficiently cowed at her reprimand and settles back, pulling up some data with a couple of pokes at the arm panel of his suit. an empty oxygen tank explains a lot about how he's feeling, though the information he reads still gives him no hint as to how he's ended up where he has. frustrated confusion wrinkles his brow, and he starts to protest her claim to his lack of money, but it isn't like he has a wallet on him to prove her wrong. still, despite her accent, if they're in london like she says, and if his father hadn't moved ( or worse ), a debt of sizty pounds should be easy enough to settle. he's even willing to bet nelson would try to pay her off to keep her quiet ; well over her meagre asking price.
red shifts to remove his gloves, allowing him to scratch rex behind the ear. this whole thing feels so surreal, something outta the twilight zone, and he laughs softly at the absurdity.
“ most people call me – ” he interrupts himself with an uneasy hesitation. he is red, has been for decades. but being red had landed him here — a disappointment to his crew, a betrayal, nothing more than flotsam jettisoned from the airlock. so maybe he doesn't deserve to be red anymore, “ – max. ” lips twist. there's an ache in his chest that has nothing to do with the excess carbon dioxide that still needs to clear out of his system. he tries to shake it off, “ sorry, what d'you mean when? ” he forces another quiet laugh, “ i mean, i suppose i can believe it isn't still 2141, but it can't be much further along than maybe ‘43? ” he closes his eyes to fight against the spinning of his head, but it only makes him nauseous. “ i was… it's - it was november. my… tether snapped, but our comms have been on th' fritz for months. we're meant to be lightyears away from here. ”
Her grimace deepens. “Yeah, was afraid you’d say somethin’ like that. Well, it is still November,” she checks the clock on her laptop for the exact date, “November twenty—augh, fuck.” She sighs hard, rubbing the space between her eyebrows in an attempt to dispel the tension there. “I promised Peg I’d come by the pub tonight,” she groans. “She’s probably got something planned for me, she’s not gonna be happy if I bring business to her.”
Rei heaves a sigh. She shakes her head and waves a hand; not important right now. “It’s the twenty-eighth,” she says. “But I got. Real bad news as to the year.” She points at him, warns, “Stay down,” and readjusts her chair, pulling it closer to him so she can face him. “For starters, I want you to know. I know what this news is gonna feel like, okay? I’ve kept this secret for five years. I was born in 2121.” She offers a tight smile. “You will notice that year doesn’t match up with my apparent age if we were still in the early forties. We’re… not in the twenty-second century. At all.”
‘41, ‘41… why is that year familiar? Oh, it’s gonna drive her mad. It was over ten years ago for her, and a lot has happened in the last five. Right. “You’re off by about 120 years… in the wrong direction. It is November 28… 2023.” She gives a couple beats for that to sink in. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, space man. It kinda sucks.”
the light filtering through his eyelids is wrong, but he can't quite place why. not right away. max groans, head aching like he'd been drinking for a week straight, and he squeezes his eyes tighter as he hefts himself upright. few curses are muttered in a muddled mix of spanglish until a coughing fit overcomes him. he flops back, dizzy and worse for wear.
it hits him in slow, unsteady waves. memories assaulting him, the silence of space and his pulse thumping in his ears, her eyes, the stars... a crash... he bolts upright, eyes flying open to assess what he can in spite of his aching head and chest. first things first, he's still in his suit. good. a vague memory floats by of him ripping off his helmet for air. max breathes – he can breathe – and he finally focuses in on the woman at the table.
he blinks, and an image of the books and their shelf? beneath him flashes in his head. he still can't figure out how he managed to land anywhere, let alone in the middle of a bookstore back on what he's presuming is earth. but it's been half a decade since the skeld had left, maybe this isn't as weird or worrisome as his darkening thoughts are making it out to be. maybe the homing beacon in his suit had more tricks than he ever could have guessed. maybe he can get back to nelson and mira inc. and let them know what's gone wrong on the ship — maybe there is still a chance to save his crew. “ sorry for the mess, ” he finally croaks, “ i will fix anything i knocked over… and, if you wouldn't mind a little more inconvenience of hosting me while i… catch my breath, i can call my, erm, boss and have a crew here to help with the worst of it? ” he looks around, imagining there has to at least be a hole in a roof or worse and, while it's true that he can't know whether nelson would be keen to help one way or another, red thinks his presence sans skeld should hold some sway when it comes to demands. “ depending how far we are from home, i can't imagine they'd take more'n a day to arrive. ”
She points severely at him, then the futon. “Lie the fuck back down,” she scolds. “You were out of oxygen, the fact you’re alive is a goddamn miracle, and the only reason I haven’t already called an ambulance for you is—” she grimaces. She doubts he has valid ID, and she doesn’t like having goodie-goodies nosing around her shop. “Anyway, you’re lucky you only dropped on my pile of inventory; worst you did was crush a couple cardboard boxes and bend some hardcovers. If I feel like being a bitch, you owe me like sixty quid for the books I can’t sell now. Though, something tells me,” she gives a tight smile and crosses her arms, “you don’t have a whole lot in the way of funds right now.”
She hasn’t placed where she knows him from, but the way he appeared is uncomfortably familiar. It’s entirely possible they’re from the same… beginning point. It would explain the spacesuit and his familiarity, though it’s gonna be a pain in the ass to explain. Her accent may have thrown him off; her years in London have done nothing to soften the solidly Californian shape of her words. She drums her fingers on her arm, considering him for several beats, before abruptly, “Rex, don’t.”
The dog’s approached their guest, shoving his nose against the space man’s leg. “He’s perfectly friendly,” she says tiredly, “I wouldn’t have him in the shop otherwise, but he can be… over-friendly, sometimes.” A kind way of saying the dog is an unofficial service dog—he’d assigned himself the job with no training from her. It’s been useful, though, having someone always around who can help when her anxiety spikes. “Anyway, sorry— I’m Rei, I own this shop. That’s Rex, that’s Duchess,” she gestures to the cat on the table, watching him with narrowed eyes. “You are in London, not far from Trafalgar Square, but…” she grimaces. “I don’t think you’re when you think you are.”
MAH Glitch tries to say, but with his teeth closed on the corner of Wraith's frames it's more a muffled MMH! With that, ducking out of reaching of the offered fingers, he pulls them free. His tail lashes triumphantly. Sharp cat's teeth click click on the arm. A flash of fur, and he slips away from just victim just to run right into Tech's expectant hands. She expertly liberates his catch, taking pains not to catch the lenses on tooth, claw, sand, or other. After checking for damage, she folds the arms and offers the glasses back to Wraith.
“Define fun?” Definitely not a one size fits all kind of package, she's found. “Dancing? Drinking?” The list starts small, standard. “Fighting? Or um.. I dunno, racing?” It goes on, but she pauses there. If she's not looking for more, it starts to sound crazy quickly. Inwardly, Tech scowls. I know too many idiots, she thinks. “...Painting?” Good idiots, though.
Ooh, racing. Alé’d like that. “You know races that ain’t for pinks? I’ll race for coin or race for fun, but I’m not puttin’ Alé on the line.” Wraith accepts her glasses back and tucks them into her shirt. “Drinkin’ an’ dancin’d be good, too.” She considers sitting up for a moment, decides against it. Too tired; she doesn’t want to deal with the way her head spins when she tries to move before her body’s ready for it. Better down too long than too short.
She considers for a moment, flipping over the offered list again. “Fightin’ wouldn’t be bad t’set Basher on. I think he’s gettin’ a little stir-crazy, even with the buffet on offer. And… distracting him might be good.” Her voice softens. She doesn’t really want Bash hovering over her, concerned about her every move. It makes her feel much closer to death.
“ — ahora y en la hora de nuestra... m-muerte... ” lips struggle to form themselves around his words, tongue tripping as red draws in more of his own carbon dioxide than what remains of the oxygen in his tank. ten hours. he had thought they might have a change of heart — had hoped. prayed to the god his mother had told him about, as her rosary sat heavy, tucked into his pocket, kept safe in his spacesuit-turned-coffin.
gloved fingers float up to his helmet, his eyes heavy as he blinks. there's a whisper somewhere in the back of his mind that forces them open again. the inside of his eyelids will not be the last thing he sees. how long had he fought to get here, amongst the stars? ( all his life ). “ amen. ” as the word is whispered, he finds the familiar latches, coughs, blinks again slower than the last. but, before he can unclasp his helmet, it feels as though the gravity had been turned back on. or maybe this is just what dying feels like?
the universe spins, and from one laboured breath to the next, red comes crashing down. literally.
he finds himself face-first in a pile of... books? a crack spidering across the glass screen draws a hazy concern, and he struggles, finally able to rip his helmet off with the last of the air in his lungs before blacking out. his final thought? her.
// @glasshcldhigh rei & max.
Tuesday.
Strange Matters is closed on Tuesdays; it gives her a day to go through the shop, fixing books that escaped her notice and making sure her inventory is up-to-date, tag and shelve new books, make sure her transaction records are accurate. A tidy-up day, for the most part, to keep the business side of things running smoothly. Her music is blasting from the front, Rex asleep under her feet, Duchess lounging in a window.
The crash behind her draws a shriek. Rex startles awake; Duchess bolts from the room. “Motherfucker,” she swears loudly, turning to see what happened. What she finds is… not what she’d expected. “Fuckin’… space… man?” she says, giving Rex a confused look. The dog looks up at her, also clueless as to what just happened.
“Excuse me? Uh… hi?” She creeps closer. “Unconscious.” She’s no engineer, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out a gauge marked “O₂” with the needle on empty means the space man’s oxygen ran out. “Cool. Great. Wonderful. Right then.” There’s a futon not far; somewhere for her to lie down when assorted ailments make being upright too difficult. “C’mon, space man,” she grunts as she hauls him up. His arms over her shoulders so most of his weight is on her back, she drags him over to the futon, drops him back down.
Rei straightens, hands on her hips as she catches her breath from the exertion, and frowns. “Hang on,” she says to Duchess as the cat creeps back into the room. “He’s familiar. Why’s he familiar?” She wracks her brain, but can’t come up with where she’s seen him before. Humming irritably, she retreats to the front to grab her laptop and speakers before returning to the back room. She can’t leave him alone in her shop, but she’s still got work to do, after all. She sets up at a table, turning the volume of her music down, but not off, and starts going through her records.
Three pairs of eyes raise at her bid for attention.
"Not me," he hears Perlah say from behind him. Or- he's fairly certain it's something like that, though he's been picking up the language in odds and ends mostly through listening and a shitty app. The bickering that picks up is enough to indicate neither of his available nurses are interested in the task.
Richie rolls his eyes a little, muttering, "Christ, you two," as he turns at the waist to clap eyes on Perlah and Princess. "Perlah, hold down the fort." It's a private exasperated sort of amusement that rises up watching the pair's equal and opposite reactions to that bit of instruction. "Shouldn't be more than ten or fifteen."
He quickly pats his pockets - phone and accoutrements where he expects - as he does a quick scan, taking stock before he steps away. Richie jerks his chin to beckon her along
"Alright, come on, I can walk you out the back way here, I think there's a unpaved spot."
He steps out from behind the desk, and a soft oh escapes. “No, Bubbas, it’s okay,” she corrects as the dog tries to position himself between Daisy and this mountain of a man. Bubble resumes his spot at her side, though with no small amount of grumbling. “Language,” she chides, and the dog falls silent.
“I am not moving fast,” Daisy warns the nurse. “Doctor Renner wasn’t specific about his concerns, but I was strictly ordered not to exert myself more than necessary.” She imagines even her normal pace would be slow in comparison to his. She follows, keeping an awareness of her energy and heart rate. Part of her wants to hand Bubble off and let the nurse run him outside and back, but the idea of being completely alone in an unfamiliar space is petrifying. If she’s meant to keep her heart rate down, risking a panic attack isn’t the way to do it.
i will not add trista. i will not add trista. i will not add trista.
love writing. would love to do it again someday.
Ever since the upheaval (Nears), Maddy's been making a more deliberate effort at being hard to find. Before, the others tended to avoid her. Now nobody can seem to go more than an hour or so without some crisis or another driving the busybody brigade to come knocking. You need to. You have to.
No thanks.
It proved difficult at first. She had no way of knowing which corners of the building they planned to descend on on a given day, and running into them on accident was almost worse than being chased down and interrogated. Then, a revelation. Other than the passing classes and the occasional appearance of someone working on an after school project, the AV room seemed largely forgotten by Split River High students both living and dead. Maddy had taken over haunting it, given the vacancy and all, and only had to make herself scarce once or twice since.
On this day, Maddy sits curled at one of the corner computer tables, a pair of heavy headphones that had been duped when they were new and worth using covering her ears. The computer blasts music loud enough to make her feel buzzy (and wonder, passingly, if sound really could stir ghosts the same way it shakes the living.) It's a great way to pass the time. Tune out the ambience of the school's halls and just...wander from webpage to webpage. Reading about whatever snags her interest. Studying the ways the forward face of the internet and social media have changed over the years. Something she hasn't done in... it must be a handful of years, now. Since that year when all the students quit coming. Things had gone and stayed a bit... fuzzy, around then. She's shifting around, trying to find a new way to sit that was as comfortable as a position she'd leaned out of on accident awhile ago, when the movement catches her eye. She peeks over the top of the monitor to find one of few whose name she doesn't struggle to recover: Daisy. Something about it just suits. Maddy pulls her headphones down around her neck. The music's still faintly audible. It makes for curious backing as she reads Daisy's offer.
Your scar. Her stomach sinks. Popular topic of the week. Of course everyone knew by now — especially since the others were so convinced that Dawn had escaped through hers. Moved on. Whatever. Maddy scratches at the hard edge of the keyboard in front of her.
“I um,” her voice wavers. She pauses to clear her throat. “I don't.. know what my key is.” Which is to say, she hasn't looked. Hasn't tried to think about it, which of the things she'd brought into the afterlife with her was the one that might open that door. She didn't even want to go near the shop without prying open her past. She shifts again. “I'm not convinced it's the out everybody thinks it is, anyway.”
Daisy nods. Fair enough. Maddy’s definitely not the only one suspicious of the scars and doors. Daisy had been at first, as well, but something about being in her scar… it had clarified some things. It wasn’t something that was easy to explain, though—better experienced than explained.
Offer’s there, if you ever want it.
She’d done what she came to do, but something catches her before she can turn and float away again. She’s been thinking about Maddy’s death a lot lately, the things leading up to it. The awful way she’d been treated. It had made Daisy glad she was dead before the details of her abuse came out. In Maddy’s shoes, she can’t say she wouldn’t have made the exact same decision.
“I think—…” her voice is rough, rusty, and it’s all she can manage right now. She frowns, clears her throat. It’s not something she can struggle through, but it feels like something that needs to be shared. Voice still failing her, she turns to a fresh sheet. Message written, she tears the page out, folds it up—half, half, half again. She slides it onto the desk next to Maddy, offers a shy little smile, and flutters away again.
I think you were very brave for defending yourself.
