mckinley, rhys.
rhys smiles. it’s small, and he turns his head to watch a squirrel dart across the path so she can’t see. it feels like a win; in this town, not much does. “ i like that. rhiannon. ” he feels stupid immediately. rhys had always thought it was weird to compliment someone on something they had no control over - something that just was. making friends in black springs felt like disarming bombs, though, and it had rhys acting more cautiously as to not send people skittering away. rhiannon especially seemed fragile, like one slip of his words would send her off. “ hospitals… ” he wants to finish the sentence with ‘suck’ but it’s not strong enough, not for someone who’s spent their whole life in and out of them. “ hospitals need some major upgrades. would it really kill someone to paint the walls? just - anything but fucking white all the time. ” sitting back, blue eyes flit over the scenery. “ don’t - don’t take this the wrong way, but - is there anything to do in this town? ”
Rhiannon’d spent a lot of time in hospitals. Visiting ailing relatives, after she’d smashed into the big pine tree at the end of the hill by her house trying to sled on the thin, icy layer of what desperately wanted to be snow on Christmas morning, a brief stint as a candy striper when she was more desperate for community service hours. THEN: more and more for her own purposes, paranoid fits of sobbing and screaming where her father didn’t know what else to do, and after cases of targeted violence towards herself. White walls, the type he described so disdainfully, were less known for their chemical smell and ugly hue, and more for how restrictive they felt. She could feel her cheek pressed against scratchy fabric of donation pillow cases and the click of the door opening, lock sliding away from it, asking if she wanted breakfast. She ignores his remarks on paint color, still focusing on the intricacies of her drawing, but she ponders them — and Rhiannon figures thats enough, as he continues in spite of her silence. There really was nothing to do, all of sprawling suburbia offering very little in the way of entertainment. Finally, she looks at him, away from the pencil smudge and tiny bits of eraser that rest on her notebook, and she stares blankly before deadpanning: “ You could always go to the hospital. ” There’s a tiny quirk upward of the left side of her mouth, undetectable, but there nonetheless —— and she turns back to her drawing.


















