after last night’s discussion, rich hadn’t slept at all. he’d lay awake, feeling every inch of his scarred skin tighten, an uncomfortable reminder of the incident. when his innocence comes under question, he finds it hard to think about anything else: that’s why he calls alice. she’s awake at six a.m every day regardless, and she’s always willing to help him out of a slump.
he’s catching her up on the information shared between the group when it happens. mike’s given website ( ‘please, rich,’ she’d told him, looking a little upset, ‘give him a chance. he’s not that bad.’ ) open in one tab, over fifteen news articles over in another, they work in silence. rich’s shorthand contrasts wildly with alice’s pristine notes, and yet they both seem to be detailing the same information: people had gone missing, been traumatised enough to believe they had died and been to hell.
“what are you thinking of the unrelated ones?” alice asks him, tapping her pen against her bottom lip and smearing her lipstick onto the plastic, “the one with the mother, and the one with the stalker?”
rich huffs, looking over her notes with a creased brow. when he’s antsy, his adhd plays up worse than usual, sends words spiralling around in his mind until they’re nothing but mush. “i think it’s crazy that people looking for someone missing fuckin’ lose it. you know? like with the dude with the phone. ‘s twisted.”
while they’re distracted, music starts to play from alice’s laptop. irritated by the sudden noise, rich turns to close the window, assuming an ad had started to play on one of the news websites they were browsing. what he’s met with is much more confusing.
“is that… e.minem?” alice asks, and the question is so ridiculous that rich has to fight back laughter, bite his cheek harsly to avoid hysterics.
“god rest his soul,” rich says, solemnly, and alice hits him on the shoulder in reprimand. “what? the dude died, like, a year ago! let me pay my respects!”
that starts alice laughing, and she sets rich off, and they’re howling with giggles, leaning weakly on each other. “what the fuck, alice?” rich tries to ask, but he’s almost incoherent. “what the hell?”
“i do not know!” she protests, unable to lift her head from his shaking shoulder. “it has never done that before! i – why e.minem?”
rich can’t help himself, knuckling his eyes in a desperate attempt to stop whatever hallucination this must be. “it’s e.minem’s ghost, tryna help us find belle. point us in the right direction, marshall.”
“stop it!” alice leans over to close the tab, silencing the song. “keep reading. we can talk about the late e.minem later.”
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