Chapter Text
You close the door and head back to your room, before laying down on you grab your phone and start texting Laurance.
Me: Hey would it be okay if I stayed at your house?
Laurance: Sure, as long as I get to ask questions.
Me: Shoot
Laurance: You never really make plans or ask to come over, so I was just wondering what’s up.
Me: I just
Me: I need a sort of mental break
Me: Who better to hang out then my best friend
Me: Right?
Laurance: Yeah I get that. I can pick you up if you want and we can stop to get something to eat?
Me: Yeah, that’d be great
Laurance: Okay cool. See you in 15
You quickly get ready and try to make yourself look as presentable as possible. You watch as Laurance pulls up and you get in his car.
“Where do you wanna go?” you turn to look at. You feel this weight on your chest growing.
“Anywhere but here”
He turns to look at you “Are you okay? You just don’t seem like yourself. You don't have to-”
You don’t let him finish “It’s just. I think I fucked up. I think I hurt someone and I mean we never really spoke in the past and we aren’t exactly close or anything, but. Idk. I’m afraid I can’t go back from this.”
Laurance just stares at you before turning back at the road and starting their drive “Soooo I know you’re upset right now, but I’ve gotta ask. What’s her name?”
“What?” you look at him quizzically
“I mean I thought it was obvious that whoever this was, was someone you must at least slightly like”
“No, I don't like this person. I mean not romantically at least. Anyways, this person isn’t even a girl. He’s a guy, a really nice guy.”
You can practically hear Laurance raise his eyebrow “Oh? Who is it?” You don’t pick up oe whatever he was subtly trying to put down
“It doesn’t matter who it was, what matters is that I think I might have hurt him. I mean it’s possible I didn’t hurt him. I don’t know.” You put your hand in your face and let out a slight groan. “Can we just drop it?” I already feel like shit and talking about it isn’t really helping.
“Well luckily for you we’re here.” You look up and see a local fast food chain. Weirdly enough this is exactly what you need right now. You and him get a bunch of shitty, greasy food. You sit outside on the curb going back and forth talking about little things that happened throughout your day.
“I know you said you wanted to drop it, but if it really does bother you then why don’t you just work on some different ways to fix this?”
You open your eyes to look at him. He has a point and you both know it, but that doesn’t make it anymore annoying.
“I know, I know but,” you sigh, " I don't know if I even want to make it better. I mean it’s not like I know him. At least not in any real way that matters”
“Are you afraid?”
“No? Maybe? I just think if I try to change or fix things, I might make it all worse. It’ll just be better to leave him alone. You know?”
“Not really, but I could possibly sorta understand why you’d feel like that. Although I’d understand more if you told me who this other person was.”
“Which is the main thing I won’t be doing anytime soon.” You both stand up and get back in Laurance’s car and head to his house. You go back to your conversations about nothing. As you enter his house you continue with your conversations. You feel a lot better now. You feel like the awkwardness of the situation that only you know has disappeared. After a while you head to the spare room at his place and lay down. You stare up at the ceiling keeping your eyes locked. You question why what happened with Gene bothered you as much as it did. You wonder if it’s because of the way you feel about him. You pause and question how you feel about him. You don’t like him. I mean maybe as a friend if you didn’t ruin it. You decide to ignore your thoughts even if it was just for a moment longer and close your eyes. You spend most of your night tossing and turning. You guess at some point you fell asleep since eventually you wake up to the smell of all the different breakfast foods that Laurance is currently making. You missed this. You missed Laurance’s cooking. You missed staying with your friends. You used to do stuff like this all the time back in high school, but for some reason once you entered college you just stopped doing all those things. You feel a little bad for that. You sit at the island in his kitchen.
“Did you sleep well? Because I slept like a fucking princess, like a beauty queen. That was the best I’ve ever slept in my life” You stare at him for a moment before rolling your eyes. “What I mean just because you’re too scared to admit it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
You laugh to yourself
“Hey! You should be careful considering I’m the one letting you stay in my house” You roll your eyes, you have a feeling like you might be doing that a lot today. Next thing you know He gives you a plate of different breakfast foods.
“Laurance. Dear friend of mine. I need you to know there's almost nothing I’ve ever missed more than your cooking.”
Laurance gives a very dramatic bow before leaning over to talk to you. “Garroth I’ve got a question?”
“What?”
“How would you feel about us going to the mall?”
“For what?” You said still prioritizing eating your food over this and all conversations
“Well I thought maybe we could update your fashion, maybe try getting you out there. I mean lets be honest it’s been a pretty long time since you’ve tried dating. Maybe it’s time? Or at least time to start talking to literally anyone other then me and Dante”
You roll your eyes at him even though at your core you know he’s right. He’s managed to strip away all of your different defenses and leave the truth out on the table for everyone to see. You agree to go with him on the condition that he invites someone else. Laurance agrees and you both shake on it. You finish your food as he sets up the plans. You went back to the spare room and put on an extra set of clothes you left here. As the time gets closer to the afternoon you both get ready and start to head out.
“So who else did you invite?”
“Only the second most fashionable person we know.” You give him a slight look of confusion before he tells you that it’s Lucinda.
“Laurance you must be blind, because if she’s the second most fashionable, who's the first?”
“Uh duh, it’s me. Who else?”
“Listen, all I’m saying is that I think it’s very generous of you to believe that you have a better fashion sense than her. We both know she’s the definition of style and the sooner you accept that, the better it’ll be.”
He makes a dramatic and obviously joking offended expression “I’m hurt. I can’t believe I even considered helping you get a girlfriend”
You force yourself to laugh, but if you’re being honest his words sting a bit. You don’t know why or really what about them hurt you, but they made you feel almost as though you were lying? You try to ignore it, since you know you aren’t. You don’t even have anything to lie to him about. Before long you’re at the mall anyways so anything you thought before doesn’t even matter in the end and after an upsettingly long time you finally find a place to park. The two of you almost immediately go off to try and find Lucinda. After far too many back and forth texting you all finally find each other. You meet her standing in front of a jewelry store. Laurance yells out to her as you just quietly wave towards her.
“Hello” You’ve always been slightly envious of the way she seemed to carry herself. No matter what she always looked beautiful, but in a kind of intimidating and unachievable way. “I’d enjoy it if next time you didn’t yell, but for now I’ll drop it. Now, would either of you like to tell me what we’re exactly here for?” Garroth looks at Lauracne
“You didn't tell her?” you said while looking at your friend
“Listen I didn’t have the time” both you and Lucinda look at each other before looking at him. You don’t believe him, but you also don’t really care to push it any further. “Whatever. Lucinda, I invited you here to help me kind of update Garroth’s style while also trying to go out and help him talk to people. By people I mean women.” He pauses, " I wanna try and get him a girlfriend, and lets be real no one’s better at making girls fall for them then you.” You feel a bit of a sting when hearing him say girlfriend. You don’t understand why. You look at Lucinda watching as she thinks to herself.
“I’ll help you with the fashion, and depending on how the rest of the day goes I might give you some advice when it comes to talking to girls, but I really think if you’re going to talk to girls you should just be you.”
Laurance rolls his eyes. “Listen Luci, I’d normally agree with you, but our good friend Garroth here hasn’t spoken or hit on any one since Sophomore year. I think he’d need all the help he can get.”
Your jaw drops and you make a dramatic offended look causing Laurance to laugh. Lucinda lets out a bit of a sigh and attempts to drag you into the direction of a store she thinks would be a great start.
You don’t really get a chance to actually look at different clothes since Laurance and Lucinda spend most of the time choosing clothes for you and talking, only really really taking a break to have you try on clothes. You look at yourself in the mirror and while objectively the clothes look amazing and they do actually look pretty good on you, but it just doesn’t feel right. No matter what you do or what you try, nothing quite feels like you. Maybe if you knew yourself better this wouldn’t be a problem, but you don’t. You walk out of the changing room and wait for their opinions as you try and match their reactions. After doing this for a couple of hours and even buying some of the clothes all three of you head to the food court.
For a brief moment you and Lucinda are left alone.
“So.” You turn to look at her waiting to hear what she has to say, “How have you been?”
“Good.”
“Not much of a talker anymore are you?”
You shrug. Their statement isn’t really right, but it’s also not wrong. Normally you would be much more of a talker, maybe not like you were back in high, but more than you are now. Events like these always drain you. No matter where you are or who you’re with they always leave you feeling tired and wanting to crawl into your bed and sleep forever.
“Garroth. I know we’ve never been very close, but I’m worried for you. Ever since we left high school you’ve become very distant to everyone except for Laurance and Dante and I mean I get it you seem to be very busy with your studies as am I, but even I’ve taken the time to be with friends or even just to be with myself.” They put their hand on your back. “Have you taken any time for yourself since the start of school?” You stare at her. Just like Laurance she’s very good at asking you questions you would’ve never asked yourself, she makes you think. Before long Laurance comes back with food before you can even respond to her. After you all finish eating they bring you back to different stores. By the end of the day you are internally begging to leave. Your social battery has been in the negatives since before lunch and all you want to do is sleep till the end of time. After many more hours you all finally agree to go home. If you didn’t feel drained before you definitely feel drained now. You didn’t get as many clothes as you think they wanted you to get, but you still got more than you thought you would. In the end you enjoyed the trip more than you thought you would. You say your goodbyes to Laurance and walk to your dorm.
As you walk up to your door you see a note taped to it. You were too tired to read it so you just took it off and put it on your table. You quickly head to your room and basically fall on your bed. You’ve never been so happy that a day has ended before now. Before you even have a moment to think about anything you fall asleep.