“Pru,” he grunted out.
I had the door open, struggling not to react in some pathetic, embarrassing way I might regret.
“Is that mine? I don’t recall leaving anything behind.” Feigning an indifference I most certainly wasn’t feeling, I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. My eyes were already stinging with unshed tears.
This was not one of my better moments. I didn’t have it in me to put up walls, to scrounge up a brave front. I was tired, weathered, frayed, beaten to hell and then some.
My defiance was more denial of that last shred of anything I had to hold onto being taken from me.
As much as I fought in my head, going round and round over adolescent bull that didn’t mean anything anymore, that hope that maybe there was a legitimate reason for shunning me, one that had nothing to do with me, that vindication that it wasn’t something I’d unknowingly done to be severed from the only true friend I’d ever had, I held onto that hope with everything I had left. That’s all I really have left.
I should let him get this, whatever it is, over with. Maybe he needs this to move past, to quit holding on to shit that no longer matters, just like I was.
Damn it all, I wasn’t feeling very generous right now.
My frayed nerves had frayed nerves.
Regardless of what I wanted to do, here we were.
This… whatever he wanted to call it— last meet up— the final nail in the coffin of what had once been our friendship— this was going to cut deep.
“Just leave it by the door, yeah?” I muttered. Lower, I grumbled as I stepped inside the house, “I’ve got a lifetime’sworth of shit to sort through and cram into boxes.” Grimacing, I huffed out under my breath, “Or toss to the curb.”
“Pru,” he grunted out louder, so loud he knew I heard him and couldn’t pretend I hadn’t.
“If you come anywhere near me with that envelope, I’m going to shove it between your fuzzy cheeks, deep where the sun don’t shine,” I warned him. “Believe you me, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Come at me with it, I’m more than willin’-”
“Pru.” My name was a rough grumble bordering on a growl.
Spinning around with a glare, moisture glistening in my eyes, I growled right back, “What?!”
It’s been an eternity, it feels like, since I was standing this close to him. Elm had a very specific scent to him. When he was riled, which rarely happened with Mr. Keep-it-all-to-himself, I’d swear it grew stronger, thicker in the air.
One look at my face, the waterworks threatening, he dipped and the box thumped lightly at his feet. Before I knew what was what, he was scooping me up and hugging me to him tight.
A soft, rumbling croon left him.
Stunned speechless, I dangled in his hold, arms limp at my sides, legs dangling.
As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he tucked my head against his chest and pressed the side of his face to my beanie covered head.
A mangled hiccup left me, any sense of dignity I swore I wasn’t going to lose in front of him, of all people, was lost somewhere in the muffled noises I was making, sucking in lungfuls of his scent— a scent I’d know anywhere— sunshine, a hint of pine, that very specific smell the fresh, cool morning air carried clinging to him like it seeped from his pores.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled into his shirt front. The ragged blue and red flannel he was sporting over a faded Say Anything shirt was looking so worn and old, at first glance anyone else might’ve guessed it was a hand-me-down from Forest.
But I knew that shirt. It had been two sizes too big when I’d proudly presented it to him but I’d known he’d love it, despite the size discrepancy— that was the only size they’d had left when Mom drove me three towns over to get it. He’d grow into it, I’d told him. It was the last birthday I’d spent with him. The thing was snug on him now, hugging his chest and thick shoulders, molded to him.
For reasons I didn’t care to get into, this made the feeling in the pit of my stomach, dredging up emotions that seeped through my eyes, worse.
I was shaking so hard by this point, I trembled in his arms.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, struggling to get it together and keep it that way, at least long enough to get him to leave me and let me return to wallowing in peace.
My attempts to dislodge him were met with firm but gentle resistance.
“S’kay, Pru. S’kay,” he rumbled out softly as he began stroking a hand down my back comfortingly, the other hand easily banding me to him like he was holding a doll and not a plush-sized adult human being.
Shaking my head, I started to squirm to be free more insistently.
