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Anne had never felt so clean in her entire life. After dropping out of the sky and into the middle of the freeway she did her best to conceal the Planters as they made their way to Anne's house. Luckily where they had teleported to wasn't too far from it. She had explained everything to her parents and introduced them to her talking frog family, which she was kinda happy were there because otherwise her parents probably would have thought she lost her mind. After her reunion she had happily taken a nice hot shower, which felt like absolute heaven .
She was digging through her closet now looking for a new change of clothes. She had put on a new pair of socks, some jean shorts and a tee shirt. As she sorted through the mess of clothes her hand brushed up against something soft and familiar. Curious, she pulled the article of clothing out, and was instantly taken aback.
Yellow.
Marcy’s old yellow hoodie that she would always forget at Anne's house. It had a few rips and tears because marcy was so clumsy that all of her clothes were a little banged up. Anne almost smiled.
But she didn't. Because this was Marcy’s hoodie that she would wear to school on chilly days and she would play video games in and trip and fall in and spill mint chocolate chip ice cream on and fall asleep in after pulling all-nighters reading and hug Anne in.
Anne brought it up to her face and inhaled, and oh god , it still smelled like Marcy, an all too familiar scent of mint and ink and old books, and that was what finally broke her.
She sobbed into the piece of clothing and inhaled as hard as she could, desperately hoping to imprint the smell into her nose forever. She tried to cry quietly, she had already cried enough in front of her family today, and she needed to be strong for the planters, so she smothered her face deeper into the hoodie, muffling her wails of despair.
She hadn't even really processed what happened yet and it was already too much to bear. A feeling of hopelessness and emptiness taking over her entire body, so strong she thought the feeling alone would make her pass out. The images she was trying so hard to suppress came to the forefront of her mind. Images of marcy with a flaming sword in her chest and her eyes closing and her falling to the ground and her dying right there in front of Anne. and she couldn't do anything. She stood there dumbstruck before being sucked into the portal. She couldn't help her or hold her or say goodbye, she was just...gone...
Anne eventually ran out of tears after a while, hiccuping dryly into the hoodie.
You need to be strong, Anne, remember? Strong .
she sniffled and pulled away from the cloth, trying to get a hold of herself. Breaking down wasn't going to solve anything, she had too much on her plate to just go around crying everywhere.
So she steeled her resolve and stood up on shaky legs, having to grip onto the door frame of the closet for support. She looked down at the hoodie again and rubbed it between her fingers, before slipping her arms through the sleeves and the hood over her shoulders. She briefly hugged herself and inhaled through her nose again before standing up straight and going to her bathroom to clean her face up.
Marcy wasn't here. But at least Anne had her yellow hoodie. Something to hold onto.
To desperately hold on to...