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He’s getting restless.
The tick-tock of the clock’s hand seems to get louder and louder as the lesson reaches its conclusion, and Craig bounces his leg. Monday is the day he’s in the care of a more unwilling teacher, who often seems more anxious for the day to end than his students.
“I’ll let you go a little bit early today, class.” He says this as if it’s a one-off. It could almost be his catchphrase.
They’re in different classes now- all the time. How lucky. Craig had considered complaining when they had found out, but Tweek had convinced him that it wouldn’t be a big deal, and it would just mean they would have more to talk about when they met back up again. Craig didn’t know why they needed to have something to talk about- he was perfectly comfortable sitting in silence- but he’d been convinced, somehow. Perhaps because Tweek being optimistic was a welcome change.
Shouldering through the doorway, Craig offers a silent goodbye to his friends before beelining to Tweek’s English class down the hall. This is the lesson where Tweek is sat closest to the door, a detail Craig is embarrassed for remembering.
Through the thin rectangular window on the classroom door, Craig catches sight of a wild-haired boy.
He has to crane his neck to see more, attention falling to Tweek’s bandaged hands. Spindly fingers twist around an elastic band, shaping it, knotting it. No tremor disturbs his movement as he does this- and it’s subtle, but upon his face Craig can trace the hint of a smile.
It seems to fascinate him- to calm him, even. Breathy, barely-there, a chuckle pushes through Craig’s nostrils.
They’re still young. Barely twelve, two years in the making as a pair. He doesn’t know what he feels for Tweek, but it’s supposed to be love. In English class, Craig reads mawkish poetry against his will and dissects flowery metaphors about love being some guiding star, timeless and everlasting, consistently powerful.
That doesn’t really fit, though. Craig is not breathless at the sight of the other boy, nor is he often in awe of his movements and speech. He does not view him as a heavenly light, as a fated soulmate, as the missing piece of his unfulfilled heart. But Tweek is interesting, passionate, talented. He knows that. He knows that he wouldn’t wait outside anyone else’s classroom and watch them as they fiddled with an elastic band. He knows that he likes spending time with Tweek and helping him through whatever worry is eating at him that week.
The elastic band snaps.
The door muffles the sound, but Craig knows Tweek well enough to imagine the full brunt of the sharp yelp he lets loose- hastily, the blonde boy stuffs the broken band into his pocket, staring straight ahead. Red colours the tips of his ears- but to save him from his embarrassment, the bell rings, freeing the students from their prison. Tweek leaps from his chair, and Craig backs away from the door to avoid being flattened by a stampede of children rushing to get home.
Sure enough, it’s an avalanche- and despite being sat so close to the door, Tweek is the last one out. They meet eyes, and Craig finds himself mirroring the smile that curves Tweek’s lips.
“Hey, man.”
“Hi.”
Side by side they walk in silence until they are out of the school building, the afternoon’s cold air retreating Craig’s hands into his pockets.
“How was your day?” Tweek is typically the first to ask that question. Craig shrugs in response.
“Boring.” It isn’t much to go off, and is the answer that he always gives in response, but Tweek laughs as if it is the first time he’s heard it. It’s not really meant to be funny, but he doesn’t mind. Tweek has a nice laugh- raspy and hoarse, but clearly sincere with the way it ripples through his shoulders and lilts any words he says after.
“Same. You know, I’m- I’m not working today,” Tweek murmurs, words curved with his smile just as Craig had anticipated. Though he doesn’t say it, he knows that the only reason Tweek is not working is because the coffee shop is closed on Mondays.
“Fine, you can come over.” Craig cannot hide his own smile as he delivers a sardonic groan- and this is an actual joke, one that coaxes another laugh from Tweek’s throat. Neither of them bother to ask their parents- they are apathetic to the situation in different ways. Mainly, Craig’s parents like Tweek. Tweek’s parents do not.
They walk together, and it’s just easy. The thing that Craig appreciates most about his relationship with Tweek is how naturally it comes to both of them. They’ve never really said anything to each other regarding being a couple- it was everyone else who started calling them boyfriends- but they both know that they are. Tweek knows exactly when Craig wants him to take his hand. Craig knows what Tweek’s trying to say in his near-indecipherable texts.
As they walk to his front door, Craig makes a silent promise.
-
It’s Tuesday, and chatter bounces off the walls of the corridor, unrelenting. It’s almost hard to concentrate on Tolkien talking about the movie he watched last night or Clyde talking about the hot girl that was in the movie he watched with Tolkien last night. Usually he would interject, saying that the movie sounded boring- but today he was preoccupied with eavesdropping.
There has always been a part of him, though he’s ashamed of it, that likes gossip. He doesn’t spread it, but he likes to know things, and the best time to listen is when everyone is lined up at their lockers. They think their secrets will be lost to the flood of noise, but Craig has a talent for tuning in, blocking everything else out. Bebe’s shrill voice cuts above the rest, and he finds her curly locks in the crowd.
Hugging her wrists are countless hair ties- one of which looks strained from use, and hangs loosely.
“-fall asleep at a movie date?” She sounds incredulous, offended. Craig can only guess she’s talking about a guy, and for a moment he spares a glance to Clyde.
“I was paying attention to the story!” he insists, voice dragging out.
Tolkien looks pointedly at him, clearly not buying it. “Name one thing that happened.”
Ah, good. He’s not listening- because if he tunes in then he’ll probably offer to take Bebe to a movie, to prove he is better than the guy she’s complaining about. Craig knows he is not. Clyde could probably fall asleep during an airplane crash.
Bebe continues talking about her awful date, scoffs about how she could not believe she ever liked this guy, a statement followed by Wendy humming in agreement. Craig is entirely uninterested- he only really cares about Bebe’s current boyfriend when it’s Clyde, a fact that has not been true for almost a year now.
Though he tries to play it off, Clyde is definitely still bothered by it. Prone to crying as he is, he had once teared up on the other end of the phone, voice wavering as he exclaimed, “I thought she would be the one, man, I really did!”
“We’re eleven,” Craig had said, never good at comforting, but trying to help Clyde work through it regardless. “There’s plenty of people for you to meet.”
“Yeah, but- like- it doesn’t matter how old we are, I mean- you ‘n Tweek, you’re-“
“That’s different.” It really wasn’t, and Craig knew it. When they were ten, he and Tweek would often joke about getting married. The longer they were what they were, however, that sort of joke fizzled out, as if it wasn’t a joke anymore. Craig had expressed this thought to Clyde once- it was just like him to remember a conversation Craig had long since forgotten.
As he listens to Bebe, watching her wrist as it flings about in exaggerated movements of complete exasperation, he remembers this conversation and feels less guilty about what he’s planning to do. Any moment now she’ll lose that thing and it’ll be fair game. Finders keepers.
Someone shoves into Craig’s side- sneakers squeak against the tiled floor as he stops himself from toppling over, and a darkened expression finds the perpetrator. Who else but Eric Cartman, who shouts shrilly above the clamour, “What’cha staring at Bebe for, Craig? Last time I checked she didn’t have a dick!”
Nobody even chuckles except Cartman himself, who screech-laughs boisterously and throws his head back. Kyle jabs him in the side, hissing something that is lost to the chatter, and Craig catches him scowling as Stan tries to peacekeep. They are swallowed into the crowd, and Craig looks over his shoulder to Clyde.
“I wasn’t staring at her. I zoned out.” It’s a lie, but it’s simple enough that Craig thinks he’s gotten away with it. Clyde shrugs, opening his mouth to say something- but before he can make a sound the bell rings, beckoning them all to class.
Clyde simply groans, rolling his eyes and dragging his feet in the direction of the classroom. Tolkien too starts to make his way, giving Clyde a pat on the back and mumbling “C’mon Craig, math.”
“One sec. I’ll catch up.” Craig says, and the other two exchange a puzzled look but do not protest. In Bebe’s wake lies something that glimmers in the clinical light of the school corridor. His repayment for looking weird all morning.
When he bends down to pick it up, he sighs in annoyance through a tightened jaw. It’s pink. A pink glittery hair tie that leaves coarse residue on his fingertips just from holding it for a few short moments. Not really what he had in mind, but it is only Tuesday. He’s got three more days to find something better- and he’ll put this in his pocket for safekeeping.
-
Wednesday brings with it a stealth mission.
Craig knows that elastic bands are most often classed as office supplies, along with pens, sticky notes, staplers... most of the stuff teachers pull from the depths of their desk-drawers. Throughout English class he is barely paying attention, racking his brains to try and figure out how he can get into that desk. His schoolwork suffers as a result.
Lacklustre notes scribbled in rushed script are embedded upon only half of his page- glimpsing to Jimmy, who sits beside him, he notices an entire side of writing. Twin blinks lead his eyes to flicker ever-so-slightly wider- he skims some of it, reading pathetic fallacy, divine right of kings. He realises he’s been in his mind for the majority of this lesson, lost to his strategizing, for he does not remember those terms coming up at all.
Though his stomach sinks when it sets in how much he has lagged behind, his spirits are brought back up to the surface when he remembers the reason he’d not been listening. They go hand in hand- he can use one to remedy the other.
Usually he goes straight to Tweek’s classroom so they can eat lunch together, but not today. “I just need to ask about something,” he says to Jimmy, who remarks he’s not going to wait up because he cannot wait to ‘st-st-stuff his face’.
“Can I help you, Craig?” His teacher sounds somewhat suspicious, and he does not blame her for it. Craig is absolutely not one to ask for help in class, even when he is completely lost- like anyone his age, he cares more about going to talk to his friends than ensuring he has a full understanding of the lecture they were just given.
“Uh- well, there’s a couple things I didn’t really get.” Silence, though the teacher furrows her brow, looking up from the papers she’s marking. How is he going to get into that desk…? She’s sat right in front of the drawers, leaning over. Even if he’s quick she’ll catch his wrist. “Pathetic fallacy- uh, what does that mean again?”
He still has his notebook out. He figures it’ll look more convincing that way.
Surprisingly, a smile brightens his teacher’s face, and she begins in the cheerful tone she normally adopts when delivering facts about Shakespeare. “It’s when the weather mimics the mood of the characters, or the tone of the story. So- for example-” and then she gets up, her chair reeling backward, striking the wall and leaving the drawers free of debris. She marches over to a display at the back of the room with gothic letters spanning it that spell out MACBETH. It’s almost certainly covered in extracts, picked clean for their meaning. “When the weather turns after King Duncan is killed…”
He ceases listening as soon as she parades off with this specific example, her voice droning as TV static does, and Craig’s attention redirects to why he even bothered to ask about ‘pathetic fallacy’- the desk drawer. With her back turned, he shuffles closer, heels hitting the wall when he reaches it. He flinches at the contact, but retains a mostly-neutral expression as she turns around, smiling.
“Does that make sense?”
“Uh- yeah, thanks. And, uh-” he has to think of something else, anything anything anything else. Jimmy’s notebook forces itself to the forefront of his memory. “The Divine Right of Kings, that- I don’t get that either.”
“Ah, well! That actually relates to the night King Duncan was killed, just like pathetic fallacy…” She turns around again. God, he couldn’t possibly care less about this. Tweek doesn’t know how lucky he is.
This time he’s side-stepping, back brushing the wall- he’s careful not to disturb the posters tacked to it, and as he takes in a gulp he can’t help but internally curse at how misbegotten this stupid plan was. He’s not usually one to be afraid of getting in trouble, but this week he cannot afford detention. A shaky breath shudders through slightly-parted teeth. He’s in control of his emotions, he’s insisted this before. Is nervousness an emotion?
She turns back around to face him, and Craig finds it remarkable that she fails to comment on how he’s suddenly made his way behind her desk. She tuts at some pencil sharpenings left strewn atop a table, and begins sweeping them into her hand. “Is that clearer now, Craig?”
“Yeah.” Just one more question, and then he can get into the drawer. It’s right in front of him, taunting him, and Craig narrows his eyes at it in irritation. He hardly considers how strange it is that he has begun to feel animosity toward a desk. “And- and why would Shakespeare want to impress the King?”
It’s not an open-ended question, definitely not vague enough to keep her rambling again, but it might be sufficient- paired with her classroom cleaning- to give him just enough time.
“Well, Shakespeare was hired by the King,” she begins, and he knows there can’t be much more than that. His arm is a blue-sleeved blur, striking the handle with the precision of a praying mantis (in reality it is a clumsy swipe that barely manages to open the drawer, but this is not the story he will later tell), and lo and behold there is a menagerie of coloured elastic bands for him to choose from. Overwhelmed by the array, Craig feels his breath quicken as he reaches for a green one, and snaps it over his wrist. The impact stings a little bit, but the inexplicable adrenaline of this execution makes it fade fast.
“Thanks!” Slamming the drawer in tandem with his shout did not cover the noise as he had hoped it would, but she offers him a grin in response. Returning to her a taut smile, he keeps his head down as he speed-walks out of the classroom.
Of course, Tweek just had to be waiting for him.
The other boy looks at him blankly for a few seconds. “What- what took you so long, man? We’re gonna miss lunch! Why are you- like, sweating?”
“Had to ask about something,” he shrugs, shaking his sleeve over his wrist to cover what had actually taken him so long. “Sorry, honey.”
“I don’t mind! I was just worried when you didn’t come to meet me.”
Craig smiles at the sentiment, and does not try to stop himself. The fact Tweek knows what classroom he’s in even though they never meet here is… it’s really nice.
The aftershock of the elastic striking his skin begins to make itself known with a dull stinging sensation concentrated into one thin line. Walking to lunch with Tweek makes him soon forget about it.
-
On Thursday morning, Heidi Turner drops a scrunchie. Like a condor craving carcass flesh he soon swoops toward it, swiping it off the tiled floor before anyone sees. He only gets a quick look before he’s forced to stuff it into his pocket- it’s dark red and floral-patterned. They might be roses, but he hardly has time to check before Clyde turns around to ask what’s taking him so long.
Later that day he’s sat in French class with Tolkien. He does not want to be here, and he makes it very very clear, spending most of lesson time scribbling stars and planets in the margins of his notebook. Part of him feels bad for Tolkien, who is a fantastic student, having to participate in paired activities with someone who would rather be anywhere else.
Flashcards are handed around the class, practice for verb conjugation. Craig almost tips backward with how violently he slams his back up against his chair, a sigh sinking his shoulders and pulling his hat halfway over his eyes. Tolkien laughs. “Come on, man. The sooner we just do it the sooner it’s over.”
It’s an encouragement that brings Craig creaking forward, folding his arms as he looks at the pile of flashcards.
Alright- it’s not that much work. That is the first detail to cross his mind- and then, aware as a bloodhound, his attention snaps to what the cards are bound together with.
A tangle of elastic, twisted over itself.
Tolkien sighs softly before removing the binding, shuffling the cards in his hand and bringing one to his face. “Alright- je vais, tu…?”
“What?” Eyes glued to the freed elastic band sat unattended on the table surface, Craig hardly registers the question Tolkien asks him. His friend laughs.
“Dude, it’s the first question!”
Craig can’t help but chuckle too, muffling the sound behind the back of his hand. “Yeah- sorry, yeah. Just got distracted.”
Tolkien raises his eyebrows. “What’s up?”
“It’s nothing- it’s fine.”
Tolkien’s too smart for that, though. Craig keeps thinking about how he’s going to get the band without him noticing, and perhaps his eyes have flickered over to the thing one too many times because Tolkien looks over to it then, and snorts with laughter. He picks up the elastic band, twirls it around his index finger. “Go nuts, man.”
Taking it, Craig stares at it for a few moments. It’s a little slack, and thicker than most he’s seen, but it’s something. So he puts it in his pocket, and Tolkien frowns slightly with what Craig can best identify as bafflement.
“Aren’t you gonna, like… you’re just gonna keep it…?” One of the reasons he likes Tolkien so much is that he doesn’t ridicule him, he just seems genuinely confused as to why Craig seemed so concerned with stealing an elastic band. Craig absolutely cannot blame him for it.
“Yeah, uh- don’t tell Tweek.”
Tolkien shrugs, half-smiles. “Sure.”
He promises inwardly to actually do the task, now. To the best of his abilities, not half-heartedly just because he doesn’t like French. Tolkien’s helped him, so the least he can do is try not to hinder his learning any further.
With a prodigy-student as a partner the activity is a breeze, and Craig reclines back on his chair as they finish, huffing. Tolkien neatly stacks the cards, so precisely that it is hard to tell that nothing holds them together. Craig reaches his hand up and pats Tolkien on the back, two thumps that make the other boy laugh in response. “What?” he asks through laughter, ill hiding the confusion on his face.
“You’re a good guy.”
“I’d hope you would think that by now.”
Craig does not say anything else, but he does grin to himself. There’s something entertaining about confusing his friends, who never question his bluntness even when it makes no sense.
-
Come Friday, the day Craig knew from the beginning would be the last for this endeavour, he thinks he has everything prepared. A box that once packaged one of his mother’s necklaces is now full of elastic bands of various sizes and colours, and he puts it in the front pocket of his backpack, easy for him to reach while he’s walking Tweek to work after school.
There’s no more that he absolutely needs, but if an opportunity rears its head he’ll be sure to charge headfirst.
And it does at lunchtime, in the form of a dense crowd huddled around the table where Bebe and her friends normally sit. Craig doesn’t think much of it at first, but seeing the commotion- and where it is congregated- Clyde grabs his arm and shakes it.
“C’mon, we gotta see what’s up!” he urges. Craig just wants to get his food, but he’s been doing weird stuff all week- he can’t in good conscience refuse.
“Fine,” he sighs, following Clyde through the throng. Most of the crowd is in their grade, and crane their necks to get a look at whatever is on that table. They clamber over each other, cling to shoulders, wobble on their tiptoes- it must be captivating, whatever Bebe’s got. Craig finds himself profoundly unimpressed when he manages to muscle his way through the other students and sets eyes upon what it actually is.
It looks like a pegboard- and what else is it covered in but elastic bands. And lots of them too- tens and tens of tiny little ones. With hooks Bebe braids them, and hands them out to whoever asks.
“What are you doing?” Clyde asks, clearly genuinely curious. Craig expects Bebe to be rude to him, but she’s usually a lot nicer than he gives her credit for, and today is no exception.
“Making bracelets!” she exclaims brightly, pointing a painted nail to the intricate tangle of elastic stretched across the plastic board. Clyde leans forward to look, lips slightly parted, and accidentally shoves Craig as he does so. Tunnel vision blinds Clyde whenever he’s within three feet of Bebe. “This one’s for Wendy.”
“Cool…” Clyde says, eyes glazing as they focus on Bebe’s plaiting. His demeanour buzzes with sincerity; perhaps Bebe can tell, because she grins at him for a little longer than she normally does.
Craig knows he needs these tiny elastic bands. Tweek deserves the options. So in an action he figures might shock, he clears his throat. Bebe’s attention is pulled toward him, and he says, “Can I try it?”
An airy laugh leaves her, but she doesn’t appear put off. “Sure- you only need a couple pencils to get started.” As if she had been preparing for the moment, she quickly thrusts a pair of pencils at him, and picks out two elastic bands.
“Now, see- you wanna hold the pencils parallel, and…”
Craig doesn’t hear the rest of it- he’s too focused on how he’s going to make his escape. He doesn’t particularly want to spend his lunchtime making friendship bracelets with Bebe, especially not one he’s going to inevitably end up deconstructing for parts. She places the pencils in his outstretched hands and the elastic bands in the other, blue and green.
In a clatter of wood on chipboard, Craig simply puts down the pencils, shoves the bands in his pocket and turns on his heels. “Thanks,” he says hurriedly before power walking through the crowd. He expects Bebe to yell some sort of objection, but instead he thinks he hears her laugh.
For a moment, he stops. Clyde isn’t following him. He meets eyes with his friend, who gestures to Bebe and gives him a look that curves his eyes into crescents, pulling his smile lopsided. Craig nods, and lets him be.
-
He’s not listening in science class as he constructs his gift. Really it’s not much of a construction- just a matter of placing everything right. The scrunchie swiped from Heidi goes at the bottom, dwarfing everything else. Bebe’s glimmering pink hair tie is next, frayed slightly and leaving sparkles behind. Then, the slack one from French class and the green one from his English teacher’s desk drawer. In the corner sit the two from lunchtime.
(He took from Bebe twice. He should probably repay her at some point.)
Clyde absolutely sees him doing this, probably because Craig is hardly trying to hide it. There’s no judgement from him- rather, he gives him a knowing look, as if Craig’s uncharacteristically erratic behaviour has finally started to make some sense.
Tweek’s last class on a Friday is History. It always is. Clyde knows the routine by now, and bids goodbye to Craig as they leave the classroom, mumbling something about ‘ice cream tomorrow’ and ‘group chat’.
Craig sometimes worries that their routine might one day become boring. In fact, it probably already is. But everything he does with Tweek is as easy as breathing, and if that is boring, then he doesn’t want to be exciting.
Tweek waits with his back to the lockers, his phone unsteady in his dithering hand. It’s as if he senses Craigs approach when he looks up, because he’s already smiling, left eye creasing with a subtle twitch. He waves.
“Hey, man.”
“Hi.”
When they get outside, it’s clear and sunny- but cold, too. A cruel reminder to Craig about the unrelenting twist of apprehension in his stomach despite the nice thing he’s trying to do for Tweek. Pathetic fallacy, he thinks bitterly.
Tweek’s hand is already there when he reaches for it.
Through the thrum of his heart and the rushing of his blood Craig hears Tweek talk about his day. There’s a dolce smile in his voice when he brings up his music class, and how his teacher has noted a significant improvement in his piano performances. Craig remembers how much he likes hearing Tweek play.
Tweek turns the conversation to Craig. “So how was your day?”
“Boring.” Tweek laughs again. He always laughs, but this time Craig doesn’t just leave it at that. “I’ve had something on my mind all day, actually. Uh- something I’ve been looking forward to.”
“Oh?” Tweek sounds intrigued, and their footsteps slow to a halt as their hands untwine. Craig reaches into the front pocket of his bag and pulls out the box, trying to stay as aloof as ever despite his inexplicable nervousness.
“Are you proposing to me?” Tweek says, and his voice wobbles a bit at the end. He sounds horrified by the prospect.
“No! Of course not!” Flustered, Craig loses his cool for a moment, and shoves the box into Tweek’s hands.
“Well you pulled out a box, dick! What am I meant to think?”
“It’s way bigger than a- just open it!”
Tweek lets out an irritated sigh, but the frown flees clean of his expression when he opens the box and views its contents. Silence hangs in the air for too long, taunting Craig- but he doesn’t want to rush. Tweek giggles, the noise dispersing into misty plumes in the air.
“Elastic bands- n’, a- a scrunchie?”
He picks up the sparkly pink hair tie between the tips of his fingers as if holding some sort of radioactive substance and snorts.
“All technically elastic bands,” Craig remarks, a smile swaying his tone.
“Right…”
Tweek still beams as he studies the box, and Craig is aware of the stillness but does not mind it. He sees the twinkle in Tweek’s eye, looks at the brightness of his expression. The air around him is frigid, but there’s fire-warmth in his heart, and he hopes Tweek feels it too.
Carefully, too carefully, Tweek takes out the green band. He shuts the box, giving it back to Craig to hold, and begins to twist it in his hand.
First a figure-eight, and then threaded between four fingers.
Then he pulls it back and snaps it against the back of his hand, reddening dead-pale skin. Remembering the sting, Craig does a terrible job of hiding his wince at the impact. Tweek looks up, but when he sees Craig’s expression his smile fades, a cerulean spark of recognition in his eyes.
“What?”
“Don’t do that with them.” He doesn’t want to be commanding, telling Tweek what he can and cannot do with his own belongings. But he knows the nettle-like aftermath of the elastic’s strike, and doesn’t want Tweek to feel that.
He’s expecting protest- Tweek is not one to be told what to do by anyone other than his parents- but he receives none. Instead, all the other boy offers is a simple, soft, “Alright.”
Unsure of why Tweek made no argument, Craig regains his smile anyway. It might be because it’s a gift, or because through stone-faced stoicism Tweek has learned to read him well- but no matter the reason, he is glad.
Tweek takes the box, and holds it in one hand- the other reaches for Craig’s, and their fingers interlock. Craig theorises that it isn’t just the cold that’s colouring Tweek’s ears.
The campfire crackling in his heart has not let up, and has only made him feel warmer. They turn a corner and the coffee shop is soon in their face, and Craig feels the sigh that Tweek lets out. He doesn’t want to go in. He never does.
Craig squeezes his hand. In a flurry of movement, snow kicked up and cold air rushing, Tweek pulls him into a tight hug.
Standing stunned for a moment that could have been an eternity, Craig moves to return the hug, resting his chin on Tweek’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Craig.” It’s a soft murmur, barely a whisper, and the embrace lingers.
“Do you have to go to work?” For once, Craig is not embarrassed of how whiny this sounds. Tweek laughs as he pulls away.
“Yeah, I have to. But- hey, if I get bored, I’ve- I’ve got something to get me through the shift.” Walking backward, he shakes the box of various things that are technically elastic bands, and Craig hears them rattle inside.
He’ll come visit at closing time anyway.