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The school bell rang out, finally releasing its captive students from their last classes of the day. Students flooded the halls, going all sorts of directions. Most went to the bus pickup, some went toward the parking lot, and others sought out various places still within the school building. Club rooms, lockers, friends congregating on their way out into the broader world. The end of the school day carried with it innumerable beginnings.
For most people, anyways.
A freshman approached her locker. Opened it, grabbed some things, put some other things away; it was perfectly typical, for a time. But soon, her hands slowed, and her gaze lingered on a small photo from the summer. With the reminder, she found herself changing course. She grabbed the photo, stuffed it into her bag, and then did the same with the textbooks she'd just put in there. Within a minute, her locker was empty.
A pair of footsteps, familiar for months longer than any lockers or textbooks or even photographs, approached from the other side of the locker's open door.
"Hey Luz!" they started. "The others got drafted into some club thing, so it's just you and me this time."
Their talent, for delivering devastation with just a few chipper words, could earn medals. She had hoped to talk to all of them, or at least to have the others as a buffer for what she had to tell Masha, but of course, today wasn't going to be that easy.
It never was.
"That's fine," she said instead, closing her locker. "My mom's actually coming to pick me up. Could you… wait with me?"
One eyebrow lifted, and confusion stilled their tongue. Not for too long, though; just long enough to worry. "…Sure, I guess."
The walk to the parking lot was quiet. Not silent, as she might've liked, but quiet. They noticed her overfull bag, always a keen eye for details, but accepted her excuse about homework without question.
Keen, but gullible.
A small crowd of students stood before a long, winding line of cars. Camila's wasn't anywhere in sight, possibly still at the clinic. It didn't take much convincing to back away from the crowd, and settle instead on the building's front stairs.
They talked. About nothing, for a while, just whatever came to mind. Gossip, classes, something she just had to look up when she got home, et cetera. The line of cars kept inching forward, the crowd before them thinning.
Halfway through the latest news about their ongoing job search, she scooted closer, and pressed her shoulder to theirs. Their complaints tapered off into nothing, so she basked in their presence alone.
She hummed. "Sounds like you're figuring it out, at least."
"I guess. You getting comfy there?"
"For now," she said, tipping her head onto their shoulder.
They didn't seem to have a good comeback for that.
She let the matter sit for another minute or so, before she started to dig up her words, the very reason she asked them to be with her, there and then. "I borrowed something a while ago. Before we met, actually. But this weekend, I've gotta give it back."
"What was it?" Always with the hard questions.
She returned in kind, "It's… well. It's gonna change some things. A lot of things. And it's gonna be really, really weird, and confusing, and hard without it." An answer as ominous as it was opaque.
"Uhhhh-huh." In the distance, a familiar car finally made it into the line. "Think that's your mom. Guess we gotta get up soon, huh?"
Her eyes felt hot. She blinked the sensation away as best she could, and took a long yet shallow breath. The line inched forward.
"I'll miss you guys." She hoped they didn't hear the waver in her voice.
"What? Girl, it's just the weekend, we can talk in like, an hour, probably." They shifted as if to face her, but she stubbornly kept her face from their view, the ground suddenly much more interesting than her friend.
"Yeah. Maybe." The line inched forward.
They raised their eyebrow again, and preemptively cringed. "Is everything… okay?"
"…No. Not really. But there's nothing I can do about it anymore." She didn't even recognize her own lie. The only thing stopping her was cowardice, as solid and immovable as the concrete she was sitting on.
"Oh. That's…" their gaze fled to the afternoon sky. "…That sucks."
The line inched forward. Silence. She scooted even closer, and buried her face in their shoulder, hunched over their arm.
The line inched forward. Masha laid their head atop hers, mind whirling with questions they knew she wouldn't answer.
The line inched forward.
The line inched forward.
The line inched forward. Camila's car was at the edge of the pickup zone.
She took a deep breath, only a little shuddering, and pried herself off of her friend. She was in no hurry to get her feet under her and leave, but she couldn't stall forever, no matter how much she wanted to.
They looked up at her dumbly as she stood and stretched, a silhouette of blinding light against the afternoon sun. She took half a step forward, then turned back. It was impossible to read her expression, shrouded as it was in her own shadow, but they could just about make out her gesture, offering them a hand up. Hesitantly, they took it.
With the height difference settled, they could finally see her face. Her nose flared as she drew in a shaky breath, and they realized too late that she was still holding their hand. Before they could react, she'd already pulled them into a signature Noceda Rib-Breaker, burying her face in their chest.
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They cringed at first. Then, slowly, carefully, their hands settled onto her back.
"I'm gonna miss you," she muttered, quiet, into their shirt.
Their worry deepened. Their defenses went up to compensate. "Dork. I'll see you on Monday," they hoped, on the verge of begging.
She broke the embrace, now a double-handhold, and attempted to meet their gaze directly. Her eyes slid off their face. "…Of course. You'll see me on Monday."
If it was a relief, their body didn't recognize it. She released one of their hands, then the other, and turned to walk away.
They still felt the ghost of her warmth across their abdomen, as she opened the door to her mom's car. They watched her sit, and buckle, and adjust the straps, all while they stood there like an idiot, too far and too lost to say goodbye. They were only spurred to act by the car finally starting to pull forward.
They jogged up to the curb, where the car would soon pass, but couldn't find a game plan better than waving. Still, Camila must have noticed them, since Luz's window began to open, shocking her out of a melancholic slump.
She was passing them by, agonizingly slow. They couldn't think of anything to say, so settled on next-to-nothing. "See ya later, Luz."
Her lips visibly wobbled. Her mom looked concerned, and slowed the car further, as little as it would do, now that they'd already passed eachother.
"Yeah," her voice cracked, "Bye Mash'."
She pulled away, still looking back at them from the mirror.
Their waist was cold. Their guts squirmed, and their mind raced, and they knew their face was doing something awful that they just couldn't see.
Their heart hurt more than it had any right to, what with the whole weekend still ahead of them.
But she was gone.