. don't stray

[Judith Haddock]

"I am weird," she grins, tumbling on top of him. Judith heartbeat has settled to contentment and she leans into him, she's overpouring with love. Strange that how a few hours ago, that love had remained locked up behind a gate. It felt impossible to have ignored this for so long. It was a love that fit, one custom made for her. He brings up home and she knows it shouldn't be this complicated. It wasn't as though they were Romeo and Juliet, they were the last thing from forbidden love. His long fingers are soothing as they draw on her bony back and her head settles onto his chest, where she can here the steady rhythm of his heart. "I think all the treehouse needs is a few panels of wood. It could be our secret clubhouse," she's half joking, half serious and her head tips up to look up at him. "Then we could just run away to random cities on our weekends off. Huey books us for the same shifts anyway. There would be zero suspicion."

[Deleted]

He smiles at the thought. A treehouse romance was something he had tested before, but Emmy had seen a spider and gotten a splinter, so she refused to so much as look at it ever again. The prospect of weekend getaways made warmth spread through him, picturing them in ridiculous destinations like Rome and Paris, rather than Boston and Newark, which were probably slightly more achievable. "We'd be rumbled about an hour into the first weekend we left." She feels great on top of him. It was so easy to talk about a future with her, even though a few short hours ago she'd only barely been able to muster friendship. He looks at her again, searching her face, seeing easily the girl he knew so well so long ago. "I miss your braces," he says finally, his heart swelling with affection for her awkward teen self. He pauses, saying the next words without mulling them over for once. "I think this was meant to happen this way. That we were meant to happen this way."

[Judith Haddock]

The treehouse lay in behind layers of trees behind the Haddock house. Huey had built it initally for her brothers when they were young, as a sort of clubhouse for the Haddock children. But when she and Lucas turned seven, they had taken it over completely. The old wood was carved with drawings and initals, telling stories alike cave drawings. At the root of the tree they had buried a time capsule at age twelve, vowing to reopen ten years later for their treasures. They still hadn't and Judith can't remember what they even put in the old tin lunchbox. Judith touches her fingers to her lips, the taste of her metal braces still clung to her memory. "Do you remembered when Emmy printed off a list of top most hot and top most not, then stuck it in every locker?" her brow furrows, remembering the hurt when she found herself on the bottom. "Imagine, you could have been born years earlier and we would never have known each other. My parents could have moved to a cooler and more artsy place.. I mean, they should have," her fingers trace the faded freckles on his nose, "I probably would have spent forever looking for you, not knowing what I was even looking for."

[Deleted]

Picturing the life they could have had together, it’s easy to imagine they would have fallen head over heels and ridden off into the sunset had it not been for Emmy. But in reality, Lucas knows that however happy they would have been, doubt would have itched away under the surface of their relationship. It just wasn’t realistic for two people to be born for each other by their parents’ design, to follow a path so meticulously laid out for them. He’s almost grateful for Emmy, since that hurdle had given him an idea of how it was to love someone but know that they weren’t made just for you. He winces at the memory, having completely forgotten about it until she mentioned it. It was easy to remember how pissed she was at him when he started snatching them out of their friends’ hands and throwing them in the trash. “She was a real piece of work,” he says, giving her a more gentle kiss than those they had shared before. “If it’s any consolation she put Aaron Pearce ahead of me, she did things just to be a bitch, not even because she meant them.” As she speaks he feels a fresh surge of affection, his drunkenness giving way to pure love. He kisses her again. “Maybe we should move here.”