Going back to the tent feels awful, it's so empty. Abby doesn't think she'll stay. She will keep walking around and looking like she said because she doesn't know what else to say and moving helps (if she sits down she won't be able to get back up again). She's back here for that same bag again, grabbing it from where she threw it in a corner, yanking it open. She takes out Ellie's sketchbook.
Paging through it from the start, her eyes slide over the words in messy handwriting, sketches of pine trees covered in snow, deer, giraffes. A drawing of Joel with his eyes scribbled through, captioned: Tommy said her name was ABBY, her name boxed off from the rest of the sentence in angry black lines. Abby skips ahead.
She's seen Ellie's drawings of her once before. Now she finds the same page and tears it out inelegantly, turns back to the book, searching for more. When she sees a hint of herself, the shape of her face or eyes, her braid interlocking edges of a page (there is a lot of braid), she takes it out, easing it from the binding of the book with her thumb. She places each one by her leg, makes a little pile. She'll read them later. Or maybe she won't, she just — wants them, they belong to her. They are of her.
She shoves them inside her own bag, puts everything back the way she found it and leaves, only comes back once the sun is starting to drop because she told Clarisse to come back, and she has to be there when she does. Having her back fills Abby with both relief and dread because she's realised that Clarisse isn't going to say the quiet part out loud. She's going to make Abby do it, and she's probably going to fight her every step of the way.
"You can't." Clarisse is too busy shoving things into her pack to look at her but Abby reaches over and takes the length of rope back out, holding tightly onto it. Maybe she can use it to tie Clarisse to her bedroll if she has to? "It's getting dark — and it's gonna rain. It's not safe to go flying."
no subject
Paging through it from the start, her eyes slide over the words in messy handwriting, sketches of pine trees covered in snow, deer, giraffes. A drawing of Joel with his eyes scribbled through, captioned: Tommy said her name was ABBY, her name boxed off from the rest of the sentence in angry black lines. Abby skips ahead.
She's seen Ellie's drawings of her once before. Now she finds the same page and tears it out inelegantly, turns back to the book, searching for more. When she sees a hint of herself, the shape of her face or eyes, her braid interlocking edges of a page (there is a lot of braid), she takes it out, easing it from the binding of the book with her thumb. She places each one by her leg, makes a little pile. She'll read them later. Or maybe she won't, she just — wants them, they belong to her. They are of her.
She shoves them inside her own bag, puts everything back the way she found it and leaves, only comes back once the sun is starting to drop because she told Clarisse to come back, and she has to be there when she does. Having her back fills Abby with both relief and dread because she's realised that Clarisse isn't going to say the quiet part out loud. She's going to make Abby do it, and she's probably going to fight her every step of the way.
"You can't." Clarisse is too busy shoving things into her pack to look at her but Abby reaches over and takes the length of rope back out, holding tightly onto it. Maybe she can use it to tie Clarisse to her bedroll if she has to? "It's getting dark — and it's gonna rain. It's not safe to go flying."