Array
(
[text] =>
010. 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽, 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗱.
𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 she found herself standing in front of her window again. The sky was dark, everything was quiet, and the ladder was still there, leaning against her house. Behind her, her room was fully decorated how she liked, the posters on the walls, her dresser haphazardly organized, and everything else that reminded her of Michigan. At nearly midnight, yawning, she was staring at the house across from hers and she didn’t know why.
She thought for a moment about the ladder. And this was new— thinking. Lori never contemplated sneaking out before, at least she never thought too hard about it at all. She was the type to just do. And this was her chance.
But she let go. For some unknown reason, she let go and turned away towards her bed and crawled in. She closed her eyes fast, and turned her back so she wouldn’t have to face it— face what, she did not know exactly. There was no reason she could think of, for why she didn’t just go. But she fell asleep before she could think any deeper, as the white curtains swayed in the breeze.
Her mind was still dizzy when a thud came from across the room.
It had not been nearly four hours since she went to bed. The room was still quite and still breezy, the stars were still shining and the crickets, they were still chirping in the grass. The night was existing like usual, but now there was a thud right in the room and the girl’s ears had heard it clear. It disrupted the quietness.
Although, it wasn’t cautiously loud enough for her to jump just yet, but it certainly wasn’t light enough for her to not notice. Lori’s eyes were slowly opening, but the darkness in the room was profound and the exhaustion she occupied was making it hard to focus on anything. Her mind was boggled, shaken up but still carried the daze that comes after waking from a sleep, the daze that sort of makes everything seem like a dream when you first open your eyes, but then everything comes to you in a matter of seconds and suddenly— there’s a figure in your room.
A shadow suddenly lingered between the white curtains of the window, the silhouette of a man. It was slowly starting to approach the girl on the bed, tiptoeing to be quiet. When Lori realized that this wasn’t a dream, or that this wasn’t an effect of the after-sleep daze her mind was heavy with, her jaw fell to the floor and her eyes widened in horror as the silhouette made its way over to the side of her bed.
Then, she screamed.
Well, she would’ve screamed if the person had not completely lunged forward at the right moment, and placed their hand over her lips to keep the sound in. Before she could jump out of bed, before she could bite the hand at least, she opened her eyes— from having them roughly shut as some sort of stupid reflex— to not only see that it was, in fact, a man who had broken into her room, but also realize that the man happened to have a distinguishable head of hair that anyone could spot, even in the dark. She recognized the swoop of his hair almost instantly.
And now, she was mad.
She pushed the hand away from her face with a strong jerk. “What the hell are you—!” without even watching her volume at all, she spoke out, her voice sizzling angry.
Steve had quickly replaced his hand back over her mouth, this time placing a finger over his own lips, mumbling a small “shh”.
“Lower your voice, god damnit…” He whispered so low, she could barely make out the words he was saying, while he slowly took the time to look around the room in each direction as if someone happened to be watching.
When he looked back to Lori, she was fully sitting up, her back hard against the wall, and not willing to comply with any of this bullshit.
Then, she clamped her teeth around one of the fingers that covered her mouth. And not lightly— she bit down hard.
“OW!” He whisper-shouted, his voice filled with exasperated shock as he ripped his hand away. “SHIT, MY FINGER!” he wrapped his un-injured around his wrist, hopping on one foot and soaring to ease the pain.
“What the hell are you doing in my room!” Lori whisper-shouted back, her chest heaving with relief that it wasn’t an abductor, but mad because it was, well, Steve. Her voice was filled with new anger and shock. “Do you know what time it is!”
“GOD— WHY DID YOU BITE MY FINGER!” Steve was still hopping, and it took everything in him not to scream at full volume. “SHIT, LORI!” He bent backwards, gripping his hand.
“Answer me! Why are you sneaking into my room in the middle of the night, you absolute lunatic!” she retorted, angrily.
“I think I’m bleeding!” he worried, his voice still hushed but strained, while he stared as deeply as he could at his hand in the dark. “Shit!”
“Shut up!” Lori was still sitting in her bed, in the same spot. She grabbed one of the pillows off her bed and thwacked the side of his body in the dark. “Shut up!“
He stumbled to the side a bit, and glared at her as a silence took over for a moment. After another second of easing the pain of his bitten finger, Steve calmed down and let out a stressed breath. He ran a hand through his hair, breathing heavily, and Lori watched this, waiting for the right moment. She would’ve had no shame in slapping him in the face for scaring her so badly.
“Now get out of my room!” Lori seethed angrily, “Do you know what time it is?” She grabbed her blankets and was ready to stand up, hopefully punch him right in the fac—
“No, no!” Steve caught up to what she was doing, and lunged forward again.
This time, he placed a hand on her shoulder, and the other on her forearm, stopping her. His touch wasn’t harmful or strong, but it was daring enough to cause Lori’s eyebrows to narrow sharply, and also enough to keep her sitting for one more moment.
She paused. She would’ve slapped him in the face or told him off, but something inside of her didn’t push that urge. Maybe it was the fact that her mom would hear Steve’s screams if Lori punched him. Or maybe it was the fact that he was crouching so close to her that she could hear him breathing.
Instead, she rid herself of his grasp by a strong jerk of her shoulders. He remained crouched over her, his hands on the edge of her mattress next to her legs.
And now, it was quiet. His face was inches from hers, they could hear one another breathing— Steve heavily, and Lori’s painfully impatient. She stared at his eyes in the dark, her own eyes beady and vexed, waiting for whatever he had to say. His lips began to move.
“I need to borrow your car.” he said, as sternly and quietly as he could.
Immediately, her face contorted and her mouth opened, ready to protest and tell him off again.
But he lifted his hand, just hovering it in between them, as if telling her to stop, “Let me explain, okay,” he whispered, cautiously.
She waited for a moment, pursing her lips together angrily. She crossed her arms. “Why.” she demanded an answer, her voice bitter. Her eyes pierced into his, not even looking away once.
“Okay, so,” he began, slowly leaning away from her. He broke eye contact, looking away for a moment. “There’s something I need to do tonight, that kinda requires a car. It’s mandatory. Both the car and the thing I needa do.”
She shrugged harshly, emitting that she still needed to know her place in this. He formed his lips in a tight line and stared at her.
“You’re my only option.” he admitted, letting some of his ego go with the sentence.
“I’m your only option,” she repeated, expressing that she didn’t think he was serious. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
He put his head in his hands, and then ran them through his hair stressfully and said in a calmer but quivering voice, “All right— look, Philbs. I need to borrow your car for just a few hours, and, and you can come with me— you can come with me,” he rambled.
“Why don’t you get your friends to help, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of those,” she nearly laughed, and began to turn around, wanting to lie back down and go to sleep.
“I don’t, Lori, at least just— not right now,” he said, abruptly, with a certain tone of honesty that caused her to halt. “Okay? I don’t. None that would help me like this. Please.” now he sounded almost helpless, and she definitely wanted to see what that looked like on Steve, so she turned back around.
“So you’re asking me,” she turned towards him, standing there beside her bed. “If I can take you, in my car, at—” she stopped, and looked to the digital clock on her nightstand. “three in the morning, because you have no friends. Did that translate correctly?” she looked at him, sarcastically.
“Yes,” he nodded firmly, his voice always hushed. “That’s exactly what’s going on,”
“How did you even get in?” she let out a sigh, her eyes always pinned on him.
“You, uh,” he ran a hand through his hair again, darting his eyes to the side, “have a ladder outside your window, conveniently actually, and it was, like, unlocked, so—”
“So you came in?” she squinted her eyes. “You just climbed up the ladder and came right in, huh,”
“Look, I really need this,” he said, honestly. “And I hate to admit it— believe me, I do —but I really need your help, Philbs.”
She stared at him, not saying anything.
“A few hours ago I said I’d let you know if I needed help,” he referred to when she’d called out her window. “Remember? Now I’m letting you know that I need help.” he put his hands out at his sides, his palms facing her.
“Y’know, I didn’t take that literally,” she said. “You know that, right?”
“It’ll only be for a few hours, and we can miss school tomorrow if you want,” he was speaking with a desperate undertone. “I can talk to your teachers, or, I don’t know, just can y—”
She was rubbing her face with her hands, her head beginning to ache a little. “What could you possibly need, so bad that you had to climb into my room?” she said, tired.
He perked up, realizing this was his time to explain. “Okay, I’ll explain, okay, so,”
“Enlighten me, Harrington,” she rolled her eyes.
He was reaching into his back pocket, and in the dark she could see him pulling out a yellow paper, what seemed to be a flyer. Somehow, she recognized it, and it took her a second—while he un-crumpled it— to realize that it was the flyer he’d been staring at in his backyard, when she caught him in his mayhem earlier. She didn’t say anything.
He was a few steps away now, unfolding the piece of paper. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, as he held it up for her to see.
She squinted in the dark, looking at a printed image of a necklace and words of an advertisement. “I’ll pretend like I do.”
“This, Lori, this,” he said, with a tone that meant it was important. “Is the necklace that Nancy has been talking about since her sophmore year of high school,”
She furrowed her eyebrows, “So why hasn’t she gotten it? She has the money—”
“Because you can’t get it here.” he cut her off, speaking seriously.
“Okay, that’s a tip-off,” she said, confused. “What the fuck do you mean,”
“It’s from this little jeweler in Evansville, and Nancy has always talked about going there,” he explained. “And the Wheelers don’t travel as much as you’d think.”
“Okay— so, if she’s always wanted this…” she paused, rolling her eyes, “necklace, then why have you never gotten it for her, dipshit. Boyfriend of the year award does not go to you, Harrington.”
“Jesu— okay, listen,” he scoffed, trying to find a reason.
“Wait, hold on,” Lori was beginning to realize something. “Hold on. Didn’t she break up with you?” her tone of voice came out in disbelief, from the lack of mention thereof. “Woah, woah–“
“Can’t you see? That’s the whole point!” he seethed. He held the flyer tight in his hand.
“So, you’re trying to win her back?” Lori nearly laughed. “Oh my god, Steve, I don’t know w–“
“Just please, will you let me borrow your car,” he clenched his fists and bent down like a little kid does. “The necklace is gonna be discontinued tomorrow at ten a.m, and I need— I need it before I can’t get it,”
She let out a sigh, her eyes wide with astonishment at his effort towards such a lost cause.
“This is the only thing that’ll guarantee she’ll take me back,” he said, quieter now. “And I don’t know if you understand, but this, this shit is really important to me.”
Deep inside her chest, behind all the hatred and all the annoyance, maybe she felt just a little bit bad for him. In the slightest, though. Just a pinch. Maybe she was tired, and was mistaking sympathy for sarcastic pity. Or maybe it was because he had just been unusually tolerable that day, and she could see on his face that he was honest and desperate.
“How far is… Evansville,” she let out, her shoulders slumping. She looked up to him, and spoke the word with uncertainty.
“About two and a half hours,” he said, sort of regretfully. “If we haul ass.”
Her jaw fell. “No way.” she said, immediately. So, that sympathy was gone. “Absolutely not.”
“C’mon, Lori!” he knew she would react that way. He didn’t use the nickname, as this was an importance.
“I am not spending three hours in a car with you, to get your ex girlfriend some necklace in god knows where, at two in the morning!” she said, protesting. “Why did you think I would even agree to tha—”
“I gave you your tape back, okay, now it’s your turn!” he said, his arm pointing out towards her.
“My ass, Harrington.” she clapped back. “Returning my cassette did not include a tank of gas and a three hour-long headache,”
Their whole argument, despite their heated emotions, was all exchanged through whisper shouts.
“Please,” he finally said, looking at her in the dark. “This is my only shot.”
She thought for a minute, that King Steve only wanted this necklace so that he could win back Nancy Wheeler, and therefore keep said-status as King Steve. But when she looked at him, for a good moment, finding his eyes in the dark, she paused on that thought.
And with some stroke of, well, something, she finally gave in. “Fine.” she said, low, but loud enough for him to hear.
After she rolled her eyes, she turned them to see Steve smiling broadly, and genuinely for that matter, while doing a little hop of excitement.
“Okay, let’s go, then,” he said, calming down a little. “We should get there after sunrise if we leave now, right when it opens.”
Lori let out a sigh, and then looked down at her legs still under the covers. “Turn around.” she looked back up to him.
He was rubbing his hands on the back of his pants, about to head for their exit. “What,” he whispered, looking back at her.
“I said turn around,” she repeated, this time with more urge.
“Why?” he narrowed his eyebrows harshly, scrunching his face.
“Just turn around, Steve!” Lori demanded, her voice heightening in pitch. “I don’t sleep with pants on, god dammit!”
“Alright, I’m turning,” He widened his eyes at the realization, and slowly turned around. “Relax, Philbs.”
“I will not relax,” she said, as she quickly climbed out from under the blankets and grabbed the jeans she’d thrown onto her rug the night before. Rushing, and keeping an eye on the back of his head, she slid her legs through the jeans and stood up.
He turned around, right as she was buttoning them up. “Ready?” he glanced to her hands briefly, asking with a tone of impatience.
She glared at him, and then grabbed her jacket on top of her dresser to sling it over her shoulder. She turned towards her bedroom door, making a start towards it.
“Where the hell are you going,” he said, accusingly, from the middle of the room.
She turned on her heel. “Where the hell are you going?” she squinted at him, speaking with an obnoxious tone to mock him.
He pointed his arm towards her window. “We’re taking the ladder,” he said, as if it were obvious.
“Over my dead body,” she nearly laughed.
“Going that way, is just beggin’ to get in trouble,” he pointed to her door now, her option. “You wanna suffer the questions about the teenage boy next door sneaking you out?”
She crossed her arms. “You go down that ladder, fall, and I’ll watch you from the ground.”
“C’mon, Philbs,” he groaned. “What— are you scared, or something?”
She was suddenly biting on the inside of her lip at those words, her veins rising.
“Oh my god, Lori Philbin is scared?” he couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t get scared.” she spat, strongly, and began to step towards him.
She walked right past him, grabbing her shoes on the floor, as she walked right up to the window.
“You go first.” she ordered, pushing open the window. “Just in case it’s not steady, you take the fall since it’s your idea.”
“It was perfectly fine on my way up, thank you,” he scoffed, and joined at her side.
Briefly, their shoulders brushed as he swung his leg over the windowsill. He looked at her, and their eyes caught one another. He looked away after a second to make sure his footing was on the ladder.
He didn’t say anything until he was halfway down the ladder, when he looked back up to her. She was looking down at him, pursing her lips together.
“What if I pushed it?” she called, her voice quiet but loud enough for him to hear.
He chuckled, looking at his feet for safety. “You wouldn’t.”
She rolled her eyes as he reached the bottom and stepped off, his hands still on the ladder.
“Okay— your turn,” he said, exhaling heavily.
She looked at the window, at the handle and the clasp. She could very well just shut the window, lock it, close her curtains and banish Steve away. It was an easy fix. But then she looked to him, standing in the moonlight at the bottom, waiting for her.
She let out a sigh, and extended her arm out the window, and dropping her shoes down to the ground below. They just missed Steve, and he shuddered to the side to dodge them, and looked up at her with an offended look.
“I think I hate you. You know that?” she told him without looking at him, as she swung her leg over the sill and stepped onto the ladder. “I feel a deep, annoying, hatred for you, Steve Harrington.”
“I know you don’t mean that.” he said casually, sounding confident. She shut the window.
“Believe it or not— there’s quite a lot of things that you don’t know.” she claimed. Her breathing altered as she took a few steps down the ladder, her heart beginning to race. She hated that she was just a little bit scared.
“Don’t look down, by the way,” He watched her as she made her way down the ladder, slowly.
“Gee, didn’t think of that, Steve.” she said. “Are you holding it? It feels like you aren’t holding it.”
“I’m holding it,” he assured, growing a bit impatient again.
“I swear to god, Harrington, if you let go of this ladder, I will find your bat of nails,” she said, holding tighter. “And I mean that.”
He rolled his eyes.
“You won’t fall, I promise,” he said, sure of that.
She breathed out slowly, and looked down, noticing she was coming closer to the ground. They didn’t speak as she made her last steps down the ladder, focused hard, and he held it tight with both hands.
When she made it to the bottom, his arms were still on either side of the ladder. She could feel his chest on her back, and the warmth of her body as her feet touched the ground.
“See,” he said, and his words erupted in a small cloud of cold smoke as she turned around. Their eyes met, inches apart for only a moment. “Wasn’t so bad.” he smiled with one side of his mouth, and removed his hands from the ladder, tapping the side of her arm approvingly.
She stared at him for a second, not knowing what to say. Lori was never speechless— at least not for long. Maybe she was tired, or maybe Steve just looked different in moonlight.
And then it kicked in, and she looked away to reach for her shoes, exhaling sharply.
“Let’s go, Harrington.” she said, as she then breezed past him. She didn’t look back as she said, with her usual arcane tone of voice, “If you drive fast enough, maybe we can forget about everything.”
𝙅𝙐𝙇𝙄
not to toot my own horn but i love this so much
paper towns vibes <3
[text_hash] => 6d94c2ba
)