Sofie drops her bag down onto one of the tables. Ben and Kara are sitting on the other side of the room. Kara's eyes are rimmed with red while Ben stares blankly into the middle distance. Their faces are pale and ghostly. Carefully, she walks over to sit with them. Only Kara looks up.
"I guess Matt told you."
Kara sniffles and lights a cigarette.
"Yeah. He called just before you got here."
"How's he doing?" Ben asks.
"Not great," Sofie sighs as she plunks down in the chair beside them.
"This is fucked," Ben mumbles.
There's a long, uncomfortable silence. Their collective grief feels like an anvil sitting inside of her chest. It suddenly hurts to breathe, even if she only does it out of years of human habit. She's never felt this intensely before. She'd like it to stop.
"I think we should stay closed tonight," she says quietly.
"What?" Kara asks in disbelief. Her voice squeaks as she tries to hold back tears.
"Kara, look at us. You can barely get through a sentence without crying. Ben, you look like shit -"
"Thanks..."
"And I bet you've been chain-smoking since you heard the news."
"That part's true, actually," Kara offers with a wry laugh.
Sofie runs a hand through her hair. This is a good decision, she thinks. Matt won't like it, but it's what's best for everyone.
"I think we should all take the night off," she reiterates.
Ben nods in agreement, but Kara's entire body tenses up and she shifts uncomfortably in her seat.
"Sofie, I have bills to pay."
"How much do you need?" Sofie asks.
"What?"
"How much do you need?"
Kara's jaw drops.
"I can't ask you to -"
Sofie stands and walks over to her purse. She pulls out a checkbook and a pen, glancing up at Kara, whose eyes are now rimmed with tears.
"I need a hundred bucks."
Sofie nods, scribbles on the check and tears it out, handing it to her.
"Here's five."
"Hundred?!" Kara exclaims.
"No, dollars. Of course, it's five hundred!"
Kara sniffles and shakes her head as Sofie presses the check into her palm.
"Sofie... I can't take this."
"Kar-Bear, listen. My when my grandpa died, he left me a pretty big inheritance -"
He died when she was fifteen. He's part of the reason why Sofie and her mother don't speak very often. Sofie got the majority of his inheritance - around $200,000. Her grandfather insisted that it be held in trust, far away from her mother, until she turned eighteen. Nobody knew where it came from or how he got his hands on it. He lived a fairly quiet and unremarkable existence in Santa Carla. His wife had died long before Sofie was born. She found it strange that there were almost no pictures of her in the house, except for one wedding photo that hung just above the fireplace. Sofie was told never to ask about her, and she only obeyed that rule because her grandfather could be absolutely terrifying. He was a nasty drunk with bizarre rules. Certain rooms were off-limits in the house; Sofie swore the crazy old bastard could sense when someone was just looking at the door to a "forbidden" room.
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Sick Child - MarkoxOC
Fanfiction"Santa Carla has always been a weird place - one of those places where you always had to be on the lookout, keep your wits about you. 'Look straight ahead and keep up' is what her mom always said whenever they hit the boardwalk. It's a strange mix o...
