theirs- an assembly of anecdotes from the croft's, picani's, and others

= How To Rebound - The Summary (5+1 trope) =

•All of Oliver
•early May XX47 - early June XX47
•Oliver's POV
•Contains: cursing, food
•maybe it isn't all that healthy to be going back to dating after what had just happened to him, but maybe oliver deserved a little bit of happiness in his life, too.
(in other words- five times oliver vaguely wanted to kiss grace, and the first time he actually did, because the author is a sucker for a 5+1 story layout)

•~~~~•
(1)

May 1st, XX47. Oliver had survived the move, and so far he'd survived it for a month.

It was actually surprising for him to realize- which he did, at lunch that very day, sitting across from the only friend he'd managed to make in the time he'd been in Nevada thus far. He didn't see himself making any more, but that was fine. He still had trust issues but overall just needed someone to help keep him sane. When he moved he'd expected to become the quiet kid that no one knew, who just sat at the back of class doing nothing, so where he was at as the second "weird" kid was better. Slightly.

He still didn't have to talk to anyone he didn't want to engage with.

"What are you eating?"

Oliver looked up from his single protein bar. He showed Grace the wrapper with a shrug, and they raised an eyebrow.

"You not hungry?"

"Eh."

Grace opened their lunchbox- they were probably the only person in school who brought a legitimate lunch, weren't they?- and proceeded to throw him a cosmic brownie. Oliver tapped his fingers on the lunch table a few times.

"Oh. Thanks."

"No problem!"

Yep. That was all he had right now. What the hell was he gonna do for college, anyway? He wasn't even sure if he still wanted to go. He had dreams of becoming a teacher but at this point it'd be easier to just work at a gas station or something for the rest of his life. Teachers hardly get a better paycheck, anyway.

He glanced at Grace. She was a lot quieter than you'd ever expect her to be, especially when you got to know her. They had a lot to say but at the end of the day were more content with silence. They sure had their life worked out too, it seemed. A part-time job, a car, and parents that would probably pay for their college was a lot to ask for at seventeen. Even if they ate the exact same thing for lunch everyday it seemed like shit was gonna work out for them. Surely.

"You had prom, right?"

Oliver looked up yet again. Grace was blinking semi-rapidly, something they did often. "What do you mean?"

"You had prom at your old school before you moved? I just realized, you got here like a week or two after ours happened."

"Oh." He shifted in his seat. "Yeah, uh, the day before I left was my school's prom, actually."

"Ah, okay. I'm glad you got to have it." It wasn't all that good.

"Yeah."

"Ours was pretty boring this year, though. I mean, never had it before since I'm a junior but compared to my past homecomings it was boring. A lot more slow dancing that I didn't take part in."

"That's... yeah. Pretty similar, ours were."

Grace laughed. "Mhm, maybe we could dance at next year's. Uhm, might as well."

"Yeah, that'd be fun."

Grace's reaction to his answer was a bit odd, and she had seemed hesitant to say what she'd just said before, but she smiled and took a bite from her food nonetheless. Oliver began opening the brownie he'd been gifted.