Finding Hiccup - Modern!Au ✔️

fifty one

Here's what I'm not supposed to do after a stressful event: Ruminate about it. Brood. Replay it over and over. Take responsibility for anyone else's emotions.
Here's what I've been doing ever since my fight with Astrid: Ruminating about it. Brooding. Replaying it over and over. Taking responsibility for her fury (yet resenting it). Lurching between despair and indignation. Wanting to call her. Wanting to never call her again.
Why can't she understand? I thought she'd admire me. I thought she'd talk about Closure and Courage and say, "You're right, Henry, this is something you have to do, however hard it is, and I'll be right behind you."
I've barely slept, the last two nights. It's like my mind is a cauldron, cooking away, throwing up noxious bubbles and fumes and fermenting itself into something quite weird. I feel light-headed and surreal and hyper. But kind of focused too. I'm going to do this, and it's going to be like a major turning point, and afterwards things will be different. I don't know how exactly, but they will. It's like, I'll have got over the hurdle or run through the finishing tape or whatever.

I'll be free. Of something.
So in short, I'm a bit obsessed. But luckily Mum and Dad are too preoccupied with Heather to notice me right now. I'm way down under their radar. Basically, Mum found the Atari in Heather's room last night and it all kicked off again and now we're in Family Crisis Mode.
As I come down to breakfast, they're at it again.
"For the millionth time, it's not a computer," Heather is saying calmly. "It's an Atari console. You said no computers. I classify a computer as a machine which can process information in a number of ways, including word processing, email and Internet browsing. The Atari does none of these, therefore it's not a computer, therefore it wasn't a basic breach of trust." She shovels Shreddies into her mouth. "You need to tighten up your definitions. That's the problem. Not my Atari console."
I think Heather should be a lawyer one day. I mean, she's totally nailed the argument, not that Mum appreciates it.
"Do you hear this?" Mum is appealing to Dad, who looks like he wants to hide behind his newspaper. "The point is, Heather, we had an agreement. You do not play any kind of video games, end of. Do you know how damaging they are?"
"Jesus." Heather holds her head in her hands. "Mum, you're the one with a problem with computer games. You're becoming fixated."
"I'm not fixated!" She gives a scoffing laugh.
"You are! You can't think about anything else! Do you even know that I got ninety-five in my chemistry?"
"Ninety-five?" Mum is stopped in her tracks. "Really?"
"I told you yesterday, but you didn't even listen. You were all, Atari! Evil! Get it out of the house!"

Mum looks a bit chastened.
"Oh," she says at last. "Well...ninety-five! That's great! Well done!"
"Out of a thousand," says Heather, then adds, "Joke. Joke."
She grins at me, and I try to smile back, though my stomach is churning. All I can think is: Three o'clock. Three o'clock.
We've stuck to the meeting place in Starbucks, even though the Lawtons have been constantly texting, wanting to change it to a "more conducive location" and offering their own house or a hotel suite or a room at Isaac's counsellor's office. Yeah, right.
Heather has been in charge of all the correspondence. She's brilliant. She's batted away all their suggestions in a way that could totally be Dad, and refused to give them an alternative email address, which they keep asking for, and texted in exactly Dad's style.
It's actually quite funny. I mean, they have no idea it's just us, two kids. They think Dad and Mum are coming. They think this is a big family meeting. They hope it will be "cathartic for all," according to their last text.
As for me, I can't believe I'm going to see Isaac again. It's going to happen. The big showdown. I feel like I'm a spring that is slowly coiling up and up, tensing, waiting...
Only seven hours to go.