DISCONTINUED
Alina Fairgrieves-Byers and Gabriel Burton have learned to expect the worst, but that doesn't make things less disappointing.
𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄
( 𝐎𝐂 𝐗 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑 )
( 𝐎𝐂 𝐗 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐘𝐄...
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
After what happened to Angela, all skating stopped. An ambulance was called, and only ten minutes later, a flock of EMTs had arrived to assess the situation. They spoke to her softly as she cried, barely able to remember her own name, while her friends continued to rub her shoulders and keep a tissue firmly pressed to the laceration El had made in her nose. The skaters gathered around the scene, whispering to each other and shaking their heads. A few glared directly at El.
Gabe stood beside Will and Mike, trying to stop shaking. His trembling hands were balled up at his sides, his nails cutting into his palms. Unfortunate images were running through his mind—Billy slamming him into a locker, the Mind Flayer spraying goo into his face, his dream where Will's blood coated him from head to toe. The welts on his legs—mere scars, now—stung as if they were brand-new, and his own nose itched, as if it was seconds away from splitting open. He couldn't look at El, who was sitting alone at one of the booths. He couldn't look at Angela, either.
A strange feeling went over him, a dizziness that blurred the roller rink into nothing but a jumble of shapes. The world swooped under his feet, and the compulsion to leave, to let his jelly legs carry him somewhere, surged through him. A path he hadn't even created himself mapped out in his mind, and he almost started walking right then and there. Anything to get out of here. Anything to banish the memories.
He might have done it, too, if not for the comforting hand placed on his back. Will, pale and shaky, let himself linger there for a moment, perhaps believing that the chaos currently occurring in front of them would prevent unwanted attention. Gabe leaned into the gesture, letting it ground him. Tears sprung to his eyes, and he didn't even know why. He just wanted to leave.
Immediately after they'd found Angela, Mike had called Jonathan and Argyle, who agreed to pick them up. He'd only given the most basic of details over the phone—El had been bullied before lashing out—but they'd know the truth, soon. Gabe wouldn't be surprised if it spread around the town.
