This Was Home [h.s.]

| 31. BIRDSONGS |

—

I wasn't sure how long I had been sitting in this position, my legs folded together on the cold cement underneath. I began to even feel the painful pricks of needles filter throughout each nerve, yet I was still unable to readjust. I didn't want to. I wasn't even sure how long it had been since we had left The Edmund after getting our job assignments. I was too busy in my head to think much of anything else. Reality wasn't feeling real, and hell, I couldn't remember the last time it felt real to begin with.

But what was new?

I was so used to just breezing by somehow, unaware of where I was going or what I was doing. But at least I was good at pretending.

Or so I thought anyhow.

I was on the deck where we had originally met our odd new neighbor, Gwen. She had yet to make an appearance since that first day, but I was nothing short of ecstatic about that. I couldn't handle any form of small talk or lying—because that was what I would end up having to do anyway.

The wind was chilly enough to cause the hairs on my arm to peek up, but not enough for me to do anything about it either. So, I sat there, watching life happen beneath me. It felt like watching a movie that I had no control over. There was no script, no director, and no one telling me what was going to happen next.

So desperately did I want to seem like I was the one who had a plan. I wanted to be the one who was quick on their feet and knew exactly what to do. As if I then knew every secret to the world and how to solve every problem ever. I wanted to be the director of my life, but I knew I would just be a fill-in for the main character until their arrival.

The truth was, I didn't have an inkling of an idea for what to do. I mean, I did but I didn't. I knew that we had our job assignments and that we could potentially find out more that way, but how would we do that?

I didn't have all the time in the world. I needed answers quickly before something bad happened — if it hadn't already happened anyway. Which was a scary enough thought all by itself.

What would we even do if we did find her? What would she think of Harry? Would she be glad to see me? Or would she be mad and feel like I abandoned her?

I shook my head quickly at the thought. Her notes that she left at home and Uncle Dan's never hinted at the idea that she held any kind of resentment. She had to have understood, at least to some degree.

That was what I chose to keep telling myself anyway. For my own sense of sanity in this fucked up world I had no other choice to be in.

"Brin?" Harry interrupted my inner dialogue, and my hairs grew taller from the startle.

"Mm?" I quickly replied with a flustered look to my face. My eyes scanned over to his presence, as it did time and time again. He was a mind-fuck all by himself. I figured that was just what my life was now. Mind-fucks after mind-fucks.