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⋆ five ⋆
Xara sighs before taking a bite of her Delmar sandwich, putting it back on the plate to scribble down a note in her messy scrawl handwriting. It's a moment of deliberation before she sighs and scribbles it out, taking another bite of her sandwich in frustration and tapping her pen against the notebook.
Is it really so hard to figure out what to do for Peter's birthday? While Xara has her own opinion on her own birthday, it's not going to stop her from celebrating her boyfriend's, she told him. She also said he should be expecting something, but with work and her blog and pretty much everything else, she's barely had time to completely settle on an idea, flitting between them like a bird.
It doesn't exactly help that his birthday is tomorrow.
A groan escaping her lips, she drops her head onto the counter in irritation. "Why do you have to leave everything last minute, Xara? This was supposed to be a new year. The Xara Fixes Up Her Messy Life Program. You got a job. You got a boyfriend. You're gonna be an aunt. You're not supposed to leave things till the last second anymore. Good role model."
Glancing at her watch, she sighs, realising that she has about ten minutes before she has to head back to work. Delmar is kind enough to let her go home for her lunch break, considering her apartment is literally a minute's walk down the road, and she makes the most of it sometimes by getting things done at home, tidying up, that kind of thing.
But it was different last summer, back when Peter used to come over every day at the same time, when her alarm was set for his arrival, when it was all about how long of a conversation she'd manage to have with him every time. Back when she had her distant crush that took over her life completely.
Now she has Peter, and she couldn't be happier. Honestly. Except it feels like since they got together, they're more distant than before. There are no relationship issues, she knows that life just works out that way sometimes, with him having more on his plate than before and both of them growing up, but it doesn't exactly cheer her up any.
They used to live opposite each other, shouting to each other across the street from their windows in the morning. It was easy to just stop by each other's houses, spend time together even when the other person was busy. Then Peter moved all the way across town after the Blip, making it harder to meet each other through regular means of transport.
Now he's staying at Happy's, which is a lot closer, but Xara still can't find it in her heart to be grateful for the twenty minute drive it takes to get there. If this distance is getting in the way, how are they going to handle it when things really do start getting tough?
Which just ends up bringing her back to college all over again.
Just as she's about to get up, a crashing sound makes her scream and duck, only for everything to go quiet once more. Slowly, she turns around, eyes widening at the sight of the broken window behind her. "No... No, no, no. No, no, shit!"
