ʏᴏᴜᴛʜ|ᴊ.ꜰ

IV

⋆｡°✩ʏᴏᴜᴛʜ✩°｡⋆

In the dead of night, when the city was utterly quiet and not a peep could be heard on campus, Nala hugged her pillow tightly as she gasped for air.
It's about your dad, he said. It's terminal.

Terminal. It had to have been a dream. Some super fucked up dream only the devil himself could conjure up. With how bad her head ached from all the crying, Nala swore up and down that she was placed in her own personal hell prematurely.

But this was real.

So, so real and there was nothing she could do about it.

From her bedside table, her phone lit up with a message:

-ᴊᴇʀᴇʙᴇᴀʀ🧸🤍

I know we're not on texting terms
but that dino plushie you lost
a while back and thought
you might want it.

Her heart sinks even deeper as she reads it.

-ɴᴀʟᴀ❣️

It's fine, you can keep it.

And she can almost hear him scoff through his reply.

-ᴊᴇʀᴇʙᴇᴀʀ🧸🤍

No way, you absolutely loved this thing last summer.
You wouldn't even let me look at it.

-ɴᴀʟᴀ❣️

I said it's fine. I don't want it.

Those three dots rise and fall repeatedly before disappearing for good. Her brows furrow at the realization that she's scared him off, and it only adds fuel to the fire that is her tears.
She's about to turn over and give herself more reason to sulk, but her phone blares through the room, screen illuminating.

A picture of the two of them at Cousins two years prior pops up, Nala holding onto Jeremiah tightly as he carries her on his back.
Kenai was the one to take the shot, burning it into her photos and memory.

With hesitance, she clears her throat and picks up. Nala doesn't dare to speak for fear of her own voice betraying her.

Jeremiah's voice cuts through the overgrowing static. "What's wrong?" Is all he asks.

And it's all it takes for the waterworks to begin again.
"My dad... He- he's-"

Only ten minutes later, even being all the way across the quad in the back dorms, Jeremiah still made his way to her.
He sat with her, cried with her, mourned with her.