Buck sat through the entirety of the lawsuit. When he won, he felt empty. He hadn’t gained anything, or gotten what he had fought so hard for. He felt so much worse than when the whole ordeal started, walking out of the lawyer’s office felt like the beginning of the end.
He didn’t have anything left to fight for. His family hated him, and it felt like everyone around him was watching him. It felt they knew what he had done, and it felt as though they had blamed him as well.
As he walked into his apartment, his heart ached and longed for something he couldn’t have. He knew he wouldn’t ever have what he knew and loved back, but he still clung to the hope that he might.
He realized he had no place in LA when even his sister didn’t want to talk to him. He understood why she was so mad, but it still stung. When he went into his apartment and closed the door, he let it really sink in. None of his loved ones wanted anything to do with him, and who was he to blame them? He tried to understand their side of things, he tried to process why they were so angry, but he simply couldn’t. He didn’t understand why he was being expected to understand their side of things when they made it very clear they didn’t care about his side of things.
It took him two days to finally get out of his bed and eat something, two days of doing nothing but laying in his bed, in the same clothes he had gone to sleep in. His chest felt empty, and his shoulders felt heavy. He had tried to talk himself into calling Bobby, or maybe even Athena, but he couldn’t. Every time he thought of them he wanted to curl up and cry. He felt small, he felt insignificant. It felt as though to his friends, he was just another burden they had to deal with.
This was his breaking point, he had reached the point of needing somewhere to restart. And so he packed his things. He took a few pictures and wall decorations off the wall, putting them in a box labeled decoration. He did the same with the rest of his apartment, he had to stop every once and a while to stare at his phone or the door, hoping that someone would come by and convince him to stay-
But no one did. No one came to ask what he was doing. No one came to bid him goodbye. No one called or messaged. No one asked him to stay, not even his own thoughts. He kept thinking that if he wasn’t doing this for himself, he was doing it for the better of his friends. He was doing it to make their lives easier. He didn’t want them to see him in public and be embarrassed that they had once known him, he didn’t want them to gaze upon his face and see a shell of someone they had once known. He didn’t want to process the fact that he again had disappointed the people who cared about him.
He realized he didn’t have as many things as he thought he did. He needed a moving trailer for the fact he wouldn’t be able to put his bed or chair into the back of his jeep. The jeep his sister gave him. The jeep that made him think about what he was doing. The jeep had been a gift to get rid of him, and again he was leaving in it, again he was running from what he once loved. Because what is love if it isn’t stripped away from you at the last second?
When he finished packing, his apartment was bare. It was stripped of what made it home, it was stripped of what made it an apartment. The silence felt suffocating, and it made Buck feel sick. He sympathizes with the apartment, bare of what it once was. He felt the same way, he felt as though he had been stripped of what made him Evan Buckely.
As he finished packing the rest of his things, he realized he still had about a month and a half left on his lease. He didn’t want to deal with the process of breaking a lease, so he decided he would talk to his landlord before leaving.
He set up a little bed on his floor due to the fact he had already packed his bed and his chair. He knew he needed to sleep if he planned on driving to Colorado. He didn’t know why he had chosen Colorado, but in some strange sense it felt as though it was calling to him. He hadn’t done much research, all he really had done was book himself a hotel room. He had enough money to buy a house right then and there- but he felt so ashamed to even think about using the money from the lawsuit.
That night felt as though it lasted forever. When Buck woke up, he cleaned up the bed on the floor and put it in his bag. He realized he needed to talk to someone about his lease, and despite not wanting to, he did. He finished putting things either in the jeep or in the moving trailer and went to the front desk to ask about breaking the lease.
It took about two hours before his landlord understood what was happening. They spoke about Buck leaving, and they discussed what they should do. Buck and his landlord were on the same page at the end of the discussion, and Buck was going to be able to leave without paying anything more.
That day felt like a blur. The drive to Colorado was long and uneventful. If Buck had been in a better mindset the drive would have been more exciting. Buck might not have been happy, but he could admit the things he was seeing were extraordinary. He realized the second time he stopped for gas he hadn’t told anyone that he had left. He realized he should have told someone, despite the things that happened he knew that his friends didn’t deserve to be left in the dark, but at the same time he wanted them to worry about him.
When he finally got to the hotel it was late, and he was tired. He figured he could check in, go up to his hotel, and send a heartfelt message to a few people. He checked in and went up to his room, showering and finally laying in the bed. It wasn’t comfortable but it was good enough to lay in for the night. As he settled down, he messaged 118 and Maddie. He explained that he had left, he didn’t tell them where to, but it wasn’t like it mattered much. No one responded. He couldn’t blame them, but at the same time it hurt.
His first night in Colorado was a mess. He needed to find somewhere to stay at and decided to use a housing website to find somewhere cheap. It didn’t take very long to find a two bedroom home, it was a nice house from the photos, and he decided to schedule a tour. When moving he always felt it was necessary to plan where he’d be staying right when he got there. He had a fear that if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to find somewhere for him to stay.
He went to sleep after making sure to set an alarm for the next morning. He slept almost as good as can be expected for staying in a hotel. He knew he had a long day ahead of him, and began to plan it accordingly…
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Mistakes (Rewrite)
FanficThe whole mess of leaving started because Buck was mad. He hated the fact Bobby kept him from something he held and loved so dearly, and he hated that Bobby didn't seem to understand what made Buck so upset. When he left, he cried. His apartment was...
