Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
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I worried for several days about how I was going to get in contact with Kakashi to let him know we were going to be stealing from his new allies, but it needn't have mattered.
He came back on his own.
Two weeks.
All together, it had been two weeks since he'd walked out of our lives. The Harvest Moon was only two days away. The neighborhood was alive with Friday night energy, but the wind was almost too wicked to contemplate going out.
It was hard to believe it had been two weeks since I'd last seen Kakashi. Enough time had passed that I didn't immediately deflate and feel like crying every time I thought about him.
In the days since I'd met Talia, and Bella had thrown in her ring with us, we'd been texting constantly. Using code, Bella would inform me of how the "oleander" was faring.
Talia. Talia was the oleander.
I got the impression that Bella was basically the only one who knew where Talia lived, but after the daily texts of things like "the oleander ate all my ramen today," "the damn bird pecked at my window at 5AM for no reason," and "had a customer whip out his wallet and then his pants fell down, guess you shouldn't be a cocky ass if your $4 and a bus pass is needed to keep your pants up" I was both highly amused at Bella the Comedian as well as concerned that Talia was homeless.
I think they were sleeping in shelters, but people could only stay until like seven or eight in the morning before being kicked out for the day. Where was Talia eating? Showering? Spending the winter?
But I couldn't flat out ask, "Which church is the oleander staying?"
Instead, I focused on the updates about Bella's work at the Wolf Den. "Sounds like that fella needs a belt for Christmas."
I honestly thought that without the kids and Bella's random texts, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed.
Kakashi had not checked in once.
I mean, what was that about? Wasn't that a little too unfair? At the very least, were we not friends?
At work, my mind spun. And spun, and spun, and spun.
I dissected the night he left. At the time, I'd felt relieved that he wasn't mad at me, but as the days passed, I wondered if he really couldn't forgive me for not telling him about Obito. Obito was a sore spot for Kakashi—not just sore, but festering.
And I had gone and spoken like I knew everything again. I just could not stop turning to my knowledge of his universe and thinking I already had all the answers. Anyone would get annoyed by that.
It was in this headspace that I stumbled home on Friday evening. Why did anything and everything happen the moment I was just trying to walk from my car to my front door?
