𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 • 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭

𝟒𝟑: 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬...

   Beginning their walk into the park, they started down one of the many paths lit by street lamps.

Walker beat Sophia to speaking first. "Before we talk about anything else...the message from Archer. Someone had to have told him we were at the studio.

She nodded, not wanting to believe it. "I guess so. By I trust every single one of our friends. None of them would do that to us. Ever."

Walker looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite place, and she furrowed her brows. "What?"

"Nothing. Just thinking."

"Okay." She said slowly, letting a few beats of silence follow before asking her question.

"Sooo," She drew the word out. "Seeing as now is the later that you talked about earlier, care to share all your deep dark secrets?"

He blinked a few times. "That is the most confusing sentence I've ever heard."

"Walker." She gave a pointed look.

A slightly nervous manner settled onto his features. "Okay okay. Just...know that most of it is me overthinking. And It's nothing that we can really fix either, so don't get worried or anything." He paused. "Actually, on second thought...maybe we could talk about something else?"

Sophia's pointed look only intensified. "Walker."

He sighed, licking his lips. They followed another bend in the path, passing a jogger with a leashed golden retriever before he finally spoke.

"That night at your dad's apartment."

Okay. Not what she was expecting.

"When you were scared, and calling for me after you burst back in through the front door. I didn't answer. And it wasn't because I didn't hear you, or because I was scared of facing your dad...I just...froze."

He paused, and Sophia quickly rearranged her features from confused to curious before he glanced at her.

She nodded slightly. "Go on."

"I had this sudden wave of fear. What if I couldn't get out there, and couldn't help you? I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I may not be enough. Then I just...couldn't move. Like I was stuck to the floor."

The hand that held Sophia's fidgeted nervously, so she squeezed it tighter, shaking her head. The sympathy she felt in that moment was unlike any other. "You were always enough Walker. More than enough."

He scoffed defeatedly. "Yeah, well, did you also know I got stuck in the closet?"

The comment was so unexpected that Sophia couldn't help it. She tried to hold back the laugh threatening to escape, but it came out anyways before she slapped her free hand to her mouth, mortified.

"Im so sorry. It's not funny, I swear." She cleared her throat awkwardly. "That's terrible."

But a smile crept onto Walker's face at her reaction, and he shrugged. "No, it is funny now. It just really, really, really wasn't funny then."

She nodded, her mind flashing back to that night in the apartment. "Yeah."

She remembered it in vivid detail. It had been like her brain was stuck on a film reel of all these memories of her and her dad. But the second he had lunged for her, the memories were gone. Her old dad was gone, and she had finally come to terms with it.