meet me in the woods ☾grayson dolan au

t h r e e

[ 03 ]

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The entire day after his outburst, Grayson had been wary to approach Ryder. Of course he'd heard her comment before he had closed his door, and of course it stayed in his mind.

Five days in a row she had taken care of him with more patience and love than he had ever seen, and the one time he tries to give back to her, he fucks it up. He broken his mother's favorite clock and had Ryder cut her fingers on the edges of the aftermath all because he didn't want to talk about his night terrors. She'd tried to help him then, too, yet he had reacted without even consulting with his mind what was happening.

He swore it wasn't him. He swore it was the same figure that persuaded him into every dark hole of his life, but he had reminded him every time that his outburst was all his own intention. And it worried him that he might be telling the truth. All of the other times he had confessed when Grayson asked him, but this was suddenly different. When he hit his sister years ago and killed his parents he could recall the nagging of his voice.

"Why couldn't it have been you this time?" He groaned in frustration at the figure who leaned against the wall flicking a pencil between his fingertips.

He only shrugged and shot back a comment that made Grayson flop backwards onto his duvet.

"Why do you follow me? It's been years, what more do you want to ruin?"

The figure just continued to laugh, laughing like Grayson was telling jokes instead of pure frustration. He knew Grayson as much as Grayson knew himself; they were practically in each other's minds.

"I'm not going to talk to you if you're just going to stand there and laugh at me," he said crossing his arms over his chest. But he just walked over to the side of the bed and flicked the center of Grayson's forehead, telling him to stop whining.

He scoffed, "I'm not whining."

Grayson closed his eyes for a rest and listened in to the sounds that were around him. The window on his bedroom wall popped as the wind pushed against it, the tapping of a pencil against his dresser, and in the distance he could hear the floorboards creak as Ryder walked around. When he listened closer, he could hear her humming a chorus from a song. He fought the urge to leave his room and apologize to the girl until she had forgiven him, and instead curled his blankets into his fists and continued to listen to where her feet hit the floorboards.

They carried her through the halls and to her room, to where he could hear shuffling as she rummaged through her belongings for something. Still humming the tune, she pressed buttons and then suddenly he knew what she had found.