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*offensive language used by a character. 1 homophobic slur.*
GRADUATION WAS ON THURSDAY.
today was tuesday. two days had gone by since presley's 'episode', and max hadn't brought it up yet. he most likely wouldn't at all, but if he did, presley decided she would convince him he'd been tripping on acid or something. maybe a few years back she could be honest with him. maybe she'd tell him every exasperated detail about her life. maybe she'd reveal to him the dark secret she was keeping. not now, though. and maybe not ever.
in the past two days, max had seemed to retreat almost further into himself, if that was even possible. but charlie and presley had spent a lot of time together. they played with barbies and went on bike rides to the library and did each other's makeup. presley was trying her best to be for charlie what amanda had been for her. and it was crazy hard.
the walker's had never been good at communication. her parents had told presley they loved her, sure. matthew and presley were the best of friends, before everything happened, but they hadn't really ever talked about the bad stuff. her parents asked, sometimes, but presley knew they didn't really want to hear it.
that's what bill was for. and richie and eddie and stanley. her family. she'd lost that.
she couldn't do the same for charlotte. presley knew she was hurting. hell, they all were. charlie was good at hiding it, though. maybe even better than presley. she was brilliant too. and so, they talked about the happy things instead. they talked about fireflies; they talked about stars. charlie could speak about the solar system for hours.
presley finally felt like she had a friend again. a friend in the shape of a 60 pound, blonde, nine year old girl. a friend who was her little sister, of all people. but a friend is a friend, and in presley's case, friends were hard to come by.
charlotte still talked about georgie everyday. presley's heart ached for the little girl. she'd known more loss in her nine years of life than almost anyone presley knew. and charlie was still the brightest ray of sunshine. everyone in town could confirm that.
she brought flowers to carla from the bakery every afternoon on her way home from school. she helped the librarian stack books in her spare time. the butcher at the deli downtown loved charlotte. he gave her a philly cheesesteak for free everytime she came in, and she'd give him cookies she and jennifer had baked specially for him in return. speaking of which, charlie was begging to go by this afternoon, but presley couldn't bake for the life of her.
presley walker really was in need of some character development.
jennifer was on her way home with amanda. the cult (as presley liked to refer to the behavioral center) was located somewhere out near mount mansfield in vermont. it was like a 6 hour drive or something, presley didn't know, and she didn't really care.
