Where Nobody Hides [Dave Franco]

chapter three • fiona

it's hard to tell with the way Wattpad is laid out, but i appreciate anyone who as read this story so far, whoever you are. i hope you're enjoying it.

-f

a world alone - lorde

“See you around, Dave,” I said, my voice trailing off when I realized what I was saying. Although I hoped I’d get my book back, I couldn’t believe that I was actually promising some sort of permanence to someone; I’m the kind of girl that will leave at the drop of a hat, usually without much reason other than you weren’t doing enough for me emotionally, intellectually, or socially. It seemed almost obvious, really. Why keep someone in your life out of obligation when you could be spending the time with them on yourself? It sounds selfish, but at the end of the day, all you have is yourself, so why not be happy with the person you’re going end up as?

 Yet, there was the other end of this lack of belief in permanence too—the pathetic, basket case version. Throughout my life, I’d dealt with people who meant the world to me leaving when they’d presumably grown tired of my usually depressive mood and tendency to shut myself off from them when things started getting rough at home and I knew no one else would understand what I was going through. Besides, I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone, so it just ended up being easier to keep myself distant from everyone. Even after all that, though, I still managed to have quite a few people in my life that fulfilled me socially—just a bunch of people that I regularly got together with to smoke and occupy space on a couch or a bed, as well as one girl named Sydney that would readily become my best girlfriend if I let her.

 She was, admittedly, everything I could ever want in a friend: smart, so fun to be around that I never really got tired of her, but most importantly, she put up with my constant sadness and pulled me out of it when it started to consume me. However, as I said before, it was the people like her that were the first to leave, so I always had to keep her at a distance and not grow attached to her. Even so, in that moment after meeting Dave, she was the first person I thought of to talk to about it, so I pulled out my phone and sent her a quick text asking her to meet me at the nearby Starbucks after I’d be let out from work in a couple hours. She responded almost immediately, agreeing, and I sighed with satisfaction, grateful that I didn’t have to go back to my sad motel room immediately after I left my sad job.

 The preceding hours passed fairly quickly with the help of my book, and before I knew it, I was sitting on a patio chair with Sydney, drinking an espresso. It was a good moment, and to be melodramatic about it, it was times like those that kept me alive.

 “So what did you want to tell me about?” Sydney asked, leaning forward anxiously, knowing that if I called her here, it must be some pretty important news.

 “I met a guy today,” I answered, rolling my eyes when her eyebrows shot up in utter disbelief at my words.

 “No, shit, really?” she exclaimed. “How’d it happen?”

 “Well, he came into my work completely dumbfounded, so I helped him find some books, only he asked me to pick my favorites, which was kind of nerve wracking—you know how I am about my books—but he seemed to like what I’d chosen. I also tried to find The Book Thief for him, but we didn’t have it, and after I told him about it, he seemed really disappointed that we didn’t, and something really fucking weird came over me because of that, so I loaned him my copy of it, and now he has my phone number and he’s going to call me when he’s done reading it, and I’m going to see him again, fuck,” I told her, breathless and rambling by the end of my story.

 Sydney let out a low whistle. “Damn, Fiona, I’ve never seen you so flustered. He must be something good.”

 I nodded, but shrugged at the same time to display indifference, although I was bursting at the seams to tell her every last little detail about him that I knew so far. I didn’t tell her right away in fear of her making a big deal about it, though. I didn’t want that.