Closer To The Sun [Poly] [Bi]

11 - Nora

Q.O.T.D – Where are you while you're reading this? :O

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🌿 . 🌼 . 🌿

Nine out of ten times, when Nora said she was going home, she was lying. This was one of those times.

She saw one of the last buses of the night about to go by, made a snap decision, and hopped on. It sped off in the opposite direction of her dad's house, past rows of sunlit houses bouncing red and orange evening light off their windows.

She doubted Rory had actually expected her to go home. And her dad wouldn't check, either.

Looking for something, Rory had said. His words snaked through her mind on a loop, like a train on a tight track. Looking for something. They're looking for something.

In most places, looking was easy. Finding was harder. This was the case for most places, which tucked their secrets into dark corners, or left them far behind in an unwritten past.

This was not the case in Soledad, Colorado, and that was what made it so dangerous. Here, where the secrets were numerous and shallow as sand, finding was the easy part.

It was so easy to find that, sometimes, the secrets found you. And one must be wary of a secret trying so desperately to be uncovered.

Nora's phone buzzed in her pocket. For a moment, she was worried it was her dad, but Rory's name flashed on the phone when she pulled it out of her pocket.

I saw you get on the bus, he texted. Tell the grannies I say hey.

It sat beneath another message that made the breath hitch in Nora's chest.

CALLUM – Hey. I'm sorry. I know I said I'd stop just spacing out whenever we have a fight. I can't help it.

Nora rolled her eyes. Can't help it. Can't help what? Peaceing out on his girlfriend? Sure, he can't help but leave the room the moment she starts to cry. Oops.

His next message: Come back over? There's only five more days in spring break and I don't want to spend them fighting.

His third: And we need to talk about what I did.

Nora grit her teeth. Disappearing on her wasn't the "thing he did" that Callum was referring to. An anger welled up in her so hot and dark she firmly tipped onto the "we need to break up" side of the scales that had been teetering for almost a year. 

She was about to put her phone away when another message rolled in.

RORY – I'm going to tell Shea to ask you to come. You don't have to go. But I'm going to tell her to ask.

Everyone was testing her tonight. 

She texted, You're the better hiker. Why do you want me to go?

He responded quickly. You're better at finding things.

Yeah. I thought the point was not to find anything.

How better not to find something than to know where not to look?

Nora thought the logic was suspect. His next message cleared that up quickly.

Nora, aren't you curious?

The question cut through to the core of her. Of course she was curious. She knew something rested in those mountains behind the ranch. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it had drawn her mother to Colorado long before she was born; it had drawn her other grandmother to self-imposed isolation and it had drawn her mother to her death.