everyone_takes | April 17

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April 17

For the most part, Kate doesn't believe people when they say they just know that someone is gone. Every time someone has disappeared, she's noticed things that are strange, but she's never had this feeling, this intense knowledge that they're just gone, not like others have claimed. Sometimes she wonders if they're just telling themselves they knew to make themselves feel better when it takes them several days to notice.

That's sort of how she feels when she finds herself standing in the middle of the hut Harry used to live in, a box of jewellery in her hands. It's been two days since she last saw him, but sometimes that happens. Sometimes they both get busy and they miss each other instead of connecting, that's just life and she's taken it for granted. So a little part of her wants to tell herself that she's known all along, but the truth is that she's only just realized it now and she feels stupid. Lost. She feels like a child playing at being grown up and suddenly all the things she's been doing over the last few months don't matter.

Clutching the box against her stomach, she makes her way home and she sits in the front yard, letting Chang crawl into her lap even though he's far too big to do it. He crushes the box, but she doesn't bother moving it. She isn't even sure why she took it. Harry never gave any of it to her and now he never will.

So many people have disappeared and she hasn't cried. She isn't going to start now, but when Chang whines and licks her chin, she wraps both her arms around him and presses her face into his fur.

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It would have almost been easier if they'd just broken up, she thought. A break up would have sucked, but people went through that all the time, and Reggie would be sure to have something to say about it, he'd find a way to make her feel better. But a disappearance was different. It was something else. No one knew what to say to make that better.

"No," she said, lifting her head and petting Chang instead of looking at Reggie. "Harry's gone."

"Oh, man," was the only remotely appropriate thing Reggie could think to say before he hurried over to Kate's side, dropping into a crouch. His miraculous breakthrough could wait.

"That guy ruins everything."

She laughed before she realized she was doing it, then clapped her hand over her mouth and finally looked over at Reggie. It wasn't that she was glad Harry was gone at all, but somehow hearing Reggie say that was easier to take than the usual I'm sorry and Is there anything I can do?

"He didn't do it on purpose," she said, dropping her hand. "I'm pretty sure, anyway."

"Well, duh," Reggie allowed, at least managing to rein in the urge to roll his eyes. This was a solemn occasion, after all. "Even an idiot would never leave a girl like you on purpose. Still, good intentions only count for so much. Did you just find out?"

She smiled very faintly again, then nodded before she pushed Chang off her lap and dragged out the battered box he'd been sitting on. "I hadn't seen him in a couple of days, which isn't normal, but it's happened before, so I went by his place to see him. He wasn't there and all his stuff is gone. His owl, all his personal stuff. Just this stupid box of jewellery that he never gave me, so I took it and now I'm sitting here, like a fucking sadsack. At least I could be dramatic about it and like, cry or something."

"It might help both of us, really," Reggie said thoughtfully, peering curiously at the box of jewelry. Sure, some of it was kind of dumpy looking, but the idea of withholding potential sources of a girl's goodwill was just unfathomable to him. "See, I'm awesome at comforting crying chicks, this whole lack of hysterics is really throwing me off my game. Pretty inconsiderate, Kate."

"I'm pretty much the worst," she agreed, poking her finger through the box thoughtfully. "It's just not me, I guess. I mean, it's not like I never ever cry or anything like that, but I just don't do it very much. I didn't cry when my brother left and Marshall's like, my best friend ever." She loved Harry, but losing Marshall had been the worst thing the island had done to her. If that hadn't caused her to cry, she wasn't sure any disappearance was going to do it.

"Well, at least that means I probably don't have to worry about you being okay," Reggie said optimistically, even if that annoyingly altruistic streak that tended to flare up like a bad rash where his friends were concerned made him feel almost upset that he hadn't been around for her during such a rough time. "It sucks, but you'll get over it, you're tough like that. So what do you make of the jewelry stash? Maybe he was two-timing you."

"More like he was too much of a wuss to ever give any of it to me," Kate answered dryly, because she was pretty sure Harry was way too good of a guy to ever cheat on her. Given that she'd been with a lot of shitty guys, she felt pretty comfortable making this assumption. "It looks like stuff he would've made in that class they were offering, maybe. Hell, it's probably not even meant for me, he probably just got bored and wanted to take an easy class."

"'Giant wuss' does sound like him, true," Reggie admitted, nodding slowly. "And you've got it all now, anyway, so... a winner is you?"

"Yeah, I totally feel like a super winner right now," she answered, poking through the box a little more before she put the lid back on and shoved it away from her. "I should've known better. Dating anyone on this island is a recipe for disaster. They're always going to disappear."

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie replied, not wanting her to say anything on the subject too hastily. "The dating thing, not the disappearing thing, that part's probably true. But I definitely don't get why everyone here seems to get so serious right off the bat. Just having fun is rarely a... recipe for disaster or whatever in my experience."

"I don't know, it just happened," she said, rubbing her hands over Chang's ears again. "It's not like I was looking for a boyfriend when it happened, I generally, you know, don't look for boyfriends." In her experience, right up until Harry, boyfriends had mostly turned out to be total jackasses. Harry had been totally unexpected and it wasn't like she was about to start dating again, but she knew that dating usually led to either a breakup or something serious.

"Alright, alright, I'm not grilling you about it," Reggie said quickly, shrugging his shoulders. "Besides, you're hardly the only one. It's like there some epidemic of monogamy going around here. It's downright gruesome."

"No kidding. Seems like half the island is either getting married or pregnant at any given moment," she said. "Which... eesh. Not for me." It wasn't even the sort of thing she thought she might want some day, like everyone seemed to think they would.

"Right?" Reggie scoffed, shaking his head. Even a year on, he didn't get it. "When the old people here do it, it's like sure, whatever, but it's everyone! Just because being sixteen means we're all supposedly adults here doesn't mean we magically have to act like it overnight."

"My parents got married when they were eighteen," she said. "And, I mean, I love my parents to death and I'm glad they're together, but that's insanely young, right? And then they had me right after and that's just... no way. No way."

"Completely insane!" Reggie agreed, propping his elbows against his knees. "I mean sure, there are always those couples that you just know are probably going to end up together forever, but it's not gonna kill you to take a few extra years to make sure when it's your whole life you're talking about. I'm eighteen, and there's no way I'm qualified to make a decision that big, and I'm pretty much the greatest at everything, so."

Kate gave a snort of laughter, but she was smiling a little again. "Pretty much the best at everything sounds an awful lot like how I'd describe myself," she said. "But still so not prepared to make a decision like that." And she'd never gotten the sense that Harry had wanted to get married and have a family right now, but she was still pretty sure she never wanted any of that.

"I guess history will have to be the judge of which of us comes out on top, then," Reggie sighed, not about to openly challenge a grieving woman. And they said chivalry was dead.

"Maybe it's because there are no other markers of growing up here. I mean, I should be graduating in a few months and instead, I'm a glorified dropout. Your parents don't have any excuses, but what do kids like us have left other than getting way too serious way too fast?"

"Maybe," Kate said, considering it. "I mean, even if we go to classes here, there's no structure. It's just whatever we want. And it's not like there are a bunch of careers to choose from, right?" Besides, she'd tried that and it hadn't exactly worked out. "We're legal to vote and drink and do whatever we want when we're sixteen. It pretty much sounds like paradise until you're actually living it."

"Exactly," Reggie sighed, glad that he wasn't the only one who saw things that way. It wasn't just that his life had been derailed in coming to the island; the track been completely demolished. "Maybe having sex and shacking up and all that helps people feel like they aren't just treading water."

In a rare moment, Kate actually considered it for a long time before she answered. It hadn't been only that, of course, not with Harry, but if she was honest, trying to grow up was at least part of it. Proving to people that she could, that she wasn't just floundering in every aspect of her life.

"Yeah," she said finally. "I think you're probably right."

"As always," Reggie replied, since he could really only be expected to stay serious for so long at a stretch. "Does it at least work, you think?"

"Yeah," she said, back to feeling shitty about the whole thing. Because that was the problem. It had worked and now she was left in the same place she'd been before. "At least, it did for me. The metaphorical shacking up, anyway." Sex was different.

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mantlethemagnificent - 2013-05-21 06:20 (UTC) - Expand

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