megan
He opens his arms to her, his hands in his pockets opening his coat, and she steps into his embrace, lets him fold her into his old wool overcoat, the black one with the ripped lining he refuses to let her fix. The coat he got at a thrift store to make some kind of point, maybe that he has money but won't be defined by it, and who cares if he's got custom-fit cowboy boots, he wanders around campus in a second-hand overcoat with a torn lining because he doesn't care. Such a reverse snob, this boy, and she can't help but think of that even as he wraps her in his arms and his coat and holds her close, and she presses her face into his sweater - black wool, like the coat - and snakes her arms around his waist and lets him murmur something she guesses is meant to be comforting into her hair.
She loves him, she does, and maybe because of that, because she knows he loves her in return even though he only occasionally shows it in a way she can understand - because her feelings run so startlingly deep and true she starts to cry again and can't stop, and his arms tighten around her, his coat warm but a little stifling, especially with her face buried in his sweater, and she can hear his words this time, Don't cry, Lillian, everything will be ok, we'll take care of it. We'll take care of you.
(...i don't know where this goes in the chronology or why she's so upset....)
She loves him, she does, and maybe because of that, because she knows he loves her in return even though he only occasionally shows it in a way she can understand - because her feelings run so startlingly deep and true she starts to cry again and can't stop, and his arms tighten around her, his coat warm but a little stifling, especially with her face buried in his sweater, and she can hear his words this time, Don't cry, Lillian, everything will be ok, we'll take care of it. We'll take care of you.
(...i don't know where this goes in the chronology or why she's so upset....)