thin white lines | l. hemmings

22

The bus ride was tense. Ashton never really clarified what Devlin had said on the phone, and none of them asked. They knew what they needed to know and Delaney didn't but she was too nervous to ask more even though she was curious. 

She grew quickly frustrated with the cloud that hung over her in that room, so she left. With a heavy sigh and a glimpse behind her, she took her bunk without a word to them. She didn't try to sleep or even check her phone. She knit her fingers together and rested on her back. Eyes open and mind as blank as she could get it.

One of the boys had left the others to use the bathroom, but she didn't check who it was. Her mind was completely fried at this point and it took a toll on her thought process. It was a lot of stress in a short amount of time for someone whose biggest problems used to be her daddy issues and getting pre-order vinyl on time.

She tried not to complain about it for the same reason she was so overwhelmed at that very moment. The idea of that impacting their perception of her made her stomach twist. Every single one of her words came from a place of wanting to be accepted and viewed positively, and Luke's comments always countered that. It was almost like a challenge and some excitement that she didn't face back home because it wasn't just new with these boys. That's how she had been for as long as she can remember. 

At first, she didn't even notice that the footsteps were coming closer to her instead of going back to the other boys. Once she did, she sat up as much as she could in the compact compartment and peaked out of the curtain to see Luke. Her twisted stomach settled as he smiled at her, and took a seat on the bunk below and across from her. "Hi Laney," he said, his voice soft as he used the nickname.

"Hi Luke," she said with a smile, swinging her legs so they hung down over the lower bunk, swaying slightly. "How'd you come up with that nickname?"

"Well—" he dramatically raised his brows and sighed. "—It was a lot of hard work. Hours of thinking, actually."

"Yeah?" She went along with his sarcasm, lowering her brows as she responded.

"Yeah." He kept a smirk at his own joke before shaking his head and giving a quick shrug. "I dunno I just think it kinda suits you. It's cute."

"Suits me like 'princess' suits me?" She pointed out the past nickname that had used the same reasoning to justify. 

"I was trying to be a dick when I called you that," he defended himself, a hand up while he tried not to laugh at himself.

"Sure you were. You sounded like my dad." She couldn't help but cringe as she remembered it, somehow still finding the humour in it.

"I get it, let's move on and forget it." His face had been tinted a light shade of pink at some point during the conversation. "What all did you see when you were looking for Ashton?" He did his best to change the subject.

"Not a whole lot. We saw the girl who got stabbed go into the ambulance but nothing other than that."

"Well, that's kind of a lot to see."

"Yeah, well," she said with a shrug, even though she couldn't agree more. "Where'd you find Ashton?"

"He was just walking back as we were leaving so we barely even moved."

"Why didn't you text to say that?"

"Why didn't you check your phone?" He countered with raised brows, making her furrow her brows and pull out her phone to finally check it. As he had implied, there were two messages from the contact still labelled as MAYBE: SAM.

"I forgot you had my number," she mumbled as she quickly typed in his real name instead. She tossed the phone onto the thin mattress behind her, looking back to a solemn-looking Luke, biting his lip. "What's wrong?" She asked, picking up on the nervous habit she was starting to see more and more with him.