New Plans

Many Askers

Tommy and Wilbur sat in the living room alone, the next morning. Now that they'd had a full night's sleep they could think clearer. Tommy and Wilbur were arguing about who would break the news to Phil when he walked in. It was weird, he must've been too tired to care that night. Wilbur was the first up the next morning, and Tommy was the second. He was still eating breakfast, while Wilbur sat on the sofa. The awkwardness of the silence felt deafening.

Apparently, Wilbur decided that there was no time like the present.

"I'm sorry I tried to throw you under the bus, Tommy."

Tommy looked up at Wil. Then shrugged.

Though it seemed weird, that was a real answer for them. It wasn't an 'I forgive you,' but it was 'forget about it.' It was a 'yeah it was a fight, but frankly, I don't care much anymore. We'll just add it to The List of Fights, and move on.'

The List of Fights were fights where they'd stopped caring who won and decided to drop it before it hurt their relationship. Because whatever started it wasn't worth it anyway. Luckily, it wasn't much of a list. You could hardly call it a list when it had so few items.

Wilbur sighed with relief.

"He's gonna have questions," Tommy said. "To be honest, I'm curious too. Why you were out there, I mean. Is it really what I think it is?"

"I- I don't know," Wil admitted.

Tommy looked back up at him.

"What? What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I don't know."

"Wait- lemme get this straight; you got up absurdly early, spent all day with whats-her-face, and then got back home past midnight, and you don't know why you decided to do it?"

Wilbur nodded.

"I- what the f***, Wil."

"Yeah, that's- that's fair."

"Did you, y'know..."

"Did I what?"

"Did you..."

"What!? No. We just hung out."

"So it was a date?"

Tommy watched in satisfaction as Wilbur stuttered trying to figure out a response.

"I-It wasn't!" Wilbur finally said.

"I'm not good at girls, or weird mushy stuff-" Tommy wrinkled his nose, "but from what I know, if you were alone, and you spend a lot of time together. It's probably a date."

"It wasn't a date."

"Was there anyone else there?"

"Well no-"

"So it was just you two."

"Yeah kinda-"

"And would you have tried to stay longer if I hadn't bumped into you?"

Wilbur didn't respond.

"This sounds awfully like a date to me- I mean, if you think about it- you even had the stereotypical doorstep-thing they always talk about in books 'n stuff."

Wilbur stayed quiet for a bit, trying to find a comeback. Before giving up and saying; "It wasn't a date."

"Alright- well, we'll see if that holds up against Dadza. You tell him your half, and I'll tell him mine, deal?"

"Yeah, okay."

It went quiet again.

"Do you want it to be a date?" Tommy asked.

"What?"

"I mean- do you like her?"

"I'm not sure."

"Uh-huh... Well, once you figure it out, come tell me, I'd love to make fun of you."

"Says the guy who pronounced all his friends 'Honorary Minecrafters,'" Wil countered.

"For the record, it's catching on!"

"Just wait until Keem steals it or something."

"That's- actually yeah, that's probably something he'd do."

...

Wilbur wasn't expecting this reaction out of Phil. Who was just kind of staring at him with a shocked expression.

Phil had asked why he'd gone out all day long, and when Wil explained what happened-

"So, You- it... It was a girl?"

"Kinda... sorta... yeah."

Phil sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'd love to give you advice but I've- well this never happened when I was your age."

"Oh..." Wil responded.

"I- okay. Uh- you're not allowed to do that anymore."

"Which part?"

"The part where you snuck out for almost 24 hours, what else?" Phil sounded exasperated.

"Okay... That's fair."

"As for the rest of... Whatever that was, you're going to talk to your mother about that."

"Uh okay," Wilbur looked sheepish, even when Phil turned his attention to chewing Tommy out for running around in the woods in the dark.

...

"It's fine, it's fine, It's..." Sally trailed off.

She looked around the dimly lit cave, it felt much prettier when he was around.

She took a deep breath.

"It's fine, I'm sure it's not a big deal, it's not like she's... She's..." Sally's throat started to close up.

"I mean, how much damage could one tiny detour cause? Surely she- I can do this... It's not- it's not selfish or anything..."

Sally bit her lip, maybe it wasn't selfish, but it sure felt like it was.

"It's fine. Just one more week. Then I'll pull this farce to a close. That's it."

Sally looked to the crack in the ceiling. She missed Wilbur. Perhaps that was a little absurd, considering they'd spent almost 24 hours together the night before, and she hadn't known him for long before that, but Sally couldn't care less at this point.

She missed him. That's all she cared about.

........................

I was going to write this differently, and I started to write it, but the flow and stuff were all scuffed and I got stuck real fast so now you get spooky foreshadowing instead.

Merry Hanukkah.

(I actually do celebrate Hanukkah it's rly fun)

Anyways, Farewell Plerps!