Drowning

Volcanic Destruction

On Friday, Finley had gone to Demetri's after school and had surprisingly stayed until late in the night helping him build his lego project. It had been every intention of hers to leave before supper, as she hadn't asked if it was okay to stay, and she didn't want to intrude. Demetri, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to her discomfort and simply told his mom that Finley was staying for supper so they could keep working.

That being said, she had met both of his parents when she went out to the kitchen with Demetri to get pizza before heading back to his room. They asked her some basic questions, and said how nice it was to have her over. Apparently it had been months since Demetri had had any friends over, and she was such a nice girl. It was at this point that Demetri basically shoved Finley out of the room before his parents could embarrass him any more.

Then, over the weekend, Finley had gone to the comic book store at the mall and gotten Demetri a brand new copy of the comic book that she had let get destroyed. It had taken her forever to find the one that she was looking for, mostly because she refused to ask for help in finding it, but she did it. So first thing Monday morning, Finley headed to Demetri's locker to give it to him.

She leaned against the metal, waiting for the lanky boy to show up. Around her, students shuffled by, slowed down by the jet lag of Monday morning. Her eyes scanned the crowd, never lingering on a single person too long. About 1/3 of them had headphones in and/or a hat/hood on. If you watched throughout the week, it was kind of amusing to see less and less kids fall into this category as they got more hyped for the return of the weekend. As she was looking for Demetri, her eyes caught on a spiky red mohawk. Typically she would have immediately averted her gaze, not wanting to be caught staring at him, but not this time. This time she stared at him, wondering how he just walked around like nothing was wrong. His blue eyes found hers as he continued walking and for the briefest of moments there was almost a flicker of regret as he realized he couldn't even nod his head at her anymore. His gaze dropped a second later and he moved through the crowd without a second glance at her.

"Hey Finley."

Her head snapped away from Hawk to look at Demetri. "Hey. How was your weekend?"

"Good..." Demetri trailed slightly, his focus shifting to opening his lock. "How was yours?"

"Good. I, uh," Finley grabbed the comic book from her backpack and handed it over to him. "Wanted to give this back to you."

Demetri took it from her, his fingers curling around the glossy paper. The furrow in his brow deepened and he flipped the comic book over in his hand. He took good care of his comics, but not this good. This one felt different than when he had given it to her... it was brand new.

"This isn't mine."

"It is now." Finley gave him a tight smile before her foot slid backwards, preparing to leave.

"No, wait, hang on." Demetri looked at the girl who was beginning to feel very awkward under his scrutinizing gaze. "What happened to mine?"

Finley licked her lips, changing the position of her backpack strap on her shoulder as she attempted to figure out how to avoid giving him specifics. "I let the other one get a little ruined, so I just got you a new one to replace it."

She shrugged like it was no big deal, but Demetri's eyes narrowed.  Why was she acting so weird? Since when did she get so careless that she'd let his stuff get ruined? And she just bought him a new one without him even asking?

"You let it get ruined?" His head was tilted slightly to the side, the left side of his face scrunching in confusion.

"Yup. Horrible friend, deepest apologies, don't trust me with your comic books ever again."