𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄, divinity is a wretched fate.
Dreary Forks is a cramped town beneath a near constant overcast sky, enshrouded in evergreen.
Like every small town, Forks is rife with gossip. Most children's grandparents grandparents had b...
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( slight trigger warning: insinuated panic attack, non-descriptive seizure - it isn't terrible, i'd just prefer say something than nothing at all )
THE WIDOWED WIFE OF ANDREW TODD watched her cellphone ring, with a hollow gaze cast across the lit screen. It didn't have a contact photo anymore, Sarah had removed such a thing the very moment she'd flinched away from her son's face; with the same heirloom gaze plucked from his father's funeral order of service. Still, she observed the device thrum along the surface of her desk, once, twice, thrice until it went still. Sarah listened to the voicemail he left, and remained firmly planted in her place.
So, come mid-afternoon the next day, Zachary bites at the inside of his lower lip as he fidgets with his own cellphone. Charlie hadn't answered, and a weight begins to pebble beneath his ribs whenever Zachary had hovered his thumb above Waylon's contact next, only to halt sharply with a rush of an exhale, the breath knocked from his lungs. Under the age of eighteen, Zachary couldn't be discharged from Forks' quaint hospital, until in the care of an adult.
With the damage to his shoulder and collarbone, despite being certain that he had adjusted the bone into place at home, Carlisle wanted to be safe with an x-ray and observations, so Zachary had stayed the night. His eyes drop to the toes of his sneakers, and Zachary shuffles his feet restlessly as he lingers beside the check-in with the receptionist's hawk-eyed gaze latched onto him, as if she expected him to make a break for it. He's debated it.
A soft sigh, and Zachary taps onto Esme's contact on baited breath, guilt churns his gut for even daring to attempt. Only, as he raises it to his ear, the line goes dead as if the contact had never existed at all. His brows bunch in confusion, and he's tossing his head back impatiently though Zachary's face scrunches in pain. It's a dull ache, numbed by the pills packaged neatly in his fist in a white paper-bag for Zachary to take every handful of hours.
It's as his text message, punctuated by a pair of kisses, to Rosalie go undelivered that Zachary's heartstrings seem to grow tense, as if pulled taut beneath his ribs. He rolls his lips together, and Zachary rounds on the same receptionist that he has already argued with three times before. A plump looking woman in her mid-forties with clearly, nothing better to do than hold teenage boys prisoner. Zachary nudges the frame of his glasses up the bridge of his freckled nose, finally accepting that he has to wear the prescription spectacles before he drops his palm to the smudged glass topped edge of her upper desk.
"Listen, I'm seventeen," Zachary breathes as he threads his uninjured fingers in the mess of his tangled hair, half an inch too long by Zachary's usual standard. "I am quite literally the nephew of the Chief of Police, you know you won't get sued if I leave—"
Her voice is a grating caw, nasally as she clasps calloused fingers with bitten nails together beneath her smug chin, "State law says I need written consent for you to leave without a legal adult or you need the signature of a legal adult on discharge papers, hon," Zachary's teeth grind in the back of his mouth, "So," She punctuates with a stretch of a too-big, customer service smile that is irritatingly fake, "Do you have a legal adult or a note signed and dated by your guardian, or documentation to show you're an emancipated youth?" Her overly plucked eyebrow arches upon her botox pricked forehead and Zachary inhales through his nose, gathering patience.
