BEN DROWNED X Reader

CH. 44

"That's not her." You stated. "She has blue eyes, Cally has Hazel Green eyes."

When she got seated in a booth just two seats behind our booth you finally decided to try and get a good look at the girls face; and while they shared a lot of similarities, that just wasn't her. Even as much as you had hoped it would've been. But BEN and Toby are adamant you go talk to her, you just didn't believe you'd bring yourself to..

"Please don't get my hopes up you guys," You choked out. With a shakey hand and a heavy stomach, you shook your head as you stood up in your booth. Your vision was getting more and more blurry each second you looked at this girl. They're right, she does have a striking resemblance. It's as if you're experiencing each 5 stages of grief again all at once. Instead of heading straight for her table to talk, you took a detour and headed straight for the bathroom to collect yourself, rather.

As you stared into the mirror, gazing at your distraught, sad eyes, your heart was battling with your logic. Just couldn't accept not interacting with her, but yet, you know it'd definitely break you if you did. Those two devils danced in your head for a while. You pulled up a picture you took of yourself, Kai, Hoodie, and your sister on your phone and leaned on the bathroom counter. It's started getting difficult to breathe.

The bathroom door quietly swung open beside you, almost hitting you the process.. But that's not what surprised you the most. This girl stood there with a deer-in-headlights look to her, almost as surprised as you were.

"I'm sorry." She signed to you.

'So.. she's deaf?' You wondered to yourself.

"It's ok." You signed letter-for-letter. Your knowledge on ASL was very limited, but you tried your best.

She giggled and reached for her back pocket, revealing a notepad and pen.
"𝒜𝓇𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑜𝓀𝒶𝓎?" She wrote. She smiled eagerly as she passed the notepad and pen over to your hands.

"ι'м ғιne," You wrote back. You held up your phone and presented to her the picture you were looking at. Part of you wanted her reaction, another part of you just wanted to show her the very thing that made you feel upset.

She covered her mouth with both hands and gaped at the picture, pointing at the phone before grabbing the notepad from your hand. Quickly, she had wrote:
"𝒲𝒽𝒾𝒸𝒽 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝒹𝒾𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝓈𝑒?"

You peered up from the notepad as she took it back and began writing some more,
"𝐼 𝒽𝑜𝓅𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈 𝓉𝓊𝓇𝓃 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒶𝓁𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉.
                        𝒢𝑜𝑜𝒹𝒷𝓎𝑒."

And with that, without a second blink, she turned her heels and walked out. Standing there, astonished, you felt really... confused. What kind of interaction was this?

You walked outside of the bathroom and back to your table, but neither BEN nor Toby were there. And neither was your bag; but money was on the table. You couldn't see them at the front counter, either.

"If those two actually ditched me..." You thought to yourself. "I know where they sleep. Both of them."

As you whipped your phone back out of your pocket you heard a knock, and then another. Your attention was pulled to the windows to the outside and there stood the comedy duo with to-go boxes and your bag. You knew where they sleep at night.

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"It was a quick chat.." You complained. BEN tightened his arm around you as you walked and shrugged.

"Maybe she had things to do," BEN suggested. "like you did?"

"Yeah, maybe.." You sighed. "Look, you guys can go and check out some books or something while I ask about the papers, okay?"

"Sounds good to me!" Toby squeaked. BEN furrowed his beautiful brows as he spoke quietly, "Do you want me to go do it with you?"

"No, no!" You exclaimed. "You two go enjoy yourselves while you can. You don't get to do this often." 

You offered a warm smile before detaching yourself from BENs grip and walking away. Every step you took, you stared dead at the shriveled librarian. Didn't take your eyes off of her. You felt an explosion of  determination filling your chest; it was sudden, and it resonated with you until you finally approached the front desk. 

But your feet didn't stop you there.

They carried you and carried you. While well aware you weren't going to stop, you weren't sure on where exactly you were going. The taco place down the road? No, no. The ice cream shop on the corner? She liked ice cream. Wha~ What were you even thinking, she wouldn't eat ice cream during a time like this! 

As you blew through the entrance doors you took in the biggest gulp of fresh air that finally broke you of your manic.

'Wait,'  You thought. 

                               'What AM I thinking?'