Tweetie

12

Ryan was not a boy of sympathy. Empathy, maybe, but he certainly was not made for sympathy. He understood, he often shared the same feelings, but to express them properly was a little bit difficult for him to do. Not because he didn't want to, but because his own emotions were too muddled to have the proper understanding. His perceptions were warped.

So, seeing the girl who under an hour ago had offered to do his homework come back looking like that, he felt a little muddled. He felt bad and he assumed he was supposed to attempt to show sympathy. But she didn't look like she needed it. Hell, when she entered the cafe shouting enthusiastically about having glass in her hands, he almost thought she was happy about that fact. She could have been. He doubted it, but, she didn't budge even with the seemingly painful injuries to her face and hands and the growing bruise on her leg. So, maybe she was a bit of a psycho or a masochist at the very least.

He sat with Leo and Fox, both of them watching with raised eyebrows, showing the sympathy he didn't have. Stewart cleaned her up, chief Hemms made sure she was alright and that was it, she was left to sit at her table alone again while thinking about what had happened. He wondered if she even knew.

So, he did what anyone would do.

While his friends sat, turning back to each other and talking every now then with coffee in their grasps, he pushed himself up from his seat and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Leo turned almost immediately, Fox was a little slower, also a little less caring about it.

"Ryan?" Leo spoke, sitting up in his seat to watch him trail away.

Ryan himself wondered what exactly he was doing. But, he also needed to talk to her anyway, so, he figured he may as well have been the one to ignite the conversation with the strange girl with the slightly bulky teeth and tired eyes.

"What the fuck?"

That was all Ryan could really say as he stopped beside her and saw the damage done up close. It was honestly worse than he had thought when he was squinting at her from the window as she approached with the police officer, and even then, he didn't get a very good look at her when she came in. Her lip looked painful, her head had a graze on it, her cheekbone was swelling and her nose was still bleeding, though, not as much as it had been. 

"What the hell happened to you?"

She just looked up at him, her eyes widened for a brief second as she recognised that he was talking to her. Then, she shrugged, still allowing a careless smile to spread on her lips.

"I got bored and fought a bear."

He faltered, acknowledging that she was avoiding the conversation about her injuries. Something he did too often. So, he cocked an eyebrow and played along.

"Who won?"

"Me, obviously."

"Right, yeah, obviously." He rolled his eyes, "I'd hate to see how the bear looks if you're like this."

She laughed, pushing him into further shock over how relaxed she was about the situation. He imagined that if he got into the state she was in, he would have at least been angry about it. But she seemed unreasonably fine.

"The bear used its fists, I used my wits and talked it down. I'm not going to hurt a bear in my lifetime."

It was sound logic. To him, at least. He knew that it was almost a lifelong dream of his to hug an actual bear and he felt as though he wasn't alone in this dream. Maybe she wanted to hug a bear too if she refused to fight one, even if she wasn't serious.