Darcy and her father return back to their old stomping grounds of New York City. With her, Darcy brings habits of being reclusive. She is perfectly content spending most of her time within the walls of her father's café and sees nothing wrong with t...
welcome back! thank you @idkwhatwrongwyou for the amazing covers! the one for memory documentation is attached here on the chapter <3 also, the beautiful youtube cover of rainbow connection has served as an inspiration for this chapter, so give it a listen! kindly let me know of any weird mistakes and typos, and i hope you enjoy!
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"For it is plain as anyone can see. We're simply meant to be."
– Jack & Sally, The Nightmare Before Christmas
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"It's here?"
"Yes! Hurry so we can open it before we leave."
"I'm comi – oh, sorry, dude – I mean sir!"
I snickered at the faint grumbles of a man. With a heave, I pulled the package up from my desk and lifted it out towards the living room. The box was bigger than necessary for a VHS tape, so I was desperate to know what else was inside. I had waited all night to open this box with Chris today, and I wasn't going to also wait a whole school day, either.
"Open, open!" Chris urged before hanging up. I heard the frantic drum of fingers on the front door and rushed to open it. My heart was already skipping in my chest at the thought of opening Suzie's package, but it managed to skip even faster as I opened the door to reveal Chris in his usual dark clothing, greeting me with his usual boyish smile.
For the past week, Chris has been showing up to my apartment in the morning for something. His forgotten statistics notebook, the need for graph paper, borrowing some earphones, helping me with my printer, fleeing as Camryn threw a morning tantrum. Yesterday morning, when he came to deliver some tangerines that Mark had gotten for Papa when he was at the grocery store, I told him that Suzie's package was going to arrive later that day. Thus, my morning has started with another visit by Christopher Radley. But you won't find me complaining. Especially not to the quick hug he gives me every time he sees me.
That was new, too.
Totally not complaining.
"Wow, is that it?" Chris asked as he pulled away and stepped inside. He eyed the box on the table. "It's pretty big for just a tape."
"That's what I was thinking." It's been several days since Suzie and I had our late night conversation, and I hadn't heard from her since. That is, until she sent me a text saying that the package should be arriving the following day. I was thrown off by the size and mistook Suzie's package as an online order at first.
Chris discarded his backpack onto the couch and came to sit beside me on the floor as I grabbed an old pair of scissors and haphazardly cut the box's tape. I sucked in a breath, bracing myself, then opened the flaps. The air left me at once.
