. (mareas) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-01-19 00:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, !marvel comics, *narrative, clementine murphy |
[Narrative]
Who: Clementine
What: Days two-five
Where: Marvel & Gotham
When: A few days to present
Warnings/Rating: None
Day two.
It wasn't deliberate. It wasn't like she planned on checking, or like she'd told herself she would. Twenty-four hours and she would check in, and it wouldn't mean a thing - that was the deal she made with herself. It was just being responsible, or something like, and sometimes she took a shine to doing things right. Truth was, she tossed and turned all night long after talking to Shane, and she just couldn't not check come morning.
Penny wouldn't tell anyone. She could tell by how the woman looked at her, all pity-soft.
But Penny didn't answer. She didn't answer the whole day, and she didn't answer that night neither. And when Clem went looking, the woman wasn't there.
Maybe it was being gone a spell. Maybe it was just changes, but Clem, she hadn't been expecting that any.
She told herself Penny sure enough handed that little baby girl off before she went to wherever the hotel sent her. Shane would've gotten in touch otherwise, ornery as the day was long that he'd gone all the way out to Penny's for a whole lot of nothing. That seemed true enough, and it calmed some.
But calling Shane and checking, that wasn't never an option. Distancing didn't work that way, and sure enough did she need distance some. She'd realized that while texting, that letting go meant letting go, and she couldn't go asking. Maybe it all just meant Graham was back, and they'd took off, Penny too. Could be, kin, and she didn't think any of them liked Marvel much.
She didn't neither, but she was there, outside Penny's old place, and wondering that she'd panicked so hard. Maybe it wasn't that all. Maybe being forgot just wasn't something she broke her teeth on.
God help her, but she missed her daddy some.
She went shopping. She bought things. She had real expensive food somewhere real fine, and she slept at something five-star.
She almost contacted the girl - Holly and her underwear and that smile that said the world hadn't carved her into a thing of its making yet. Clem came real close, phone between her fingers and words on the screen as she sat and listened for sounds inside that she knew weren't there. She typed out a question, real simple, but then she deleted it. Girl would know if Graham was back, Clem had no doubt, but there was something about lowering herself enough to go asking that Clem couldn't do. Man was well enough to talk to other folks; if he wanted her to know, he'd reached out by now.
She put the phone away, and she found herself a club where the lights were real bright, and she danced until the bartender said it was time for leaving.
She didn't remember a thing come morning for a whole five minutes.
Sunday, and she found the church after by chance. It was nothing like the one in Savannah, and her momma wasn't there telling her and Lore not to kick the pew in front of them. No one straightened real white skirts or white hats that annoyed the other churchgoers real hard. It wasn't an event from some pretty movie with bright lights.
The pastor talked about things Clem didn't remember pastors saying when she was real small, and she smelled of drink and the diamond strap on her shirt wouldn't stay put. But it killed enough time that work would be waiting once she managed to get herself home and sober, and she was real glad of the need to smile hard enough she believed it her ownself. She wondered about that woman and her boy across the hall as she slid her own key into the lock across the way.
Day five. Not that she was counting any.