megan marple is judging your reading habits (mmarple) wrote in casefile, @ 2018-06-16 16:50:00
WHO: Clea Cox & Megan Marple WHEN: Saturday May 27, morning WHERE: Megan & Eli's apartment, Crow Canyon SUMMARY: Megan sends out an SOS to her BFF for help figuring something out WARNINGS: Discussion of poor relationship communication habits?
Megan was pacing back and forth, she was going to wear a rut in the floor before long. But she couldn't stop moving. Gnawing on the pad of her thumb, she kept her eyes on the small box that sat on the table in the living room. All of the questions from last night were still running laps inside her head, and none were any closer to being answered. She needed to talk to someone, someone who would be able to think more clearly and rationally than she was. Frankly, she needed her best friend.
Taking out her phone, she sent a couple of texts off to Clea.
[1] Hey, can you come over? [2] I'm having a crisis and I need help.
Maybe that was a little bit of an overstatement, but it did feel like a crisis to her. While she waited for a response from Clea, she resumed her pacing.
Clea’s heart skipped a beat when she saw Megan’s name pop up on her phone. Was Eli home? Did something else happen? Her thumb pressed the touch ID and the message came forward, Clea’s eyes sweeping over the words quickly. Damn it. She had been hoping this wasn’t an S.O.S., if only for Megan’s sanity, but it was, and she needed to get over there, stat.
She leaned over to the other side of their bed, pressed a kiss to Tony’s cheek, told him where she was going, and then slipped one of his sweatshirts over her head and left before even bothering to change out of her yoga pants.
“I’m here!” She whispered-shouted, knocking urgently on Megan’s door once she got there, so as not to wake any potential still sleeping in on this otherwise lovely Saturday morning.
As soon as she heard Clea at the door, Megan rushed to open it and almost dragged Clea inside. She was still in the sweatpants and t-shirt she'd slept in last night, and she was pretty sure her hair needed to see the brush, but Clea had seen her in worse condition. "I need reasonable!Clea to help me because reasonable!Megan disappeared."
She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. "Eli still isn't back, and he hasn't tried to text or call or anything. But I was unpacking last night, and I found something in a drawer. And I don't know what to do about it." She pulled Clea with her to the living room, picking up the box on the table and holding it out so that Clea could see the ring nestled inside.
“Responsible!Clea is here,” she assured Megan as they moved back toward the living room. So was tired!Clea, but she was irrelevant for the moment. The responsible version of herself nodded in comprehension, and reached out a hand to steady her friend and offer a hand squeeze.
Until Megan pulled out that little box, and then Responsible!Clea felt herself take a steep inhale, because if that’s what she thought it was? Whoa. “Is it -- ?” She glanced at Megan in slight shock.
Megan looked at Clea, chewing a little on her lower lip. "It looks to me like an engagement ring. But if he has an engagement ring, then why did he freak out when I brought up marriage? And why has he just been hiding it in a drawer?"
Still in a wide-eyed daze, Clea shrugged and shook her head. “I have no idea.” Yet, anyway. Once she processed a little more, she’d come up with a reasonable theory other than “men are complete idiots.” But for now, that was all she had.
Megan had been hoping that Clea might be able to help her figure this out. But even if she couldn't, at least Megan was glad to be able to talk to her about it. "Tony was never this confusing before he proposed to you, was he?" She sat down on the couch, still holding the ring box.
“About other things, but no, not about proposing,” she shook her head and joined Megan on the couch, sliding an arm around her shoulders. Thank God, Tony had never pulled this shit with her. Probably because he knew she’d murder him and leave no evidence behind, but that was besides the point. “Let’s thing about this, okay? You found a ring after Eli left.” She prompted.
"I was just unpacking and putting things away, and I found the Very Obviously A Ring Box in a drawer. It wasn't even like it was hidden that well. As far as I know, he hasn't been back here since Tuesday, so he had to have had it before our fight, right?" Because the idea that he might have bought it after their fight, come into the apartment while she was at work, and poorly-hid it, was pretty ridiculous.
Clea nodded; that timeline seemed accurate, to the best of her knowledge. “I really think you need to talk to Eli,” she said gently, as gently as she could, but firmly, because speculating right now was probably just going to make Megan more anxious.
Megan ran her fingers through her hair, a bit frustrated. That had been all she had been thinking about, not just since last night but since their fight on Tuesday. "I'm trying. He just… he won't answer his phone, or reply to texts, and I'm not even sure where he is right now, so I can't just go over there and make him talk to me." It was unbelievably frustrating that he was just ignoring her like this, refusing to even give her the chance to talk to him.
“Do you have any idea where he is?” She pressed a little more. Fall City wasn’t that big; there were only so many places he could be, and as a townie cop, she’d been to pretty much all of them.
"He went to his grandmother's house after our fight." Megan rubbed at her temples. This whole situation was giving her a headache because she couldn't stop overthinking everything. "Silly me, when he said he was going 'home' I just assumed he meant here." She knew he'd lived with his grandmother for a while in high school, but this was supposed to be home now. "I don't think he's still there, though. He might be with Ian."
Clea wrapped an arm around Megan and pulled her close into a hug. “You’re not being silly. And that’s a starting point!” She said encouragingly.
Grateful for the hug, Megan hugged Clea back, then rested her head on her best friend's shoulder. "It's a starting point, but not much of one. They both know I was looking for him, so if he's with either of them, they're not letting me know about it. Which means he probably doesn't want me to know."
“Or, maybe they’re trying to talk some sense into him, because avoiding people isn’t an effective problem-solving technique,” Clea pointed out, and leaned her head against Meg’s. “We’ll figure it out. He’ll come home.”
If Ian could manage to pound that through Eli's thick skull, he would probably be eligible for a Nobel prize. "You're right, I know he will… I'm just overthinking everything." Possible downside of reading all the time? "Thank you."
“It’s hard not to,” she sympathized, rubbing Megan’s back. “Love you, Megs.” She pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and then got up for the kitchen. “Tea?”