♥kj (nobetterreason) wrote in mcdermott_game, @ 2009-12-28 19:49:00 |
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Current mood: | complacent |
Entry tags: | kj, npc |
who: KJ and Riley Larson (NPC), with an appearance by Alice O'Neill (KJ's grandmother; NPC)
what: Visiting, bonding, and blurring the lines of friendship
where: KJ's grandparents' house in Salinas, California
when: Monday afternoon, December 28
rating: eh, G
status: Complete
Salinas was a nice town, KJ thought. It had been a shame she hadn't come up here earlier in her lifetime. Usually Aunt Regina came down to Santa Fe, so KJ hadn't really had a chance to spend some time here in California.
However, it was a bit on the small side, so after their sightseeing last week, now that Christmas was over, there wasn't much to do. KJ's siblings did not pass up the opportunity to go to San Francisco, since it was so close, but KJ couldn't bring herself to do it. Not when there was the chance she could run into Auden. Or even Jeremy. She didn't want that to ruin her holiday - not that running into Auden would ruin her holiday. They were friends, or supposed to be, anyway. But she just... even though they were supposed to be part of each other's lives again (whatever that was supposed to mean), it would still hurt KJ a little to see him, and so she would rather not, not when she was enjoying her holiday this immensely.
She was sitting with her grandmother, watching Love Actually (one of KJ's favorite Christmas movies, even if it was heavy on the romance) when a knock on the door sounded. At her grandmother's request, KJ got up to open the door, and was greeted by the sounds of a guitar.
"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la..."
KJ couldn't stop laughing as Riley did a little dance to his upbeat carol. "Do you go caroling like that to every house on this street?" she asked, between her giggles as she opened the door wider.
"Nope, just the ones I like." He grinned and stepped across the threshold. "Hey, Mama O'Neill!" he greeted KJ's grandmother.
Alice O'Neill merely smiled. "Hello, Riley," she greeted him. "Did you have a good Christmas?"
"Yeah," Riley said, non-committally. "Regina's food made it awesome, of course. And meeting KJ." He smiled at KJ, and KJ smiled back. "I didn't realize I made your holiday that exciting," she said, dryly - but she was laughing.
"I'm glad to hear it," Alice told them. "Anyway, you two can visit here. KJ, love, did you want to finish your movie?"
"No, Mama... I want to finish it with you. We'll watch it later, okay? Before everyone comes back. You don't have to move - Riley and I can hang out in the back. I don't want to trouble you." She glanced over at Riley for a moment. "That is what you came for, right? Or did you just want to sing us carols and get out of here?" She smirked at Riley, who just poked her in the shoulder. "Yes, I wanted to see you."
Meanwhile, Alice was already on her way to get up. "It's fine KJ. You two can stay here." KJ shook her head. "Don't worry about it, Mama. Really."
"Yeah," Riley pitched in. "We'll be okay in the back."
Alice eyed the two of them carefully, and then nodded after a moment. "Let me know if you want anything, okay?" She smiled at them and then switched the DVD player off, so she could watch one of her TV shows. KJ smiled fondly at her grandmother, though the way she'd phrased her words bothered KJ for some reason, and she didn't know why. How did Mama know she and Riley were going to visit before KJ even knew it herself?
"Hello? Did you just travel to some far-off planet without me?" KJ heard Riley say, and then grinned. "Maybe," she played along, leading the way to the backyard. "Here, let me see... there's some chairs around here somewhere..."
"I got this, KJ," Riley told her, grinning. "I'm here more than you are, remember?"
"Oh, right," KJ said, smiling vaguely as Riley undid the cloth on the porch swing to reveal a perfectly comfortable swing. "Here, sit. This was my favorite thing as a kid. And your grandma's cookies, of course."
KJ looked at him quizzically. "How do you feel so at home here?" she asked him, finally, as she regarded him.
"Regina used to baby-sit us, you know. For years and years." Riley nodded and then started plucking at his guitar again, while KJ sat and processed that thought.
"So what's up?" he asked, glancing at her. KJ looked up as the plucking stopped, and shrugged. "Not much. Mama and I were watching Love Actually. My siblings are in San Francisco. They wanted to visit. We don't get up here often so they wanted to take advantage of it."
"Ah." Riley nodded in understanding, and after a few swings, asked, "Why didn't you go?"
Glancing over at Riley, who was regarding her with pure curiosity and concern, KJ sighed. "I just... I couldn't."
A few more beats of silence passed, and Riley said, "You know, my dad lives in San Francisco." His voice sounded far away. "It's more convenient when I have breaks for school, but my mom always insists I spend Christmas here."
KJ glanced at Riley, her turn to be concerned. "I'm sorry, Riley," she said, unconsciously laying a hand on his arm gently. Riley just shrugged. "It's been a while," he said, referring to his parents' divorce. "It sucks, but I mean... at least they don't fight, or try to use me and Nicky as leverage. Not anymore, anyway." He shrugged again, biting his lip. "You should go, though," he said, finally. "I mean, if you've never been. It's a great place."
"I know," KJ said, her voice drifting far away, to a time where life was as simple as climbing a tree. "I just..." She glanced at Riley again, debating whether or not to bring up the subject of Auden. On the one hand, she barely knew Riley, and who knew when she was going to see him again? But on the other hand... KJ was starting to get the feeling that she wanted to see him again, and that was bothering her because... She couldn't pin it down, why this made her so at ease and yet so uneasy at the same time.
"I know someone who lives there," KJ finally said. "I didn't want to run into him."
Riley's eyebrows narrowed, and he could see that something was bothering KJ. "Him?" he asked, gently. KJ shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it." Because if she did, all of it would come back, ten times worse - all the hurt, all the betrayal, all the things she was trying to keep at bay, and get over. Time helped to heal, but it was like a wound that had been healed over, where the skin had merely covered it. If you dug deep enough, it would open up, just as bad as it had been before. And she didn't want people who knew her and loved her to see that, least of all Riley, who barely knew her.
"Okay," Riley agreed. They sat there in a comfortable silence, and KJ finally said, "God, it's been a long semester. One of the hardest I've had to deal with."
"Tell me about it," Riley agreed, and once they realized they'd agreed, they looked at each other, and KJ smiled. "Wow, you actually cracked a smile. I'm impressed," he told KJ, who reached over and smacked him lightly. "Ow! What was that for?" he protested, and KJ couldn't stop snickering. "Don't pick on me," she told him, evenly. "I have two brothers. I can hold my own."
"You sound like my sister," Riley muttered, rubbing his arm. "So... do you want to share? Since you're being so secretive about other things."
KJ shrugged. "The coursework was hard. I got a part in the fall production that one of my friends wanted, and she didn't get a part at all. And she's a professional actress. You've probably heard of her." She smiled, but she didn't want to think of Chloe as a superstar. It was kind of weird to think of her that way. "And... my boyfriend broke up with me." She made a face. "And it's still kind of... weird."
Riley raised an eyebrow. "Him, huh?" was all he said, deducing what KJ had been trying to say earlier.
"Yeah," KJ admitted, tugging on the end of her ponytail. "I mean, we're trying... we're..." She shook her head, as if to clear it, and continued, "We decided that we want to be in each other's lives again. Whatever that means."
All Riley could do was glance at her, see the hurt in KJ's eyes. Unknowingly, he drew an arm around her and pulled her closer to him. "I'm sorry," he told her, softly. "It still hurts a lot, doesn't it?"
KJ nodded, ignoring all the warning bells that were going off in her head; she'd needed to be held like this for a long time. She let herself ease into his embrace, leaning her head on his shoulder. She wouldn't cry - she would make sure of that - but the physical comfort was just something that she'd needed for so long.
Riley looked down at her. KJ was an interesting person. He liked her. She was bright and vivacious and pretty, but underneath it all there was this vulnerability that pulled at him, for a reason he was still unsure of.
"Is this... okay?" he asked, after a while, and KJ looked up at him. "Hmm? What? Oh... it's okay," she told him, though she did straighten just a bit. Part of her was still wondering what it was all about, but the part that felt so comfortable there didn't mind one bit. "No, I don't think you're some creepy guy who's trying to make out with me or something." She grinned, and Riley grinned back. "Well, that's good. We can't have creepy stalker guys going after you, can we?"
"Nah. Besides, I could probably take them out." KJ laughed, and then looked at Riley. "You know... normally I wouldn't have told you as much as I already have," she mused, her gaze not quite focused on him. "It's weird. I haven't clicked this well, this fast, since..." She bit her lip, hesitating. She didn't want to do that - compare Riley to Auden. And yet, here she was, even if she didn't realize she was doing it. "But yeah," she quickly added, trying to blur past her misgivings. "It's weird... you get me, somehow." Not weird that someone could understand her so easily. Just... weird that it could happen like this, again.
"You know," Riley said, after a few moments of hesitation, "if you... you know, felt the need to open up some more? I'm not going to judge you. I'm a pretty good listener - at least, that's what everyone tells me. I mean, I know we just met, but... you're right. We do click." He smiled warmly at KJ, and her gaze dropped downward before she finally met his. At her look, he added, "But no pressure. Just... I just want you to know that I'm here. If you need it."
KJ nodded, taking in that information, and leaned back in the swing, Riley's arm still around her shoulders. They swung there like that for a while, watching the sky slowly change colors and the shadows lengthen, and then KJ shifted, her whole body facing Riley's in curiosity. "So what made your semester sucky?" KJ asked.
Riley's gaze, focused on the tree in the backyard, shifted back to her. "Hmm? Oh..." He shrugged sheepishly, strumming his guitar for a few beats in what KJ recognized as a fidgety manner. "I don't know. Just... stuff."
When he didn't elaborate, KJ just glanced at him, and Riley sighed. "The work was hard. I don't know, I just... I feel like things are getting weird with my mom. My sister's in the middle of high school and... well... you know how high school is. Especially here. I want to be home, to be there for her, but... it's weird with my mom."
KJ bit her lip. "How long are you staying here, Riley? I mean... here, with your mom."
"Couple of weeks, maybe. Then I'll either head up to San Francisco or over to school, I don't know. I do have a project I need to start working on and the city's the perfect place for it." His look became far away, too, as they fell into silence once again.
She didn't know why, but the thought of Riley leaving made KJ sad. They'd only met a few days ago, but already there was something there - if it was friendship, or if it was more, or... what. She had the stray thought that this was how it should have been with Auden... being able to touch on the things that were bothering them, building the foundation, as Chloe had said so long ago. They'd never taken the time to do this - once they had gotten to this point, they had already been dating. If things were different... if they started out this way... would they still be together? KJ sighed, and unconsciously put her head in her hands. The thoughts were tearing at the skin, re-opening the wound slowly, painfully.
She didn't realize she'd leaned over until she felt Riley's warm hand on the small of her back. "KJ," was all he said; the concern, the worry he'd infused in just the sound of her name made her look up at him. He looked back at her, his brown eyes full of questions.
"Sometimes I think too much," was her vague response. KJ paused, straightened out, and then glanced at Riley again, who seemed somewhat relieved but still concerned. "Do you ever play what if?"
A flicker of understanding crossed Riley's features, only to be replaced with a lack of enthusiasm. "Yeah," he said, sighing, slumping against the swing. "It sucks."
"Yeah." KJ took a deep breath, and decided that the best way to explain would be just to... explain. "My... the guy I was dating?" she began, still adverse to the term 'ex-boyfriend.' "We kind of... went into it too fast. We didn't... he didn't... we kind of got lost in each other that when the hard stuff came up, he internalized it; he wouldn't show me what was wrong. He didn't trust me, and I trusted him with everything. And one day, we just... disintegrated." It wasn't an easy thing to leave, like he'd cheated on her or he'd flat out rejected her, didn't need her. Auden couldn't have her. It wasn't that he didn't want her, or even that he didn't need her. He just... couldn't. KJ understood the basic logic of it all, but that didn't make it feel any better, even now. "We didn't have... this."
Riley sat up when KJ began explaining, the implications of her last words not lost on him. "I was thinking... if we had done this first, just... sat, talked, chilled, without getting all the romantic stuff tangled into it... would we still be together?" KJ's voice was full of regret, of wondering, of longing. Riley recognized it, and sighed. "You know what the sucky part of 'what if' is?"
KJ glanced over at him, shaking her head. She knew, but didn't know how Riley would choose to phrase it.
"You can't fix it," he finally said. "I mean, you can think of the most perfect scenario minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even years after the fact. But the thing is, the only thing you can change is your present."
Nodding, KJ regarded Riley, unable to ignore the strange but familiar feeling coming over her. The only thing you can change is your present. His words echoed in her head. She had a fleeting thought - if she looked back on this time a month from now, or a year from now... would she regret trying to stay cautious? Would she regret trying to protect her heart from breaking even more than it already had?
KJ wasn't sure, but she didn't want to live her life guarded; she didn't want what Auden had done to her (whether he wanted to or not) ruin her chances of being happy again. If Riley could find a new spot in her heart, then she should let it happen, right? But she didn't want to rush it, either, and have it turn out just as disastrous.
So she settled for compromising - snuggling closer into his shoulder again. It didn't quite occur to her that she was sending a mixed signal, but it was comfortable there. KJ felt Riley stiffen in surprise, but relax easily into her embrace, placing an arm around her again. "I'm sorry you got hurt, KJ," he said, barely above a whisper.
She had to catch her breath before she replied, "Me, too." She shook her head, and with that, an unspoken agreement came over them; they sat there in silence, warmed by each other's presence.