The Capital: Holly W & Noah N
Noah had thought he was going on a date, dude. And like a dumbass, he'd dressedup. So, when the plug was pulled, he felt stupid about showing up looking like he did. But, he was too anxious to do anything about it. Maybe it was spillover from Holly, just a block and, like, lightyears away. Maybe it was his own anxiety. Or all of the above. That was the exciting thing about being who he was, dude. Sometimes you just didn't have any fucking idea.—He was in his car fast. Really fast. He'd have time to kill in the Capital, but the connection to Holly would weaken (slightly), like the soft bristle of a faraway radio station just slightly out of range, and he was depending on that. Holly'd made it clear that he didn't like Noah 'driving under the influence,' dude, so he'd been sticking with his .5mg of Xanax and he only toked when he got home, and even then, just a little, mostly because it was a familiar habit. Which all meant he had nothing to blunt what was going on. Not really. There was no wavebreaker on the shore and the tsunami had come with teeth.
Behind it, it left wreckage. Noah listened to Holly's Billie Holiday song on neurotic repeat as he drove in, and he made good time, dude. He had an hour to spare by the time he parked in the parking garage on the west side of campus. He decided he'd... find something somewhere, so he didn't look so... like he was expecting a date. The area around the university was littered with thrift shops, so it wouldn't take long.—He passed an hour that way. The college kid working the register gave not one fuck and he let Noah change in the changing room, then come out and have himself rung up in his new sweater and less-try-hard pants. The kid thought it was weird, but funny. Noah got that off of him, like scudding ribbons of thought, little lapping waves after the storm, and he just laughed and walked to take his dumb date outfit back to his car.
By the time he made it to the record store Holly had designated, he could feel the bus approaching. He ducked inside and pretended to browse the hip collection of vintage cassettes like he actually cared about Bob Seger and King Crimson.