Re: In-person: Amy M/Si M
She believed him implicitly about getting her money, and she wanted to glomp onto his belief, to make it her own, to truly think she could have a life that wasn't ownership and fear and more of it on the horizon. But he said that he wouldn't let him, Mr. Andrews, hurt her, and she reached out a hand and rested it on his briefly, on the steering wheel, fingers over fingers, small over bigger. "It's okay if something happens. It's not your fault ever," she told him, expression serious and eyes wide in emphasis. They were dealing with a powerful man and powerful entities, and there might be nothing at all he could do. She wanted him to know it was okay. If that happened, it was okay, and then her hand slid away and all the severity on her face was gone. Behind them in the rearview, and this was a brief interlude, intermission, an interval of tiny moments. She didn't want to waste it with bad.
She shoved at his shoulder next, when he called her an idiot. "Si!" Her tone was young, back when they shared a room and he was annoying... and messy... and annoying. "See! You wouldn't call someone you were dating an idiot. I mean like that. Treat me like a real girl, just once, to see how it is." Maybe she shouldn't be able to slip into that make-believe world as easily as she could, but there was no way for her to survive without the ability to hide in pretty things. It was like a book cracked open and with her living within the spine, and she shoved at his shoulder with his palm one more time as he pulled into the McDonald's parking lot.
It was daylight, and that was the only thing that kept this from reminding her of Si needing to score, wanting to score, yearning for it so badly that he had her walk up to someone bad and in a bad place. But the sun was shining, and she knew he would use the money for himself, some of it, but she couldn't bring herself to stop him. She'd enabled him a lot and often, and she knew that, but she didn't want this to be about that. Selfish, selfish, but she smiled at him when he slipped back into the shifting car. "Big spender," she teased, but McDonald's did sound good. It was probably too early for a Happy Meal, so, "a small coke and a... sausage biscuit with cheese. No egg." She made a face about eggs in general.
But it was a second later and after the comment about buying hers something, that she turned and looked at him. "No." Without segue or preamble. "I want a date, a pretend date, like I said before. So not today. Once we're home." And that was that. Said and done, and she waited for her coke and sausage biscuit.