Who: Dan and Debra When: Saturday afternoon, around 5pm Where: The coffee shop at Paulie's What: Bethan's carers allies discuss how to deal with her injury Warnings: Talk of violence, self-harm, suicide, and rape.
Dan turned up to Paulie's much earlier than 5. He'd had the day off work; his supervisor had straight-up refused to let him come in once he'd heard about Bethan's injury. And Dan wasn't great at days off. He already had all his homework done, and the atmosphere at home was at once funereal and tense. He, too, was feeling morose and depressed, but only partly for the same reasons. He, unlike his family, knew that Bethan hadn't relapsed, at least, not as badly as she'd made it seem, but it was almost worse this way. He was feeling trapped in her machinations, all the craziness that had suddenly come to a head. It was way more than he'd been ready to deal with, and really drove home every last one of his fears about her vigilanteism.
So he'd been sat here for almost two hours now in the quiet warmth of Paulie's, novel in one hand, his third cappuccino in the other, and turning over their options in his head. He just hoped Debra would turn up soon to save him from his own thoughts.