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It was 11:14, Claire was supposed to meet Bella at 11:30, and she was a deer caught in the headlights.

Only, a deer was innocent, frail, and didn't know any better, and the whole reason why it was caught was because it tried to cross the road, to arrive at point B from point A. It tried to walk, not expecting any harm, and it paid the price.

Claire wasn't trying to walk.

She was trying to return a favour. To clear up a dirty debt. A debt she shouldn't have owned in the first place. A debt she never wanted to own.

Roxanne made a strangled burst of noise, almost gurgly, coming out of her throat. At first, Claire thought it was a sob or a hiccup. But as more and more of that noise freed themselves, she realized Roxanne was laughing.

Roxanne's body shook, as though it was keeping something within from bursting out. If Claire didn't know any better, she would've thought Roxanne was a freak like her and was in the middle of transforming.

"Oh, go ahead, Claire," she said, in-between laughter, draping an arm across one side of the doorframe to use it as balance. "Just leave. Don't mind me. I'm just passing by. It's not-" a gulp of composure and clearing of the voice. "It's not like we have any plans or anything."

Claire had expected the calling out, the anger, and the painful sarcasm, always hitting at her core.

But she hadn't expected this; shoulders bobbing up and down, knees jerking, imbalance, unending hysteria.

"Rox-"

"No, no." Roxanne wiped a tear, unwilling to look at Claire. That was how Claire knew she wasn't just laughing. "It's obvious where your priorities are. I should've- I should've known from the beginning."

Something primal, powerful tugged inside of her, willing to break free from the chains Claire had locked it into. Something bright. Something addictive. Something right and wrong at once.

Claire shoved it all down, but didn't ignore its warnings.

It was 11:16.

"Roxanne, did something happen?"

A bark of laughter, louder than the rest. It echoed throughout the soy white of the hallway walls.

"Oh, yeah. Something-" A snort. "Something totally happened."

Despite it all, Claire couldn't help but use a sliver of her powers, just to see, just to know.

Just as she started to, Roxanne pushed away from the door, and into her personal space. Their noses touched. Roxanne's eyes, red and wide and partly covered by her moist, damp hair, were faded by the rim of her glasses. Claire saw her own eyes at those reflections - the eyes of fake innocence, fake goodness, fake blackness.

"I got a raise, Claire."

Roxanne's breath of air tickled the dry of her lips. Claire smelled a hint of orange, chocolate, and something else, something undefinable and undoubtedly Roxanne, only stronger, and less pleasant.

The edges of Roxanne's eyes lifted up. Creases, hard and sharp, painted her face. A grin split. "Oh, and Mister Grover finally retired. Isn't that nice?"

"That's-"

Roxanne laughed, her arms resting on Claire's shoulders, her touch faint and gentle despite her extreme emotions - as though despite how much she was suffering, she didn't want anyone else to suffer. Roxanne, always the better one between them, and always insisting she was the worst out of all of the people.

Roxanne grabbed Claire as though she didn't know whether to push her or pull her away.

"So, yeah, Claire. Everything's just dandy. Now, why don't you go abandon me for the hundredth time? I'll be fine. Don't worry. I'm used to it!"

It was 11:18.

Claire was no deer.

Claire was the one driving the car, in the middle of the night, on an empty road, late to repaying her debt with Bella, late to something important that must be done tonight and tonight only, something that would either make or break Bella.

And Roxanne was the poor deer, only there to cross the street for food or shelter or anything - anything for survival - not expecting, wanting to get hurt, and not knowing how to defend itself, because there was no way it could defend itself, not with the kind of situation it got caught in.

Roxanne didn't know whether to push Claire away or to pull her in.

But that was okay.

Roxanne didn't have to always know what to do.

Sometimes it was Claire who had to make the decision, to pull her into the bone crushing hug that Roxanne had always given to her, one that had always comforted Claire in an oddly restricting, suffocating way.

"Claire?"

"No," was all Claire could say, because sometimes her throat was so heavy and cold and worn - like an old machine that had gathered dust and rust the longer it went unused, one that became harder and harder to turn on as time went on - and she didn't know how to link one word to the other or how to form a kind of word or, heck, even vowel. "No."

But that was okay.

Because Claire didn't have to say more than she needed. Because Roxanne understood her without needing to say anything. She'd understood her before Claire had gathered the courage to find her voice again.

"Gosh, I feel like such a baby," Roxanne said, sobbing into Claire's turtleneck.

Claire hugged her tighter and ran a hand through her curly hair, as if to say, "That's okay. Babies are nice."

Claire held her until she calmed down. Only Roxanne never truly calmed down, she only composed herself better.

Claire doubted Roxanne would ever calm down. She was always in a state of panic, these days.

"We never really did name him," Roxanne uttered with a cracked voice, her face still buried in Claire's shoulder as they sat on the old, worn couch that smelled of both Roxanne's peaches and Claire's cranberries.

Claire looked down, not knowing who Roxanne was talking about, assuming Roxanne was speaking coherently and not sleep talking again.

Roxanne looked up, and her eyes, big and bright and full of sparkles, mesmerized Claire.

Her glasses, set aside at the table, alongside the chocolate-flavored snacks Roxanne had never finished, shimmered with the flow of the city lights the curtains never bothered to block out.

Roxanne gestured with her head. "Your teddy bear."

So Claire looked up at the teddy bear sitting delicately on top of their TV, staring unblinkingly at them. "Our," she said with a faint smile, remembering how she'd gotten it. "And... Belly."

"Huh?"

"Belly might be nice."

"... Belly? Really?"

"Or Grave. Or Via."

Claire shrugged, hoping it conveyed her nonchalance, even as her heart trembled monumentally and her mind began to pull out the dark memories she'd spent five years trying to forget.

But nothing slipped past Roxanne.

And Claire had to maintain her poker face as Roxanne pulled away from her to look at her straight in the eyes, their faces so close, too close with each other.

There was a part of her that had Bella's voice, taunting her by telling her how bad her poker face was.

And maybe Claire wasn't the only one with mind-reading powers, because she, in the eyes of Roxanne, were transparent, and she was reminded again that Roxanne was smarter than meets the eye, and those who underestimated her - Bella, and many of Claire's middle school bullies who got suspended because there were weeds in their school bags despite their insistence that they were framed - paid the price.

"Why would you want to name your teddy bear that?"

Our, Roxanne. It's our teddy bear.

"They sound nice."

"They sound specific." A pause. A long one that made Claire fidget with her nails and look down, because eye-contact were hard, and interacting socially was hard, and Claire was afraid. "You've never changed, have you?"

Claire looked up, and stared at her levelly, because yeah, she hadn't changed at all, but so hadn't Roxanne.

And it brought her comfort, to know that Roxanne was still familiar, even in this midst of unfamiliar, convoluted, tangled webs of secrets and lies and broken trusts.

Roxanne was still the same nosey, bright, cheerful, strange kid, even if she wasn't nosey anymore, nor was she bright and cheerful, nor was she a kid.

Roxanne, who rambled a lot and loved Japanese cartoons she loathed to call cartoons - even though it was totally cartoons, even if she never watched any of those Japanese cartoons anymore, or anything, really.

Roxanne, who was gullible and didn't know what the word cautious meant, even if Claire knew she was anything but gullible and was more cautious than even Claire herself.

Roxanne was still Roxanne.

And that gave Claire the courage to ask, "What happened?" even if she was unable to add the needed "at work today that made you cry a river". But she didn't need to. It wasn't as though her confusion was a hidden secret.

And Roxanne looked at her, her face blank, and her voice evenly blank with a spice of spite as she said, "Where are you going?"

And Claire knew what she was really saying.

"I'll tell you if you tell me," was what Roxanne was really saying.

And it hurt, more than anything, to know that Roxanne wasn't really Roxanne, even if she was still Roxanne, because Roxanne had always told Claire everything, from the weird history of how Oreos were made and her fears of being forgotten in this world and never achieving anything worth remembering and back again to how the character of Mickey Mouse was actually a form of plagiarism.

None of this was okay.

But what could Claire do, apart from what she'd been doing for the past month?

Claire slumped into the couch despite how undignified and impolite the action was.

The ceiling wasn't interesting at all, but she found herself staring at it nonetheless, as though it held the many answers to the few questions she found herself asking every day.

"Do you think there are people out there- people like Angel?"

Claire didn't expect Roxanne to give an answer, much less a confident, flat, casual, "Oh, yeah, definitely."

Claire blinked, because what the-? How would you know?

But then she remembered that this was Roxanne, and she was smarter than anyone gave her credit for, and she sounded so sure of herself, so Claire was inclined to believe it, even if she found it hard to picture anyone else with a pair of wings and blank, white eyes and lines around their bodies that glow.

"Do you ever find it strange how easily Miss Garcia just accepted me into our old orphanage?"

Speaking full sentences. It was hard, and it hurt Claire's throat and tongue.

It was 11:30.

It was time.

Claire stood, and walked away from Roxanne.

She sensed panic - one that was not hers - flared, hot and intense like blue flame.

"Where are you going?"

It amazed Claire, how casual Roxanne sounded, considering how much terror she was in.

Claire looked at her as she took her steps, each step guiding her further and further away from Roxanne.

She had to do this. Or else- or else-

Claire shuddered internally. She didn't even want to think about the possibility.

And the heaviness in the atmosphere, and tenseness, and the terror and the suspicion wiped themselves away as Claire picked up a DVD box from one of the drawers, extended it for Roxanne to see, and smiled.

"To start our movie night."

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