Small Moments
Prologue
It was hot, which was nothing new. Heat is a constant around these parts. You can’t escape it, not with an industrial air-conditioner or a pool filled with ice. So tough it out, bring lots of water and come with me. I’ve got something to show you. Something small.
Here’s the forest, the towering trees, the crooked branches, the leaves and the last merciful scrap of shade. Here is the memory of the girls, etched into earth. They were waiting. It was summer.
“I’m bored,” Leah groaned from her position on the brown, sun-baked grass.
“Tell me something I don’t know. You’ve been going on and on about how bored you are for the past twenty minutes,” Cass glared down from her perch in the branches.
“Well nothings changed!” Leah’s arms flew into the air indignantly.
“I was the one who suggested the creek. But, oh no, Little Miss Priss, doesn’t want to do anything that could get a bit dirt underneath her nails,”
“You wanna’ go Collins!” Leah demanded scrambling to her feet, teeth gritted.
“Do you? I might mess up your pretty little face. And what a tragedy that would be?” the words leaked so much sarcasm that it seemed to drip on Leah.
“Oh yeah-!”
Another constant, other than the heat, is Leah and Cass bickering. And you can’t escape that either. It is inevitable. Stick them together for longer than half an hour without someone else and they’ll throw words at each other like knives.
It ended with a simple statement.
“Well then, where the hell is she?” the words fall in-between the two girls, and hang there in the air. Cass’s face deflates and the red is washed from Leah’s.
“She said she was going to be late,” Leah added to the silence meekly.
“Yeah. But when has she ever been this late. Moore is always griping about punctuality,” Cass said, swinging down from her branch to frown around the small clearing.
The Moore in question sat in the cramped back seat of the car; head slightly leaned up against the window. She watched the people in the other cars talk, laugh, and sit in silence driving towards the jagged horizon. This wasn’t uncommon. Her home was only used as a place to sleep and take the occasional shower. Her older brother is always antsy. He always wants to be on the move. Even then, as he pushed the speed limit, his fingers were drumming on the steering wheel. That’s Aaron, he likes things simple. He is simple. And not in a stupid sort of way, he is quite intelligent actually, if you take the time to get to know him. He’s just one of those people that wears his heart on his sleeve and speaks his mind. He can’t stand to be still. If he is still, then he might as well be moving backwards.
Moore wondered. She does that a lot. She wonders what other peoples lives are like, what their silent conversations are about, where they’re going and what they’re going to do when they get there.
She could sit like that the whole day, cheek against the window; watching the world whirl by in a series of stop-lights and highways. She’d been born for it. But sometimes she likes to dip a toe into the actual water of the world.
The first time she’d done that was when she’d met Leah and Cass. They had been friends since kindergarten. Although she’d had to change her definition of friends after meeting them.
They are loud and annoy the hell out of each other.
They barely have anything in common.
They are at each other’s throats every other second, a fist full of insults in both hands.
But God help you if you ever say anything remotely rude about the other. Then, they will be on top of you, pummeling your face into the ground with knuckles, elbows and whatever else happens to be at hand.
“Shut up! She is my friend, which means you never talk about her like that again. Ever!” one of them will growl into your face, and then you leave you there; bloody and mangled on the ground with her fists ringing in your ears.
Twenty minutes later, they will be shouting at each other.
“How the hell do you think I got a black eye? Standing up for you, you piece trash! You’re down right pathetic, y’ know that?”
“Shut up! You’re so fat I bet you couldn’t even land a proper punch!”
That is a thank you for those two.
Moore shook her head, a grin creeping up around the corners of her mouth, as her thoughts turned to those two. They had accepted her into their little knot of unstable friendship instantly. Pulling her in and holding her close. She didn’t think she would ever be able to escape it, and that was just fine with her.
The car turned, leaving the others behind and replacing them with trees.
“See you in a few hours or so,” Aaron said quietly as she pulled herself out of the car.
“Yeah, thanks,”
The door closed and the car pulled away, disappearing down the road. She watched it go before turning and dashing into the trees. She likes running in forests, anywhere else and she won’t go above a light jog. Yet, in the forest she feels alive, at home and all that other nonsense. Nonsense. That’s how she sees it. It‘s silly and stupid, but that’s how it feels for her and that’s just how it is.
So, she ran, sneakered feet pressing into the dirt and leaves, propelling her forward, around the trees and over the little strips of water that passed for creaks. Besides, she was late, and she had to make sure that Cass and Leah hadn’t killed each other yet.
A chuckle.
Leah and Cass.
It doesn’t make sense, and then it does. You might have thought they were the type that had started out as childhood friends and then grown apart over the years. Only staying together and defending each other out of fond memories. But that isn’t it. No. Apparently they’ve been like this since day one. Prepared to die for the other, and at the same time kill each other.
They’d only had each other. Most people assume they’re are crazy and come to think of it, perhaps they are. But Leah and Cass are nice, honest people, who put friendship and its bond before everything else.
For ten years it had just been them. A little gang of two. They were happy with that, and probably would have stayed like that if hadn’t been for Moore.
Funny how you can go to the same school as someone for ten years, even share some of the same teachers and classes and never once notice them. For all those years Moore was always in the background of Cass and Leah, not noticing and not being noticed. It was only recently when Moore had forced herself out of her little bubble and tried to become a participant in the world she’d been watching silently for so many years.
It had been a small act really. Something to do with a beach ball, and climbing a tree. That’s all it had taken. She could remember it fairly well, the moment was preserved.
She’d been sitting in a park, holding a book in her hand, but secretly watching the people. Wondering about them and trying to imagine their lives.
She watched the strange pair. One medium height, tan skin and short limbs. She walked like she was fighting the ground and had to push it down with each step. Her hair was messy, chopped short, straight and almost seemed to burn in the light. The other one was a bit taller, awkwardly proportioned and slim. Her hair was bleached nearly see-through, and pulled back into a high bun. They walked; they talked, argued, screamed, laughed and tossed a yellow and blue beach ball back and forth as the sun slipped over the horizon. The red headed one was constantly whacking the blonde with the back of her hand on the arm and the blonde would flick her in the forehead in return.
They looked like they were having fun. Even when they shouted obscenities at each other you could tell they were both having a good time.
Things started moving when, in a fit of anger; the red headed one kicked the beach ball hard and it sailed through the air to land in a tree only a few feet away from Moore.
“Now look what you’ve done!” the blonde snarled stalking over to the tree and glaring at the beach ball wedged in-between two branches.
“What I’ve done? This is your fault Briggs! You put too much air in the damn thing,”
“It was your foot!”
“It was your lungs!”
“What the hell do you mean my lungs?”
“God, you’re so stupid! Your lungs, you idiot! Where do you think that damn air came from?”
“YOU KICKED IT!”
“YOU BLEW IT UP!”
“YES, BUT-!”
The ball fell, landing next to the red-head and suddenly ending the argument. They looked up automatically. Moore had made her move, dipped her toe. While the pair had fought she’d gone to help them out. She’d struggled up the trunk of their tree and scaled the branches to the beach ball.
“Hey,” the redhead said, slightly shocked. “Thanks,”
“Welcome,” Moore replied, slowly moving down the branches. The redhead turned to the blonde and slapped her on the arm again, and flicked her eyes up to the girl.
“I was just about to!” she snapped and then turned her head back up to Moore. “Yeah, thanks a bunch,”
A nod.
“Y’ know, you look kind of familiar,” the redhead said as Moore joined them on the grass.
“Where do you go to school?” the blonde asked, head slightly cocked.
“Hartmend,” was the nearly whispered reply.
“That’s where we go,”
A frown.
“Really?”
“Yeah we’ve got Carter for homeroom, you?”
There was a brief silence. Moore stared at them slightly stunned.
“I’ve got him too,”
“Huh,”
“Yeah,”
“Well I’m Cass Collins,” said the redhead, thrusting out her hand. They shook. Moore didn’t really know many people that shook hands when meeting someone new. It was nice though. Cass’s hand was warm, tough and calloused.
“Leah Briggs,” offered the blonde with a smile and a wave.
“Moore Ann,” was sent with a poor attempt at a smile.
“Your last name’s Ann?”
“…Yes?”
“Huh,” Cass said after a moment’s consideration. “Hey, you mind showing me how you got up the trunk; those branches must be at least ten feet up,”
Another nod.
And that’s how it was. That’s how it began. Moore found a crack, and made her way in. Leah and Cass fitted her into everything. It came to a point when they could bring up things that had happened years before Moore had met them and say:
“Hey Moore, remember when Briggs was eight and only slightly more stupid than she is now and she tripped over that pebble,”
“Yeah,” she would reply with a laugh. “And she slipped trying to get back up and knocked you over too,”
“Yeah! You were evil back then Briggs; I know you did it on purpose. I know.”
Of course Moore hadn’t actually been there, but Leah and Cass had made sure to tell her everything she had missed. Almost as if they’d been waiting for her to come back from the bathroom during a movie. They painted her carefully into every moment, and she and knew them so well that she almost felt like she really had been there. She fit into their lives like she was a piece of the puzzle they hadn’t known was missing.
So that’s how I end up telling you about Cass waiting in the tree, which she never would have been able to do if she hadn’t met Moore a year ago. That’s how we come back to Moore, running through the trees to meet her friends. That’s how we begin.
Who am I?
I assume you might be wondering at this point or maybe not.
Well, either way, I’m not important, trust me. You don’t need to know who I am. I’m just someone like Moore, I’m watching. I watch the world go by and only occasionally put myself into it. I saw this. I saw the trees, I felt the heat and I smiled. It’s not mine. This story will never be mine. Its there’s. I’m only telling it you.
Thanks.
So Moore is running. She’s not good at it; her feet aren’t sure and steady. Her legs burn, the air goes out faster than it comes in, and her arms flail awkwardly, unsure of what to do. But she likes it, she can’t go for very long and it leaves her gasping. She just likes it. Moore is like her brother in some ways. She’s simple too. Everything is straightforward and direct with her.
“You’re late.” Cass said, eyes narrowing.
“Sorry, Aar had to stop at the pharmacy. Took forever.” They both continued to stare at her, expressions fixed.
“Well you made this idiot over here worried. She thought you had gotten into car accident or something. She was about to have a panic attack,” Leah smirked, nodding her head at a spluttering Cass.
“Shut up, Briggs. You looked close to wetting your pants. And you!” she round on Moore, finger pointed dramatically. ”What do you think you’re doing making us worry like that? You always arrive when you say you will. On the freaking dot, Moore! Last time you were late, and this was only by two minutes I might add, your face looked like it had gone through a damn food processor,”
Moore stood there, looking slightly apprehensive.
“So,” Leah huffed looking very pointedly at Cass.
“So.” agreed Cass.
Moore was running again, soaking wet this time, a huge smile smeared across her face. Leah and Cass were behind her, gaining, clutching waters guns to their chests.
You have to love summer, you just have to. And those three do. They make the most of it and treat it with a strange respect. It isn’t simply because school is out and they can do whatever they please. No, it’s deeper than that. Summer is the sun, running through the trees, the warm smell in the air, blistering heat, and small moments of something. Something none of them can quite explain. Just a beat of near perfection in their small world; illuminated by the glow of the sun and filled with the soft echo of laughter. But these words would never be enough to describe the feeling that wells up in them. It’s raw, throbbing, and alive. It means something more than them, something right.
“Now what?” Leah asked as the three of them sat up against a large boulder.
“Don’t even start,” Cass mumbled, closing her eyes and turning her face up towards the sun. “I just want to sleep,”
“Yeah,” Moore sighed, stretching her limbs. “Sleep, sleep sounds nice,”
“What? Right here?!”
Leah really should have some sort of prize for indignation; it’s practically a talent when it comes to her.
“No. Not right here. Can you grow a brain before you open your mouth again? It would make communicating with you so much easier,” Cass replied with a contented smirk.
“Cass.” That was Moore, slightly irritated, voice hoarse from all the running.
“Mmm,”
“Leave her alone, it was an honest question. I mean, you could misinterpret that.”
“Yeah okay, she just gets on my nerves. Why did you invite her anyways?”
“You did…”
“Right.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”
Seriously, any type of award. I’ve never met anyone else who can embody indignation like that; give it a face.
Nobody responds. This is typical of them. They’re not the kind of people who need to be constantly talking to each other. They can communicate on an almost telepathic level, or at least it looks that way from the outside.
In reality Cass, Leah and Moore all know one another so well that they can have a silent conversation involving only hand gestures and facial expressions. It didn’t seem to matter that Moore had only known Leah and Cass for a year. It took her a while, that type of communication isn’t easy, it’s not something you just pick up the first time round, or even tenth. There were several small accidents in which things got misunderstood and all three of them had to spend the first day of Christmas break wandering around in rain that seemed to burn their skin, looking for a dog.
Don’t ask. You’ll probably find out anyways. Cass loves to reminisce; even about things that happened an hour ago. But Moore got it eventually, sometimes it still takes her a few minutes to translate, but she can generally keep up with the basic idea behind the conversation. She can even catch Cass and Leah insulting each other that way, which can be far more subtle. I think sometimes they don’t even realize that they’re doing it, it’s almost like a reflex.
“Today was a good day,” it was Leah who finally broke the silence, voice calm.
“Yeah,” Moore and Cass agreed as they watch the sun melt behind the trees.
“What do we do tomorrow?” Leah asked.
“We run, we feel the wind, we laugh, we scramble up trees, and wash are bare feet in the grass.”
Moore. She makes me smile, she really does. She makes Leah and Cass smile too, perhaps for a different reason.
“Yeah, that and we’ll have to try to find Briggs’s precious purple hair clip,”
“Seriously Moore, you make it sound so idealistic. We’ll probably spend more than half the day trying to explain why we let a filthy pig like Collins follow us around,”
“Really Moore, quit with the fancy speaking. It really doesn’t apply here and it makes it harder for Briggs to keep up. I don’t want to spend the next hour explaining to her what you were saying,”
“That’s just how it looks to me. It’s just how I see it,” Moore said sheepishly, folding her arms in a seemingly injured way.
“Ugh,” Cass groaned ripping her eyes from the sky to frown at Moore. “That’s why we love you kid,” Moore was only five months younger than her but that didn’t really matter. Cass calls people many years older than her kid. “We love what goes on in that head of yours. You just have to realize that were not the type of people who start drooling over frilly little sentences like that. They don’t appeal to us, we don’t enjoy them. But what we do like is that you don’t do it on purpose, you do it because that’s just how you think. I think it would probably be impossible for you to talk normally about stuff that means a lot to you,” Cass ends it with a grin, a ruffling of Moore’s hair and a whack for Leah.
“Ouch! I was just about-.” Another whap, dealt with considerably more force. “Jeez! Fine! Listen to Collins, Moore. This is probably a historic moment or something, but she is right. This time.” Then a tad more seriously. “You’re our best friend. Always have been, always will be. Get it?’
“Got it,” Moore mumbled, taken aback.
“Good,” Cass grinned.
The sun disappeared entirely, flashlights were pulled out of bags, voices trailed from collection of boulders, night settled, and the world kept turning. It doesn’t stop, doesn’t pay attention to moments like that. No one ever does. They are always a supplement, an addition to a longer story. But they are my favorites; the quiet scenes between Plot Point ‘A’ and ‘B’. I only wanted to give them the spotlight.
If only for a moment.
Prologue
It was hot, which was nothing new. Heat is a constant around these parts. You can’t escape it, not with an industrial air-conditioner or a pool filled with ice. So tough it out, bring lots of water and come with me. I’ve got something to show you. Something small.
Here’s the forest, the towering trees, the crooked branches, the leaves and the last merciful scrap of shade. Here is the memory of the girls, etched into earth. They were waiting. It was summer.
“I’m bored,” Leah groaned from her position on the brown, sun-baked grass.
“Tell me something I don’t know. You’ve been going on and on about how bored you are for the past twenty minutes,” Cass glared down from her perch in the branches.
“Well nothings changed!” Leah’s arms flew into the air indignantly.
“I was the one who suggested the creek. But, oh no, Little Miss Priss, doesn’t want to do anything that could get a bit dirt underneath her nails,”
“You wanna’ go Collins!” Leah demanded scrambling to her feet, teeth gritted.
“Do you? I might mess up your pretty little face. And what a tragedy that would be?” the words leaked so much sarcasm that it seemed to drip on Leah.
“Oh yeah-!”
Another constant, other than the heat, is Leah and Cass bickering. And you can’t escape that either. It is inevitable. Stick them together for longer than half an hour without someone else and they’ll throw words at each other like knives.
It ended with a simple statement.
“Well then, where the hell is she?” the words fall in-between the two girls, and hang there in the air. Cass’s face deflates and the red is washed from Leah’s.
“She said she was going to be late,” Leah added to the silence meekly.
“Yeah. But when has she ever been this late. Moore is always griping about punctuality,” Cass said, swinging down from her branch to frown around the small clearing.
The Moore in question sat in the cramped back seat of the car; head slightly leaned up against the window. She watched the people in the other cars talk, laugh, and sit in silence driving towards the jagged horizon. This wasn’t uncommon. Her home was only used as a place to sleep and take the occasional shower. Her older brother is always antsy. He always wants to be on the move. Even then, as he pushed the speed limit, his fingers were drumming on the steering wheel. That’s Aaron, he likes things simple. He is simple. And not in a stupid sort of way, he is quite intelligent actually, if you take the time to get to know him. He’s just one of those people that wears his heart on his sleeve and speaks his mind. He can’t stand to be still. If he is still, then he might as well be moving backwards.
Moore wondered. She does that a lot. She wonders what other peoples lives are like, what their silent conversations are about, where they’re going and what they’re going to do when they get there.
She could sit like that the whole day, cheek against the window; watching the world whirl by in a series of stop-lights and highways. She’d been born for it. But sometimes she likes to dip a toe into the actual water of the world.
The first time she’d done that was when she’d met Leah and Cass. They had been friends since kindergarten. Although she’d had to change her definition of friends after meeting them.
They are loud and annoy the hell out of each other.
They barely have anything in common.
They are at each other’s throats every other second, a fist full of insults in both hands.
But God help you if you ever say anything remotely rude about the other. Then, they will be on top of you, pummeling your face into the ground with knuckles, elbows and whatever else happens to be at hand.
“Shut up! She is my friend, which means you never talk about her like that again. Ever!” one of them will growl into your face, and then you leave you there; bloody and mangled on the ground with her fists ringing in your ears.
Twenty minutes later, they will be shouting at each other.
“How the hell do you think I got a black eye? Standing up for you, you piece trash! You’re down right pathetic, y’ know that?”
“Shut up! You’re so fat I bet you couldn’t even land a proper punch!”
That is a thank you for those two.
Moore shook her head, a grin creeping up around the corners of her mouth, as her thoughts turned to those two. They had accepted her into their little knot of unstable friendship instantly. Pulling her in and holding her close. She didn’t think she would ever be able to escape it, and that was just fine with her.
The car turned, leaving the others behind and replacing them with trees.
“See you in a few hours or so,” Aaron said quietly as she pulled herself out of the car.
“Yeah, thanks,”
The door closed and the car pulled away, disappearing down the road. She watched it go before turning and dashing into the trees. She likes running in forests, anywhere else and she won’t go above a light jog. Yet, in the forest she feels alive, at home and all that other nonsense. Nonsense. That’s how she sees it. It‘s silly and stupid, but that’s how it feels for her and that’s just how it is.
So, she ran, sneakered feet pressing into the dirt and leaves, propelling her forward, around the trees and over the little strips of water that passed for creaks. Besides, she was late, and she had to make sure that Cass and Leah hadn’t killed each other yet.
A chuckle.
Leah and Cass.
It doesn’t make sense, and then it does. You might have thought they were the type that had started out as childhood friends and then grown apart over the years. Only staying together and defending each other out of fond memories. But that isn’t it. No. Apparently they’ve been like this since day one. Prepared to die for the other, and at the same time kill each other.
They’d only had each other. Most people assume they’re are crazy and come to think of it, perhaps they are. But Leah and Cass are nice, honest people, who put friendship and its bond before everything else.
For ten years it had just been them. A little gang of two. They were happy with that, and probably would have stayed like that if hadn’t been for Moore.
Funny how you can go to the same school as someone for ten years, even share some of the same teachers and classes and never once notice them. For all those years Moore was always in the background of Cass and Leah, not noticing and not being noticed. It was only recently when Moore had forced herself out of her little bubble and tried to become a participant in the world she’d been watching silently for so many years.
It had been a small act really. Something to do with a beach ball, and climbing a tree. That’s all it had taken. She could remember it fairly well, the moment was preserved.
She’d been sitting in a park, holding a book in her hand, but secretly watching the people. Wondering about them and trying to imagine their lives.
She watched the strange pair. One medium height, tan skin and short limbs. She walked like she was fighting the ground and had to push it down with each step. Her hair was messy, chopped short, straight and almost seemed to burn in the light. The other one was a bit taller, awkwardly proportioned and slim. Her hair was bleached nearly see-through, and pulled back into a high bun. They walked; they talked, argued, screamed, laughed and tossed a yellow and blue beach ball back and forth as the sun slipped over the horizon. The red headed one was constantly whacking the blonde with the back of her hand on the arm and the blonde would flick her in the forehead in return.
They looked like they were having fun. Even when they shouted obscenities at each other you could tell they were both having a good time.
Things started moving when, in a fit of anger; the red headed one kicked the beach ball hard and it sailed through the air to land in a tree only a few feet away from Moore.
“Now look what you’ve done!” the blonde snarled stalking over to the tree and glaring at the beach ball wedged in-between two branches.
“What I’ve done? This is your fault Briggs! You put too much air in the damn thing,”
“It was your foot!”
“It was your lungs!”
“What the hell do you mean my lungs?”
“God, you’re so stupid! Your lungs, you idiot! Where do you think that damn air came from?”
“YOU KICKED IT!”
“YOU BLEW IT UP!”
“YES, BUT-!”
The ball fell, landing next to the red-head and suddenly ending the argument. They looked up automatically. Moore had made her move, dipped her toe. While the pair had fought she’d gone to help them out. She’d struggled up the trunk of their tree and scaled the branches to the beach ball.
“Hey,” the redhead said, slightly shocked. “Thanks,”
“Welcome,” Moore replied, slowly moving down the branches. The redhead turned to the blonde and slapped her on the arm again, and flicked her eyes up to the girl.
“I was just about to!” she snapped and then turned her head back up to Moore. “Yeah, thanks a bunch,”
A nod.
“Y’ know, you look kind of familiar,” the redhead said as Moore joined them on the grass.
“Where do you go to school?” the blonde asked, head slightly cocked.
“Hartmend,” was the nearly whispered reply.
“That’s where we go,”
A frown.
“Really?”
“Yeah we’ve got Carter for homeroom, you?”
There was a brief silence. Moore stared at them slightly stunned.
“I’ve got him too,”
“Huh,”
“Yeah,”
“Well I’m Cass Collins,” said the redhead, thrusting out her hand. They shook. Moore didn’t really know many people that shook hands when meeting someone new. It was nice though. Cass’s hand was warm, tough and calloused.
“Leah Briggs,” offered the blonde with a smile and a wave.
“Moore Ann,” was sent with a poor attempt at a smile.
“Your last name’s Ann?”
“…Yes?”
“Huh,” Cass said after a moment’s consideration. “Hey, you mind showing me how you got up the trunk; those branches must be at least ten feet up,”
Another nod.
And that’s how it was. That’s how it began. Moore found a crack, and made her way in. Leah and Cass fitted her into everything. It came to a point when they could bring up things that had happened years before Moore had met them and say:
“Hey Moore, remember when Briggs was eight and only slightly more stupid than she is now and she tripped over that pebble,”
“Yeah,” she would reply with a laugh. “And she slipped trying to get back up and knocked you over too,”
“Yeah! You were evil back then Briggs; I know you did it on purpose. I know.”
Of course Moore hadn’t actually been there, but Leah and Cass had made sure to tell her everything she had missed. Almost as if they’d been waiting for her to come back from the bathroom during a movie. They painted her carefully into every moment, and she and knew them so well that she almost felt like she really had been there. She fit into their lives like she was a piece of the puzzle they hadn’t known was missing.
So that’s how I end up telling you about Cass waiting in the tree, which she never would have been able to do if she hadn’t met Moore a year ago. That’s how we come back to Moore, running through the trees to meet her friends. That’s how we begin.
Who am I?
I assume you might be wondering at this point or maybe not.
Well, either way, I’m not important, trust me. You don’t need to know who I am. I’m just someone like Moore, I’m watching. I watch the world go by and only occasionally put myself into it. I saw this. I saw the trees, I felt the heat and I smiled. It’s not mine. This story will never be mine. Its there’s. I’m only telling it you.
Thanks.
So Moore is running. She’s not good at it; her feet aren’t sure and steady. Her legs burn, the air goes out faster than it comes in, and her arms flail awkwardly, unsure of what to do. But she likes it, she can’t go for very long and it leaves her gasping. She just likes it. Moore is like her brother in some ways. She’s simple too. Everything is straightforward and direct with her.
“You’re late.” Cass said, eyes narrowing.
“Sorry, Aar had to stop at the pharmacy. Took forever.” They both continued to stare at her, expressions fixed.
“Well you made this idiot over here worried. She thought you had gotten into car accident or something. She was about to have a panic attack,” Leah smirked, nodding her head at a spluttering Cass.
“Shut up, Briggs. You looked close to wetting your pants. And you!” she round on Moore, finger pointed dramatically. ”What do you think you’re doing making us worry like that? You always arrive when you say you will. On the freaking dot, Moore! Last time you were late, and this was only by two minutes I might add, your face looked like it had gone through a damn food processor,”
Moore stood there, looking slightly apprehensive.
“So,” Leah huffed looking very pointedly at Cass.
“So.” agreed Cass.
Moore was running again, soaking wet this time, a huge smile smeared across her face. Leah and Cass were behind her, gaining, clutching waters guns to their chests.
You have to love summer, you just have to. And those three do. They make the most of it and treat it with a strange respect. It isn’t simply because school is out and they can do whatever they please. No, it’s deeper than that. Summer is the sun, running through the trees, the warm smell in the air, blistering heat, and small moments of something. Something none of them can quite explain. Just a beat of near perfection in their small world; illuminated by the glow of the sun and filled with the soft echo of laughter. But these words would never be enough to describe the feeling that wells up in them. It’s raw, throbbing, and alive. It means something more than them, something right.
“Now what?” Leah asked as the three of them sat up against a large boulder.
“Don’t even start,” Cass mumbled, closing her eyes and turning her face up towards the sun. “I just want to sleep,”
“Yeah,” Moore sighed, stretching her limbs. “Sleep, sleep sounds nice,”
“What? Right here?!”
Leah really should have some sort of prize for indignation; it’s practically a talent when it comes to her.
“No. Not right here. Can you grow a brain before you open your mouth again? It would make communicating with you so much easier,” Cass replied with a contented smirk.
“Cass.” That was Moore, slightly irritated, voice hoarse from all the running.
“Mmm,”
“Leave her alone, it was an honest question. I mean, you could misinterpret that.”
“Yeah okay, she just gets on my nerves. Why did you invite her anyways?”
“You did…”
“Right.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”
Seriously, any type of award. I’ve never met anyone else who can embody indignation like that; give it a face.
Nobody responds. This is typical of them. They’re not the kind of people who need to be constantly talking to each other. They can communicate on an almost telepathic level, or at least it looks that way from the outside.
In reality Cass, Leah and Moore all know one another so well that they can have a silent conversation involving only hand gestures and facial expressions. It didn’t seem to matter that Moore had only known Leah and Cass for a year. It took her a while, that type of communication isn’t easy, it’s not something you just pick up the first time round, or even tenth. There were several small accidents in which things got misunderstood and all three of them had to spend the first day of Christmas break wandering around in rain that seemed to burn their skin, looking for a dog.
Don’t ask. You’ll probably find out anyways. Cass loves to reminisce; even about things that happened an hour ago. But Moore got it eventually, sometimes it still takes her a few minutes to translate, but she can generally keep up with the basic idea behind the conversation. She can even catch Cass and Leah insulting each other that way, which can be far more subtle. I think sometimes they don’t even realize that they’re doing it, it’s almost like a reflex.
“Today was a good day,” it was Leah who finally broke the silence, voice calm.
“Yeah,” Moore and Cass agreed as they watch the sun melt behind the trees.
“What do we do tomorrow?” Leah asked.
“We run, we feel the wind, we laugh, we scramble up trees, and wash are bare feet in the grass.”
Moore. She makes me smile, she really does. She makes Leah and Cass smile too, perhaps for a different reason.
“Yeah, that and we’ll have to try to find Briggs’s precious purple hair clip,”
“Seriously Moore, you make it sound so idealistic. We’ll probably spend more than half the day trying to explain why we let a filthy pig like Collins follow us around,”
“Really Moore, quit with the fancy speaking. It really doesn’t apply here and it makes it harder for Briggs to keep up. I don’t want to spend the next hour explaining to her what you were saying,”
“That’s just how it looks to me. It’s just how I see it,” Moore said sheepishly, folding her arms in a seemingly injured way.
“Ugh,” Cass groaned ripping her eyes from the sky to frown at Moore. “That’s why we love you kid,” Moore was only five months younger than her but that didn’t really matter. Cass calls people many years older than her kid. “We love what goes on in that head of yours. You just have to realize that were not the type of people who start drooling over frilly little sentences like that. They don’t appeal to us, we don’t enjoy them. But what we do like is that you don’t do it on purpose, you do it because that’s just how you think. I think it would probably be impossible for you to talk normally about stuff that means a lot to you,” Cass ends it with a grin, a ruffling of Moore’s hair and a whack for Leah.
“Ouch! I was just about-.” Another whap, dealt with considerably more force. “Jeez! Fine! Listen to Collins, Moore. This is probably a historic moment or something, but she is right. This time.” Then a tad more seriously. “You’re our best friend. Always have been, always will be. Get it?’
“Got it,” Moore mumbled, taken aback.
“Good,” Cass grinned.
The sun disappeared entirely, flashlights were pulled out of bags, voices trailed from collection of boulders, night settled, and the world kept turning. It doesn’t stop, doesn’t pay attention to moments like that. No one ever does. They are always a supplement, an addition to a longer story. But they are my favorites; the quiet scenes between Plot Point ‘A’ and ‘B’. I only wanted to give them the spotlight.
If only for a moment.
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