This story is my happy place; I do not plan on ever finishing it. It will go on and on like a soapie. Might break it up into volumes later.
"Grab a bunch of broken misfits, chuck them in a tribe, add some glitter and loads of weird-as garbage, voila...
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I always know where to find Pay when she doesn't want to be found. It's as if I have an invisible radar inside me that can pinpoint her exact location at any given moment. It's been that way since we were kids. We've never even tried to understand it. It is simply a natural part of our lives. Listening to Willow's story, I was able to put two and two together to realise what must have happened. I took off, heading straight for the pavilion.
The huge outdoor entertainment area at the back of the school is off-limits unless the school is having some kind of event. The rafters of the roof structure are the perfect hiding place if you're nimble and motivated enough to get up there. Paisley is nimble and motivated enough. She also doesn't care that it's off-limits or that it's dangerous.
Even if the entertainment area had not been off-limits, few students would use it during breaks anyway. There are plenty more comfortable hang-out spots in the prescribed areas. Even rule breakers have a wide selection of more convenient hiding places for clandestine activities closer to the prescribed areas. The pavilion is therefore always deserted. Most students and teachers tend to forget that it even exists until there's a carnival or some function requiring its use.
I know that Paisley is up there even before I see her sitting in the shadows.
It requires three rather acrobatic steps to be able to join her. My movements are making the entire roof tremble and vibrate noisily. Well, I'm not trying to be stealthy. Paisley isn't surprised to see me navigating the wooden structure to join her on her beam. She's used to the fact that I always find her. She accepts it without questioning it.
She's sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees. I flinch. One wrong move and she'll fall. I don't even want to think about the kind of injuries she could sustain falling from this height. Her recklessness is an old argument between us, I'm not going to bring it up now. She's gazing at me with eyes that are over-bright even in the dusky shadows of the roof structure.
I've seen that look before in similar circumstances. The last time had been four years ago when she'd just started high school. I found her here back then as well. I don't have to ask her what's wrong, I already know. I also don't have to coax her through fake bravery to learn how she's feeling. Paisley never even bothers to try and hide her true feelings from me anymore. It never works anyway.
"Why am I so upset, Ashy? Am I stupid?"
I wedge myself into a corner joint and once I'm sure that my position is nice and steady, I reach out to pull her against my side. I put my arm around her, partly to move her deeper into safety and partly to comfort her. "You're a lot of things, Pay, but stupid is not among them."
One of the things she is is too slight and wispy of build. Whenever I hug her, it feels as if I could break all her bones if I squeezed her a little too hard. Holding Paisley almost always scares me a little. She finds my fear hilarious and will always try to push the limits a little to freak me out. We stay sitting like that for a bit. I'm waiting for her to work out what she's thinking first before I'll share what I know with her.
