#(levi.)

Stevie’s eyes narrowed as she watched her mother get into a car with Riley and some of his family. They stayed narrowed even as her mother gave her a look that said ‘do it’ and the car drove away, back to the Crowe family home. The Crowe siblings had kept their fight and subsequent freeze-out mostly to themselves-- only Riley and Blake had really been privy to details from either one of them. And yet Camila Crowe had caught onto the subzero tension between her two children, and had all but demanded that Stevie be the one to get to ‘fixing whatever’s going on’ before the two of them joined the small family gathering in honor of the fifteenth anniversary of their father’s death. 

She looked down towards the plot where her brother’s dark silhouette stood, a lone figure cut against the setting sun. She’d avoided him most of the service, only nodded at him when they’d both arrived within minutes of each other, instead of together, as was customary. 

With an aggravated sigh, she made her way back down to their father’s modest headstone. For the longest two minutes she’s sure that the world has ever experienced, Stevie only stood there, silent next to Levi, staring down at the lettering carved into the speckled granite. Stevie didn’t look at him as she finally spoke, her voice soft but more reluctant and pained than she wanted to convey, “Well. They’ve left us. So you’ll have to decide if you’re walking back home,” to their mother’s house. “or if my car is suddenly good enough for you again.”