WHO: @ellafalling
WHEN: September 2020, 4:36 a.m.
WHERE: Outside Eira's food truck
Kaan hadn't noticed it was raining.
He was lucky he'd even remembered his jacket as he left the pub, slapping down some bills without checking the amount, knowing if he paused for even a second he'd start flipping tables or throwing fists. He could feel the rage building like an itch in his muscles, like static drowning out his racing thoughts, the heat of it warming his skin until he finally realized it was pouring, and by the looks of the rainsoaked empty streets he didn’t recognize, it had been, for some time.
He zipped his coat up after that, but it did nothing to take away the sudden chill.
He walked until his legs were shaking, stumbling through puddles and across cobblestone streets, not sure if he was drunk or hungover. He ought to've been drunk, after all he'd had. He wished he could be. But somewhere amid the cacophony of the too-loud, too-familiar anger, he couldn't shake the laser-focused guilt that'd cut through the haze of the liquor as soon as he got the call. This is all your fault.
And now, as he paced back and forth in front of Eira’s food truck, checking his phone every few seconds as if she might call back and tell him she couldn’t make it, that it was too late or too early, that they weren’t good enough friends for him to have asked this, raindrops and the cracked glass of his shattered screen bent the Manchester number below the one he’d copied from the side of her truck—the one he’d warped with his fist a few months before. He’d had the dent fixed, but it wasn’t the same. He was going to lose it. He was going to lose it. This was all his fault.
So he'd never been more grateful to hear footsteps on the pavement, wheeling to face her, hit with relief but also a sudden emptiness that struck him off-balance now that he didn’t have a task to cling to. Now what the hell was he supposed to do?! “…She's gone," he managed finally. Softly. If he tried to speak any louder he’d start shouting. "...I didn't know who else to call."