#rebooting.

A few hours and several increasingly incoherent texts later, she found herself in the next town over, peering out the driver’s side window at the only bar in town. It was cute, she thought, the way he was propped outside the bar waiting for her. Flanked on either side by one of his equally intoxicated friends, she could see the way his whole body languidly shook along with his laughter. He was loose, relaxed — something she hadn’t seen in him in a while.

Guilt thrummed dully in her chest, wrapping its way around her heart and kissing her ribs. He’d lost so much already. How much longer could she ask him to shoulder her own burden?

Before she could lose herself too deeply in that particular spiral of misery, he noticed her. It was like watching a puppy — she could swear she could see his ears practically perking up as he spotted the familiar pickup. She rolled down the window, unable to hide her grin as she leaned out with an appreciative whistle.

“Hey there, handsome. You come here often?”

The laugh she earned was her favorite: all squinted eyes with his head thrown back like she was the funniest person he knew. His push away from the wall was clumsy, prompting her to kill the ignition and slide down out of the cab. They met in the middle, with a remarkably loose-limbed Casey supported on either side by friends who weren’t far behind him.

“Blind leadin’ the blind?” she mused, automatically slipping up and under one wiry arm to support his weaker side.