Participants:
| Scene Title | Naive Little Girl |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Delia comes clean on where she's been living and though he doesn't have the right, Nick gets angry anyway. |
| Date | April 2, 2011 |
Staten Island — Random McDonald's
8:23am I'm fine, why what's going on?
The answer to the text comes a few days too late, she hasn't actually checked the messages in a while. Mostly due to lack of need. Then again, the last time she actually talked to him wasn't very productive and she ran away. Both of these factors contribute to the message that springs up less than a minute after the first.
8:24am Are you busy or do you want to grab something to eat? I can pay for dollar menu at McD's
It's the least she can do, he did buy her a lovely birthday meal and support her for a few weeks.
Maybe an hour later than that finds Delia dressed in jeans, a few layers of t-shirt, boots clomping down the street toward one of the few fast food places on Staten Island. He didn't pick the place, she did. Tugging the long cardigan sweater around her thin frame, she stares into the window before actually taking a step inside. He's not fond of McDonald's but she is, she likes the cheeseburgers.
He steps in a few moments after her, moving to the booth she sits at and sliding in across from her. Small cuts and scrapes mar one side of his face; his left arm is bound in a black fiberglass cast.
"Hey," he says quietly, squinting across her to the line at the counter — not because he's curious as to what the place offers, as they're all the same, but it's easier than looking at her face. The dream was strange and awkward. The last time they saw one another even more awkward.
"I thought you were north," he finally says.
"No," she says in a low tone, looking down at the table between them rather than up at him. Her eyes drift toward the cast and she fixes her eyes there for a moment. "I live in Eltingville," she answers, assuming he's heard of the ghetto. The fact that she's outside of it rather than stuck on the inside bodes well for her situation, it means she's not arrested, presumably.
Finally, she looks up at him, tilting her head to try to catch his eye as her lips stretch a little into a worried grimace. "You don't do a very good job of taking care of yourself, you know that?" Her tone implies that she's calling him a liar for telling her that he's alright. Though whatever happened to him could have been between the dream and now, still.
Nick's black brows dip and he shakes his head in confusion or disagreement or both. "Eltingville," he echoes, and he shakes his head again. "Did someone catch you running those supplies, or…" he asks in a low voice, looking angry as he considers the possiblities. "Look, you can come with me, we'll set you up somewhere. What happened?"
The worry and implicating tone in her voice is ignored; he's not worried about himself, after all, so that subject is simply not important at the moment.
"No, I'm not going with you Nick." There's apology in Delia's tone and she reaches out to take his mobile hand with both of hers. Her eyelashes hide the crescent shaped slivers of blue still left open and though her face doesn't have any rosy color of shame, her ears are quite a different color than the rest of her face. "I made a deal, I took the favor that my dad owed Mister Logan."
She stops, long enough to let him yell or whatever it is he's wanting to do. She doesn't let loose his hand, preferring to clasp onto it tightly, perhaps too much so. Slowly, her eyes open wide and round and instead of recoiling in fear or hunching down in shame, she gazes at him with a worried expression.
Nick glances down at their joined hands while she speaks, until the words deal, favor and Logan have his blue gaze jumping up to her face. His jaw twitches and he shakes his head, confusion furrowing his brow.
There's no anger yet — just a lack of understanding, something he grasps for, and comes up short.
"'Favor,'" he repeats, swallowing. "What deal did you make?" Does he want to know? "Where are you staying?"
"I'm going to use my ability to help him," Delia says in a low tone. Her eyes flit to the people around them, perhaps making sure no one else heard her use that word. After a few seconds, they find his face again and her eyebrows form a small vee in the middle.
"It's noth— nothing more than that," she stammers, trying to explain while clinging to his hand as though it's a lifeline. "I have my own room, there's two more people living there too. A Russian brother and sister." Spoken as though they're chaperones of sorts. "I have friends close by, Sable and Brian… I think Delilah's there too with her baby."
The anger still doesn't come. Instead, hurt pulls the features of his face and his eyes slide away, watching a child at the soda fountain overfill his cup, the mother scolding him for it. He swallows and shakes his head, finally looking back at her.
"Help him how? What's he asking you to do, who's he asking you to spy on? It's dangerous, Delia." His hand twitches in hers but remains, the other moving up to push back his hair in the nervous tic of his.
"To help him sleep," she says, her eyes dropping to the hand she has clasped in between both of her own. A problem as simple as insomnia could be settled with drugs, Delia could be considered the more holistic route. The nature of the dreams are left unmentioned as is the nature of her host. "I'm not spying on anyone, he hasn't asked me to do anything like that yet."
A small twitch of her lips offers a ghost of a smile down to the hand she holds, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm registered for real now, I have a passport and everything. I'm going to try to get back into school if I can, maybe get some of my life back before everything went wrong." Something her brother wanted her to do anyway. "I'm being really careful, only talking to people when I'm with them or in a dream. Just in case there's someone listening… I don't text so much anymore or use cellphones."
A flicker in the eyes, a twitch of the jaw… telltale signs of emotion that bubble to the surface and that he shoves down as quickly as they show. Nick pulls his hand out of hers and leans back. "Yet," he echoes. Her word — not his.
After a sigh of resignation, his jaw clenches and he slides out of the booth. "Good luck," he manages before turning away and toward the door, head slightly bowed and long legs striding to lengthen the distance between them.
Delia's hands curl into fists with the sudden lack of Nick to keep them occupied. With his first stride, she lowers her head. The second, she hiccups back a show of emotion only to let a shaky breath out. The third, her eyelids slide over blue irises that feel so hot they could burn right through. By the time he reaches the door, she's spinning in the booth and knocking against it hard enough to spill the forgotten beverage that's left to grow cold.
Her knee hurts, bad enough that she has to bite down on her lower lip to keep from making a sound. Sliding out of the booth, she limps after him. "Wait— wait." It's a request more than an order, closer to a plea. Following him out onto the sidewalk, she stares at him before speaking. "I can't let him do anything to my dad. He almost died, again. It's my dad."
Nick stops, his back to her for a few moments before turning to regard her. "'S fine. I don't have a right to tell you what t'do or not t'do, do I," he says, the words not a question but a statement. "Your da would be fine. Logan wouldn't be able to take advantage of him like he can of you. Your father's a good man, but he ain't as trusting as you are."
He swallows and looks away. "Or as willing to forgive."
He steps back again, his motorcycle a few feet away at the curb. "Who'm I to talk, anyway? It's hypocritical of me to say for you not to stay with him, not to be friends with him. He's no worse'n I am. Might even be better in the grand scheme of things." There's a rawness to his voice as Nick moves further away, frenetic angry energy in every motion he makes. He pulls the helmet from the bike and pulls it over his head, then boots the kickstand up and swings his leg over the seat.
"No," Delia agrees, feet frozen in place as though stuck in blocks of cement. Her arms cross over her body, overlapping the long grey cardigan over her thin frame. A frame that's still growing out to fill in her loose jeans. "You don't have the right but I gave it to you anyway." A painful swallow to match his tone follows and she takes a few steps toward the bike.
"I didn't want what happened to you to happen to my dad," she explains further, taking one more step. "I can do this, he can't… He can't hurt me like he did to you or Abby. He— I can protect myself, I'm pretty sure he knows what I can do."
"Your da ain't a teenage boy or naive little girl, Delia. And while you ain't the first, you're still the second," Nick spits out. "Go ahead and keep telling yourself it's for all those pretty reasons, and not because you want to be near him. Maybe one day you'll believe it."
The engine is started and he raises his voice to shout over it before snapping the visor shut, "I won't."
The bike is reversed awkwardly before he pulls away, picking up speed until he's going much too fast, to disappear around the curve of the road.