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Maebe's finger hovered over the direct messages button one more time.

She'd been doing this for over an hour now. She picked up her phone, opened twitter back up, and clicked on her direct messages. It was pointless - she got a ping anytime someone sent one. To check was fruitless, but she did it anyway. She clicked the message between her and Otto, in case it wasn't showing up for some reason. And every single time, the only thing she saw was the last thing she'd said to him.

Good talk.

The phone was slammed back onto the bed, and she returned to staring up at the skateboard that hung over her bed on the wall.

It was more than she'd ended up with before, she consoled herself. When she was left behind, usually she was left with nothing. No money, no place to live, and no way to survive. This time, she was left with her same living situation, and a skateboard.

It was a step up for her, she told herself. He would have gotten sick of her eventually, but now, left without the assurance that Otto wanted anything to do with her anymore, at least she had a skateboard.

She didn't skateboard very well.

She took it off of the wall, and put it down on the floor for the first time. All that conversation he'd had with her when she teased him about what she was doing to it had been a lie. She'd sat on it for a minute to take the picture, but then it had gone up on her wall, waiting patiently for him to come yank it back from her. She was so looking forward to him coming down and claiming what was his, in more ways than one. Instead, he taught her a lesson about his priorities, and she learned quickly.

Standing on the skateboard, she balanced herself carefully. There wasn't much room to actually move in, but for the few feet between the bed and the wall, she pushed the skateboard forward, and rode it. She could stay on for a few seconds, which was all she had.

When she got to the wall, she turned it around, got back on, and pushed.

Back and forth, back and forth she went, until she felt confident enough that she wouldn't fall and started going faster. She drove the skateboard towards her bed, lost her balance, and toppled back onto her a**. It rolled slowly under the bed, and disappeared.

And she figured that was what she deserved, for trying to do something she knew she wasn't good at.

She picked herself back up again, brushed her sore a**, and pulled the skateboard out from under the bed. She placed it back on the wall, and crawled back into her bed again. Despite the ease with which her reality was settling into her, she picked up the phone again, and clicked that direct message button. There was some part of her, a part that weakened every time she failed to see a new message, that wouldn't give up. Some part of her that wished she hadn't tried to tease him about his god damned skateboard. Some part of her that wished she didn't believe this was inevitable, and refused to accept that as the truth. It was that part that refused to believe - if it hadn't been this, it would have just been something else.

Something more painful.

Something worth breaking for.

But this, this was just about a skateboard. He gave up on the conversation because she'd threatened to keep his skateboard, and he'd hated her so quickly.

She realized that part of the reason those words had turned her so quickly, were that they weren't the first time he'd uttered them to her, before. He'd hated her once, not so long ago. And he'd gone from hating her, to loving her, so quickly.

She couldn't be surprised that he'd finally turned back.

Was she over-reacting? Maybe he wasn't as mad at her as she thought. Maybe -

She picked up the phone again.

She hit direct message.

She looked at the last message he'd sent.

Whatever.

God, but Cami was going to be so pissed. Would she lose her too? She'd always worried that if she lost one of them, the other would follow. They were so close, they needed each other so much. But she wasn't as scared of losing Cami as she was of losing Otto, at that moment. Cami wouldn't leave her. Cami wouldn't -

When had she started believing so hard in Cami, while simultaneously feeling so sure that Otto was just a heartbeat away from loss? He'd been so scared, that night he stayed with her. So scared that she would leave him, that he walked around on eggshells for her.

He did not seem to be as cautious, anymore. That might have been a good thing, if.

If.

She checked her direct messages again.

i hate u

Maybe that was for the best.