Her Safe Haven

Chapter 50 - Finale Part I: D.S. al Coda

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Here it is!!! Part 1 of the final 2 chapters!!! Are you as excited as I am?

I hope the Finale won't let you down! Here we go! <3

Previously on Her Safe Haven: The entire drama of everything was currently causing a rift in Winter's friendship group, and the others decided that it was their time to try to fix the situation. Dylan talked to Kai and Riley, Jonah apologised to Helena and asked Rohan to convince Winter to stay in Lakeside because she needed him. Tria talked to Rose, and Rose started talking to Gray again.

That afternoon Winter was playing Mario Kart alone in Jonah's room as she waited for either Jonah to come back home from school or for his mom to come back from his dad's office. And just as she was getting serious to beat her previous record time on this one track, she heard a knock on the door and she sighed.

If she could talk, now would be one of the times she would roll her eyes and yell out: Come in, Jonah, how many times do I have to tell you, you don't need to knock on your own door—

'Seth?'

Now this was unexpected. From looking at the clock it was about the time Jonah should be getting home, so she was fully expecting that it was him. But instead on the door stood her other best friend, the more rational one, looking as tired as always as he yawned but from his eyes she knew he was observing her every move.

He could always play her like a chess, of that she knew, and he sounded almost bored when he said, "What's up, Winter? Haven't seen you in a while. Jonah told me you're here. Can I come in?" but she could hear the concern behind his voice, that testing of water so he could finally tell her what he thought.

He could always play her like a chess, and usually she would be annoyed but this time she didn't mind being a piece in his chess board. Because as much as that brain of his usually annoyed her, he was still her best friend. She had not seen him in a while and she missed him. And she respected his opinion more than ninety-nine percent of the people in her life.

So for this reason she nodded and took out the chess board she knew was under the bed that Jonah never even touched. 'Sure. Wanna play?'

Seth blinked and was confused, because Winter, like everyone else, hated playing chess against him. Because only once out of one hundred time would she win — when she was lucky — or maybe twice, when he let her win. But he nodded and smirked as he sat across from her on the round table in Jonah's room. "Sure. Feeling lucky today?"

'As a matter of fact, yeah, I was close to beating my record time in Mario Kart.'

"That's pretty cool, I haven't played Mario in a while— black or white?"

She wordlessly turned the board so that she was playing white side — another thing that confused Seth, because Winter usually always chose black. The white pieces move first and set the pace of the game, and she usually said she hated taking control like that. She would rather just react.

The game started excitedly, Seth thought, because Winter always refused to use the textbook opening of the King's Opening, instead she had always preferred improvising a lot. She opened her Queen on the first move. Seth could feel his attention drawing on what would definitely be a fascinating game. But he shook his head. He came here for a reason, and whatever Winter was trying to do at this moment wouldn't sway him from his actual motive of being here.

"How have you been?"

'I'm better, and you?'

"I'm okay, as always, just bored and tired. We were really worried when you went missing last week. You could've texted, you know?"