tis' the damn season ── KIT CONNOR

chapter one.

chapter one
𝐢𝐟 𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮

∙∙∙∙∙

𝐤𝐢𝐭

Home looked the same.

The same buildings, same people who walked the streets, nothing much had changed in the year Kit was gone. The snow of course was different, he had missed it by the time he left last year. He had received texts letting him know about the first snowfall of the year, the night after he left.

He had gotten used to sitting in the backseats of cars, except his mum wasn't driving him. His dad was trying to make conversation with him, but his heart was racing too hard to focus on what he was saying. Because he knew once he made it home, he would see her.

Lou Sallinger, his next door neighbour since the age of seven, friend since the age of seven and two months and practically the love of his life since he could remember. She was kind to the people who deserved her kindness, rough to the people who didn't, but never mean. She had good morals and wanted to live in a better world, but understood the complexity of world issues much better than Kit ever had. She was exactly the type of person you would want to love, but Kit never had a choice. It had been her and he didn't have a say.

His home also hadn't changed in the year he had been gone, not one bit. Her house had. Lou's house now had a new porch swing and stone path out the front. Her car was in the driveway. 

His older brother greeted him as he came inside, but he was eager to get upstairs. His room was the same, nothing new and nothing different, the way he liked it. Kit never wanted things to change when he left to film projects, he wanted to come home and for everything to feel like he never left. He was arrogant to the change of things and he knew it. He couldn't help it. 

Her curtains were open, but she wasn't there. Years of talking on the phone through their bedroom windows became a cozy familiar. The posters on her bedroom wall were different. So were her bedsheets. He asked himself if he was being creepy, being invasive; but he liked to think if things were reversed, Lou would notice.

"What're you doing?" Ned was leaning against Kit's bedroom door. His older brother always had a way of interrupting him when he wanted to be alone, or be with her. 

"I uh- I was just seeing if Lou was home," He stammered, pulling his suitcase up onto his bed. 

"Wouldn't hold out too much hope," Ned shrugged, about to walk away, "She's probably hanging out with that guy she's with," And he was gone down the hallway.

"What guy?!" Kit stuck his head out and into the hall. 

"He's our new neighbour, lives on the other side of Lou," Kit's mum walked past with a basket of folded laundry. "Seems like a nice boy," She smiled.

"But-" Kit cut himself off and sighed. He leant his head back against the doorframe, eyes shut in regret. With his arms crossed and one foot up against the wall, he turned his head and looked back towards Lou's bedroom. 

Familiar yellow card-stock laid against her window pane. A smile on his face he read what Lou had written, her handwriting all too familiar to Kit. 

𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗲, 𝗸𝗶𝘁