✓ | 𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 ; joseph quinn

chapter nineteen

NINETEEN

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"So how you doin?" Finn was still standing in doorway of her house, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back and forth on his feet, awkwardly waiting for the girl to acknowledge him. "And are you gonna let me in or make me stand here?"

"Oh. Yeah. C'mon in." She said as she stepped out of the way to let her young friend in.

Finn allowed himself to step inside her huge home that would barely fit in the big city of Toronto. "Jesus. I don't know how you live in this. This house is huge and then the neighbourhood is also so..." Finn spread out his arms to show his older friend how much space he had in her home.

"It's actually the only property I actually own. Every other one in America is owned by agency. I needed someplace that was less in the city, and more..." Joni gestures towards the view she outside her window, which was just overlooking a bunch of bushes. "You know, less open?"

"No, yeah. I totally get it." said Finn, flopping his butt on the sofa as he tossed his bag beside him. "I just don't understand why you didn't tell me sooner."

"About what? Where I lived?" Joni raised her brows at the kid in front of her, watching him attempt to bounce as he sat on the stiff couch.

"No, I mean, your hiatus." He said, affirmatively.

Joni let out a breath that almost sounded like scoff, but was her immediate reaction of surprise that that's how Finn decided to segway into this conversation. "Wow, great starter. Nice to see you too, kid."

"No, no. Like I'm being so dead serious right now." He said, defensively.

"Yeah, I bet you are."

"I just wanna know."

"You wanna know?"

"Yeah, of course I wanna know."

"Well, I don't even know myself if I'm being honest with you." Joni shrugged, partially lying to Finn and herself.

"You don't know why you went on hiatus?" Finn raised an eyebrow at his friend, not believing her.

Joni shrugged again before nodding her head in confirmation.

"So you just decided to 'go on hiatus' without thinking it through?" Finn did his finger quotations around his phrases as Joni just stood there, thinking about what to say, but she had no idea how to respond.

"I-I don't know." She said. "I mean, yeah, I took the decision in three days but it was all I could do then."

"Do you regret it?" He asked.

"No." She stated, affirmatively. Joni knew it was the one thing she could answer. She didn't feel like she regretted taking the break but the last two weeks, she started to question why.

Finn got up from his seat on the couch and make his way to the kitchen area, where he scouted for snacks. "Dude, what do you have here? I'm starving."

Joni gave him a 'Seriously?' kinda of look as the boy just mindlessly walked away from their deep conversation but couldn't help other to answer his question. "Uh, I have pre-made sandwiches in the fridge. They're kinda for me but you can have one of you want. I got a lotta fruit snacks, but if you want real fruit, there are bananas that are just sitting there, waiting."