make it better

chapter two

Life was, in the simplest words, complex. As soon as she had coated the earth in a frost that caused the grass to crunch under the black shoes of the boys leaving school everyday, she had stripped it away, the grass was wet and flexible under weight rather than that crunch that had been there only a few days ago. She had a switch somewhere, unknown to man, but that switch could be struck on any day. It was odd, she was odd. A good type of odd, but also one that was so fucking confusing.

"What do you mean she's not talking to you?" Hugo basically screamed as they exited Forest on the second Friday of February. Hugo had a black beanie covering his unorganized black hair, and his hazel eyes were wide as though he couldn't believe what Dan had repeated already three times.

"I already told you, man," Dan breathed out tensely, "She just like started ignoring me like a week ago!" Hugo still remained looking dumbfounded. Dan huffed and pulled out a sliding cell phone. "I mean I don't have enough space to save all the texts, but you can see that the last text she sent me was 6 days ago."

Hugo grabbed the phone and looked at it, loudly clicking buttons and then sighing. He looked up and met Dan's eyes, "Mate, it looks like it was 7 days now."

"Great," Dan took back his phone and rubbed his eyes heavily, "At least Paul's having that party tomorrow, I'm bringing her, since you've never met her I might as well bring her somewhere we know we both'll be at."

"I guess that's fair," Hugo's voice sounded soft.

Dan lifted his hand to rub at the back of his head, and he tugged at the brown hair that had be fried that morning to become straight, he was getting a bit shaggy as his mum would remind his every morning, "Maybe I should go to her house and check on her?"

Hugo shrugged and pulled up the zipper on his jacket.

"I just—I don't know, Hugh!" Dan moves his hand from the back of his head to his eyes where he pressed furiously. "Maybe she wants to be left alone?"

"Don't ask me, Dan," Hugo sighed, clearly frustrated that he couldn't help his friend as much as he could, "But if you're actually that worried, just go and check on her. You very clearly want to go see her, and she is your girlfriend."

"I think I'm gonna go check on her," Dan whipped his hands from his eyes, which were now red from his agitated rubbing. "Thanks, Hugo," Dan slapped him on the back, in a friendly way, rather than the way Tad would slap them. "You're way smarter than I will ever be. I'll keep you updated."

"See you at Paul's," Hugo said before he turned and headed to his dad's car.

Dan sighed and buried his phone deep into his pants pocket, he turned and immediately spotted his mum's car. Dan's mind felt foggier, and was annoyed at himself for not thinking of a solution sooner. Had he messed up things between him and Corinne so bad she was leaving him? He needed to check on her, two years felt like too long to just lose because they couldn't talk. Mum could help him, right? He looked back over to that small car in the shade of a strawberry, mum can help. He took large strides and got to Harry in record time, he piled in and his mum looked him up and down.

"You look like you've just ran a marathon, dear," Dan's mum greeted. Dan sighed rather heavily once more, running his hands up and down his face before pressing his head firmly to the dashboard. Dan's face was red due to the fact it was rather cold and he chose not to wear his jacket, and he was breathing rather heavily from his run from the school's entrance where he and Hugo had talked. Dan's mum didn't start driving like she normally did as soon as he hopped in the red car everyday. She stared at him, before hesitantly lifting a hand to the back of his head and rubbing his scalp a bit. Dan would be lying if he said that the feeling wasn't soothing, and the knowledge that his mum was still there with him made him at least partially relieved. "What's wrong, Dan?"