Private Finished Checking In

Since his visit back home, a whole lot of nothing happened. His cast came off a week ago, the hair dye had almost faded, and his brain was back to being only as damaged as it was when he came to the island. It was a lazy weekend for Rhett, not that he had much of a say in the matter. Most of the day was spent flipping through textbooks and fooling around with 3D modeling software. When Rhett heard the knock on the door, he thought about just ignoring it. Then he remembered how scary his dorm parent was when they were pissed off. Yeah… He was going to check the door.

He peered through the keyhole to see who it was. Without second thought, he opened the door. Rowan had been to Rhett’s house enough times not to be surprised by the questionable state of his room or the fact he was still in pajamas at three in the afternoon.

“ What’s up?” Rhett replied with a stiff smile. Besides occasionally spotting Rowan in the hallways, now being in separate grades meant it had been ages since they’ve actually spoken. Not that Rhett had much of a problem with that. “ I’m actually doing alright, just chilling.”

“ And what about you and Chi?” He sat back down and gestured for Rowan to come in. “ Avram had a date too, can you believe it?”

Hearing about Rowan and Chi together, the one unsurprising thing about the past six months, his smile became more genuine. Rhett raised up a finger and opened his mouth, as if he was about to add to Rowan’s statement about the gang’s love life, then paused. As much as he loathed her guts, Lizzy having a girlfriend seemed to be between just the two of them. He lowered his hand, grabbing a mechanical pencil instead, already beginning to disassemble it.

“ Yeah. I already told you I’m fine. ” Rhett asserted, his grip tightening around the pencil. “ Sorry about ghosting you guys. Wasn’t supposed to use my phone the first couple days after, concussions suuuuck.” He groaned.

“ Whatever did happen, it feels like a weird ass dream. Don’t think about it too hard.” He blankly stared down at the pencil parts then went back to work putting it together again. “ We’re in different grades now, different schedules, I just don’t see you around as much. Are you ok Rowan?”

“ Alright. You got me there.” Rhett chuckled apprehensively, there were only so many ways to sidetrack a conversation. It was pretty clear why Rowan was here. Hearing about Chii was becoming a bit of a shut in came as no surprise either, even if the reason why was unclear. “ Yeah, but isn’t that just a Chii thing? She’s always been kind of quiet.” He shrugged and set down the reassembled pencil.

“ I stay in my room because there’s not much else to do. That’s all.” He pressed his lips then pointed at his legs.

“ I mean, if it’s eldritch stuff you're after, any kind of intel, most of what happened is pretty irrelevant.” It was hard, looking Rowan straight in the eyes, but not impossible when the majority of his face was bandaged, just tricky to get a read on him. “ I’ve already spoken about the funeral a little with someone else.” He glanced down. After two months, most of it was out of his system.

“ Dude, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“ No shit.” He mumbled back, curling up his fist. Rowan meant well, obviously, but hearing the same consolation over and over again just from different mouths was tiring. “ Alright, so maybe I was exaggerating. You know I’ve done two out of the three, right? Space con was actually great.”

“ Anyways.” Rhett exhaled then tilted his head back. “ The whole magic island deal is cool, and yeah, there’s probably fun things to do around here, but that doesn’t change the fact I’m still a cripple.”

“ If you’re dying to know the truth, I’m physically limited in what I can do, Rowan. It makes for some pretty boring weekends.” Rhett looked at Rowan with narrowed eyes and curled lips. “ And going to the funeral triggered something? It made me realize how fucked everything that happened was and how fucked I still am, which I kind of figured anyways, but now my brain’s flipping out. There’s a fancy term out there my therapist uses and I’m pretty sure we all have some form of it.” He rambled, each word spat out faster than the one before.

“ I can't be the only one getting nightmares. ”

Rhett realized he was ranting to a guy whose entire family burnt down and hung his head. He nodded along as Rowan spoke. It was easy to lose perspective. They all had nightmares, even Lizzy. The only difference was that Rhett began getting them months later. That might have been a blessing in itself.

“ Sure. I’m free tonight.” Well, he was always free. Out of everyone, he expected Rowan to be the least excited about power training so it was strange he brought it up, but Rhett was bored out of his mind and honestly just missed spending time with an old friend. Now was probably not the time for him to bring up the fact how he hospitalized a guy with his own. “ But we’d have to do it away from the city for sure, got anywhere in mind?”