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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 22 2017, 11:03 PM (10 Views) | |
| Lilah Webb | Nov 22 2017, 11:03 PM Post #1 |
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Lilah could admit that she had had a pretty privileged life, all things considered. She could point out that her mother had to try and force her and her brother into a life they had never wanted, pushing them to perform like they were a couple of trained monkeys...but she had meant well. She had wanted to give her and Miles the chances she had never gotten, she had wanted them to be allowed to enjoy the arts in ways most kids were told that they didn't have time for. She could point out that her father was practically nonexistent, that he had left them alone when they were just teenagers in a house all by themselves...but he had loved them. Whenever he had come home from his trips, he had scooped them up and kissed them and laughed with them. It was just they had gotten older and their dad had gotten so into his work; he had left them alone because he had trusted them and known they were taken care of. She could point out that she had almost no friends but....well, that one was a give and take. Miles was technically her friend, but she sometimes felt that didn't count; they were twins, they were like built in friend. They had to like each other? And she had Miles' boyfriend Declan, but he didn't need to see her all the time, he didn't have to interact with her. Everyone else? Apparently there was this bad luck aura around her or maybe Miles had gotten all the charming, good nature friendliness while she had gotten...what had she gotten? She couldn't say intelligence. Maybe medical knowledge? Whatever the case, a whole lot of minor inconveniences didn't erase a lot of privilege. She had grown up with two parents, she had a nice brother, she had gone to a good school and gotten good grades, she had money. If she had really wanted to, she could have stayed with her brother in the house that they had lived in all their lives. All they had to do was pay off utilities. But it had felt awkward for her to be there once Declan came. The two were practically newlyweds, how could she interrupt that? Plus she had been excited to get out on her own, live the life of a medical student and then an intern. <p> Except no one had really explained to her what her bad luck aura was going to do to her. She had tried really hard to connect with the girls she had moved in with. They had just been looking for a roommate, someone who was semi-clean and willing to have her rent in on time. They were all busy individuals, the advertisement had said. Only no one had told Lilah that they had all been <i>friends</i> before. The one roommate had been a friend since childhood of all things and she had just tromped in expecting to replace her. A part of her said that she was pretty sure the other girls hadn't been thinking things through either, they had been expecting an instant fit or maybe they hadn't expected someone to bother them too much. But the thing about Lilah was she never meant to bother people but she did. She had known someone in medical school who said that she was good sort and people liked her...but then she took that liking and she tried to drive it into the ground. Someone had thought she was funny? So that was all she was. Someone said she had good advice? Well clearly, she should provide her opinion when it was needed. If she just relaxed, he had told her, people would like her more. It was so hard, though; she wanted...she wanted the close connections that Miles always seemed to get. He always had friends, he was always so genuine, and good natured and everyone just flocked to that. He may not have known his friends for all that long, but when he talked with them, it was like it had been forever. Look at him and that kid that had come into his coffee shop – they had only known each other for a few months! And they all ready acted like they had been friends for years! She had honestly thought moving out would change that, that she would gain what she needed to be confident. She had thought surely as an intern she would have gotten her life together...and then she met Nicholas Bratu. Every moment she interacted with him was like this parade of failure. She didn't know why she had latched onto him – he had seemed so smart and...she didn't know. She had looked at him and he seemed like a dad. Except he never had the time of day for her, he constantly scolded her, constantly belittled her. There had only been a few crumbs of kindness, nothing to build anything off of, but she kept trying. <p> She was mature enough to recognize that she wasn't privileged just because she didn't have friends or a mentor. As far as things went, that was a really selfish way of looking at things. She had all the things she needed, right? But most of the days, she couldn't shake it, the horrible feeling of just...not enough. It was daunting, no matter how many times she told herself to just grow up. Take after Miles, she told herself, take after dad, take after mom. None of it ever seemed to work, but she could try, right? Maybe that was why she had found herself traveling a little bit, traveling when she heard the news of another case of an oil spill that had brought people near and far to protest that it had been an unsafe thing to do to begin with. It seemed a bit selfish, trying to remind herself of how well she had by going to look at a disaster...but then she didn't think it was that entirely. She had always had some passing feelings about it, just like everyone else. She had never really approved of what the country was doing to the lands, especially considering that there were evidence of creatures and people dying because of the negligence. She had just told herself that maybe she could get involved. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she had more of purpose in her life. Right then and there, it had all been about working and avoiding her roommates and going over to dinner at her brother and his boyfriend's house. She needed more in her life, she had told herself. Not that she really knew what she would do there. If she had been thinking, she would have talked to (another of) Miles' friends, some therapist that lived a little further away who had been even arrested for a protest or two. <p> Instead she had gone....and she wasn't entirely sure what had happened. She hadn't heard any news about the protest getting out of hand, but police had been called in and then...and then she had seen someone fall. As much as she (and a good plenty of others) insisted, there was an instinct for a doctor in her. She could have panicked and fretted over what to do and instead, she had bolted forward to see what had happened. It still wasn't clear outside of the fact that the man had gotten one good knock to his head and it was bleeding worse than a stuck pig. The panic had really only settled in when the cops had come forward, saying that there were going to be questions. She had panicked and her mind had blanked and next thing she knew, she had been yelling that this was her husband and how dare they even <i>imply</i> that they were going to take him in with a <i>head injury</i>; she would sue the entire lot of them, did they think she wouldn't? She had made a show of fishing her phone out of her purse as she had helped the man to his feet, supporting his wait and walking them to her car. She wondered if the cops had really meant they were going to do something to the man or if they had never had a tiny young woman shriek at them in a way because they had looked bewildered and not done a damn thing. It wasn't until she had gotten the man into her car and herself behind the wheel that all her bravado fled. "<b>Oh god,</b>" she whispered to herself in horror, "<b>oh god. I just lied to the police. And I think I'm kidnappin' someone. Does this count as kidnappin'?</b>" she demanded of her passenger. |
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| Marcos Torres | Nov 22 2017, 11:03 PM Post #2 |
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His mother, he knew, was going to be very angry with him. It wasn't that Marcos actively sought out trouble. Most of his job was, honestly, in writing papers and in educating the public about the environment and the dangers that they faced. His job involved an awful lot of paperwork, phone calls, emails and speaking to gathered people. Protests were not his job, although he found himself at many of them - sometimes ones that had nothing to do with his country. This trip, though, was not supposed to be about that. He had been invited out to America to visit his younger brother, to visit a state he had never been to in the few times that he had been to America. It had been too tempting to pass up and as much as he loved his daughter.... being a single parent was difficult. It was tiring and he had no one to alleviate the stress of it like a two parent household. So it had been with almost a profound relief that he had accepted his brother's offer and taken Lucia to stay with his mother. They had both been delighted and he would be back soon enough; it wasn't as if he dumped his daughter off on his mother constantly. It was supposed to be a nice little break with his brother and some friends of his brother, nice enough people who were fairly laid back and who seemed to get his brother's wit. They sometimes talked a bit too much and too fast for Marcos, but he liked them all well enough. All of that talking was what had lead him out here in the first place, honestly. Somehow they had gotten on the subject of what he did for a living and what he usually got involved in outside of his work. That had lead into the fact that there was an awful lot of drilling for oil happening in the state that they currently lived in, but it wasn't usually a problem... until recently. Now there was all sorts of unsafe practices and problems cropping up and there was a close pipeline supposedly going in that could cause all sorts of damage. A part of him knew he should leave it alone. He was on foreign soil and it wasn't technically his business... but a part of him couldn't leave it alone. He'd always felt connected to the land and this was no different. Besides, if they let one thing happen then it would happen again and again and again. Sometimes, you had to help take a stand. Sydney had rolled his eyes at him, as he usually did, but he hadn't said anything. He had just let Marcos go off on his own to this protest. It hadn't been hard to find, even though he wasn't from around here. A GPS worked in America just as well as it did in Spain, after all, and out here where they were there was mostly open land with long tracks of nothing in between. With the help of the navigation system and the size of the crowd it was quite easy to figure out that he had found the location. So far as he could tell, it was like almost every other protest that he had been to. A large, milling mass of people standing about. Some with signs, some chanting, and with police around the perimeter of the area. So far as he could tell, it looked as if it were going well. When he got out of the car, when he joined, it still seemed to be going well. Nothing was going wrong, none of the protesters were agitated and the police looked like they knew they were just there for show more than anything. Maybe something would really push the message home and maybe the demonstration would accomplish nothing, but people would have their voices heard. That was always important, he found. He wasn't quite sure what had happened after that. Things had seemed normal until they weren't. There had been some screaming, the sound of what was most likely some sort of fight breaking out, and then he was suddenly down on the ground. He had no idea how it had happened - someone had thrown a punch aimed at the wrong person, someone had thrown something. The end result, though, was that he was down on the ground and he could feel blood trickling down the side of his face and his cheek. Distantly, he wondered if maybe a police officer hadn't shot something at him - tear gas or rubber bullets - but there had been no sound of fire and no effects like that. Maybe he had been struck by one? But there was only one in the distance, making his way towards him in a way that looked more confused and concerned than threatening. Marcos probably would have let the man help him up, because he felt a bit dizzy from the sudden blow and the confusion. But then, suddenly, there was someone standing in between him and the man that was approaching. The man had gotten a little closer and that's when the figure - a woman - began to yell at him. Marco's English was passable, but not perfect and he had taken a blow to the head. He was fairly certain that she was yelling something about this being her husband and she would sue them if they arrested an injured man. Then she had reached down and helped him to his feet. He felt more unsteady than he would like to admit and she seemed to sense that because her arm went around his waist. He belatedly wondered if he should be trusting a complete stranger in a foreign country to be escorting him to their vehicle but, honestly, better that than being arrested. He didn't think he was concussed or anything major - although the wound was still bleeding so it might be more serious than it looked - and so he should be able to defend himself if it turned sour. The young woman got him settled quite gently into the seat of her car with a towel for him to hold against the cut on the side of his head. Then she had run to the other side and slid in. They hadn't left just yet though. When he glanced over, still holding the towel against the side of his head. That was when the young woman spoke, first in a hushed and frightened tone before she turned towards him and demanded to know if this counted as kidnapping. He blinked at her for a moment, confused by the question because it seemed to come out of nowhere at all. "No?" he finally asked hesitantly. "I do not think so." Maybe if she had forced him into the car then yes, but she hadn't forced him to do anything just aided him in moving forward and then got him settled in. |
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| Lilah Webb | Nov 22 2017, 11:04 PM Post #3 |
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Lilah gripped the steering wheel a little tightly in her hands. She had just been trying to do the right thing, she reminded herself...but that brought up the idea of good intentions paved the road to hell. It brought up Nicholas, who would have glared and said that it didn't matter if she had meant well because the actions didn't exactly match up and she couldn't exactly cure a brand new wound with a 'I meant well'. She winced as the man in her car gave an almost hesitant response. "<b>Oh no,</b>" she groaned, "<b>that sounds exactly like something who was afraid of a kidnapper would say.</b>" It had just all made sense to her in the moment. It had all made perfect sense to tell the cop that this was her husband and that she would sue because the police seemed very hesitant to interact with a woman that was hysterical. Logically, she knew she could have just stood by and maybe stepped in when there was for sure trouble, but one of the things she had learned over the years was that trouble had a way of coming up awful fast. One minute, there was peace and maybe the hint of escalation and then the next...pandemonium. She saw it all the time at the hospital. There'd be one patient just quietly sitting, maybe commenting that he had been waiting for an awful long while...and then boom, he was on the floor, hemorrhaging from a concussion that he had been too hazy to properly explain and everyone was stuck between trying to figure out what had happened, what to do for him, who had kept him from getting into an office any sooner than he had, and any legal repercussions the hospital was going to face. She had hoped to just...nip that in the bud because while things hadn't been out of hand yet, there were earmarks. There had been loud voices, angry voices, and the police had begun to swarm and she had seen enough movies and the like to know that soon people were going to start getting arrested. <p> Reality came back with a sudden harsh clang as she realized she was still just in her car with a stranger. "<b>Oh gosh,</b>" she winced, "<b>I'm so stupid. I'm so sorry. Here I am, just sittin' and thinkin' when you're hurt. You never would believe I was suppose to be a doctor.</b>" Even as she spoke, she turned her car on. Again, the Nicholas voice in her head scolded her, telling her she should have been a little less focused on herself and a little bit more on her patient. What little she had seen of the wound had been mostly a surface wound, a cut that hit just the right place to bleed a lot, but what did she know? It had been a quick glance, she hadn't asked him <i>anything</i> about how it hurt. He had seemed to be moving all right, so she wasn't overly worried about coordination, what little he had said hadn't sounded slurred but that had been masked with a very thick accent so how would she know unless she talked more? She was firmly convinced there was no lose of consciousness. Her duty was to her patient, she reminded herself, and from the moment she had seen this man hurt, he had become her patient. "<b>How's your head feelin'?</b>" she asked a little gently. They weren't at the hospital yet – she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to take him there either. Not that she wanted to further the idea that she was kidnapping him, but didn't it always happen in movies that when protestors got hurt, police were all ready waiting at the hospital to take people in? She dismissed those thoughts, pushed them away quickly because of course she was going to take him to the hospital. There was a point when she had to stop thinking about daydream-esque things that might get him hurt and focus on things that would <i>actually</i> get him hurt. After all, if it turned out he had something a lot more serious going on, <i>she</i> was the one who was going to be in trouble. <i>She</i> was the one they were going to look to and say if she was so concerned about his health, how come she didn't take him to the hospital immediately and treat him there? At the very least, though, she could start ball rolling her. Maybe she could take him into one of the little rooms and take care of him herself, but if she couldn't, it was probably better to have answers ready. <p> "<b>Oh!</b>" she started a little bit. "<b>Where are my manners? I just go...callin' you my husband and I don't even introduce myself. I swear my mama raised me better than that.</b>" She could admit she had been a little wrapped up in her own thoughts; she had just been thinking of getting him out of there. She was surprised the man had gone with her on the whole thing. If it had been her and some man had come up to say she was his wife and get her into his car, she would have been screaming bloody murder. She'd rather be arrested than put into some stranger's car. At least being arrested, she knew that the police were <i>suppose</i> to be the good guys. "<b>I'm Lilah.</b>" Maybe that would help with the whole aspect of being a kidnapper. Kidnappers never gave their names, right? They hid those away...except maybe they didn't? It depended she supposed. Maybe the more realistic kidnappers usually never shared their names, going by code names or telling their victims false names. But then you got into movies and books again where they shared their names and slowly but surely the victim fell in love. She thought it was suppose to be romantic? She couldn't be sure because...well, she had never kidnapped anyone for one and for two, she had never really been interested in those kinds of stories. They had always seemed really off to her. She just could never imagine liking a kidnapper that much to suddenly identify with them. Of course Miles was typical Miles and had always snorted at her, saying that of course she would be exactly the kind of person that would fall in love with a kidnapper; all he would have to say was that he had no friends and his parents had abandoned him and Lilah's heart would have bled out right there in sympathy. He had gotten smacked with a very heavy medical text book for his sass and opinion. <p> She focused on driving for what felt like a long time, mostly because if she didn't, her thoughts were going to rise up and try to devour her. She had always liked to say that she wasn't a worrier; that was Miles. Miles had gotten the gene of fretting and worrying and hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. Lilah, she felt, had gotten the simple fatalistic out view. Of course things were going to go wrong, there was no worry involved because the worst case scenario was of course going to happen and she would be left picking up the pieces. It was just...easier, she figured. As much as she wanted to be hopeful and bright and she tried to project that at work, it <i>hurt</i> to be hopeful. Finally they were pulling into the hospital. "<b>Hopefully it won't be too busy today,</b>" she offered. "<b>Normally it doesn't really start getting populated until closer to the evening. You know, when drunk college kids are doing their thing.</b>" She laughed slightly as she got out of the car, going to the other side so she could help out as well. "<b>Doctor Bratu says it's because they all know when he's working and they want to make his life as miserable as possible, but I don't quite believe it.</b>" It just happened that most of the work fell onto the days when Nicholas and Lillian were both working. She had heard them sighing and complaining to each other before about. She had made the mistake once of trying to nudge herself into the conversation, to say that yeah, she had noticed that with herself too. Nicholas had glared at her so hotly that she thought she might get set on fire while Lillian had given her the softest 'you're an idiot' look she had ever received before. |
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| Marcos Torres | Nov 22 2017, 11:04 PM Post #4 |
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Marcos couldn't stop himself from giving a light snort at the words that followed his response. He regretted it, because he was quite sure that was a gush of blood that his action had spurred. It was hard to tell considering how sticky and wet the towel was at the moment. He could have just been imagining that feeling, honestly. The young woman had an accent that was common to the area, one that made words a little more difficult for Marcos to translate. His English wasn't the best. He supposed he could pass by in very general conversation, he could ask for directions and the like, but anything more detailed and he was a bit lost. He was certainly not at ease in the language like his little brother was but he supposed he'd had very little reason to learn unlike Sydney. "If I were afraid I would not have gotten in the car," he told the girl, quite honestly. She looked like all he had to do was snap at her and she might fall over from fright. He had little doubt that he was stronger than she was and he had been in quite a few more fights. Besides, he didn't think that someone who was busy fretting about having lied to the police officers and potentially kidnapping him against his will was the type of person he should be afraid of. She should probably be more afraid of him than the reverse. Frankly, he was surprised that she had been willing to put him in the car. What if those police officers had been coming to arrest him for a good reason? He shook his head a little to dismiss the thoughts. It didn't matter anyways. He was here, now, at the whims of this young woman. He blinked at the sudden explosion of words. Again, the fact that she talked a bit fast and had an accent made it a little harder for him to work through her words than it might someone who didn't have as strong of an accent. Most of it didn't really require any sort of comment but he was surprised by one of the things that she said. "You are a doctor?" Even as he asked the question, he heard the sound of the car turning on. A part of him felt almost guilty for doubting what she said. Most doctors he had met, however, did not yell at police officers and then drag someone into their car to then fret about what they had just done. Maybe they did things differently in America. Maybe this was common practice. Maybe this was common practice for her. He briefly wondered if perhaps he shouldn't thank her for the effort and then step out of the car. He could call his brother. Sydney would probably be sighing and wondering how he was doing about now. His brother was going to shake his head and make disapproving noises at him. If he was really unlucky, he was going to pick up the phone and call their mother and tell her all about how Marcos had come for a visit and now he had gone off and gotten involved in another protest and gotten himself injured. He would never hear the end of it. He was brought out of his thoughts as the young woman spoke again. He took a moment to think about it. It wasn't serious - at least, not from his expertise with wounds which wasn't the largest. He'd been hurt worse before in his life but the wound kept bleeding, too. Maybe it was worse than he thought. It had a curious state of hurting and yet not feeling that bad. Not until it was jostled or he moved the towel somewhat, anyways. Then it hurt all over again. "It hurts," he said, honestly. "But not so bad." It stung more than anything and he was sure it would likely continue to do so until the wound finally decided to close. When that would be, he wasn't quite sure. "I think I would know if we had been married. It's not a big deal," he commented with a light snort. She seemed very concerned that all of this had happened but, really, Marcos had seen much worse going on around him. He had been involved in much worse. A small, white lie to get him into a car and on his way to getting medical treatment wasn't the end of the world and it wasn't as if he was offended by it. She was pretty, so there were no qualms there. She was kind. Why should he kick up a fuss about something that had potentially saved him from being arrested? "Marcos," he responded to her offering her name. It was a pretty name, but that was as far as he would allow himself to go. The last time he had been in a relationship... well. It hadn't ended very well. He had kept himself mostly single ever since Lucia's mother and he had parted ways. That was partly because the task of raising a child on his own was very time consuming but also because he didn't want to end up in the same situation again. It was very easy to trick yourself into thinking that you and someone else might work but you had to know that. He hadn't known that with his previous girlfriend and it had been a disaster. The only good thing to come from it had been his daughter. He would rather not have any repeats... and it wasn't as if he were thinking of moving here. He would be back in Spain in no time. Marcos wasn't against a little physical fun but anything more dedicated than that would take a lot of coaxing, he felt, to get him back into something of that nature. There was silence again and he was thankful for that. His head did hurt and for more than just the reason of the cut. Whatever had hit him had left him with a headache - not surprising, really. Plus, his knowledge of English was passing at best. He was better at it than he had been thanks to Brook, who had patiently helped both him and his daughter with improving their English, but he was never going to be an expert. Not like his little brother who could speak more than two languages. Having to run words through his head, mentally translate them, and then figure out how to respond in English was tiring. The drive seemed to take a long time but he noticed that they were heading mostly back in the direction of where he had been staying with Sydney and his friend, although he felt as if they might have passed the town at some point. Still, he was certain it was somewhat in the general area. He blinked a little as the young woman spoke again and pulled into what was obviously a hospital - although a very small one. The words that she said mostly washed over him and he recognized them for what they were - nervous chatting, mostly. He accepted the help in getting out of the car, although he didn't think he needed it. He wasn't really dizzy, just a bit dazed and some of that was from the shock of driving around with a stranger and using up his reserves of English, honestly. "It will be fine," he told her gently but firmly, trying to convey just that to her so she might calm down some. He had a feeling this would all go much quicker if she were calm. |
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12:56 PM Jul 11