Soap
faisons un vœu
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TL;DR Josie's having a nervous breakdown-- but eating some candy so she's all good.
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tl;dr
Josephine
There's gotta be some butterflies somewhere.
Up or down?
That was the age-old question.
At least for Josie.
Was hair a typical thing guys enjoyed? Okay, probably. Maybe most boys didn't like bald girls. "Ponytails are cute. Yeah, we like those." Josie glanced in the mirror, turning her head from side to side and deciding to go along with it. Three rather special knocks were at her door. They were special because they had a meaning. When Joey and AJ were small, they had separate rooms for the first time and Josie cried for the first few nights because she didn't want to be alone-- so, John, their father had came up with a special knock.
Three knocks meant 'I love you.'
Small knuckles would gently collide with the wall almost every night, whenever the two would get into fights, those same little knocks became pounding as a way to say, 'I hate you' because their parents decided they needed a time-out from each other. Of course, it was for petty small things, but that only made it even more amusing to look back on now.
That went on every night until the divorce, separate rooms had nothing on actually being separated.
The memory itself forced an amused chuckle out of Josie. "You can come in, Dad." At the sound of her words, her father walked in, his eyebrows raising at the disaster of a room. Clothes were thrown everywhere, hairbrushes were out and about, and pairs of shoes were mismatched almost in every spot in the room. "Woah. Did the storm hit your room too?" John scratched his head, looking around the room. "Or do you have a hot date I don't know about?"
"No, Clark's coming to pick me up for the beach thing. I couldn't choose whether to wear a blouse or a tank top, and I couldn't find my good bra, or my good jeans, or my good anything and then I couldn't decide to do a half-up half down, a braid or pigtails, so... here we are. I don't think we'll make it in time to push the whale though."
There was many things in her sentence that John was still trying to process, he furrowed his brows and stared at her in confusion. "... Whale?" He asked, in which Josie replied by handing him the poorly made flyer that was likely created by the same man in town hall who was blind in one eye. "W-A-L-E?" He spelled out the words, clearly even more baffled than he was moments ago.
Josie didn't bother to reply, instead looking through the mountain of clothes for her jacket.
The blonde was actually very neat. Well... that was until today, a last minute plan-- a last minute text rather, from Clark letting her know he'd be here to pick her up so they could go together to the beach. Josie was half-asleep when she read the message, sending a quick 'sure' before falling back to sleep, her own snore had woken her up and her eyes shot open, only realizing then that he was picking her up today. "Is today the big day? Are you gonna tell him?" John's voice was suddenly several octaves higher, mimicking what he believed a woman sounded like.
"Sorry, honey. I don't do girl talk. But you should tell him how you feel."
The thought alone had sent Josie into a panic, only now instead of rationally looking for a jacket-- she was searching frantically. "I don't wanna talk about it dad, I feel nothing for no one, I'm as numb as can be." She told him, walking over to her lamp and trying to switch it on, only now noticing there was no power to it. "Oh. Josslyn had her baby last night, it was a girl." He said, and Josie practically squealed.
"Aw! Did you drop off that basket we made last week? I know the church donated some stuff, but it wouldn't hurt. Babies are tough, the diapers, spit ups, I mean, extra onesies are always welcomed--" This room was too dark and the small window had barely let any sunlight in. The blonde struggled with the wire for the lamp only to notice it was plugged in. Huh. "Did we pay the light bill?" She asked.
John had stood up, going to inspect the light himself and sighed heavily, rubbing the sides of his face. "I guess not." He said, Josie's baby fever dropped immediately and it was replaced with worry. That was fine! It was completely fine. "... Did you keep the receipt for the basket?" She could only imagine the embarrassment of asking for the baby basket back.
'Hey, Josslyn, do you have those onesies we gave you? We have to pay our light bill and we're short.'
"I'm not doing that, Dad. I'll take extra shifts at the diner on the weekend. Just uh... use your credit card. We'll pay it off." They both knew it was a long-shot to try and pay off a two-hundred dollar light bill. John didn't reply, instead he had picked up the jean jacket from the floor and handed it towards Josie.
"I maxed out my credit card last week for groceries."
Well, there goes that.
Josie had taken the jacket, sliding it on with ease, reaching into her pocket and handing over the receipt for ABCs. Which was an acronym by the way. Apples, Babies, Clothes. Really. She's not kidding. Only they didn't sell apples or babies, just the clothes for babies. What a disappointment. She would've made a purchase-- or in her Dad's case, he most likely made a return sixteen years ago.
"We'll get her something nice soon, Jo-jo."
She gave a half-hearted smile, hearing the truck door slam from outside, Josie practically jumped checking around her room and pockets for everything she needed. What else did she need besides gloves? A shovel? What was she gonna do? Dig up another whale? No, she was fine. Did she look fine? "Do I look fine?" She asked and John replied with two thumbs up. "You should tell him, Joey. You can't sit on feelings forever, y'know."
Psh, three years wasn't that long.
Okay, maybe like four and a half. But seriously! It wasn't that long. "I hate to break it to ya, John, but I'm practically a mama bird. I'm sitting on my egg." She said, which had only confused her father more, blinking a few times at her choice of words. "It's Dad, to you and if you sit on that egg any longer, it'll die!" He yelled out as Josie had ran out of the room to avoid the conversation. Jo wouldn't say she regrets telling her father about her feelings for Clark, but she had to admit it became a little annoying. At the time? And... still at this time, she felt like he was the only one she could trust.
Was that bad?
Maybe, but Josie didn't have many friends. Sure, there was Liz. And maybe her co-worker at the diner, but she seemed kinda odd. Okay, so there was maybe just Liz and she was way too close to Clark to even admit any kind of feelings.
Yet another three knocks at the front door, but unfortunately, much to Josie's dismay-- those particular knocks didn't mean I love you. It just meant,
'Hey, I'm here.'
And... that was enough for now.
It was totally enough.
Josephine opened the front door with an award winning smile, which only had gotten wider at the sight of candy. Her favorite candy at that. How many people knew her favorite candy? Not a lot, that's for sure. She'd count and everything and it'd still only come down to two people.
Clark, and herself.
It was practically a match made in heaven. Well, a match that would never happen because there was no way in hell she was telling him how she felt. Not today, not ever. Okay, maybe not ever.
But... just not today.
"Why, hello there, Mr. Holland. I wouldn't suppose these little guys are for me, now are they?" She didn't wait for a response before snatching the sour straws out of his hand. Josie was a major sweet tooth, and she means-- major. Any kind of candy that had an abnormal amount of sugar? It was good enough for dinner. Let's be honest here though, any kind of anything that had a drop of sugar in it? She was obsessed. "Let's go, let's go. I wanna try and see the whale before they push him in." Josie nudged Clark and took off to the car, walking rather quickly while carefully opening the sour straws.
Josie hopped into the passenger seat with a sigh, watching Clark from the window while he made his way to the truck and she couldn't help herself from thing how much this sucked.
It sucked because ever since she realized she was in love with Clark, everything just felt... a little more heightened. Every smile, every moment he made eye contact with her. every oddly sweet thing he'd do, He wasn't just her best friend anymore and in a way, that bothered her.
It bothered her a lot.
"Want one?" She asked, holding out the red little string of sugary-goodness.
code by valen t.