[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210329/487dc8315f48300da83b8581707a5162.png[/img] [hider=Mentions][@Aces Away][/hider] [color=gray]Days blurred into one another. [i]One by one by one.[/i] Monotony was familiar. He woke up every day at exactly the same time, brushed his teeth, brushed his hair, didn't linger on his reflection and got dressed for work. He wasn't at the bakery every day, just most days, he found the days that he wasn't at the bakery were the hardest. If he couldn't keep his hands busy then he started thinking too much and when he started thinking too much, he spiraled. The last thing he needed was to spiral again. So, it was monotony or bust. He kept his hands busy, he kept his head down and he didn't think about things that might send him spiraling. He liked it when life was slow and there was nothing to talk about. Unfortunately, there was something to talk about. [i]The letters.[/i] The letters had caught him off guard at first, had made his hands start trembling, had nearly triggered a spiral. He hadn't wanted to read them, not when he'd seen who had signed off each entry. He had wanted to burn them. He did wind up reading them. He did [i]not[/i] wind up burning them. They sat on his dresser, a wrinkled pile of diary entries. They were an unwanted stain on an otherwise monotonous existence. He tried to ignore them, he tried to pretend they weren't there and most of all-- he tried not to spiral again. Things weren't all bad in his life, he had Lanie, he had Decky, hell, he had Bradley. People he could talk to, who didn't judge him, who accepted that he was kind of a spaz. He liked [i]that[/i] bit of his life. He liked [i]them[/i]. He leaned onto their presence when things got rough-- of course, there was still so much leftover [i]drama[/i] between Lanie and Decky. He didn't exactly want to be their mediator but as the days went on, he felt more and more like he might have to. Especially with Decky back in town, especially because it was almost entirely his [i]fault[/i] he was back in town but [i]sue him[/i]! Decky was his friend. He hadn't seen him in an age and he missed him. He had almost forgotten about the letters that would greet him. An unpleasant surprise but not one that was really [i]his[/i] fault. He had made it to his car by the time his phone [i]pinged[/i] and he cringed internally at the preview message. It wasn't a good sign. He dropped his response before he took to the road. [quote=Nolan] [i][color=39B54A]You're going to have to specify, man. What did I do?[/color][/i][/quote][/color][/center]