[img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019c74a5-7f62-77b2-8f11-ec1965eb490a.webp[/img] [center][img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/4ff0b385711c5e424c2cc5bc1dad5e07/a1dc660f3950d821-2b/s540x810/1496d6359eaa21db52c284d0ab1907bcdff34372.gif[/img][img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/e791374efd9ec46546185b47b0539c0c/a1dc660f3950d821-93/s540x810/ef0952dccf23b3fdbb2f0125b6f2f381bf62c107.gif[/img][img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/b2b72043ba47233523169dca55310fa8/3a56e2944ac45f36-04/s540x810/bdec535fabcc7ae32f7ba7defab6dc7e697382a0.gif[/img] Shady Hills Trailer Park -> Smokers Paradise Smoke Shop -> Clark's General Store Mentioned: Mollie | [@Moon Child][/center] [hr] [color=e9b592]“Dad- come on. I’m gonna be late.”[/color] It was way too early in the morning to be awake, but Sandy had goals that he’d do anything to support. Lee stood in front of their stained yellow and white coffee maker stirring sugar into the bottom of an ancient porcelain cup. Sandy pulls on his arm toward the door. He stumbles nearly tossing the entire thing onto the floor. [color=E26612]“Shit Sandy- careful. Alright alright, let’s go.” [/color] Grabbing both his keys and the cup, they find themselves walking out to a mostly quiet park around them. They hop into Pop’s old pickup, the old engine taking two attempts to turn over. Sandy begins rolling mascara onto her lashes in the visor mirror. [color=E26612]“Careful with that, heard it attracts sharks.” [/color] [color=e9b592]“What does that even mean?”[/color] Her hands fall to her lap forcefully and the annoyed look he gets is some sort of trophy for his memories. [color=E26612]“Just watch out for the guys, they bite.”[/color] She’s silent after that. There really isn’t a reason for him to remind her over and over of his own mistakes. Her brown eyes opposed to his blue ones is reminder enough he supposes. The truck pulls out of the drive slowly, Lee cutting the wheel left and then right. There hasn’t been a radio in this truck for at least a decade. He’s pretty sure one of the kids in the park stole it, but he’d been too busy taking care of Sandy as a baby to track them down. That’s what he tells himself at least. When Sandy jumps out of the truck, she shuts the door and takes a few steps away. But she stops, and slowly turns back. Through the glass she mouths [color=e9b592]“love you pop.” [/color] He chest squeezes- and he blows her a kiss. [color=E26612]“Love you too kid.”[/color] And that’s it, she’s headed into the school. She’s got two early morning Summer classes in the school library. It hadn’t even been his idea, she’d reached out to the counsellor herself. She could probably have done it at home, but they didn’t have a computer. One was an ASL class, he supposed she was inspired by Lucas. The other was a career prep course, which was designed for her to explore options to study in the future. She never wanted to talk about it. Lee didn’t push it. He just worried how he was going to afford putting her through the school she deserved. Sandy could read him like a book- probably why she avoided talking to him about it. He only hoped that she could open up to his Ma about it. A block away, his thoughts spinning he slams his hands on the steering wheel. [color=E26612]“Fuck!”[/color] He could definitely use a smoke- but he was out of papers and some asshole at the last show five fingered his lighter. Guess it was time to check in on Mollie. The air is humid when he hops down from his truck, shuts and locks the door. When he walks in, there’s the familiar scent of nicotine smoke on the front stoop. The door is barely open before he’s greeting his friend, [color=E26612]“Hey bitch! How’s it been?” [/color] [hr] Lee achieves his mission of visiting his friend, picking up papers and [i]two[/i] lighters. On his drive over to the school, at some point, the power had gone out. The ice machine has a line by the time he makes it over to the gas station. He grabs four bags, one for Mollie, one for Ma, two for Clarks. When he reaches the counter, he leafs through his wallet for a twenty while the clerk gives him a dirty look for grabbing more than one bag of ice. “People are gonna complain we’re out, ya know?” Their words have bite. Lee doesn’t respond, taking his change unceremoniously and heading back to the smoke shop. He drops it off to Mollie, grabs Sandy from school, and quickly returns home. Sandy’s bummed the entire car ride. There isn’t much to do around here for a girl her age, so he can’t blame her sour mood. When he reaches Ma in the backyard, she’s already filling the plastic kiddie pool from when Sandy was a baby in the backyard. “Ma- got you some ice.” He moves quickly, sticking the bag in the cooler they keep in Ma’s room generally. She likes to chew ice, so she should be set for a couple of days hopefully. When he gets back outside, the white plastic chair is sitting in the six inch deep water. [color=E26612]“Love you Ma.”[/color] He hands her an old faded cup of ice, and she plasters a noisy kiss onto his cheek. When he turns back toward the front, Sandy’s on her way out with a blanket and a wired pair of headphones. Her feet are bare, and she’s nearly jogging over to the pool. In just a few seconds she has her blanket laid out and her knees flung over the side. His keys smack against his hip as he jogs back out to his truck. When he gets to Clark’s, James Clark is already flipping the sign to closed. “Get in here Lee, we’ve gotta get stuff packed up. And without another word, Lee is consumed by the task of saving Clark’s inventory. Saving something, at least.