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The hood of her jacket pulled up to cover half her face, Raven tried avoiding all eye contact with the strangers that passed her way. She didn't want their pity. Didn't want their worried faces, the 'what's wrong with you' looks they felt obliged to give a crying girl walking the streets. The anger over the loss of self control made it even worse and she felt the next gush of tears burning in her eyes. With helpless fury she balled her fists and stomped on, as if even the floor beneath was her sworn enemy.
“Hey.”
His bike creaked as if it was a matter of seconds until the last screws would loosen and the whole thing would fall apart into a pile of scraps. Some pieces looked as if he had simply stuck them together with duct tape and he hadn't even done a good job at it. It wasn't so much a bicycle then a menace on wheels. Murphy, as always, didn't seem to pay much attention, though.
“Fuck off, Murphy”, Raven snarled, just long enough to hide the traitorous wobble in her voice. The day had been shit enough – the last thing she needed was John Murphy being witness to her crying in public.
“Everything alright?”, he inquired nonetheless.
“I said fuck off.”
The steady creaking of his bike remained beside her.
“What's your fucking problem, Murphy?”
This time her voice almost broke.
“You really wanna start that?”, he retorted, smirking like the idiot he was. Raven frowned, her eyes cast on the floor in an attempt to hide the tears.
“Is this still about that...”
“I said shut the fuck up Murphy!” She stopped right there, with her hood falling back, and starred at him. “What the fuck are you trying to do here?! Is any of this of your business?”
He stopped as well, steadying his body and the sorry excuse for a bicycle with one foot, shrugging. “Thought you could use some cheering up?”
“Because you think you have a chance? Is that your trick, huh, seeking out girls when they're emotionally unst...”
Murphy slid back on the bike. “Nah. Just need to get something from the store.”
***
They had went all the way down the road and he hadn't talked much. At first, Raven hadn't either – but soon the words had started spilling out, bitter and spiteful and it did good, like pressure releasing from her heart. It had been weeks since Finn and her had broken up, since he had confessed his one night stand, since he admitted that he couldn't promise that it would not happen again. She had tried many things – accepting the fact, trying to be understanding, full on hating his guts, and some days it worked and other days it didn't. But somehow, Murphy's stupid face, his stupid grin, his godawful bike had made it better, had made her laugh.
“It's that way to the store”, she finally explained, stopping right before the entry of her dorm building.
“Yeah”, he replied and looked at her, just a second too long.
“Or you could just...” She nodded to the building and dug out her keys.
“Yeah”, he replied again and dropped the bike on the ground in a careless motion. Which was probably not a problem – Raven couldn't possibly imagine someone taking this piece of crab voluntarily.
However, she also had assumed the same thing about John Murphy himself.
***
“Oh shut up!”
Her voice broke into a howling laugh as she bent over and softly punched his arm. He stuffed his mouth with a piece of pepperoni pizza and grinned.
“I swear, we were in the dressing room and he said...”
She never learned what Mbege had said back then, as she quickly bend over and pressed her mouth on Murphys. He tasted like pizza and the cheap wine cooler they shared. For a second he froze but then, slowly, he kissed her back and to Raven's dismay it was better than she had expected. He even smelled nice, kind of. Slowly she sank deeper into the kiss, tasted his lips, his tongue and felt his warm hands sliding off her back. A part of her was still frozen in terror over the fact that she was kissing him, of all men... But the even bigger part was enjoying it too much.
After a while he parted from her kiss, forehead touching forehead, his thumb running gently along her lower lip. “Should we just...”
“Yeah.”
And with a quiet sigh she slid back onto the couch, feeling the welcome warmth of his arms around her. On the TV some show about survival flickered across the screen but she didn't pay much attention anymore, too distracted by the way his fingertips slid over the back of her hand.