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I’ll meet you there. I gotta get my lighter.
Nyro drags her feet into the clearing. Chloe had told her to go on ahead, that the silence might do her good. Her tolerance has gone up, of course it has. She’s been drinking and smoking too much. She knows she should probably lay off of it, but…
Her nail gets caught on the spark wheel and she readjusts. The flame flicks on and she holds it to the joint in her mouth.
It’s not good to rely on weed. Nyro’s more of a stoner than Chloe at this point. She inhales and coughs. These prerolls suck.
Chip would laugh and tell her to suck it up. She’d be sitting next to her, on this log, laughing about how it’s so unfair that Breanna’s hogging all her weed. Nyro’s been buying her own for a little bit, now. Her heart aches. Her leg would press against Nyro’s and Nyro’s heart would take its place in her throat, as it always did when they were a little too close.
It’s hot and humid, no matter how dark it is. The bug spray left a tacky sensation on her skin that she can’t quite stand. It makes her cringe. Nyro just tries not to touch it too much. She inhales again, and it’s a little nicer to her throat. The joint sits between her fingers, loosely.
The woods are quiet. Nyro closes her eyes and tries not to cry.
How did everyone in the world just forget Chrissy Dante? Lovable, hilarious, passionate Chrissy Dante? It’s so unfair.
The amount of projects she’s made about grief makes her heart hurt to think about. All of them are cast with as minimal amounts of roles as possible. Mostly artistic narration by herself. Breanna stopped wanting to be involved once she realized they were about her loss. She generally gave up on trying to comfort Nyro a long time ago. That’s fine. It’s not her responsibility, anyway. Sometimes Breanna forgets entirely about Chip. It makes Nyro cry.
Maybe she should’ve been more active in the search in the first month. Maybe she could have found her by now. Nyro hiccups at the realization that Chip is probably dead by now, starved, frozen in a ditch, maybe she’s chopped up, half way across the country in some freak’s basement.
Something snaps in the distance. Nyro’s head shoots up. The woods are too quiet.
Is that Chloe? It’s too far away to be Chloe, Nyro thinks. Is she just paranoid? Maybe she should put this out… Maybe she should scrap these prerolls now, and get something she’s more familiar with next time…
She stands up, and digs around for a medium sized rock. She taps off any ash and crushes the joint firmly, snuffing any possible flames. She fishes around in her bag for the container she got them in, sighing. Her bag’s going to reek. Whatever.
Another twig snaps. Nyro stands back up to her full height. Did she have her knife on her? Her hand starts padding around inside her bag.
Something reflects in the light of the moon about fifteen feet away and her heart stops. Eyes, maybe. A coyote? Nyro shouts. No, those eyes weren’t reflecting, they were glowing. Nyro shouts again, waving her arms, in an attempt to scare whatever it might be off.
It breaks from the treeline, creeping forward into the clearing. It’s no coyote. Not a predator at all, Nyro realizes. Tears well up in her eyes. She can’t move.
In front of her, hunched over, hair tangled and matted, covered in dirt and blood, is Chrissy Dante.
“Chip,” Nyro breathes. Oh my god. She steps forward, and smiles slightly for the first time in months. “Chip, oh my god –”
Before she can react, Nyro’s tackled to the ground. Chip is screaming. Her hand is on her neck. Her nails, which only look to be about a month's worth of growth, dig into her skin. Nyro kicks, but Chip’s knee is pressing tight into her stomach, and the other is between her legs. Her other hand has locked Nyro’s wrist down into the dirt. She won’t stop screaming, harsh and shrill.
Nyro squints against the dark. Chip’s eyes are dark and wide. Nothing at all like the blue eyes she had fallen head over heels with in high school.
“Ch-ip –” it comes out as a croak underneath Chip’s hand. There’s blood on her neck. She gasps, and can’t get any air.
Chip leans closer, chuffing like an animal, then screams again into Nyro’s ear. Nyro looks up at the night sky as tears slip from her eyes. She feels like her tongue is going to pop out of her throat.
This is it, Nyro thinks. She’s not going to kill herself afterall. She can see it now. Found dead in the woods, a headline reads, Who killed Nyro Montoya?
A shout. A yelp. Nyro gasps for air. She can breathe again. Oh god, she can breathe again. She can’t focus. Her vision is spotty and she can hardly move. If she closes her eyes, she might die. Maybe that’s okay. She can’t keep her eyes open, anyway.
The close-by sounds of struggle accompany Nyro as she goes limp.
When she comes to, she’s in the back of Chloe’s hatchback car. The trunk is open. Nyro groans. Her throat hurts. Everything kind of hurts. She blinks hard. Her vision isn’t fantastic, but it’s coming back to her.
“Nyro!” she hears Chloe gasp. Someone’s next to her. Nyro forces her head to fall to the side. “Nyro, thank god… I thought it was over.”
Chip’s laying next to her, eyes shut like the last time she had watched her sleep. The last time they had hung out, Chip had gone to bed uncharacteristically early. She had been so tired. She had been so out of it. Nyro had stayed up, sitting on the floor of her apartment, watching Chip sleep on her couch. She had been so beautiful in the light of the TV. Buffy was playing. She can’t remember which episode. Nyro wants to cry again.
“Chip,” she groans, “Chip, she’s - is she okay?”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t care,” Nyro sighs slowly.
“She’s going to be fine, I think,” Chloe assures her, but Nyro doesn’t think that she truly believes that, “I’m gonna drive you both to the ER in a second.”
Nyro shuts her eyes again. “I can’t afford that,” she whines.
“I don’t care.”
You should, Nyro thinks. Her hand travels over to Chip, who looks almost unrecognizable. She looks good for having been missing for three years, but… She looks like she lost weight, without gaining any muscle. Her face is thin. Nyro wraps her fingers around Chip’s. She’s freezing.
“Come on,” Chloe sighs and gets up. “I need to put the seats back up so Chrissy has a place to lay..”
“I want to sit with her,” Nyro demands gently, “I’m going to sit next to her.”
“I don’t… I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“I’m gonna hold her.” She can feel her heart swell up and shrink again. Tears claw at her eyes.
Chloe doesn’t argue, but she does make Nyro help her get Chip out of the back. She realizes now that Chloe had wrapped her up in whatever extra clothes she had for emergencies in the back of her car. Nyro realizes just how prepared Chloe is for anything.
Nyro watches, quiet, as Chloe adjusts the backseats back up. She leaves the door open for Nyro as she starts her car, and Nyro lays Chip on her back across her lap. The weight isn’t comforting, like it usually is.
The ER is normal. Nyro is discharged with a big bill and Chip is recommended water and food and first aid. They can’t explain the deep tissue scar just below her breast, but they said it’s healed fine.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Nyro wants to see Chip again. If she can’t be with her, she doesn’t know what she can do. She doesn’t care that she’s showing up to Chloe’s doorstep at 12 am after being dropped off at her place an hour ago. She doesn’t care that Chloe isn’t very happy to see her. She just hopes Chloe understands.
“You need to see her,” Chloe assumes. She doesn’t hesitate when letting Nyro in her apartment. Nyro looks at her, thankful, yet miserable. “She’s in bed… I’ve been keeping an eye on her.”
Nyro, silent, opens Chip’s door. She can’t stand the sight.
“She’s been breathing normally,” Chloe continues, “but she hasn’t been moving.”
Chip is splayed out, arms at her sides. She’s tucked in. Nyro’s bottom lip puffs out and she whines a little before opening her mouth.
“Can… Can I stay here? I’ll sleep on her floor, I just - I don’t know, I can’t… I really don’t want to leave her…” Nyro rubs her neck and winces at the bandages. She pleads with her eyes, and Chloe looks hesitant. She understands why. She feels like it’s all her fault that this happened, that this hadn’t been fixed sooner. She figures Chloe also thinks this.
Chloe sighs, “Sure.”
“Thank you,” Nyro takes her hand and clasps it between her palms, “Thank you, thank you.”
“I’ll, um… get you a pillow and a blanket…” she sounds totally offput. Nyro flushes in embarrassment, and looks back at Chip when Chloe walks down the hall.
She doesn’t hesitate to sit on the edge of Chip’s bed as she waits. Chloe comes back, and just hands her the pillow and blanket. It’s a throw blanket and a throw pillow, but Nyro couldn’t care less. She wishes she could climb into bed with Chip. She wishes she could hug her tight and never let go. She wishes she could break up with Breanna to spend all of her time with Chip. Maybe she will. She doesn’t know. She hasn’t really thought about Breanna too hard for ages.
The floor isn’t comfortable. Nyro doesn’t care. Neither does her circadian rhythm, as she falls asleep within minutes.
Nyro wakes up to Chip standing above her. She jumps and pulls the blankets further up her to cover her face out of childish instinct, but pulls it back down slowly to look again.
Chloe had put her in an old handmade band shirt. She can hardly read the text - just the Glassjaw logo above her right breast. She has boxer shorts on. She breathes heavily. Nyro can’t help the fear that struck her heart. Her hair is still greasy and tangled. She won’t stop staring.
Nyro sits up and pulls her legs from where they lay between Chip, up to her chest. She licks her dry lips. She wonders if she’s going to hurt her again, if she’s going to try and tear her skin apart.
She remembers Halloween 1978. Nyro thinks she looks very Michael Myers adjacent right now.
“Chip?” Nyro’s voice cracks as she tries to keep it quiet.
Chip just stares. Is she dreaming? Is this a nightmare?
Another minute goes by before Chip crouches down. Nyro’s heart races. She’s going to kill her this time, surely. It makes Nyro a little ashamed to realize she’s into the way she’s acting. She can’t look away. Chip presses her palms to the hardwood floor and pushes the pads of her feet forward to crawl towards Nyro. Nyro’s knees fall to the side as she pushes back, away from Chip. She can only go so far before she hits the wall, before Chip is inches away from her face.
Oh god, her breath stinks.
Chip places her hands on Nyro’s shoulders. Nyro can hardly breathe. She doesn’t claw her eyes out, though - instead, she leans forward, and wraps her entire weight around Nyro. Her arms snake around her torso and she buries her face in Nyro’s neck. Her legs come around either side of Nyro. She truly cannot move.
She’s not sure if she wants to.
… Well, she kind of stinks… Maybe a shower would be good to get up for?
Nyro doesn’t hesitate to put her arms around Chip, though.
She cries.
She cries so hard she feels like her eyes are going to fall out of her head, and she does not let go.