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 Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:30 pm
The nervous pitter-patter of feet moving up the flight of stairs to the floor where only the Important People lived was the only thing that marked Cami Ryland's passing. Fingers were curled around the corner of the drywall as she tried to talk herself into just going up and knocking on the door. Back home this wouldn't have been a problem. She would've just gone on up, opened the door, and let herself in. Home away from home! But this wasn't home. And as much as she was beginning to care about and trust her Ama it still was not Maman, still was not Marie or Daniela or Arda or Bryan. The teen hadn't even told Caroline that she was going to go meet one of the people she had pictures of. Pictures of them in bed, together, suggesting that there had been something there. Making a grrr sound under her breath Camille scooted forward, shoes scuffing over worn carpet, until she rapped upon the door labelled 220 - Otto Graves.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:35 pm
Otto wasn't expecting company. Not that he ever did, really. Company just happened every so often. He left his laptop on the table and softly padded towards the door. "Comin'." He called in what could only be described as a slightly louder version of mumbling. He eventually reached the door, opening it to reveal... "...Cami." He said after a moment, his breath caught in his voice. He looked as if he was seeing a ghost. He'd not spoken to Cami in such a long time, even if he'd never harboured ill will. No, he'd been a coward. Afraid of hurting her, or himself, and avoided her for ages. But now, as he'd found out through Twitter.... Camille Ryland was a young teen, and not the woman he'd known.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:43 pm
Triumph split the girl's face as he exhaled her name with surprise. "Knew it!" Her accent was thicker than it had ever been before, flavored with the islands, the only home she had ever known. The hand that had been clenched tight around something in her pocket now withdrew to show her phone, the background a familiar picture of Otto with his head in her lap while the much older Cami was in the middle of stroking his hair. "You know me!" It should have sounded odd to have such a correlation crowed with quiet victory but for her it truly was that. She was thrust into a world with no memories of everyone around her, no idea of the woman she had been, but if anyone would know he would. "Who am I?" It was a demand, fierce as her gaze as she fixed it on him.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:50 pm
It was Cami alright. Younger, and much.. she was different in certain ways. Her accent thicker, but her energy was just as endearing. And she wanted answers. His heart nearly stopped and killed him as the picture on her phone was thrust in his direction. Oh no... how many of their photos were still on their? How young was Cami now? Was this suitable fo--- Oh. He'd lost his own virginity at 15... so maybe she knew about that stuff already? Oh god... he felt so old.How much should he tell her? She was free of all the heartache and bad memories they'd made, even if that meant she was also free of the good ones they'd shared. Otto felt as if he should be heartbroken to lose a friend this way... but it served him right. And it was best for Cami herself. Still, knowing he'd lost years of memories with this woman made his heart feel heavy. Alone. He managed a half smile, took a step back, and motioned for her to come inside. "I'll tell you." Sort of.. He refrained from telling her to make herself at home, since the concept of Home was a trigger they'd both nearly lost a dear friendship over.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:56 pm
How many photos? All of them. Despite her bitterness, her despair, the aching hole inside of her that she had tried to force first Otto then Maebe to fit inside, not a single picture had been removed from her phone. Text messages, Twitter messages, old voicemails were all there in the way that a girl experiencing her first heartbreak kept every single note they had ever passed in class. Luckily for Otto she hadn't made it that deep down the rabbit hole. Her gut was telling her to factory reset the phone like the factory had been reset on the last decade of her life. Ama had told her that she was free to follow her heart, to make her own choices and mistakes, and that she shouldn't worry about who she had been. Good advice, really, but she still wanted to know what she had lost. Scooting inside she stopped right past the threshold looking more relieved that she hadn't gotten shouted at more than anything else. "Thank you. I thought about spendin' time reading all the messages and shi -- stuff," she corrected her language, "But better to just ask." Ask and take what you got. Sounded very much like Cami!
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Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 12:36 pm
Otto was fairly amused she was censoring herself. He wondered if he ought to watch his mouth around her if she was looking to be a good girl. He'd play it by ear for now. He walked a little further into the room, turning to sit on the arm of the sofa and watch her from there. "Okay. Whad'ya wanna know exactly?" Because 'everything' would be too vague, and too much, for him to answer.
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Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 6:17 pm
What did she want to know? First and foremost was how many times they did it, if she'd been any good at it, and if her body was as nice in person as the pictures suggested. However she was also ten times more cognizant of the fact that this was probably not the best way to go about getting 'the dirt' than she would have been as the woman Otto had known. So instead she sat down on the middle cushion of the couch, turned towards the blond with expectancy in her eyes, and beamed up at him. It was a look he knew well -- she definitely was after something. "How long did you know me? How did we meet? What kind of relationship did we have? Those are the big ones." And one of those was holy ******** loaded.
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Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:44 pm
He was assaulted by a slew of questions by a very excited and energetic young Cami. Bewildered, he blinked a few times before finding the sense to answer her. "Uh." Good start. "I knew you for..." Otto furrowed his brows and counted back on his hands. He couldn't remember what year he'd met her. He knew they'd been friends for a year or two... "Um.." He skipped the question. "We met on Twitter. Sort of." That story was actually funny, and he felt better about elaborating. "You thought somethin' called d**k Centipedes was a legit disease a guy could get and kept askin' me if I had any. You apologized in person. I don't remember why, but I took you out to Disneyland at one point." He gave a mild shrug. "I'd just lost someone close to me around that time, n' I was lonely. I had you stay at my place so you didn't have to suffer the lower floors." It had been win win.. at the time. He let out a suffering sigh, not wanting to elaborate on their previous relationship. It was so muddled and complicated. He didn't want to share it, and he wasn't sure if Cami should know or not. She had a fresh start. Why muddle it with past heartbreak? "I'll be honest. We were uh.. close." He emphasized the word, hoping he didn't have to say anything vulgar out loud to a 14 year old girl.
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2017 5:42 pm
Awe and consternation warred within Camille as she watched Otto count on his hands. She had a feeling the answer would have been years but the number of fingers he was using to count conflicted her. On one hand she was beyond thrilled to have made the kind of friendship that could last years. On the other she was beyond irritated to have forgotten something so precious. His emphasis on the word close had her bursting into laughter, the giggles higher pitched but still utterly familiar to Otto. "Yeah, I figured that one out. The pictures say a lot." Flipping through a few with her thumb, the images a bit of a blur, she stopped on one of Cami in a bikini and a low-slung pair of shorts, a few months short of her 24th birthday. "Was I as hot as this all the time? That's what I really wanna know...that and if you still wanna be friends even though I'm totally not hot and not really interested in being uh...close...again."
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 8:13 am
God, just how many naked pictures did she have? Were there naked pictures, or was it a lot of posing in bed selfies? Those were somewhat innocent, right? He was pretty sure half the time they spent in bed was just piled on each other while heckling Twitter. "Um.. yeah, you were always pretty hot.." This was making him uncomfortable, but if that's all she wanted to hear, so be it. "Friendship is fine. I don't want no um.." He waved his hand vaguely. "I'm already taken." Happily taken. And he wasn't going to ruin that, ever.
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