Chapter Text
Cole took a drag from his cigarette, exhaling and watching the smoke slowly disappear in the warm air of the summer evening. He heard footsteps behind him, the sound of two feet walking over the gravel of the parking lot of the Pizza place.
"You could´ve told me you were going for a smoke break, I would´ve joined."
His best friend searched the pockets of his work uniform for his own cigarettes, eventually found one and lit it. Cole took a brief look at him from the corner of his eye.
Danny held the cigarette between his lips, taking out his hair tie to retie his ponytail, that had loosened over the course of their shift. He shook his head to loosen up his hair a bit and Cole couldn´t help but watch for a second.
"I tried to catch you on my way out but you were literally on the other side of the main hall."
"Yeah." Danny finally retied his hair and turned his attention to his cigarette and Cole. "Busy day today. I barely had time to breathe, let alone swing by the security office."
"You should just quit being a waiter and join me back there as a security guy." Cole elbowed Danny, who laughed in return.
"I asked, but they said they need me up front and stuff."
Cole snorted at that.
"That´s because you´re a damn charmer, dude."
"Cole-"
"Don´t even think about being all like 'Nooooooo Cole why would you even say that aaaa', dude, your tips kinda pay for both of our cigarettes. Instead of getting tipped, all I did was start a fight and get moved where customers won´t see me."
Danny looked at him with something in his eyes Cole, could never quite pin down. It wasn´t pity, it was never pity in those cases, but it was something sad. Come to think of it, there was always a certain look in Dannys eyes, when he looked at Cole, but sometimes it came with sadness. Cole wondered if it was because they were best friends, or if this was just Danny being a bit weird under the surface, once you really got to know him (like Cole did, like nobody but Cole did).
"You know that wasn´t your fault. Those guys are assholes."
"Were."
"Hm?"
"Didn´t you hear? They found Rita, dead."
Danny tilted his head. "Rita? Are you sure?" To which Cole furrowed his brows. "Dude, it was on the news."
His best friend shrugged. "I don´t watch a lot of TV, it´s not that interesting at the end of the day."
Cole chuckled. His best friend was kinda weird, but so was Cole, he supposed. And something inside of him felt special, being the only person that knew Danny like that, while everyone only got to see the persona he constructed for them to see.
They watched the smoke from their cigarettes disappear in the warm air of this summer evening and for all Cole was concerned, this summer might as well never end.
Not even three years later Cole listens to footsteps on the gravel, that is now overgrown with weeds in large parts. This time, they are heavier and this time, they are his own.
He extinguishes his cigarette with his foot and exhales a cloud of smoke in the chilly air of the evening. It´s autumn, 1988, and he is back at the damn Pizza place, now closed off, awaiting whatever the new owners plan to do with it.
Not even three years since his classmates- his friends- started disappearing, since Danny left this town, without a goodbye and without Cole. And because this town is nothing without Danny, Cole followed suit, leaving Zepotha for good. Sometimes he wondered how Danny is doing, with his charming persona and mind that is so brilliant in a very specific way (just not how the teachers wanted), but he bans these thoughts from his brain when they come up. Unlike Cole, Danny must´ve been successful in the big wide world, because there is only one of them standing in front of the Pizza place again, broke and defeated.
And it´s not Daniel Owens.