10/10/3107
As Xandra walked down the hallway outside of Kirby's office, she heard muffled crying coming from inside. She peeked into the room. "Kirby?". She saw him sitting at his desk with his head down. He looks up with tears streaming down his face. She walks into the office towards him and turns on the light.
He whined and started whimpering.
"Hey, are you okay?" she says as she reach out to place her hand on his shoulder.
He flinched a little, lifting his head up and looking at her with fear in his eyes. She could see now that he was breathing heavily.
"Hey, hey, hey. It's okay. Its just me." she quietly tells him. "I'm right here. Is... there something wrong?"
Shakingly, he nods.
"Okay... do you... do you wanna to talk about it...?"
He shakes his head.
"No, um... that's okay, we can talk about it later. Do you... often... get panic attacks... or is this... something else?" she says, still in a quiet voice.
"I killed my mum..." he mumbled.
Though Xandra couldn't hear it clearly; didn't want to pry into what he just said too much. She was afraid that would upset him more. "Do you want me to go get someone or...?"
He shook his head, again.
She sighs. Quietly says, "Alright, I'll stay with you; until one of our shifts are over or whenever you feel like you need to go home. Does that sound good?"
He nods, again.
"Do you want to go into the breakroom?"
He nods a third time.
Xandra nods and quietly she tells him, "I'll take you there and... like I said I'll stay with you.". She reaches out her hand and Kirby takes it. He gets up. She leads him out of the room and into the hallway.
. . .
After leading Kirby to the couch in the breakroom and a few more minutes of silence in, he starts to share details about the accident to Xandra. "The reason why I let Stan drive... is because... I'm afraid I'll get in another wreck and... lose him..., too."
She leans on his arm and says, "I don't drive, either. I'm afraid of doing the same thing. So..., never in my life... I drove a car... or any other vehicle.".
He wraps her arm around her shoulder. "I guess that's something we have in common. We're both scaredy cats."
Xandra giggles with agreement.
He pulls her closer into hug. He starts crying on Xandra's shoulder.
She pats his head, comforting him.
"I wish I had gone with them..." he mumbles.
"No, no, don't say that." she tells him. "Please don't say that."
He then sees that she also had tears in her eyes. "Then... I want to go home..."
Xandra starts nuzzling into his beard.
He starts to laugh. "Okay, okay. Stop it, stop."
She let's go of him with her arms to her side, smiling. Her eyes were still wet from crying, but she still had a playful expression on her face.
"You know that wasn't fair using my own facial hair to tickle me like that." he tells her.
Xandra giggles. She then look at him with a sympathetic smile. "Are you okay, now?" she asked.
"For now, yeah... thank you."
She holds his hand. "C'mon, I told Stanley to wait for you at the bus stop."
. . .
Kirby sees Stanley while waiting for the bus. "Hey, Stan..."
Stanley turns around to see a tired eyed Kirby. "Kirby?". He rushes over and hugs him. "You made me worried sick about you.". He then angrily squeezes the back of Kirby's shirt. "I love you, you know?" he muttered.
"Well, this is going to be an awkward bus ride for me." said Xandra.
Stanley chuckles. He lets go of him with both of his hands on Kirby's shoulders. "Are you ready to go home?" he asks Kirby. His cousin nods. They watch a passing bus pull to a stop.
Xandra follows the Lennard cousins onto the bus. She sits down. She gets a text notification on her phone from Nathan. She responds to it. She watches Kirby and Stanley sit next to her.
Hours later, Kirby fell asleep. He starts lean over to Xandra, but Stanley pulls him over to lean on his shoulder. He takes Kirby's glasses and clips them on his shirt collar.
`It's been a long day for him. Well... for all of us actually.` Xandra thought. She starts to fall asleep, too and lean over to Kirby.
. . .
Nathan walks into the duplex. It was sundown. He closes the door and holds his hand on the door. He covers his mouth and tears form in his eyes.
"Nate... you okay...?" Xandra asked.
He turns to her. He takes his hand off of his mouth. "Er... yeah...". He wipes his eyes. "Someone must've cleaned the hallway and the dust picked up... I just sneezed on the way here..."
"Oh, um alright..." said his roommate. He then turns to walk upstairs.
"Just so you know I'm here if you need someone to talk to, okay? I can tell that you had a long day at work." she tells him.