A.M.
Chapter 2 – A.M.
Feels like this could be forever tonight
Break these clouds, forget about time
There could be a World War three goin' on outside
You and me were raised in the same part of town
Got these scars on the same ground
Remember how we used to kick around just wasting time?
It was her second day at the job and Waverly was amazed. The book collection at GRU was amazing. It surprised her that nobody wanted to take the job before her. Living in Purgatory was probably the biggest reason. Not for Waverly, though. She was living with her family and she planned to get closer to her old friends. One very specific friend came to her mind. Nicole always made Waverly feel different things then other people did. It was almost lunchtime and she wanted to surprise the redhead. Nicole still looked beautiful and she still seemed to care about Waverly, but something was odd with her. A remarkable trade on Nicole was her look, her kind, sweet, and heart eyes. Even if she had been nice to Waverly the day before, the brunette noticed something was off.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” said the man knocking on the door and taking Waverly out of her thoughts. “I just saw you arriving this morning and I had to check who could be the one to finally use this room.”
“Oh, no problem. Hi. I just started yesterday,” Waverly got up to shake hands with him.
“I’m Jeremy. Jeremy Chetri. I work in the science department.”
“Nice to meet you, Jeremy. I’m Waverly Earp.”
“Oh, are you family with Willa and Wynonna?” He was curious.
“They’re my sisters. Do you know them?”
“I know Dolls for a very long time, so…” he smiled. “Would you like to have lunch together? The first week can be hard.”
“I’d love to, but I already have a date,” Waverly open her eyes widely. “Well, it’s not a date, date. It’s just a friend and yesterday we talked about having lunch today, so. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. We can have lunch tomorrow, I’m free. I’m always free,” Jeremy faked a laugh. “Anyways, I’m out. I’ll see you around, Waverly.”
Having been already distracted, Waverly decided that it would be good to go and pick up their lunch sooner than later. It could prevent Nicole from ditching her. She decided to play it safe and bought a hamburger for Nicole and just a vegan sandwich for herself. Waverly walked around the campus looking for the redhead, but she was nowhere to find. She realized that the first place she should look for Nicole was the maintenance area. And she was there, with her back turned at the door, organizing something that Waverly couldn’t see.
“Hey, you.”
“Waverly,” Nicole said as she turned around. “What are you doing here? Do you need anything?”
“Well, I came for the lunch you promised me,” Waverly showed her the bag with the food.
“Oh, yeah. Right,” Nicole scratched the back of her neck. “Are you sure you want that?”
“Nicole, if you don’t want to…”
“No, Waverly, please, no. It’s not that, I swear,” Nicole sighed. “It’s just that I meant it when I said the university elite doesn’t hang with the handymen. I don’t want to ruin your reputation.”
“Things don’t go like that between us, they never did,” Waverly got closer. “When we were teenagers, most of the people in town only pity us, the three girls who lost their parents. I could count in one hand the number of real friends we had, but you didn’t care about it. You came into our lives and you stayed. You were best friends with Wynonna, you helped Uncle Curtis around the house, and you even helped me when I needed to rehearse for a presentation.”
“You needed someone to ask you about what you wrote and we both know Wynonna wouldn’t pay enough attention to make the right questions,” Nicole smiled.
“See? You were there for me and I want to be here for you. I want to be close to you again. I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much as I should,” Waverly apologized.
“I would love to hang out with you some more,” Nicole finally accepted. “But with one condition: you have got to stop apologizing, ok? It’s all good between us, no hard feelings.”
“Yeah, ok, that was the last time, I promise. So, shall we?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Outside, under the trees?”
“Lead the way,” Nicole nodded.
It was a surprisingly beautiful day and they decided to sit under one of the tallest trees at the campus. The shadow was refreshing, yet most people decided to stay inside.
“I got your favorite: a hamburger with lots of cheese and no pickles,” Waverly's smile died once a thought hit her. “Oh, I didn’t even ask you if it’s still your favorite or even something you still eat, I’m sorry.”
“I do, Waves, don’t worry,” Nicole giggled. “Thank you for this. What about you, any changes in food?”
“I’m vegan now.”
“And I’m not really surprised about it,” Nicole replied. “So, tell me what made you decide to come back to Purgatory?”
“Honestly? I missed here,” Waverly looked ahead of her and then turned to Nicole. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved going to BC and studying there. It was a dream come true, but there was always something missing. And I know it may seem crazy, but this place is home. I had a few friends in there, but no one close, you know? Here I have my family, the homestead. The big city can be lonely sometimes. There was a spot open here, so I e-mailed Lucado and she asked me to come, so I didn’t have to think too much.”
“I’m glad you are here. I feel you, life can get lonely sometimes, so it’s good to have a familiar friend around,” Nicole admitted.
“Wynonna didn’t tell me you work here,” Waverly decided to finally ask. “Doesn’t she know it?”
“I… I suppose she does,” Nicole mumbled.
“So, you two don’t talk anymore? Why, Nicole? You used to be best friends.”
“It’s not that we don’t talk anymore, Waves. When we see each other we talk, we’re just not so close anymore. We grew apart, I guess.”
“Did something happen?” Waverly was getting more and more curious.
“No, Waves. How is your sandwich?” Nicole clearly changed the subject.
“Good, good,” Waverly got the hint and went with it. “What about your food? Too spicy?”
“Not at all, why?”
“Your eyes are red,” Waverly stated.
“Oh, ah, I didn’t sleep very well,” Nicole rumbled and rubbed her eyes. “And there’s so much dust in the maintenance room. That’s it. Just… allergies.”
“We can talk to Lucado about it,” Waverly suggested. “I admit it, that place looks a little creepy.”
“No, no. No talking to Lucado,” Nicole quickly replied. “I already caused some trouble for her. I don’t want to step on her toes again.”
“Ok. I won’t say anything. It was just a suggestion,” Waverly showed her hands making it clear that she surrendered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. The truth is that I’m not the employee of the month,” Waverly noticed that Nicole looked defeated. “I never am. She puts up with a lot of my crap. I don’t want to sound ungrateful.”
“I understand, Nicole.” Waverly noticed that Nicole wasn’t only complaining about her last few days. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
“I had a plan when I was younger," Nicole admitted. "I was going to play on the university league and then play for Boston Pride. I already had an invitation to that. I guess my mistake was to only have a plan A, never a plan B.”
“In no way I want to make you feel uncomfortable, and if you don’t want to talk about it I understand,” Waverly tried, “but what actually happened, Nicole?”
“How much do you know?”
“I know that you hurt your knee on one of the games,” Waverly replied. “Just what you told me before the surgery. But I thought that after that, things would go back to normal.”
“I tore the medial collateral ligament on my left knee,” Nicole explained. “This is not uncommon on hockey. It was a grade 3 tear, but I was told that after the surgery and some physical therapy I would be able to go back to hockey. They estimated 3-4 months away from the ice. I thought I was ok because after the third month I was only limping a little. But it wasn’t the case. I was so eager to go back to the game that I rushed to the ice too soon. The first time I went gliding again my knee couldn’t take it. I tore it one more time. The doctors said that it wasn’t fully healed to move like that again. I went through two more surgeries after that. Turns out the doctor that performed surgeries 1 and 2 screwed up. I changed my surgeon after that, but all he could do was fix my knee so can walk normally. Now I just limp sometimes, by the end of the day. But hockey was over for me after that.”
“Oh, Nicole. I had no idea about any of it.”
“I was so good at it, Waves.”
“I remember,” the brunette got closer so she could reach her friend’s hands. “I know that I don’t understand much about hockey… or sports, but I know you were good and you loved it. I really am sorry that you had to go through all of that. You came back to Purgatory after that?”
“No, I tried to stay in Toronto for a while, but when Uncle Mike passed away he left me his house here, so I knew that I had to come back to this place.” Nicole sighed.
“Gosh, Nicole. And you have to go through all of that alone. It’s not fair.”
“It’s ok, Waves. I’m sorry, I just destroyed the mood of our lunch and ruined everything again.”
“No, you didn’t ruin anything,” Waverly reassured her. “I was the one asking all the questions.”
“I promise next time I won’t talk about my shitty life.”
“Hold on. First of all, your life is not shitty, you just went through a lot,” Waverly looked deep into Nicole's eyes. “And second: does that mean you want to meet me for lunch again?”
“If you are not too tired of me…”
“I could never,” Waverly could hear her heart beating hard against her rib cage like she was 14 years old again.
“It’s always nice and easy to talk to you, Waverly Earp. Even though you are younger than me, you were always the friend I looked up to while growing up.”
“You were friends with Wynonna and Mercedes,” Waverly teased. “What other options did you have?”
“True, but they end up better than me. Mercedes is running her family business and Wynonna has PeaceMaker now.”
“Hey, don’t talk like that,” Waverly reassured her by squeezing her hand again. “Your life isn’t over. I understand that you can’t go after your first dream anymore, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have other dreams. New dreams. You can still make your life happy.”
“I know I sound like a broken record,” Nicole said, “but my life is full of crap, Waves.”
“So we will work to make it better, we’ll find a way for you to feel like you can enjoy your life again,” Waverly stated.
“We?”
“Yes, we,” the brunette smiled. “I’m here for you for whatever you need and for how long it takes. I’ll make you understand that. I can be very persistent.”
Nicole could only chuckle before she took the last bite of her lunch. If there was one thing that she would never do was to doubt of Waverly Earp.
Won't you stay 'til the A.M.?
All my favorite conversations
Always made in the A.M
'Cause we don't know what we're saying
We're just swimming 'round in our glasses
And talking out of our asses
Like we're all gonna make it
You know I'm always coming back to this place
You know I'm always gonna look for your face