Seeing her off and looking around

After Emily’s hasty departure, you’re now left completely alone in the RV.

Standing with a stretch, you casually cross the isle of the tiny interior and open the door, leaning out to watch Emily as she rushes off to school.

In the distance you can see her beige canvas backpack bumping up and down with her rapid pace, as she seems to be making towards a large rectangular brick building visible a couple blocks down.

At least that’s what you assume, it looks vaguely high school-ish with its out of place, overly grandiose front steps, and the clearly ancient rusted bike-racks bolted haphazard by the sidewalk.

Your guess ends up being correct as she disappears out of sight, into the front door of the depressing school, and looking around, you find yourself breathing a sigh of relief for it.

You think to yourself that this neighbourhood looks even worse during the day, as Previously unnoticed details are revealed.

A fair few houses are boarded up, decaying in various states of neglect or abandonment, one in particular sports a clearly disregarded “CONDEMNED” sign nailed to the door.

Looking around at the various front yards you’d be forgiven for thinking overgrown lawns dotted with old children’s toys were in fashion.

The smell of cheap weed, along with a number of other substances you cant identify cling to the dry acrid air, as if the entire neighbourhood had gone stale in its own enclosed ecosystem.

Deciding you’ve seen enough, and have done your duty by keeping an eye on Emily as she made the short trip. You duck back inside the RV.

Glancing around, you quickly come to the realization you’ve no way to lock the door when you leave.

***

A few minutes of consideration later, you eventually do the reasonable thing and retrieve this mornings note from your sock, and after adding all three contained numbers into your phone contacts, you type up a text to Maddie.

“Hey, it’s Arthur, last night was great! Just wondering, do you have a spare key or something? Apparently I’m the last one heading out.”

After sending it over, you spend a moment waiting for a response, before restlessness inevitably seeps it’s way in.

Not content to lounge about anymore, you decide to look around what little of the RV you haven’t seen.

Taking a step into the bathroom you aren’t exactly surprised to find it’s minuscule, though, It’s clean, at least, impressively clean, aside from a few stray droplets of pee on the toilet seat, no doubt left by Emily in her hurry.

Between the walk in shower to the left and the toilet on the right, there’s barely enough room for a single person to turn around.

The wall between them only contains a rack of various toiletries, and you’re initially confused at the apparent lack of a sink, however upon closer inspection you see a sort of fold out bowl with a tap positioned over the toilet that must serve the purpose.

The shower is not even the size of the rest of the room combined. Just looking at it gives you a sense of claustrophobia. If two people were to try and shower at the same time they’d be pressed against each other with barely room to wiggle.

Though with that thought in mind, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to share it with the right person.

After relieving yourself in the cramped bathroom you walk out and past the kitchenette into the rearmost room.

The “just big enough for two if you like cuddling” bed takes up most of the space.

A thin closet overflowing with clothes shares a wall with the bathroom, taking up precious room, the opposite rear wall has some overhead cabinets along with an old AC unit built into it.

The wall to the left of you, opposite the bed has a reasonably sized flatscreen mounted to it, covering a portion of the windows. A thin shelf underneath it has some precariously stacked game cases on it along with a decade old system.

Tucked between the bed and the rear wall, you’re pleasantly surprised to see a couple guitar sized cases, along with a small travel sized AMP.

Clothing is generally strewn about the room, but some on the end of the bed, apparently recently discarded catches your eye.

You recognize the pyjamas Eileen changed into last night, but beside them, unfamiliar to you, is what looks to be a girlish and garish, heap of patterned fabric. Cautiously lifting it up, you identify it as a far past it’s prime onesie.

The print is as ugly upon closer inspection as it was at first glance, a white background patterned with a number of faded, brown muffins and cherry-topped cupcakes.

The bottom of the pant-legs, which may have originally been footed, have long since been chopped off around the knee area.

Multiple seams, especially on the outer thighs look to have split apart multiple times, messy stitched threads valiantly holding the line.

The fabric of the inner thighs and crotch are so thin in some places, it results in a pattern of square holes where the individual weave of threads can be seen.

The rear of the garment has a wide drop-seat buttflap, the right-side button looks to have been missing for some time, meaning it must result in a constant half-moon. Upon closer inspection of where the missing button would be, you can see a sewing needle and a length of thread have already been prepared and stuck into the Fabric, ready to be sewn.

Busting through her bottoms seems to be a frequent occurrence for Emily, perhaps exacerbated by the shoddy repairs.

Between trying to imagine what Emily must look like in this, you’re struck with pangs of concern.

Rifling through the closet a moment later, you’re relieved to see however a number of practically new pyjamas sitting untouched in their packaging. You reason it’s continued survival must be a result of emotional attachment rather than desperation.

So things weren’t going that bad for them at least.

Still, if you weren’t already going to bring their living situation up with Amanda, a glance at this neighborhood would have made the decision for you.

A *ping* from your phone brings you back to reality, and pulling it from your pocket a text back from Maddie reads:

“There’s a spare key near the bong, keep it ;)”

A moment later, a follow up:

“And i mean the key lol”

Relived you wont have to jury rig some means of locking the door behind you, you begin to type a curtesy thank you before remembering Maddie had an equal part in making Emilys “breakfast” this morning. You type:

“Ty, btw, the fruits of our labor”

You send the text along with the video you took of Emily chugging Maddies asspie.

The jumping dots that indicate typing seem almost excited before Maddies reply comes through.

“NO WAY, unf fuck gotta save that for later, she didn’t suspect anything?”

“Not really no”

A few moments pass as Maddie seems to take her time forming a response, finally it comes through:

“With those insane batter factories of yours plus our help, we could feed that girl a steady diet.”

Her message is quickly followed up by a series of 6 emojis, three smiling purple devils hanging over an angel on the text line below, flanked by a couple couches.

That gets a hearty laugh out of you as Maddie sends over yet another text. “Btw, don’t bring this up to Eileen, let me soften her up first. Have to convince her on a few things”

Hmm, you consider her cryptic message before replying yourself:

“Wasn’t planning on it. you’re really thinking of this being a long term thing? Not that i object.”

This time a response comes nearly as soon as you’ve sent your own, simply: “bet”

Followed by: “you just work on your girls and I’ll work on mine, seriously, you already have the makings of a pretty sweet harem. I’ll help, just let me be a part of it.”

Harem.

The word echoes around in your brain for a time as you bask in its significance, that... really seems to be what this is turning into when you think about it. But no, no way. You reply with the slightest touch of exasperation:

“You seriously think Samantha would be up for that? She’s crazy about me, but even religion aside she’s not exactly fond of you guys.”

A long time passes as Maddie seems to be preparing a paragraph or two this time, “Don’t think of it like that, they don’t have to know they’re in one at first, open acceptance can come later, just have fun with them. In the meantime, I’ll talk Eileen into a sort of throuple.”

You take a steadying breath at the sudden numerous implications that come with this before opting to just roll with it. “Alright, just promise me this isn’t all some elaborate plan to cuck Sam.”

Another quick response this time, “Already did that didn’t i ;)” followed up by a “sorry” and “Don’t worry about her dude, she’ll come to accept it one day I promise. Worst comes to worst just sharpie in something about polygamy in her bible.”

After a moment of contemplation, and with no further texts from Maddie, that seems to be the end of the conversation.

Standing up from the end of Eileen and Emilys bed, you shake yourself out of the uncertainty threatening to overtake you and begin to double check you have all your things before preparing to leave.

***

Eventually, having made your way out of the RV and down the depressing Mid-Century Street, you reach your thankfully intact car, getting inside and buckling in, you make a mental note to be a little nicer to Samantha today than you had been planning on.

And with that, you drive home.

It's been a really long time guys. I'm genuinely sorry its taking me so long to get back into things.

you all may be shocked to learn the entirety of my works thus far have been made on mobile, well, that has changed and for the first time in my life I have a comfortable, semi-ergonomic setup.

Do feel free to share your thoughts on this chapter, but maybe go easy, imposter syndrome has been hitting hard lately, and I just can't shake the feeling I've "lost the touch" compared to some of my earlier chapters.

Even so, I no longer have something even resembling an excuse not to write, and so from now on I will try to make updates weekly.

P.S. special shoutout to Student1, who has been admirable in their persistence trying to get me to write more, maybe in end all anyone needs to get anything done is somebody to disappoint.