L'histoire d'un traumatisme

Ft. Oliver

Stram was glad to be with her best friend, as always. She was smiling (well smiling in her way), talking and all that stuff. She meeted Oliver a while ago and wished she could be with the boy literally every day of her life. Some people might think that it was a romantic type of relation, but Stram just knew that Oliver was the perfect match to make a complete and beautiful friendship with her. A long time ago, while she was looking for Am and Gram she was lucky enough to cross his path and be able to cover a part of the hole the loss of her two best friends had left inside her heart. She knew, right away, when she saw him that they were gonna be good friends. He was the perfect victim and she wanted to be the only one to torment him for eternity, others that tried would have to face her. He was like a Gram, but with the intelligence of Am. Two in one.

Stram would never say that Oliver had replaced her two childhood friends, but he was certainly now part of her closest friend, mostly family. He was the one that helped her through the new life that was “earth” and all that crap. He helped her, by only being in her life, to get over the realisation that maybe she’d never find Am and Gram ever. She knew them when she was eleven in Halloween Town and it was a great time to remember, but Stram had become a new person since then and she was now nineteen. She knew that even if she found them back, Oliver would still be an important part of her life. Oliver and Poppy. Poppy was also now an important part of her life, even if the girl wasn’t really as good as her at remembering her existence… slowly but surely. The only one she wouldn't miss was Rox.

Anyway, it’s because she was enjoying the day and the moment with Oliver so much that It took her a while to realise that it was, in fact, snowing around them. It’s Oliver that told her  “Wow it's snowing!”. Stram wasn’t a fan of snow, it meant that Halloween was really over and autumn. Which was her favorite part of the year. Which reminded her of home, Halloweentown. She looked at Oliver, studying him. Trying to understand what might be going on in his head, to be that happy about snow. It was cold, it was a bright white annoying to the eyes and it was getting clothes and skin wet. It was the one thing about Oliver, Rox and Poppy that she could not understand, the love of winter and christmas. The closest thing to christmas she had seen before arriving in this world, was the Christmas Jack tried to do and this one was already soooo much better than the Christmas here.

But Stram was happy today. She was happy that Oliver was happy. Even though her face was serious, she was glad to be there at the first snow with her best friend, it was better than him seing the first snow with stupid Nox. Stram had never been the best person to show her feelings through facial expression and most people would say that her rare smiles were creepy. So it was with a pretty sober face, studying her best friend, pretty impossible to get what she was feeling. On Oliver's part, it was pretty much always easy to get how he was feeling. He was like an open book.

That’s why she sensed it right away when he went from the happiest stressed kid, to the stressiest stressed kid ever, right beside her. Stram tried to find the reason for that stress by herself, looking if a bully of school was around ? This drunk guy that tried to kidnap Oliver once ? Someone looking creepy ? She looked all around them and found no one that could be of that. If she knew, she would have gone there right away to throw a hand. Nobody messes with Oliver. She felt his arm grab her, which brought back all of her attention to him. Oliver took a few steps backward, making her follow the motion, even though she wanted to go forward and find who or even what was making Oliver stress like this and punch them.

Then, when Stram was gonna ask him what was going on, Oliver left. Running. Shit. Stram almost reached late to follow him, jumping on her feet, running after her best friend. She was tall, for a woman and used to run often when police got them in Urbex or when she was following someone, so she was able to follow him. Oliver was running like she never saw him run. Like his life was depending on this. Then, after a while running, Oliver finally stopped. They were now in a hotel lobby. She went in front of him and tried to get in contact with him, he seemed totally out of it. Not in his right mind. She wasn’t sure he would listen to her.

“Oli, What happened?” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Let him space ? Hug him ? Take his hand ? Gosh, human relations was the hardest thing ever, she never knows what’s the good reaction to humans here… Back in Halloween Town, she would have just punched the other kid overreacting screaming at him to calm down, they would have fought and then laugh and end of the story… Here people were so.. .sensible. She then added, trying to get Oliver to focus on her and not whatever was scaring him… but if Oliver needed a hug, she would give him one, as much as she hated human contact, she would for her best friend “breathe, you're with me, nothing can happen to you, I’m the scariest one out here. Focus on me.”

“Breath with me, okay ?” She was pretty sure she saw Mally or Clawd do that one time and it worked… she must try. She then proceeded to breathe slowly and loudly in front of Oliver1, with hand motion of up and down, so he would focus on her and copie that breathing. “Do you wanna hold my hands, do you want me to call Clawd ? Mally ?”

Stram felt like she needed to stop asking questions, maybe she was making things worse, but truth be told, she was herself stressed right now and her reaction to that stress was to ask questions. But she really wanted to help her friend calm down. She wasn’t used to helping him get over his stress, normally she was one of the reasons he would stress and someone else would be there to calm him.

Codage par Libella sur Graphiorum