Susan's Story #46 - Morning After (Patreon)

After nearly a year, we finally continue with Susan's Story! The story that somehow ended up with a name-change halfway through without the creator realizing until it was way too late! \o/  Either way... we start on a bit of a sad note. To comment on it as the writer, it was an unfortunate side-effect of the major story adjustments. I've gone through a handful of ideas and their variations on it and plotting it out, to only realize it wasn't what I wanted or something way better came along.

In addition to all that, most of the upcoming scenes will not have extra angles accompanying them. It surprisingly shaves off a lot of time, saving me the effort to fully finish environments and fix up any errors that could be seen from one of the many angles. Plus with a good number of these scenes, it doesn't add that much extra. ^^; 

Oh yeah. I'm aiming to upload one Susan entry every Sunday, aka Susan Sundays. :D

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He turned his body around, expecting his girlfriend to be right next to him. But she was nowhere to be seen. Nathan pulled his upper body up, the blanket was tossed aside with his body being double-layered by the blanket.

Surprised by the fact she got up earlier, he scrambled towards the edge and pushed himself off of the bed. Nathan glanced over at the clock, relieved he didn't oversleep. He and Susan still had a few hours left before their classes start. With that in mind, he kept his pyjama pants and only put on his shirt. Looking at the chair, he briefly recalled the night before. With great relief on his mind, he grabbed his glasses and phone, starting to look for Susan's whereabouts. 

Nathan exited her room, checking the bathroom on the first floor. No Susan. Thinking she wouldn't really be anywhere else, he moved towards the stairs down. He paused when his ears picked up on something downstairs. After several seconds, all he could make out was faint… sobbing? He made his way down the stairs, hoping his ears were wrong. Nathan looked into the living room when he could, and unfortunately his ears were on point.

Susan was sitting on the bench with her feet on the very edge of the sofa, essentially hugging her legs. He froze for a moment, thinking she must've heard him coming down the creaky stairs. But she didn't budge.

"H-hey... what's wrong?" Nathan approached her carefully, each step filling his heart with increasing doubt. Thinking he had done something wrong last night, that he had messed up something again.

She sniffed, wiping her face clean with the sleeve of her pyjamas before reverting back to her safety pose. Nathan walked over and sat down next to her, gently rubbing her back. With his head tilted to see her face better, he asked again. "Susan? What happened? D-did I... did I do something wrong?"

Nathan could barely make it out, but she shook her head. He let out a sigh of relief, however she still was upset. And to him, it seemed like he had to put up with a guessing game.

"Okay… did something happen to your parents? Or… Becca?"

Susan shook her head again.

"Hm… Something with your body? I mean… if you're okay with telling me."

"That's not it..." She got out, barely audible.

"College maybe?"

She didn't shake her head this time.

"A bad grade? You can always just redo that later. Or... something with the internship?"

Susan got out a mumble. He didn't catch what she said, but he knew he was close. Supposedly she also had her internship arranged for next week to start. It was the next big step for their education, getting a taste of their potential future career.

He scooted closer, embracing her with his left arm. Wiping her tears away with the other. "You can totally tell me, you know? It can be hard but... I'll help you like you've done for me."

"..."

"...th-... ki-... me out..."

"Huh? I uhm... didn't quite catch that."

She wiped her tears and other facial fluids away, clearing her throat before saying: "They fucking kicked me out..."

"Wait what?! Why?"

"Something with their administration... Accepted one too many and they decided to screw me over. Of-fucking-course..."

He reaffirmed his hug, resting his cheek on her head. "Sssh… it's okay..."

"...No it's not... I've only got a week left, and they were all supposed to be arranged last week. T-there's... no way I can find anything now!" She resumed crying, grasping for breath in between exhales of weeping. "As usual… things always go bad whe-... when something great happens..."

"We'll... we'll try to find something, okay? I'll help you out. It isn't like the classes today aren't really that important anyway."

"T-thanks..."

Nathan got back up. "I'll go grab you a glass of water, you just stay here."

In one smooth motion, Nathan tossed the pancake, flipping it once before perfectly landing back into the cooking pan. It was a motion he had done many times, treating his twin brothers whenever they were upset, and coincidentally also were hungry. He had hoped it would cheer Susan up, as they've spent a few hours trying to look for an alternative, but to no avail.

He gave the pan a few solid shakes, making sure any batter didn't stick to it. Nathan overheard something back in the hall, the extractor hood and the sizzling obscuring the specifics. He figured it was Susan coming downstairs. His eyes glanced to the side, to actually find her mother tossing her keys onto the table.

"Hey Nathan." She said cheerfully.

"Ah, good afternoon Annika." Nathan brought the fire lower before moving towards the table. "So… you're already done working? Should I make a pancake for you?"

"Oh naaah, thank you though. I hopped by during my break to grab some of my notes - and my lunch too." She eyed the fridge. "Say... weren't you two supposed to be at college?"

"Yeaaah..." He scratched his head. "Some weird stuff happened at her internship. Or former, rather. Apparently they had to kick her out due to some administration error... It's really messed up."

"Oh no... Poor girl... How is she holding up?"

"It is... pretty bad. She barely says a word, either she's crouched up to cover her face or tugging the neck of her shirt over her nose."

"Ah… That's usually how she… copes with things. She'll eventually get over it, as long as you don't make too much of a big deal of it when she comes out of her shell."

"Gotcha, thanks. I've been trying to search for an alternative, but pretty much every company is full by now, considering it starts in just a week."

"Shoot… I wish I could help but I wouldn’t know anyone- and anything really, about game-dev…” Annika said concerned. “Have you had any luck?”

Nathan sighed, shaking his head. “Nope. Even the ones I listed as backup have been completely filled up.”

“Okay… So what are the consequences for her? Surely they can’t blame her for something totally out of her control.”

“From what I remember, Susan will probably suffer a delay for a semester, basically waiting until September before she can actually start an internship.”

“Well… that’s not really too bad. She’s never had to wait a year in school, so a bit of a setback shouldn’t have too much of a side effect.”

“Huh... I never knew that- though it makes sense considering she’s a year younger than me.”

“Alrighty! Let me know how it goes. But don’t worry about it if it doesn’t end up working out, I’ll talk to my husband and have a little chat with Susan about it.”

“Sounds good- wait, you’re already heading back?” 

Annika was already opening the fridge to grab her bagged sandwiches. “Yeah, I’m still technically on the clock. Plus, I’m terrible at handling Susan, you’d do a much better job at it. Now go finish that pancake and keep her company, hmm?"

Nathan wasn't sure how to react to that, especially after that wink of hers. "Y-yeah. I'll do that. Drive s-safe!"