thinking about how darcy is like. everyone’s mum. gives off that chill mum vibe even to scout and bonnie’s friends. (and by friends, it’s only frankie and theo.) like how darcy bails frankie when he gets into trouble. how she teaches theo to do her makeup for her plays. how she is welcome to just casually sit in during scout and frankie’s game nights just as she is welcome in bonnie’s room when theo sleeps over. how she happens to be an honorary member of bonnie and theo’s secret girls club, which they started when they were eight after being ostracised by the mean girls in the playground for wearing their hair in “stupid braids”. (ten years later, they are still the only members. and lola. oh and scout.) how frankie is thankful to live right next door because darcy is an expert on the only two subjects he’s failing in class: classic literature and world history. (his parents are rarely at home and they are both doctors, so both subject matters are really not up their alley just as it isn’t his. math is his thing.) how darcy supports theo in her community theatre work - which means a lot considering how theo struggles with her parents who are against the idea of her pursuing theatre. (you’d go hungry, they’d often tell her, you’d be jobless.) how darcy worked some kind of miracle and managed to convince them to give their insanely talented daughter a chance. (“mum’s words. and mine, too, tbh,” says bonnie when theo found out, and that task might have involved finding some of theo’s old recordings of her performance in macbeth, hijacking a tv transmission, a massive potential for scholarships, who knows.) 

also thinking about bonnie and theo’s friendship, and scout and frankie’s, or more appropriately, scout and bonnie and frankie and theo aka the fantastic four in general, how frankie is the one who boldly names their group chat this horrendous nickname just because he’s a marvel fan. (“but it’s catchy and less annoying than the quad squad, and because scout and bonnie are twin sibs, like sue and johnny storm,” he’d insist much to everyone’s chagrin, to which bonnie would argue, “sue and johnny storm aren’t twins” and then it would spiral on and on an on.) how theo becomes the mum of their group who takes her time to make small bento boxes for the group because the lunch at the cafeteria is shit. how bonnie is that loud, supportive friend who would wave a streamer that screams “future tony award winner my ride-or-die theodora tenorio!!!!!” outside the old vic at the premiere of theo’s first play, or a banner that has frankie’s face on it that says “i am number ONE” on it when he competes for a national maths challenge. how scout, this skinny little boy, may seem so quiet but is the protective one who stands up for his friends like, for instance, that time he confronted the dudes from the football team who bullies frankie.

(and then there’s that time when frankie and his parents would help the kingsley trio and let them stay at their house after the second incident with javi, and how eventually it’s just scout and bonnie escaping to the holiday’s residence while darcy tries to... fix things.)

also, also, alsooooo thinking about darcy and bonnie and their mother-daughter relationship, too, how bonnie never trusts anyone to dye her hair except for her mum. or how darcy prepares this occasional ritual with care, readies the bathroom for the mess of colour, googles tips and tricks with bonnie for good measure. bonnie says her mother has the gentlest hands. darcy understands her daughter changes like the season. her hair a metaphor, the way it blossoms to a cherry blossom pink, deepens into the electric blue of winter. mum, i think you’re the demeter to my persephone, bonnie offers, and darcy is unsure whether the analogy should comfort or frighten her. 

sometimes darcy often drifts to think about mateo. he would’ve been twelve now, she’d wonder. what would he have been like, what kind of kid would i see him grow up to be, and it would never escape bonnie, that look on her mother’s face. when bonnie asks what’s wrong, darcy lies under her breath and says, “because you’ve grown up so fast, my darling,” which almost meant i feel like i’m losing you, too.