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gotmattitude · 6 years

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we’re gone but we don’t know where

WHO: Santana Lopez ( @trickstersantana ) and Matt Rutherford, with NPCs Julio Lopez, Someone.

WHAT: Running errands in New York City, doing some sponsor/sponsee bonding? Sort of?

WHEN: Sep 22nd

WHERE: A building in a dark alley.

WARNINGS: Mention of needles/injections, stabbing, manipulation, death, murder implied?

Santana walked, or almost run, alongside Matt through the city, too happy of her fake sense of freedom. She was too used to being trapped in NYADA. "C'mon, Hoodoo guy, we are almost there." She said with a big smile. She talked with her 'sib' Oliver to know where to met with them and her fake parental figure. She should be wary, she should warn Matt even more of how awful he was. But still, she was happy to see him and talk with him again. A happiness that would end quickly, she knew it very well. "This is the place." She said pointing to a seemly abandoned building on a dark alley. The kind of place where super hero parents die. "Alright, fair warning. My 'dad' is a fucking ass. Like, the worst, the less he know of you, the best. Oh God, thank you so much for this Matt I will always value your sacrifice, I'm sorry you always have to met the worst... the worst of my kind when you are with me." She would love to tell him she could introduce him to a nice trickster someday, but she didn't knew anyone she liked. Her 'mom' only, but she didn't want to see Santana. "Ready?"

Matt's internal gears were turning as Santana bounded through the streets of NYC. It was really about time that he used his privilege for something other than snarking Bloodlines on the internet, he thought, just as Santana urged him on. "I'm walking, I'm walking," he said, a little distracted, but speeding up to keep up with her. The building seemed sketchy, at least at first glance, but he'd slept in worse places before. He'd just keep his hands in his pockets; one on his phone, the other on his wallet. "Alright, sure. Is this your hangout spot, or?"

He wondered what was up with Santana's 'family,' what they'd done, but didn't ask. Some people got shitty families. Some of them were shitty enough to add scare quotes to the word. He nodded along, until she started apologizing to him. "Hey, c'mon. Tamamo--Tamamo wasn't your fault. Your 'dad' is also probably not your fault. Besides, I know one badass trickster already, the bar was too fuckin' high," he joked. "And you know, you don't represent your entire race, and all that shit." Giving a last tentative glance towards the place, he nodded. "Don't let him know too much, he's an ass. I got it. I'm ready when you are."

Santana nodded at the question, but she wasn't that sure. It might be a trap too. She knew it wasn't her fault, completelly, at least on the Japan part, still, she felt like she was dragging Matt into danger. But she wasn't sorry enough sorry to stop it. She smiles a little at the compliment. "Lucky for them, or they would be super screwed" She joked back. When she was about to open the door, someone opened it from the inside.

Someone who looks very shady opens the door. They are a white teen, pretty shorty, with black hair and a red hoodie. Even without meeting them before, you could sense the annoying teen energy surrounding them. "Hermanita!! You finally arrived!!" They shout in a very bad spanish pronunciation, quickly hugging Santana to her exasperation. "Hay! Who are you? Who are you? A new friend? What's your name?" They ask very fast, looking at Matt, ending the hug with Santana and going to hug the other guy if no one stopped the energetic kid.

Matt chuckled at her joke, adding something like 'whatcha gonna do about it' before the door swung open, and someone... interesting came out of the other side. He tried not to be annoyed, but Aether, he'd barely been a teenager, and sometimes he was really grateful for that, including right then. An eyebrow raised, he was selfishly glad for a moment that this kid was Santana's "something"--although probably not her "dad"-- and not his.

Until the kid started heading towards him. Frozen in place, he let them hug him, patting them awkwardly on the back as the only vague form of reciprocation. "I'm Matt," he said when the hug was released, and he could comfortably breathe again, in his own bubble of personal space. "I'm Santana's friend. What's your name?" It was polite to ask, but now he was also very curious. Where had this kid come from?

Santana groans and complains when the kid shows they're still existing. "Oh my God, I'm no family or 'family' or yours. I'm nothing yours. Don't bother Matt you brat" She fear Matt was already saying too much information, but hoped it won't scalate. She went upstairs hoping the others will follow. She enters a room that looked like it was abandoned for years until a little kid found it to turn it into their secret operation base. She entered the living room, completelly covered with a blanket fort, lots of toys and anime figures on the floor and snacks and sweets around. She rolled her eyes when she noticed her 'dad' was sitting on the couch. Inside the blanket fort. "God fucking dammit Cabrón. Really? Your idea of safe place to meet is where the brat lives, right?" She could notice how unconfortable was to be in a room with two other tricksters, but she know Matt was the only one there that had to suffer 3 distrust auras.

Someone smiles and moves nerviously and happy. "Do you have a tumblr, Santana's friend? Guess my name!" They said, and fake cries with Santana's complains while she goes upstairs "You're so meaaaaan, you both use me as a messenger and... hey don't ignore me!!" They say as the walk upstairs too.

The man in the sunglasses smiles at seeing Santana appear, getting up from the couch, but still not being able to stand up fully for the blankets. "That's how you say hi to your old 'dad'?" He says, sound fakelly offended. "If you assume the horse kid lives here." He shrugs. "But let's get to the point, I know you aren't visiting just because you miss me."

Matt stiffens up when this kid asks for his tumblr. Were they going to hack him? Spam him? Dig up his every secret and expose them to the world?? He smiles, tight and uncomfortable, and thinks for a long second. "I'll guess your name if you guess my tumblr URL. And no checking Santana's blog for clues." He's setting himself up for failure, he can feel it. But there was no such thing as being too careful, not in this city, not this year, not anytime.

When they go upstairs, underneath all the alertness, something twists in his chest. Santana had once told him their pasts weren't so different, and he knows many LN experience homelessness, but the childishness of the blanket forts, of the candy and the toys makes sympathy shine through. When Santana makes that comment though, he finds himself looking around. Is there someone here? Is this a setup??

Matt looks to Santana for guidance on how to react to this man. Her "dad". He gives a noncommittal nod when he speaks to her, but doesn't greet him out loud. Yet. Shit. Now he's also wondering why Santana wanted to come here when she thought so badly of her "family". Maybe she found out about Brownstone. Maybe this was a way to quietly say "fuck you" for being another sponsor with blood on his hands. Or maybe she is a really good actress and she hates shadow magic more than she let on. His eyes dart back and forward between all three tricksters, and he has to push himself to settle down. What the fuck, chill, he thinks.

Someone looks defeated. What a masterful way to ruin their machinations. "Uuuhhhhhhhhh.... mattfriendofsantana dot tumblr dot com!" They try to guess while they go upstairs, and sits next to the man on the sunglasses. "I don't live here! This is my super secret operation base!!" They said with pride.

Santana rolls her eyes. But she did miss him, sometimes she wasn't interacting with him. Everytime they met again it was full of regret. "You said things you knew things. About enchantments. So c'mon be a decent fake dad a help your fave fake daugther, you bastard."

The man in the sunglasses points at the kid like saying. 'See?' and waves at the other man that went with Santana. "Hello, sorry my daugther was raised to forget to introduce people. You can call me Julio, who are you?" He asks, and talks a little softer to Santana, in spanish. "¿Cuánto confías en él? Y no digas que no te fias de nadie, eso ya lo se, Niebla. But yeah sure, if you are a decent fake daugther and give me the information I asked you about months ago."

Matt probably shouldn't feel as satisfied as he does to have outsmarted a child. But he does, and a smile tugs on his lips as they guess the wrong username. "Wrong. I'll tell you what letter it starts with if you tell me what letter your name starts with." Matt suggests, and even though he's probably a bit too cocky at the moment, the end of the sentence turns into a question. "Operation base for what?" he asks before he can stop himself. Do teenagers tend to have these sort of things? Is this normal? It takes him a second to brush off the confusion, but when he does, the initial suspicion lingers. Is this an ambush??

And Santana's asking about enchantments, and he would have thought there wasn't much left inside him to be twisted up, but there is. Aether, he hopes someone is able to help her. Brownstone was months ago, and she is still dealing with this shit?He tries to stand next to Santana and look intimidating with arms crossed, but his eyes keep darting from person to person to 'secret operation base', giving away his uneasiness.

Matt nods at Santana's 'dad', and something about the way he spoke strikes a nerve. "Eh, politeness is fuckin' overrated. I'm Matt, it's... interesting to meet you, Julio." His attention drifts when the conversation turnsinto Spanish, once again glancing around the room. He has been here for... what? Two minutes? Two hours? And he's thoroughly confused. Thoroughly. He catches the tail end of her 'dad''s sentence, and an eyebrow rises of its own accord as he glances sideways at Santana. What the fuck was going on here?

Someone is too hooked up with this. "O!" Then pouts exageratelly "I told you is super secret! But it's for super secret meetings, like this one!" They reveal anyway. "Stop talking in spanish I want to know what you guys say!!"

Santana was annoyed, but she throws him a notebook she was carrying in ther bag (who was there the whole time). "En una escala de 0 a 10, siendo un 0 'no le diría ni mi nombre', y 10 lo que me fio de la prediccion del tiempo, un 7. Now. What do you know?" Santana can see Matt also dislikes her 'dad' from minute one like every living on Earth. "We don't respect politeness in this fucking house." She says proud.

The man in the sunglasses smirks. "Interesting. That's pretty generous. In the 'family' we have a saying about Santana's friends. They are either naive fools she's trying to use, or people without any morals whatsoever, which one are you?" He tries to catch the notebook in the air, but he fails, and he has to crouch to get it. "Eso es un número muy alto para ti, Niebla, te fias demasiado del hombre del tiempo." He says without opening it. "I actually don't know that much about enchantments and you suspected it, so this notebook is full of lies, right? But to not get stuck in the accusations of lying like always, let's jump to the deals. I'll have to do my research and if I get something, you tell me something. Now, what's the enchantment about. I can't help much without data, you know that."

Matt starts going through all the names with O he knows in his head. As it turns out, they're not that many. Octavius. Octavia. Octopus. Fuck. A deal's a deal, though, so he begrudgingly offers his URL initial as well. "G." What kind of super secret meetings do teenagers even have? Is this the first one to be hosted here? He also wants to know what Santana and her "dad" are saying, but he refuses to agree with this kid right now. Maybe there will be time for that later.

Discreetly, he tries to gauge what they're saying. He hears numbers. Maybe it's a secret code. The little phrase about politeness shakes him out of it, but before he can react, Julio is talking to him. Eyes narrowed, he laughs a little, and crosses his arms over his chest. This is a test of some kind, he can tell. But he's not going to fall for it. "Bit of both. I'm a naïve dumbass with shit for a moral compass." The notebook falls straight to the ground, and he bites back a laugh, trying to not get visibly frustrated when he speaks Spanish again. Is he talking about me?? It's alright though, soon enough his eyes bounce back between the two like he's watching a ping pong match. "What do you know about Enchantments? Forcing people to do shit they don't want to do?" Matt asks, arms still crossed and keeping his gaze straight.

Someone checks their phone when they heard the first clue and opens Santana's tumblr page to find a blog she rebloged starting with G. They will scroll down until They Find Matt.

Santana is already nervous just looking at Matt and her 'dad' talk, but she knew showing she cares too much about Matt won't end well and her fake father would be ven more of a dick. She doubts before giving an answer. She crosses her arms. Ah, fuck it. "Ah, you know." She shrugs. "Self-deprecating magic bullshit. To be ashamed of myself, that I'm alone, or no one will miss me, that other people think I'm just an animal and all that super fake shit that is totally not real and I don't believe for a moment." She tries to say non challant like its her grocery list. "Alright maybe I believe that but it's magic's fault!"

The man in the sunglasses laughs at Matt's answer. "This guy is fun, Mist. I hope you aren't planning to stab him." He says way too casually. "Enchantments is manipulation for inepts who don't know how to convince people without magic." He listens to Santana, quiet for a while. "Oh, you finished? Really? That's it? God damnit Mist, you believed all those things already. What a redundant and useless spell."

Matt sighs when the kid takes out their phone. This is going to go great.

[CW: needles]

His eyes narrow at the stabbing comment. What. The. Fuck. Was that an inside joke??? Did Santana regularly stab her friends, or enough so that her "dad" asks about it. "Don't worry, I stab myself enough with needles regularly. I can handle myself." Could he though??? He's trying real hard to look completely different than how he felt, which was threatened and confused as fuck, and he doesn't know if it's working.

Focused on what Santana is saying, his guard drops for a moment. Aether, how had it been so long since Brownstone, and he had no idea this was going on? He never means to pry, to force people to talk about things they don't want to, and he's been so ridiculously focused on his own bullshit that he just didn't know the enchantment went this deep. What a fucking dick. But this isn't the place to voice that. He turns back to Santana's "dad" and crosses his arms tighter against his chest again, and ignored the pang that comes with this comment that these things weren't new. "Do you know how to help her or not?"

Santana super fake laughs and then acts super offended "Excuse me? I had never, NEVER stabbed anyone with a real knife." She might had try a lot of times, though. 'How much do you know about it, you bastard?' She was getting even more nervous and unconfortable. "Don't listen to him, Matt, he thinks he is soooo funny" She rolls her eyes, and controls herself from saying 'I would never do that to you' because it would be too much of a lie. Who knows what the future hold, right? She gets even more angry to his fake father reaction. "I guess!!! But you don't have to be a dick about it!" She answers without thinking. "Ughhhh, c'mon! You are just saying that because...because you don't know shit about getting rid of it and you just want to...aggh!!" She is too annoyed and embarrased to say a proper argument.

The man in the sunglasses keeps his confident smile on. "Is that because you take drugs or the...the sugar thing...thing" He says, snapping his fingers, like he doesn't remember the name but it's so close to get it and that would help. He groans frustrated to his bad memory. "Mist, you throw a knife to my face, don't act all hight and mighty like you are above stabbing." He says as casually as fake dad could talk to his fake daughter about something as not washing the dishes. He calmly stares at Santana while she gets progresivelly more annoyed. "I told you it's like manipulation. Just manipulate yourself back goddamnit. Where is your manipulative liar pride? You are terrible at it, but also you believe a lot of crap, so it could work."

Matt is really doing his best to not freak out about the whole 'does Santana plan to stab me' thing, and he knows he's being irrational--oh. The aura. Times three, probably. He tries to push it down, and quirks a smile at Julio. "Testosterone," he says simply. Still... there have been knives thrown before, it seems, but he'll ask her about this afterwards. Aether, this experience has been fun already. He laughs awkwardly before he clears his throat and laughs again, still falsely, but more sarcastically. "Hilarious," he comments.

Matt knows everyone has their insecurities, but today has really been a wake-up call, and he's growing steadily more annoyed at Julio, and worried about Santana, until he offers them a solution. Manipulate yourself back? Admittedly, that seemed like the wrong approach to take about getting herself to believe she wasn't an animal, or alone. But maybe Leah could help with that. "She's a fucking great manipulative liar," he defends her, and the words come tumbling out of him before he can stop them. "Is there anything else you know?" Matt asks.

Santana shrugs, still very annoyed and angry at everything. "But you dodged it! Geez old man, get over it. You deserved it. And stop asking Matt questions!" She frows even more at the useless advice. "That's bullshit. It's like an illusion. I could make a deal everyday so you had a noisy fly flying in front of your face forever. You can try to ignore it, even if you know it's not real, but it's still there." She doesn't know how to feel about Matt's defense. "Yeah!"

The man in the sunglasses snaps his fingers when Matt's says testosterone. "Insulin! Oh, it's not that." He says first proud and then dissapointed. The kid stops staring at their phone to complain. "Daaaad, I explain it to you!" and the man makes shushs sounds so they shut up. "Mist that's hurtful, I'm hurt. And someday, someone won't dodge your knives, and they would be no one to stop you. " Beats. "That sounded too optimist." He laughs at Matt saying Santana is any good at manipulation. "If she was, you wouldn't know. But you know because she is not subtle at all. I love you, Mist, but you are terrible." He raises his eyebrows to Santana's explanation. "You should have started by that! Then you know how to deal with illusions, I already teach you half of what I know!"

Someone whose name starts with O grins. "Found it~! Oh! You're a doppel!! I have some theories about doppels."

Matt, without thinking it over, blurts out: "or she might stop throwing knives at people." There are many ways to stab someone. In their back. Looking right at them. Having someone else throw the knife. With a hidden contraption. Still, he cringes at his own completely useless addition and gives Julio a look like he just owned him. Which he knows he didn't. What the fuck is he even trying to do here. Maybe he should just let Santana talk. "That's not necessarily true," he says, immediately contradicting his decision to let Santana do the talking. "You can realize after you've been manipulated how much they fucked you over." He shrugs.

He narrows his eyes at Santana's example about the fly, and he thinks about it for a moment. "But maybe he can convince you to stop making the deal." Get to the root of the problem. He ignores Julio's comments about illusions. Santana's at least half the reason he's even attempted to work on his illusion magic. Blaine's like 15%. The rest is just he really likes learning.

Looking at the kid, he lifts his chin. "What did you explain to him?" Matt asks, just as Julio shushes them. A sigh leaves him before he can stop it when they find him online and immediately put their foot in their mouth. "Theories? About doppels?" An eyebrow is high in his forehead, and his arms remain crossed against his chest.

Santana is actually a little happy Matt is there and not only full of regret. "Yeah! Thanks, Matt" She stops to look at him. "Wait, what do you mean?" Hey, nice, actually they are discussing solutions and brainstorming. Who had though, talking things with people actually helped? "In this case, stop doing the deal would MAYBE had been getting rid of that bastard's magic. But SOMEONE" Marley. "Didn't want to testify for it.Yes I'm talking about you know how." She says Marley with her mouth in case Matt doesn't get it, but with no sound. "It's Marley I'm blaming Marley. And the entire judicial system but mostly Marley."

The man in the sunglasses continues his theory. "You know what to do agaisnt an illusion, Santana. Look out for the truth." His phone sounds, he checks it, an shush the kid again, "Don't waste time, we have to go now, Mist. I'll ask around to make your work easier, and you give the fucking information, alright?"

Someone whose name starts with O knows they don't have much time. Their theories won't be stopped. "Everyone thinks doppels come from witches but WHAT IF" They say, very exagerately and dramatic. "Doppels are actually the tricksters who get to become human."

Gears are turning in Matt's head, and he points at Santana as he processes the information. "No--I don't mean Fuchs's magic," he says, as his attention remains on trying to hypothetically solve the enchantment problem. "Although I have no fucking clue why Marley wouldn't get her ass to court to testify," he says offhandedly, only sounding mildly annoyed. "I'm saying we get to the source of the problem. The source of your beliefs. And work from there." Shrugging, he speaks towards the ground for a moment. "Maybe we don't get rid of the deal at first. Maybe some days the fly is quiet. Maybe some days it just lays there. Maybe it buzzes without being able to see it. But we take steps."

Look out for the truth. Manipulate yourself back. Santana says Julio doesn't know enchantments, but Matt's starting to think he knows enough, at least, for them to make some progress. "Leaving so soon?" he asks, like he was really enjoying their company.

Matt is straight-up rendered speechless when O-kid shares their theory, at least for a series of seconds that stretch long. If tricksters became human, would they have memories? Would they arise as doppels do? "Where would we get the memories of our past lives, then?" He asks, trying to one-up some kid, like an adult is supposed to do. "I'm pretty sure doppels are just doppels. Tricksters who become human are humans who used to be tricksters?" The first sentence is pretty confident, but the second sounds just about as unsure as he feels right now.

Santana groans "Because her problems are more important than everyone's else." But she rather focus on solutions now. "Ugh, Matt, the source is the entire world and systematic racism. This is not a thing we can change from the source. We are looking for realistic, magical solutions here" She listens to how Matt follows her fly metaphor. She doesn't agree, she just wants to kill the bug forever. Her fake dad was going to leave, anyway. "Alright, alright, I'll give you your shit info, but you better do something because I'm just going to give you as muchinformation as you give me. You have to go? Oh my God, please, tell me is not because there is some dangerous person coming here trying to kill you out of revenge for some fucked up thing you did to them." She stops for a moment. "It's Darling?" She is so annoyed at the kid. "If there wasn't like, proofs or evidence of doppels coming from witches, yeah, suuuure." Santana rolls her eyes to Matt outright lying to the kid. You don't even think you are human, Matt, don't say tricksters are now

Someone whose name starts with O doesn't want to leave yet. "From the life as a trickster, of course! But doppels comes from someone else." The kid laughs at Matt question. "Hahahaha you have no idea, don't you?"

The man in the sunglasses text someone, then throws the phone to the ground and breaks it. "You know it." He says with a smile and he could talk in spanish, but it would be easier to talk on a way only Santana would get. "But no, do you remember Clown and Mirror? Medieval fair, 2014. This is like that time before Nails tried to throw a goat to Doorframe combined with that time Darling and Tibula were betting our lifes on a game of jenga at the aquarium."

Santana hears that totally understanding the gravity of the situation and grabs Matt's arm. "Matt we have to go."

Matt scoffs. "A lot of shit is product of systemic oppression, and it doesn't mean you can't work on it. " He's pretty proud of his idea and his metaphors, alright? Besides, life already seems pretty bleak without adding 'no way to combat self-loathing thoughts instilled on you by systemic racism'. He's not about to add an extra layer of bleakness on purpose. "Maybe there's no magic solution. At least not without using more enchantments."

"I'm almost sure that's not true," he tells the kid. "There's some pretty witchy memories in there. But it's not like that shit's gonna stop you from making up theories like that in your head. So whatever." Jesus, he's like the teenager here now. But he's annoyed. Sure, he has no idea, but do they have to point it out like that??

He goes to continue to argue--he's not even sure about what, but that seems to be what he's doing today--when it seems like things start moving real fast, real suddenly. His head jerks one way, and then the other, and his heart drums in his chest when tension seems to rise out of nowhere and Santana grabs his arm. "Wh--what? Sure. Sure, let's go." Glancing back towards Julio and the kid, he waves half-heartedly. "Nice... to meet you?"

Santana frows. There is has to be a magic solution. Bitch don't say that bullshit but instead she just makes complaining noises about it. She waves goodbye "Die a painful dead." Santana says, with a friendly tone. "I love you too!" his 'dad' answers. Oliver just says bye very enthusiastically.

She brings Matt outside, almost dragging him by the arm until they are out the flat. And then until they are far away from the flat. "Oh man, uuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I fucking hate him so much!" She complains, angry. "Sorry I dragged you into this. But..." She calms herself a bit. "But it really helped me. I think."

Matt waves goodbye to everyone in a confused daze as he's pulled away, partly by his own feet and partly by Santana. He's so confused by the circumstances, but he doesn't say anything while Santana complains. He just pats her on the arm while glancing over the direction they'd come from.

His muscles relax when Santana says it had helped her. "Did it? You seemed sort of skeptical about it." His teeth worries his lip for a moment. "I told you before that I would help you with this, and I haven't been doing great at that, but whatever you think of for this shit, I'm in."

#para: all #para: trickstersantana #trickstersantana: all #para: 033 #para: we're gone but we don't know where

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goodguidanceptc · 6 years

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Louisville IM Race Report October 14, 2018

Welcome coaches, training buddies, close friends and masochists/insomniacs. As with prior race reports, be warned that this post contains STRONG LANGUAGE. Here goes:

Abstract:

Read the Athlete Guide. Always. Miserable cold and wet conditions. Water temp warmer than air temp, wetsuit legal. Absurd Swim (shortened due to aggressive current); T1 was all about gear choices; Adequate Bike under demanding conditions; T2 was also all about gear choices; Tough Run. Two key takeaways: 1) Read the Athlete Guide; 2) I haven't quite properly calibrated in-race fueling.

Total race time result = 10:18*

* Under grossly dis-humane weather conditions and my own flubs, that is a good result...with which I am completely unsatisfied. A no-surprise, well-managed bike and a somewhat uneven run (matched stand-alone marathon result). Feel free to stop reading now.

Pre-Race (aka: “the Dumbening”)

I cannot emphasize strongly enough: no matter how many races you’ve done, how confident you may be in knowing the procedures, the timing, the places, etc... read and re-read the Athlete Guide.

So although I cannot provide details, just know that I--through my own dumbness--was told to acquire my timing chip in T1 after an official manually noted my swim start time, while standing on the dock to jump into the Ohio River. Clearly communicated in multiple places: check-in closes at 5pm Friday.

Brief rewind: woke up, standard pre-race breakfast, uneventful gear check and load bottles onto bike, walked over to Swim in. Shoulda found an IM staffer then, but didn’t think. Just didn't think it through; too cold and pre-race- process oriented. Got a little tunnel vision to get to the front of the self-seeded “1-1:10″ swim line.

Announcer: The current is so strong, some of the pros were struggling to get up river. Swim shortened to .9 mile, in other words an Olympic distance. Race delayed.

Some squats to stay warm, chat up some folks in line, never once thought to go get my chip before passing though that big black arch.

Swim (:18 min or 1:18/100 pace)

I swear to you by all the barge traffic and catfish whiskers in the Ohio River, there is no way I was in that river for 18 minutes. More on this in T1. Feet first into the river, sight that first buoy and...

Ever look through a kaleidoscope? Or imagine a Disney version of puke from a flying whale? The view from my goggles was:

[Kayaks + swim caps + buoys]

(river current exceeding posted speed limits)

flying Disney whale puke (as I imagine it rendered)

Just utter chaos. I aimed for the big wall, hit the metal steps and out. To quote one of my training partners, “My hair barely got wet.”

T1 (9:20)

Up the steps and skipped the peelers. Rationale: stay as warm as possible as long as possible. Jogged to changing tent, quickly passed the clumping “under 1 hour” swimmers, grabbed a chair near the exit.

Decision time on what to wear and how much skin to cover for the bike. I went with 100% coverage. Socks, thermal legs, long sleeves, gloves, balaclava. Plastic bag under the jersey and five of those little hand warmers hunters use (squeeze and shake for 6+ hours warming) in my back jersey pockets.

Out to bike rack, unhook and... it’s find-my-chip time. Found an IM staffer who radioed multiple people before finally sending me past the Bike Out arch to where the chip folks were.

I. Stood. There. Forrr -- evv -- errr.

Trying to alleviate my own frustration and anxiety, I literally put my head in my hands and made Hulk sounds.

Now, even in my adrenalized and hyper-performance-oriented state, I remember that I brought this shit on myself. So any expectation of special treatment, expedited problem-solving or what I call the lack of a “hop to!” by IM staffers simply cannot be criticized. This crapola? All. On. Me.

Furthermore, I'm grateful. (Check prior race reports, if you must. OR just trust me when I say that...) I thank all the volunteers and cops and EMTs and Traffic Management and general staff within earshot. No matter what speed I’m biking or running. Seriously. I’m all about appreciation.

All that said, Swim and T1 times are clearly inaccurate. Although IM staff noted the time of day I jumped into the water, another IM staffer wrote my time on a clipboard when they activated my chip and yet another other IM staff told me they’d estimate my T1 time. But I didn’t know precisely where to go in T1. So I lingered.

[So again: read the Athlete Guide.]

And if you are ever in that situation--which I guaran-frikkin-tee you I will NEVER be--I recommend you DO NOT stop to ask questions. Continue until you happen upon the chip folks. Worst case: you miss them and back track... the biking equivalent of going back to get dropped nutrition.

Bike (5:43)

While I definitely did not feel myself relax heading down River Road, I did feel a certain familiar comfort. I’d ridden this course a few times so even in the cold, wet wind, I was pretty confident I could manage the bike.

In the spirit of gratitude, whether passing or getting passed, I try to say something positive (looking good, go git some, stay strong).

Even on a hilly course, I ended up pacing with a few others. I try to be sensitive to any ‘gamesmanship’ (I’m not trying to get in your head competitively) but I'm definitely chatty. And the cold and wet just invited comment, even if only to distract from the misery.

Stick out and first loop was uneventful other than the number of people shivering on the sides of the route. Second loop had more than a few cars on course that seemed patient and considerate (relatively, IMO) but still required careful negotiations.

A FEW FIRSTS FOR ME

BLINDING ANGER. I admit I might have been “kicking the cat” but I’ve never experienced this on course.

On the back side of the loop, in the narrow stretch of blacktop through the small neighborhood just after the long descent out of La Grange, there’s short, steep descent with a well-marked/painted “BUMP” before a short, steep uphill. I’m a technically strong and confident cyclist so getting through here on the first loop was a piece of cake. Second time though, there was a hefty pack of windbreakers weaving(!) across the entire width of the road. Despite shouting “on your left” repeatedly and loudly, I had to brake. On an uphill. Dropped my chain. Nearly fell. Unclipped. All in the tiny 8ish yards of that short ascent.

What did I do? Stood there trying to get my chain back on and swearing profusely that dickhead bucket-listers with fucking no fucking business fucking leaving their fucking strip-mall periodontist practices should fucking learn to handle their goddamn bikes.

As I passed them on the descent towards the hay-bale bullseye, I gently advised them about blocking, race etiquette and having some goddamn self-awareness. In my defense, I averaged very nearly 20mph that day. And when I accidentally felt somebody too close as they passed, I always apologized. In retrospect, I’m sorry I was that guy right then.

PROFOUND SOLITUDE Stay with me as I get a little bing-bongy here... At the split to repeat the loop or return on the stick, most folks (the fat part of the bell curve) go left for their second loop. I was returning on the stick.

Suddenly I was not saying or hearing “on your left” or listening for the difference between aero wheels or a passing car.

I was alone. Like the guy in that Robert Frost poem. Miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. And the mental chatter started. Cold. Grey. Wet. Stupid. Wasteful. What ego on you, chump. Clips from Moby Dick, Chapter 96. Burning ship, drove on to some vengeful deed. Gloom. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. ee cummings A Leaf Falls.

[Stop wasting your time with this race report. Go read some actual writers.]

Even my mantras had abandoned me. I may have started singing or rapping something from my training playlist to shut down the negative chatter. And that’s about when I realized how well I was managing this bike leg. I think that’s called a paradox.

DON’T BLOW IT NOW Somewhere along one of the last ascents, I realized that I’d dressed properly! Coach Robbie’s advice for plastic grocery bag was spot on. Sure the toes and fingers were cold, but functional. Ears and neck felt okay and core temp was a non-issue. I wondered if I’d taken enough calories (thought: probably) but come on! I’d handled some real shitball conditions pretty well.

T2 (8:49)

Pulled off everything soaking wet except kit shorts. Replaced with dry thermal long-sleeve top, dry hat, dry gloves. Run belt, bottle, dry socks, shoes. Go.

While neither T1 or T2 were very fast, I really didn’t linger in the warmth. I remember thinking, “Take two deep breaths, make this decision and move it.” In other words, time was spent actually changing clothes.

BTW, Transition volunteers? True Guardian Bros. Can’t thank em enough.

Run (3:58 aka: avg 9:03/mi)

Two MAJOR joyous moments within the first mile:

1) As we’d pre-planned, my unbelievably awesome wife told me I was 18 minutes behind a podium slot. She told me later that I barked, “FUCK!” Regardless, I steal a kiss every race. Better than a GU and just as sweet. [Yes she reads these. Wink!]

2) Coincidentally, she was standing a few feet from Coach Robbie (C26), who I recognized but accidentally called Mike (his podcast co-host who I knew was on course). I think I shook his hand? Or maybe just shouted a happy shout?

So those two intercepts helped make the first 25% of the run all good. I kept turning down the pace because, as Coach Robbie has said, “your legs are lying to you.”

Then all that good ju-ju abandoned me like buoys on the Ohio River on the backside of the first loop.

I’d dropped my Infinit before finishing the entire first 24oz bottle. Why not stop and get it? I got no good rational answer. Ditched hat and gloves and actually rolled up my sleeves. My legs and shoes were soaked. (Walk-peeing wasn’t doing me any favors.)

I felt better once I had another bottle from my Special Needs bag, but by then I’d already burned my biscuits (another C26 gem) so I was well below my planned and expected 8:40/mile pace.

I may have even cried a little. Apologies to extremely helpful volunteer who graciously ignored a grown-ass man losing his shit. I KNOW i was talking to myself, “It’s all in your head. Move it.” and other more terrible words.

The last 25% in-bound was an exercise in utter stubbornness. Coke Gatorade Coke Gatorade Coke Gatorade and tons of verbal self-flagellation to keep going. I sincerely believe I passed two guys in my AG out of pure self-loathing.

The Fourth Street Live finish lived up to the hype. There’s photographic evidence that I actually smiled as I crossed and nearly collapsed (again, super kudos to the volunteers). I was wheeled straight to medical, shivering and borderline shock-ey. Broth, blankets, checked vitals (core temp too low). As planned, Susan brought me multiple layers of dry clothes. Changed. Got my mental shit together after finding out I’d finished 16th. Gold star to Al V., the med tent massage therapist. Another Guardian Bro. Limped home.

OVERALL RACE GRADE: PASS

As with prior races, IM-LOU yielded incremental improvements in all racing phases. As I said at the top, this was a good result, with which I am completely unsatisfied.

Am I one of the guys at the pointy end of the bell curve? Clearly yes.

Did I KQ? Unequivocal NO. Not even close.

There is clearly opportunity for additional incremental improvements to all five aspects of my racing:

Swim pace was an anomaly. 3x/wk in the lap pool could be improved by 2x/wk in endless pool.

Bike power was lost due to shitass Garmin tech. But from what I remember, I was mostly high Z2 with relatively few power spikes given the course and conditions. I definitely managed the bike with patience and smarts.

Run suffered due to fueling strategy that is just not... quite...perfected. And again, deplorable conditions.

Fuel strategy. I over corrected from IM-AZ (early run GI problems). Calories, liquids (no solids) and delivery method feels right. Timing around T2 needs tweaking.

Transitions were what they were. MY dumbassery in T1 was offset by my smart gear decisions.

See you in New Zealand in March, 2019!

WITH GRATITUDE FOR...

I’m very grateful to my lovely wife Susan and my wonderful kids, Peter and Veronica for their support. Susan, you are my salvation.

I’m grateful to have the expert professionals Coach Klebacha and Coach Sharone and the entire Well-Fit staff and athletes who generously share their wisdom.

I’m grateful to my inspiring and impressive training partners, including but not limited to the TriFam, the Well-Fit Elite Team (too many bad-asses to list but special GOLD STARS to LIZ and LAURA) and other triathlete rockstars like Nic, Dana, Andrew, John, James, Tony, and all the Pauls and Mikes.

I’m very grateful to anybody willing to excuse my terrible smell, deplorable language and barbaric sounds during training.

Maximum gratitude to Well-Fit, FFC, UIC, Whitney Young, Get-A-Grip, Live Grit, Fleet Feet, the Lakeshore path, Louisville Landsharks.

I’m grateful for Crushing Iron (C26), Matt Fitzgerald, Joe Friel, Training Peaks, Scott brand bikes, Apple, Ironman.

Thank you to all the on-course maniacs cheering and making signs and wearing all sorts of crazy outfits to show love and support. For strangers exercising.

Special thanks and appreciation to Bernie Mc for the most amazing on course support. Extra special Top Marks to Bernie!

I’m grateful that I’m able to race triathlons. Thanks for reading.

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cryptoriawebb · 6 years

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My thoughts on “The Disaster Artist”

Oh, hai Tumblr

I won’t lie, I originally planned to review The Room before writing my reaction to the Disaster Artist. The more I thought about it, though, the more I didn’t feel I could do so, seriously. We all know it’s a bad movie. We know it’s quite possibly the worst movie ever made in the history of bad movies. We also know it stands apart from other bad films, in that it’s so bad it’s actually entertaining. Enjoyable. Dare I say “classic?” It’s the kind of movie you laugh and cringe and come away from quoting the rest of the night. The kind of movie you go into knowing full-well how awful it is and enjoying yourself, anyway.

I’ve seen a lot of bad movies, and The Room may very well be the only one I came away from with a smile on my face and laughter in my heart. I’d heard about and seen clips from it over the last couple of years, but I didn’t expect the full experience to be so…what it was. I’d honestly watch it again, I would. It’s something you want to share with others and be a part of, yourself. I joked with my friends that it might very well be “the Eighth Wonder of the World” but there is some loose-knit truth in that. It is a wonder. Fourteen years and still, people flock to it. They probably always will.

Where to begin my thoughts on The Disaster Artist. I was really impressed. I didn’t know what to expect going in—most everyone these days knows of Tommy Wiseau and his disasterpiece, The Room. If they haven’t seen it, they’ve at least heard of it, and if they haven’t heard of it, then they probably know someone who does.

There were so so many ways this movie could have gone wrong—everything from the humor to the narrative to Wiseau’s portrayal. I haven’t seen James Franco in a movie for some time, and I go up and down with his performances. I was a bit nervous when I heard he’d be portraying Wiseau, but the trailer looked promising (and admittedly I do find Franco attractive) so I figured I’d at least give him the benefit of doubt. Plus, I really wanted to see both Franco brothers on-screen, together. They didn’t disappoint! Nor did they read on-screen as brothers at all. Which is something I wondered about—if an audience member going into a movie knowing the co-stars were siblings would see them as such, regardless of the role. I didn’t, and I’m really fortunate I didn’t because these two gave quite the performance. Especially James.

Don’t get me wrong, Dave did a fantastic job as well; I genuinely felt his empathy and frustration towards his relationship with Wiseau and his career and the chaotic whirlwind around him. I’ve never read The Disaster Artist but I am definitely thinking about doing so, now.

James though, wow. I’ve never seen him in a role like this, ever. The dedication and commitment to this performance and this man practically oozed from him on-screen. He didn’t entirely look like Tommy Wiseau but he didn’t have to; everything else was spot-on. Biopics (can I call this a biopic?) can be tricky things: sometimes you feel for the person from whom the characters draw inspiration, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you understand their pain and passion, sometimes you don’t. This movie, however? I really felt for both Wiseau and Sestero. They read like real people chasing after dreams they didn’t quite know how to reach but wanted to, desperately. That’s a feeling I myself know well and I was pleasantly surprised by how strongly that part of me resonated with the film. Nothing felt cliché or threadbare; it was all very real…and real is not something I see often from Hollywood, these days. I mean, the first trailer on its own looked promising but trailers can be so deceiving, I didn’t want to get my hopes up beyond a certain point.

Thinking about it, I’m wondering if I in part felt that passion from the film because Franco’s own bled into it. From what I’ve seen, he was pretty invested in adapting not only the book but telling Wiseau’s story. If that was the case, it worked. It worked really well (what is that called? Method acting? Haha…)

This movie also had a fair amount of humor sprinkled in through the drama, particularly scenes involving filming The Room. Now, that could be because I’d just watched the movie for the first time, before, so everything was fresh in my head and the jokes and concerns from the “crew” as Wiseau dragged them through the process reflected thoughts my friends and I shared while watching it. I can’t tell you how hard we all laughed during the “sex scenes.” Or, of course, the scene in the trailer.

I want to give a shout out to Seth Rogan, here. While not a major character in the film (I’d say more like “moderate”), nor in the most comedic role I’ve ever seen, he managed to be quite funny. Maybe that stems from the environment happening around him, the grounded and skeptic “wtf” voice pinned against Wiseau’s erratic eccentricities.

Also, I had no idea Efron was in the movie. At all. Not until I saw him out of character costume did I realize I’d witnessed him threatening the hell out of “Denny.” Honestly, I really loved how many recognizable actors played such small roles compared to what I usually see them in. This is especially true for the opening of the film.

I’m sure the actors featured received some pointers from Franco/the screenwriter; the way it was shot and how they spoke indicated memorized lines as opposed to interview response. That said, I’d like to think there was some individual honesty and truth in their introduction. I really do think it was the perfect opening, not only to The Room and Tommy Wiseau but the impact they both made. It may not seem like it at first but step back and think about this: how many bad movies gain such infamous status among superstars/well known Hollywood personas? Aesthetically, the scene was lovely as well. Sometimes all you need is flat lighting and a black backdrop to garner attention. An interesting choice, too, to go the ‘non-fiction’ route; normally I only see that in documentaries. I definitely think it added to the film as opposed to hurt it. I will say at first I wasn’t sure if these actors were playing characters or not—I figured by the time Kevin Smith showed up, they weren’t (super glad to see him included, by the way. He would be the kind of guy to talk to about a movie like this!)

Also loved the throwback to Malcolm in the Middle and Bryan Cranston. I know it was in there for a reason but the nostalgic in me still associates Cranston with that show. He’ll always be Hal to me and it was kind of nice to see, on-screen…even if it was a source of conflict for Dave/Greg and a could-have-been turning point in his own career. That hurt, that scene. I wanted so badly for Greg to take that chance, as someone who is very self-motivated and ambitious and can, at times, feel anchored by certain relationships. That said, I understand loyalty to friends and how tough it can be on the heart. On the one hand, you feel for them, maybe even hurt for them. On the other...you see the disaster before the train derails and it’s so hard not to leap off the tracks. I admire Greg’s decision, I do. It shows what kind of guy he is, I think, and more importantly, what kind of friend. I couldn’t help but wonder what his life might be life if he had taken that job…if he’s happy, being a part of this legacy or if there’s something more he wanted, out of reach, because.

Jumping tone for a minute here, my favorite part of the movie by far was the shot-for-shot remake scenes of The Room. Not only were the lines on par, but costume and direction, down to the smallest gesture: like heads tilting back or the way a character smiled. Most of these scenes weren’t even part of the narrative—they weren’t included during the “screening” part of the movie. You’ve really got to love something to take that much time and effort, and pay such attention to detail.

Maybe it’s just me but I feel all of this really speaks to not only the impression The Room has made on the world but also Wiseau’s own self-view. Like…that he marches to his own beat, or seems to, and these actors, however famous they are, aren’t untouchable. He can be like them and achieve what they did. Which is funny because—and I was talking about this to my friends—he kind of did. Everything in the movie, what he said and aspired to be, as Franco or otherwise, came true. He did achieve his dream, and his movie put him on an unforgettable map. Hollywood actors watch and talk about The Room (from the interviews I’ve seen, anyway.) It’s become a phenomena, a movie so bad it’s actually good; even I’d watch it again and I can’t say that about any other bad movies I’ve seen.

One last thing: make sure you stay until the end of the credits. If you haven’t heard why, just take my word for it~

#the disaster artist #the room #tommy wiseau #james franco #dave franco #greg sestero #seth rogan #movie reviews #movie review #lostinlimbo

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whitefanggurl · 7 years

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“Why?” 2012 Donatello x Reader; Raphael x Reader

Warnings: Hurt, Angst, Cheating, Sadness

And you end up with Raphael in the end, but start out dating Donnie. Also, if you like April, this is not the fanfic for you.

(Please don't kill me!!!)

Glancing down at the screen, you frowned.

It was your birthday today and Don still hadn't called like he said he would.

The day hadn’t started off so well, what with the rain ruining the outdoor party decorations your family had set up for you. Luckily, they saved the cake and presents in time.

Then, your aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to come because of the storm that had increasingly gotten worse.

And lastly, your (brother/sister) had gotten the stomach bug at school and puked on the brand new carpet.

You snatched your hoodie and headed out the window down the fire escape to head to the lair.

The rain was relentless in its mission to absolutely drench you with all of heaven’s tears.

(foreshadooooooooooooooow. Alright, back to the depressing fanfic from hell’s fiery depths)

You stopped and looked up at the sky, “DO YOU HATE ME?” You screamed and shook your fist towards the clouds.

They responded with a streak of lightning and thunderclap lighting up the sky.

“Wonderful,” You muttered and lifted up a sewer cap.

Heading down, you took off your hood and shook out your hair.

‘Maybe he forgot...’

The turtles could be heard before you even saw them. Mikey and Raph were yelling (well, really just Raph) and Leo was fanboying over Space Heroes.

“Hey guys,” You squeezed the water out of your hair and grinned at the three mutant teens.

Their eyes all widened, “(Y/N), aren't you supposed to be celebrating your birthday today?” Leo asked, puzzled.

You shrugged, “Well, it hasn't been the best of days, and I was just wondering why Don hasn't called like he promised.”

The boys frowned, “He hasn't called yet?” Raph questioned suspiciously.

You shook your head and made your way towards the lab, Raph following to make sure what was happening wasn't what he was thinking.

But it was.

Donnie was sitting at his desk, kissing April.

Tears filled your eyes and you subconsciously gripped onto Raphael’s arm as his stance became rigid.

“Don,” he growled and hid you behind the door.

Donnie and April leapt away from each other and attempted to straighten their appearances, “H-Hey Raph!” He squeaked nervously, suddenly finding his posters more interesting.

“Please tell me that you, of all people, aren't cheating on sweet (Y/N),” he slowly stalked forward, his gaze darkening with every step.

You felt tears roll down your cheeks while you stood out of sight.

“W-What? Of course not! April and I were just... c-conducting an experiment is all!” Donatello gave a fake laugh.

“Oh, an experiment. With your lips evidently,” Raph raised his hand and pointed at April, “And you,” he growled, “I cannot believe you! I knew that you were bad news but seriously? Helping him cheat on his girlfriend all because you like boy attention? You aren't coming back here ever!!”

April’s face reddened and she opened her mouth but was cut off.

“It’s my birthday.”

Everyone snapped their heads towards you.

You stepped out of the hall and into the lab, “And... I was waiting for your call, Don. I thought you would make this day all better,” You closed your eyes and bit your lip, taking a deep breath, “But now, I can finally see through those lies you always told. All those excuses for the missed dates, unreturned phone calls, weird times when you would try to prove your ‘love’,” Anger sparked behind your eyes and deep in the pit of your stomach, “And here I find you, lies finally gone. You’re what my parents warned me about, the unfaithful playboy,” The spark grew louder and brighter as you turned to April, “And you...” You growled, “The girl I thought was my ‘best friend’. Did that even mean anything to you? My friendship is not a rag that can be thrown away you idiot. It’s a trophy you have to work and push yourself to earn. I trusted you!!” Your voice grew in pitch, becoming a scream of rage.

You grabbed a smoke bomb from your pocket and threw it onto the ground, running from the room.

Raph’s eyes narrowed and he punched his fist, “Now to take care of you, Don.”

You ran out of the lair, despite Leo and Mikey’s shouted inquiries of what was wrong.

Not even caring where you were heading, you ran, feet pounding along the concrete.

But your subconscious guided you from the sewers and towards Karai and Shinigami’s hideout. (well, not really hiding. The place used to be Shredder’s, so it’s kinda conspicuous)

Finally, you stopped, breath ragged and lungs heaving, and glanced around the street to see where the besties were staying.

You dragged yourself to the door guarded by Foot soldiers. They saw you and let you through, remembering who you were.

Making your way to the main room where the girls probably were hanging out, you felt the tears burn behind your eyes.

The girls looked up when you entered and their eyes widened.

“(Y/N)!!” Shini cried and rushed over to you, taking your muddy hoodie and clothes in with concern.

Karai hissed, “Who do I have to kill? Just say the name.”

The tears made their way down your face as the emotional dam broke, “D-Donnie cheated on m-me....” You whimpered.

Karai nodded and started sharpening her knives, “Well, his funeral is going to be slightly.... early.” She grabbed them all and put them each in her pockets, heading out to end the turtle mutant’s life.

Shini led you to the guest bedroom and grabbed some sweats and chocolate for you, “I swear,” she growled, “That boy will surely die. If not by Karai’s hand, then by mine.”

Don had so far been beat up by Raph, Leo, and Karai, while Mikey somehow duct taped him to the wall and threw water balloons at him.

Everyone hated him. Even Sensei was even more upset than normal.

Master Splinter circled around him in the dojo, “So, Donatello... Do you know why you are here?”

“Because,” he whimpered, “I cheated on (Y/N) with April.”

He nodded and started to also circle around April, “And April. Why are you here?”

(I’m not the biggest fan of April AT ALL, but I can see her doing this actually. She plays hard-to-get with Don and Casey and it angers me to no end because I hate when anyone does that. Playing with people’s feelings isn't okay, guys. It’s possibly one of the worst things you can do because it will scar them mentally and emotionally.)

She stopped her lip from quivering, giving up the ‘innocent’ act, “Because I knew that Donatello and (Y/N) were dating, but I started to date Don anyway.”

Splinter again nodded and he glared at the two teens, “April, you are never allowed here again. Not until you change. I will no longer instruct you in the ways of the kunoich. You are dismissed.”

Her jaw dropped, but Splinter’s glare silenced her. She stood and bowed, “Hai Sensei.” And she left.

“Now, as for you, Donatello. No more experiments. The lab is off limits for you. No more patrols, missions, or going onto the surface unless you are desperately needed. Am I clear?”

Donnie’s face paled but he nodded, “Hai Sensei.”

“I am disappointed in you. I know that I did not raise you this way, Donatello. You have not only disrespected (Y/N), but your family name. You have hurt her in a way that will take much time to heal. She will possibly never forgive you, and for what you have done, I do not blame her. I am ashamed of your actions, my son. And I hope you are as well.”

(”You may look like a bride, but you will never bring your family HONOR!!!” Alright, never mind me, just quoting Mulan over here....

But, just one more.....

“DISHONOR ON YOU! DISHONOR ON YOUR FAMILY! DISHONOR ON YOUR COW!!!!” Ok, I’m done.)

“You are dismissed, Donatello.”

Don stood and bowed, then left the dojo.

Raphael stood in the doorway and glared at his back as he left.

You wiped the tears from your eyes as Shinigami and Karai made popcorn and put on (Fav movie).

Taking another bite from your chocolate bar, you froze when you saw a turtle silhouette in the window.

But his form was shorter and more muscular than Donatello’s, and there was no bo staff strapped to his back.

You slumped back against the couch with a relieved sigh, “Hey Raph.”

He opened the window and hopped down onto the floor, “Hey Tiger, how you holding up?” He plopped down next to you.

You gave a flat chuckle and motioned to the chocolate wrappers, “Not as bad as I could be, I guess.”

He hesitated, but then opened his arms.

You pretty much flew into his arms.

Raph buried his face in your hair and rubbed your back.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all this crud, (Y/N),” He murmured softly.

“It’s not your fault, Raph,” You pulled away slightly and pecked his cheek, “But thank you for being here.”

(Le time skip) One year later.....

Surprisingly, you had forgiven Don after a while. He kept his distance though, and April and you never spoke again. Evidently, she didn’t want to ever come back to the lair if you were there, so... Yeah. No one heard from her or Casey again.

Which was good because you were scared Karai would have a murder on her record from how she was talking about disposing of that redhead.

By now, you were a full kunoich. The turtles had already held the ceremony earlier in the year.

You smiled softly at the black titanium tanto you held in your hands, remembering the night the ceremony was held.

Raph came up behind you and tapped your shoulder, “Hey (Y/N)? You ok?”

You jumped slightly but grinned at him, “Yeah, just remembering when I got this thing.”

He smiled, “You deserve it, especially after how hard you've trained for it,” he suddenly became nervous, “Um, there was, uh, something I wanted to ask you....”

You raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue.

“Ah, well, I was wondering if you would like to, ahem, go out sometime?” He voice got quieter, “M-Maybe as a boyfriend and girlfriend thing or something?...”

You don’t know what came over you in that moment, but you launched yourself at Raph and wrapped your arms around him while laughing and squeaking out a weird “YES!!!” over and over again.

He had a stupid grin on his face and pumped his fist in the air.

___________________ Hey guys!!!!!!! I hope you liked this oneshot!!!!

And, um, if you wanted to be with Don, *sweats nervously* I’m sorry that it probably wasn't what you wanted.

if you guys ever want a part 2, just ask!!

My next one is with you and Don though, so I hope it makes up for this!!!

Alright, well, signing off.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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garden-ghoul · 7 years

Text

two blogs part 4

“for best effect listen to the themes of the rohirrim while reading this. the rockin violin solos are all too short, eheu. I wonder what instruments the Rohirrim actually play, how amazing would it be if the soundtrack were entirely made of instruments specific to the people of whatever location they’re in?”

let’s take a soothing sleepy trip to scenic

HELM’S DEEP

... since I only ever listened to audiobooks of this I didn’t realize that it was the deep of Helm. Who’s Helm? I hope that Tolkien in his pseudo-Hugo-esque fashion will have some characters discuss the history and naming of Helm’s Deep. As our heroes ride northwest along the foot of the White Mountains, Gandalf asks Legolas what he can see at Isengard. The answer: something is veiling his sight with shadow. Also I’m kind of sad that we don’t get any elves with glasses because perfect sight is a racial trait... no wait what if a lot of elves need reading glasses because they’re farsighted. LEGOLAS WITH READING GLASSES. Galadriel needs them too but she doesn’t notice because she’s never tried to read anything since she’s a jock.

As the second day of their riding drew on, the heaviness in the air increased. In the afternoon the dark clouds began to overtake them: a sombre canopy with great billowing edges flecked with dazzling light. The sun went down, blood-red in a smoking haze.

I’m kind of weirdly gratified that Tolkien recognizes the atmospheric conditions that result in a red sunset. You can’t just go around declaring bloody sunsets willy-nilly! The sun looks red when scattered through particulates! I’m trying to remember right now which sizes of particulates, which I should know bc I had a job in quantum materials last summer, but I’m really in more of a mythic mindset at the moment. Oh well. The king’s party meets the party defending Rohan from the soldiers and hill-men of Isengard. They’re going to withdraw to Helm’s Deep... I don’t know exactly what Saruman wants? Is he just trying to wipe the Rohirrim out, or is he looking for some kind of resource they have?

Aha! It turns out Tolkien is going to go full Hugo and not even bother putting his exposition in dialogue form. Helm’s Deep is behind a coomb (a coomb!!) that lets into a gorge in the “crow-haunted cliffs” (yess). Gorge implies a river, right? And there’s also a fort there. I feel like a crow-haunted gorge is the perfect place for a fort. It’s named after HELM THE HAMMERHAND (YES!) and it’s also known as the Hornburg because canyon acoustic make warhorns echo imposingly (hell yes). And now as the king’s party (minus Gandalf, who has some kind of errand to run--maybe he’s going to bring Lorien elves to help out?) rides toward the Deep, they hear “the rumor of war behind them.” This is good dictionnnn I love “the rumor of war.” I love the concept of “rumor” as an indistinct sound that conveys imprecisely that war is coming, in the same way that a game of telephone conveys imprecisely the phrase “at dawn on the third day, look to the east.” I’m being weird. whatever. So much time has been spent in this chapter before they even get to Helm’s Deep (or maybe I’m blogging too much) BUT here we have another thing, which is that the rumor of war is mostly... singing. They know the orcs by their singing (hi Orcsong!) “They saw torches countless points of fiery light upon the black fields behind, scattered like red flowers.” What a pretty image. Just so y’all know, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna write orc fanfictions.

Gimli at least is pleased to come to Helm’s Dike.

'This is more to my liking,' said the dwarf, stamping on the stones. 'Ever my heart rises as we draw near the mountains. There is good rock here. This country has tough bones. I felt them in my feet as we came up from the dike. Give me a year and a hundred of my kin and I would make this a place that armies would break upon like water.'

'I do not doubt it,' said Legolas. 'But you are a dwarf, and dwarves are strange folk. I do not like this place, and I shall like it no more by the light of day. But you comfort me, Gimli, and I am glad to have you standing nigh with your stout legs and your hard axe. I wish there were more of your kin among us.’

That’s gay. ::) Also Gimli feeling out the material properties of the stone by stomping on it. He is also both sleepy and restless, a feeling I can relate to constantly. Then the orcs show up; there’s a neat bit of cinematography with a flash of lightning and the word “boiling.” You’ll have to imagine it. Aragorn and Eomer are standing next to each other yelling about their swords. I like this bit:

A shout went up from wall and tower: 'Andúril! Andúril goes to war. The Blade that was Broken shines again!'

because it’s really ambiguous whether it’s like, just Aragorn shouting this. Or he went around talking up his sword and now everyone’s really excited about it? Aragorn shut up about your sword for five minutes. Your worth is not determined by the pedigree of your blade. Anyway there’s a lot of fighting. Everyone is exhausted. Gimli is missing. Legolas is pretending he’s not worried; no, he just really wants to tell Gimli that he has now killed thirty-nine people. They’re having a creepy contest. Aren’t both their peoples supposed to be generally peaceable?? What is wrong with them? Theoden frets, feeling imprisoned and unhopeful about his men’s chances. No, he will ride out. And Aragorn son of Arathorn will ride with him!

At dawn Aragorn stands on the wall, while the Uruk-hai politely inform him, several times, that they are the fighting Uruk-hai and they have a lot of guys to kill him with. Hey, did you know they are the fighting Uruk-hai? Also all their dialogue seems to be attributed to multiple people at once, so one can only imagine them chorusing “We are the fighting Uruk-hai!” like schoolchildren.

Aragorn jumps down just as they blow up the part of the wall he was standing on, and goes to find Theoden so they can Ride Forth. As they do they realize a forest has appeared in the coomb. The enemy forces outside are so not prepared to face cavalry, they are so scared. AND Gandalf is back! AND! He brought Erkenbrand, a Rohir who they were making a really big deal of earlier but I didn’t bother to blog about it because he didn’t seem important.

All right that was way too much blogging for a chapter with so little content. Let’s get on our way on

THE ROAD TO ISENGARD

It turns out that “at dawn on the third day, look to the east” WAS the result of a hilarious game of telephone:

'Unlooked-for?' said Gandalf. 'I said that I would return and meet you here.'

'But you did not name the hour, nor foretell the manner of your coming.’

Lmao.

Oh, I also missed the fact that during the chapter break (while my brain was in the bathroom at the movie theater of life) the Rohirrim won the battle. Gandalf wants to take everyone to Isengard to beat up Saruman and call him mean names, which I wholly support. I also like that he devotes a good amount of text to the cleanup and burial after the battle. Legolas and Gimli banter some more about how much [trees/caves] make them uncomfortable and how they would love to live forever in [caves/trees]. Did Tolkien actually just have them become friends to be a Comic Cultural Understanding Duo. Gimli goes on for a good while about how beautiful the cave system of Helm’s Deep is. He is sooooo into these caves, it’s really endearing. The caves are full of gorgeous natural rock formations (sorry this is a big pull quote coming up, but it’s good and beautiful and gay so pls read it)--

'No, you do not understand,' said Gimli. 'No dwarf could be unmoved by such loveliness. None of Durin's race would mine those caves for stones or ore, not if diamonds and gold could be got there. Do you cut down groves of blossoming trees in the spring-time for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap - a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day - so we could work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock. And lights, Legolas! We should make lights, such lamps as once shone in Khazad-dûm; and when we wished we would drive away the night that has lain there since the hills were made; and when we desired rest, we would let the night return.'

'You move me, Gimli,' said Legolas. 'I have never heard you speak like this before. Almost you make me regret that I have not seen these caves. Come! Let us make this bargain-if we both return safe out of the perils that await us, we will journey for a while together. You shall visit Fangorn with me, and then I will come with you to see Helm's Deep.'

There’s some more stuff I count of little consequence, some ents, some bodies, a river that isn’t. They camp out for the night and a great blackness passes by them. This was actually a bunch of ents, I’m not sure how they failed to notice. Even on the blackest night, wouldn’t you be able to tell if trees were walking past you? Also the river suddenly comes back. Strange times, strange times. They get up and keep riding.

Suddenly a tall pillar loomed up before them. It was black; and set upon it was a great stone, carved and painted in the likeness of a long White Hand. Its finger pointed north. Not far now they knew that the gates of Isengard must stand.

This is such a good image.

The plain, too, was bored and delved. Shafts were driven deep into the ground; their upper ends were covered by low mounds and domes of stone, so that in the moonlight the Ring of Isengard looked like a graveyard of unquiet dead--for the ground trembled.

THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IMAGE. Also you can tell Saruman is evil because he outlawed plants. Look, even evil people still need green stuff to live. I was thinking earlier today about the trauma of being forced to live in cities where (in addition to all the other reasons it is bad) there are not many green things. Tolkien uses “hating plants” as a signifier of evil and inhumanity, and like, I guess. But if you’re going to posit all these thinking peoples... actually you know humans have a need for green stuffs because of where they were made. Maybe orcs really do not like green stuffs, and it makes them uneasy, because they were made specifically for the purpose of destroying nice things. So their psyches were made to match. IDK what Saruman’s problem is. Tell me about maia psychology, Johnald.

...and within the circle of Isengard’s walls, a sea of boiling water, filled with flotsam and jetsam. Oh shoot that would have been a great transition, I think that’s the title of the next chapter. No matter, the point is it’s very confusing to Theoden and his men to look on the stronghold of Saruman utterly shattered, and see no-one who could have done it... except two very small people sitting on a ruined wall, picnicking and smoking.

'Welcome, my lords, to Isengard!' he said. 'We are the doorwardens. Meriadoc, son of Saradoc is my name; and my companion, who, alas! is overcome with weariness' - here he gave the other a dig with his foot - 'is Peregrin, son of Paladin, of the house of Took. Far in the North is our home.’

This cheeky lad. Bless you Meriadoc. Theoden introduces himself, and Merry for some reason starts infodumping about the history of pipeweed in the Shire. But now is not the time, says Gandalf!! We need to go see Treebeard >::(

'Farewell, my hobbits!’ said Théoden. ‘May we meet again in my house! There you shall sit beside me and tell me all that your hearts desire: the deeds of your grandsires, as far as you can reckon them; and we will speak also of Tobold the Old and his herb-lore. Farewell!'

The hobbits bowed low. 'So that is the King of Rohan!' said Pippin in an undertone. 'A fine old fellow. Very polite.'

#blog of the rings #my new room looks out on the forest so green-white light is coming in #I think there should be more intimidating horn blowing in forth eorlingas #the song I mean #and more rockin violin solos!!

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the-revisionist · 7 years

Text

The Tristan Chord, chapter 15

[Edited to fix typos, thank you @farminglesbian, and to change a musical selection that came to me out of the blue.]

xv. the book of miracles

The tragedy isn’t that love doesn’t last. The tragedy is the love that lasts. —Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus

“High fructose corn syrup.”

The phrase, dropped like a gauntlet at dinner, brings idle conversation to a halt. It is spoken by Lawrence, who points in a very melodramatic j’accuse fashion at Flora.

In turn, Flora blinks at him slowly, decides he’s playing at something, and giggles.

Why do I not have normal children? Caroline wonders. One is terrified of Latin and cries at soppy commercials on telly, the other apparently hears voices and is seriously considering going to clown school. The jury, however, is still out on Flora. Please be normal, she silently begs the child. If I screw you up somehow, I won’t be able to bear it. Meanwhile the others assembled around the table—Alan, Celia, and Greg—stare at her, awaiting a Solomon-like proclamation on Lawrence’s bizarre declaration.

Caroline makes them wait. She gulps wine, girds her loins, and unfurls a mighty sigh. “What are you on about?” she asks Lawrence.

“She said it.” Lawrence wags his finger at his sister. “The other day. Quite clearly, I might add. At breakfast, I swear she was looking right at the cornflakes box—”

Greg gasps. “You didn’t let her eat any of those, did you?”

“What? No.” Irritated at the interruption, Lawrence screws up his face in a profoundly unattractive fashion, the expression on a scatological scale somewhere in the not-so-vast plane between taking a shit and actually smelling one.

“Good,” Greg says, “because they do have high fructose corn syrup in them. Corn flakes are the devil.”

God, I am going to be completely pissed before this night is over if this keeps up, Caroline thinks as she polishes off her second glass of wine. “Can I quote you on that?”

“That’s not the point,” Lawrence says. “The point is, like, totally out of the blue, she just says ‘high fructose corn syrup.’ Just like that. And I was like, ‘What did you say?’ And she looked all smug and wouldn’t say anything else! Not a single word. And she won’t say it now. She just won’t. I’ve been trying all day to get her to say it.”

Bright with paternal enthusiasm, Greg gives it a go: “Flora. Sweetheart. Say, ‘high fructose corn syrup!’”

Celia pinches her brow.

Thoughtfully Flora regards her dinner plate. She positions several tiny pieces of broccoli upright on their stalks near a mound of uneaten casserole, creating a little mini-forest surrounding a hilly terrain. Caroline interprets this as a potential clue to a future occupation: Maybe she will become a naturalist. Or an urban planner. Or a demented celebrity chef.

“See? Nothing. She’s gaslighting me,” Lawrence says.

“Very significant achievement for two years old,” Alan observes. His mobile pings and he pulls it out of his pocket.

Celia glares at him. “Don’t look at it.”

“Just a peek.”

“I said don’t look at it.”

“I’m looking at it.”

“Don’t look at it.”

“I have to!” Alan protests.

“It’s dinnertime. You’re being very rude.”

“You know I have to,” he repeats. “Could be urgent.”

“They’re fine. The worst is over, that’s what the weather service says.”

“It’s still raining,” Alan says plaintively.

It’s been raining for a week, and as a result the valley is flooded. Well, Halifax is flooded; as for Harrogate, Caroline cannot help but summon words of wisdom from Gillian’s own personal saint, Morrissey: the rain falls hard on a humdrum town. It’s not exactly flooding of biblical proportions all around, as a rather hysterical local weatherman had decreed, but bad enough that Gillian’s farm and sheep have felt the effects: washed-out roads, power out, ruined hay, sheep driven to higher ground, and bad enough that Raff has been bunkered at the farm alone with his mother for three days and serving as the reluctant point person in keeping everyone else informed via increasingly irate and desperate texts to his grandfather.

“Well?” Celia prompts. “What does our Raff say?”

Alan squints at the mobile and enunciates slowly: “‘Is matricide a crime?’”

Lawrence gives his mother an inscrutable look. Caroline glares back in a manner that, she hopes, conveys that she will not be very easy to kill. Which he should certainly be aware of by now. He sulks and resumes surveillance of his sister, who tosses a piece of broccoli in his direction; whether it’s a peace offering or a come at me bro challenge cannot be discerned.

“Oh, dear,” murmurs Celia.

“Also, they’re almost out of toilet paper!” Alan places the mobile on the table. “That settles it. I think I should go out there.”

“But the roads may be bad, love.”

“Roads are fine now, rain should stop tomorrow.”

Celia’s eyes narrow. “Thought you said Gillian isn’t convinced the rain will stop.”

“Well—”

“‘She knows rain,’ you said. You always make her sound like she’s some sort of bloody American Indian, out on the prairie doing a rain dance.”

“There’s a mental image,” Caroline says. She starts clearing the table.

Alan frowns. “Harry will come with. If I ask, he will. We’d be all right, together. I just want to know they’re all right, want to see with my own two eyes.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it?”

“‘Sleep on it,’” Alan grumbles. “You’re just hoping I’ll forget.”

“Yes, dear, I am.”

In the kitchen Caroline stacks plates on the counter and grabs a casserole dish to scrape out before putting it in the dishwasher. As she turns around she finds her mother has magically materialized before her with the shocking stealth of a malevolent, enchanted garden gnome; rearing back to avoid certain collision, the contents of the dish—mixed remnants of noodles, various vegetables, and crumbly tofu in some kind of peanut sauce that Greg said was inspired by West African cuisine even though Caroline thinks he probably knows as much about West African cuisine as she knows about Renaissance poetry or the inner workings of her Jeep—find themselves gloppily splayed against her chest before gently sliding down her shirt and plopping onto the kitchen floor.

She counts to ten—normally an effective way of tempering her reactions, but in this case with random food gunk clinging to an expensive silk blouse finds herself going full on sacrilegious: “Jesus Fucking Christ!”

Lawrence enters the kitchen and then quickly backpedals out.

“Must you sneak up on people like that?” Caroline shouts.

“Must you swear like that? Gillian really is an awful influence on you.” Celia frowns at the floor. “Now that’s a right mess.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I’m sorry but I wanted to talk to you alone, while I had the chance,” Celia says in an undertone.

“Well you’ve a captive audience now, so fire away.”

“You need to go to the farm tomorrow.”

Of course, the old woman would ask her to do precisely the one thing she does not want to do. “Why?”

“If you don’t go, Alan will and he’ll drag Harry along, and those two together—good God. If they don’t get stuck in the mud somewhere or lost God knows where while chasing errant sheep, Harry will drink all of Gillian’s wine and you know how she gets about that. In other words, they will drive her right ’round the bend and none of us, ever, will hear the end of it—well, I won’t hear the end of it, because she’ll blame me for not keeping her father put. She said as much to me when the rains started. She actually called me, can you believe it? She never calls me unless someone has a gun to her head. But she told me to keep him here.” Celia pauses to recharge from this breathless petition and plays with her necklace—pearls, a gift from Alan on their first anniversary. “He’s in fine fettle these days but I know, I just know, he will push himself trying to help her if he goes out there now and I don’t want him to risk making himself sick again.”

“I understand, but why me? Why not send—Greg?” As Caroline marvels at the nonsense out of her mouth, Celia seems to seriously ponder it but exactly five seconds later they burst into simultaneous fits of laughter.

“You are really funny sometimes,” Celia chortles.

“I know. Missed my calling.”

“But really, love. It’s not like you’d have to actually do anything strenuous. Just take them some food, you’ve got that leftover origami—

“—orecchiette,” Caroline says.

“—oh, and toilet paper, and just sweep the floors, wash the dishes, say an encouraging word or two and you’ll have done your duty.”

Like a wife, Caroline thinks.

“So will you?”

She sighs. “If you think it will—”

“Ah, wonderful! Thank you, love! You’ll go tomorrow then, will you? I’ll tell Alan right now.” Celia whirls out of the kitchen.

“I didn’t say yes yet,” she shouts at Celia’s retreating form.

Celia cackles triumphantly. “You’re my favorite daughter!”

She stares at the greasy smears on the floor.

The beginning of the flood had arrived at a most inopportune time: immediately after the pub kiss, which had left her fiery-cheeked and dazed on the ride home, quietly holding herself as she stared at pearl drops of light random and fleeting against the panorama of darkness. Twice William asked if she was all right. Later, alone in bed, she touched herself briefly and found no satisfaction in doing so. Bored before I even began, she had thought and then, oh Christ, quoting Morrissey, and finally, dismally she threw herself off the cliff into sleep. She woke to a morning heavily cloaked in rain and fog, the relentless downpour hissing with such persistence that when it briefly let up three days later the air rang with empty glory, not unlike the ripe silence following the violent peal of church bells.

At least Raff will get a good laugh out of seeing her in Wellies; she will actually get use of the pair that she bought years ago at the last threat of flooding. In fact, she is excited to wear the boots because they are a lovely, glossy black that will go smashingly with practically anything. Oh Christ, she sighs, and imagines the women’s mag headline: Dressing for Natural Catastrophe: What to Wear!

The drive to the farm the next afternoon is fraught with detours and muddy roads along a horizon that reminds Caroline of a Rothko: dark gray land and light gray sky cauterized together with a ragged white line across the horizon, the gleaming line absorbing every bit of light that daytime can possibly spare. Splinters of thin, light rain fall against the windshield. In the drive up to the farmhouse the Jeep gets caught in a muddy rut; she manages to back out and then maneuver around it, but the flood-damaged dirt road is bumpier than usual and despite the Jeep’s otherwise excellent shock absorbers Caroline gets a shaky, tediously unsatisfying ride that brings to mind the nadir of her sexual relationship with John.

As she pulls up within sight of the farmhouse she sees that Raff has spotted the Jeep from afar and he awaits her impatiently, bouncing on his heels. She is unprepared for the intensity of his greeting: He throws himself into her arms like a long-lost son or lover. She doubts she will receive a similarly enthusiastic reaction from Gillian; Christ knows you certainly don’t deserve it, she thinks.

“Thank God!” he says. “A normal person.”

“It’s nice to be thought of in that way,” Caroline replies.

“Please tell me you brought—”

“—toilet paper, yes, and pasta, sandwiches, biscuits, salad—”

“None of that healthy stuff for us,” Raff says. “Oooh, look at those fancy Wellies! Very chic, Cazza. You look like a farmer on telly—like you could be on a show about a sheep farmer who solves murders all the time.”

Caroline rolls her eyes in mock exasperation. “So where’s your mum?”

“Out in barn. I find it’s best to keep her out there, away from polite society.”

After they’ve unloaded the Jeep she reluctantly follows Raff out to the barn while he talks of dead sheep, wet hay, and power outages; the sheep were two dumb, young ewes that fell down a ravine, some of the hay might be salvageable but at least half of it might be bad, and the power is back on.

They find Gillian pulling an empty wheelbarrow into the barn. From the knees down her jeans and boots are spackled with mud. Her left elbow looks skinned and the sleeve of the flannel shirt on that arm is torn, and her hair is greasy and pulled back into a ponytail. At the sight of Caroline she drops the wheelbarrow; the clatter echoes and Caroline jumps. Gillian frowns and tugs at her work gloves.

Over the past week Caroline has rehearsed various speeches in her head ranging from the florid to the plainspoken, but all these thoughtful peregrinations made her wish she could simply present Gillian with a Venn diagram of intersecting emotions where each panic-riddled state or practical consideration included Gillian as the common element. Additionally the circular aspect of the diagram alluded rather obviously to Caroline’s typical mental roundabouts on the subject. Even allowing for Raff’s presence, what comes out of her mouth is still light years from either an articulate summation of the current chaos of her mind, or a poetic expression of inchoate desire:

“I come bearing toilet paper,” she says.

As expected she gets Gillian’s flinty look of irritated incomprehension, not unlike the time Greg tried to educate her on the nutritional value of mung beans in refutation of Gillian’s steadfast refusal to eat anything called mung.

“Sometimes you don’t get the hero you want,” Raff says as he claps a hand on Caroline’s shoulder, “but the hero you need.”

Gillian shuffles, stares at the floor. “That’s great.”

“There’s food,” Raff adds. “She’s brought food.”

“Good.” Gillian pretends that peeling off work gloves and tossing them onto a tool bench is an effort requiring both massive strength and supreme concentration.

Resigned to his mother’s surliness, Raff merely shoots her an exasperated look.

Look at me, Caroline thinks, but now Gillian busies herself with wiping dry the handle of some dangerous-looking tool that could easily be used for disembowelment and so she quickly turns her attention back to Raff. “Are you hungry?” she squeaks at him.

“I am, but I was gonna shove off—” He hesitates, fixing a glance on his mother. “—if that’s still all right.”

Gillian nods, digs around in her jeans pocket. In flight, the keys to the Landy flash across the barn.

Raff swipes at the air and catches them. His face softens as he jiggles the keys in his palm. “You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I told you it’s all right. So go on already, go see your girls. Come back tomorrow.”

Not content to proffer a mere thank you, Raff strides across the barn and engulfs his mother in a bear hug. Caroline allows herself to be amused at the spectacle of Gillian squirming, looking irritated, then pleased, then smiling, and then berating her son’s manhood: “All right, stop hugging me before you start growing ovaries.”

Would that be such a bad thing? Caroline decides not to say this.

“I love you, man,” Raff drawls oafishly in imitation of an American drunkard.

This makes Gillian chuckle and Caroline experience a brief fit of jealousy. There was a time when she used to make Gillian laugh; was that gone now, did the leaden intensity of this thing between them somehow drain the light from their relationship as the cursed, bloody flooded valley drained the sun from the sky?

She clears her throat and asks, “Is there anything I can do?”

Back to the squinty glare. “Yeah.” Gillian grabs a wide broom. She swaggers in Caroline’s general direction and then effortlessly tosses the broom at Caroline, who manages an awkward catch of it. “Sweep in here. Muck it out a bit.”

Once again irritated at Gillian’s behavior, Raff asks pointedly, “What are you gonna do?”

“Well,” Gillian drawls as she continues walking away from them, “since we’ve got toilet paper, thought I’d celebrate by taking a shit.”

They watch her leave. While she walks down the path to the house she occasionally glares up at the sky, as if daring it to rain more.

Raff shakes his head. “She’s really too much.”

You have no idea, Caroline wants to say. Instead she hugs Raff again before he sprints out to the Land Rover. As he drives away, he waves with frantic, grateful desperation, as if she ceded a place on a lifeboat for him. It’s like Titanic and she is Leonardo DiCaprio, Raff is Kate Winslet, and Gillian is the fucking iceberg. No matter, Caroline smiles bravely in a quintessentially English well chaps we’re doomed fashion while waving listlessly back at Raff and murmuring, “God help me.”

After sweeping the barn Caroline sits gingerly on an ancient stool that should be consigned to the woodpile. The stool wobbles and abruptly she stands. She rubs her back, stares at the large metal tool chest tucked under the tool bench. The red enameled exterior has clearly seen better days; the tool chest’s squat body is covered with dents and dings and dirt. There are five drawers of varying sizes, ranging from the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom. The largest drawer looks a bit crumpled, as if it had been targeted in Gillian-driven fit of pique; as a result, it does not close properly. Caroline is not certain what compels her—other than sheer nosiness—but she pries open the drawer. It is crammed with books: Both paperbacks and hardcovers, all in varying stages of age and decrepitude. History, poetry, literature. Even a Stephen Hawking book. Philip Larkin. J.B. Priestley. Wallace Stevens. Barbara Tuchman. A book called The Transit of Venus catches her eye—her hope that it is actually about astronomy is immediately dashed by an abstract, pastel cover that indicates it’s a novel or perhaps poetry. Some of the paperbacks are warped with damp, their pages as furbelowed as the skirts of a Victorian matron.

All of these, Gillian’s books–as hidden and damaged as she is.

Caroline knows now that she has misjudged Gillian from day one. Thought she was reckless when in fact she possessed patience borne from a lifetime of denials and disappointments. Thought she was fragile and frail until Caroline discovered the untold muscles and sinew coiled under her skin and the sure and steady grip of her hands. Thought she was an uneducated rube and not a woman who secretly read books in a damp dim barn—probably because she didn’t want her shit husband to find out and knock her upside the head and who does it now simply because it’s a force of habit or is unwilling to admit to anyone that she needs the grace of solitude. Or both. Thought she was incapable of fidelity or love when she would gladly accept the smallest scrap of anything remotely resembling love, including its many seductive duplicities.

Tell me a lie, tell me you love me.

The glinting rain, which had stopped shortly before she arrived, picks up again, deepening the puddles and dips along the rough path that leads to the farmhouse. She imagines Gillian walking this path everyday, through all kinds of weather. Day in, day out. Sun warming her skin, wind stiffening her clothes, rain soaking her bones, snowflakes dusting her hair. Or on days when she’s hungover, or menstruating, or too wired on coffee, or walking with a spring in her step because she had if off with someone she met recently and it was good. Or walking slowly because Eddie has broken her ribs and they’re still mending.

Gillian told her this story while in that strangely lucid state of drunkenness that lent itself to her compulsive confessions: She had been too frightened to go to hospital because they would have asked too many questions, so she spent a fortnight in bed feigning a bout of flu to everyone until finally, with her torso bound up with bandages—the perpetrator himself had gently wrapped her up while crying and saying it will never happen again, I swear to you—and stuffed with as much paracetamol and oxycodone as she could take, she went back to work, doing some light chores every day. The path to the barn every morning was the hardest bit, she had said, like walking a gauntlet and every uneven step sent waves of pain beating against her core; once she got past that, everything seemed easier. A miracle then, a bloody fucking miracle that she did not die, a miracle that the man Celia Dawson reacquainted herself with after so many years was not just a widower but a bereft parent showing them photos of his lost child—a handsome, weary woman with haunted eyes the elusive shade of sky, sea, and earth commingled. There, that’s her, that’s my Gillian.

Caroline riffles the stiff, yellowed pages of The Transit of Venus. As words flutter by she encounters her name in the book several times. There are signs and miracles on this rainy day to be interpreted and treasured in equal measure, and the last one is divination for the disbeliever: She stands here looking at Gillian’s books and know that this, all of this, is heading where it’s heading despite her complete and utter lack of faith.

CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:

The Smiths:

“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” “William, It Was Really Nothing,”

EDITED TO ADD:

Patricia Barber, “You Don’t Know Me”

Note: The great Shirley Hazzard died recently, so the reference to her novel in this chapter is a hat tip to an extraordinary writer who, I fear, will not be as remembered and revered as she should be.

#are we cool vincent #Caroline x Gillian #the one with the books

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serainovel · 7 years

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Prologue Part One: Moonlight

Serai Kingdom, Brackenshire County, the Eastern Barracks.

Michael Smith had always preferred the nighttime, when the world was quiet, distractions were few, and the moon was high in the sky.

It wasn’t until the sun was set that he could feel at his most energetic, and he could be left to concentrate on whatever project he had set himself to. That night, the moon was so close, and so close to full, it provided the warehouse with enough moonlight that Michael had no need of a torch. Even hours after sunset, when his fellow trainees lay abed, he was working tirelessly, and dreaming of the day he might be tasked with a duty far more important than chopping firewood.

The warehouse was cold and damp, and wasn’t much better in the daytime. There was a nasty chill in here, and a draft that was exacerbated by the biting October winds. The building wasn’t at all suited for food storage, so it was instead used to stock spare weapons and armour. The walls were covered from top to bottom with weapon racks, piled high with swords, spears, axes, bows, knives, plate armour and shields, none of which were in great condition. Most were old and worn, scratched and cracked, and rusting over from lack of use. They were accompanied by groups of broken training dummies, all of them in varying states of decay, and crate upon crate of arrows, crossbow bolts, armour plates, hay bales (the horses weren’t keen on damp hay, but it was the best they got), and at the very back, an entire tree’s worth of rough, unchopped logs. This was the exact problem that Michael had set out to fix.

The warehouses stood on the far side of the Eastern Barracks’ grounds, far enough away from the sleeping quarters that even the sounds of the other trainees’ cacophonous snores couldn’t reach Michael’s ears. The silence was only interrupted only by the rhythmic thok sounds of his axe connecting with the firewood. Unabated by distractions, his thoughts wandered, drifting to the subject that so often occupied his mind: his dream of achieving knighthood.

Michael had lived in the Eastern Seraian Barracks for most of his young life. He spent his days training, serving his superiors, and on occasion, fighting alongside the Seraian army, to defend their borders from attack. But he was always awaiting his next chance to be of use to his knight.

Unfortunately for Michael, the Royal Knights, who served at their monarch’s side at all times, were more concerned with defending the royal family than they were with raising squires. The last time Michael’s knight had come to the barracks seeking his squire's aid had been three months ago, and his visits were getting fewer and father between. This was something that irritated Michael to no end. How was he supposed to prove his worthiness as a candidate for knighthood if his knight was too busy to even pay him a visit?

Michael had lost count of the attempts he had made to persuade the knight to let him stay with him, at his side, where he would be of far better use to him. The more time he spent training under the knight’s guidance, the sooner he could be of worth to his kingdom’s military. But the response was always the same. Always firm, always even-tempered, and always “no”.

"This is the only place for you, son," Sir Romanenkov had said to him in his thick accent. "Just for now. Just until I can find something else for you. Have patience until then.”

Three years had passed since they’d had that conversation.

Michael lined up another piece of firewood, and brought his axe down upon it with a little more vengeance. Perhaps too much, as his strike sent one half of the log spinning off into the shadows.

With an irritated sigh, Michael set his axe temporarily aside, and went in search of the discarded wood. His workbench was brightly lit by a moonbeam, but the rest of the warehouse was cast in shadow, and it was there that the log had scurried off to. Even as he blinked into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust, he could barely see a foot in front of him. He was forced to rely less on his sight and more on the hope that his foot might accidentally collide with the lost firewood.

He searched the shadows like this, but was having little luck, and his eyes became ever more drawn to the moonlight, as it poured down in streaks from the cracks in the roof and the rafters. Amidst the glow, there was a singular beam that shone brighter than the others. It cut through the shadows, and landed upon a sword, a singular sheathed blade propped up against a storage box, as though it were pulling the light towards it.

Before he could get too sidetracked, Michael found the firewood - or rather, his boot did, as he accidentally kicked it and sent it clattering across the floor. He bent down and patted his fingertips against the stone ground, until they found wood. He hoped that this particular log would burn far better than most. It was the least it could do for all the trouble it had given him.

He made his way back to the workbench, intending to go immediately back to his work. Instead, he turned to look at the sword again. Its dull slightly curved scabbard, the tempered steel of the hilt wrapped tightly in tattered cloth. So very unlike any of the other swords stored in this warehouse. The range of weapons available for the trainees was by no means meagre: the selection ranged from light and tiny daggers, to chipped but trusty one-handed swords, to hefty and intimidating broadswords. Those unskilled in the art of swordsmanship had the choice of taking up an axe, or a glaive, or a longbow, if that better suited them. But there was not a single blade in the barracks quite like this one. It was utterly unmistakable.

Michael had been this sword’s owner for as long as he could remember, but he had never known it to catch the moonlight with such concentrated intensity.

He told himself it had been a trick of the light, and went back to his chopping bench. He picked up the other less adventurous log, and threw them both into the pile with the rest of their bifurcated brethren.

Once the firewood was prepared for the following day, and all of his tools had been put back in their rightful place, Michael returned to collect his sword with his head held high, satisfied with a job well done and another night put to good use. But, before he could leave the building, a thought stopped him. Perhaps the day was not quite over yet.

Life in the barracks meant that privacy was a rarity, not a given. At breakfast, at work, at play, at training, at rest, there would be someone demanding his attention, or poking their nose into his business. Michael shot a look at a set of bows hung on a nearby wall, disdain painting his features as they brought back an irritating memory. His archery skills were, in his opinion, abysmal: something that came as a surprise to his tutors, who so often praised his focused, accurate sword strikes. This was not something that perturbed him; Michael had no interest in pursuing archery. He was certain he didn't have the same flair for the bow as he did with the sword. He had been unable to replicate his precise swordplay in his archery, thanks in no small part to his fellow trainees’ propensity for shouting and jeering at him just as he was lining up his shot. They were lucky he’d hit the target at all, and had not aimed for their faces instead.

Not that Michael was unused to receiving such treatment from the other trainees. They had never quite seen eye to eye, on many matters. Such as his preferred choice of weapon.

He gripped the sword in his hand a little tighter. He couldn't possibly waste this opportunity to practice in private, undeterred by his peers.

A short while later, Michael was stepping back from a readied training dummy, strategically positioned right where the moonlight would catch it. This particular mannequin was well-used; countless cuts and notches peppered its worn wooden limbs, and had all but destroyed the old flaking paint that marked its weak spots. Even the frown carved into its crude face failed to convey any kind of menace.

He admired his handiwork, checking to make sure the dummy had the strength to hold the sword and shield he’d given it, and ultimately decided he was still unsatisfied. He reached across, holding the scabbard of his blade at length, and used the heel to bump the dummy’s arm up a notch. These models had not been assembled with the greatest care, and the slight disturbance was enough to shake the dummy’s entire arm. It gestured as though it were waving its weapon menacingly in Michael’s direction. At this, a smile came unbidden to his lips.

Playing along, he knocked his head back and set his jaw, as though he were offended by the most uncouth manner the dummy had used to challenge him with.

“‘Do you raise your blade to me, sir?’”

It was a quote from a story book he’d read, about a valiant soldier’s battle against a kingdom that had turned its back on him. Though the words were not his own, hearing them spoken in his own voice filled him with determination.

The dummy was, of course, unresponsive. Michael was unperturbed.

“‘You do,’” he said.

The dummy had not moved.

“‘But you must know…’”

He set a firm grip upon the hilt of his sword. It fit his palm as though it had been made to be held by his hands. In one swift motion, he drew the sword high, slicing a sharp arc over his head, to point the single-sided blade at this foe.

“‘A knight cannot refuse a challenge.’”

The dummy appeared nonplussed, but Michael liked to think that, had it been a living breathing thing, it would currently be fearing for its life.

But there was no going back now: the challenge was issued, and their duel must begin.

Michael was nothing if not a devoted student, so he initiated the battle the way he had been taught to: with the honourable Seraian salute. Clapping his ankles together, he straightened his back and shoulders, head held high as he brought his flattened palm down upon his heart. Then he bowed deeply. He righted himself with a flourish, and with that, the games were over.

He charged towards the dummy, strafing from side to side as he went, dodging his opponent’s imaginary attacks as he honed in on its weak spots. Footwork was his strongest asset, and he put it to good use during training. He would catch himself on the balls of his feet every time he changed direction, so not a single step would lose momentum. He didn’t set a foot wrong, yet he still wasn’t satisfied. Michael told himself he should be focusing on improving his weaknesses instead of reveling in his strengths. He was so confident in his footwork he could dance circles around his peers and his enemies; not one of his fellow trainees could get a hand on him, no matter how hard they tried. And they did try.

When he wasn’t dodging imaginary attacks from the dummy’s sword, he was landing accurate blows on the weak spot targets on its chest, shoulders and head. But he had a nasty habit of leaving himself open to attack during his parries, and he was fully aware of his shortcomings. He made a sharp turn, evading another non-existent swipe at his face, and attempted to correct himself by bringing his shield closer to his chest. That solved his defence problem, but he still hadn't managed to land a strike of his own. The voice of his teacher was in his head, chiding him for his mistakes.

“Michael!” Sir Leon would yell. “Keep your wits about you, lad! Had this been a real fight, you’d have lost both your legs by now! Stop prancing about and bloody hit him!”

Frustration flooded his chest; it took hold of his sword arm and raised his weapon high. The blade cast a shadow upon Michael’s foe as it pierced the moonbeams above him. He prepared to bring the weapon down hard upon the dummy’s chest target, more concerned with attaining catharsis than he was with keeping the mannequin in one piece.

Luckily, he noticed the bright lights sparking from his sword before the glowing blade could make contact.

“Oh! Woah woah!”

He leapt back, all malice gone from his wide eyes, so surprised that he lost his grip on the hilt and tossed it back and forth between his palms like a hot potato. Once the initial shock was over, he gripped the hilt firm in both hands, arms out straight like he were trying to ward off a wild animal. But it wasn’t biting back. The hilt was cool to the touch, and the sparks had stopped. And most peculiar of all, the light was entirely gone from the sword’s silver blade.

Michael glared at the sword as though it had personally offended him.

“How?” he huffed as he turned the weapon over in his hands, bringing it up close to his eyes to inspect it proper. “How does this keep happening…?”

His search yielded no results. No heat, no marks, not so much as a flicker of life or light. Not even a good shake could bring a reaction out of it. The blade was entirely inert, obedient, and still reluctant to explain its erratic propensity for setting itself alight.

Relenting, Michael let his arm flop to his side, sighing as he passed a hand across his face, his head heavy with the burden of unanswered questions. When he removed his palm, his eyes were met once again with the training dummy, standing undefeated with its far more obedient weapon held high. Its face looked downright smug now.

Far too proud to leave their sparring match undecided, Michael collected himself, readied his stance, and lunged at his target again. He wasn't messing around this time; foregoing footwork practice in favour of brute strength, Michael drew back his sword and struck the dummy’s centre target without restraint. It span and rattled violently upon its pivot, its balance thrown by the hefty shield and sword strapped to its arms, and it tottered helplessly before it gave way to gravity’s pull. With a defeated creak, it fell to the floor.

Michael sheathed his blade, grinning. He may not have been any closer to discovering the truth about his sparking sword, but he was at least pleased he got to have the last word.

#Serai (VN)#Serai: In Living Memory #Prose #Mizuki Shiro #Prologue

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taro-tar0 · 6 years

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HAY, Imma post my Fanfic from wattpad on here cause I feel like it. It’s called “Lilacs Ain’t Purple”CHAPTER TWOWOOWOW

ℓιℓαн

We couldn't stop talking. I learned Lafayette came to America dressed as a pregnant woman, and had to buy the ship he was sailing on to America to keep travelling. His story was so interesting, and I'm glad I can speak french or I wouldn't be understand a word he said.

Hamilton's story is the one that I found the most depressing. It's crazy that he's so optimistic about life. I wish I could be like that. He gives off a nice, comfortable vibe, like he's fine with anything coming his way. We also seem to get along, which will come in handy sometime in the future.

Hercules said he was from Ireland and had a sister, but that's all he said about himself.

"I'm from South Carolina, and I came here to New York to fight in the Revolution." John explained, waving his hand about as he talks. "What about you? You from here or what?" He smiles warmly.

"I, I don't really know where I was born, but I remember being on all ship to America and all I could speak was french. So, I assumed I was from France. Someone taught me english, and that's about all I know." I vent. Lafayette nods as I tell my story, ours are so similar.

"Are you taking part in the revolution? You seem to have a uniform.. at least, the jacket and boots." Alexander looks under the table at my boots, then back up at my jacket, which was very large on my small frame.

"Yeah, I have nothing else to do" I play with my hair, wrapping curls around my finger.

"I'm going to go get a drink, anyone want anything? Leon? Do you drink?" Alexander asks me.

"Yeah, um, I'll have an ale and a water, but keep the ale to a minimum, I'm not a big drinker." He nods and asks Herc, Laff, and John what they want and walks off to the bar.

"So, Leon, if you're 'french', why is your name so Irish?" Herc says, putting finger quotes around 'french'.

"A man on the ship gave me a last name. He also named me Leon." I lean back in my chair, yawning.

"That's cool, if you had a french name, what do you think it would be?" Lafayette asks in his thick french accent.

"Probably Adrien or something, I don't really care what." I shrug and wave Alexander over, who was almost dropping our drinks. I stand up and rush over to him, grabbing some glasses.

"Thanks for the help Leo, is it okay if I call you Leo?" He gives me a questioning look, worried almost.

"Of course, Alex." He flusters up at his nickname, making me laugh. His cheeks were still pink by the time we got to the table.

"I never noticed how small you are, you're so tiny!" John picks my up by the armpits and looks me in the eyes, his sparkling with excitement.

"Can you put me down please? My feet can't touch the ground and it's frankly a little disquieting" (insert Lenny face here) he sets me down, embarrased. Laff, Herc, and Alex were laughing their asses off.

"It's not funny!" John yells, loudly, gaining some looks from the others in the pub.

"It is. You don't just pick someone up, saying how short they are." I laugh, patting John in the back. "But it's fine, just please don't do it again." I wipe tears from my eyes from laughing so hard.

"Gladly." John rolls his eyes playfully. Laff punches his shoulder teasingly, giving him a hard time.

"Well, everyone, let's raise a glass! To freedom!" Alexander says loudly, we comply and shout excitedly, rallying up the rest of the pub.

______________Time Skip_____________

I start heading back home with a drunk John Laurens in my arms. He babbles mindlessly about turtles, he couldn't even walk straight.

"Did you know I love turtles?" He whispered in my ear, making me shiver.

"Yes, you've told me about nine times now." I sigh. He points me down a street to a city apartment. I help him up the stairs and open his locked door.

"Hey, Leon, thanks for helping me home." He plopped down on a chair and put his arms behind his head, yawning.

"No problem. You best better get some sleep." I sigh, turning towards the door. I'm just about halfway out the door when I hear John puke into a washbasin.

"Lord, John, just a second, I'll be right there." Rolling my eyes, I find a small towel and wet it, eventually seeing a very pale John standing behind me.

"You go back to your basin, I'll be done in just a second." I hear him stumble off, then puke again, this time not in the basin. I cringe as I wring out the soaked towel.

Walking over to where John was was a chore, he really needed to clean up a bit. I almost trip over an overturned chair.

"Fuck... John, are you sure you're okay?" I rush over to him, helping him sit up slowly. Water runs down his nose and drips onto the floor as I wipe away the cold sweat on his forehead with the towel.

"Yeah, but, we have a problem.... Also, my shirt...." he looks toward the left of the washbasin. I see he missed, and sigh. Then I look at his shirt. Lord, can't he be a little more careful.

"I'll clean it up, you just wait here so you can throw up in there and not on the floor." I walk back to the small closet with all the towels and find one to clean up the mess with, getting it slightly damp.

I try not to gag at the smell. Stale alcohol and bile fills my nostrils as I finish cleaning. John had puke running down his chin which made my job harder. I clean him up and wait outside the door as he put on the shirt I picked out for him.

"Thank you, for staying with me. I know I'm a handful when drunk, sorry." He apologizes.

"It's fine. I'm just glad you didn't have to deal with this on your own." I laugh quietly to myself as I wash out the towels in the now clean washbasin.

I finish and head home after saying 'goodbye' to John. Flopping down on my bed after I take off my new jacket, I sigh and roll onto my back.

Add I wait for sleep, I think of the nice men I just met today, and smile. This will be a good start to my new life as a soldier.

(1077 words)

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tosybelle-blog · 7 years

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The Boys of Summer, Chapters VI-X

Now it’s morning but last night’s on my mind There’s something I need to get off my chest And no matter what may come to shine The dream will always be mine 311, All Mixed up

Jeff

I hopped on an airplane as soon as possible after graduation. If I could have, I would have left directly from the ceremony and skipped all the celebrating bull crap. I didn’t think it would ever happen, but I was actually happy to leave California this time—to leave behind all the gossip and hard feelings and misery.

Plus, I was headed to Byron. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I was pretty quiet on the plane ride. There was this pretty girl sitting next to me in the middle seat. She was a brunette with long, tan legs and a tinkly laugh. She kept trying to engage me in conversation, and at first I’d tried to flirt back with her, but it was just too exhausting. After a while I just pulled out the photo of Byron and me on the beach in Ogunquit and introduced him as my boyfriend. Vanessa had snapped it our last night there, after he’d come out to the whole town by standing on a picnic table and shouting.

This is something for which I am very proud of him.

Anyway, after that the girl lost interest. I was able to stare out the window and not think for a while. I watched the landscape change from desert to mountains to plains before I fell asleep. I only woke up because the flight attendant was shaking me. Everyone else had already left the plane.

Ever since I hit my teen years, my mom has let me get my own luggage and met me on at the curb with her car. So I went through baggage claim and waited on the sidewalk outside arrivals. And waited. And waited. My mom is notorious for being late, but it was starting to get ridiculous, even for her. I was beginning to think that maybe she’d been in a wreck.

To pass the time, I started watching the other cars go by. There was this one beat-up blue Honda that kept passing. After a few circles, I started counting, but after the sixth go- round, I lost track. A short time later, the Honda pulled up at the curb a ways ahead of me. A short young man with shaggy brown hair and mirrored sunglasses stepped out of the car. I barely noticed because I was looking for my mom again.

“Jeff! Jeff!” Someone was calling my name. I looked around and saw the young man jumping up and down and waving at me. He took off his sunglasses and I squinted into the sunlight at him.

It was Byron.

He ran my direction and started talking a mile a minute. “Your mom had a last minute client meeting, so she asked Mary Anne to come get you. But apparently, Mary Anne’s husband’s car broke down but he didn’t tell her that he took her car to work. So Mary Anne was all in a panic…”

He must have taken Haley’s drug of choice. I just watched him lethargically as he continued to relay the whole story of how he’d come to pick me up. He was wearing a pair of jeans that had seen better days and a plain gray t-shirt that read “SHS Honor Society,” but he’d paired it with a dazzling smile. Byron’s so serious most of the time that you sometimes have to work to make him smile. But that just makes the end result all the more worth it.

The smile faded as he got a good look at me. “Jeff? What’s wrong?”

I didn’t reply. Instead, I simply held my arms out to him. Byron had picked up one of my suitcases, but he instantly put it down and took a few steps to me, returning the embrace. I put my head on top of his and we just stayed like that for a moment. Finally, I murmured, “God, I missed you.”

He didn’t laugh and tell me we’d just seen each other last weekend; he just pulled me closer. “Tired?” he asked. I nodded and he let me loose, picking back up my suitcase. I grabbed my other bag and we headed back to the car.

So it turns out that the Civic is the car Byron shares with his brothers and sisters. The interior was pretty much what you’d expect from a car driven by five teenagers. The floors were littered with fast food wrappers and other junk and the seats were covered in crumbs. The cup holders and the areas around them were sticky and the air smelled of stale cigarette smoke. I made a face and Byron grimaced. “Mallory,” he said in explanation for the smell. “She seems to think the rest of us don’t notice.”

Byron put the car into drive and carefully merged into the traffic leaving the airport. He’s a very cautious driver and he hugs the speed limit, but I don’t mind. If you think about it, letting someone drive you somewhere is putting your life into their hands. I don’t think there’s anyone else I’d trust quite as much as Byron in that respect. I closed my eyes and we drove quietly for a while.

After a while we were on the highway heading back to good old Stoneybrook. I opened my eyes and watched the familiar road go by. “So, how’s school been?” I asked.

By had put the sunglasses back on, so I couldn’t see his eyes, but there was no mistaking the wrinkled nose. “Same as ever, except we have a lot more stuff due over the next few weeks,” he said. He then checked over his shoulder, put on his turn signal, and changed lanes.

“And how about the other kids?”

He took a deep breath and turned to look at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. Byron held the breath so long that I thought he might die. Finally, he answered softly in a puff of exhaled air. “They’ve actually been better than I expected. A lot of kids came up to me after the article was published and told me they thought I was pretty brave, and I’ve actually had two kids come out to me. But I’ve also gotten a few who want to quote the Bible at me and a couple notes stuck into my locker calling me things I’d rather not think about.”

I had seen “the article.” A few days before, an envelope had arrived at my house, addressed to me. I didn’t recognize the return address although I knew who must have sent it; the name ‘Braddock’ on the address gave that away. Inside was a cut out newspaper article with a photo. Above the headline at the top of the page was a margin, where, in girly, loopy handwriting were the words, “Thought you’d like to have this. See you in a few weeks. Love, Hay.”

Quite frankly, the text was pretty much what I’d expected. It was a human interest puff piece, making something out of nothing. Byron and I went to prom together. The school hadn’t cared. The school district hadn’t cared. Most of the student body hadn’t cared. But someone at the newspaper cared and they’d written a story about it. Byron hadn’t wanted to talk to the reporter, but I’d answered a few questions.

I was beginning to wonder if this was a mistake.

I felt that way for several reasons. First of all, the story was pretty crappy and pointless. And second, I hadn’t even told my mom and stepdad I was going to prom with a boy in general or Byron in particular, and I know they must have seen the article as Richard reads the paper every morning without fail. The headline called us gay teens. I still don’t have a label on what I am, though most days I’m leaning towards bisexual. My dad didn’t react really well when I told him, and my stepmom just plain pretends I never said anything. I don’t know if, for Carol, it’s easier to play that I’m straight so she doesn’t have to deal with my dad’s unhappiness about it or if she’s just waiting for a definitive answer on my sexuality. If she is, she’ll have to keep waiting.

I was not looking forward to telling Richard I was dating a boy, but somehow I think him finding out from me would have been better than him finding out from a newspaper.

I changed the subject to something I knew would perk By up. “And how’s Haley doing?”

Sure enough, he smiled again. “Great! Getting together with Jordan has done wonders for her. She’s back to Happy Hay again.” He chuckled a little. “We got jobs working for the same place for the summer. She started a couple weeks ago and I start Monday after track practice.”

“Where’s that?”

Byron laughed again. “Girly Central. That’s not the real name, but that’s what Jordan called it when he found out where I was working.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “And what is Jordan doing this summer?”

“Bussing tables. Apparently, that’s good, manly, straight guy work.”

We looked at each other for a second and it was my turn to laugh.

***

I must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing I remember was waking up as the car came to a stop in my mom’s driveway. “Morning, Sleepyhead,” Byron teased, giving a lopsided little grin. He cupped my chin with one hand and leaned in for a tentative kiss. By always starts off very timidly with his kisses, as if he’s afraid that they won’t be returned. I met his kiss and pulled him farther toward me. He grabbed my waist and basically climbed over the seat so that he was able to reach me better. I ran my hands up and down his side, shucking his shirt up in the process. I eased my lips apart and his tongue gently entered my mouth.

Byron might be inexperienced, but he’s a fast learner.

We had been in the driveway for about five minutes when he pulled back for a breather. “I feel sort of exposed,” he said as he pulled his shirt back down into place.

I cracked up. He was wearing way more clothes than you would at the beach and we were surrounded by the house and garage on two sides and by a hedge on a third. By look wounded for a moment. “No, I’m sorry,” I said as I struggled to catch my breath. “I know exactly what you mean. We could go inside, if you like.”

He went from hurt to horrified in ten seconds flat. “Inside your house? When are your parents getting home?”

I thought about that. Both Mom and Richard are self-employed these days and they come and go throughout the day. I wasn’t anxious for Richard to come in while we were half dressed. Or worse.

Come to think of it, I didn’t particularly want to have Richard come in while By and I were playing Parcheesi, either. I needed to talk to him and Mom before I subjected Byron to them. “Yeah,” I said with a sigh, “Maybe not a good idea today. But I’ll call you tonight and we’ll make some plans, okay?”

He lit up. “We,” he said, sounding amazed. “I like the sound of that.”

I laughed again. “You’ve heard the word before.”

He grinned back at me. “Yeah, but I’ve never been part of the ‘we’ before.”

I opened my car door and he jumped out his side. “Get used to it, my friend.” I paused as he popped open the trunk. “Or should I say my boyfriend?”

By’s blue eyes shone. “Yeah. I like that one.”

***

I walked into the empty house with my bags. I left most of my stuff at the bottom of the stairs without walking through the house or looking around, and headed straight to my bedroom. I felt as if there was no personality in the room—the space did not say Jeff. When Mom had first moved in, I’d been ten. It’d been done up in superheroes. As I’d outgrown the heroes, they’d been taken down and I hadn’t bothered to replace them with anything. I’d spent as little time as possible at Mom’s in the last few years, so it hadn’t mattered. Now, I wanted this room to feel like home. Like a place I wouldn’t be embarrassed to bring my friends.

Friends. I kinda felt the way about that word that Byron did about ‘we.’ I had friends back in Palo City, but Risa and I had played the “yours and mine” game when we’d split. Seeing as I hadn’t been in the best mind set back them—it was about two months later that I ended up hospitalized—a lot of people had chosen her side over mine. I could say that I had made headway in reforming those relationships, but it was nothing compared to the ease with which I always slid back into my friendship with the triplets. Now I could add Vanessa and Haley to my list of friends, too.

I opened my duffel bag and dug among the items I’d taken on the plane with me for something in particular. One item that had been in the room all these years was a bulletin board. It was covered in blue paper at this moment and not much else—though there was a picture of me, the triplets and their brother Nick from the day we’d decorated the room, taken by my stepsister. I left that up and gathered my envelop of photos and a bunch of thumbtacks. Up went a photo of me and my sisters, taken the day Gracie was born. Next to that went a photo of Gracie taken a couple weeks ago. I added a picture of a few of my Palo City friends making muscle poses at the beach and a couple pictures from spring break: Haley sticking her tongue out at the camera and the triplets and I standing under the sign at the teen club in Ogunquit.

I stepped back to take a look at the room as a whole. It needed a color overhaul. Everything was tan and white, like my stepdad had picked it out. Which, come to think of it, he probably had.

I was mentally deciding the cheapest way to add some color to the room when the front door closed and Richard’s voice came through the house. “Jeff? Are you here?”

I opened the door to my room, which I had closed out of habit. “Yeah. Up here.”

He appeared in the doorway a moment later. “You made it home successfully, I see. Mary Anne called me all in a tizzy.” Only Richard would use the word ‘tizzy.’ “But I was in meetings all day so I couldn’t get to the airport. Who ended up picking you up?”

“Byron.”

“Ah, I see.” Richard adjusted his tie and looked at the ground, distinctly uncomfortable. “And is Byron your boyfriend?”

I shifted, feeling awkward. “You could say that.” I had, in fact, said that earlier that day. Twice.

Richard still seemed uncomfortable, but he looked me straight in the eye. “Okay, then. Here are the rules. They’re the same ones Mary Anne had when she was your age.” He began to rattle off a list of pretty standard dad stuff: no overnight guests, no curfew but call if I’m going to be home after midnight, no boys in my bedroom when no one else is home. To my surprise, the rules were less strict than at Dad and Carol’s.

I gaped at him. “You mean,” I began, with the sense that I’d missed something, “You don’t have a problem with me dating a boy?”

His eyes widened. “No. Why would I?” He looked bewildered. “Are you happy? Are you healthy? Are you following the law? Then you have my seal of approval.”

I wanted to hug him, so I did. I think that surprised him more than anything else.

***

I helped Richard make dinner while we waited for Mom. I fried up some eggs and Richard chopped tomatoes and shelled some peas. We made fried rice, which we divided into two bowls. One bowl was for Mom and me; in the other, Richard added fried pork. This was for him. Also, Mary Anne and her husband, whom I’d met twice, once at their wedding, were stopping by later that evening to catch up with me and to eat leftovers.

Mom was home on the later side that night. By that time, I was practically drooling over the food, which was slowly cooling in the fridge. She gave me a hug and exclaimed over how tall I’d gotten. She does this every time she sees me, although I think this time she’d forgotten that it had only been a week since the last time I was in Connecticut.

We sat down for a quick and pretty quiet meal. Mom asked me how graduation had gone. She’d wanted to go to the ceremony, but I’d told her not to bother. I hadn’t even wanted to go. Plus, when she had gone to Dawn’s graduation, she and Dad had gotten into a big argument that the whole family, both sides, had witnessed.

It hadn’t been pretty.

So she’d grudgingly accepted my request for her to stay away. I promised to show her pictures when I got them and told her the whole thing, overall, had been pretty boring. Richard saved me from squirming under Mom’s evil eye by talking about the case he was working, in as much detail as he was allowed to share. I’ve found that when Richard speaks legalese, I just need to smile and nod, because I don’t understand any of it. I once made the mistake of asking him to explain something, but the explanation was even more confusing than the original statement, so I’d never done that again.

After we ate, Mom went upstairs to change into something more comfortable. I helped Richard clear the table and when we were done, I followed Mom to her bedroom. The door was open and she was in the master bathroom, brushing her teeth. I sat on her bed, waiting for her to come back out. She did a moment later, and she jumped when she saw me sitting there. “Jeff,” she gasped, “You scared me witless.”

If it had been anyone else, I would have told them they didn’t have any wits to begin with. Sadly, with my mom, sometimes I think it’s just a little too accurate, so I bit my tongue. Instead, I stretched out across the bed as Mom “tidied” things by moving items on her dresser around. After a moment or so I finally spoke up. “Mom, about prom…”

She smiled at me. “Did you and Byron have a good time? I saw your picture in the paper.”

Something was off here. This was not the response I was expecting. It was as if Mom and Richard had been replaced with alien lookalikes or something. Dad had been all rude and sarcastic about me dating a boy, and By’s parents had gone all concerned when he’d come out to them. “Um, yeah. We did,” I stammered, trying to figure out how to broach the subject in the way I wanted.

Mom turned around to face me. “I’m so glad. It’s good to see you happy again.” She sat down on the end of the bed. I was lying on my stomach with my head propped up, facing that way. “I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me you were going with Byron in the first place,” she said as she smoothed the quilt out in front of her with one hand.

Ah. That wasn’t the way I intended to broach the subject, but it worked. “I didn’t think you’d take it well,” I said, looking at everything but her.

Mom stared me down. “And why not?”

I shrugged. Even though I had wanted to get this conversation over with, it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable discussion I’d had all day. I’d had an easier time talking to Richard, for crying out loud. “Well, Dad didn’t take things well,” I began, “And I didn’t really have any answers for you. To questions you might ask, I mean.”

She looked alarmed. “What kind of questions?”

“You know. ‘Are you gay?’ ‘Is Byron your boyfriend?’”

Mom relaxed. “So you have no answers to those questions?” she asked.

I finally looked at her. “Sorta. I have no definitions for myself. My doctor says that’s okay, and that I don’t need to rush into a label if I’m not sure.” She nodded, urging me to go on. “And when you agreed to purchase some tickets for me, I would have said ‘no’ to the second question. But now….”

Mom rubbed my back, the way she used to when I was small. “Now you can say yes.” I nodded. “I know you’ve been having a tough time the last year or so. And I think anything that is going to help you be closer to the young man you were—stronger, maybe more self-aware—is a positive step in your life, and I support that.”

I turned back toward her again. “Why can’t Dad feel that way?”

Mom made a face, and after a moment I realized she was biting her tongue, both literally and figuratively. “I think your father is just uncomfortable with not knowing. He’s always preferred specific facts.” She sighed. “Maybe this is one time where it is best for you to just give each other some space. Give your father some time, and maybe someday you’ll have a few of the answers he’s looking for.”

I furrowed my brow. “Richard said he was okay with me and the way things are, but he also seemed really uncomfortable. I’m not going to run into problems with him, am I?”

She chose her words carefully. “Richard and I talked things over after that piece appeared in the newspaper. I don’t know if he’s…happy…for you, but he respects your right to date whoever you want. You won’t have an issue with him.”

That sounded strange. “Then why did he have such a hard time talking to me about it earlier when he gave me the rules?”

“I think,” Mom said with a small laugh, “he was a bit afraid of laying down the law for you. Dawn always had a problem with him setting boundaries with her when she was your age, and it became an ordeal after a while. I think he was just afraid you would follow in her footsteps.”

Before I could reply to that, the front door opened and a voice called out, “Hello! We’re here!” It was Mary Anne and Pete.

Mom looked at me. “Ready to go downstairs and probably answer some more questions that you don’t want to answer?”

I smiled. “Lead the way.”

So no of course we can’t be friends Not while I still feel like this I guess I always knew the score This is where our story ends Garbage, Cup of Coffee

Adam

This had been the most awkward cup of coffee I’d ever drunk.

When I’d arrived at Starbucks a few minutes after seven on that Thursday, Tiffany was already sitting at a table. She had the largest size of some iced drink in front of her, but she wasn’t drinking it. She was staring off into space and there was a paper napkin in front of her. Most of it was torn to shreds and she held the last little piece in between her fingers. “Tiff?” I called after I ordered my drink.

She looked up at me. In most ways, she looked the same as she had when we’d broken up three years before. Her hair was a little longer and her bangs a little shaggier than I remembered. The makeup was a little heavier, too. She wore a turquoise shirt that was so long sleeved that all that showed of her fingers were her fingertips with bright orange fingernails. Tiff had paired the shirt with a pair of extremely short white shorts. I’ve never understood why girls do that—wear tiny little shorts with long sleeves. Don’t their legs get as cold as their arms?

Back to Tiffany, though. Even though she looked good from a distance, I could see that not everything was alright. It wasn’t just the shredded napkin or the way one of her knees was shaking in a jittery way, like she had too much energy or nerves. What really gave me the hint was when she finally smiled at me and answered. “Hey, Adam,” she said, but she didn’t really look happy. The smile was brief and only hit her mouth. Tiff’s eyes were sad and tired.

I got my drink and joined her at the table. She watched me sit but didn’t say anything. “So…how are things?”

Tiff shrugged but stayed silent. I took a sip of my coffee and tried to come up with a topic of conversation. I mean, I didn’t know what Tiffany was into these days. When we’d dated, she’d been huge into gardening, to the point when there were times I’d kiss her just to shut her up on the topic. I decided to take a stab at it. “Still gardening?”

She shrugged a second time. “I won a couple awards last year at the county fair. But this year I’ve been so busy with school that I didn’t have a chance to plant.” For the first time since I walked in, her expression changed and she looked regretful. Ugh. Subject change time.

“So, you go to Stoneybrook University?”

A head shake. “No, the community college.” Tiff went back to twisting the napkin.

“Oh.” I didn’t have a reply to that that wouldn’t come out as condescending, so I took another sip of coffee.

She looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “What about you? Where are you headed next fall?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Ohio University.”

“Ohio?” Tiff had finished shredding the napkin, so she dropped the confetti that was left over and played with the straw in her drink. “What’s so interesting in Ohio?”

“They have a business program. I’m hoping to get my MBA eventually.”

“Oh.” It was her turn to not know what to say.

We sat there looking at each other for a while, completely awkwardly. Tiff actually reached across the counter and grabbed my napkin and started shredding that.

I was getting ready to find an excuse to leave when Tiff spoke up. “Well, this is really awkward, isn’t it?”

Well, what could I say to that? It was true. I started laughing. Tiffany looked surprised for a moment, but when she realized I wasn’t laughing at her, she smiled for real, looking more like she had back in the day. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

I shook my head at her. “No, no, don’t be sorry,” I said, picking up my coffee again. Now that the ice was broken, I decided to go for it. “I came out for coffee with you because you sounded like you needed a friend when you called. Why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

I expected her to be defensive. Instead, she just sagged. “Where to start?” she asked. She picked up her drink and, for the first time since I sat down, actually took a sip. “Dad cheated on Mom, so she kicked him out. I never see him anymore, and she’s so busy that when I see her, she just barks orders at me and doesn’t actually talk to me.” I nodded. “I think I flunked algebra. I have no friends. My garden’s ruined. My boyfriend cheated on me…” she faded out.

I was a little surprised at the litany of woes. Life in the Kilbourne house always seemed like it was a little bit dysfunctional, but this was something else. “Wow,” was all I could think of to say.

She smiled another half-way smile. “I know, right?”

I looked at her orange fingernails as she resumed tearing the napkin. “What about your sisters?” I asked.

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “What about them? Shannon’s still the perfect daughter in every way. And Maria’s still super swimmer, plus she’s got this whole other group of friends from some club she joined at school. They don’t have time to talk with me.”

Here’s what you need to realize about Tiff’s sisters. They’re always really super busy. They got so thoroughly into their activities because things were so bad at home; I could tell that back when I was dating Tiff, and Maria even actually said so once. She was only about twelve or so at the time.

But to me there was more to Tiff’s statement than that. She reminded me of something Byron had said once. I’d actually been getting ready for a date with Tiffany at the time. Jordan had just left with a group of our friends.

Byron was sitting on the couch in the living room, sulking with a book when I’d come down to wait for Tiff. Mom and Dad had gone out for the night, and Vanessa (who was still in middle school and therefore still “normal”) was babysitting Claire.

Byron made a sound that was close to “harrumph” when I sat down. “What’s eating you?” I’d asked him.

He closed the book, which he hadn’t been reading anyway. “Everyone just went to hang out without me.”

I knew what he meant right away. Over the past couple months, ‘our friends’ had gone from meaning ‘the triplets’ friends’ to ‘Adam and Jordan’s friends.’ Some of the guys didn’t really like hanging out with Byron much those days. In a few cases, it had a lot to do with Dan Reiber and the trash he liked to talk. Freshman boys aren’t exactly known for their maturity. But most of the guys just thought he was kinda weird. He was quiet at school, and he would just sit and watch conversations instead of joining in. I knew that he was just taking things in and processing them, but some people found it a little creepy.

I turned to Byron, who looked both irritated and a little sad. “Well,” I began, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible, “when was the last time you invited any of them to do anything? Do you ever call Scott up and ask if he wants to come over? Or Robby or Shane or anybody?”

He grimaced and I could see I’d made my point. “Okay,” he said, “I get it.”

The doorbell rang and I jumped up. “It’s Tiffany,” I explained as I started toward the door. Byron had picked the book back up. I moved to continue our conversation, but Tiff leaned on the doorbell and there was no keeping her waiting. I left, regretting the things I hadn’t said.

I came back to the present and looked Tiff over. She looked as if she were moments from crying. "I bet,” I said slowly, “if you made time to talk to Shannon or Maria, they’d be willing to listen to you.” She rolled her eyes again and then rubbed her right sleeve across one eye, trying to stop the flow of tears. “Even if they don’t have time for you, I’m here. We can be friends, right? Having a friend would solve one of your problems.”

Tiff did one of those teary laughs that girls are so good at. “Oh, sure,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve got nothing better to do than sit around with your ex-girlfriend and listen to her cry.”

I reached across the table and put a hand on top of one of her jittery hands. “I’m here right now, aren’t I?” I asked. “And what are we doing now?”

Tiff pulled her hand back. “Okay,” she said, sniffling back a few more tears, “but can you really picture me hanging out with the rest of your friends?”

I stopped and actually tried to follow through with that. I thought about sitting in the pizza place with a group of my friends from the baseball team. There were usually several girls with us, and I was picturing one of them reaching over and touching Tiff’s top and asking her where she bought it, with Tiff laughing and the two of them blathering on about shopping afterward. I pictured her sitting on the couch watching TV with me and some of my brothers and sisters, everyone arguing over what to watch next and Vanessa throwing popcorn at the others, while Tiff decorated Vanessa’s hair with kernels of popcorn in return. I also imagined her sitting in the backseat of the car when I drove somewhere with Byron and Jordan (and maybe a few other people crammed in), making jokes and being a backseat driver. I didn’t see any reason why any of it couldn’t happen. “Sure. Why not?”

Tiffany looked surprised. She picked up her drink and toyed with it some more. The expression on her face gave away an internal debate, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on. Finally, she stood up and tossed her drink in a nearby trashcan, even though it was still mostly full. I stood up slowly and watched her as she swept most of the napkin confetti into one hand. I thought she was going to walk away without another word, but she turned back to me after she dumped the paper into the trash. “Walk me to my car?” she said.

For some reason, she’d parked four blocks away. I felt like we were halfway to her house by the time she stopped in front of a car, jiggling a key ring on one hand. “Adam?” she began before she unlocked the door.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For everything.” Tiff reached over and kissed my cheek. I stopped her before she could pull away, putting a hand on each shoulder. Before I realized what I was doing, I pulled her back in for a kiss on the lips. It only lasted a few seconds, but that was plenty.

I let her go and looked at her, wild eyed. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

She smiled, looking legitimately happy for the first time all night. “Don’t be.” She grabbed the key fob and unlocked her car, opening the door behind her. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” she said as she sat down in the car. I watched as she put the key into the ignition. Before she started the car, she rolled down the window. “See ya, Adam,” she called as she drove away, leaving me on the sidewalk, not sure what had just happened.

It seems to me I could live my life A lot better than I think I am Rush, Working Man

Jeff

About a week after I arrived in Stoneybrook, Mom came home early and we went out shopping for bedding and accessories for my bedroom. Mom had been thrilled when I asked, I think because me redecorating meant I actually planned to spend enough time there for it to be worth it.

I had planned to just go to Wal-Mart, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it. She’s working as an interior decorator these days and I think she thought it would be the end of her career if someone found out her son’s bedroom was done up in Wal-Mart style.

So instead she took me to some bedding store in a new shopping strip that had sprung up since the last time I’d spent the summer in town. We’d headed straight to the comforters, where I’d picked out one in navy and burgundy rugby stripes. Mom had found a couple sheet sets and all the other bedding pieces that apparently are necessary, although I’ve never quite understood why someone needs a bed skirt or even quite what a euro sham is.

On the way out, Mom made me pick up a job application. She went into a couple of clothing stores in the area to do a little shopping and I sat outside and filled out the application while I waited. When she didn’t reappear after half an hour, I went ahead and turned the application in. Apparently, bedding and kitchen supplies is a big business. I got an instant job interview, left the store with a job in the receiving department.

And so I arrived at Kitchen & Bath at one in the afternoon that Saturday for my job orientation. The store was crazy busy, but I had been instructed to head to the customer service counter and introduce myself. The girl working the counter was a tiny blonde named Helen. I waited until she was not with a customer. “Hello. I’m here for orientation.”

She smiled. “I’m expecting a Lindsey and a Jeff,” she said, pushing stray hairs out of her face. “You must be Jeff.”

I smiled back. “Yup.”

“Well, I’m Helen, in case the name tag didn’t make that clear. I’m the front end manager. I’ll actually be running your orientation.” She glanced at her watch. “You’re a few minutes early, but in my book that’s a good thing. One of the cashiers is going to be running the counter for the afternoon, but he’s not back from lunch for about five more minutes. Why don’t you look around and I’ll call you back up here when he’s back and Lindsey’s here?”

I didn’t really want to look around; I was afraid of getting forgotten, quite frankly. Instead, I headed around the corner and started looking at bridal greeting cards. Who knew there were so many different reasons to get a card for someone getting married? I got tired of that after about two minutes. I came around the corner from behind the cards, planning to look at the merchandise next to the customer service counter and I ran smack into Byron.

He looked surprised, but in a good way. “Hey, Jeff! What are you doing here?”

Before I could answer, Helen came around the corner with a sturdy, tall girl with dishwater hair that I guessed must be Lindsey. “Byron, good timing! I’m just about to start orientation. Lissa will be joining you up here in half an hour, and Morgan will be in to relieve you at five.” I gaped as she talked to Byron like an old friend…until I realized he was wearing a Kitchen & Bath nametag. This must be what Jordan called Girly Central.

Helen barreled on, not noticing my surprise. “Have you met Lindsey and Jeff? Lindsey’s taking over Hay’s old spot in towels, and Jeff’s in receiving.”

Byron smiled at the other girl. “Nice to meet you, Lindsey,” he said.

Helen eyed him critically. “You and Jeff already know each other?”

I grinned. “You could definitely say that.”

By ducked his head and I knew he was blushing as he rubbed his hand across his forehead. Before I could say any more, he looked over my shoulder. “Customers waiting. I’ll call if I need backup.” And with that, he scurried away.

Helen looked at me oddly. “What’s with him?” she asked. “Never seen him behave like that before. There’s a good reason that he’s only been here a week and I’ve already got him running the counter. You guys good friends?”

It was my turn to blush a bit. “Yeah. You could say that,” I repeated.

Lindsey looked around as we walked down the aisle toward the back of the store. “Whoa, bride central,” she said as we walked into a large area full of fancy dishes and gifts made of breakable materials.

Helen beamed. “This is our new fine table department that we just opened a few weeks ago. Our bridal consultants work out of here. Most of them are on the older side and have been married for a while, although there are a few exceptions.”

It was then I discovered how big of a loudmouth that Haley can be. She came barreling out of nowhere and enveloped me in a big hug. “Jeff! Are you here to see your sweetie?” Hay let me go. While most of the employees were wearing jeans, sneakers and casual shirts—even the managers like Helen were in relaxed attire—Haley wore a pair of pinstriped pants, black shoes and a white blouse. Her name tag said ‘Hay.’ “He just got back from lunch and I think he’s working customer service for the rest of the day, but I bet you could get a chance to say hi if you stopped by up there…”

Haley suddenly realized that Helen and Lindsey were staring at us; she quit smiling as Helen stepped forward. “Hay? Don’t you have a bridal couple to attend to?”

Haley backed away. “They’re taken care of for the moment,” she said, almost meekly, but when Helen didn’t stop staring at her, she continued to back up. “Maybe I’ll just go check on them anyway…” Hay added, almost running off.

Helen diplomatically pretended she hadn’t heard anything Haley said. She continued giving Lindsey and me a tour of the store as we headed back into the room for orientation. We got into the back room and Helen had the two of us take a seat and start filling out employee paperwork. “I’m going to get you two name tags and lockers while you’re working on those. Let me know if you need anything.”

Almost the second Helen left the room and the door closed behind her, Lindsey looked up from her papers. “That guy at the customer service counter…was he your boyfriend?”

I didn’t stop filling out my forms or look at her. “Yup.” I could feel her eyes still on me so I gave her more information, knowing she wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted. “He only started work about a week ago and I didn’t know he was working here. This was just the first place I applied.”

Lindsey went back to her papers but had a thoughtful look on her face. “You know, he looked really familiar,” she said. “I lived in Stoneybrook until a couple years ago and I feel like I’ve seen both your boyfriend and your friend before. Name Byron sounds familiar too.”

“Hmmm.” I said, noncommittally.

Before Lindsey could go on, Helen returned. “Almost got those done? Good! When you’re finished, put on your name tag and I’ll start you into the boring videos…”

***

At five, we got a lunch break—although I’ve never understood why they call it lunch at dinner time. Lindsey and I got to play with our lockers for a few minutes before we clocked out, trying to get the combinations to work. I was having a little trouble with mine, because it felt like someone had stuck gum in the mechanism. After Lindsey left, I was still trying to get mine to open when a wave of people came through the door, getting ready to go home. Haley was near the back of the pack. She snuck up behind me, though I’m not sure on purpose. “Need some help with that thing?” she asked, making me jump.

“Geez, Haley,” I wheezed, “Is today Give Jeff a Heart Attack Day? Or is it Make Jeff Die of Embarrassment Day?”

She blushed a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here for orientation. Why didn’t By tell me you’d gotten a job here?”

“Because he didn’t know. I also didn’t know you two worked here.”

Haley smiled a bit. “Okay, then. I am sorry, you know. But I guess now we’re even for that time back in Ogunquit.”

I remembered how I embarrassed the hell out of her by telling everyone she’d been making out with Jordan. “Oh, yeah.” I finally got the lock to pop open. “Success! Has By come through here yet?” The room had cleared out, but I hadn’t seen him.

Hay shook her head. “I think Morgan’s late again, and he can’t leave till she gets here or someone else relieves him. Why don’t you go clock out and I’ll treat you to dinner? We’ll eat with you before we go home.”

I stopped in the doorway to the break room. “Two more things.”

She didn’t look up from her own locker. “Shoot.”

“Why does your name tag say Hay?”

Haley looked at me over her shoulder. “There are already two other Haleys, and they don’t call them by their last names or by first name-last initial. They go by spelling. I didn’t want them spelling my name every time they needed me, so I asked that everyone just call me Hay instead.”

I nodded. “Okay, makes sense. So what’s the deal with Helen? She seemed really nice until we ran into you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That,” she said with a sigh, “is a much longer story. Over dinner? At Papa Sandwich? You ever eat there? You’ll love it; they put sprouts on all their sandwiches. Jordan is working tonight, so I need time with the boys.” Haley looked reflective for a moment. “The other boys.”

I grinned at that. “I’ll meet you and Byron up front in a minute.” Before I wrote my time on the clock in sheet, I thought about Kitchen & Bath for a moment. I’d only been working there for four hours and I’d already run into a hornet’s nest full of drama. The real question was whether By and I working in the same store was going to be an issue.

I clocked out and headed to meet my friends in the front of the store.

Can you remember what you’re looking for Was it the answer of love? Can you tell me where you’re coming from Protect the naked life Mob Rules, Unknown Man

Vanessa

I was sitting in the waiting area of the department of motor vehicles, waiting to take the driving portion of my license test. I had just turned seventeen a few days earlier.

I was scared shitless.

I had been waiting alone for about ten minutes when he showed up. Dad has some goofy-ass rules, and one of them is that, if you’re old enough to get your license, you’re old enough to do everything that is involved in getting the license all by yourself. It actually kinda makes sense from a dad point of view. But, while I generally don’t really look to my parents for much, I’d almost had the urge to yell, “Daddy, don’t go!” when he walked out of the DMV.

Almost.

So enough about my dad. I have to tell you about this guy. I didn’t even notice he had sat next to me at first because I was too busy doing shit like trying to remember which one was the blinker and which was the windshield wiper on my dad’s SUV. I was looking down at my hands while I was thinking and suddenly this face appeared in front of me and surprised me. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked.

I jumped, and it wasn’t just because he’d scared me. I mean, yeah, that was part of it. But the other part was he was absolutely gorgeous. Haley, back before she started hanging out exclusively with gays, would have called him Hottie McStudly. He had an olive complexion, with dark hair and eyes. His eyes were set just the right distance apart and they danced as he spoke. He had an easygoing expression and you could tell from the little lines in the corners of his eyes that he smiled a lot. And his mouth…well, let’s just say that I wanted to kiss him and I didn’t even know him. He could have been a lip model if such a thing existed. Not only were his lips luscious-looking but they were unchapped and much more manicured than most boys I know keep theirs.

I’m starting to babble, but I just want to make sure you understand how good looking this guy was. I had to seriously double check and make sure I wasn’t drooling before I answered him. “Um,” I said helpfully. I swallowed and gave him a more coherent response. “I’m sure we haven’t met, because I know I’d remember you.”

Mystery Guy raised an eyebrow to that one. “I think you’re wrong,” he replied.

I stared him down, trying to recognize him. “Maybe,” I said slowly, “I’d remember where we’ve met if you told me your name.”

He began to look mischievous, and the expression suited him. “Nope,” he said firmly. “It’s way too much fun, watching you squirm as you try to figure out where you’ve seen me before.” He snapped a rubber band around his wrist and I got a good look at his clothes for the first time. He wasn’t wearing anything spectacular, just a t-shirt in dark green and a pair of camo pants. I’d never thought much of camo before, but suddenly, it was my new favorite thing. The guy spoke again. “As for me, I may not remember your name, but I do know where we met. And no, I’m not going to tell you that either.”

I rolled my eyes at him, trying to pretend I wasn’t that into him anyway. He grinned back and shifted one leg up onto the other knee so that his toe was pointed at me. “This your first time taking the test?” I nodded. “It’s my third. I keep fucking up the driving part. My dad told me…” He put on his best stern Dad expression and although his voice was already pretty deep, he made it deeper. “…‘You screw up again and you have to wait another year before I let you take the test again.’ I’m not really that scared, because he loves to threaten and then not follow through. And even if he does actually keep his empty threat, I’ll just get my mom to take me instead.”

My eyes were pretty wide by that point. “You’ve failed three times?” I asked.

The guy got indignant. “Not three times! No, I’ve failed twice. If I fail again, it’ll be three.” For a moment he got deadly serious and I could see that he was actually worried he might not pass again this time.

I wanted to offer some words of comfort. I wanted to say something soothing. Hell, I would have even settled on asking for his phone number so I could call him and find out how it had gone. But before I had a chance, a woman came out of a back office. “Vanessa Pike?” she called. I jumped up.

The guy looked triumphant in learning my name. “Good luck, Vanessa Pike,” he called, “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

I turned back to the guy and opened my mouth, ready to speak, but the woman spoke up again. “Miss Pike,” she said impatiently, “I haven’t got all day.”

I took a deep breath and followed the woman. When I met my dad an hour later, I had my license in my wallet. “Did you get it?” he asked.

I was still thinking about Mystery Guy. “Nope.”

Dad furrowed his brow. “Don’t worry. We’ll practice some more. You’ll pass next time.”

I shook myself out of my boy-induced haze. “What?”

“Your license. I’m sure you’ll pass the second time.” Dad looked at me like I was nuts.

I opened my wallet and flashed it at him. “What are you talking about?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “What are you talking about, Vanessa?”

I shook my head. “I think,” I said, “that you’d rather not know.”

I just had to find that guy again.

Now that I’m filled with emotion you’re dispassionate You only live for yourself while I live to regret But don’t ever think that I could easily forget The Posies, I May Hate You Sometimes

Haley

I’m still not quite sure how it happened.

I really thought that a triplet date would be a good idea, when Jordan first broached the idea to me. He didn’t seem really thrilled about it, though. At first I thought it might be residual bad feelings over the Byron/Jeff thing, but I soon changed my mind. And it was By who changed it.

I was between customers in the bridal department, so I had been sent to clean the front doors. By was pricing candy at the registers. He looked up at me and smiled. “You and Jordan get sucked into this date thingee, too?”

I made a face. “Date thingee?” I repeated.

By wrinkled his nose. “You know what I mean. Me and Jeff and Adam and Tiff and you and Jordan?”

I wiped at the window, looking the other way. “I knew exactly what you meant. I was just making fun of your amazing word skills.” He didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he dumped a bin of candy onto the counter and began putting the new chocolate bars on the bottom. Sometimes, razzing By is not as fun as it should be. He’s figured out that he’s way more irritating to me if he doesn’t react in any way, so he just pretends not to hear anything I say. “Okay then. So who is Tiff, exactly?”

By sighed. “Adam is apparently attempting to get back together with his ex. I’m not quite sure why. She totally broke his heart back in the day, though he wouldn’t admit it.” He’d put all the candy back in the bin and started on the next box.

I stopped wiping and looked over at him. “So…I’m guessing you didn’t like her much, then?”

He looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t know her very well, so it’s hard to like or dislike her.” Damn him. He’s always so diplomatic. “I will say, however, that I didn’t like what she did to Adam. But that was three years ago. If Adam’s willing to give her another chance, I am too.”

“You are such a Pollyanna,” I said as I took one last swipe. “Oh, the sky is so blue. Oh, I’m going to give everyone another chance.” I threw the dirty paper towel away in the trashcan behind By’s register. He threw a Snickers bar at me. “Watch it,” I warned. “Those things are lethal.”

“I’ll get you one of these days,” he threatened.

I repeated my Pollyanna voice. “Oh, I am so scared!”

***

And so Jordan and I found ourselves standing outside Pizza Express the Friday before exams started. He was wearing a pair of jeans that looked like they were a size too big and a pair of ratty sneakers that I’ve heard that his mom has tried to throw away…several times. I don’t date Jordan for his fashion sense. He’d paired those clothes with an old t-shirt that was my favorite of his—but not because it was any more fashionable than anything else he wears. He was wearing it the day we first kissed, and after we got back from Maine, he loaned it to me. I slept in it for a week before I gave it back to him.

It was a little chilly that night and I’d stupidly decided to wear a tank top and a pair of capris. “Ugh!” I moaned. “It’s the middle of June. Why is it so freakin’ cold out?”

Jordan laughed. “To mess with your pretty little head.” I bopped him on the arm with one of my icy cold hands and he pulled me into a big bear hug. “This is snuggle weather,” he explained.

I burrowed into his armpit where it was nice and warm. “Snuggle? You are such a girl.”

He laughed again. “No, I am definitely a guy. Would you rather be doing this with a girl?” And then he kissed me.

We were still kissing when Adam walked up. “Okay, okay. Break it up you two, or I’ll turn a hose on you.”

“Ugh!” I shivered as we broke our kiss. “Adam! This is not a wet t-shirt contest, so keep your hose to yourself.” Both Adam and Jordan looked at me funny and then started laughing. “That’s not what I meant.”

Jordan gave Adam a high five over my head. “So, where’s Miss Hot Stuff?” he asked.

Adam grimaced. “You’re not going to say stuff like that to her, are you? You’re not going to make fun of her to her face all night?”

Jordan made a “who, me?” face. “No,” he said, “I plan to make a subtle mockery of her while she’s here and then make fun of her ‘like that’ behind her back after she’s left.”

Adam looked disgusted but I laughed. “Jordan,” I fake-chided, hoping to find something humorous to add. Before I could come up with anything witty enough, a model of a girl came walking up.

The girl was tall and skinny, with long blonde hair. She had high cheek bones and a delicate face shape. Her hair was immaculately done and her makeup was perfect. Her clothes looked like they came from a fancy boutique—or a fashion magazine. They probably cost more than my whole wardrobe put together.

Somehow, I knew right away she was Tiffany.

She made me feel like—well, like a child in comparison. She was tall and willowy, almost as tall as the triplets, with decent sized boobs. I’m a little over five feet and can barely scrape up a b cup. Not to mention that my clothes, instead of coming off a runway, come from the kids’ department.

Adam greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “Hey.”

“Sorry I’m late.” She flashed a million-watt smile.

He returned the grin. “You’re not late; you’re right on time.”

Tiffany turned to Jordan and me, standing just a few feet away. “Hi, Jordan,” she said with a small waggle of her fingers.

Jordan took one hand off my back and waved it in a big arc, vaguely in Tiff’s direction, but he didn’t say anything. Adam glared at Jordan, but he just put his hand back and pulled me closer.

As for me, well, no one had introduced me to Tiff, so I said nothing. My teeth were starting to chatter. If it had been socially acceptable, I would have climbed up into Jordan’s shirt with him.

If looks could kill, Jordan would have been dead by then. I think that if half the school— and Tiff—hadn’t been there, Adam would have gone off on Jordan. Instead, he composed himself and said, “Tiff, have you met Jordan’s girlfriend, Haley Braddock? Haley, this is Tiffany Kilbourne.”

I thought about what By said about Adam giving Tiff another chance. I looked at her. Despite her glamour, she was kinda hunched over, biting a fingernail. She looked insecure and unsure. I smiled at her, hoping it would help. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

She smiled back tentatively, looking instantly a little bit relieved. “You, too.”

Adam had stopped glaring at Jordan, but he still looked anxious. “Where the hell is Byron?” he asked. “He’s never late. You can set your watch by him most of the time.”

I snorted back a laugh, mostly because it was true. Tiff raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I need to explain,” Adam said, turning away from me and toward her. “Our little crew here is a bit…incestuous.” Jordan made a sound along the lines of “pshaw” and Adam turned back to us again. “Not literally, of course. Pervert. Anyway…” His head ping-ponged back to Tiffany. “See, Haley is Byron’s best friend. And our childhood best friend, Jeff, is dating Byron now.”

“Speak of the devils,” Jordan said, looking over Adam’s shoulder. Byron was hurrying down the sidewalk. He had Jeff by the hand and he was practically dragging him behind him. Jeff was not at a good angle for me to see him, but By looked agitated.

The two of them came a little bit closer and I got a look at Jeff. He looked sullen and petulant, and he was clearly unhappy that By was pulling him along like a child. Then again, something about his expression made me think of a toddler about to throw a tantrum, so maybe Byron had the right idea.

“Sorry we’re so late,” By said, letting Jeff go. He went over to Tiffany and gave her a one armed hug, which she gratefully returned. “How are you, Tiff?” he asked. She smiled at him and shrugged. “This is Jeff,” he said, taking Jeff’s hand again, more gently this time. “He’s my…” By trailed off, looking unsure.

Jeff tried to school his annoyed expression, but he wasn’t too successful at it. “Boyfriend,” he finished. “You can say the word. It won’t hurt.”

By pursed his lips, and for a second I thought he was going to direct an insult Jeff’s way. Instead, he shrank a little bit and let go of Jeff’s hand. “Boyfriend,” he repeated.

I looked up at Jordan, interested in his take on the display in front of us. He shrugged at me, but took a bit of control of the situation. “Can we head inside? Haley’s just about cold blooded and I think she’s freezing her ass off.”

Byron poked my arm with one warm finger. “Maybe if you wore enough clothes for the weather, you wouldn’t have this problem.” I noted that both he and Jeff were wearing jackets.

“Good advice, Dad,” I said with a roll of my eyes. Jordan laughed, and after a second, Adam and Byron joined him, followed by me and Tiffany. Even Jeff smiled a little bit.

Jordan let me go and opened the door. “After you,” he said to the group in general.

I walked in, with Tiffany right behind. The guys followed. Jeff was right in step behind Adam and Tiff, and the three of them walked over to the menu board. Jordan let the door go and smoothed down my hair as he passed. “Honey, you coming?” he asked.

I nodded. “Give me a second.” Jordan nodded back and threw a glance over at By, who was still standing blocking the door.

I grabbed By by the arm and pulled him out of the doorway. “What is going on?” I asked.

“Hay…” By looked like he was about to cry, but he just shook his head. “Later, okay? It’s nothing. Just a little disagreement.”

I wrinkled my brow. “Let me guess. Jeff said something and you blew it out of proportion and got all ass-hurt about it. Then, instead of telling him how you felt, you said something without thinking and Jeff got all ass-hurt about that. Am I close?” He didn’t reply, but the look on his face said it all. “Oh, By,” I said, and I squeezed his arm. “Just wait until you two leave tonight and tell him you’re sorry. He’ll get over it.”

He sniffled. “This whole night sucks already, and now we have to sit down and play nice so Adam can prove to Tiffany that we don’t hold a grudge against her.”

I bit my lower lip. “We better get to that part, then. Get it over with.”

When By and I joined the group, they were all discussing pizza toppings. Adam turned to us. “Please, you two, break the stalemate. We’re thinking two pies, but we can’t decide what to get on each. Any input?”

I walked past Jordan to where Jeff was trying to hide. I slid my arm around his and gave a tug, gently pulling him into the discussion. “Two? Are you kidding? Byron can eat a whole pizza by himself. Better make it three.”

By made a face, but everyone else nodded. “Okay, that will work,” Adam said thoughtfully. “One with peperoni for Tiffany and whoever else wants that. One fully loaded. And one with…Jeff, what are you thinking?”

Jeff shook his head. He no longer looked ready to toss a fit, but instead, tired and emotionless. “Whatever. Cheese. Veggies. Whatever,” he repeated, his voice flat.

I smiled at him. “How do you feel about mushrooms?” He shrugged but didn’t protest.

“Oh, yeah,” Adam piped back up. “I’d forgotten about Haley’s obsession with fungus ‘nads. Always have to have some mushroom slices.” I wrinkled my nose at the gonad reference but said nothing. “Okay, are we ready, then? Let’s order and see if there are any seats left.”

The guys all got in line, but they nominated Tiffany and me to go find seats. It had been decided that “the men” would pay and split it evenly, and I had been dying to see who out of Byron and Jeff was going to pay, but I walked off with Tiff instead.

There was only one table free, and when we got to it, Tiff made a face. I thought at first that she was unhappy with the fact that the table hadn’t been bussed and there were a few wrappers and crumbs on it, but that notion went away before we ever got our pizzas.

Adam cruised by with two cups, one of which he handed to Tiff. “Come pick your poison with me,” he said, and he dragged her off the bench by her free hand. She laughed and joined him.

And so I found myself sitting alone at the table. I started to get impatient because I worried they’d forgotten about me. What about my drink, dammit? Jeff was the first one back, and he seemed to be skirting By as much as possible. “Jeff,” I said in a low voice, “What did he do that’s got you so upset?”

Jeff put his head down on the filthy table. “Ugh,” he said. He left his head down for a moment, and then looked at me. “Nothing that terrible,” he admitted, “but it totally came out of nowhere.”

I was about to reply when By and Jordan joined us at the table. Jordan held a cup out in front of me. “Half lemonade, half 7Up. No ice.”

I beamed, my irritation over being left behind forgotten; he’d remembered my drink preference. “Thanks!” Jordan slid onto the bench next to me and put his own cup down. He was so close I could hear his heart beating, and he put a hand on my back. Byron sat down across from Jordan. Before Jeff knew what was happening, By draped his arm around Jeff’s neck and put his face into the hollow between Jeff’s shoulder and head. Jordan and I pretended to look the other way for a moment. Some words must have been exchanged, but I never heard a thing. I just saw Jeff lean over a little bit and kiss By’s forehead, and I knew they’d be alright. At least for the rest of the night.

Adam and Tiff returned a moment later. Adam strategically sat next to Jordan, putting a friendlier Byron next to Tiff. He looked over at By and Jeff and raised his eyebrows but didn’t say a word. Byron sat up straight but kept his arm on Jeff. “So…” he said, hoping to start a conversation.

We didn’t get a chance to find a topic. We were interrupted by a spate of noises from the booth in the corner, just two tables away. It sounded like a group of geese honking, only three times as loud. Jeff and Byron briefly turned around, but seemed largely unconcerned about the sounds. Tiff, on the other hand, lingered more on the group of teens making the noises. She looked annoyed. “What asylum did they escape from?” she asked.

I felt my whole body stiffen. “They didn’t come from an asylum,” I hissed. I reached across Jordan and tapped Adam’s shoulder. Without a word, both brothers got up, and I walked over to the other table.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tiff watching me. I reached the table and touched one of the boys sitting there on his shoulder. “What’s she doing?” I heard Tiff ask Adam.

The boy turned around and grinned at me. He greeted me, his fingers flying. I gave him a small hug and returned the greeting and spoke to the table at large without saying a word. “That’s her brother,” Adam said, pointing to the boy I’d hugged, “and he’s deaf. I’m guessing all his friends are, too.”

I didn’t get to see Tiff’s face, but she didn’t respond verbally to that. After learning that Matt and his friends had just come from a soccer game where they’d kicked the other team’s ass, I returned to my table. Adam and Jordan stood again to let me back into the booth. I looked at Tiffany. She seemed absolutely mortified. I was ready to make some kind of nasty statement, but after looking at her, I bit back all my comments.

Tiff was making it hard to continue to be nice to her, however. It seemed like every time she opened her mouth, she said something designed to annoy. There was a crack about health food “nuts,” for starters. Jeff, who seemed to have made up with Byron but was still quieter and more reserved than I was used to seeing him, winced when she said that.

Then, when talk turned to school, Tiff mentioned how she’d barely scraped through high school. “Both of my sisters just about kill themselves over tests and assignments. I’ve never understood that. People who spend that much time studying really need to get a life.” I turned to Byron, who had just found out he was going to be salutatorian of the class of 2004. He’d earned that title not because he’s way smarter than the rest of us, but because he works his ass off. He was looking at his lap, his eyebrows knitted together.

I kept waiting for Adam to say something. I know he was desperate for the night to go well; every time Tiff made some kind of inadvertent social blunder, he changed the topic. But yet, he kept letting her talk.

Jordan, who had either changed his mind about Tiff or was as desperate as anyone else at the table to keep things from going into the crapper, asked her about college life right as the pizza arrived. She didn’t answer right away; there was a flurry of activity as pizzas were shifted around and slices found their way onto plates. The mushroom pizza ended up right in front of me and Jeff, which is exactly where it needed to be. I found that I was starving and crammed three slices onto my plate. I’d eaten almost an entire slice by the time that I realized that Tiff had taken just one piece of pizza, which she was picking at slowly. Was that normal female behavior? I’d spent my teen years surrounded by boys. I put the piece down and watched Tiff for a while. She took a delicate bite of pizza and then answered Jordan’s question.

“Well, I don’t live on campus or anything since I go to the community college. But it’s pretty similar to Stoneybrook U other than dorm life and Greek life. I mean, we have clubs and sports and things. I never really got into that. One of the biggest clubs there is the Campus Crusade for Christ. It’s just a bunch of kids loving on Jesus. Not really my scene.”

Jordan looked down at his pizza for a moment, and I waited for him to mention to Tiff that he’d spent the last four years as a member of a club just like that, but he kept his mouth shut. It was then that it dawned on me—Jordan wasn’t going to defend that lifestyle to the others because they didn’t know he was part of it. I was probably the only person at the table to know that he’d taken a purity oath. As much I thought it was pretty lame to be embarrassed of your choice to be religious, I couldn’t say much about it. I’d supported By through three years of me knowing he was in the closet without saying a word. It wouldn’t be right to comment on Jordan being in the Jesus closet.

I spoke up anyway. “I hear those groups can be really supportive. You know, when you’re going through bad times.” Jordan flashed me a grateful smile, which I returned. I picked up my piece of pizza and finished it. Jordan liked me just the way I was, even if I ate like a pig. Why should I worry what Tiffany thought?

“That’s probably true,” Tiff acknowledged. “Although, the SCC club’s president was involved in a giant scandal, I guess. As far as Christian-group drama goes. Apparently, just a couple months after she and a group of kids made a whole big show of making virginity pledges, she turned up pregnant. There was this whole mess going on all year long because of that.” I took a sip of my drink and was playing with the straw with my free hand when Tiff started talking again. “She got booted out as president and then out of the club altogether. If I were her, I’d just have told them I got raped. Would have solved the whole problem.”

I dropped my cup on the table. The lid fell off and fizzy lemonade went everywhere. Everyone jumped up to grab napkins or get out of the way of the waterfall of drink. One of the triplets shouted, “Watch it, Haley!” but I didn’t catch which one. I barely heard him. I was vaguely aware that there was a puddle growing on my lap. I kept my eyes on Tiff, who, like the boys, was looking at the mess on the table.

Only By was watching me, though I wasn’t even aware of it at the time. I stood up. “That’s it. I’ve had enough of this,” I said angrily, still looking directly at Tiff. She stopped trying to clean up the spill, and stared at me, bewildered.

Jordan’s eyes were like saucers. “Haley,” he said warningly, but I’d already crossed the line and there was no going back.

“You have no idea,” I said venomously, directly to Tiff. “You think being raped is a joke? You think it’s funny?” Adam backed unconsciously out of the booth and stood next to Tiffany, leaving only Jordan holding me into the booth. He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. “I wouldn’t wish a rape on my worst enemy. And right now, you’re not too far off from there.”

I tried to leave the bench, but Jordan put himself bodily between me and the exit. “Haley…” he repeated, this time more soothingly. He sounded concerned and his eyes were sad.

I was in mid-flight and there was no stopping me. “Get out of my way, Jordan,” I said, smacking at his arm. He pulled his arm away, looking wounded, and moved out of my path. I stalked out of Pizza Express without a backward glance.

I didn’t realize Jordan was following me until I was about a block away. By that point I was sobbing pretty hard. He reached out and put a hand on my back. I knew instantly that it was him by the nature of the touch. I stopped walking and stopped fighting and let him pull me into a hug.

We stood there silently like that until the tears subsided and I was all cried out. I regained my breath and waited for Jordan to chew me out. Instead, he just squeezed me tight. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

I still had tears on my eyelashes; he wiped them away with one hand. “And wet.”

“We’d better get you home, then.”

We had walked to the restaurant, which I now regretted. It was dark now and even colder than when we went in. Even Jordan was shivering now, and it didn’t matter how close he held me, I couldn’t seem to get warm.

When we arrived at my house, the lights were out and Daddy’s car was gone. Jordan looked at the dark windows. “Your parents went out?”

“I guess.”

Jordan frowned. “You’re all wet. Go inside and get changed. I’ll be out here when you’re done.”

I hated leaving him freezing on the stoop, but he’s not allowed in the house when no one else is home, and my pants were nearly frozen. I ran in through the house to my bedroom, where there had been an explosion of clothes earlier in the day. I found a clean pair of jeans and a pink and yellow plaid shirt that I threw on, and headed back downstairs.

I headed for the coat closet at the front of the house and pulled out two jackets: my favorite fleecy hoodie and a like-new jacket of Matt’s that he never wears. On the way back to the back door, I stopped and read the note tacked to the refrigerator: Haley and Matt…went to the movies. Be back by eleven. Mom and Dad.

Jordan was sitting on the steps, and when I opened the door he turned around and smiled a little. I dropped Matt’s jacket in his lap and his grin got a little bigger. “Thanks.”

Once Jordan had the jacket on, I sat down on his lap. It’s a sad but true fact that I fit there perfectly, with my head coming just between his shoulder and chin. With the coats on and shared body heat to help keep us warm, we were feeling a lot better. Jordan pulled me close and hugged me tight, like he didn’t want to let me go. His mouth was right next to my ear. Normally, he would have started kissing me or breathing heavy or something, but neither of us was really in the mood for it. Instead, he sighed. “I wish you could trust me,” he said quietly.

I turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about…?” He looked away and I could see he was struggling with the words.

I furrowed my brows. “Jordan. I don’t even have the words for it, most of the time. It’s hard for me to say. I’ve only told one person ever, and that��s only because I was forced to.”

He reached out tentatively toward my face and then withdrew his hand without touching me. “Byron,” he said, not really asking a question. I nodded anyway. “So it is true. You really were…”

Sometimes, Jordan is so much like Byron, it scares me. Although I guess it shouldn’t. They did spend about eight months sharing a womb. “Raped?” I finished his statement for him, because I knew he wouldn’t stop until I said it. It’s exactly how By found out, too. “Yeah. I was.”

His face went through a quick range of emotions. Finally, he settled on looking sad, with something I’ve never seen out of him before. He looked like he was going to cry. “When?”

I looked up at the stars. “A lifetime ago. Do you mind if I don’t go into it now? I promise, I’ll tell you someday. But this day has been hard enough without having to relive that night over again.” Jordan nodded, and I looked back at him. He put his hand out again, and this time he ran his index finger down the length of my face, tracing the edge from my forehead to my ear, down the jaw to my chin. “And please, don’t think it’s because I don’t trust you. I’ve never in my life let someone touch me the way you do.”

I could hear Daddy’s car pulling up the driveway as I finished my last statement. I stood up off Jordan’s lap and sat down beside him. He understood without my saying a word, but he pulled me as close as he dared and put his mouth next to my ear again. “I love you. I hope you know that,” he whispered.

He’d joked about it before. Usually he joked that I loved him for some reason: his car, his friends, his family. This was the first time he’d ever come straight out and said he loved me, although I have a feeling he’d wanted to say it from the first time we’d kissed. And probably, from what I’ve heard, for a long time before that.

I looked at him, not sure I could return the words just at that moment. But I didn’t get a chance to find out. Car doors slammed and my parents were standing there in front of us. “Haley? Jordan? What are you two doing out here?” My dad asked.

Jordan stood up and then held out a hand to help me up. “I was seeing Haley home, but when we got here, no one was home. Haley was having a tough evening, so I didn’t want to leave her alone. I hope you don’t mind that we sat back here for a while.”

I saw Mom and Daddy look at each other and have a little telepathic conference. Jordan ran his finger down the side of my eye, where I could still feel the dried tears from earlier. His finger came away green and that was when I realized that my mascara had smeared everywhere. My parents must have been able to tell I’d been crying. “You and your green eye makeup,” Jordan teased. I smiled a little back at him, and I knew he was okay for now if I didn’t say those three little words back to him. Which, being the person I am, made me want to say them.

The little conversation Mom was having with Daddy ended and she turned back to us. “Well, next time you two come home to an empty house, you can go ahead inside. As long as you stick to the ground floor of the house and we don’t come home to see anything we don’t want to see.”

I know my mouth hung open for a moment before I replied. “Really?”

Mom laughed. “Yes, really. We could have come home to find Jordan trying to sneak out the other door. Or the two of you in the backseat of the car, giving the excuse that you were trying to keep warm.” I looked at Jordan, trying to have a mental conversation with him, along the lines of ‘why didn’t we think of that?!?’ I know he got the message because he was trying hard not to laugh. “Now we see we can trust you.”

Daddy opened the door to the house. “Jordan? You coming in for a while?”

He shook his head. “It’s been a long day. I probably should be heading home.” Daddy and Mom nodded and headed inside. Jordan turned back to me. “Call me when you get up in the morning and I’ll bring the jacket back.” He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. With that, he headed down the driveway.

I waited until he was almost out of sight. “Jordan?”

He turned around. “What, Haley?”

“I love you, too.” I blew him a kiss.

He lit up like I’d just plugged him into electricity. He reached out one hand and grabbed the imaginary kiss and planted it on his cheek. With a little wave, he walked away.

#bsc fanfic

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