#also I guess I bought a pack of cigarettes and we smoked like two thirds of it

[scenedenial]

Every time I go out with my best friend we look at each other and go okay we’re going to be so normal tonight we’re going to have two drinks and we’re not going to cry and then three hours later we’re blacked out discussing the fact that some day our mothers will die

[petersasteria]

𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧? - 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

Pairing: Manservant!Haz Osterfield x CEO!Single mom!Reader

HO Masterlist || Ultimate Masterlist || Inspired by the Disney request from a while back

DISCLAIMER: *This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either products or the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.*

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: After being unsuccessful in getting acting jobs, Harrison looks for a job to pay his bills. You’re a spoiled rich kid who abruptly becomes the CEO of your family’s company after your parents decided to retire early.

Special thanks to @fancyxholland​​ for the banner 🤍

2,323 words

“Haz, what’re you doing?” Tom, Harrison’s best friend asked him. Tom Holland has been best friends with Harrison since they were 15. Both of them were aspiring actors, but they’re both struggling to get the parts that they want. Eventually, Harrison decided to find a real job. Thus, looking through the ad section on the newspaper.

“I’m looking for a job.” He shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal, really. He just wants to help his mum in paying the bills and since his acting career is dormant, he figured it’d be best to pursue something realistic and something quick.

Tom looked at him dumbfounded. He was in shock. Tom never thought Harrison, his best mate, would actually look for a job. “Um.. why? You have an audition to prepare for.” Tom pointed out.

“So?” Harrison said, not looking up from the newspaper.

“So?” Tom mocked and rolled his eyes. “It means you have no time to look for a job. You have to run your lines, memorize them, and internalize. Maybe get into character like a method actor or something, I don’t know! So, you can’t look for a job.”

“Joke’s on you because I just found one!” Harrison smiled and took off the cap of the marker with his teeth. He encircled the ad for working at a restobar as a waiter. He covered the marker again and put it on the table. He stood up from his seat and quickly went to his room to prepare his resume.

Tom quickly followed him and asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me what job you’re planning to apply for?”

“A waiter.” Harrison said simply as he typed away on his laptop.

Tom raised his eyebrows and nodded, “Okay. Well, good luck.”

“You should find a job too, Tom. We’re 20 for fuck’s sake. We’ve been auditioning for roles since we were 15 and nothing seems to be happening. Let’s just get a job, mate.” Harrison sighed in defeat. 

“Fine.” Tom said, crossing his arms. “But let me just get through this audition I have tomorrow and then I’ll look for a job straight after that. I’m starting to go broke anyway and I’ll honestly panic if butterflies come out of my wallet instead of money.”

“Same.” Harrison laughed.

-

Harrison got the job. The restobar was desperate for people, so Harrison convinced Tom to apply there too and Tom got in as well. Now, they’re both working there.

The restobar was always busy and the customers tipped generously. It was great for Harrison and Tom. The restobar was more packed in the evening and during the day, families would have lunch there. The food was delicious and the staff is very accommodating. The restobar only had two floors and at the back, was the outdoor area where people could eat and have a cigarette. It was also there that jamming sessions would happen every night. It was awesome.

It’s late in the afternoon and Harrison was wiping a table clean after clearing the dishes. Tom was currently sitting on the bar stool at the bar counter while watching the news. At this hour, the restobar was low on customers and that gave the whole staff time to relax a bit.

Tom rubbed the drowsiness from his eyes and blinked when he saw the news about you; Y/N Y/L/N. Tom read the headline and his eyes widened. He turned to Charles, the bartender, and said, “Hey mate, could you turn it up a bit? Thank you.”

Charles turned up the volume a little causing all of the staff to pay attention to the news. Harrison, who just finished cleaning the table, was carrying the plastic box they put the plates in when he joined in to watch the news. He stood next to where Tom was sitting as the reporter rambled about you being the newest CEO of Y/L/N Inc.

Tom snorted, “Was it just last week that Y/N was found blackout drunk somewhere?”

“Yeah.” Charles laughed. “One of my mates told me that they saw her smoking weed once.”

Harrison looked at the two of them and shook his head, “That’s not very CEO-like, innit?”

“Sounds like a spoiled rich kid to me.” Jessica, the hostess, said. “If you Google her name, you’ll find endless articles about her lavish vacations and she’s profligate.”

“What does profligate even mean?” Tom asked as he turned to Jessica.

“It means she’s extravagant; she spends her money a lot on useless things.” Chazia explained and Tom nodded, satisfied with the answer.

“She’s filthy rich, though. She recently bought a small house in the Hamptons as a birthday gift for herself.” Elouise chimed in as she scrolled through her phone after Googling Y/N.

“These rich people will never learn, I swear. They think stuff is just handed to them because they’re rich. They’re all the same.” Hritz shook her head in annoyance.

“She’d never marry a poor bloke that’s for sure.” Luke said with a chuckle. “What a shame, though. She’s hot.”

“True.” Charles nodded in agreement.

“I mean, we shouldn’t judge her. What Elouise is seeing on Google right now are assumptions and one side of the story which means everything the tabloids say about her are just the side of the people who make those articles. We don’t know her story. For all we know, she doesn’t want to be a CEO. And while I agree that she’s spoiled, we should keep in mind that she was born into a rich family and she had no choice to be born into that family. With that being said, we should just let her be.” Harrison said before going to the kitchen to drop off the box of dirty plates.

“What’s up with him?” Charles asked Tom.

Tom shrugged and got out of the bar stool to check on Harrison. Tom entered the kitchen just as Harrison was about to go back out in the main area.

“Are you okay?” Tom asked and Harrison nodded. “Then what was all that rant about? Are you secretly Y/N?” He joked causing Harrison to break into a smile and chuckle.

“Nah. If I were Y/N, I wouldn’t be here right now.” Harrison said. “I’m okay, though. I really am. It’s just that I feel kind of bad for her, y’know? Everyone’s always watching her every move and judging her for it. She’s young too; she’s our age! She’s 20 and she’s a CEO already. I personally think that the reason why she’s being so reckless and extravagant is because she knew about her fate. She knew that she’ll be a CEO and that’s why she’s already living her life to the extreme. Because she knows that when she’s a CEO already, she won’t have time for anything else, not even herself.”

“I guess you’re right.” Tom trailed off.

“Of course I am. When was I ever wrong?” Harrison asked.

“When you dated Lea Berry. You were wrong about her.” Tom laughed and Harrison rolled his eyes at the mention of his ex.

“Yeah, fuck off.” Harrison shook his head and left the kitchen as Tom followed while laughing his ass off.

-

Being born into a rich family was definitely a blessing. You were an only child and growing up, you got everything you wanted. As you grew, you realized that it was rather lonely living in a mansion. Your only best friend was your personal maid, Angela and she was as old as your mum. Angela played with you everyday and she took care of you. While your parents loved you very much, they were never really around often. You were like Richie Rich basically. Maybe that’s why you loved that movie so much.

Your education was very… fancy. You studied at an international school for your whole life and you decided that you didn’t want to go to university because you didn’t know what you wanted to do. Your parents supported your decision and because of that, they’ve decided to retire early and leave the company to you. Now, you’re the youngest CEO.

In terms of your love life, you only had flings. Relationships weren’t your thing. In fact, your relationship with your first boyfriend only lasted for two months. After that, you had endless flings here and there. You also do one night stands because it was easy. You kept safe, though. Protection is always important.

Your friends were really nice people. They weren’t snobs and you adored that about them. You loved the fact that you were associated with people like them. They would give to charities often and they would do outreach programs in third world countries. Sometimes, you’d tag along if your parents aren’t dragging you to a boring fancy event.

You and your friends would go to different countries just to get drunk and forget about your rich kid lives. All of you loved running away from what society expected of you. Like every normal person, you loved letting loose. That’s why it pisses you off when people call you out for going out a lot because you’re a normal person like them.

“Y/N, darling, I hope you’re ready to take over.” Your mum told you. She was excited for you to replace your father in the business. She’s been waiting for it ever since you were born. Your father was kind of bittersweet because he wasn’t ready to step down yet, but at the same time he knew he had to let go at some point.

“Just promise me you’ll take care of the business.” You dad smiled sadly. You eagerly nodded and said, “I won’t let you down, dad. I’ll do my best.”

“I trust you, sweetheart.” Your dad hugged you and kissed the top of your head. He pulled away and you bid your parents goodbye. You looked around your dad’s old office as you watched your maids pick up box after box of your dad’s stuff. One maid grabbed the picture frame on your dad’s desk and you were able to catch a glimpse of the photo. It was a family picture.

“You can leave that here.” You told the maid and she put back the photo before packing up the last box and leaving you all alone.

You took a deep breath and sat down on your dad’s chair. You exhaled through your mouth and grabbed the picture frame. It was an old photo of you and your parents. You could remember that day like it was yesterday.

You and your parents were in New York for your dad’s business trip. You were only seven years old and it was your first time abroad. Of course, you didn’t want to stay in the office at all. You wanted to explore. So, you and your mum walked around the city and you arrived at Central Park.

Your mum bought you a hotdog and for some reason that made you really happy. About thirty minutes later, your dad joined both of you. All three of you played tag and somehow your dad ended up giving you a piggyback ride whilst your mum stood beside your dad, throwing her head back in laughter.

A college student who was studying photography was nearby and captured the moment. They approached the three of you and instead of getting angry for taking your picture without permission, your dad bought it from them. Now, that picture stays in his office.

It’s been years and your dad didn’t have the heart to replace the wholesome family picture. To him, he’ll always remember you as his little girl who loved adventure and meeting new people.

You rummaged through the drawers and saw an unopened envelope that had your name on it. You brows furrowed in confusion as you grabbed and opened it.

To my little girl,

The time has come for you to replace me and I can’t believe that time came early. I have to remind myself that you’re not little anymore, but I know you’re still the same girl I raised and darling, I raised you right. Your mother and I raised you right.

I won’t lie… this job is hard and tiring, but I know you’ll be able to push through. You’re strong and smart and tough. I trust that you’ll make the right decisions and I’m confident that our company is in good hands. One day there’ll come a time when you’ll step down and pass it on to your child and I’ll be gone by then. Just know that when the time comes, you did an excellent job.

My father wasn’t there for me when I needed him because he passed on and I had no one because my mother was busy taking care of my younger siblings. What I’m trying to say is that I’m here for you whenever you need me. Call me anytime.

Love, dad

Your heart warmed at your dad’s letter as you put it on top of your desk. You shook off your nerves, got up from your seat and walked out of your office. You stood outside your office and watched the staff as they did their job. You cleared your throat and said, “Excuse me? May I have your attention please?”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at you. You gave them a nervous smile and said, “Hi everyone! As you may know, my father has decided to retire early. I’m his daughter, Y/N, and I will be replacing him. I’m not like my father and I know all of you loved him, but I’ll do my best and hopefully, we can all get along.”

Everyone just stared at you until one person spoke up, “You have some big shoes to fill in, sweetheart. Big shoes.”

You nodded and coughed awkwardly, “Alright, back to work people.”

This was going to be harder than you thought.

* * * *

After I post this, I’m removing everyone on my taglist and I’m making a new one. It’s 2021 and I gotta renew that shit. New year, new taglist.

𝐇𝐀𝐙 𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @abrielleholland​ @silencetheslaves​ @imeanlifesabitshit​ @joyleenl​ @hjoficrecs​ @blueleatherbag​ @poguesholland​ @harryismysunflower​ @lonikje​ @lizzyosterfield​ @turtoix​ @badreputationlove​ @starlight-starks​ @swiftmind​ @sovereignparker​ @pearce14 @justanamesstuff​ @chewymoustachio​ @cocoamoonmalfoy​ @hotforharrison​ @euphorichxlland​ @givebuckyhisplumsnow​

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓:  @justasmisunderstoodasloki​ @allyz​ @miraclesoflove​ @god-knows-what-am-i-doing​ @drie-the-derp @hollands-weasley @itstaskeen​ @call-me-baby-gir1​ @the-panwitch​ @iamaunicorn4704​ @geminiparkers​ @holland-styles​ @calltothewild​ @herbatkazmiloscia @whatthefuckimbisexual​ @theonly1outof-a-billion​ @piscesparker​ @unsaidholland​ @musicalkeys​ @lost-in-the-stars03​ @hufflepuffprincess24​ @hollanddolanfangirl​ @parkerpeter24​ @bellelittleoff​ @agentnataliahofferson​ @aqiise @lexirv​ @blairscott​ @pearly-pisces​ @u-rrose​ @speedymaximoff​ @theliterarymess​ @beequeen8020  @justafangirlduh​ @sarcasticallywitty15​

[stargazerinmoksha]

I am trying to come from a place of understanding, so what I’ll write here will make sense once it is all written down. I have spent a good portion of the last few years inside of this hateful place and to everyone that is still there, I want to be that beacon of hope for you. You will make it out. I lived in this wallowing pit of pity and anger, an anguish so chaotic that it sapped my smile right out of my face. I don’t need to be perfect, I don’t need to be anything, I honestly didn’t even feel like existing. I would wake up and I just hated the feeling of going through the day because of my constant fuck ups and to be honest with you? Was that really any way to live? I tried some acid two months ago and yeah, the visuals were wild, but I went to brush my teeth and for a second I caught a glimpse of my reflection inside of the faucet head and I felt like I saw myself for the very first time. I always hated looking at myself. The cruelty that we deal to ourselves is by far some of the most saddest shit anyone can go through. No one deserves to wake up and feel like that. I just cried. I didn’t know what else to do, I guess my first reaction was to just let it out. To just feel. To feel like I gave enough fucks to tell myself that it’s okay if I’ve been hurt or if I’ve hurt people before. It’s okay, just don’t do it again. A month ago I went on a trip to Colorado and I almost died, I decided to quit smoking cigarettes and vaping period, I wanted to let that part of my life go. I got into a wreck and I almost killed my cousin along with myself. I should’ve bought a pack, but I wanted to stick to it. I wanted to be responsible. It fucked up my little vacation, but I managed to grab some shrooms and went home to see if I could see something.

Yes, this is a story about how I found my faith inside of such tiny things. I hear talks about bad trips and visuals, but I never thought for a second that I would have felt this warm embrace, a love so dear to me— something that I’ve never felt before. Nothing like sex. Nothing like drugs. I know why psychedelics are illegal now, because if everyone went into it with a stable mind and good intentions, the world would find so many answers. I’m not telling you to try it, I’m telling you that our paths all converge eventually. Your karma cycle will repeat itself until you’ve made peace with your demons. I am just a man, but here, I write. My poetry doesn’t sound so sad anymore and that makes me so damn happy. It took me four years to make peace with that part of myself and I know that there’s so many people out there that’s still hurting. I started writing my sappy poetry on tumblr because I couldn’t deal

with my heartache, and a lot of people read and they read and they read some more. I’ve made so many connections through my writings, I’ve become a madman and now I write as easily as breathing, it’s my meditative state. I am telling you all of these personal things because the truth of the matter is that no matter where you go, who you’re with, no matter how bad things get, I wanted you to know that somewhere, someone understands me. Even if for a split second, I want you to know that it does get better. Shrooms showed me where all of our knowledge should be stored, our hearts may break, our minds may succumb to a darkness that only the rarest of flowers may thrive— you are that flower.

You can be big and tough, you can be short and fit, you may not feel like you’re pretty, you may not feel beautiful, you may hate yourself everyday for letting the one get away, you may be the cheater, you may have been cheated on, you may choose to be alone, you might just want to live with your dogs, that’s cool too. There’s love everywhere and you won’t always get along with everyone, that’s okay too. I just want to function from a place of understanding. So this is where I’m at. I love you. I love you regardless if you hate me for being me, even if you think I’ve taken something from you. I love you regardless. I love you even if we don’t talk often, even if we’re on this endless cycle of come back home to me some day. I love you even if you aren’t really who you said you were, I loved you before that knowledge and I will love you then. I love you even if you can only get three hours of sleep a day because on that third hour you have batshit crazy nightmares and call me to help you smile. I love you even if you’ve felt lost and not quite at home, you can always find a home with me. I love you even if you have wronged me and I’ve wronged you back because even if I gave you my heart once, I promise it’s still there. I love you even if you’re unsure about the prospects of an us and that’s okay, as long as you’re trying, I can get down with that. I love you even if it was pure forgetfulness on your part to tell me about yourself and your life, all is forgiven.

I love you even if we sit in silence and I want to hug you and tell you that it’s okay, it’s okay if you didn’t know how to be my dad. You’re here now and that counts. I love you even if you constantly yell and belittle me because I only have one mother in my life and no one can ever replace you. I love you even if you’re dead ass broke and don’t have a single cent to your name, if I fuck with you, I fuck with you, point, blank, period. I love you even if you’re heavily opinionated and all you want to do is talk, I will always have your back. I love you even if you’re extremely stoic as fuck and it get under my empath’s mind, I love you always. I love you so much and I hope all of you grow up to be safe and beautiful. You are so dear to me and you know who you are, I am living on borrowed time and I might not be here by tomorrow, but if you read this just know that it has always been about you. I love you even if you showed your face to me during a time when I was high as fuck, I have such a complex relationship with you God, but I know that you mean well and I can only receive your love and knowledge when I am ready. I love so much and it hurts to love this deep, but I have to make peace with all that I am and if love is the greatest thing that I have to offer, then all that I love is also a part of me. I write to let you know that if this is the worst part of my story, I will write a better ending.

I write this to let you know that self-love starts when you’re ready. It won’t start any sooner than that. And if you try to rush it and go to a place that you’re not supposed to be, you will be sent back like a shooting star that’ll split into two, someone might wish upon you— I am sure you’ll grant their wish. I can only pray that you know I mean well. I hope that you drank some water today, I hope that you ate some food today. I hope that you’re safe and get a chance to know love. Like real love, like for real love, love that hits you up just to smile and laugh with you. Love that lets go of envy and jealousy. I have been there, I’ve done that. I don’t want that in my heart. I want to forgive myself for all of it. You see, love starts there because how can I love anyone if I don’t love myself first. Love starts when you start making changes to how you love. Love starts when you’re ready. So start with yourself, when was the last time you did something nice for yourself? No, not like smoking a joint or taking shrooms haha. More like waking up and doing your blanket as your first kind act of the day, a clean bed will start a clean day. Your room is a direct mirror of your inner world.

Learn more about yourself. Learn about your strengths and weaknesses and I promise, the money will follow. Learn to attract the things that you truly want. The things that truly make your heart feel warmer for the cold days. I want to function from a place of genuine kindness, understanding and love. It’s okay if you hate me, you will find a place in your heart to grow that into something wonderful. Yeah, I’m on my bullshit again, but if you read this whole fucking thing, you’ll know that I meant well. And if you find something in here that’s about you, don’t be afraid to hit me up about it. I wrote it with that in mind. Please enjoy your day and remember, it starts whenever you’re ready. Not any sooner or any later— it begins when you’re content with being here in this moment. The right now, the right here. Don’t worry, you got this because if I made it through, you can too.

— “How can you love anything if you don’t know how to love yourself?”

[purplesurveys]

1248

Your ex taps you on the shoulder and says, “I still love you.” You say?  I feel like I’ve answered a similar situation recently, but I would assume it was a drunk text or wrong text, inform them about it, and move on.

Do you play video games?  Nah. I do feel a sort of connection of video games since I grew up surrounded by them, though; but I’m more of a watcher than anything. I like watching playthroughs of video games I’ll never play. Do you spend a lot of time with family?  No. We used to, back when the quarantine was still a relatively new thing – we hung out in the living room all the time. But now that we’ve settled in this new normal, we’re back to our normal routines and I usually like staying in my room.

Is your house more than two stories tall?  Technically, yes. We have a rooftop that serves as the ‘third’ floor.

Have you ever hit your significant other? Has he/she ever hit you?  My ex and I never hit one another; that’s a gigantic red flag even I would notice, considering I ignored most of the ones I saw hahaha.

What makes you an attractive person? (Talk about your personality too!)  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to answer this question directly, but I like my generosity. I’m not sure if I can call it attractive, though. But if we were focusing on physical features, I like my smile.

What color is your hairbrush/comb?  Pink.

What snacks do you have available in your household atm?  My dad splurged on chips in his last grocery run so we actually have quite a lot of junk food in the pantry at the moment. He also bought several packs of cookie sandwiches, wafers, sunflower seeds, and garlic-flavored peanuts.

Has anyone recently told you that they like you, or find you attractive?  Neither.

Are you attracted to the last person you Facebook messaged?  No, she’s just a good friend of mine.

Do you care about anyone that doesn’t care about you?  I guess I don’t, because I’m not even aware of them.

Was your last Facebook friend requests from a male or female?  Guy. It was another reporter, so I just ignored it and luckily he didn’t PM me just to ask to add him back, which others have already done. I really hate when work people try to make their way into my personal accounts.

Which one of your relatives is most likely to embarrass you?  My parents, especially when they are rude to service crew. Gen X-ers are impeccably talented at that, apparently.

When was the last time you ate a bar of chocolate?  Around two or three weeks ago when I had dinner at Angela’s. Her dad gave me a bar of Crunch so I can have something sweet after our meal.

Do you play any games on Facebook?  No, I never did hop on that trend.

What would you like to get a degree in?  I wanted a degree in journalism, and graduated with such. At the end of my college stint I didn’t want to pursue it anymore, but I pushed through with it anyway because it was too much of a hassle to shift and start all over.

Do you wake up a lot in the middle of the night? Technically not, because I stay up until the middle of the night anyway. It’s been a while since I fell asleep anywhere between 8 to 10 PM.

Would you prefer to read a book, watch a movie or TV show, or play a video game?  Watch a show.

Do you usually get popcorn or soda at the movie theater?  I don’t like either; I get fries instead.

What genre of films do you like the best?  Drama.

How many bank accounts do you have?  Two but I haven’t been using the other one in months. That was the bank account I initially opened when I first started ~adulting~ but when I got employed I was required to enroll in this other specific bank, so that’s what I mainly use now.

Have you ever had the flu?  Not really. I just get the occasional fever that pop out of nowhere.

What is your goal for the next few months?  Start saving FOR REAL, and also prioritizing furniture over merch for a while so I can finally fix up my room, which is quickly starting to look and feel like just a warehouse and not very homey at all.

Have you ever had some kind of sleep-disorder? How did it affect your life?  Nope.

Have you ever had food poisoning before? Describe the experience.  Yeah, it was from barbecue that apparently went bad, even though it tasted nothing of the sort. I woke up at 3 AM sweating profusely and with the most excruciating stomachache; I was feeling hot, cold, and nauseous all at the same time, and it probably lasted for like an hour or so.

What are two things that you have no problem paying full price for?  Sealed albums and my pets’ vet expenses.

Funny, charming, cute, romantic, smart - choose only 2 for the opposite sex.  Charming and smart.

Have you ever let somebody use you? Why did you do it?  It felt nice to help people.

You can go back in time & change something in your mom’s past - what is it? Good question; I’ve never encountered this before. I would let her live a more comfortable, privileged life, where she didn’t have to staple her shoes to keep them closed or have to choose between eating at a fast food restaurant or being able to commute back home.

Do you know anybody who is around the exact same size as you? Who? I’m not sure, actually. Everyone’s always slightly taller than me.

Ever been to a haunted house? How scared were you?  I haven’t.

Been on any websites today you wouldn’t want your parents to see?  Tumblr, I guess? My survey blog isn’t for any irls to see.

Which is worse: dusting or mopping?  I don’t really do either often, but I’ll go with mopping.

Would you marry somebody who was intensely religious?  Not for me.

Did you pull a senior prank?  No, that’s not a thing here. Did you graduate?  Yeah, elementary, high school, and college.

Have you ever been unfaithful in a serious relationship?  Nope.

What was the last song you listened to?  It’s a song called Epiphany.

Are you one of those lucky people with 20/20 vision?  Not ever since I was like 9 lol.

Is fashion one of your interests?  I’m way more interested in it now for sure, mostly because the celebrities I’m into these days put a lot of effort when it comes to their style; so it makes me more aware of the trends that come and go, as well.

Do you think you’ll eventually find that special someone?  I’m keeping it as a possibility, but it’s not a priority for me now.

Do you care what people think?  To an extent, I would say. My life doesn’t depend on it, though.

Is acting something you enjoy?  Never been.

What was the last thing you broke/sprained?  Do you mean a thing or a body part? Anyway, I’ll answer both. The last thing I broke was my BTS Mic Drop pen of V looooooooooool the figurine came off the pen :(( It was pretty cheap though so I’m fine with it; I can always get another one. Last body part I sprained was my ankle, when I had a bad fall a couple of years ago.

Have you ever fought with a friend because of their boyfriend/girlfriend? Because of yours?  Either hasn’t happened.

Has a stranger ever yelled at you for your language?  I don’t think so.

Whose house, other than yours and your families', are you most comfortable at?  Angela’s. Also JM’s, just because their family doesn’t hover and that vibe can sometimes be nice whenever I’m at someone else’s place.

Has any of your friends’ family ever yelled at you?  Never.

Did you ever play a sport as a little kid? Did you enjoy it? Not as a very young kid, but I took up table tennis starting when I was 12. Did you ever watch the show Full House?  Nope.

Is there a celebrity you are just DETERMINED to marry?  Now that’s just delusional haha. I’m pretty obsessed with some celebrities, that much I can admit; but thinking of them in the context of marriage is so many steps overboard.

Have you ever burned someone’s picture?  No. I could, but I am scared of fire and will probably just think of other ways to express my anger, like tearing up the photograph. What’s the longest hike you’ve ever been on?  Total length was probably like 3 hours. I haven’t gone too far when it comes to hiking.

Would you ever get a lip tattoo?  Not interested.

Who is the first person of the opposite sex that pops into your head? Hans.

Do your parents smoke cigarettes?  My mom tried it once in her life, I think. My dad has never smoked.

What does one of your T-shirts have written on it?  “Hope right here!”

Name a pet you definitely wouldn’t want.  Anything that’s supposed to roam freely in the wild, like squirrels.

Would you prefer your partner smaller or taller?  Taller, since I’m already quite pint-sized to begin with lol.

Do you enjoy going through old pictures? Sometimes. Other times, it's too painful. It also depends on the era of the pictures. < Agree, especially with the eras. Childhood photos are always fun to look at, but I have had to delete a CHUNK of photos from years ranging from 2014 to 2020 because I’ve lost a handful of friends from that period.

Do you believe people when they say they don’t judge people?  It’s hard to for the most part, but I’ve noticed very few people people really don’t. Most of the time it’s bullshit though.

What did you love the most about the town you grew up in?  That it’s pretty close to the metro.

What’s a movie that you laughed the hardest during?  Hmm, I prefer TV shows if I’m craving comedy.

What’s a movie you cried the hardest during?  Life Is Beautiful.

What’s your favorite restaurant?  Omakase for my sushi fix; School Tteokbokki if I want Korean; Yabu if I’m looking for a generous rice meal.

Is there a dessert you don’t like?  Anything with fruits.

Favorite album?  After Laughter by Paramore.

What’s a book that you read because everyone else was reading it?  I can name authors instead of books – John Green and Haruki Murakami.

Underwater or outer space?  Outer space.

Dogs or cats?  Dogs.

Kittens or puppies?  Puppies.

Bird watching or whale watching?  Whale watching. I don’t get to be in the water as much, so I would jump at the opportunity.

What is your spirit animal?  I dunno if I have one but let’s just go with dog and elephant, I guess? They’re my favorites.

What was your best subject in school?  History.

What was your worst subject in school?  Chemistry.

What is one thing you wish you knew in high school?  Don’t waste your time.

Who is your fashion icon?  Audrey Hepburn.

Diamonds or pearls?  Diamonds.

What color dress did you wear to prom?  For my own prom it was cream-colored/beige. When I went to Mike’s ball, I went with a royal blue gown.

What’s your favorite plot-twist?  I don’t think I’ve found my favorite yet.

Honestly, are you jealous of someone right now?  Not actively.

Honestly, what’s the worst thing you’ve done when you were mad?  I dunno...road rage, maybe?

Honestly, ever made anyone cry when you were mad?  It’s very likely.

Honestly, when was the last time you REALLY cried your heart out?  Sometime in the last week.

Ever pop someone else’s pimple? No thanks.

Do you need to return anyone’s phone call?  Nope.

Who are you closest to?  Angela.

Have you ever had a bad concert experience?  No, all the ones I’ve been to have been amazing experiences.

Are you currently sad about anything?  Not really. I can’t complain.

Have you had any form of exercise today?  Nah.

Can you handle blood?  Nope, I will feel faint if I see it 100%.

Has any place hired you underage for a job?  No.

Have you ever carried a concealed weapon?  I haven’t.

Are you currently searching for a job?  No, I like the one I have.

Does eating breakfast make you sick?  No?

[nosferatyou]

If I Can Be So Bold: Chapter 5 (Jack White x OC)

Summary: Shes back in Nashville and Ben finally drags Lee out to a Third Man show. To Lee’s surprise, she runs into an old friend...

WC: 3k

Warnings: Cigarettes, maybe cursing (?), and death by Jack White. 

Notes: Damn y’all its my best chapter to date. Honestly im pretty damn proud of this. Also why is jack white so damn hard to write. Is he a hard ass with a heart of gold, or a dad who happens to play guitar. When i figure it out ill let you know. PS. If you find my fic reference (or fic rec for anyone who hasn’t read it) shoutout to you. If youre anything like me you read the whole series in two days and couldn’t think about anything else. You probably also looked up Rosaries for sale.

This was 14 years in the making. We were bound to run into each other again. I was expecting it in a weird way. It always works out that way; you get over old turmoil, and the moment it’s gone, they show up. Your breath is sucked from your lungs, and you’re practically drowning on the spot even though you’re not even near water. Every single emotion in your being is trying to cram through your mouth, and you end up choking on it. Who knew it’d be today I die a death by Jack White. Guess I ran that risk when I entered his stomping grounds. 

“Lee, I swear I didn’t know he’d be here. I wouldn’t have brought you if I’d known. I’m gonna buy you any record in the store, whatever you want. Oh god, how am I going to fix this? Guess I could do emergency distraction plan #6. Though id need a knife-” I subtly flicked the back of his arm to shut him up. His panicked ramblings were only making me more nervous. He was here, actually here. I guess I just thought I'd have a couple more years of peace. 

He was staring so intensely at me, but not in anger or guilt. He was nervous. He was frozen and rigid. He was always so loose and eased into a room. Even when he was anxious, it never showed. As soon as I gained something from the absolute shock of it, all my body went against my brain. I felt my legs start to make their way over to him shakily, and there was no stopping them. Fuck I didn’t will this happen. Panic was bubbling up in my chest again. It didn’t help that he wasn’t reacting other than his eyes growing larger with each step I took. Finally, I reached him, and my arms tightly wrapped around him. This was better than the alternative that I thought would happen, which would end with a shiner and some bruised knuckles. He hadn’t grown length, but as I finally felt it all, I realized he'd grown into a man, out of his boyish figure from all those years ago. I sank into it, warm feelings bubbling up in my chest. I could finally breathe for a moment. He didn’t reciprocate my hug, but I met his eyes when I looked up at him, and all I could see was pure shock. I don’t think he would’ve moved if someone yelled fire. 

He mumbled, “Why don’t we find somewhere a little more private to talk, Rosie.”  I quickly nodded my head, and all that anxiety came back as soon as it was gone. I did not appreciate this little roller coaster I was on. He put his hand on my back to softly guide me to wherever we were going. It was a painfully silent walk as we weaved through Third Man. My brain kept flashing back to all the moments of our short end, mixing with all the good memories it made for a weird emotional cocktail. The more I thought about how little time we’d actually known each other, I got even more panicked. A year. That’s it, and I still acted like we were childhood friends who wronged each other. I shouldn’t be feeling all of this over a man who had such little time in my life. Still, that doesn’t change that he was at the forefront of my mind for all those years after. God, his hand was burning me where it lay. 

I hadn’t realized we’d made it to the spot until his words broke my thoughts. “Welcome to the Third Man roof, my secret spot, if you will.” I looked up to see a couple of lawn chairs and a crate between them, acting as a makeshift table. Cigarette butts strewed around the chair farthest from the edge. Jack was already walking towards what I assumed to be his chair. In tow, I followed, pulling my pack out of my pocket and lighting a cig. If this was going to happen, I was going to need a goddamn cigarette. He grimaced at the sight of Marlboros, pulling out his pack. Red Camels, still the same all these years later. Somethings just don’t change. Guess that’s comforting. 

“I thought you were a camels girl. What happened there?”  He was already reaching for another to hand to me. 

“Oh, just had to settle when on tour for whatever others had. It just stuck, I guess…” A lie. I put mine out on the ground when I sat down and grabbed the nostalgic camel out of his hand, our fingers barely touching. 

We sat in silence, smoking a piece of our past. I sure as hell didn’t know where to start, and I don’t think he did either. My body took over just as it had before and did what I couldn’t manage. I was blurting out words before I knew what was happening. 

I stumbled out, “I bought all your records over the years.” Smooth.

A small smile fell onto his face, and he took another drag. “I did the same thing.” He looked over at me, quickly looked me over, then took a quick drag and put it on on the ground. “Have a favorite?”

I pretended to think like I hadn’t thought of having a favorite. “I guess I’d have to say Consolers of the Lonely, but if we’re talking The Stripes, I’d have to say De Stijl. Though I always feel like I should say your first, since you know, I’m on it.” I sent a small smile his way and started to ease into my seat more. Not sitting up so straight, ready to bolt at any moment. “What about you, Jack? Hm? Have a Rosalie Wright favorite?” 

He answered without hesitation, “Surrender. I really liked that sound you had in 2004, where you got dirty and loud. It was a big change from your old blues tone. Someone told me it was because you moved to New Jersey, which honestly makes sense.” He stopped for a second and looked off. “That band, Leathermouth. When that album dropped, I played it when I was working in the upholstery shop, and Karen walked in. She turned right around after hearing, I think... My love has gone flat? I don’t know, but she asked me if I was doing okay at dinner that night.” He quietly laughed to himself, thinking over the memory.

“Anyone who wasn’t in the band asks me the same thing! They all said, “Hey, your new albums great! How are you doing? You need someone to talk to?” My smile fell. “Too bad all the guys found god. Nothing against that, of course! Just sucks they had to quit the band. Not Frankie, though. He wouldn’t find god even if he came to him on a piece of toast. I’d probably take some freak case of Stigmata for him even to consider it… Why am I still talking?” I blushed, realizing I'd been rambling too long about nothing that probably interested him

 Jack waved his hand in the air to dismiss my worries. “We’ve got years to catch up on, Rosie. Besides, I’ve missed your ramblings.” He lit two more cigs, handing one over to me. His stare lingered on me, and his eyes softened from his stoic face. “I really have missed you, Rosie… All these years and I’m still not quite sure what you’ve been up to. I’ve only heard things here and there from Ben.” He took a long drag. “Where have you been all this time?” 

I took a deep breath in, knowing the answer wouldn’t be the best. I spent a fair amount of drinking myself into oblivion over something he caused, so I kept my answer brief, “Oh, you know, toured, drank, slept in fans and friends basements. You know, a typical musician’s life. Oh! Got put on the FBI watchlist over a Leathermouth song. That was a fun night for Frankie and me.” 

He chuckled, put out his cig, and turned his body towards me. The same warm smile was adorning him. As I said, some things just don’t change. “I mean, I don’t know what you expected when you play a song with that title. It’s one of the only things you legally can’t say.” 

“Punk is punk, Jack. Too bad I was only playing guitar. I would’ve loved to scream that.” I put my cig out and put all my attention towards him. I hadn’t thoroughly looked at him the whole time we were up there. “It was hard not to stay caught up with you, Jack. You were everywhere. I tried not to pry, though. I never trusted the press. Though I heard about the divorce last year… I’m sorry you had to go through that again.” 

His smile faltered, and he stared down at his hands for a second. “It was inevitable. We were too different for it to last. I guess this shit always happens for a reason, huh? We just fell out of love, and that was that. I had a party to commemorate new friendships and everything. At least she can’t hide my Billie Holiday records now…” He trailed off on that last sentence. I could barely hear it, but I caught the small comment. He still thought about me. I didn’t mention it though. I could barely think back to the old memories. Me making him dance with me to Billie Holiday's self titled album. I guess I just wanted to feel like we were really together back then, creating that fantasy. I felt like I had to wave my imaginary hands around in my head to clear out the memories that had risen to the surface. He was making it so hard to have a clear head.

We stayed quiet for a moment. He seemed lost in his thoughts. We were always good at comfortable silences. I think we just liked being in each other’s presence, having that person next to you. It was weird to think that I only had these old images of him to think back to. He looked so different. He was built, his face filled out, his height would make him look skinnier than he was back then. He’s muscular, probably from years of touring with heavy equipment. He looked his age. His eyes hadn’t changed though. His face was almost menacing for how serious it naturally rested. His eyes stayed bright, excited for everything ahead of him. He always hid that, and he probably still does. 

“I’m sorry, Rosie. For everything that happened. It was selfish of me to -” I cut him off. This was for another day. I don’t think I could handle drudging up the past tonight.

“Make it up to me some other time. I just want to enjoy you tonight.” I sent a smile his way and went to stand up. “Better make it good though.” I went to lean against the wall to take in the Nashville skyline I missed so much. 

I heard the gravel crunch underneath his shoes as he made his way next to me. His lighter clicked, and the sweet smell of tobacco filled the air. Moments later, he appeared next to me, cigarette in hand, ready for me to take. He clicked his lighter on and offered it out for me to light. I leaned in close and took a heavy drag. My eyes caught his left hand, cupping around the flame. No ring. It really was done, no lingering feelings. I moved back to lean against the small wall, leaning my head against my hand. I tried not to focus on the emotions that stirred in me when I noticed the absent metal on his finger.

“I really did miss this. Detroit was beautiful, but it never could beat the Nashville skyline. Maybe I was just missing home.” I finally got to take in the scenery around us. September in Nashville has never really been cold. I feel like I should be worried about that, but if I can avoid a sweater, I will. It was a comfortable kind of warm. You could sit out on your porch and not think about a thing. The small breeze was nice, taking away from the constant humidity. Then there was that constant. It never felt like Nashville’s downtown ever changed from far away. It was just stuck in time. The deeper you go, the more you realize the magic of music city is being taken over by honky tonks and drunk bachelorettes. Though the farther you drift away, the more you can feel like you're in the good ole days of classic Nashville. Back when the Ernest Tubb Record Shop didn't have a constant flow of Lynyrd Skynyrd cover bands but had undiscovereds like Loretta. Now you just have to settle for the sights and the small music scene curated by The End. 

“Is it bad I feel the same way? Even if it’s not home home, it still feels like it. I think the skyline reminded me of coming home after long tours. It’s always the first thing you see. It’s a comfort.” 

We weren’t touching technically, but our shoulders were so close I could feel it. I think he was deliberately keeping his space. I should be mad or angry. Something. But the feeling of him next to me was just as calming as the views. That same feeling of home lulling you in. He always felt like that to me. That dumb warm feeling in your chest that makes heavier days just a little lighter. It’s a bit shameful that I feel it all now, just as strong as back then. 

“You know the only reason I came tonight is because Ben told me you wouldn’t be here. Something about your kids,” I took a drag. “Not that I regret coming! I just- Kids. How fucking weird is that? Never pictured you with kids. I always saw you as the same lanky kid from before.” 

He snorted and bumped my shoulder with his own. “You know I found it odd you never had any. I mean, you were always weirdly maternal with Ben back when he was a teenager. You about took my head off when I told you I gave him a couple of beers. Oh, and those times I practically had to rip Jasper out of your arms after we got home from one of our first tours.” 

“He was 16! His brain wasn’t fully formed yet, plus your mom would’ve murdered you.” I gave his arm a small playful hit and took another drag. “And I just haven’t had the time. Or the means to. I mean, I dated like two guys? Both were shit bag roadies who lasted all of two weeks. I kissed Frankie once, but the moment it ended, we about threw up. He’s a different kind of family. His kids call me Auntie Lee if that says anything.” 

The conversation ended at that, and we fell back into our silence. I looked over and saw a small, content smile on his face that I was so used to seeing. Some things just don’t change.

 It feels weird sitting here with him. We both were so happy to see each other. We just wanted to enjoy this time. At least, I think he’s the same way. He seems guarded, it’s subtle, but that wall is there. He used to be like this, but for different reasons. Secret wife reasons. I can only assume that now it’s the fame he’s been showered with. You can't show all your feelings with recognition like that. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him checking his watch. He muttered out shit when seeing the time. 

Exasperatingly he said, “Speaking of kids, I’ve got to get home. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten. I promised Scarlett I'd be home to say goodnight.” 

My smile faltered a little, but my heart grew at the comment about scarlet. He’s always loved so hard. It was only natural that he would be a good father. 

We both put out our cigs and silently made our way out to where his car parked. I just mindlessly followed along, definitely not thinking about him and how wonderful he probably was with his kids. 

When we got there, we just kind of stood there. Neither of us knew how to say goodbye. It was never something we did.

“I’m really glad I got to see you tonight, Rosie. Seriously.”

My body betrayed me, just like it had in the recording room. I quickly moved forward and hugged him tightly, except this time, I could enjoy it a little more. His frame was so warm compared to the chilly September night. He finally wrapped his arms around me and practically threw himself into the embrace. He had no hesitation whatsoever. I nuzzled my face into his chest, a bit too shamelessly, but this was 14 years in the making. 

When we finally (and hesitantly) pulled away, he asked, “ Listen, I don’t think I can just walk around town knowing you’re here and not see you. Can we get coffee or something? I don’t care what we do as long as it’s with you.” 

I felt a giant smile fall onto my face. I was afraid this whole time we would just kind of say goodbye and not talk again. It was dumb to feel so happy over a small gesture, but it was just what I was looking for. He was infectious back then, and he is. Once you fall back into his circle, you never wanted to leave. “I’ll agree to coffee only if,” I gave him a playful poke in the side, “you help me fix my amp. I can usually do it, but I really did a number on her this time.” I held out my hand for him to shake. It’s not a deal if you don’t shake on it.

“It’s a date then.” A small smile appeared on his face, and he grabbed my hand to shake it.

“It’s a date.” We stood their just shaking hands and smiling at each other. We probably looked insane from far away, but who cares. Me and Jack were on the road to reasonable terms.

Tag list: @shamoane @elinyaes

[arcticdementor]

When I saw him, he was outside Payne Whitney. Nothing about the tall, gray façade suggests it is the university gym, unless there is a new trend of contractors housing athletics departments in Gothic cathedrals. You wouldn’t guess by looking at the frosted glass panes and arches that the third floor hosts the world’s largest suspended indoor swimming pool. It is a work of art, like the rest of Yale’s buildings.

Marcus was smoking by a bench, his face jaundiced from three packs that day. This is atypical for Yale students—most abstain from smoking. There was no reason for him to smoke so much, just as there was no reason for me to ride around campus on a blue Razor scooter. But Yale students tend to have such quirks. His suit-jacket was dusty and smelled of sweat—he didn’t mind lifting weights in a dress shirt and trousers if that meant more time to read Nietzsche alone at the bar.

When I hugged him, he felt skeletal. I asked if he had eaten today. He assured me that his earthly requirements were limited—no need for anything other than alcohol and cigarettes. “I can buy you a sandwich.” He refused. I insisted. A nice one. Bacon and egg. Or steak and cheese. I was testy now. “GHeav is right there. I’ll be back in six minutes.”

He turned his face towards me, warm with friendliness—and with one sentence, he changed our relationship forever.

“You know I’m rich, right?”

“What?”

“You know I have a trust fund, right? I can buy my own sandwich if I wanted it.”

This is the moment when after three years of friendship, Marcus sat down and told me his life story. His cottages in Norway. Sneaking into the family study. Learning about the cost of hardwoods and hearing his boorish, critical father sulk in 5-star hotel rooms.

Marcus did not act this way out of anxiety, grief, stress, or because he had nobody to tell him his habits will kill him. He lived as a starving writer not out of necessity, but for the aesthetic. Out of some desire to imitate the Bohemian 19th century writers. Out of artistry. Style. Intentional choice.

…

This is a story about an institution and an elite that have lost themselves.

…

Over the past decade, elite colleges have been staging grounds for what Matthew Yglesias has termed the Great Awokening. Dozens of scandals have illustrated a stifling new ideological orthodoxy that is trickling down into the rest of society through HR departments, corporations, churches, foundations, and activist organizations. The nation is becoming polarized and its parts disconnected. The right is evil, and the left is stupid. Or is it the other way around?

The campus “free speech” debate is just a side-effect. So are debates about “diversity” and “inclusion.” The real problems run much deeper. The real problems start with Marcus and me, and the masks we wear for each other.

…

Based on statistics from the class of 2013, approximately 2% of students hailed from the lowest income quintile, while 69% came from the top 20%. How did those poor students fare after graduation? Around 2% of students at Yale move from the bottom to the top quintile. In other words, nearly all of them. You show up poor, and you leave rich. Going to an Ivy League school may be the fastest way to join the upper class.

But this low number of 2% surprised me because when I was at Yale, everybody kept talking about how broke they were.

…

Poor people—actually poor people—don’t talk this way. They tend to stay under the radar because they don’t know the rules of the game. But I bought it—at least when I was a freshman. If they were constantly announcing how broke they were, my assumption was that they must have even less money than I do.

This turned out to be wrong. The reality was that they were invariably from the upper-middle and upper classes. I know this because they eventually told me, like Marcus did. But there were tells. These students didn’t act the way my friends and I did growing up. They didn’t know how much pens or flights or cars were supposed to cost. They couldn’t tell when a restaurant was a good deal.

Pretending to be poor is a lot easier than pretending to be rich—just because there are so many different ways to be poor. But there are still small quirks you have to get right. Social class doesn’t just influence how you walk and talk; it influences how you interact with others. The stereotype is that poor people are improper—but sometimes it is the opposite. They try to do things as they think they are meant to be done. Spending a hundred hours building bat wings for a Halloween costume. Renting a limo for their child’s prom.

But lying about anything is tricky—you risk being found out—so what were these people trying to accomplish by acting broke? And this raises the broader question: why pretend to be of a social class you are not?

…

What about the regular rich? Not the children of billionaires, but the children of millionaires. The common impulse is to emulate the people one or two levels above you—so they might also act poorer than they are. But whereas the super-rich learned purposeful discretion from their parents at weekly dinner table meetings, the regular rich did not. They learned it through mimicry—and with varying degrees of success. The less sophisticated copycats end up brazenly proclaiming that they are “broke” and “upper-middle class.”

For some people, this isn’t an act; they actually believe this. After all, they do seem poor when compared to the hyper-rich. They can’t afford spontaneous Spring Break trips to private Bali islands. They see their prep-school classmates’ Facebook photos and realize that they are one, or maybe two, pegs down from that, and so they use the term “upper-middle class” without really knowing what this term refers to. They have no idea how the actual upper-middle class, the middle class, or the poor really live. Those students never went to their prep school, so for all intents and purposes, they do not exist. Like Krasnoyarsk, Siberia—we know it exists. We can find it on a map. But we don’t need to concern ourselves with it. Often, this is what the real poor are to rich people—they are a theoretical construct that exist somewhere else.

…

In another instance, I was privately discussing with a professor the pros and cons of a Food Stamp reform proposal. After some analysis, I commented on my own experience with the program. His response was complete shock. “You don’t really mean you were on welfare. You just mean you were supported by your parents, right?”

In a world of masks and façades, it is hard to convey the truth.

And this is how I ended up offering a sandwich to a man with hundreds of millions in a foreign bank account.

…

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with haphazard and sometimes warped class signaling. But if you put on a façade for long enough, you end up forgetting that it is a façade. The rich and powerful actually start believing that they are neither of those things. They actually start believing that there is not much difference in status and resources between themselves and the upper-middle class, the middle class—and eventually, between themselves and the actual poor. They forget that they have certain privileges and duties that others do not. They forget that the inside joke was just a joke all along.

…

When these kids grow up, they end up at conferences where everybody lifts their champagne glasses to speeches about how we all need to “tear down the Man!” How we need to usurp conventional power structures.

You hear about these events. They sound good. It’s important to think about how to improve the world. But when you look around at the men and women in their suits and dresses, with their happy, hopeful expressions, you notice that these are the exact same people with the power—they are the Man supposedly causing all those problems that they are giving feel-good speeches about. They are the kids from Harvard-Westlake who never realized they were themselves the elite. They are the people with power who fail to comprehend the meaning of that power. They are abdicating responsibility, and they don’t even know it.

…

There is another reason why people might pretend to be poor. This reason is much more serious than fitting in or avoiding hitmen. The rich and powerful are expected to take responsibility for things, and blamed when they go wrong.

“Check your privilege.” Just about every college student has heard this phrase since 2013. What it means is evasive. But like most memes that strike a chord with people—there is some point to it. The rich have privileges. They therefore also have responsibilities. The responsibilities are not always so fun.

…

Would you want to be the strongest man in the village right at the moment when you failed to use that strength properly and the village is dying and rivals are out for blood? Or would you rather be the average person, eating the normal amount of food, without being hated?

But that was just a thought experiment. Those are people in crises—in a hunter-gatherer village at war. We live in America. Certainly things are different during a stable, prosperous period, in a technologically advanced society. Would you want to be exceptional then?

Not necessarily. The elite are faced with certain hard burdens.

The elite are expected—by everyone else, and by each other—to use their power to make sure society works properly. That is, they are expected to rule benevolently. The reason they are expected to do this is that if they don’t, nobody else can or will. The middle class and the poor do not have the powers and privileges that the rich and elite do, and cannot afford the necessary personal risks. But without active correction towards health and order, society fails.

…

In times of political uncertainty, when things are not going well, elites face more scrutiny, and more internal pressure to find people to blame—whether rightly, or as scapegoats. It becomes a bigger liability to be openly elite.

Further, such times are themselves caused by political dysfunction among the elite, when elite institutions forget how to listen to reason (or have decided not to) and forget how to coordinate towards benevolent rule.

At elite conferences, they wonder how to regain trust, or otherwise deal with the rising atmosphere of populist discontent. They acknowledge that something is deeply wrong. But they dare not lay the blame at their own feet, caused by their own overreaches and dysfunction. Anyone who did would immediately be under suspicion. No longer one of us, but one of them. So, those who might otherwise lead the difficult but necessary elite self-critique instead keep their mouths shut, or they say the wrong thing without ideological, psychological, and social preparation for the consequences and get cast out. Only the true believers incapable of self-critique, the incompetent, and the cynics, remain as voices in the public forum. They talk in circles, never quite able to correct course and come to any new conclusions, except the need to double down on current ideological practices.

…

They say that the recent scandals at Yale had to do with racial and social justice. I don’t think that’s what it was really about. When looking at one or two scandals, it’s easy to buy the story that it is just students organizing and using their rights of free speech and assembly to protest what they see as injustices perpetrated by the university. But when looking at all of the scandals together, another narrative starts to emerge.

And that narrative is much closer to this: members of the ruling class are not sure what to do with themselves—and they are not even sure they want to rule.

…

When people think of universities, they think of their local state school, or else Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. And when they think about Yale, it is often when they are reading about a president, a Supreme Court justice, or the editor of The New Yorker. That’s because Yale graduates play no small part in running the world. It is the school the elite want to send their kids to. It is the school the lower classes assume their kids will never go to.

…

What happens when a school with this position is embarrassed about its role as an international trendsetter? What if instead of doing the hard work to set the tone for responsible rule, it abdicates that responsibility?

…

But the appearance of bottom-up protest politics is always a bit of a false narrative.  It would be one thing if the students were polled and a majority said they wanted the name changed, or some other process was used. At least the university could say that it was making decisions based on some objective democratic process, and wasn’t just being pushed around. But this is not what happened. No polls were taken. There was no authoritative process. The school said no for a few months, then caved. If the school were actually confident in its position to resist, it could have easily pushed back on the protests. Instead, it folded on demands from a small number of students willing to make noise. Either the university administrators are spectacularly spineless, or the protests just provided a convenient impetus and excuse to do something they already wanted. We can look at several more incidents and notice a similar trend.

…

What do all of these events have in common? Some had student support. Some did not. Some started as public outrage taken to the street. Some were completely internal. What they had in common was an administration and student body coordinated around an ideology that continually mutated to ensure moral entrepreneurship and a continued supply of purges, as new forms of human behavior or commonplace descriptors became off-limits. Some of this energy was genuine, some cynical.

These were not kids protesting the Vietnam war, or graduate students mobilizing for better pay and medical care. Nobody would have had a gun shoved into their arms and sent across the world if Yale had not fired the professors. Nobody would have lost money if they did not change “Master.” In fact—Yale lost money on these changes in the form of alumni donations and administrative time. Meetings, committees, redone paperwork, and brand new “head of college” plaques. These changes were neither meant to save lives, nor to save money.

But what was the point of it all?

…

Thousands of hours of human effort and labor. And for what? What was it for?

If you ask supporters, they will tell you the cost does not matter so much, because this is about creating an ideal world. Of course the professor should be fired—how dare she stand against the minority student organizations? Of course it’s okay that the Yelp reviews were published—she should never have written them. Of course names should be changed if they hint at or honor the wrong ideology. What does preserving history matter if history is racist? The university is handling things according to its proper ideals of empathy and inclusion.

In short, their point was that this was all to help poor people. Immigrants. People whose parents are from distant, impoverished lands. People of color. Changing “Master,” firing the dean, and firing professors was all for this.

Except this did so little to actually help any of these people that this could not possibly have been the main motivation.

None of this was actually to their benefit, except for the few activists willing to invest time and energy into the game. It is not easy to stay up-to-date with the new, ever-more complex rules about what you are allowed to say to qualify as the bare minimum of sociable and sane. It is cognitively and socially demanding. I had to not just study psychology and computer science, but I had to stay up-to-date with the latest PhD-level critical theory just to have conversations.

…

If words like “Master” are deemed offensive based on questionable linguistic or historical standards, then this means other words and phrases can become offensive at a moment’s notice. Under these rules, only people in the upper ranks who receive constant updates can learn what is acceptable. Everybody else will be left behind.

The people best positioned for this are professors at elite universities. They are ingrained in the culture that makes up these social rules. They get weekly or even daily updates, but even they cannot keep up.

…

A cynical observer might conclude that this is all just revolution as usual; a small clique of agitators seizing more and more power, and purging their enemies by virtue of their superior internal solidarity, a bold and demanding ideology, lukewarm popular moral support, and no real organized opposition. In some ways, that is what’s going on. They have the bold ideology, the ambient support, and no real opposition.

But importantly, they don’t have internal coordination by any means other than adherence to the ideology itself. Even members of the clique are never really safe. Anyone who contradicts the latest consensus version of the constantly mutating ideology, even if they have worked to its benefit or are otherwise obviously on side, gets purged. If you don’t keep up, you get purged.

It doesn’t matter that the ideology is abusive to its own constituents and allies, or that it doesn’t really even serve its formal beneficiaries. All that matters is this: for everyone who gets purged for a slight infraction, there are dozens who learn from this example never to stand up to the ideology, dozens who learn that they can attack with impunity if they use the ideology to do it, and dozens who are vaguely convinced by its rhetoric to be supportive of the next purge. So, on it goes.

This is the nature of coordination via ideology. If you’re organizing out of some common interest, you can have lively debates about what to do, how things work, who’s right and wrong, and even core aspects of your intellectual paradigm. But if your only standard for membership in your power coalition is detailed adherence to your ideology, as is increasingly true for membership in elite circles, then it becomes very hard to correct mistakes, or switch to a different paradigm.

And this helps explain much of the quagmire American elites are stuck in: being unable to speak outside of the current ideology, the only choice is to double down on a failing paradigm. These failures lead to lower elite morale, resulting in the class identity crisis which afflicts so many at Yale. Ironically, the result is an expression of that ideology which is increasingly rigid on ever more minute points of belief and conduct.

…

What is the point of this new ideology? This ideology is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system, an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling. Before, to signal you were in the fashionable and powerful crowd, you would show off your country club membership, refined manners, or Gucci handbags. Now, you show how woke you are. To reinforce their new form of structural power, people dismiss the idea that they even have the older, more legible forms of status. They find any reverse-privilege points they can, and if they are cis-white-men, they pose as allies. On an institutional level, the old ways of legitimizing power are gone, and the new motto is this: diversity is legitimacy.

There is a deep comedy to this sort of signaling. Only around 2% of the student body was in the bottom 20% of American society, and yet extremely wealthy Singaporean students who had spent just a few years in America marched in the street and referred to themselves as “people of color.” People’s experiences were ignored when they volunteered information that countered the main narrative, because the surface-level debate wasn’t the point. The point was to signal that you were with the program. Only a select and secret group of student ���leaders”—who were already savvy enough to engage comfortably with hierarchy—were invited in to chat with administrators.

Shouting from the rooftops that “They aren’t doing enough!” is much easier than following any traditional system of elite social norms and duties, let alone carefully re-engineering that system to reestablish order in a time of growing crisis.

…

But there is more to selling out that nobody talks about. These jobs are the dream jobs of the middle class. They’re not supposed to be jobs for the sons and daughters of millionaires and billionaires—these kids don’t actually need the money. They want independence from their parents and proof that they can make it on their own—and prestigious work experience—but they have wealth acquired through generations that they can always fall back on. These people are generally as harmless as the middle class—which is to say completely harmless. They keep to themselves. They quietly grow their bank accounts and their 401ks. And just like the real middle class, they don’t want to risk their next promotion through being too outspoken. They have virtually no political power. This mindset is best encapsulated by: “I’ll go with the program. Please leave me alone to be comfortable and quietly make money.”

They effectively become middle class, because there is no longer any socially esteemed notion of upper class. They have a base of power, of f-you money, that they could use to become something greater than just another office worker or businessperson. But there is no script for that, no institutional or ideological support. What would it even mean to be an esteemed, blue-blooded aristocrat in 2019? So they take the easy and safe way.

How else do Yale students give up their responsibility?

They go in the other direction. These are the people who call themselves idealists and say they want to save the world. They feel the weight of responsibility from their social status—but they don’t know how to process and integrate this responsibility into their lives properly. Traditionally, structurally well-organized elite institutions would absorb and direct this benevolent impulse to useful purpose. But our traditional institutions have decayed and lost their credibility, so these idealists start looking for alternatives, and start signalling dissociation from those now-disreputable class markers.

…

Who is winning? This question is an important one. Yale administrators had lofty goals. In an attempt to placate their own biases, the administrators and faculty forgot that they are the ones who are supposed to be teaching. Instead of expelling or suspending the small number of people actively undermining the student body and university as a whole, the university does nothing, or actively accelerates the process. The professors are the ones who leave. The radical clique feels emboldened.

Now we can begin to understand the real problem at Yale. It is not free speech—and it is not non-inclusivity. The standards of reality, and the standards of morality not based solely on being woke, are ousted. That’s because the conventional standards of elite morality, based on responsible use of power—actually responsible, not just a convenient feeling of doing good—are much harder, and based on the very self-consciousness that everyone is trying to avoid.

…

The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions?

Is the point of Yale to promote the humanities and knowledge of the West that is hard to learn anywhere else? This is not the full mission. Donald Kagan and Lee Bass’s year-long history of the West program was cut, due to faculty protesting that it was not multicultural enough, despite having large interest and $20 million in funding.

Is Yale’s vision a futuristic, technocratic university? Is the university divesting from the liberal arts for the purpose of committing to the technology of the future? This isn’t the case, either. Computer science enrollment has increased significantly in the past decade. But Yale’s computer science department is lagging behind other schools. The university has taken steps towards improving the department, but in general shows no signs of a visionary commitment to expanding tech or significantly expanding professorships.

…

Maybe the university has lost every purpose other than giving students a social environment in which to party. If the students aren’t educated or visionary, at least they’re networking and hedonically satisfied.

Except they’re not. It would be one thing if they were happy—but even this is not true. They don’t know what is expected of them, or what they should aspire to be. The lack of expectations creates nihilistic tendencies and existential crises. In 2018, around one quarter of Yale undergraduates said they sought mental health counseling. One quarter of Yale students took the “Happiness and the Good Life” course in 2018 in an attempt to find answers. Students are demanding more mental health resources. A new wellness space was created with bean-bag chairs and colored walls. But the real sources of unhappiness are more systemic. They are rooted in uncertainty about the future.

If Yale students are uncertain about the future and their role in it, what does that say about the rest of society?

…

So what if Yale, and Yale students, are abdicating responsibility? We can all just send our kids to Harvard, or MIT, or move to California and go to a state school. I heard UC Berkeley is pretty good.

But the problems present at Yale are present at every other university, and schools outside of the United States look to elite American universities as role models. If things are broken at elite universities, things are broken, period.

…

Yale is supposed to be using its power and reputation to set standards for excellence, but instead it is abandoning its responsibilities and getting embroiled in controversy after controversy. Yale is not special in this regard—other colleges are also often embroiled in controversies. But the controversies of top colleges matter most because they determine what is acceptable for everybody else.

And what’s happening at Yale reflects a crisis in America’s broader governing class. Unable to effectively respond to the challenges facing them, they instead try to bail out of their own class. The result is an ideology which acts as an escape raft, allowing some of the most privileged young people in the country to present themselves as devoid of power. Institutions like Yale, once meant to direct people in how to use their position for the greater good, are systematically undermined—a vicious cycle which ultimately erodes the country as a whole.

Segments of this class engage in risk-averse managerialism, while others take advantage of the glut to disrupt things and expand personal power. The broader population becomes caught up in these conflicts as these actors attempt to build power bases and mobilize against each other. And like Yale, it seems a safe bet that things will continue and even accelerate until some new vision and stable, non-ideological set of coordination mechanisms are able to establish hegemony and become a new ground for real cooperation.

[iamnotbrianmay]

The A Experience

tag list: @seven-seas-of-why, @twotitsjohndeacon, @dancindeaky, @gee-uloser, @mozzarellamazzello, @mozzie-s, @deracine-dogma-deux, @shutupanddontjudge, @warping-reality, @demianhill

Okay thank you all for sticking with me, this chapter marks what I will call a mid-season finale, because next week I'm going on my school trip to the beach, then I'm having a week long soccer tournament and then I'm going to New York to participate at an MUN, so I probably won't post for like two weeks or more.

There hasn't been a first kiss, first fuck, first anything and all of you are still loyal, so for that thank you very much. Also, I ask for your patience because it won't happen for a while.

But now, I'm going to write a very long chapter, very angst filled, very plot developing, and then leave you in the biggest fucking cliffhanger I could ever possibly leave you in because I just love to torture y'all. But seriously, thank you for sticking around, and I hope you enjoy.

Also, the writing style is a little bit different, but I hope you like it!

WARNINGS: This chapter contains a non-consensual kiss, an abusive relationship, and very heavy panic attacks and angst. If you are not into that please proceed with caution.

"Roger, I didn't think I would see you tonight."

The bar crowded and smelled strongly of beer and cigarettes. Once he hears the voice his head shoots up, and he meets the eyes of one of his classmates. His hair is messy and wavy, his eyes the colour of warm chocolate, and his smile is almost infectious. Roger runs a quick hand over his messy, short, hair trying to make it at least presentable.

"Tim," Roger says, a little bit breathless, "didn't take you for the kind that would come to a gay bar."

The older man threw his head back in laughter, the neon lights of the club making his features soft and beautiful at the same time. Roger melted into his chair, and instantly realised he was too far gone.

The memory comes and goes in the blink of an eye, and he takes a step back, burying himself further into Brian. As if to trying to gain energy from his friend, "Tim. Hi."

He feels Brian bristle, "You know him?"

Before Roger can answer Tim takes another step forward, and the blond instinctively wraps his arm around Brian. Something flashes through Tim's eyes, "We dated a few months ago. But there no bad blood between us, is there Roger?"

It's like someone else is moving his body for him, someone else shaking his head and giving Tim a sweet smile while answering, "No, none at all."

Brian was the only one to notice Roger's tension, or rather his arm did, because he felt blunt fingernails burying into his flesh and his fingers tense as the shorter man spoke.

"Roger, I didn't think I would see you tonight."

"Can't live in fear, can I?" The younger man said as he twirled his drumstick between his fingers. "You made me realise that."

The bassist took one step forward, and Roger held his ground, not willing to back down once he was so close to getting what he wanted. Tim leaned down and brushed his lips against Roger's, and the world seemed to stop. Once he pulled away Roger had to bite his lip to pounce on Tim and kiss him senseless. They had a gig to preform.

"I knew you just needed a little coaxing, baby." The bassist whispered, "I knew I would get you."

Once Tim greeted everyone inside the house he walked over to Phoebe and started chatting with him. Leaving Roger and Brian alone. The guitarist grabs the drink from Roger's hand and places it on the nearest table. Soon the taller man was guiding Roger out of the living room and into the house's backyard. Out on the cold Roger feels like he can finally breathe, and he reaches for his Juul only to find that he must have left it at home when he left with Freddie.

He runs his hands through his long hair, relishing in the way it now reached below his shoulders, and let a soft whimper escape from his lips.

"Roggie," he hears Brian say softly, "Roggie, talk to me. What's wrong?"

Roger's hands are trembling, and when he tried to speak the words get caught in his throat.

"Roger, do you need me to tell Tim to leave?"

"Roger, I didn't think I would see you tonight."

"I know, Tim," Roger said as he pressed a soft kiss to the other man's lips. He couldn't seem to get enough, couldn't seem to stop himself now that he knew he didn't need to stop, "You told me that already."

"I'm so glad you came."

Roger smiled, looking at his boyfriend who in turn was looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes, a lazy smile plastered on his face, and the softness of the afterglow making him look like an angel to Roger. The blond couldn't hold himself back any more, he pressed himself to Tim's lips, and then switched his position so that he was laying on top of the older man.

Tim chuckled, "Eager for round two, are we?"

Roger grinded down on Tim, "You have no idea."

Roger can't speak, he can't will his body to nod, and he curses at the sky for sapping all of his strength on the moment he needs it the most. The only thing he can do is let out a single, very pathetic, whimper that makes Brian step forward and wrap his arms around Roger's shoulders.

"Hey," the taller man tells him as he places his chin, "It's alright, I'm here."

He can't even will himself to wrap his arms around Brian.

"It's alright," he whispers again, "I can take you home if you want to."

"Roger, I thought I wouldn't see you tonight."

The rain was falling down in what seemed like buckets, fat, cold, droplets rolled down Roger's back and he wrapped his arms around himself to try and keep warm. A small part in his brain unhelpfully reminded him that the rain was not what was making him cold.

"I thought I had explicitly told you that you had to stay home."

Roger shrugged, "I know, but I got bored."

"I can't fucking believe you always have to go against everything I say!"

Raged filled Roger's chest, "I have a right to choose what I can and can't do! You can't control me, Staffell!"  

There was a beat of silence, "I'm sorry, baby. I was just trying to protect you."

"It's—" The blond felt his anger deflate like a balloon, "It's alright, I guess. Just don't do that again."

This time, at the mention of home, at the mention of being far away from the monster currently lurking in the living room, his body obliged to his commands. "Please."

He felt Brian nod, then he felt another quick squeeze, "I'll go inside to tell everyone you are not feeling well. Think you can wait for me here?" Roger nodded, and Brian left. Pulling open the door before stopping for a second and turning towards Roger, "Is there anything you want before we leave?"

Did Roger need anything? His answers seemed to be reduced to a single word per answer, but Brian didn't mind, "Cigarette."

The curly haired man pursed his lips in distaste, but then he nodded and walked inside.

"Roger, I can't believe you turned that down."   "It was nothing, Tim." Roger said, as he brewed his boyfriend some tea, "I don't really like to smoke."

"Yeah," Tim said, "But I got that pack specially for you. Do you know how expensive flavoured cigarettes are?"

Guilt flooded Roger's chest, but he pushed it down and smiled at Tim once he handed him the cup of tea, the brunette did not return the smile, "You know I hate the smell, and the taste.

It was true, he made Tim wash his mouth every time he smoked before kissing him. He walked away every time someone took out one of their stupid-looking vape boxes, and vehemently turned down everyone who had ever offered a cigarette or vape to him in his short life time. All in all, Roger Meddows Taylor was not a smoker.

"That's why I bought them for you," Tim insisted, "'cause I love you and I know you hate normal ones. But it's fine, I can give someone else your gift if you don't want them.”

This time Roger couldn't keep down the wave of guilt that washed over him, the same wave of guilt that pushed him to grab one of the apple flavoured cigarettes and lighting it.

Roger turned his head towards the sky. The night was pretty clear, with a bright, large, moon, and one or two stars here and there. A voice on the back of his mind reminded him about Freddie's suggestion of taking Brian stargazing for their first date, and Roger allowed a small smile to cross his lips.

He heard the door open and close softly, and expectantly waited for Brian to come stand by his side. And the person did come to stand next to him, but when Roger turned to look at Brian, he didn't see the curly haired, absolutely adorable, guitarist. But rather Tim, who stood there looking at the stars as if he wasn't causing Roger's Universe to collapse.

"Roger, that's the third time you turn down a drink tonight, are you sure you are alright?"

"Yeah, don't worry," he said nonchalantly, "Tim just advised me to cut back the drinking, and to be honest? I feel pretty good about it."

"Rog, that's the third thing he tells you to cut back on."

Roger nodded, "I know, Bowie, but he has been right about everything until now. So I think I'm gonna follow his advise."

David looked at Roger as he took a long drag from his cigarette, "Will he ever advise you against smoking as much as you are?"

"Nah," another drag and a large cloud of smoke, "He is the one that buys me the ciggies."

"I don't know why you were looking up," Tim said, "you can't see shit through the pollution."

A blanket of cold seemed to settle on Roger, "What are you doing here?"

God, he hates how pathetic he sounds, hates how small and scared his words sounded next to Tim's, which seemed to command Roger to answer him, even if no question was asked.

"Well, this are my friends," Tim says, as if that were the most obvious fact in the world, "now the question is what you are doing here."

"Brian is my boyfriend." He says, and Tim's head snaps towards him, "And Freddie and Deacy are my friends."

"Roger, I didn't think I would see you tonight."

"I wasn't planning on coming," his voice sounded small, even to his own ears, "but I really need your help, Bowie."

The other man rounded the counter and came to sit beside Roger, "What's wrong?"

"When did you notice that Tim had gone too far?"

The other man seemed taken aback by the question, and covered Roger's hands with his own, "Did he do something to you?"

When Roger nodded his shoulder felt like it was on fire, and tears threaten to spill from his eyes.

There is a commotion inside, something that sounds like angry shouts. But the sounds are far, far, away; getting even more blurred and nonsensical as Tim takes a step towards him.

"Brian is your what?"

His voice is barely above a whisper, "Boyfriend."

Tim raises his eyebrow, and lets out a humourless chuckle, "You could have chosen anyone in the world and you chose Brian May?"

"What?" The words are out before Roger can stop them, he is looking at Tim's eyes as they become steely. The words taste like lead, like poison, and he doesn't need to be a genius to know he shouldn't have fucking done that. "Are you jealous?"

"Roger, is everything alright?"

The rain was falling down on the sidewalk outside, and water droplets were falling from his hair and into his eyes. He feels his tears mixing with the rainwater, and feels the cold bringing down his already low energy. "I can't stop."

Dominique takes a step towards Roger, "What?"

"I can't stop smoking."

Thunder rumbles in the distance.

"It's been three months since I broke up with him and I can't stop smoking."

Roger's sister had taken one look at Tim before deciding she didn't like the other man. Clare, beautiful and strong Clare, had taken him into her room that night and told him to dump Tim Staffell before it was too late. Before he fell in love with someone who definitively did not love him back. Roger had laughed at her face, and told her to shove her jealousy up her butt.

She was the first one to know when Roger had dumped Tim. The first one to open up her arms and let him cry until he couldn't utter a single tear. She was the first one to look at him with pity in her eyes once he took out one of his cancer sticks, and smoked it. The first one to ask a question that would haunt him through the next two months of his life, "Oh Meddows, what did he do to my brother?"

To say Brian was fuming was an understatement. He thundered into the house, marching up to the only person he knew could have even thought about inviting Tim Staffell after he had told them not to, and turned Freddie Mercury around. The other man smiled innocently, and chuckled once he saw Brian's face, "Oh dear, what did I do now?"

"Why did you invite Tim?"

Freddie frowned, "You are angry about that?"

"What else would I be angry about, Freddie?" Brian raised his voice, anger fuelling the volume, "You invited the person I had been in love with for years to the first time I bring my boyfriend to a dinner. What else am I supposed to be angry about?"

Confusion clouded his face, "Nothing happened between you and Roger?"

"What?" Brian felt the anger rise, "Why would anything happen between us?"

"I—" Freddie's face went through a thousand different emotions before settling on regret, "I thought bringing Tim here would make you realise what you have with Roger is invaluable."

The worst part was the Freddie's planned had worked for about fifteen seconds. He had looked at Tim and his first thought had been, well, he really doesn't have anything on Roger. That was until he saw Roger crumble right before his eyes, and Tim looking at Roger with hunger. Only then did the spell break, and did Brian realise that Roger was probably in danger.

"You fucking knew," Brian accused Freddie, "you knew about what we were doing and you didn't think about fucking telling me?"

"It would have ruined the surprise."

"What bloody surprise?"

"Roger was going to ask you out on a date tonight."

That was all it took for Brian to snap out of his trance, he felt his breath shorten and his vision become blurry. He look around the room, and found that everyone was around them, watching the exchange intently. Everyone but two people, Tim and Roger. Now, he didn't know what the history behind Tim and Roger was, he only knew that the older man had shaken up Roger enough for him to become a trembling, mute, mess. And Brian had left him alone in a place that Tim could easily reach him.

"Roger," he whispers, as his anger starts to dissipate, and turns into worry, "Roger!"

He runs out, ignoring the shouts for him to come back, ignoring the way that something glass-like falls to the floor and shatters. He ran out without stopping to see if Freddie was alright from the sudden aggression.

And he was damn glad he didn't stop.

The world around Roger melts away, leaving him cold, alone, and terrified. Tim lets out something resembling a growl and fear curls at the pit of his stomach. Then Tim is pressing him against the nearest wall, pinning his hands at his sides, his hips to Roger's, and his lips against his.

The worst part is that Tim still tastes like home.

Roger feels completely numb, completely disconnected from the world, as Tim kissed him like he used to do when they were still together. And the only thought he can muster is a plead for Brian to burst through that door and knock Tim's teeth out.

He can hear his name being called from inside, he can hear Brian's voice as he frantically calls for him, but he can't find it in him to break the kiss. He is pinned to the wall by more than just a single man. And when he wills his body to move all he can do is twitch pathetically and feel as a tear falls down his cheek.

And for the second time that night Roger Meddows Taylor is left absolutely powerless.

So this happened, I can't say I regret this, but I certainly do feel like it just changed the course of the story for all of you who thought you knew what you were getting into. You didn't think I'd be kind enough to let you go without drama, did you?

I am a slut for kudos and comments, also please do tell me what you think about what just happened cause I felt like it was the absolute BEST but I really want to hear what you have to say.

[stopthespione]

The Second Cigarette

Yesterday, Monday, was a pretty fucking stressful day. I’ve been studying non-stop since the weekend and by 6pm all my brain cells were screaming at me to stop. I had a quiz at 7pm and I honestly wanted to study some more because I haven’t finished the coverage yet; I couldn’t. I was too mentally exhausted. That morning though, I visited the church, prayed, and lit two candles. I invoked St. Joseph of Cupertino to pray for my pitiful brain, and also called out to the Heavenly Father to guide the youth of my generation.

Please save us. Me, especially. I don’t want to flunk this subject. I’ve been doing my part. I need guidance and presence of mind. Please.

I no longer remember what I did or where I went afterwards because my mind was too preoccupied by all the cross and longitudinal sections of the nervous system. 

Time skip to 5pm, I was reminded by my stomach that I haven’t even eaten lunch yet, so I went to the staff garage and laid out my utensils. A couple of my colleagues were there as well, reviewing for our Histology quiz. 

“Corpora amylacea,” said my short-haired friend.

I looked at her, my mouth gaping and my eyes wide. “Ohmygod. What is that?” She showed me the structure and I internally panicked. I’ve been studying non-stop, but there I was with still a lot more studying to do. I wanted to fall on the floor and bury myself. I really need to work on my studying habits. 

When I was done with my long overdue lunch, I smoked my last cigarette and pondered if I should stay and study with them. I chose not to because I was feeling the pressure and I didn’t want to surround myself with bad juju. I packed my stuff and went to the Basic Sciences department, sitting beside a brown-haired girl on the hallway who also had her laptop on her lap. 

 I woke up my jet black HP Paviliion and opened all my socials. 

I should really study... I told myself. I should... I minimized Chrome and clicked on my reviewer. It was almost 6 and my neurons were degenerating one by one. 

“Okay. That’s it. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” The cursor went to the taskbar and clicked on the Messenger tab.

    Mom. Please get me some ice cream. I need ice cream. 

Time flew before I knew it, our quiz was done and everything went better than I expected. I could have gotten a perfect score if I’d studied some more, but it could have been worse. I was contented with my performance for that quiz.

....I think.

I couldn’t sleep immediately when I got home, despite being so mentally and physically exhausted. I decided to write on my thin black notebook of secrets and did some research on the Angels of God. I even read a bit of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. Just because. I don’t know why, I just felt like doing some Bible and religious studying. I slept at a little past 3am. 

That was a bad decision; I had to wake up before 5:30am. 

I’m going zombie mode again. What the heck am I doing to myself? I thought after hearing my mom reprimanding me because we were going to be late again. 

When I got back to my room after taking a shower, I saw my lamentable white earphones in pieces on my bed. 

“Noooo! Delilah!” I scolded, turning to look at her. “Bad girl!” I don’t know how many earphones of mine she’s torn apart. I was used to it by then so I was going to let it go, but I seriously can’t live without earphones... It was going to be a tough Tuesday.

After my only class, I went to my new hangout spot which was an overrated coffee shop near the university gate to do some much needed studying. But after two and a half hours, I’ve already finished my tea latte and my phone was about to die. 

I was listening to no music, I had no umbrella on my person, I was homeless, and the second day of April had clear blue skies. The sun was shining down on everything carelessly. I didn’t know where to go, yet again. I could go to the library, but like I said, I had no music.

I decided to go to the little village beside campus to find shade and smoke some cigarettes. My pointy red sunglasses reflected the local lady’s nonchalant face, “Two blues, please,” I said. She handed me the cancer sticks and I went on to my smoking spot beside the egg waffles stand. 

“I am the homeless girl of San Francisco.” I told my new best friend-- my hand-phone.

As I was lighting the second cigarette, a bee approached to where I was sitting cross-legged and at first I was planning to ignore it, but it flew closer and closer. I ain’t getting bee stung. Nope, no sir. I went to the other side of the alley and that was the moment when my eyes accidentally drifted to the old coffee shop I no longer go to. 

Well, that’s just fucking dandy. I thought, and did a long inspiration. 

There he was, yet again, the man who was clothed in the blue dress shirt n days ago; he was wearing the same shade of skies, but now it’s a buttoned-up short sleeves. 

Fuck. 

I bought two more sticks because the second one lasted too shortly for my nerves to calm down. 

Fuck. I thought as I made my way to my spot, carrying all my baggage with me. I was shaking beyond my control. I don’t know. Maybe I was smoking too many cigarettes. 

I lit the third one. I wanted to consume a fourth one, but the paranoid skincare-crazy monster in me told me not to do it. 

Well, I guess the library it is, then.

It was too cold inside.

I need me some music. 

Fucking hell. 

[ladyseaheart1668]

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 31)

Description: Before he can make his next move, Caleb must face the leader of his new gang. Meanwhile, Alodia and Tahira make Thanksgiving plans.

Tagging: @xo-endlessmayhem-xo ; @princesstopgun ; @mysteli ; @endlesshero1122 ; @whatmcsaid

Chapter 31 : Lines of Loyalty

Caleb

The next phase of my plan requires finesse. Precision. It requires subterfuge, which I am not a fan of. I recognize the necessity of it sometimes, but it always feels dishonest. I mean, subterfuge is always dishonest, that's the whole point. But what I mean is that it feels like a compromise. Playing by the rules of the corrupt system, even if I'm privately defying them. Letting them believe they have my support, even if it's only temporary. I would much rather come storming in and make a bold statement. I want them to know why their shit is falling apart in front of them, and I want them to know right away. I want them to know it was me.

Gigi would argue that you can still get all that same satisfaction from subterfuge if you do it right, but I'm still skeptical. Speaking of the psychobitch, if I'm gonna do this subterfuge thing right, I have to keep her from getting suspicious. I've been making sure to check in with one of her spies on the edge of Bayside every couple of days, but I know that I can't stay in Northbridge indefinitely. The longer I delay going back to the squatter nest and giving her something concrete, the more suspicious she'll get, and the more likely I am to end up neck-deep in particularly rancid shit. The closer I get to the probable deadline, the faster I go through my Camels. I make what I estimate to be my third stop at that convenience store to stock up for the road with a six-pack each of beer and generic cola, a fresh pack of Camels, and a couple of those burritos—which I think actually has to be laced with crack or something because convenience stores should not have burritos this good.

Just like the last two times, the dark-haired kid is behind the counter, and his grizzled old biker manager rings out the beer and smokes before slumping back to the storeroom. I cast a critical eye over the kid while he finishes ringing up the cola and burritos. I find my gaze drawn to the racks of candy under the counter and impulsively grab a bag of gummy bears to toss on my pile.

“Those too.”

“Sure thing.” The kid scoops up the gummy bears, scanning them and dropping them in the plastic bag with the rest of my shit. He gives me my total and I pull out a slim wad of bills from my pocket, peeling off a twenty. I hold it out to him, reaching into the bag to pull out the Camels.

“So...do you live here or something?” Tapping the pack against my palm, I read the nametag pinned to the front of the kid's polo. “...Dylan?”

Dylan plucks the twenty from between my fingers, looking reproachfully at me. “Of course not.”

“So, I look back in that storeroom, I'm not gonna find your four kids and a dog?” I pull the tab on the cellophane cover. It crackles angrily as I tug off the top half. The heat in the store is on full blast to combat the cold November air constantly streaming through the doors, and the dry air makes the cellophane stick to my hand more than usual. Dylan eyes the pack in my left hand as I shake my right furiously, trying to dislodge the clear wrapper.

“Those things'll kill you, you know,” he mutters.

I roll my eyes. “Oh, golly gee, will they? I didn't know that because I've lived my whole life in a goddamn cave, and I can't actually read this warning label right here on the pack! Fuck off. Unlike you, I'm an adult.”

Dylan grumbles a reply that sounds like a warning not to light up inside, and jabs a button on the cash register. I grunt and stuff the pack in my pocket with the inner foil still sealed, giving my cellophane-draped hand another shake. I hold my left hand out for my change, and Dylan grudgingly counts it out into my palm, dropping the coins on top.

“Hey, you know what else'll fucking kill you? Skipping lunch near daily. Probably at about the same rate as smoking. I dunno, I'm no doctor.” I finally paw the cellophane off on the rim of the plastic bag and grab it by the handles, dropping the handful of coins and singles back on the counter. “Keep the change. Buy yourself one of these crack burritos. Seriously, convenience store food has no business being this good.”

Before he can reply, I stalk out the door and into the biting cold, the door's tiny brass clapper bell trilling behind me.

* * *

Traffic is bad getting out of the city, so the whole drive to Squatterville takes over an hour. Enough time for me to puff through half the pack. I'm driving a junker of a minivan that's at least as old as I am, so old that it doesn't even have a CD player. Just a cassette slot. But I did manage to find an old-fashioned cassette adapter and portable CD player last time I went looking for the kind of obsolete electronics that a guy in my position can actually afford. I put on a burned CD of a bunch of songs from a bunch of those rock metal bands out of northern Europe, the ones with the female lead singers and their reality-defying powerhouse voices ringing out over electric guitars, drums, and epic orchestras. I turn the volume up as much as I can stand, put the heater on full blast, and lower the driver's side window. I spend the journey smoking, tapping ashes off the end of my cigarette through the open window, and tossing the butts out onto the road. In between cigarettes, I scarf down two burritos and guzzle three colas. I toss the wrappers and empty cans into the dark space behind the front seats, where I rarely look. The nicotine coursing through my blood keeps me calm enough on the drive, but as I get closer to Squatterville, closer to Gigi, I start wishing I'd bought another pack.

Gotta keep sight of the goal. The goal right now is to buy myself some more time. I need something to tell Gigi so she'll let me go back to Northbridge for awhile. Something close enough to the truth to be convincing, but far enough that she won't get wind of what I'm really doing. Something to grab her interest enough that she'll let me go on with it, but not enough that she'll want to come along for the ride. Squatterville is fast approaching. I may have to wing it a little.

I turn off the main road onto a quiet side road. The side road turns to crumbling pavement, then gravel, dirt, and finally nothing more than a grassy path cut into the trees with two long barren ruts permanently worn into it by countless tires passing over. I park on the side of a hill and tuck the half-empty pack of Camels in the inner pocket of my jacket, zipping up against the chill. I shove the gummy bears into one hip pocket, and all the cash and change I have on me into the other. Unable to put it off any longer, I climb out of the car and make my way up the hill into the trees.

The sun is already starting to sink in the sky, and the trees make long, stark shadows that obscure the uneven path. I step carefully, not quite willing to use the emergency flashlight that dangles from my keyring. One of the other squatters will spot me and let Gigi know I'm coming, if she's at home. No need to alarm anyone. If someone particularly twitchy is on guard, startling them could mean I end up with a knife stuck somewhere in me or worse.

I can make out a few signs that she's home as I trudge toward the abandoned houses. She's got her own little code of symbols and signs that she'll trace in the dirt or spell out with sticks or pebbles to let us know where she is. I also hear movement in the trees that I'm pretty sure isn't being caused by animals. It's almost dark by the time I reach the cluster of abandoned houses. A small campfire burns in the small no man's land between the treeline and the edge of the nearest house. Gigi stands beside it, watching me approach with a smirk on her pretty face.

I gotta be real, Gigi is...unfathomably good-looking. She's got this creamy, pale skin, these full, pouting lips that she emphasizes with deep red lipstick, clear blue eyes, and long waves of silky auburn hair. How she stays so flawless is a mystery, living the way we do, but I'm guessing she spends at least half the time she disappears working on her appearance. ...Or maybe she just has good genes. However she does it, she at least knows how to use what nature has given her. She wears form-fitting black clothes that hug the curves of her hourglass figure, and heeled boots to emphasize her shapely calves and ass, as well as add a couple inches to her height. She looks like the kind of woman you know you shouldn't tangle with, but you kinda want to anyway. You wanna know what makes her tick, even if you don't think you'll like the answer, or the experience of finding out.

She licks her lips in a way that reminds me of a hungry wolf. She's got the large split ring on the end of a teddy bear keychain around her index finger, and she twirls it around her finger as she watches me approach.

“Well, well, well. Look who the cat dragged in. Welcome back, Pyro.”

I exhale slowly. “Hey, G...how's tricks?”

She pulls a face, pushing her lower lip into an exaggerated pout. “Aww, Pyro. You know by now that I don't turn tricks. I don't need to.” She grins, catching the teddy bear in her palm. “Step into my office.”

She leads me into one of the old ranch houses, into the master bedroom, which she has claimed as her space. Besides a queen-sized mattress on the floor, she also has a beat up old office desk and swivel chair. The desk is metal and tends to give electric shocks in the winter. She flips a switch on a portable generator. Light from the work lamps mounted on the walls floods the room. She turns to face me.

“Arms out, Pyro.”

I sigh, grudgingly holding my arms out to the side. I've gotten used to this routine by now. She approaches and pushes her hands into my hip pockets. She pulls the money out of my left pocket and throws it on the desk without looking too hard. She's found the bag of gummy bears in the other pocket, and her face has lit up with glee. She pulls out the bag and rips it open, digging out a small handful. For a moment, she just gazes down at the colorful pile of candy in her palm, a wolfish grin on her face. She selects a green bear and sniffs it before putting it to her lips and sucking it into her mouth. I watch for a minute or so while she savors each chewy little bear.

“Uh...can I put my arms down?” Gigi holds up one finger, slowly chewing. I sigh, rolling my eyes. “G, come on. My shoulders are getting sore.”

Gigi finishes the handful and sticks her hands into my jacket pockets. Finding nothing in the outer pockets, she searches the inner ones and comes up with my cigarettes. I close my eyes, trying not to audibly groan.

“Camels?” At the sound of her voice, I open my eyes to find her arching an eyebrow at me. “You know I prefer Winston's.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, G, well you know what? I prefer Camels, and I didn't get them for you.”

She chuckles, pulling one out and sticking the filtered end between her teeth. For a moment, she looks at me, and I know she's debating whether or not she should make me light it for her. Apparently deciding against it, she produces a lighter printed with images of the Powerpuff Girls from her jacket pocket and lights up. I should have bought a few more packs, stashed them in the dark in the back of my van. But I know the one time I do will be the one time she decides to send one of her broken goons to search it. So now I'm watching her puff through my nicotine stash, and I don't even know if she's gonna let me go to get more any time soon. She exhales a pungent cloud and leans back against her desk.

“So, where have you been, Pyro? It's been awhile.”

I take this as a cue that I can finally put my arms down. “Northbridge. Didn't Roach tell you as much?”

“Of course. But you were extremely vague about what you were doing. Enlighten me.”

Okay, Caleb. Here goes nothing. “I was looking into the Prism Crystal. You've probably heard that Dragonness and Silas Prescott have both returned alive.”

“I had heard that, yes. What's it to do with you?”

“G, I can conjure flames because I came in contact with the Prism Crystal. I've heard speculation that injecting himself with liquid prism has given Silas Prescott a brain tumor. I just want to know if that's gonna happen to me.”

She regards me critically for a moment, taking another drag on the cigarette between her teeth and exhaling the smoke. She moves around the desk to sit on the other side, propping her feet up on top of it.

“What did you find out?”

“Not a whole lot.” I shove my hands in my pockets, choosing my next words carefully. “...Except that I think the Prism Crystal might be linked to the Island's Heart.”

Gigi glances up sharply, icy blue eyes narrowing. “...Of course they're linked. I know they're linked. I've always known. ...Are you saying you have proof?”

“Not on me. But yeah. I saw an old security video inside one of Prescott's facilities. From like, twenty-five years ago. He let it drop that the prism crystal came from La Huerta.”

“...But you didn't take the tape?”

“Well, no. I was in a hurry to get outta there. But the important thing is that we know, right?”

Predictably, she scowls at me. “No. Of course that's not the important thing. For all I know you're lying to me. And if you're not, Prescott or one of his loyal dogs could have erased that footage or destroyed it.”

I sigh, trying to arrange my features into something contrite. “...You're right. I fucked up there. But I think I know how to set it right.”

“And how is that?”

“Dragonness. I worked with her once, and I met with her again while I was in Northbridge. I think she's got more information on both the Prism Crystal and the Island's Heart. Thing is...she's not really feeling all that trusting toward me right now since I didn't stick with her little gang of corporate tools once the dust had settled.”

“And...what do you suggest?”

“Let me go back to Northbridge and work her a little while. I save a few kittens from trees, help a few old ladies cross the street, get back on her good side...”

Gigi snorts. “And you assume she's just gonna spill on everything then?” she sneers. “No. No way it's gonna be that easy.”

“Okay, probably not. Might take awhile. But I think she knows something about Alodia Chandler.”

Once again, Gigi rises to the bait, narrowing her eyes at me. “...Like what?”

“Like why Rourke was so crazy obsessed with her. What she's got to do with the infamous Island's Heart.”

Gigi is silent for a long time. I watch the Camel get shorter between her lips. This is a particularly dangerous bluff. I don't know if Tahira actually knows shit about Alodia. I have a suspicion she does, but that's all it is.

“...Alodia Chandler is the one who killed me.”

“I know. You told me.”

“...But why should that matter to you?”

This question I can answer honestly. “It doesn't. What matters to me is figuring out the Prism Crystal. I am hoping that the chance to find some shit out about Alodia is appealing enough to you that you'll let me off the hook for awhile so I can play the hero in Northbridge and gain Dragonness' confidence.”

“Let you off the hook,” she drawls, tapping an ash off the end of the cigarette. “But I assume you want me to keep you on the payroll.”

“I get how that could be a damned inconvenience. But it would be appreciated if you were able.”

“If I were able to keep paying you for jobs you aren't actually contributing to? If I were able to go out of my way to arrange for payments to be dropped while you play errand boy to a bunch of superpowered busy-bodies?”

I ignore the jab, spreading my hands in a pose like surrender. “Like I said. I get how it could be a damned inconvenience. I can make my own way if necessary.”

Gigi is quiet for awhile, considering. Then she shakes her head. “No. You work off my payroll, there's no guarantee you're not aiming to break with me.”

I can't help smirking ruefully. “Break with you, G? Never.”

She ignores me, pinning me with an ice-blue glare. Her gaze doesn't leave my face as she snuffs out the Camel on the surface of her desk with over an inch left before the filter. Watching it is almost physical agony. She must realize it, because she smirks.

“We'll arrange a drop. But you get half your usual cut, so you better make it stretch.” She drags the bag of gummy bears toward her and pierces one with the nail of her index finger, bringing it to her mouth. “I'll let you do your thing, Pyro. But you better deliver. Fire magic or not, I can make you sorry if you cross me.”

I nod. As completely batshit cracked as it may sound, I believe her. I totally fucking believe her.

Alodia

Not long past noon on Tuesday morning, I'm enjoying a leisurely lunch at the kitchen table, flipping through a dance magazine, when my phone rings. Michelle's name flashes on my screen. I tap the phone a couple times to put her on speaker.

“Hey, Michelle. What's up?”

“Hey, Alodia. I just got home from work, and I wanted to check up on you before I get some sleep.”

I feel a frown crease my brow, and I'm glad we're not video chatting. “Okay, I know I said I was okay with you being a little alarmist about my health, but I also happen to know you work twelve-hour shifts. I promise you, I can wait until you've gotten some sleep.”

“And I happen to know that you trust me more than your own OB-GYN, in spite of the fact that my speciality is neurology. We'll both feel better if you just tell me what she said at your appointment yesterday.”

“Well, she agrees with you that it's probably nothing to worry about, just the uterus pressing on the nerves, all very normal. She ran all the tests she thought were necessary and nothing unusual is going on.”

“And the baby's healthy?”

“Well, she didn't take an ultrasound or anything. Mostly because I feel confident saying that River's alive and enthusiastically kickboxing in there. I've got the big ultrasound scheduled for after Thanksgiving, and that's when we'll learn the sex.”

“Well, that's exciting. Are you going to tell us when you find out? Or are you gonna let Raj and Craig grow the pool a little more first?”

I laugh. “Of course we'll tell you all. At some point, they're gonna have to start betting on when I deliver, aren't they?”

“Almost certainly.” She pauses for a moment. “Are you cleared to travel for Thanksgiving then?”

“Yeah. But that doesn't exactly stop Jake from being nervous about me traveling on a public airplane while pregnant. Says they're flying cesspools, especially when they're packed with holiday travelers.”

“He's not wrong, you know. Why not just get a charter flight from Aleister and Estela? You know they'd be happy to arrange it. They do have other pilots besides Jake and Mike on their payroll.”

“Because his parents are going to be picking us up from the airport, and I want everything to feel as normal as possible when I first meet them. I mean, our whole situation is going to be hard enough for them to swallow without adding in that we have powerful friends who can arrange charter flights right off the bat.”

“The strangeness of your situation won't matter so much once they meet you,” Michelle declares confidently. “They're going to love you. Especially when they realize how much you love their son.”

“Aww, thanks. How is everything on your end?”

She is quiet long enough that concern stirs in my gut. Finally, she sighs. “Oh...you know...”

“That...doesn't make it sound like things are going well.”

“It's nothing serious. I'm just a little burned out right now. ...Burned out and bummed out...”

“What's going on?”

“It's really nothing. I've been switching shifts and covering shifts like crazy to get the time off to come to California for the New Year, and then to actually get married in March, so I haven't had a lot of time outside of work.”

“Well, that explains the burnout. But why the bum-out?”

“Well, both Sean and I have to work on Thanksgiving. The Condors have the Thanksgiving game again, and Tricia's going to be going to watch, and I'm working from noon to midnight, so there's not much chance the three of us will get to share Thanksgiving as a family this year. Plus, you're in California with Jake and Diego, Estela and Quinn are in San Trobida, Craig and Zahra are having Thanksgiving with his family, Raj is in Rome, Aleister and Grace have gone back to London...”

“So, you and Sean are the only Catalysts in Northbridge for Thanksgiving?”

“Exactly. I guess I'm just feeling lonely. I miss you all. ...I guess that's the one thing I'll always miss about La Huerta, is having everyone right there.”

“I know what you mean. I'm really looking forward to New Year's Eve and having all the Catalysts back together, even if it's only for a night.”

“But that's more than a month off yet...” The weight of melancholy in her voice makes my heart squeeze. She sounds exhausted. Dispirited.

“Aww, Michelle...”

“Don't you start worrying about me, Alodia,” she chides gently. “You look after that baby of yours.”

“I'm gonna take some time off in January or February to come to Northbridge before the wedding,” I promise. “If only to get properly fitted for my dress. And I'm already making plans for your bachelorette party in March.”

“As long as those plans don't involve you drinking, I look forward to them.”

After a couple more minutes, we say our goodbyes and hang up so that Michelle can get some rest. I sit at the table for awhile, staring at my phone. The conversation has left me...unsettled. I'm not worried about Michelle per se. At least...I'm not worried that she's falling into an emotional pit, or that she's suffering anything more insidious than a combination of burnout and disappointment at having to spend the holiday apart from her family. Still, I don't like hearing her sound so tired and unhappy.

I have no idea what Sean's training schedule is going to be like right now, but I take a chance and call him. He picks up.

“Hey, Alodia. What's up?”

“Hey, Sean. Hope I'm not interrupting a practice or anything?”

He chuckles. “Trust me, if you had called during a practice, I wouldn't have answered because I value my life. I'm actually just at the grocery store. ...Is everything okay?”

“It's all okay on my end. But I just spoke to Michelle.”

There's a pause. “Yeah...?”

“I don't know. She just seems...really down right now. She was talking about how you both have to work on Thanksgiving, and how she's covering a lot of extra hours to be able to come for New Year's...I guess I'm just kinda concerned.”

He sighs. “Yeah. I don't really blame you. You know how she is when she's got a goal. She doesn't give herself nearly as much slack as she should.”

“Not unlike you in that way,” I quip.

I can practically hear the wry smirk in his voice, “Hey, there's a reason we connected at Hartfeld. Two aces at the top of our respective games, biting off way more than we could chew...many a romantic evening we spent pulling all-nighters together.”

“But you've learned to give yourself some breathing room at least...to give yourself credit and not carry the burden all on your own...”

“So has she,” he says gently. “You know her, Alodia. You know what she needed most back then, what her biggest weakness was.”

“She didn't trust people. She wasn't willing to need anyone.”

“Just the fact that she told you she was feeling upset shows how far she's come, doesn't it?”

I am quiet for a moment, thinking this over. I suppose it is encouraging that even though she called to check up on me, Michelle did not require a lot of probing to admit that she was feeling under pressure herself.

“You're right. It does.”

“But you're also right. Michelle has been working way too hard lately, and I know not getting to spend Thanksgiving together is a major disappointment. Don't worry, though. I have a brilliant plan to make it up to her.”

“Good.” I exhale slowly, feeling myself relax. “You've gotten...really insightful in the last five years.”

“Yeah, well...I ended up going through some therapy after graduation. It helped clarify a lot of what was going through my head after the island. ...Helped me deal with the trauma and the grief, not just from what we went through, but everything before the island, too. Everything with my dad and Michelle. Even though she and I were friends again, it took awhile for me to feel like I could be worthy of her again. Therapy helped with that, too.”

“I'm glad. And I'm really glad you two have each other. Your weaknesses are kinda similar, but you're both strong enough that it's more of an advantage because you can keep each other in check with empathy.”

He laughs. “And you're calling me insightful. ...I gotta admit, I'm weirdly happy that you called me about this.”

“Really? Why?”

“I guess...you could say it's a relief to have you call because you're worried Michelle might be stressed and disappointed over having to work on Thanksgiving. It feels very...everyday?”

“I think I know what you mean. ...It's a taste of normal that's can be little hard to come by for our family.”

“Exactly. Hey, I should hang up and finish shopping. ...Are you guys gonna watch the Condors' game on Thanksgiving?”

“From what Jake's told me, there will definitely be a game on at his folks' place. I'll see if I can convince them to make it yours. I'll tell Diego and Varyyn to tune in here, too.”

“Good. I'm gonna need all the good vibes you can send me.”

“I'll rub my belly during the game for good luck.”

He laughs. “What, are you Buddha now?”

“What, lucky belly rubs are only for Buddha?”

“Pretty sure. But what the hell, it couldn't hurt. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving if I don't talk to you before then. And I'll see you guys on New Year's Eve.”

“I'll see you then, Sean.”

Tahira

The biting November breeze trails chilly fingers over my face, tugging at the dark tendrils of hair that have escaped the headband I've put on to keep my ears warm as I wander through the park with Grayson, my fingers laced with his. It's mid-afternoon, but the recent end of daylight savings time means that dusk is rapidly approaching. Not that it's all that easy to tell with the sky so heavily clouded as it is today. By now, the trees are completely bare, and their skeletal branches stand out starkly against the dappled sky. The fallen leaves have all been cleared away, which somehow makes the world seem quieter and more dead in this moment than it will in a few weeks when the snows start falling. It's like looking at a body freshly dead as opposed to after it's been embalmed and dressed for a final viewing. The thought is morbid enough to make me shiver.

“You cold?” Grayson takes his hand from mine to slip his arm over my shoulder and draw me closer to his side. I smile, letting my head rest lightly on his shoulder.

“I'm okay now. Why, are you cold?”

“A little,” he admits.

“Wanna head back towards your place? We could go inside and get warm.”

He nods, kissing the top of my head. “Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that.”

I wind my arm around his waist. “So...how was your dad today?”

“I...didn't say?”

“You haven't said much of anything all afternoon. ...If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay.”

“No,” he sighs. “I do, kind of. Dad is...well...the doctors think that physically, he's okay. But his moods are...all over the map. He's angry, he's depressed...and then there are moments when he's almost manic and he seems hyperfocused on...something. ...No matter what, he still barely speaks to me. I know he's hearing me, but...it's like he can't say anything of any substance to me. Like he's hiding something. I've tried confronting him on what he did. I try asking gently. I even tried asking if he did it to bring Mom back. ...Nothing has gotten him to talk about it. And then out of the blue today, he says we should have Thanksgiving dinner together.”

“...How do you feel about that?”

“...He's my dad, Tahira. I don't want to leave him alone for a holiday...”

I sigh. “...I want to offer to go with you for moral support...but...”

He shakes his head fiercely, turning toward me and drawing me into his arms. “No. Absolutely not. After what he did to you, I don't want the two of you anywhere near each other.” He sighs. “...I feel like I should refuse him. I feel...like I'm being disloyal to you, still worrying about him.”

I feel my heart twist at his words. Pulling back, I take his face in my hands and meet his eyes. I hold his gaze for a moment before leaning forward to gently press my mouth to his. I feel him respond and I kiss him again and again, slow and tender. Finally breaking, I let my forehead rest on his.

“You're not being disloyal to me, Grayson. Any more than you're being disloyal to your dad by kissing me. You love us both, and it isn't your fault that any of this happened between us.”

He closes his eyes, his breath shaking. “I...just want you to know that I'm on your side. Really know it. ...If it comes to it, I'll support you over him. I promise.”

I wind my arms around him and rest my chin on his shoulder. “I am grateful to have your support.” I murmur in his ear. There aren't many people in the park with the weather being what it is, but I still keep my voice low. “...But if it comes to battle between me and your father again, I need to know that you'll be safe more than anything else.”

“...But...”

“Promise me, Grayson. Promise me you'll protect yourself. I'll have allies to rely on in the fighting, allies like me.”

I feel Grayson hesitate for a moment before finally nodding against my shoulder, wrapping me in his arms.

“You're right. I have to get used to the idea that my girlfriend has superpowers and doesn't need me to be the macho man.”

I laugh. “I wouldn't need that from you anyway. That's not who I fell in love with. Just stay my smart, compassionate, courageous, loyal Grayson.”

“All right, enough flattery,” he quips. “You're already getting a raise with the new year, what more do you want?”

I draw back to look him in the eye, grinning. “I could tell you, but it might be a little indelicate for a public park.”

“Ohh, so it's like that, is it? We'd better hurry back to my place, then. I want to see what you're thinking.”

We start walking again. We're moving faster now, though I'm not sure how much of it is eagerness to fall into bed together and how much is because it's quickly getting colder.

“Hey...Grayson?”

“Hmm?”

“Even if I can't go with you to your dad's...there's no reason you can't join me and Mom for dinner afterwards, right?”

“Two Thanksgiving dinners? I probably wouldn't eat much at the second one...”

“That's all right. Mom and I always spend Black Friday dishing out our leftovers at the soup kitchen in Bayside anyway. And you know we'd love to have you.”

He exhales, and there is relief in the sound. “...I would love to be there. So...so much...”

“It's settled then. Our first official holiday as a couple.” As an idea occurs to me, I turn to him with a grin. “...And to celebrate this approaching momentous occasion...” I take his hand, dragging him towards a rock shed on the edge of the park.

“Woah! Tahira, where are we going?”

I stop just long enough to whisper in his ear, “Somewhere I can get changed. Dragonness is going to fly you home.”

[jhope-seok]

Yin;Yang

Disclaimer: All of the things mentioned in this story are all works of fiction and have been made up by me, the author.  I did not intend to make anything based on real life, and any coincidences to real life are purely coincidences.

Warnings: mentions of cigarettes

Genre: Angst. Fluff. Slight Smut.

Members: Suga x Reader

Length: 7,447 words

Sequel to The One That Got Away

(A/N: holy cow wow. I got the itch to write this after hearing “All I Ask” by Adele and now this is a reality. I know I’ve been shite at posting my writing, but it’s bc i’m working on something huge right now and it’s taking all of my attention, but I took a break on my big project to write this so i can finally have my catharsis. Highly recommend reading the first part before reading this (it will make a whole lot of sense. Also a HUGEEEE thank you to @hungline for being the best beta ever. <3)

(A/N#2: HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING ON DESKTOP. Mobile screws up the formatting....reads way better on desktop.)

Masterlist

[Y/N 9:47pm] “I still love you.”

The cigarette in his fingers hovered midway on its journey to his mouth, the smoke trailing from the end the only thing letting him know time hadn't stopped. His eyes flickered back and forth from the words on the screen to the name at the top of the conversation. Suga had to sit up in his bed, as if it would help him focus better on his phone in front of him, and shook away his thoughts in an attempt to decipher if this was real or a dream.

“No,” he thought. “This is very real.” The sounds echoed up from the street below a good indication that he was, in fact, not dreaming.

He’s surprised to have heard from you at all, let alone the same night, especially after the way your time together had gone. If he had expected to hear from you, he would’ve thought to hear nasty words from you, something far different than the words he was staring at now. He had lied to you.

“I met someone.”

He was sure at the time that your words hadn't been a lie, that fate had somehow once again provided you both with a chance meeting with no options to move forward. But, looking back now, he guessed you had lied to him too.

“Me too.”

This text message almost proved to him that you had lied to him. He wasn’t sure if you had seen through his lie and were now trying to call him out on it, or if you had somehow slipped: sent a message to him that you had meant for someone else. Or, in a highly unlikely third possibility, if you had meant it for him--Suga wasn’t sure you had meant to actually send it. Either way, he knows that if he missed this opportunity to be with you, he would regret it forever.

There have been too many moments in his life where you were close in his grasp, so close he could’ve closed his fingers and you would’ve been together. Yet, every time you had always managed to slip away like grains of sand, leaving only an emptiness in his heart. He also knows that there have been times where he was to blame, his own actions having pushed you away, but he wanted to ensure that he took this opportunity to prove to you how much you mean to him.

[Suga 9:56pm] “Where are you?”

He knew this was not the answer you would have wanted back to your confession, but he couldn’t tell you how he felt through text. He knew he had to do it in person. He needed to see you, feel you in his arms when he said it back.

When his phone buzzed again in his hand, all that he had from you was an address. It wasn’t the same place where you had met earlier, and when he plugged it into his maps application on his phone, it seemed to be an apartment building. He immediately grabbed his coat and headed out the door of his hotel room.

The night air nipped at his skin as he tried to hold his hood as close to his face as possible, trying to shield his neck from the cold. He’s surprised at how much it had cooled down, almost positive that the temperature earlier had been hot enough to make his shirt stick to his back. Then again, that could've been from his anticipation of seeing you pushing his heart to pump the blood in his veins faster. But, he’s glad for the brisk walk, the air cooling down his body temperature as his heart raced. With every step he took he could feel his pulse raise slightly. He’s not sure what he wants to say to you when he sees you for the second time that night, but he knows he needs to make it count, otherwise this could very well be the end of a possible relationship--and friendship--with you. The end of everything between you two.

The last few weeks of his life had felt like a blur. What had felt like a normal Monday had wound up being one of the worst days of his life. He remembered the tone of his boss’s voice as he sat him down in his office and told him that, “Things just aren’t working out anymore.” Suga had, in the company’s eyes, been performing below standards.

“We just aren’t getting results from you like we used to. And you aren’t showing signs of improvement. You’re not listening to criticism, and you’re behind on all of the projects you’ve been given. We’ve given you a lot of opportunities to show us better, but unfortunately, things just are not working out anymore. We’re going to have to let you go.”

Suga remembered the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the way his heart stopped for a moment. His brain couldn't comprehend what he was hearing. However, as he had packed his things, left the building and gone home to an empty apartment, he remembered feeling nothing. No anger towards his boss for firing him, no sadness at having lost his job. Nothing. He just kind of shrugged it off. He was emotionless at the thought of no longer having a job and having to find work for himself now for the future. None of that mattered.

And after a week of Suga laying around in his bed, doing the bare minimum to survive and ignoring almost every call from his girlfriend, she had finally gotten so fed up with him that she’d shown up at his apartment, just to break up with him.

“I just don’t get what’s happening, babe. I know you’re upset about having lost your job, but you won’t talk to me. You won’t answer my calls, you won’t respond to my texts. If you won’t open up to me then I can’t stay with you. This relationship isn’t a one way street, Yoongi. You act like you don’t love me anymore, and I can’t handle that. I love you, Yoongi, but you have to get your life together before we can work things out.”

He remembered how even after all of that, he’d just felt nothing. None of her words had pulled at his emotions, every word bouncing off of his skin, falling to the floor. It was all just air to him, wasted breath. Because she was right; he didn’t love her. She had just been a filler in his life. Something to make his parents believe he was living a “normal” life. He supposed at the beginning he had felt something for her, a flicker of something stronger than apathy. That's why he'd chosen to date her, but every night he laid in bed with her, every time she pulled him close, every time she kissed him, he was left wanting. She had left him wanting more, left his heart aching for something he knew he could never have. Nothing for him had been the same since college, and he knew that nothing ever would be.

After he had run out of food in his kitchen, after he’d gone through ordering delivery from every place within delivering range, he finally had decided to go to the grocery store and get himself food. He felt that it had been long enough and that he needed to go back to his facade of living like every other person. But, as he’d driven home from the store, some song on the radio had caught his ear. It was your favorite song, and hearing it flooded all of the memories of you he’d been holding at bay for so long. He remembered the first time he heard you sing along to the song, your eyes closed, voice slightly off key, dancing around like an idiot in the middle of your living room. He remembered listening to it in his college dorm room, during the moments he missed you most. Something inside of him snapped, and as he sat in his car outside of his apartment building, he cried. He really cried for the first time in years.

He let himself be sad over the times he’d lost you, he let himself cry at the thought that he’d let all communication with you drop because he was selfish. He cried because he'd let the one person he cared for most, slip away from him because being around you hurt. It had been the first time since freshman year of college that he truly felt pain. The wall he'd built to keep the hurt at bay finally fell away and released all of the things he'd held back for all those years. And as he'd wiped away his tears, and stared at the dashboard of his car, he thought to himself that he had to do something. He didn't know what he was going to do, or how he was going to fix things, but he needed to try.

So he ran up to his apartment, gathered a small bag of belongings, and drove home. He drove back to the city he'd been avoiding for three years. Along the way he called your parents. He still remembered your home phone number, the digits burned into his memory after having called so many times during high school before his parents had allowed him his first cell phone. When your mother answered she was surprised to hear his voice on the other line.

"Yoongi? Wow! It's great to hear from you for so long. I just saw your parents the other day at the grocery store. How are you?"

He initiated small talk for a while, shocked at how nice your mother was being to him considering how rude he’d been to you for the last three years. But eventually, he got to his point.

"Mrs. Y/L/N, I was calling because I recently got a new phone and couldn't switch over my contacts. I was wondering if you had a current cell phone number for Y/N? I'm coming home for the weekend and wanted to catch up with her."

He hadn’t exactly told the truth to your mom, but she bought it, quickly reciting off your cell number to him. He was thankful to find out that the number hadn’t actually changed. He contemplated the rest of the drive what he was going to send to you, what he was going to do now that he actually had a way to contact you. He felt bad about lying to your mom, so he felt like he should at least try to contact you, but he had no idea what he was going to say if he did. Suga had thought out many different versions of the same text, each sounding far too cheesy in his own mind. There was no way you would ever say yes to seeing him after all of the pain you’d gone through together, especially since after the last time you’d seen him, he had been the one to stop responding to your texts.

When he’d parked outside of the first hotel he could find in your city, he pulled out his phone and opened a new text message conversation. He punched in your number methodically, as if it hadn’t been three years since he’d last used the number. The cursor blinked on the screen at him, taunted him. It was telling him that if he wasted all of this gas to drive all of the way here, called your mother and lied to her about seeing you, and then word somehow got back to you that she spoke to him...he knew things would forever be ruined. He had to do something.

The sun was low in the sky, his courage fading with every minute, he knew it was now or never. It was worth a shot to him, so he typed quickly, and before he could think himself out of it, he hit the blue arrow, and the message was sent.

“Y/N–I’m in the area. Are you free to meet up? –Suga”

Why he had chosen to sign the his text with your chosen nickname for him from high school, he didn’t know. He waited, growing ever the more nervous as time went on. He panicked that he had gotten your number wrong, or that your mom had purposefully given him a false number. He chewed on his lower lip as he stared at his phone. He knew that the longer he watched his screen, the slower time would move.

So, he got out of his car, and walked into the hotel, and prayed that they had a room he could sleep in tonight. He hadn’t planned on staying long, but he figured that if he was here now he wasn’t going to push himself to drive all the way back to his apartment through the night. As he stepped into the lobby of the enormous hotel his phone buzzed in his hand.

“Sure, meet me at the park by the river in an hour.”

He almost dropped his phone as he read the words on his screen. You said yes. His heart jumped into his throat,anxious at the thought of seeing you again. He tried to calm himself, get his mind off of the situation that loomed in the near future, by speaking with the person at the front desk. Luckily for him they had one room left. He spent an approximate ten minutes getting himself situated in his room until he decided he could take it no longer, and grabbed the pack of cigarettes in his bag and headed out to the park you’d detailed.

It had been a while for him, walking among the streets of the city he grew up in. He was surprised at how natural it was to him, how easily he fell back into the same routine. There was only one park he thought you would be speaking of, and when you arrived, three cigarettes later, he was astonished at how it felt as if everything was exactly the same as he’d left it with you.

Except it wasn’t. You smoked, he smoked. You had both matured into beings so separate from each other, the only thing connecting you were the memories you shared between you. And he had revealed to you the truth behind those shared memories, he admitted how he’d been feeling for all of those years.

“I was going to ask you be my girlfriend.”

You’d responded in a way that didn’t catch him off guard as much as he thought you were expecting to catch him.

“That was the first time I remember wanting to tell you I loved you. The first time I wanted you to kiss me.”

But between you both, there had always been a catch.

“But you kissed her instead.”

He had always felt a need to lie, to protect himself from harm, from potential heartbreak. So when you’d called him by the nickname you’d come up with during freshman year of high school (“You’re sweet, Yoongi. You know that? I’m gonna call you Suga.”), he closed himself off immediately. He always had his guard up.

“I met someone.”

Until now.

When he arrived at the address you sent, he stood outside for several minutes, staring up at the windows above his head, trying to imagine what kind of scenario he was entering into. He pictured everything from you slapping him in the face saying that even though you still loved him, he had hurt you way too many times and he should have never spoken to you in the first place, to you crying and claiming he was the love of your life but that you were with someone else and you wouldn’t leave your boyfriend to chance a relationship with him. Although, he still had a small itch at the back of his head that you hadn’t been telling the truth when you’d told him you were seeing someone. Either way, he took one last breath of the cold air and headed inside.

He was surprised to find the front desk of your building empty at such a late hour, but he didn’t let that deter him from the task at hand. He easily found the elevator, and with every second it took for it to arrive, and then to deliver him to your floor, his heart began to race faster than he thought possible. He hadn’t mentally prepared himself to see you again so soon and now that he was mere steps away from you again, he wasn’t sure he could actually face you. But before he could blink, he was in front of the door marked with the same numbers as you’d sent in your address. And with three simple knocks there you were.

His breath hitched in his throat when he saw you in his sweatshirt. He was thrown back into the past to the day he gave it to you. It was the first and only time he had ever kissed you, and he had given you his favorite sweatshirt to remember him by. He never forgot how your lips felt against his, and he almost broke down and cried when he saw you wearing that memory so plainly in front of him. All of the words he’d intended to say escaped him as he stared at you. His past was colliding with his present and future and his sense of time was turned upside down, a loop that was connecting that day to this moment.

“Y/N--,” he started, his words falling into nothingness in the void between you. He had thought out his speech so carefully. He was going to tell you he’d lied, he was going to tell you how much you meant to him. But when he tried, there was nothing. When he couldn’t fill the space, you did.

“Suga--” was all you had to say. The precious nickname you’d shared for all those years was the only word it took to break through his wall, to force his guard down. Hearing it now was all it took for him to close the gap between you, and suddenly, just like that day all those years ago, he was kissing you. It was just as he remembered, just as he had re-lived over and over again in his dreams. Your hands easily found a grip at the nape of his neck, and his fingers curled around your waist, pulling you as close as physically possible. The space that had separated you both for so long closed so suddenly, you were like the most powerful magnets it the world. He never knew that the pain he had endured for so many years could be washed away as easily as it was washing away now. Your lips against his was the only medicine he needed to mend the hurt of past years, and he never wanted it to end.

In the past, he had imagined that if he were to ever have a chance to kiss you again, it would be awkward and uncomfortable, the memories of the past making it difficult for you both to fall into each other. Yet, it was anything but. Your lips tasted like all of the memories he never wanted to forget plus all of the memories he'd been trying to run away from all of these years. Your tongues clashed together in a choreography so synced it was as if you had done this a thousand times. He could feel your heartbeat against his chest and it was the perfect match to the beat inside of him.

As you pulled him into your apartment, he wondered when he'd memorized this routine you were both so quickly falling into. He felt as if time had been moving so fast before, and now with every second that passed, all of his senses were alight, aware of the mere milliseconds that passed as your limbs tangled together. It was so natural to him, the push and pull between you and him, as your fingers left his skin blazing as they danced across his back. When he found your skin under his sweatshirt, the heat from within you lit a fire inside of him that had long been extinguished.

It was a blur of passion that overtook every fiber of his being. He knew that if someone were ever to ask him to recall this night in the future, time would not be able to cloud the memory of the way your lips felt against his neck, or the way you clenched around him as your climax overtook you. Every movement you made against him molded him, shaped him, left its mark on his body, and he knew that he would never be the same.

In one of the few moments where your lips broke away from his, as his eyes fixed upon yours, he wondered how he ever convinced himself that any other woman had been the one for him. Your body melded with his like you were the yin to his yang, the perfect match for every movement his made. And when the night was over, as he kissed your skin, his head spun, love drunk on the taste of your sweat mixed with his.

As the moon shone brightly on your skin as you lay in his arms, the thought crossed his mind that this was where he was meant to be. When sleep fell over him, your scent surrounding him, he felt complete; fulfilled.

The sun woke him up as it usually did. He felt called by its rising, the warmth of its rays the only thing that had kept him sane all of these years. But, as he rubbed his eyes clear of his sleep, he realized something was off. You had left him, the sheets where you had lain were cold against his arms, empty like the bed. He heard you before he saw you, the clinking of something--likely a toothbrush--against the sink his only indication you were in the adjoining bathroom.

He shifted in bed, rested against your headboard, the wood cold against his bare back, unsure of what to make of this situation. Although he could not see your face, it was as if the air in the room had become denser than the night before. He could feel the tension between you and him, a rope strung taut as a heavy weight pulled upon it. He wondered to himself what had changed during the night, wondered how only a few hours could have shifted your feelings of him. He wasn’t yet ready to face these questions in his head, so he reached over into his pants that lay on the floor, and dug around for the pack of cigarettes he always kept in his back pocket.

He considered for a moment that it would be rude to light a cigarette in your apartment, in your bedroom during his first visit, but as he contemplated this his eye caught a trail of smoke leaving a still burning cigarette in an ashtray on your bedside table. The first hit off of a cigarette in the morning did more for him than a cup of coffee ever would, and as he exhaled, smoke dancing in the sunlight.

You yanked open the door of the bathroom, hair still wet, pants unbuttoned.

Suga stiffened, but before he could get out a word, you were rushing. “I’m going to be late for work, I have to go. You can let yourself out after me. Feel free to use the shower. Just lock the door behind you.”

Your last word still hung in the air as you ran out of the bedroom, into the living room. He heard you rustling around, moving through your apartment at such a fast pace that he thought if he was standing in the doorway watching you move, you would be a blur before his eyes. He imagined you were trying to get away from the situation, but he wasn’t quite sure why. He took a deep, deliberate breath, counting to himself the seconds it would take before he heard the front door click.

Twelve seconds.

He took another drag of his cigarette, wondering what he was supposed to do with himself, left alone in your apartment. He needed to shower, he still smelled like the events of last night. Yet, while it had lulled him to sleep the previous night--the thought lingering in his dreams that it had become his new favorite cologne--now the scent was making him lightheaded. But, he felt uneasy using your shower when you weren’t home, it was such a personal place that he felt he would be intruding. If he was being honest with himself, he felt like he was intruding even just sitting in your bed, so he got up, stretched and put his cigarette out in the ashtray, deciding it would be best if he just leave.

As he dressed, he couldn’t help but stare at his surroundings, wondering what it was like when he wasn't there to repel you out the front door; he wondered what your day to day life was like. He stood in the doorway to your bedroom, looking out at the living room. He saw you asleep on the couch after a long night of work, some show playing quietly on the television, your lullaby as you slept. He took a few steps and he could see your kitchen to his left. He pictured all of the meals you cooked, hoping that you had been eating well, and wondered if you had ever shared a meal with someone at your kitchen table. As he turned back around eyes cast back into the bedroom, he was presented with the thought that he had not been the first person to share your bed with you. He questioned how many had come before him, how many had been regular guests in your apartment, and how many had been like him, a one night stand to be left alone as you hurried out the door, away from the scene of the crime.

Everywhere he looked he could see the ghost of you, and he had the overwhelming sense that he was tired of thinking about your ghost. He was tired of only being left with the memory of you. He was exhausted from never being able to feel like he had won, that things in his life had settled and that he was where he meant to be. He wanted you, and he would not let you get away this time.

As he stood at your front door, hand gripping the handle tight, he promised himself that he would not let you get away, he would get you once and for all. He was meant to be with you, and he would be with you. He would do whatever it took to make that happen.

As you sit at your desk at work, you can't help but be consumed with regret at your actions from the morning. Your boss tells you that you seem out of it, unfocused. She brings you into her office, and asks if something happened. You lie and say no, knowing that if you were to tell her she would reprimand you for being so absent-minded over a boy. She tells you that if you need to go take a smoke break you're more than welcome, but you shake your hand at her, saying you were just tired from a long night. She smiles politely and tells you that she understands, but reminds you that you have an important task due by the end of the workday. You nod and go back to your desk.

So you do your best to focus, trying to get through the day, one word, one page, one assignment at a time. You’re sifting through the paper on your desk when your phone chimes. Your heart races as you reach for it, hoping to see his name on your screen. When you realize it was just a message from your mom reminding you that your father's birthday was coming up, your heart sinks, and the shame from the way you acted to Suga comes back like a brick wall.

You want to apologize to him, but you're unsure of how to do so. You acted like you hated him this morning, like he had given you some incurable disease. But in reality, you were mad with yourself. You had let yourself slip, let your strong facade give way for a moment, and although you showed your true self to Suga last night, you knew you could never be with him and you regretted the fact that you let yourself set a standard that you know no person could ever reach. Suga was the only person you wanted to be with, but he'd cheated on his girlfriend with you.

You were back and forth all day as to what you wanted to do, whether you should text him and tell him how much you really still loved him, or if you should pick yourself up and pretend like this never happened. After all, if there was another woman in his life, you couldn't ask him to leave her for you. He had never asked you to leave your boyfriends in the past, and you had never asked him to leave any of his girlfriends. You wanted so badly to be selfish, but your heart was telling you this had to be the end of it with Suga. You had to let him go. Once and for all.

When the clock struck 6:00pm, you gathered your belongings and went home, resolved to let last night lay in the past, no matter how much it broke your heart to do so.

The rest of the day, Suga spent pacing his hotel room. He was at war with himself. He was so desperate to make you his, he was telling himself he would do whatever it took. But there had been many times where he had second guessed himself. He'd been so determined when he left your apartment, that on his walk home he threw his pack of cigarettes in the first trash can he saw. He somehow stupidly thought it would be a way to show he was committed to you. He regretted that an hour later when his nerves caught up with him.

His brain had presented him with the very real possibility that his previous assumption that you had lied about meeting someone was, in fact, not a lie. That the reason you'd run out on him this morning was because you realized how much you had truly fucked up by cheating on this new person with him. He was convinced that any attempt he would make to win you over would be thwarted by the simple words, "I have a boyfriend." He was so sure, but there was one minuscule part of him that still believed it was false. And that part was fueling his fire. The tiny flame that refused to be doused.

Slowly, for the rest of the day, as the sun got hotter, so did the flame inside of him. He tried to switch his inner mantra from "She's going to reject me" to "I have a chance." His whole life, there had been so many missed chances with you. If he let this time be another one, another moment that you were able to slip through his grasp, he wondered what the purpose of life would be for him after this day. So he gathered himself, and decided he needed to see you. He needed to take the leap and just do it for once.

He quickly searched on his phone for the nearest flower shop to him. He spent a long time talking with the man behind the counter, deciding on the perfect kind of flowers to portray his feelings. He knew roses were the wrong kinds of flowers to express what he was feeling, and in the end they had decided on a mix of dahlias, peonies, with lavender mixed throughout. The man at the flower shop, Jungkook, had informed him that if he was trying to show commitment and devotion to a girl he was pining after that dahlias and peonies were the flowers to choose.

As Suga left the shop, he was taken with how much his heart had steadied, with every step he took closer to your apartment he felt his heartbeat calm, his mood lift, and his smile grow wider. All of his anxieties from earlier had disappeared. He could feel it. This time it would be real.

But, he realized he should probably not show up unannounced at your apartment. He wasn't even sure that you were home yet after work. In fact, he wasn’t even sure what time it was. The sun in the sky indicated that it was sometime mid evening, the sky having turned a warm pink as he made his way through the city. He dug his phone out of his back pocket, careful not to ruffle the bouquet and pulled up your conversation from the previous night. He reread the messages, wondering to himself what it would be like to hear you say what you'd wrote to him.

"I still love you."

He could almost hear it if he closed his eyes, but he stopped himself from lingering in his thoughts too long. He needed to focus on the present, on the now. He clicked on your contact information and pressed the phone icon as it prompted him: "Voice call" or "Facetime audio." Suga's finger hovered over his screen. He hesitated, unsure of how you would react to a phone call from him so soon. He ran through all of the possible scenarios in his mind again, but then landed on the decision that he didn't care, he needed to do this. At the very least he needed to do it to have a moment to look back on and say “At least I tried.” So, he pressed down, the dialing sounds filling his ears.

"Hello?" Your voice coming through his speaker sounded surprised. There was also a hint of anger that he couldn't place. 'Is she angry I called?' he wondered to himself.

“Suga?” you prompted him, and he realized that he hadn’t actually said anything.

“Y/N, are you busy?” He cut to the chase, not bothering with awkward pleasantries. He knew that if he let himself beat around the bush he would wind up hanging up and regretting his choice.

“No. I just got back from work.” You paused, and he was taken aback by how, real this conversation sounded. To an outsider on either side of the conversation they might think that this was just a normal chat between a boyfriend and girlfriend. Or at least a regular conversation between friends. Something he hadn’t called you for a long time.

“Why? What’s up?” You asked.

“Oh.” After everything he’d gone through in his head, he’d missed the one scenario where you asked why he was calling. “No reason,” he lied. “Just wanted to hear your voice.”

He shook his head at his own stupid lie. He was ashamed that he’d lost confidence so quickly. After so many hours of working himself up, he’d fallen so fast in the face of a question he hadn’t been prepared to answer.

He could hear your breath hitch through the phone. “O-oh.” After a few awkward beats you continued. “Okay. When do you go back?”

“Tomorrow.”

You bit down on your lip hard, chewing to keep yourself from asking the only question you wanted to ask. You yearned to see him again. You wished you could hold him in your arms one last time, feel his body against yours, taste him against your lips. But you refrained.

“Well, travel safe, I guess,” you murmured.

“Thanks, Y/N.” His voice sounded soft. You wondered where he was, what he was doing that prompted him to call you. He had never been the type to call without a reason. Not recently, at least. As you threw your phone down behind you on your bed, your eyes caught sight of the arm of his sweatshirt peeking out from the under the bed. As you reached for it, you figured it must have gotten kicked under your bed in the haste that was made to remove each other of all clothing last night.

You pulled it on over your body, relishing in how soft it felt against your skin, imagining that the fabric was his hands, brushing over your arms as he pulled you close. You wondered if this would be your new normal, if you would forever be left with this yearning inside to relive the events of the previous evening. You knew that no one would ever live up to anything he had given you, would never make you feel anything compared to the way he made you feel. And while these thoughts were running through your mind, you still wished somehow you could make it work: fix the past, and forge a new path, together.

You sighed to yourself. What you both had done last night had been a mistake, you reasoned. He said he had met someone. He had cheated, and you hadn’t stopped him, in fact, you were the one who started it after all. You should have respected his boundaries, but now he would have to go back to his girlfriend and tell her that he cheated with some nobody from his past.

You shuffled through your bedroom to your couch, tears slowly streaming down your face as your mind ran through the negatives. There was no way for you and him to work. The past was a prime example of that. Every time your paths crossed, it was as if you were looking at him from below and he at you from above. At the same place but never truly together.

You turned on the television to try and drown out your thoughts as you wrapped yourself in your favorite blanket. “At least I have this to remember him by,” you thought, as you pulled the hood up over your head. You were keen to lay on your couch for the rest of the night, letting the sounds from whatever show was on to muffle your thoughts and lull you to sleep. But after only a few minutes there was a sudden knock on your door. You turned the sound down on the television, hoping that whoever it was would assume you weren’t home and would go away.

But they didn’t seem to be fooled by your act. They knocked again, three raps on the door. You lifted yourself into a seated position, still hoping that they would go away if you just never answered.

“Please, answer the door. Answer it, Y/N. Where is she?” Came muffled behind the door, his voice sounded impatient and anxious. You stood in your spot at the sound of his voice, the blanket falling to your feet. You rushed to the door, heart pounding in your chest as you fumbled with the locks. You had to see him, had to prove that this wasn’t a dream. As cliche as it sounded in your head, you had to know that he had come back for you.

Your heart felt like it would burst up through your throat at the sight of him in your doorway. You were speechless as you stared into his eyes. The tears that had subsided from earlier returned as you fell into his arms. You heard something that sounded like plastic crumple as it thudded by your feet. Your brain briefly wondered what had made such a sound, but all that mattered to you was his warmth that surrounded you in an embrace that cured all of your broken hearts from all of the years past.

“How are you here?” Was all you managed to get out, the only words that made sense to your brain.

“Y/N, I’m here for you. I’m not leaving without you this time,” his breath fanned over your hair, a calm reassurance. “I am leaving tomorrow, but I can’t go back without knowing you’re mine.”

You lifted your face from his chest, a tingling spreading throughout you. “This is real,” you repeat in your mind, a mantra you have to keep to stop yourself from collapsing at his feet.

“Suga, I have always been yours.” A smile spread across your face, a contrast to the tears that were still raining down your cheeks.

“I know,” he whispered, as he wiped away the tears on your face. “And I’m yours too. I love you, Y/N. I have loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you in photography class freshman year. I have loved you since the first time I kissed you. And I will love you until the moon falls out of the sky.”

You chuckled, the joy now evident on your face. As you kissed him, your pain melted away, your heart beat with a new life. Your arms laced behind his neck, his hands wrapped tight around your waist, you knew: you had found the place that you wanted to be forever.

He did leave the next day, moved back for a month, but he called you every day and visited on the weekends. He owned up to the fact that he lied about having a girlfriend, and you told him the truth as well. He’d brought you flowers, which wound up slightly crumpled, but you reassured him that all that mattered was the thought. He didn’t tell you about how much thought was put into them, but he smiled as you rummaged around for anything large enough to hold the bouquet. (Which wound up being an old wine bottle you rinsed out in a hurry so they had somewhere to go).

You apologized for running out on him the morning after your first night together, and he laughed as you explained your embarrassment. He told you he’d gotten fired from his job, but that he would look for a new one, one that was much closer to you.

He also said that the only reason he had to move back was so he could finish out his lease, and that he’d already spoken to his parents about moving in with them until he could find another job and a new apartment. You told him it was unnecessary, that although you were going to take your new relationship slow, you would be more than happy to have him live in the spare bedroom in your apartment. You had been best friends for years, there was no way you would let him stay with his parents, especially when you had an empty room that you’d never gotten around to renting out. He said he would consider it once his lease was over.

After all, it felt like no time had passed; as if time had just stopped, waiting for the two of you to reunite again and pick up where you’d left off. Which is exactly what you told him, but that this time you were moving forward with the title of boyfriend and girlfriend.

“And, you know,” you paused, a laugh escaping your lips. “A lot more sex.”

He had laughed at that. A sound that lit a flame inside of you that had long been smothered. You were so elated to finally have your best friend back, and it felt like a burden had been lifted from your chest, one that you’d been holding on to for far too long.

You could see into your future together, and the questions he had asked you now became clear, the answers laid out in the years to come so apparent.

“What would have happened had we been together? Would we still be together? Would we be married? Would we have kids?”

As he held you in his arms at night, his heartbeat the lullaby that sung you to sleep, you knew that the answers to everything would be yes. All of those missed opportunities meant to serve as a purpose. You had both matured, ready for forever. Forever with each other. Suga was your perfect match, as you were his. You belonged together, just like the sun needed the moon. With him, you were home.

feedback is always welcome! please feel free to leave some here!

[artificialqueens]

Now (Trixya) - Clutterbuck

Katya’s eyes flickered to the nightstand clock again–the third time in ten minutes–as she shook out her hands to try to and bring back some blood flow. It wasn’t working.

Sometimes she felt like her nerves were closer to the surface of her skin than other peoples’, or that her brain sent messages with more force than necessary. Life was raw for Katya. It always had been. There was a time when she thought she would grow out of it and toughen up, but her sensitivity only came into sharper focus as she got older. When she found something beautiful or interesting or funny, it could send her soaring through the day. On the other hand, the pain and injustice in the world was sometimes too much to process. It didn’t just translate to angry retweets for her; it kept her up at night. She could never read or learn enough. She made mental connections so quickly and creatively that people struggled to keep up with her in conversation. It didn’t frustrate her–she had almost no capacity to feel spiteful toward other people–but it did leave her feeling lonely more often than not.

With her travel schedule being as packed as it was these days, she spent most nights chatting with friends and fans after shows about the music, the looks of the night, the other queens. Without meaning to, she always searched their eyes for something else. Sometimes those conversations led to sex, which was the only thing that felt honest enough to lean into. She could give that. She could connect there. She could funnel all of the different pieces of herself, the things she didn’t have words for, into that act. She was kind and responsible to the smallest detail when it came to sex, which protected her partners from getting hurt or feeling used.

It was a life. She managed. She had her art, which kept her busy and inspired most days. She was making so much money that she couldn’t even remember the feeling of being broke.

There was a heaviness underneath it all, but she was equipped to deal with it. She knew when to surround herself with people and when to go hiking alone. She no longer asked herself what the point of everything was, and she was determined to never unload a single ounce of the weight she carried onto someone else.

But then there was Trixie.

It was filming day for season two of Unhhh, and Trixie came back from their ten-minute break in a daze. She settled onto her chair as an assistant fidgeted with Katya’s mic, gazing intently at her phone screen and compulsively bouncing one knee. She didn’t notice how loudly her stiletto was clacking against the floor until Katya bubbled up with laughter and started swatting at her foot with a paper fan.

“Girl. Where’d you go??”

Trixie looked up, though not exactly at Katya, and turned her phone screen towards her. There was a glare, so Katya took it in her hands to get a better view. She recognized it immediately as a series of texts from the younger queen’s boyfriend:

J: So theoretically…what would you look for in a boy ring?

J: Forget I texted that. This is not a text conversation. I’m just in front of this window downtown and this thing caught my eye.

J: I’ve been thinking a lot about that movie we watched the other night. About diving in, and how life is short. Can’t wait to see you tonight.

Katya kept her eyes on the phone, face locked, as the assistant finished up with the mic and Ron began to speak:

“Okay guys, I think we’ve got pretty much everything we need. Can we just finish up with a little more of the football stuff?”

They’d been filming a sports-themed episode that day, among several others, and Trixie had started a story right before the break about playing pee-wee football as a child. It had everyone on the set doubled over with laughter, but Trixie asked for a break so that she could try and remember the exact sequence of events before telling it.

She had great comedic instincts, but she was also a perfectionist. Katya had never known someone quite so driven. In the three years since she’d met other queen, Trixie had achieved nearly every goal she set for herself. Fitness journey, check. Country album, check. Katya knew she would land on All Stars 3, and she believed whole-heartedly that she could win it. Her mind flashed back to the last time they’d sat in these chairs for filming, when Trixie had talked about becoming husband material in 2017 and locking down that part of her life. It felt abstract back then–maybe because the idea of settling down, especially as young as she was, was so foreign to Katya. But it was suddenly the most obvious thing in the world. A soft ringing started in her ears, and she felt cold in spite of the bright studio lights.

When she made the decision to look up at Trixie, it was with a huge grin. She thrust the phone back towards her and willed the next words to leave her mouth.

“You cunt! You know I don’t get it, but get yourself that white picket fence, mama.”

She watched a small smile creep onto Trixie’s face.

“It’s totally ridiculous, right? Like, it’s been four months?”

Katya could hear the giddy note in her voice. She knew it like the back of her hand. And she knew what Trixie needed from her, so she squeezed her arm and dropped from Katya into Brian mode for a moment.

“I’m happy for you.”

The next half hour was a blur. Trixie told the pee-wee story, and Katya listened. She could get away with being a little more subdued than normal since it was the end of the day and everyone was exhausted, but she still managed to laugh at all the right moments. It felt wrong to fake something that normally came so easily, but it wasn’t difficult. She wished it was more difficult.

She wished it was more difficult to avoid de-dragging with Trixie once they wrapped. She made up an excuse about needing to figure out a paperwork detail in the WOW offices upstairs and then let everyone know that she’d lock up the studio if they had left by the time she was back. She walked up through the main building and out onto the back parking lot for a cigarette. She noticed her hands shaking as she lit it, and she reminded herself to take deep breaths and feel her feet on the ground. She stood there for a few minutes, smoking and noticing the breeze on her face and a blinking neon sign across the street. Without warning, her brain flashed to the vape pen she’d halfheartedly bought a couple of months earlier to try and quit smoking. She remembered Trixie’s face light up the first time she saw it, and how she found little ways to encourage her in the pursuit each time she saw her. By the time she took her last drag, she felt tears rolling down her cheeks. She knew better than to fight it, so she waited it out and promised herself that this would be the only time.

The next two weeks sent their fans into a tailspin. Katya decided to double down on the public Trixya declarations, wrapping up their storyline and cashing in on years of tension. She pined over Trixie, Trixie wouldn’t have any of it, they were still the best of friends. That was the story, and that was the foundation she needed to set to protect herself for whatever was going to happen next. They hadn’t spoken in real life since filming, one of the longest stretches they’d ever gone without contact. Trixie had sent a text that night:

T: Are we good? I waited for a while downstairs. Wanna get dinner?

K: Duh. And I would, but I’m exhausted. I forgot about some weird thing in my contract, so I have to come back to WOW tomorrow morning and figure it out with legal.

T: Okay, well let me know if you want to go to Laila’s show with me and Courtney this weekend. Season Two is going to be sickening YASS MAMA BOOTS THE HOUSE DOWN.

K: Mother, we’re breakaway staaaars again.

T: You’re done.

When the Valentine’s Day video surfaced of Katya discussing her onstage at the gig, Trixie didn’t reach out. She never did. That was understood. Katya pushed it further at the next gig, for reasons she couldn’t explain. Nothing. But when she got in touch with Milk to get face to face with Trixie at their hotel in Syracuse for the benefit show, she had never felt more sure of something in her life.

10:38. It was a college show, and Milk guessed that they’d be back by 11. She would wait.

[steveramsdale]

The What Day Is It Blog 9.15

Hello there, dear reader. Before the world changed and we were all locked in, I did not do very much other than go to work and visit the supermarket. I did, occasionally, go to cafes. I then had to fashion a blog, every Saturday, to report on this exotic life of mine. Now, I have the same blogging requirements with even less to put into it. I will do it, even if I have to write about what I would have done had the world been different than it is. So, here goes. I have much more time on my hands and much less to do with it - much less to blog about but this week is not my imaginary blog. When we’ve all finished Netflix, I’ll have to go down the fantasy route. Somehow, this is a longer one!

Unsurprisingly, there is some repetition in this blog. I have been adding thoughts and events as they come to me/happen during the week, so please forgive any repetition (hesitation or deviation). When editing, this morning (Saturday?) I did not take them out. It is also a bit ‘scatter gun’.

Last week was satsuma peeling week. I have to report that I failed at the third satsuma attempt, this week. I have bought more satsumas, so I will try to keep improving.

There were also buses driving around making announcements - presumably about staying inside. These were followed by patrol cars, also making announcements.

I went to the bin, yes again, and the stairwell smelt extremely strongly of chlorine. I think it was Sunday. The moment I opened the door, I could smell it. I assume that someone has been going in to apartment blocks to ’sterilize’ them. The handrails up the stairs had been cleaned. There were also cloth covers on the door handles. I think these had some sort of solution on them. Tashkent is now taking this seriously.

Success again with one satsuma, although with the new pack of satsumas I bought, many of them will allow the smallest piece of peel to break off early in the process. This is proving quite stressful.

I decided to go to the shop on the day the government announced car travel was to be banned the next day. It was unbelievably busy. I regretted going in. I suppose many families decided that a ‘big shop’ was needed while they could fill the boot. Some people, who were bulk buying things like milk, were asked to put some back. A manager-type person was calling out advice, like “we will be open tomorrow”!

The loud-speaker bus went passed twice today.

Monday - a National Guard patrol car went passed making announcements. )I have taken to sitting by the window instead of on the sofa, so I see all of these things. Our old house had a balcony, that would have been a great place to sit - I miss NBU and not for the first time. At least I can get some some light and watch the world go by, even though not much of the world is going by.) No more than 10 minutes later the bus went by with a much longer announcement and, I think, an explanation of the sirens it was also sounding.

I have also started listening to BBC FiveLive. Often this is just background noise. I now understand why it is like ‘company’. I did wonder about the point of the weather forecast. The sports news also seems to just be about which events are cancelled.

The food delivery service I sometimes use is still working. However, the prices have gone up dramatically. Before the new world began, the delivery charge would be about 80p or £1.20. Now it is between £3.50 and £10. (Editor’s note: I think I was wrong about this. Looking more carefully, I think that this is a minimum order rather than the delivery charge.)

On Monday, ‘work’ started again. I decided I would have BBC 5 Live on in the background, as mentioned. This has been quite pleasant. On Tuesday, I was quite busy sorting out children’s problems with a new program we were starting to use and setting work. At about one thirty (pm), I was aware of the presenter saying “after 9 o’clock this morning....’. And I thought, it can’t only be 9 o’clock..... Fortunately, it was not eighty fifty-something for me. You have caught up a bit, by the way. You are only four hours behind. In four more years, you will have caught up. I will (probably) not still be here (in Tashkent, not earth.)

On Sunday this week, I took to sitting by the window(as, sort of, mentioned) This gives me fresh air and sunlight (obviously). On Monday morning, I noticed (because it was making lots of noise) a myna bird in the tree close to my window. I was eating toast, so I broke off some crust and threw it onto the little roof under my window. The bird did not come and get it. I noticed on Tuesday morning that the crust had gone. I don’t know who took it. I’m guessing it was that bird or one of its mates.

On Wednesday, I put out some stale bread. There were soon a couple of mynas on it. In Uzbek tradition, you are not supposed to put bread in the bin, anyway. So I’ll do this from now on. I sent Freddie a video of the birds eating the bread. I think he liked it but asked why I wasn’t on the video. Later, I sent a video of a private performance, by me, of Ba Ba Black Sheep. I have also done The Wheels On The Bus.

We still have buses and cars driving around telling us to say in!

I won the school virtual pub quiz. Go me. If I say that there were only two teams, that makes it less impressive. If I say that there were three people on the other team and I was alone, that makes it a bit more impressive again. Go me.

We are using a conferencing program, to meet students, called Zoom, which I think everybody in the world is using- and may have some security issues. (In the edit, I added two commas which cleared up a wonderful ambiguity. Can you guess what the ambiguity was?) I set up a meeting and sent out invitations to the students’ emails. One boy responded with a “Maybe”. Maybe? What else does he have to do? He was late.

On one of the days-like-every-other-day, I had to move my van. (Is anybody else finding it really difficult to remember what day it is? Does it even matter what day it is? It’s a day closer to the end of this thing.) Anyway, I got a call from the Housing Manager at work. He said he’d had a call from the landlord. He (the landlord) said he’d had a call from the police. They’d said, ‘can that van be moved?’ I said yes. So, I can no longer see the van from my window. If you remember, I had moved it because of somebody (the local kids, I think) messing about and actually opening the doors. I am not so worried about this now as, at the moment, they are not outside, in little gangs, playing.

Also this week, there is something different that I have noticed. Sounds. I have noticed noises and smells that I never noticed before. I can hear other people’s TVs. I have smelled cooking and cigarette smoke. I have never experienced this, in this flat, before the last week or so. I wondered about the change. I have recently started having windows open most of the time again but I don’t think this is the cause. I had all of the windows open back in August/September and did not notice this. I may just not have noticed it, but I don’t think that is the case either. Perhaps it’s just that people are at home more and so are making more noise. Perhaps people are cooking more as all of the restaurants are closed. Whatever the reason, it’s quite comforting to know that people are around, going about their lives.

On Friday, while going down to the bins (of course), I noticed the strong bleach smell again. It made me smile for a couple of reasons. It smelled like the swimming baths. Going to the swimming baths brings great memories of childhood and old friends. It also means we’re a bit safer (probably). I guess the cleaners are local government employees, perhaps diverted from street cleaning. It also seems that the directive to wear face masks might actually be good advice. We are all learning.

On a (almost) final note, I have decided that I really need to stay alive. I have things to do and dying from this thing would make that difficult. So, I’m staying in (apart from careful shopping trips), washing my hands every five minutes and shunning society. It’s nothing personal.

I have also noticed a couple more tautologies/unnecessary prepositions this week. They are ‘combine together’ and ‘originate from’. The first made me think about ‘mix together’. I almost convinced myself that this was ok, almost. I imagined the instruction “mix together sugar and flour”. Without the ‘together’ someone might mix some flour (ie swirl it around with a spoon) then, separately, mix around some sugar and believe that they have followed the instructions. I decided that the ‘together’ is still unnecessary. I am sure, in these difficult times, the world is grateful to have me making rulings on these important issues.

Finally, I have to say, even with all of its faults, this is the best world I’ve ever lived on. We need to start taking better care of it, ourselves and ‘the least of these’.

Bye - stay in and stay well.

[ecotone99]

[MF] Smoking Crack and Shooting Dope

Original article here: https://ad-venturing.com/2019/03/25/smoking-crack-and-shooting-dope/ ​ After graduating high school, I didn’t know what to do with my life. I didn’t get good enough grades to go to a four-year college, I didn’t want to join the armed forces and the job market was shot. I worked part-time as a lifeguard at a local pool but ten hours a week wasn’t’ enough to cut it. I graduated high school in the spring of 2009, in the middle of one of the worse economic downturns the United States has ever seen. I decided community college was the path I would take. Get the gen-eds’ out of the way then two or three years down the road figure out what the hell I would do with my life. And to be honest, I had no fucking clue what I wanted to do. I was still immature at that age. Spent most of my free time at drinking with my best friend Worm at this dad’s house. Worm’s dad was a bad alcoholic and would let us drink and party with him. It was a fun time. Never a dull moment. Never a sober one either. When I wasn’t hanging out with Worm I was either partying with other people or pissing my parents off. I had a rebellious spirit at that age and my parents didn’t take kindly to that. In general, three thirds of my free time were spent in Worm’s room drinking. Worm’s room was dingy. It was a small room with a bed, a computer and a couple of chairs. There was a bookshelf on the wall filled with Stephen King books and a few movies. Filled ash trays lined the computer desk along with empty bottles of malt liquor and the occasional Busch Light his dad left. Bottles of piss were shoved under the bed and a pile of dirty clothes were stacked at the end of the bed. Empty packs of cigarettes were thrown on the floor. Worm and I would spend our free time drinking malt liquor, smoking weed and fucking around on the internet. When the weather was nice we would have a fire and party outside. There was always music playing in the background. When I decided it was time to pass out I would sleep in Worm’s bed. Worm would stay up due to his insomnia and sleep when I was at community college. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and he would be so far gone listening to music or watching a movie. It was crazy to me how little he slept. We were both single at the time and spent a lot of time messaging random chicks on the internet. Most of the time I think they thought we were weird but occasionally some would want to meet up with us. Both Worm and I were broke at the time so we couldn’t take girls on nice dates or anything like that. Instead we just took them back to Worm’s room to hang out. Thinking about that in hindsight, taking nice girls back to Worm’s room was probably the wrong move. If I was in their place I don’t think I would have been too impressed given the empty beer cans, 666 marks etched everywhere, and ash trays stuffed with cheap cigarettes. Though, we did hide the piss bottles. Most of the time when we brought chicks back to Worm’s room, we would smoke weed then awkwardly try to make conversations. Ninety percent of the time we wouldn’t hear from them again. One night we were scrolling through Myspace and found a chick named Nancy. Nancy was a punk rock chick and listened to the same music we did. I decided to reach out the her and see if she wanted to chill. She responded back quickly telling me she was at a music club in a town 45 minutes away. She told us she was bored and if we came to pick her up she would chill with us. We decided to make the drive to pick Nancy up. Back then gas prices were around $4.20/gallon and working ten hours a week barley paid for my gas, let alone anything else I wanted to do. Worm didn’t have a job and resorted to pawning random stuff in his room to buy weed. This was an expensive trip for two broke kids. After hitting a bong, we took a drive out of nowhere town to another nowhere town to meet up with a pretty girl. We blasted Rancid and sung along to “California Sun”. Eventually we made it to the music club. I texted Nancy and she told me she will be out in ten minutes. Worm and I decided to smoke a cigarette and wait outside of the car. When the cigarette was halfway done Nancy came out of the club. Nancy was short with jet black hair. She was wearing black tights, a black Leftover Crack hoodie and had tattoos all over her body. Her eyes stood out to me as unusually big and blue. She probably weighted around 100 pounds and was half my height. Nancy isn’t the kind of girl you bring home to your parents for dinner. I could tell that about her the first time I met her. She seemed sketchy. I guess anyone who listened to Leftover Crack and had tattoos on their neck were sketchy, including myself and Worm. When she talked to us the first time she sounded high. Had a slow way of talking where words were slurred. When you looked into her eyes a blank cold soul looked back at you. Later I found out she was loaded on Xanax and a handful of other pills. Nancy asked us if her 14-year-old cousin could hitch a ride back with her and chill with us for a while. I told her that is fine, and she went back into the club to grab her. We then headed back to Worm’s place to chill. On the ride home Nancy told us that Rancid was her favorite band and she was glad we were listening to them. Worm lit up a joint and we smoked it. Nancy and her cousin didn’t smoke with us. Ten miles from Worm’s house we got pulled over for running a red light. “Shit”, I thought. I was certain we were fucked. We had just smoked a joint 30 minutes ago, and I was freaking out. Nancy was also loaded given the way she talked. She told us she was high on Xanax and some other pills when the cop was checking out my license plate. Luckily the lady cop told us to be more careful with our driving and let us go. I thought Nancy could have been a decent chick to go on a date or two with, but I found out quickly that I didn’t want to mess around with her. After we got back to Worm’s room she started talking about all these dudes she was fucking at the same time and the drugs her brother was doing. We asked her if we could film her brother shooting heroin and she laughed saying she would have to ask him. After that night Worm told me we had to be careful around this chick. I agreed with him. She is the type of girl the law follows, and you would catch something from. We hung out with her a couple more times then stopped talking to her after her boyfriend got pissed she was hanging out with us. ******* It had been around 6-7 months since the last time I talked to Nancy. It was the summer of 2010. Haiti was just devasted with a massive earthquake the previous winter and in 11 days President Obama would declare an end to combat operations in Iraq. I still spent the majority of my free-time with Worm. In the fall I would meet my future wife at community college. My life would be forever changed. I was sitting in my room and got a ping on my Facebook from Nancy. Myspace was officially dead, and society transformed into the new social media dimension. She posted on my wall asking how I was doing. I told her I was good and asked her how she was. She told me that she started to do heroin but was clean for now. I knew her older brother was a junkie and wasn’t too surprised that she followed his path. She then told me she broke up with her boyfriend and that I should come hang out with her and her brother at a summer festival the city puts on every year. It was my birthday and I wanted to get drunk, so I decided to go. I told my parents I was going to stay at Worm’s house that night. For some reason they never cared that I stayed there even though they knew his dad was a bad drunk and it was a poor environment for a kid with angst. But I’m not complaining, it gave me more of an opportunity to get fucked up. At the summer festival I wore plaid yellow and red pants a punk kid who listened to “The Causalities” would wear. One leg of the pants was yellow and the other was red. I donned a “Leftover Crack” shirt that said, “Kill Cops”. I just caught a misdemeanor in the spring and had to serve a day in jail in a few days. I looked and acted like I was a pre-convict with no future. I was ready to get fucked up and forget about my troubles with other punk rock kids. I met Nancy and her brother on a bridge over the river. The bridge was cloaked in trees that made it look like a tunnel into a different world. The river was flowing from rains that summer and it was around 90 degrees out. Nancy was holding hands with a punk rock dude I skated with a couple of times. I knew he did hard drugs and was certain Nancy was either back on them or will be back on them soon. Nancy’s brother, Sid, was as short and skinny as Nancy. He had a cut-off t-shirt showing off his full sleeves, tattoos on his neck and a buzz-cut hair cut with an 8-10-inch rat tail. Sid and I instantly hit it off and became friends. We walked to the nearest liquor store and Sid bought some 40s for us. I wasn’t 21 at the time and still needed someone to buy me booze. We spent the rest of the night drinking beers on the bridge and talking about music we liked. After the festival was over we walked back to Sid and Nancy’s parents house to crash. I was drunk off my ass walking back, and cops were all over the place. We took a back way to their home, so we didn’t get stopped by the cops. If they stopped us, I would have gone to jail given my age and due to the fact, I was on probation. When we got back to Sid and Nancy’s place we went to their basement where Sid sleeps. Nancy and her boyfriend followed us but left after her boyfriend started to get dope sick. I passed out a few hours later. A few days later Worm and I were hanging out looking for someone to buy us beer. Worm’s dad was out of town and the fridge was empty. I told Worm we could see if Nancy’s brother would buy us some beer. Worm hadn’t met Sid yet and I only hung out with him on the bridge during the summer festival. I texted Sid and he told us he would buy us beer only if I would drive him to the city to pick up drugs. Worm and I didn’t think twice. We thought driving to the city to pick up hard drugs would be an adventure and something new to experience. We were adrenaline junkies looking for the next journey and decided to get some hard drugs. We picked up Sid and Nancy at their parents’ house. Sid and Nancy were ecstatic and ready to get loaded. They planned to pick up some heroin and crack with the forty bucks they had. We blasted punk rock on my shitty stereo on the way to the city. Our first stop was to pick up heroin. We picked it up in one of the worst areas in the city. This was my first time driving through the hood. The house we stopped at was run down. Siding was falling off the house. Rusted out cars lined the driveway. Beer cans covered the stone porch. A guy was sitting on the lawn in a long-chair smoking a cigarette. He looked like he was about to pass out, holding the cigarette to his lips for dear life. You could tell he was a seasoned junkie. Sid began telling Nancy he didn’t want to go grab the heroin. He said the black guys in there made fun of him for his hair and tight pants and made him feel uncomfortable. Nancy said she would grab the heroin. It seemed like Nancy took forever. I was paranoid and kept checking the rearview mirrors to look for cops. I started to feel like this was a bad idea but kept my cool in front of everyone. Eventually Nancy walked out the door. After she got in the car she told us the guy selling her the heroin told her to come into the bathroom to get it. She followed him, and he pulled out his dick telling her to suck it. She said she grabbed the heroin and walked out. Sid got upset and told her he didn’t like her going in there. I thought Sid was a coward for putting his little sister in that situation. Before grabbing the crack, we headed to a McDonalds, so they could shoot it up. I asked them if they could wait to get home to do it, but they refused. When we got to the McDonalds Worm and I kept lookout while they prepared to shoot up. To prepare the heroin Sid pulled out a spoon and put the heroin on it with some water and a piece of a cotton ball. Nancy pulled the needles out of her bra where she kept them for safekeeping. After sucking the heroin up in the needles, they tied their arms off with the safety belts in my car. Worm and I both watched with fascination. I think they both thought it was weird how interested we were in watching them shoot up. To Worm and I, it was a new experience, a different type of adventure. It was exciting. Immediately after they shot up they changed. Became a type of zombie with slurred speech and eyes that looked like they were falling asleep. Nancy got way higher than Sid. I could barely understand what she was talking about. She wined and bitched about life. Sid was still coherent and was ready to buy crack. Buying crack was a better setup than the heroin. To get crack you drove your car into a car wash the dealers owned. You would then give the dealers your money and they would give you the address of where to meet them in ten minutes. We met the dealers guy in a sketchy van down an alley. Sid went out and grabbed the crack. Before we knew it, we were back on the highway. After getting off the highway Sid and Nancy lit up a crack rock at a red light. Crack smoked filled the car. I think Worm and I got a contact high, but it could have been all psychological. After they were done smoking crack a cop pulled up next to us at the red light. My knuckles turned white gripping the steering wheel. When the red light turned green the cop went one way and I went the other way. A breeze of relief ran through me. Eventually we made it back to the nowhere town in nowhere land. Sid bought Worm and I some beer and we dropped Sid and Nancy back off at their home. It was quite the adventure to get the few beers we could afford. Adrenaline ran through our blood the rest of the night. I haven’t talked to Sid or Nancy in years. The last time I checked Sid was clean and has a kid. Nancy is in and out of jail and hops from shitty boyfriend to shitty boyfriend. Nancy is still a junkie and will likely die one. A very short time in my life was spent with Sid and Nancy. I created some interesting stories with them that I will likely write about in the future. Feel free to follow “Ad-Venturing” to keep up with my writing. Until next time,

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[andya-j]

Of the first six postcards from Natalie, I only have three. Mom was able to intercept the other three while I was at school or, after June, working a shift at the Tractor Supply Store. I wouldn’t even have known about them except that she made sure I knew, saved them until I got home before she ripped them into the smallest pieces her stiff-knuckled fingers could manage and set them on fire in her ashtray. She was angry at Nat but punishing me was the closest she could get now. I’d manage to get a few pieces out of the garbage just singed after she went to sleep, every time, but Nat’s handwriting was so big and loopy that I’d only get a few letters or a short word, an is or an I or a too. I wish now that I’d kept them and tried to piece them back together like a scientist on one of those cop shows, but at the time it didn’t seem like a good idea to defy Mom straight-up like that. So I stared at them until I had taken everything I could from the letters, and from the pictures on the front, and then tucked them back in the trash and washed my hands. The three I did get, when Mom was the one working late, I saved of course. I hid them inside of a copy of Little Women that someone had given me as a present and I’d never read. The first one was from not long after Nat left. It was from Ohio, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it was all things are so good and so in love and talked about how Keith had gotten—stolen, since she didn’t say bought—her a silver ring with onyx chips that made a turtle. She drew a cartoon turtle at the bottom and signed it Love You Always Little Mandy, From Nat. The second one was from the Big Bend Family Campground in Michigan. They’d been there a while, I guess, because she complained about having to send the same card twice. She said there weren’t that many to choose from. Also I figured out that they’d picked up a puppy somewhere along the way because she was proud of having almost taught “Strider” not to hump on people even though Keith would laugh and egg it on. We’re a real family now! she said, and the bottom of my throat squeezed for a moment, but I couldn’t be sad that she was happy. That was what someone like Mom did. And she signed it Love You Always Little Mandy again and turned the a in Mandy into a heart, and I felt better. The third one was from Sleeping Bear Dunes in Wisconsin. I could see that something had happened even before I read the words, because Nat’s handwriting was still big and slanted but the letters looked thinner and shakier. I hid in the bathroom with the shower running to read it, in case Mom came home and I was too distracted to hear her. Keith left, it said without a greeting. He did it the worst way, Mandy. I passed out partying last night and when I woke up I was under an old down tree in the woods and the fire was dead and he was gone. He took the car and Strider and my bag—everything. I woke up colder than I’ve ever been. I don’t know what I’ll do now. I just feel sick and sad. She’d underlined ‘sick’ and ‘sad’ with wavery lines. She signed this one Love You Miss You Little Mandy. I left the bathroom and hid the card with the others, and then I went back to the bathroom to throw up. I couldn’t tell why. I just knew that when I thought of Keith leaving her all alone to wake up under a dead tree full of bugs and rot, everything on my body prickled and I felt as though the whole world was full of nothing but humiliation the color of pencil lead. Part of me wanted to find Keith and punch him in the face while I screamed at the top of my lungs, and the other part of me knew that no matter how hard I punched or how loud I screamed it would never make this not have happened, would never again change the balance of the universe into one where people treated my beautiful big sister the way she deserved. Those two parts went in opposite directions and made my lunch come up. The next thing I did, after I drank a glass of water to take away the taste, was call Tractor Supply and quit with no notice. I might have had some thought that Nat would come home now, and that Mom might not let her in—although of course Mom would let her in, how else would she get her back to punish? The real reason was that I knew that I couldn’t let Mom get her hands on any more of the cards. I made it through dinner as though everything was normal, and went to bed early. It was only when I was curled up on my side in the dark, trying not to think about Nat waking up all alone and confused, that I thought instead to wonder how she’d gotten a postcard and a stamp if Keith had taken all her stuff with him. She must be ok, I told myself, if she got a postcard and a stamp. I finally told Mom I’d quit a week or so later. She made a lot of remarks about how I was lazy and spoiled and worthless, but she was pleased to have me around all the time. I’d known she would be. She could offload all the cooking onto me now, and all the laundry and the yard work too. Plus I think when Nat left it gave her the fear that I might leave someday too, but I couldn’t do that without any money coming in. I couldn’t do much without any money coming in. Just wait for the mail. One day I went to the library and used the computer to look up pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes, to see if I could stare hard enough and see where Na might be, but I was antsy about Mom coming home early so I didn’t stay long. Before I left, though, I printed out a bunch of pictures—the ones that looked most like the postcard—for a dime a page. I hung them in my room on the back of the door. I stared at them long enough that I could see them in the dark. I get used to any new normal quickly, that’s a talent that I’ve always had. In a few weeks my life had always been about waiting for postcards, and in a few weeks more those postcards had always never come—even though the first two postcards that Mom burned had come within a few days of each other and of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I cooked dinners for Mom and packed lunches too—she’d skip lunch if left to her own devices and she was skinny enough as it was—and checked the mail three times a day, even though I always knew when it actually came by the neighbors’ huskies. I looked at the classifieds in the Pennysaver every week, but everything that claimed MAKE MONEY FROM HOME seemed too good to be true. Twice Mark called, drunk and sorry that he’d dumped me before he went in the Marines, and once Nat’s best friend Katie called from college to ask if we’d heard from her. Mom said no and hung up before I could get to the extension. The leaves fell off the maples and I raked them up, but then I decided I didn’t want the colors to go away so instead of bagging them I left them in a pile and let the wind spread them back out across the lawn. I expected Mom to yell about that, but she didn’t. She sat on the porch and looked at the carpet of leaves and when I came out to smoke a cigarette with her, she said, “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Just as pretty as anything on those damn cards.” We’d both been not mentioning postcards to each other at all, except when she had one in her hands to tear up. I froze. In July I’d have silently disagreed, thought what Nat would have said out loud, that the pine woods and the lake shore and any place that wasn’t here was a thousand times prettier by definition. Even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But I’d stared at Sleeping Bear Dunes and thought of being cold and lonely long enough that the leaves looked much more comfortable. “I wish there was a return address on one of those postcards,” Mom went on, after another drag. “We could send that girl a picture back. Remind her that she used to like it here.” I’d wished there were a return address on the postcards too, so now I didn’t know what to think. After that, Mom had burned out or thawed out or something and she was more like the Mom I thought I remembered from before Nat left, and from before she and Nat would butt heads every day over every little thing, and from before Dad took off before that. But at that point we’d be talking little kid memories, so I wasn’t quite sure. Definitely not sure enough that I showed her the next card from Nat when it finally showed up. She’d doubled back as far as Ohio; the card had bright red covered bridge on it and the caption “Greetings From Troy.” But if she’d thought about coming all the way home, she didn’t mention it. Instead she just said Hi Mandy! I met the neatest girl. She’s just like Laura from Little House, two long braids and a deerskin jacket that she made herself. Her boyfriend ditched her, too, so we’re going to travel around together for a while. She’s been on the road a lot and she knows how to get along. I guess we’ll head west. Love you miss you little Mandy. Your Nat. P.S. Her name is Beth. The loop was back in her letters and that made me happy, even if she was heading away again. A girl with a homemade buckskin jacket sounded exactly like the kind of person Nat would find, too, out of a crowd of a thousand people in regular t-shirts and cotton blouses. Maybe they’d get out west somewhere in California and like it there so much they’d invite me to come visit. Maybe they’d get another dog along the way. Mom managed to pick up a friend too, a guy who worked at Wende with her, not a guard but one of the guys who maintained the HVAC and electrical stuff. I kind of liked him, or at least I was glad he wasn’t a guard because I never liked the guards she dated. When she first brought him home he stuck out his hand and said “You must be Amanda” and he didn’t clutch too tight, like it was a contest, and he didn’t try to pull me in to get a feel. So that was alright. “I’m Greg.” You could tell that his sport jacket wasn’t something that he wore so often, in fact it reminded me of an old picture I had of Dad at one of my aunts’ weddings, looking awkward with his elbows sticking out. When Mom didn’t come home that night, I wasn’t surprised. Mom never had Greg spend the night at our place, but once a week or so he’d come for dinner. She’d cook those nights so it was nice for me, and maybe that helped me along, but anyway I got to like him more and more. Just like that first handshake, he always treated me like a grown-up person, which hardly anyone ever did. And he made Mom a lot more relaxed, easier to live with. She began, just a tiny bit, to treat me like a grown-up person too. Like for instance, one night after we’d all had lasagna, her favorite fancy thing to make, and brownies with cream cheese swirls on top, she opened up the bottle of wine Greg brought and she poured one for him and for herself and then she poured one for me too. I’d started clearing the plates but she gestured the wine bottle at me and said “Sit down. There’s no rush.” So I did, and I sipped the wine. It wasn’t like I’d never had a drink before—I’d teethed with Old Crow on my gums, and Nat had been giving me sips of her Genny Cream Ale since I was in middle school—but sitting there drinking out of the good glasses made everything shift sideways a little. I felt giddy right away, even though the wine was kind of sour. The wind kicked up, and the bird feeder rattled against the window. “Winter soon,” Greg said, and he looked over at Mom in a way that meant there had been some prior conversation. She nodded. “Well, she’s a grown-ass woman, or that’s what she yelled anyway.” “I’m sure she found someplace safe to lay up.” “I’m sure she did.” Mom nodded deeper than she needed to, and took a bigger sip of wine. “Really, Joanne, you have to let go the worry. I’m sure she’s a smart kid. Amanda’s got a good head on her shoulders already, and she’s two years younger.” Greg made eye contact with me and for a moment I was worried that Mom was going to flare up, but she knew she had no reason to be jealous, not with Greg. “Amanda’s always been the steady one.” Mom nudged me with an elbow. “I know I’m not supposed to compare you kids, but you know it’s true, Mandy. You were born responsible. Nat had a wild streak.” I didn’t like that she said ‘had’ but I didn’t say anything. “But you’re right, Greg. She’s smart. They’re both of them smart girls, they take after me that way, thank God. Both of them straight A’s in school, and both of them know how to take care of themselves. I made sure of that.” “She taught me how to split firewood when Dad first left,” I threw in, because I felt like I had to talk eventually. “Got me a little tiny hatchet and put me on kindling. She and Nat talked me up like I’d saved us all from freezing to death. It was years before I realized that it must have taken way longer to watch me do it than it would have to do it herself.” Mom chuckled, and poured more wine all around. “We made a go of it, didn’t we? I think he expected us to all fall apart without him, but we managed.” “That must have been hard,” Greg said. “Oh in those days, everyone thought it was the hardest thing. All on the news, the divorce rates and the single mothers. Old women looking at me in Ames with so much pity. As though men haven’t been running off since forever.” Mom set the bottle down a little hard. “No offense.” “None taken,” Greg said as though it were a line on TV. “Natalie’s going to be fine, Joanne.” “I’m sure she will be,” Mom said. And then, as though it had just come to her, “We’ll see her in the spring, I bet. She’ll be sick of it by then.” I thought of Nat sick and sad with underlines and was quiet again. I wasn’t going to say anything to Mom, but I knew we wouldn’t see her in the spring. Snow fell before the next postcard came, but near Buffalo that’s not saying much, is it? This girl named Tammy is travelling with us now, this one said. She says she’s spent a lot of time in WNY, she’s even been to Mumford! She was trying to get home to Florida but she changed her mind and decided to go west with us. Then we found a lost kid in the road, a little black boy maybe two years old with no clothes on but a pair of underpants. I wanted to help him but he wouldn’t talk to me and he ran away, way faster than I would have thought a toddler could. Beth says more parents lose their kids out here than you’d think, and there’s nothing I can do. She looked upset about it though. The words at the end were cramped, like she’d been trying to squeeze in as much as she could, and the Love you always Little Mandy ran into the address part of the card. I flipped it over and looked at the picture, a steamboat on the Mississippi River. No word if it was snowing where she was, but snow never fell on steamboats, did it? Just in case, I bought her a pair of purple knit gloves with bright green turtles on them for Christmas, and a giant Toblerone. I put three maple leaves I’d saved from the front yard in the package too; one red, one orange, and a yellow one that still had some green on it when it fell. I wrapped it up and I put it under my bed, just in case. Of course it turned out to be just Mom and I on Christmas morning. Greg was with his sister and brother-in-law and their kids, though he’d promised to come by for dinner later. He’d helped us set up a tree that was taller than either of us, but that just meant that presents for two looked even lonelier underneath. The gloves Mom got me were black leather, with purple trim and cashmere on the inside. When I put them on they were a little small, but they felt like they would stretch. She got me boots, too, which I could tell from the box were from the consignment shop but they were pretty much like new. And a purse with a bird worked on it in leather. “I love these,” I said, sliding my hands back into the gloves to feel the cashmere again. “Thank you.” “Thank you,” Mom said to me, too fiercely, and then hugged me. “I know I went a bit crazy there when Nat left.” “I’m sure Nat didn’t mean all the things she said either.” Mom shook her head. “I wasn’t fair to you either. You’ve been a rock, Mandy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She squeezed me tighter, just for a second, and then let go. “Even if you do leave someday, I know at least you’d keep writing.” I thought about telling her about the postcards I’d hidden, but I wasn’t sure it was safe, and then the moment was gone. I don’t think it would have made any difference in the end, anyway. The next postcard proved that I shouldn’t have worried about snow. Nat was smart, like Mom had said. She was in Texas now, down on the Gulf coast. The card had a sea turtle on it and I smiled when I thought how happy she must have been when she found that. Her letters were loopy again too, although smaller now since she seemed to have realized she could write more that way. Finally met a cute guy out here on the road, she wrote, and of course, my luck, he’s a major faggot. Sweet kid though. Named Alejandro. He said there were like 30 other kids travelling with him but they all upped and disappeared on him a while back. So he’ll probably stick with us for a while. I could picture Nat giggling and sighing, what a waste, probably trying to pet his hair—not being mean about it but just typical thoughtless Nat. I hoped she didn’t pester this kid to death, but at the same time, thinking of her giggling was the best, so too bad for Alejandro. Beth says people disappear on the road a lot, the main thing is that we all have to stick together and not talk to cops, or even let them see us if we can help it. But sometimes you can’t, of course. Mostly never tell them your name. Never Tell a Cop Your Name, Little Mandy! was her sign-off. “Like I would,” I said out loud, and put the card with the others. Spring came early that year, and Greg had his motorcycle on the road by the middle of March. Lots of people had their motorcycles out early and lots of other people weren’t looking out for them. The only thing that made Greg’s accident different was that it was a hit-and-run. There was a long hunt for a dented car, a guilty conscience, or something, but they never found anyone. The only comfort was that Mom and Greg both died pretty much instantly. I just put my head down, the way I did when Dad and Nat left, and at first I thought that maybe it wasn’t so different being alone with the postcards all the time than it had been to be alone with them most of the time. But it was. Now that I had nothing I had to do and no one to do it for, I read over all the postcards two, three times a day and they were starting to get bent and soft at the corners, and that wasn’t ok. Besides, the part of my brain that wasn’t numb knew that Mom’s insurance money wouldn’t last that long even if I never felt like eating again. My old manager at Tractor Supply had always liked me, and felt bad for me now. She argued up the chain that I’d always been reliable until the one day I hadn’t, and I think she put that on Mom, although I didn’t ask. Mom had been known pretty well around town for her temper. Anyway, whatever she said worked, and I had a job again, although back down on the first rung being managed by kids two and three years younger than me. It wasn’t so bad. I swept up spilled birdseed, I put the Carhart jackets back in order, I worked the register. And every day I had a single moment of turning into the driveway and opening up the mailbox, instead of listening for the huskies all afternoon. The next postcard arrived about a week after I started working again, although it felt like the years and years that it should have taken the whole world to change. She’d made it to California, the land of dreams where we always talked about going, the place that we’d seen on TV. The postcard showed a Navy ship in blue water and said San Diego. Weirdest thing, it said on the back. Not long after we got here I saw a woman who looked just like Mom along the road. Just like her, Mandy. I stared at her and she stared at me but she turned away without saying anything. That wouldn’t be like Mom, would it? Not if she had something to say. And she was with some guy I didn’t recognize. So it probably wasn’t Mom. But I hope everything is ok at home . . . I don’t miss it, but I do miss you. Nat hadn’t written a date, she never did. But the postmark was from the day after Mom’s funeral. And it had just gotten here now. I was starting to think that maybe time worked a whole different way on the road Nat was on. But that was a crazy way to think, and I did worry a little bit, now that I had regular everyday people to compare myself to, that I might be going crazy. People did, after grief, in empty houses. One might pile beer bottles to the ceiling and another one might fill the barn and shed and house with cats that reeked of piss and someone else might get Jesus in a hard and peculiar way, but it was all the same crazy underneath. I didn’t want to go there. I’d only read the postcards every other day, I told myself. Or once a week. They’d last a lot longer if I only read them once a week, and I would too. I took every hour they would give me at Tractor Supply. That’s why I was working the closing shift the night Keith came through at five minutes to eight. He was lugging a fifty-pound bag of dog food and I think by the time he realized whose register he was at it was too late to walk away without dropping it. I didn’t let on that I recognized him at first. It was almost sort of believable that I wouldn’t—he’d let his dyed black hair grow back out to a dirty blond, and he looked a lot older now that he had when he and Nat left. Not quite a year ago. I hadn’t thought of it in terms of an actual date. Time worked weird here too. Only after I’d rung up the Alpo and taken his money, while I was handing him his receipt, did I say, “That wasn’t cool what you did to Nat.” I said it as quiet and calm as I could. I didn’t want the girls at the other registers to think I was making a scene like Mom would have done. He dropped the receipt and ran out without the dog food. I spent the rest of the night worrying that Strider was hungry. Nat wouldn’t have wanted that. He came back for the dog food in the morning when I wasn’t there, and I didn’t expect to see him again. But he did turn up, the next week when I had the same closing shift again. He grabbed one of the caramel nut logs we sold near the register, obviously just as an excuse. I never knew anyone to actually eat those things. “I didn’t do it,” he said as he handed me a five-dollar bill. “It was the guy who sold us the pills, I didn’t know.” I knew words were coming out of his mouth and he was shaking his head, but I didn’t really listen. “But you left her. You shouldn’t have left her out there.” He shook his head harder, and his greasy hair swung against his cheeks. “There was nothing I could do, Mandy. What could I do? I’m as sorry about it as anybody, what could I do? I couldn’t do any good.” He kept saying variations on that same sentence until I pushed the nut log into his hand. Then he looked down at it like he’d never seen one before and walked out. When I went out to the parking lot at nine I found the red nut log wrapper torn into a rough heart shape and stuck underneath my windshield wiper. I pulled it out and dropped it in a garbage can. I got the idea that I was supposed to take it home and keep it forever, maybe tuck it into a book as well, and now I knew how Mom felt to not do that. The crazy part of me wondered if Nat would know, somehow, in her next postcard but it was nothing like that. It was San Francisco, two men in cowboy hats and sunglasses and no shirts, a rude slogan that if Mom had been around I would have pretended not to get. I got Alejandro a hat just like that, cause he’s from Texas. Got, so stole, not bought. Good old Nat. He told Beth she should let him wear her suede jacket too, but of course she won’t. I love San Francisco, Mandy. I wish we could stay. The only bad thing that’s happened here is that Tammy disappeared on us, a couple of days ago. Maybe she told a cop her name? Anyway, that upset Beth of course and she says we have to keep moving, head north. I’m not sure why. But going to Seattle would be neat I guess. I’m not sure why that jogged my memory, it wasn’t like I read the news or watched it. But it had been on the front page, so maybe I’d just seen it out of the corner of my eye, or heard on the radio of a car with an open window, or some ladies had gossiped about it in line at McDonald’s while I was getting coffee. Nice old ladies like the saddest, grossest, and most violent crime stories to talk over when they’re out shopping. I tried to tell myself that this was it, for sure I was crazy, but I went to the library anyway and got the Buffalo News from two weeks ago Monday. Tammy Jordan had been dug up from a field a bit outside Honeoye Falls before I was born, and been Honey Doe all my life, a vague presence who only mattered when a bored tv reporter would try to stir up new leads. Until two weeks ago, when she’d been identified, finally, by an old woman who got around to watching an old taped episode of Unsolved Mysteries and saw that Honey Doe’s computer-reconstructed image had the uneven teeth and favorite t-shirt of her runaway niece. We Know Her Name, the headline said. What was left of her body now would be exhumed and sent back to be buried in the proper place, the waiting slot where she belonged, under the proper label. I was angry that they weren’t even going to ask her if she wanted to go back, until I realized how stupid that sounded. I sat in the library, not wanting to be alone, until it closed. Then I went home and stared at the dull, now curled-up pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes still pinned to the back of my door. He’d left Nat somewhere all alone in those dark pines. And she’d found a way to walk out, to keep writing to me anyway. She loved me and missed me. I didn’t even have to put my head down to go on this time. It was already down. I didn’t quit Tractor Supply or cry in the shower or forget to eat, since I’d done all those things already. The only real change in my habits was that I stopped turning the lights on when I was at home. I knew where everything was and there was no one else who needed to see. Besides, the days were getting longer now. I was a little bit afraid that figuring it out would mean she wouldn’t write to me any more. That seemed like what would happen in a fairy tale. But thinking like that was crazy. And another postcard came the very next week, from Klamath Falls. A lake with a mountain poking up above it, covered in snow. Something’s going on, Mandy. We came up on this whole group of women . . . mostly women and young girls, some kids, some guys. Some of them knew Beth, and acted like they’d been expecting her. She was introducing me and Alejandro to everyone. Everyone’s excited. It’s like we’re on our way to a festival or something. There’s a woman who seems to be in charge, an Indian woman named Anna, and she has everyone organized like you wouldn’t believe and heading north so fast I barely had time to mail this. I’m gonna find out what’s going on as soon as I can and write you again, I bet this is gonna be good! I miss you so much, Little Mandy. I kept going to work, but people asked if I’d been sleeping. They could tell. The phone rang and I didn’t answer it. I felt as though I didn’t need even coffee, although somehow I found myself drinking more of it than ever, because I needed to walk out of Tractor Supply and into the air as often as I could get away with. I started bumming cigarettes and going on smoke breaks too, but people on smoke break wanted to talk and that was hard when I was filled with something no one could talk to me about except Nat. Only one thing mattered and that was launching through the days until I got to the next postcard. It reached me just in time. It was from Seattle, weirdly old-timey, black and white with horses in the street and men with hats, some kind of official-looking building. All the light parts, the sky between the buildings and the paler grey of the sidewalks, were filled with upside-down letters, printing much tighter than anything I’d ever seen from Nat before, spillover from a back crammed margin to margin with tiny letters—well, tiny for Nat, maybe not that tiny—except for the outlined box with my address and the tiny square for the stamp. They’d put a sticker with a barcode over part of it but I was able to peel it off, carefully, without pulling up any of the ink beneath. We’re going up the mountain. There are so many of us that soon they won’t be able to ignore us any more, Nat. Just the Indian girls—just from Vancouver and British Columbia alone—would be an army, and then so many from California, so many from Ohio, so many from Michigan, we’re from everywhere, every single state. Each of us alone they ignore, it was one bad pill or one bad man, we got in one wrong car, whatever. But together, if you don’t pull us apart and look at us one by one but all together, you see it’s not that. It’s much bigger. I didn’t realize myself until just now, Little Mandy. I thought it was my fault. I’m glad I can tell you so you don’t have to go around thinking that. So like I said, here I had to turn the card over, we’re going up the mountain. When we Come down, it will be in a way They can’t ignore. And until then we’ll be safe. I wish there were a way you could get here, it said across the broadest part of the sky, without you having to come by this road. I Love You and Miss You, Little Mandy. I had just put it into my copy of Little Women with the others when the doorbell rang. If they’d waited even half an hour more I’d have been crying and they might have won. But when the police were standing outside, all I could think was Never Tell a Cop Your Name, Little Mandy! and I didn’t. I nodded, and I even turned on the lights so they wouldn’t think I was weird, but that’s not the same. And when they held out the ring with the onyx chips like a turtle and asked about Nat, I said, no, my sister is fine. I just got a postcard from her.

Of the first six postcards from Natalie, I only have three. Mom was able to intercept the other three while I was at school or, after June, working a shift at the Tractor Supply Store. I wouldn’t even have known about them except that she made sure I knew, saved them until I got home before she ripped them into the smallest pieces her stiff-knuckled fingers could manage and set them on fire in her ashtray. She was angry at Nat but punishing me was the closest she could get now. I’d manage to get a few pieces out of the garbage just singed after she went to sleep, every time, but Nat’s handwriting was so big and loopy that I’d only get a few letters or a short word, an is or an I or a too. I wish now that I’d kept them and tried to piece them back together like a scientist on one of those cop shows, but at the time it didn’t seem like a good idea to defy Mom straight-up like that. So I stared at them until I had taken everything I could from the letters, and from the pictures on the front, and then tucked them back in the trash and washed my hands. The three I did get, when Mom was the one working late, I saved of course. I hid them inside of a copy of Little Women that someone had given me as a present and I’d never read. The first one was from not long after Nat left. It was from Ohio, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it was all things are so good and so in love and talked about how Keith had gotten—stolen, since she didn’t say bought—her a silver ring with onyx chips that made a turtle. She drew a cartoon turtle at the bottom and signed it Love You Always Little Mandy, From Nat. The second one was from the Big Bend Family Campground in Michigan. They’d been there a while, I guess, because she complained about having to send the same card twice. She said there weren’t that many to choose from. Also I figured out that they’d picked up a puppy somewhere along the way because she was proud of having almost taught “Strider” not to hump on people even though Keith would laugh and egg it on. We’re a real family now! she said, and the bottom of my throat squeezed for a moment, but I couldn’t be sad that she was happy. That was what someone like Mom did. And she signed it Love You Always Little Mandy again and turned the a in Mandy into a heart, and I felt better. The third one was from Sleeping Bear Dunes in Wisconsin. I could see that something had happened even before I read the words, because Nat’s handwriting was still big and slanted but the letters looked thinner and shakier. I hid in the bathroom with the shower running to read it, in case Mom came home and I was too distracted to hear her. Keith left, it said without a greeting. He did it the worst way, Mandy. I passed out partying last night and when I woke up I was under an old down tree in the woods and the fire was dead and he was gone. He took the car and Strider and my bag—everything. I woke up colder than I’ve ever been. I don’t know what I’ll do now. I just feel sick and sad. She’d underlined ‘sick’ and ‘sad’ with wavery lines. She signed this one Love You Miss You Little Mandy. I left the bathroom and hid the card with the others, and then I went back to the bathroom to throw up. I couldn’t tell why. I just knew that when I thought of Keith leaving her all alone to wake up under a dead tree full of bugs and rot, everything on my body prickled and I felt as though the whole world was full of nothing but humiliation the color of pencil lead. Part of me wanted to find Keith and punch him in the face while I screamed at the top of my lungs, and the other part of me knew that no matter how hard I punched or how loud I screamed it would never make this not have happened, would never again change the balance of the universe into one where people treated my beautiful big sister the way she deserved. Those two parts went in opposite directions and made my lunch come up. The next thing I did, after I drank a glass of water to take away the taste, was call Tractor Supply and quit with no notice. I might have had some thought that Nat would come home now, and that Mom might not let her in—although of course Mom would let her in, how else would she get her back to punish? The real reason was that I knew that I couldn’t let Mom get her hands on any more of the cards. I made it through dinner as though everything was normal, and went to bed early. It was only when I was curled up on my side in the dark, trying not to think about Nat waking up all alone and confused, that I thought instead to wonder how she’d gotten a postcard and a stamp if Keith had taken all her stuff with him. She must be ok, I told myself, if she got a postcard and a stamp. I finally told Mom I’d quit a week or so later. She made a lot of remarks about how I was lazy and spoiled and worthless, but she was pleased to have me around all the time. I’d known she would be. She could offload all the cooking onto me now, and all the laundry and the yard work too. Plus I think when Nat left it gave her the fear that I might leave someday too, but I couldn’t do that without any money coming in. I couldn’t do much without any money coming in. Just wait for the mail. One day I went to the library and used the computer to look up pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes, to see if I could stare hard enough and see where Na might be, but I was antsy about Mom coming home early so I didn’t stay long. Before I left, though, I printed out a bunch of pictures—the ones that looked most like the postcard—for a dime a page. I hung them in my room on the back of the door. I stared at them long enough that I could see them in the dark. I get used to any new normal quickly, that’s a talent that I’ve always had. In a few weeks my life had always been about waiting for postcards, and in a few weeks more those postcards had always never come—even though the first two postcards that Mom burned had come within a few days of each other and of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I cooked dinners for Mom and packed lunches too—she’d skip lunch if left to her own devices and she was skinny enough as it was—and checked the mail three times a day, even though I always knew when it actually came by the neighbors’ huskies. I looked at the classifieds in the Pennysaver every week, but everything that claimed MAKE MONEY FROM HOME seemed too good to be true. Twice Mark called, drunk and sorry that he’d dumped me before he went in the Marines, and once Nat’s best friend Katie called from college to ask if we’d heard from her. Mom said no and hung up before I could get to the extension. The leaves fell off the maples and I raked them up, but then I decided I didn’t want the colors to go away so instead of bagging them I left them in a pile and let the wind spread them back out across the lawn. I expected Mom to yell about that, but she didn’t. She sat on the porch and looked at the carpet of leaves and when I came out to smoke a cigarette with her, she said, “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Just as pretty as anything on those damn cards.” We’d both been not mentioning postcards to each other at all, except when she had one in her hands to tear up. I froze. In July I’d have silently disagreed, thought what Nat would have said out loud, that the pine woods and the lake shore and any place that wasn’t here was a thousand times prettier by definition. Even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But I’d stared at Sleeping Bear Dunes and thought of being cold and lonely long enough that the leaves looked much more comfortable. “I wish there was a return address on one of those postcards,” Mom went on, after another drag. “We could send that girl a picture back. Remind her that she used to like it here.” I’d wished there were a return address on the postcards too, so now I didn’t know what to think. After that, Mom had burned out or thawed out or something and she was more like the Mom I thought I remembered from before Nat left, and from before she and Nat would butt heads every day over every little thing, and from before Dad took off before that. But at that point we’d be talking little kid memories, so I wasn’t quite sure. Definitely not sure enough that I showed her the next card from Nat when it finally showed up. She’d doubled back as far as Ohio; the card had bright red covered bridge on it and the caption “Greetings From Troy.” But if she’d thought about coming all the way home, she didn’t mention it. Instead she just said Hi Mandy! I met the neatest girl. She’s just like Laura from Little House, two long braids and a deerskin jacket that she made herself. Her boyfriend ditched her, too, so we’re going to travel around together for a while. She’s been on the road a lot and she knows how to get along. I guess we’ll head west. Love you miss you little Mandy. Your Nat. P.S. Her name is Beth. The loop was back in her letters and that made me happy, even if she was heading away again. A girl with a homemade buckskin jacket sounded exactly like the kind of person Nat would find, too, out of a crowd of a thousand people in regular t-shirts and cotton blouses. Maybe they’d get out west somewhere in California and like it there so much they’d invite me to come visit. Maybe they’d get another dog along the way. Mom managed to pick up a friend too, a guy who worked at Wende with her, not a guard but one of the guys who maintained the HVAC and electrical stuff. I kind of liked him, or at least I was glad he wasn’t a guard because I never liked the guards she dated. When she first brought him home he stuck out his hand and said “You must be Amanda” and he didn’t clutch too tight, like it was a contest, and he didn’t try to pull me in to get a feel. So that was alright. “I’m Greg.” You could tell that his sport jacket wasn’t something that he wore so often, in fact it reminded me of an old picture I had of Dad at one of my aunts’ weddings, looking awkward with his elbows sticking out. When Mom didn’t come home that night, I wasn’t surprised. Mom never had Greg spend the night at our place, but once a week or so he’d come for dinner. She’d cook those nights so it was nice for me, and maybe that helped me along, but anyway I got to like him more and more. Just like that first handshake, he always treated me like a grown-up person, which hardly anyone ever did. And he made Mom a lot more relaxed, easier to live with. She began, just a tiny bit, to treat me like a grown-up person too. Like for instance, one night after we’d all had lasagna, her favorite fancy thing to make, and brownies with cream cheese swirls on top, she opened up the bottle of wine Greg brought and she poured one for him and for herself and then she poured one for me too. I’d started clearing the plates but she gestured the wine bottle at me and said “Sit down. There’s no rush.” So I did, and I sipped the wine. It wasn’t like I’d never had a drink before—I’d teethed with Old Crow on my gums, and Nat had been giving me sips of her Genny Cream Ale since I was in middle school—but sitting there drinking out of the good glasses made everything shift sideways a little. I felt giddy right away, even though the wine was kind of sour. The wind kicked up, and the bird feeder rattled against the window. “Winter soon,” Greg said, and he looked over at Mom in a way that meant there had been some prior conversation. She nodded. “Well, she’s a grown-ass woman, or that’s what she yelled anyway.” “I’m sure she found someplace safe to lay up.” “I’m sure she did.” Mom nodded deeper than she needed to, and took a bigger sip of wine. “Really, Joanne, you have to let go the worry. I’m sure she’s a smart kid. Amanda’s got a good head on her shoulders already, and she’s two years younger.” Greg made eye contact with me and for a moment I was worried that Mom was going to flare up, but she knew she had no reason to be jealous, not with Greg. “Amanda’s always been the steady one.” Mom nudged me with an elbow. “I know I’m not supposed to compare you kids, but you know it’s true, Mandy. You were born responsible. Nat had a wild streak.” I didn’t like that she said ‘had’ but I didn’t say anything. “But you’re right, Greg. She’s smart. They’re both of them smart girls, they take after me that way, thank God. Both of them straight A’s in school, and both of them know how to take care of themselves. I made sure of that.” “She taught me how to split firewood when Dad first left,” I threw in, because I felt like I had to talk eventually. “Got me a little tiny hatchet and put me on kindling. She and Nat talked me up like I’d saved us all from freezing to death. It was years before I realized that it must have taken way longer to watch me do it than it would have to do it herself.” Mom chuckled, and poured more wine all around. “We made a go of it, didn’t we? I think he expected us to all fall apart without him, but we managed.” “That must have been hard,” Greg said. “Oh in those days, everyone thought it was the hardest thing. All on the news, the divorce rates and the single mothers. Old women looking at me in Ames with so much pity. As though men haven’t been running off since forever.” Mom set the bottle down a little hard. “No offense.” “None taken,” Greg said as though it were a line on TV. “Natalie’s going to be fine, Joanne.” “I’m sure she will be,” Mom said. And then, as though it had just come to her, “We’ll see her in the spring, I bet. She’ll be sick of it by then.” I thought of Nat sick and sad with underlines and was quiet again. I wasn’t going to say anything to Mom, but I knew we wouldn’t see her in the spring. Snow fell before the next postcard came, but near Buffalo that’s not saying much, is it? This girl named Tammy is travelling with us now, this one said. She says she’s spent a lot of time in WNY, she’s even been to Mumford! She was trying to get home to Florida but she changed her mind and decided to go west with us. Then we found a lost kid in the road, a little black boy maybe two years old with no clothes on but a pair of underpants. I wanted to help him but he wouldn’t talk to me and he ran away, way faster than I would have thought a toddler could. Beth says more parents lose their kids out here than you’d think, and there’s nothing I can do. She looked upset about it though. The words at the end were cramped, like she’d been trying to squeeze in as much as she could, and the Love you always Little Mandy ran into the address part of the card. I flipped it over and looked at the picture, a steamboat on the Mississippi River. No word if it was snowing where she was, but snow never fell on steamboats, did it? Just in case, I bought her a pair of purple knit gloves with bright green turtles on them for Christmas, and a giant Toblerone. I put three maple leaves I’d saved from the front yard in the package too; one red, one orange, and a yellow one that still had some green on it when it fell. I wrapped it up and I put it under my bed, just in case. Of course it turned out to be just Mom and I on Christmas morning. Greg was with his sister and brother-in-law and their kids, though he’d promised to come by for dinner later. He’d helped us set up a tree that was taller than either of us, but that just meant that presents for two looked even lonelier underneath. The gloves Mom got me were black leather, with purple trim and cashmere on the inside. When I put them on they were a little small, but they felt like they would stretch. She got me boots, too, which I could tell from the box were from the consignment shop but they were pretty much like new. And a purse with a bird worked on it in leather. “I love these,” I said, sliding my hands back into the gloves to feel the cashmere again. “Thank you.” “Thank you,” Mom said to me, too fiercely, and then hugged me. “I know I went a bit crazy there when Nat left.” “I’m sure Nat didn’t mean all the things she said either.” Mom shook her head. “I wasn’t fair to you either. You’ve been a rock, Mandy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She squeezed me tighter, just for a second, and then let go. “Even if you do leave someday, I know at least you’d keep writing.” I thought about telling her about the postcards I’d hidden, but I wasn’t sure it was safe, and then the moment was gone. I don’t think it would have made any difference in the end, anyway. The next postcard proved that I shouldn’t have worried about snow. Nat was smart, like Mom had said. She was in Texas now, down on the Gulf coast. The card had a sea turtle on it and I smiled when I thought how happy she must have been when she found that. Her letters were loopy again too, although smaller now since she seemed to have realized she could write more that way. Finally met a cute guy out here on the road, she wrote, and of course, my luck, he’s a major faggot. Sweet kid though. Named Alejandro. He said there were like 30 other kids travelling with him but they all upped and disappeared on him a while back. So he’ll probably stick with us for a while. I could picture Nat giggling and sighing, what a waste, probably trying to pet his hair—not being mean about it but just typical thoughtless Nat. I hoped she didn’t pester this kid to death, but at the same time, thinking of her giggling was the best, so too bad for Alejandro. Beth says people disappear on the road a lot, the main thing is that we all have to stick together and not talk to cops, or even let them see us if we can help it. But sometimes you can’t, of course. Mostly never tell them your name. Never Tell a Cop Your Name, Little Mandy! was her sign-off. “Like I would,” I said out loud, and put the card with the others. Spring came early that year, and Greg had his motorcycle on the road by the middle of March. Lots of people had their motorcycles out early and lots of other people weren’t looking out for them. The only thing that made Greg’s accident different was that it was a hit-and-run. There was a long hunt for a dented car, a guilty conscience, or something, but they never found anyone. The only comfort was that Mom and Greg both died pretty much instantly. I just put my head down, the way I did when Dad and Nat left, and at first I thought that maybe it wasn’t so different being alone with the postcards all the time than it had been to be alone with them most of the time. But it was. Now that I had nothing I had to do and no one to do it for, I read over all the postcards two, three times a day and they were starting to get bent and soft at the corners, and that wasn’t ok. Besides, the part of my brain that wasn’t numb knew that Mom’s insurance money wouldn’t last that long even if I never felt like eating again. My old manager at Tractor Supply had always liked me, and felt bad for me now. She argued up the chain that I’d always been reliable until the one day I hadn’t, and I think she put that on Mom, although I didn’t ask. Mom had been known pretty well around town for her temper. Anyway, whatever she said worked, and I had a job again, although back down on the first rung being managed by kids two and three years younger than me. It wasn’t so bad. I swept up spilled birdseed, I put the Carhart jackets back in order, I worked the register. And every day I had a single moment of turning into the driveway and opening up the mailbox, instead of listening for the huskies all afternoon. The next postcard arrived about a week after I started working again, although it felt like the years and years that it should have taken the whole world to change. She’d made it to California, the land of dreams where we always talked about going, the place that we’d seen on TV. The postcard showed a Navy ship in blue water and said San Diego. Weirdest thing, it said on the back. Not long after we got here I saw a woman who looked just like Mom along the road. Just like her, Mandy. I stared at her and she stared at me but she turned away without saying anything. That wouldn’t be like Mom, would it? Not if she had something to say. And she was with some guy I didn’t recognize. So it probably wasn’t Mom. But I hope everything is ok at home . . . I don’t miss it, but I do miss you. Nat hadn’t written a date, she never did. But the postmark was from the day after Mom’s funeral. And it had just gotten here now. I was starting to think that maybe time worked a whole different way on the road Nat was on. But that was a crazy way to think, and I did worry a little bit, now that I had regular everyday people to compare myself to, that I might be going crazy. People did, after grief, in empty houses. One might pile beer bottles to the ceiling and another one might fill the barn and shed and house with cats that reeked of piss and someone else might get Jesus in a hard and peculiar way, but it was all the same crazy underneath. I didn’t want to go there. I’d only read the postcards every other day, I told myself. Or once a week. They’d last a lot longer if I only read them once a week, and I would too. I took every hour they would give me at Tractor Supply. That’s why I was working the closing shift the night Keith came through at five minutes to eight. He was lugging a fifty-pound bag of dog food and I think by the time he realized whose register he was at it was too late to walk away without dropping it. I didn’t let on that I recognized him at first. It was almost sort of believable that I wouldn’t—he’d let his dyed black hair grow back out to a dirty blond, and he looked a lot older now that he had when he and Nat left. Not quite a year ago. I hadn’t thought of it in terms of an actual date. Time worked weird here too. Only after I’d rung up the Alpo and taken his money, while I was handing him his receipt, did I say, “That wasn’t cool what you did to Nat.” I said it as quiet and calm as I could. I didn’t want the girls at the other registers to think I was making a scene like Mom would have done. He dropped the receipt and ran out without the dog food. I spent the rest of the night worrying that Strider was hungry. Nat wouldn’t have wanted that. He came back for the dog food in the morning when I wasn’t there, and I didn’t expect to see him again. But he did turn up, the next week when I had the same closing shift again. He grabbed one of the caramel nut logs we sold near the register, obviously just as an excuse. I never knew anyone to actually eat those things. “I didn’t do it,” he said as he handed me a five-dollar bill. “It was the guy who sold us the pills, I didn’t know.” I knew words were coming out of his mouth and he was shaking his head, but I didn’t really listen. “But you left her. You shouldn’t have left her out there.” He shook his head harder, and his greasy hair swung against his cheeks. “There was nothing I could do, Mandy. What could I do? I’m as sorry about it as anybody, what could I do? I couldn’t do any good.” He kept saying variations on that same sentence until I pushed the nut log into his hand. Then he looked down at it like he’d never seen one before and walked out. When I went out to the parking lot at nine I found the red nut log wrapper torn into a rough heart shape and stuck underneath my windshield wiper. I pulled it out and dropped it in a garbage can. I got the idea that I was supposed to take it home and keep it forever, maybe tuck it into a book as well, and now I knew how Mom felt to not do that. The crazy part of me wondered if Nat would know, somehow, in her next postcard but it was nothing like that. It was San Francisco, two men in cowboy hats and sunglasses and no shirts, a rude slogan that if Mom had been around I would have pretended not to get. I got Alejandro a hat just like that, cause he’s from Texas. Got, so stole, not bought. Good old Nat. He told Beth she should let him wear her suede jacket too, but of course she won’t. I love San Francisco, Mandy. I wish we could stay. The only bad thing that’s happened here is that Tammy disappeared on us, a couple of days ago. Maybe she told a cop her name? Anyway, that upset Beth of course and she says we have to keep moving, head north. I’m not sure why. But going to Seattle would be neat I guess. I’m not sure why that jogged my memory, it wasn’t like I read the news or watched it. But it had been on the front page, so maybe I’d just seen it out of the corner of my eye, or heard on the radio of a car with an open window, or some ladies had gossiped about it in line at McDonald’s while I was getting coffee. Nice old ladies like the saddest, grossest, and most violent crime stories to talk over when they’re out shopping. I tried to tell myself that this was it, for sure I was crazy, but I went to the library anyway and got the Buffalo News from two weeks ago Monday. Tammy Jordan had been dug up from a field a bit outside Honeoye Falls before I was born, and been Honey Doe all my life, a vague presence who only mattered when a bored tv reporter would try to stir up new leads. Until two weeks ago, when she’d been identified, finally, by an old woman who got around to watching an old taped episode of Unsolved Mysteries and saw that Honey Doe’s computer-reconstructed image had the uneven teeth and favorite t-shirt of her runaway niece. We Know Her Name, the headline said. What was left of her body now would be exhumed and sent back to be buried in the proper place, the waiting slot where she belonged, under the proper label. I was angry that they weren’t even going to ask her if she wanted to go back, until I realized how stupid that sounded. I sat in the library, not wanting to be alone, until it closed. Then I went home and stared at the dull, now curled-up pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes still pinned to the back of my door. He’d left Nat somewhere all alone in those dark pines. And she’d found a way to walk out, to keep writing to me anyway. She loved me and missed me. I didn’t even have to put my head down to go on this time. It was already down. I didn’t quit Tractor Supply or cry in the shower or forget to eat, since I’d done all those things already. The only real change in my habits was that I stopped turning the lights on when I was at home. I knew where everything was and there was no one else who needed to see. Besides, the days were getting longer now. I was a little bit afraid that figuring it out would mean she wouldn’t write to me any more. That seemed like what would happen in a fairy tale. But thinking like that was crazy. And another postcard came the very next week, from Klamath Falls. A lake with a mountain poking up above it, covered in snow. Something’s going on, Mandy. We came up on this whole group of women . . . mostly women and young girls, some kids, some guys. Some of them knew Beth, and acted like they’d been expecting her. She was introducing me and Alejandro to everyone. Everyone’s excited. It’s like we’re on our way to a festival or something. There’s a woman who seems to be in charge, an Indian woman named Anna, and she has everyone organized like you wouldn’t believe and heading north so fast I barely had time to mail this. I’m gonna find out what’s going on as soon as I can and write you again, I bet this is gonna be good! I miss you so much, Little Mandy. I kept going to work, but people asked if I’d been sleeping. They could tell. The phone rang and I didn’t answer it. I felt as though I didn’t need even coffee, although somehow I found myself drinking more of it than ever, because I needed to walk out of Tractor Supply and into the air as often as I could get away with. I started bumming cigarettes and going on smoke breaks too, but people on smoke break wanted to talk and that was hard when I was filled with something no one could talk to me about except Nat. Only one thing mattered and that was launching through the days until I got to the next postcard. It reached me just in time. It was from Seattle, weirdly old-timey, black and white with horses in the street and men with hats, some kind of official-looking building. All the light parts, the sky between the buildings and the paler grey of the sidewalks, were filled with upside-down letters, printing much tighter than anything I’d ever seen from Nat before, spillover from a back crammed margin to margin with tiny letters—well, tiny for Nat, maybe not that tiny—except for the outlined box with my address and the tiny square for the stamp. They’d put a sticker with a barcode over part of it but I was able to peel it off, carefully, without pulling up any of the ink beneath. We’re going up the mountain. There are so many of us that soon they won’t be able to ignore us any more, Nat. Just the Indian girls—just from Vancouver and British Columbia alone—would be an army, and then so many from California, so many from Ohio, so many from Michigan, we’re from everywhere, every single state. Each of us alone they ignore, it was one bad pill or one bad man, we got in one wrong car, whatever. But together, if you don’t pull us apart and look at us one by one but all together, you see it’s not that. It’s much bigger. I didn’t realize myself until just now, Little Mandy. I thought it was my fault. I’m glad I can tell you so you don’t have to go around thinking that. So like I said, here I had to turn the card over, we’re going up the mountain. When we Come down, it will be in a way They can’t ignore. And until then we’ll be safe. I wish there were a way you could get here, it said across the broadest part of the sky, without you having to come by this road. I Love You and Miss You, Little Mandy. I had just put it into my copy of Little Women with the others when the doorbell rang. If they’d waited even half an hour more I’d have been crying and they might have won. But when the police were standing outside, all I could think was Never Tell a Cop Your Name, Little Mandy! and I didn’t. I nodded, and I even turned on the lights so they wouldn’t think I was weird, but that’s not the same. And when they held out the ring with the onyx chips like a turtle and asked about Nat, I said, no, my sister is fine. I just got a postcard from her.

From Horror photos & videos July 13, 2018 at 08:00PM

[kristinhelgamagnusdottir]

My first week in India !

So, I’ve packed all my stuff into a locket closet in Manhattan, said goodbye to the rooftop bars and have arrived in Bangalore, India !

I live on the campus of Infosys in Bangalore, and it’s like living in a botanical garden, this is my home (and office) garden for the next 10 weeks:

I arrived on a Saturday morning (super jet lagged since it’s 9.5 hour time difference), 2. June 2018, and spent the Saturday wandering around campus and admiring this place. The weather here is perfect (had heard horror stories about the heat in India and the monsoon rain season). It rains usually in the evenings but the days are beautiful and very nice to sit outside.

In the afternoon I found another intern wandering around, so we wandered together and found all the activities inside the campus. We went bowling, but there is also a swimming pool, tennis courts, badminton courts, ping pong, billiard and other activities.

Then I was added to a Whatsapp group for interns and after falling asleep at 5pm on Saturday (and waking up at 1am on Sunday) I joined a few interns (who had been here for 2 weeks) for a walk around the campus and inside the city.

We live in a area in Bangalore called Electronic City. We took a walk outside of outside of campus and, well... pictures say more than a thousand words. We also took a cab to the city and walked around Cubbon park and around the shopping area there.

The first thing you will notice in Bangalore is the traffic. There are cars and motorbikes everywhere and there seems to be no order, everybody honks constantly and I’m sure all the people on the motorbikes must have some kind of a death wish.

The second thing that comes to mind is my favorite: wild cows ! Everywhere you can find wild cows, just roaming around, hanging out, eating trash, chillin’ at the middle of heavy traffic road and blocking all traffic. Super calm. They are adorable. (There are also a lot of wild dogs which are not as adorable and we saw a wild goat standing on a motor cycle, I’m still sad I didn’t get a picture of that)

As you may know, cows are holy in hinduism. So the cows just get to hang out wherever.

The third thing you will notice is the cutest thing - the head nod. Indians nod their head to the left and right. First I thought it was super confusing since this nod can mean around 100 different things. Usually it means yes. Sometimes it means maybe. I’m still getting confused and just hoping that I’m guessing the meaning correctly.

Enough of that for now...

On Monday it was first day of work. So now I can cover what I’m doing here :)

I’m doing a internship at one of the major Indian tech companies, Infosys. The program is called Instep and my internship is 10 weeks. My project is on “Internet of Me” where I will be a full stack developer creating a recommendation system.

The first day was not exactly workday, but an induction day. We had a tour around campus and then lectures about the program and the company. We also had to go do more administrative work like opening a bank account, getting a sim card, laptop etc.

But after the day everything was set up !

On Tuesday I met my co-mentor. My actual mentor is located in Bhubaneswar in the east of India, but his coworker is more than ready to help me with anything. We talked about the project and I saw my office and the next few days at the office I spent looking at what the intern from last year had been coding. I wish I could show you photos from my office but it is forbidden.

That same evening I took a 2 hour taxi to the city (only 20 km but the traffic here is insane during rush hour) with three other interns - to go to the movies and see a Bollywood movie! I watched a few Bollywood movies before I came here but I was excited to experience it in a movie theatre.

A few things are different from the movie theaters back home:

1. You walk through a metal gate and body search - the purpose is not only for weapons but to find the candy you thought you could smuggle in! The girls had bought doughnuts to take home after the movies, but had to eat it by the entrance of the movie theatre because the doughnuts were not allowed in.

2. Before the movie starts, guests are asked to stand up from their seats while India’s national anthem is played.

3. In the case that there is any scene where someone smokes a cigarette in the movie, then you will see a horribly scary clip of cancer before the movie starts (and during the smoking scene there will be a big text in the corner saying that smoking kills).

But the movie was good (although I was still so jet lagged that I slept through most of it). I can’t wait to learn some Bollywood dances.

[khmagnusdottir-blog]

My first week in India !

So, I’ve packed all my stuff into a locket closet in Manhattan, said goodbye to the rooftop bars and have arrived in Bangalore, India !

(hmm I can’t control the size of the photos on this blog so I guess you just have to see huge photos)

So this is gonna be my new home for the next 10 weeks:

(Still can’t believe I live in a hotel room, it’s gonna be hard to go back to cleaning my room after this, and yeah I get two beds woho)

But the best thing about my new home is my garden. (Ok, maybe not “my garden” but eyhh...)

I live on the campus of Infosys in Bangalore, and it’s like living in a botanical garden !

So I arrived on a Saturday morning (super jet lagged since it’s 9.5 hour time difference), 2. June 2018, and spent the Saturday wandering around campus and admiring this place. The weather here is perfect (had heard horror stories about the heat in India and the monsoon rain season). It rains usually in the evenings but the days are beautiful and very nice to sit outside.

In the afternoon I found another lost intern wandering, so we wandered together and found all the activities inside the campus. We went bowling, but there is also a swimming pool, tennis courts, badminton courts, ping pong, billiard and other activities.

Then I was added to a Whatsapp group for interns and after falling asleep at 5pm on Saturday (and waking up at 1am on Sunday) I joined a few interns (who had been here for 2 weeks) for a walk around the campus and inside the city.

We live in a area in Bangalore called Electronic City. We took a walk outside of outside of campus and, well... pictures say more than a thousand words. We also took a cab to the city and walked around Cubbon park and around the shopping area there.

The first thing you will notice in Bangalore is the traffic. There are cars and motorbikes everywhere and there seems to be no order, everybody honks constantly and I’m sure all the people on the motorbikes must have some kind of a death wish.

Another thing you will notice is that if you go to the park or somewhere outside of the main business area, you will feel like a celebrity.

At one point in the park, after we agreed to one picture, we had a group of 10 people all taking selfies with us at once and a line forming to get photos. 

The third thing that comes to mind is my favorite: wild cows ! Everywhere you can find wild cows, just roaming around, hanging out, eating trash, chillin’ at the middle of heavy traffic road and blocking all traffic. Super calm. They are adorable. (There are also a lot of wild dogs which are not as adorable and we saw a wild goat standing on a motor cycle, I’m still sad I didn’t get a picture of that)

As you may know, then cows are holy in hinduism. So the cows just get to hang out wherever.

 This guy was just taking out the trash, no problem:

Enough of that for now...

On Monday it was first day of work. So now I can cover what I’m doing here :)

I’m doing a internship at one of the major Indian tech companies, Infosys. The program is called Instep and my internship is 10 weeks. My project is on “Internet of Me” where I will be a full stack developer creating a recommendation system. I will probably go more into the details in another blog (also the project is still being defined in details so I don’t want to say too much).

The first day was not exactly workday, but an induction day. We had a tour around campus and then lectures about the program and the company. We also had to go do more administrative work like opening a bank account, getting a sim card, laptop etc.

But after the day everything was set up !

On Tuesday I met my co-mentor. My actual mentor is located in Bhubaneswar in the east of India, but his coworker is more than ready to help me with anything. We talked about the project and I saw my office and the next few days at the office I spent looking at what the intern from last year had been coding. I wish I could show you photos from my office but it is forbidden.

That same evening I took a 2 hour taxi to the city (only 20 km but the traffic here is insane during rush hour) with three other interns - to go to the movies and see a Bollywood movie! I watched a few Bollywood movies before I came here but I was excited to experience it in a movie theatre.

A few things are different from the movie theaters back home:

1. You walk through a metal gate and body search - the purpose is not only for weapons but to find the candy you thought you could smuggle in! The girls had bought doughnuts to take home after the movies, but had to eat it by the entrance of the movie theatre because the doughnuts were not allowed in.

2. Before the movie starts, guests are asked to stand up from their seats while India’s national anthem is played.

3. In the case that there is any scene where someone smokes a cigarette in the movie, then you will see a horribly scary clip of cancer before the movie starts (and during the smoking scene there will be a big text in the corner saying that smoking kills).

But the movie was good (although I was still so jet lagged that I slept through most of it). I can’t wait to learn some Bollywood dances.

Back to the work culture, then the first thing I noticed at my office was that the guy sitting next to me kept on taking all his phone calls on speaker from his desk phone. I looked around me, saw that no one minded and thought to myself why no one said anything since I found this super interrupting for everyone around... quickly I learned that this is what everyone does. People are working in remote teams and spend a lot of time on the phone, and then this seems to be the best way (I still vote for headsets though).

One of my favorite thing (at least the cutest thing) about the culture is the way Indians nod their head to the left and right. First I thought it was super confusing since this nod can mean around 100 different things. Usually it means yes. Sometimes it means maybe. I’m still getting confused and just hoping that I’m guessing the meaning correctly. 

-----

I told one of the coordinators of the internship program that I was interested in hiking, and he recommended a hiking company called Plan the Unplanned. I contacted them on Thursday and got the last spot on the Kudremukh Trek over the weekend.

What a great decision.

We left at 5am on Saturday to go to Kudremukh, which is around 8 hours drive away from Bangalore. I was the only non-Indian on the hike but everyone were super thoughtful and always making sure that I was fitting in and understanding the culture haha. I was super lucky.

The bus trip started with introductions, icebreakers and Indian dance party (at that time I wondered what I had signed up for)

I learned how to eat rice with my hands

When we finally got to Kudremukh we hiked up to a waterfall there in the monsoon rain

Then we went to our accommodation, a homestay where we had to save the electricity (only lights when going to the toilet) and the hot water for the shower was scarce. 

These were our beds for the night:

I must say this reminded me of my trips with the Icelandic Rescue team when I was in training there, but this was a more luxurious version of that. I honestly enjoy this simpleness at times, it makes you really appreciate warm soft bed, clean, dry clothes and showers. 

My most confused moment in this trip was this evening when it was my turn to get the shower. I walk in - and there is no shower. Only this bucket in the middle of the restroom:

With a little help from my new friends on the trip I learned that this is the way to shower in India. You fill up the big bucket with water, and then use the cup to pour over yourself. It was really not bad. (But not saying I would love to switch my shower for a bucket).

We had home cooked Indian meals (yeah I could have had a very bad stomach on the hike, but I took my chances and had amazing food).

We played games, shared experiences and had a very nice night.

The next day we woke up again at 5am and went out to the monsoon rain to start the real trek.

The total hike is around 20 km. This photo is taken at the first milestone (of many), next to the peace tree:

By that time I was already wet through each and every garment. The rain was just like a regular shower and the hike took around hours. I’ve never been as wet in my life.

We crossed countless rivers

And the scenery was breathtaking

And finally we reached the top !

This rain is no joke. Most of the time we were walking in a river.

Which also lead to a bigger problem - leeches !

There were leeches everywhere... people had tens of them on their legs, some on their neck, stomach and even the face. That was probably the least favorite part haha. I’ve never seen a leech before and now I’ve seen enough for a lifetime. No pictures of that because some people were really traumatized and it wasn’t exactly the photo time...

In stead I’ll post a pic of one leach we saw crawling in our bedroom on the Saturday morning, fat and happy after a good night with us in our beds :)

We arrived back in Bangalore at 4am on Monday after an authentic experience with a bus in India... no seat belts and the roads are super bumpy. I flew out of my seat completely to the floor 3 times wohooo...

Now I’m excited for next week, there is a 3 day weekend and I’m going on a trip to Jaipur, Agra (to see Taj Mahal) and Delhi. Also next week I’ll write more about my work and the work culture.