#brb have to go carve out an hour of my life to go think about amor fati again.

[cowboyhorsegirl]

AO3 is back! Quick, link the fic that:

You are most proud of (one of your own!)

The fic you were or wanted to read when it went down (a current or new fav)

And finally, the fic you were most anxious to download once it returned/have downloaded for that reason (historical fav)

I love this ask anon, thank you for sending!!

Fic I'm most proud of would probably be Love Bites, but my favorite fic I've written would be Paradise Blue in 1872.

The two fics I was hankering to read while ao3 was down were Clandestine Meetings by @viudanegraaa and @sineala's remix of that fic, Wonders of the World (The Keep Me Safe From Harm Remix).

The stevetony fic that I would take to the grave to be buried with would be Amor Fati by citsiurtlanu. Literally cannot think about this fic for longer than two minutes otherwise i will be ripped apart by the force of my love for it.

[thecloserkin]

book review: Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now (2004)

Genre: Young Adult

Is it the main pairing: yes

Is it canon: yes

Is it explicit: no

Is it endgame: yes

Is it shippable: yes

Bottom line: It finally happened, I broke my own “no cousincest—in this house we turn the TABOO dial up to eleven” rule. In my defense this book is gobsmackingly good.

Lately I’ve been mulling on the difference between books about teenagers and books for teenagers. This one is the former, and a joy to reread as an adult. Our American heroine Daisy is sent across the pond to live with her British cousins; a war breaks out; details are scant but who cares about the war, she starts fucking one of the cousins. She describes it as “falling into sexual and emotional thrall” she said THRALL I am living for it. On a scale from “pure” to “problematic” this ship is almost all light and no darkness—what darkness menaces our protagonists emanates from outside the charmed circle of their big ol’ farmhouse and their sheepdogs and their goat:

The real truth is that the war didn’t have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us stop. There were no parents, no teachers, no schedules. There was no where to go and nothing to do that would remind us that this sort of thing didn’t happen in the Real World. There no longer was any Real World.

The notion of carving out an idyll where you & the object of your desire spend all day doing nothing but drink each other up? It’s attractive even for those of us conducting mundane relationships in the “real” world. Maybe especially for those of us in the real world, where we compartmentalize our relationships and no one person can fill every filament in our universe. Daisy’s cousins live a cloistered life in the countryside and within a week she’s saying stuff like “I felt like I’d belonged to this house for centuries.” Which is an awfully dramatic way of saying she never felt like she belonged in New York. She doesn’t just fall for Cousin Edmond; she falls for the whole telepathic dog-whispering cousinly clan and their big anarchist energy. When Daisy, an only child, says “I had about as much experience with sex and boyfriends as I did with brothers and sisters,” she is intentionally conflating romantic and familial relationships and I am 1000% here for it. Sure it’s technically cousincest but it feels claustrophobic and codependent and everything I want out of an incest ship.

Every step of Daisy’s obsessive infatuation is chronicled with agonizing tenderness:

I wondered if that’s the feeling you’re supposed to have when your cousin touches a totally innocent part of your anatomy that’s fully clothed.

that’s right it’s the thought and the intention and the pining behind the touch, not the bare fact of physical contact.

Things were so intense I was sure that other people could hear the hum coming off of us.

Imagine desire rising like mist from the surface of one’s skin. And the “other people” part of the equation is important, because it’s the sneaking around behind the other kids’ backs that gives urgency to their coupling:

we started sleeping most of the daylight hours so we could be awake at night when everyone else was in bed … Then we would sleep for a little while and eventually reappear and try to act normal

But what is “normal”? There are no adults and no rules; nothing is forbidden save that they themselves deem it so. What then explains Daisy’s conviction that this is “not a good idea”? Why shroud their affair in secrecy if the most powerful reaction they provoke from smol!cousin who learns about Daisy/Edmond is “Well I’m glad you love him because I do too”? That’s pretty anticlimactic given the lengths Daisy & Edmond have gone to be stealthy. It also emphasizes (in case we’ve forgotten that Daisy has both no siblings and no boyfriends) how romantic & familial attachments spring from a common source. I think what the text is getting at here is that it’s dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket the way Daisy puts all hers in Edmond. It’s dangerous and unhealthy to make one person your whole world, as we see later when Daisy comes to much grief. At no point, however, does she regret her decision.

we could try and try to get enough of each other but it was llike some witch’s curse where the more we tried to stop being hungry the more starving we got.

That’s a hard-hitting simile right there. The thing about curses in fairy tales is they don’t always do what they’re designed to do; frequently they accomplish different ends entirely. If we look at what Daisy’s insatiable hunger for Edmond is displacing we note that Daisy is no stranger to the feeling of constant, gnawing, unsatiated hunger because Daisy has an eating disorder. In her own words:

at first not wanting to get poisoned by my stepmother and how much it annoyed her and how after a while I discovered I liked the feeling of being hungry and the fact that it drove everyone stark raving mad and cost my father a fortune in shrinks and also it was something I was good at.

…which is just about the world’s most cogent account of eating disorders as quests for control & autonomy. By the end of the novel she no longer experiences hunger as “a punishment or a crime or a weapon or a mode of self-destruction” and that's something, anyway.

Y’all know I’m a big skimmer right? I mention this because I want you to take my full meaning when I say I read every single word of this (very short) novel. The syntax helped—most sentences are structured like so: “… and …. and … and then …” but it was engrossing af and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use Ironic Capitalization to such devastating effect. The stylistic choice to use zero dialogue brackets means Daisy’s thoughts and Edmond’s thoughts (Edmond’s a telepath) and external action and internal commentary all run together. I didn’t find this confusing btw I just found it extremely effective.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Daisy and Edmond are separated at about the one-third mark and she spends the remainder of the book trying to get back to him, traversing a war-torn countryside with Edmond’s smol!sister and his dog in tow (since Daisy is a city girl who can’t even read a compass, maybe it’s more accurate to say smol!cousin + dog have Daisy in tow):

I guess the difference between Gin and me is that when Gin got shut in the barn she thought Edmond didn’t love her anymore but because I could feel Edmond out there somewhere always loving me I didn’t have to howl all night.

The parallel between Edmond’s girl and Edmond’s dog is not an idle one. There’s consistent strain of anticapitalist sentiment that runs through this book, that comes out most strongly in the relationships between Daisy’s cousins and their animals. Some military junta appropriates the farmhouse and displaces Daisy, her cousins, and the menagerie of animals that depend on them—that’s how Edmond and Daisy become separated, they’re “relocated.” The army is hierarchal and in wartime, the army is in charge. By contrast, Daisy’s cousins model a nonhierarchical kind of relationship with their animals, a relationship based on reciprocal obligations rather than dominating other people. “At times,” professes Daisy, “I thought I was more animal than human.” In other words, human beings live under an absolutely barbaric system, and it’s often more “humane” to behave like animals. It’s Edmond’s sheepdog who proves key to Daisy’s successful escape. City girl Daisy still can’t wrap her head around it:

one of the things I most dislike about nature, namely that the rules are not at all precise. Like when Piper says I’m pretty sure that mushrooms aren’t poisonous.

But nature’s strength lies precisely in the fuzziness of its rules! It encourages interdependence & reliance on others, rather than trying to go it alone as an atomized individual. So surviving on the run actually forces one to prioritize community (however you define it) over individual, which has salutary effects on Daisy, who reports “Somewhere along the way I’d lost the will not to eat.” She’s defeated her eating disorder, that’s good news. Unfortunately, Edmond and Daisy are not even reunited before she’s expelled from England and shipped back to America for Reasons. Dw she comes back! As soon as the borders reopen she comes back:

The soldier had stamped my passport FAMILY in heavy black capital letters and I checked it now for reassurance because I liked how fierce the word looked.

Very powerful passage but now for the ending. Let’s not talk about that ending. I don’t know why I called this a good book I am still incredulous we got THAT ending after everything we went through brb I’m suing Meg Rosoff for emotional damages

[textsfromwatchpointgibraltar]

Noodle-ish, Part 2

You asked and here u go-- the Soba bit! It’s got feelings and I made myself sad while writing it sO HAVE FUN

AO3 / Buy me a Snack / Part 1

“So, question.”

When Hanzo had woken, it hadn’t taken long for him to realize that Umi and Kawa were already up and out of the room. And it didn’t take long, once he sat at one of the tables outside the kitchen, for 76 and Hana to bring them over to him.

“Yes?” Hanzo looked up at Hana, holding tight to Umi so she didn’t try to go following after 76. “We’re still doing that video, correct?”

“Well, of course! But…that’s not what I wanted to ask.” Hana sat as well, biting her lip in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “Lúcio mentioned something, so I wanted to ask about it, but now I’m not so sure…”

“Ah. Perhaps, once breakfast is finished?” What did Santos say? No doubt it was regarding Genji, or perhaps his past. But why would that interest Hana, when she repeatedly claimed to have no interest in any ‘old drama’?

While Hana hurried to finish eating, shouting out to the others that she was ‘kidnapping Hanzo for some vids!’, Hanzo took his time, trying to pretend that he wasn’t dreading the questions she would eventually ask.

The walk from the eating area to Hana's room wasn't a long one, but Hana made sure to fill it with chatter. If she was doing so to keep him at ease, or just because, Hanzo didn't know, but he appreciated it none the less.

Ever since Umi and Kawa had destroyed one of Hana’s streams, Hanzo had found himself to be a regular in her room. Most of the time it was to preform crowd control as the pair only seemed to want into Hana's space when she was streaming—she'd shown him the compilation someone had made of him in all her videos, usually reading, sometimes wrangling the “children,” as she called them. But he also did vlogs with her sometimes, ones about life on the watchpoint and ones about the dragons.

There were always a few comments about how he was a wanted killer, he had a bounty, but Hana made sure to nix those in the bud before they grew out of proportion.

“So—“ Hana took a seat on her desk chair as Hanzo made himself comfortable on her bed, as per usual. Umi and Kawa started to explore, the high shelf on the wall one of their favourite places to sit. The box on the desk was what Hanzo assumed would be the topic of the inevitable video, but thankfully this wasn’t a conversation she planned on recording. “—Lúcio said that he talked to you.”

Hanzo nodded. Talked to was one way to put it—Lúcio had poked and Hanzo had avoided. “Yes. Those two were in his bathtub, so I went to retrieve them.”

“Right. Well, he said that you said that Soba was like Umi and Kawa once, and I was just curious about what happened.” She put her hands up in front of her and waved them frantically once she said her bit. “No-no pressure though! I totes get it if you don't wanna talk about it.”

No, Hanzo didn't want to talk about it. To talk about what happened to Soba—what he did to Soba—was equal in measure to what he'd done to Genji. The thought of talking about it made him feel sick.

“I…will tell you some. Not a lot, though. I don't think—I can't—asking Genji might be a better plan, for the details,” he said, stumbling over his words, before sighing. “I can tell you about Soba, though.” But not—not Maru. He couldn't talk about Maru.

If Hana noticed that Umi and Kawa stopped nosing at the box on the desk to scuttled over and crawl on Hanzo, she didn't say anything. She just pulled her legs up onto her chair, holding her knees as Hanzo started to talk.

“I'd…at one point, people joked that Soba and—that Soba learned all her bad habits from Umi and Kawa. I couldn't blame their habits on her, after all—Umi and Kawa were already swimming in the toilets when Genji got Soba. The fo—the three of them were terrors, really. They’d get into everything if it wasn’t closed or locked, and even if it was, Soba was rather talented at getting past them.

“At one point, th—she’d gone missing for a good…I’d say six hours? Genji worked himself into a frenzy looking for her after two hours, and dragged me and the staff into it as well after three. We, heh, we found her finally, asleep in one of the garden’s water features. It was the air bubbles that gave her away, in the end.

“And she was always stealing things—Kawa and Umi like metal and textiles, but Soba loved…loves wood. Cooking spoons, chopsticks, little carvings…at one point she even pried one of the floor slats up and ran off with it. And it was harder to stop her when we—the family kept a lot of wood in the compound. They—Father wanted to keep the traditional look, and hid all the hard light and technology he could behind a wood veneer, so Soba was always picking at something.

“At one point the—she’d climbed onto the roof. The tiles were bad--slippery, but as a dragon, she slid wherever she wanted up there. Refused to come down too, just sat there and watched everyone fret. I think it was because someone had given them—her red onions instead of green. We had to change our eating habits as well, because she would eat out of our bowls when we were trying to. Genji and I had to develop a sudden taste for spicy things to keep her away.

“After a while, they just gave up trying to keep the fou—three out of things, and just adapted to their whims. It was easier to keep access to garden open for them than risk bathing and ending up with the dragons in there with you.”

Hana snorted as Hanzo talked, and if she noticed how often he slipped up or stumbled over his words, she didn’t say anything. She did notice, though, when he shifted, clearly uncomfortable.

“You know, you don’t have to keep telling me about Soba. We could do that unboxing video if you wanted instead? Or—or we could go get something to eat? I don’t usually keep many snacks in my room unless I’m streaming.” Hana said, moving to stand, but Hanzo shook his head.

“I’m…fine. There’s not much else to tell, really, so I may as while finish. Soba…changed after I—After Genji—Genji said that once he joined Overwatch, Soba trusted only him. She bit just about everyone once or twice, including every commanding officer he came in contact with, and apparently took a chunk out of McCree’s hand, the one he lost. The only person she tolerates is Zenyatta...and Umi and Kawa. Genji seemed…he seemed surprised once we dug out their hoard, to see that Soba was hiding things as well, so she must have stopped that too…”

Hanzo took a deep breath, more like he was trying to fight back a sob, and let himself fall back so he was laying on Hana’s bed. “When I k—After I dest—When I atta—“ God, it was easy for him to say it to himself—I tried to kill my brother, killed Maru, hurt Soba—but to say it out loud made his chest hurt. The idea of saying it made him feel sick. “I hurt Soba, when I hurt Genji. And she hasn’t forgiven me, or anyone else for it. And I don’t blame her.”

Umi moved so she was curled up on his chest, where it hurt the most, and Kawa positioned himself so he was close to Hanzo’s head, the pair of them making soft noises of concern. What did he do to deserve such wonderful dragons? Santos was right, they would suit his brother more, but he appreciated them for all they did to help him calm down.

“Hey…do you want some water?” He felt Hana’s hand touch his knee, and she took the wobble of his head to mean yes. “Kay, I’ll brb.”

With her gone, Hanzo maneuvered one hand free and placed it over his eyes, just as the tears started to slip out. He’d nearly killed his brother, nearly destroyed his dragons as well. Sure, he’d lost most of his legs, but what price was that for the life of a dragon? Any further thoughts on the matter were destroyed when Kawa nosed his way under Hanzo’s hand, chirping at him and when Hana returned.

She very pointedly was looking elsewhere when he sat up, dislodging Umi from his chest, and he appreciated it as he wiped his face with his sleeve, and took the bottle of water that was sitting on the bed with him.

“So, I figure we can get this unboxing done in a few—I kinda wanna grab a snack, and I bet they do too.” Hana motioned to Umi, who was sitting in Hanzo’s lap now, poking at the water bottle with her nose. “I think Angela got radishes the other day, so that’ll make Kawa happy, right?”

“No cheese,” he reminded her, a hiccup still in his voice, but he felt better, almost. “Umi will beg for it, but—“

Hana rolled her eyes. “Dude, I remember. Umi isn’t allowed cheese. Come on—maybe they’ll have some lunch left over too.”

 Hanzo let himself be pulled to his feet, and almost smiled as he followed Hana out of her room, Kawa and Umi racing ahead to the kitchen. It was nice to have someone to talk to, and who didn’t push.

“Hana!” he called as she turned the corner. “I told you about Soba—you should tell me about MEKA next.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he imagined she was rolling her eyes at him. “Uhg, fiiiiine. Later though!”

Later was good with him.

[blogobot5000]

ALL: Cheers! (They drink)

GWEN: So… Cleo – what was it that happened in that little hell of online dating for you?

CLEO: Do we really want to hear this?

EVE: Absolutely. We’ve been sharing away – but you …

BONNIE: (Bluntly) You haven’t said shit!

CLEO: Okay, miss sunshine and rainbows. Here it is: why I take online dating with a grain of salt.

GWEN: And she salty...

CLEO: Oh, one hundred percent.

BONNIE: Go on –

EVE: Tell us!

CLEO: Alright… so. We all know that I was with Carson all through college and we were hopeless in love and blah, blah, blah but it didn’t work out, yada, yada – well. When we eventually, inevitably broke up, I gave it a shot. It was a few months in I got a message:

MAN: Cleo!? Do you remember me? We went to middle school together. Long time.

CLEO: Mind you. No where on my profile had my name or any hints to my name. Or my exact home town, which he had referenced. (To MAN) Um… Sorry, I do not recognize you. Do you mind telling me your name as well since you seem to recognize me?

MAN: It’s Chris. We went to middle school together at Wildwood Creek Junior High. WWCJH!

EVE: Is that where you went?

CLEO: You betcha.

BONNIE: Oy.

MAN: Why don’t we meet up and you give me a blowjob?

CLEO: I did not recognize his photo. There were about six Chris’ in my class. I had no clue who this guy was… and yet:

MAN: Why don’t we meet? It’ll be a good time. You can just give me a quick one. I know a great spot. Do you still live in town? It’s an easy drive, it’ll be a great time-

CLEO: Still – I persisted he tell me his last name. After countless efforts and responses which only resulted in him pushing a blowjob, he told me:

MAN: Chris Murphy!

CLEO: A brief memory flashed in my brain of seventh grade versions of me and him in the hallway, heading to science class. That is all I recalled of him. This guy from my childhood who I barely know! We never kept in touch but for some reason he recognized me and in that moment he thought “what better way to make a pass than to remain anonymous and then offer oral sex.” I tore into him. How it was so disrespectful, creepy, and not okay. In what world would I feel safe to meet up with someone who was talking to me in this way? I told him how every single thing he said was unacceptable and how he should never do it to any other person again. That is NOT a way to get a person to hook up with another.

EVE: (Timidly, but curious) What did he say?

CLEO: Oh, I never heard from him again.

GWEN: He probably didn’t like being called on his shit.

CLEO: Probably not, no. (Takes a drink) OH! And then there was Steve.

GWEN: Oh boy…

EVE: Steve?

CLEO: Steve was my first “boyfriend.” I was fifteen… he was eighteen… and his mom was not a fan, apparently. We started dating on a Thursday night, via phone call, of course-

BONNIE: How romantic

CLEO: Held hands in school on Friday and Saturday morning… well, back in the days of AIM and Razor phones… I went up to the trusty desktop (Charading typing on a computer, a sunnier, more innocent version of herself) Hey, Steve – good morning

MAN: Hi

CLEO: How did you sleep?

MAN: Fine.

CLEO: How are you?

MAN: Eh. BRB.

CLEO: Um… okay. (After a moment, gets up and walks) And I had this gut feeling that something was up… so I got my trusty Razor phone. (Looks down) One new voicemail. (She opens it up to listen to it)

VOICEMAIL: Hi Cleo… this is Steve’s mom. Look, I think you’re a lovely girl and all but I have a strict rule that Steve cannot date anyone younger than the age of sixteen. I’m sorry for that, he cannot date you any longer.

CLEO: (Dramatically) Tragedy struck! My fifteen year old heart ripped into pieces!

BONNIE: Woof.

CLEO: Only to find a month or two later that Steve started to date Linda… my friend who was… drumroll (EVE and GWEN drumroll on the table) Who wants to guess how old?

BONNIE: Sixteen?

CLEO: Fourteen!

BONNIE: Wow.

CLEO: So, it became clear that it wasn’t his mom that had an issue since she was thrilled that he and Linda were together as shown by her buying Linda flowers for the prom that year-

EVE: Aw, poor little Cleo.

CLEO: Hah! Bullet dodged for poor little Cleo. Because guess who has found me not ONCE, not TWICE but THREE TIMES on various social media – dating apps included- knocking down my very locked door.

MAN: Hey you. Would you like to go on a date with me? I have a poetry contest coming up. I have a girlfriend, but I only met her once and my mom is insisting I break up with her. It’s Steve from high school.

CLEO: No response. And then, on a completely different site:

MAN: I would love to practice photography with you. Hey. I love snakes too. They are my favorite animal. They truly are. Cleo. Will you go on a date with me? Hey. Are you there?

CLEO: No thanks. I am not interested.

MAN: Are you sure? Sad face. Cleo. Okay.

CLEO: There were other times too but – yeah. You get the gist. So, I’m not so fond of the past ghosts or even present ones for that matter coming out to play on dating sites.

GWEN: (Reflective. Chuckles) ‘Are you a serial killer or an axe murderer?’ I should use that.

CLEO: Everyone should use that.

GWEN: Maybe I could have avoided Jack.

BONNIE: Well, he was a stalker. Not a serial killer.

GWEN: He could have been! If there was ever a man who would have been using women’s flesh as a lampshade, it would have been him! Ugh, and I had the red flags. He was 43 minutes late for our date.

EVE: That’s oddly specific.

GWEN: So, here’s the backstory. Jack had been in a car accident the week before. His car needed to go to the shop, so he needed a rental. Fine. Then, his rental was giving him trouble, so he needed to swap it out. I wanted to go to the Cheesecake Workshop for dinner. Work was rough and all I wanted was some key lime pie cheesecake, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone: meet him, get cheesecake. I arrive at the restaurant; there’s an hour and a half wait. I text him with the info and he suggests going somewhere else. Fine. First, I couldn’t find the place. The reason I couldn’t find it was because it was a fast food place IN A STRIP MALL! Fine. So, I stand outside and wait. “What’s your ETA?” I text.

MAN: 15 minutes, tops.

GWEN: So, I’m texting Bonnie and she’s telling me to leave.

BONNIE: I knew there was something off.

GWEN: 30 minutes later, I call him. He doesn’t answer, but sends a text saying,

MAN: Sorry! Traffic’s bad, be there soon.

GWEN: So, I wait. Then, another 10 minutes pass and I tell Bonnie that I’m leaving in 5 minutes if he doesn’t show up. 43 minutes in, a man walks up to me and says:

MAN: Are you Gwen?

GWEN: I’m not going to lie. In that moment, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I. Just. Knew. We get our orange trays, walk down the line, order our dry Chinese food, and find a spot tucked in the corner.

MAN: I’m sorry that I’m late. Things have been shitty.

GWEN: I’m not heartless. It’s a first date. I lean into the conversation and ask if he wants to talk about it. He goes into this heartfelt monologue about his cat dying and how much he misses her and how his life has a gaping hole without her. “I’m so sorry. Pets are part of the family and it is hard to say goodbye. When did this happen?”

MAN: Almost 3 years ago next month.

CLEO: (Spitting out water, laughing) I’m sorry?

EVE: What the fuck?

GWEN: Buckle up, ladies. This story is about to take an even sharper turn. So, I see this red flag, but ignore it and forge on with the conversation. Turns out, as a child, he and his family would go camping near where I grew up in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. We talked about our families and work—he shared another fun story that involved his mom having a UTI.

CLEO: Rough.

GWEN: Then, I asked how he was feeling after his car accident. I have never regretted something more.

MAN: I feel like I can tell you anything.

GWEN: You never want a stranger to say that to you. Apparently, the week before he was out on a date with a woman he met online. Things were going well. She was funny, smart, and they supposedly immediately connected. At the end of the date, they talked about carving pumpkins together. THE NEXT DAY, he called to make good on these plans. She didn’t answer. So, he decided to go pick up some pumpkins and surprise her at this house. He texted. He called. She wasn’t picking up. He took this to mean that he should drive to her house. While driving around her block waiting for her to pick up her phone… SMASH. He was hit by a car at an intersection. He was fine and the other driver was fine, but his car was not. This motherfucker pulled into this girl’s driveway, stood on her front step, and heard the phone ringing inside the house. He was livid. He got the pumpkin out of his car and placed it on her front step as a sign that he was there. Apparently, he wanted to write a passive aggressive note on the pumpkin, but stopped himself. Like, he deserves some medal of honor!

MAN: I just, women are so mean to me. But, I can see in your eyes that you’re different.

CLEO: Yeah, when you show up at their house unannounced and unwanted, women don’t like that.

EVE: (Bursting, ‘obviously’) NO ONE LIKES THAT!

GWEN: Fortunately, I was running a 5k the next day, so I had the perfect excuse. “Oh! So sleepy! Must run in the morning—thanks for a great night!”

Man: Do you want a ride home?

GWEN: I have never been so happy to take the MBTA in my life.

BONNIE: Oh, but the story doesn’t end there!

GWEN: It doesn’t. I was texting Jack at the same time I was texting another man. He was a paralegal. We went out, there weren’t any sparks, but the conversation was nice so I was up for going out again. Here’s the problem. I put them in my phone with the dating app first, followed by their name. So, it was Tea Meets Biscut Jack and Tea Meets Biscut David. Fast forward, I’m sitting on a bench waiting for David. David was not who showed up. I fucked up and I fucked up badly.

MAN: I’m so happy to see you!

EVE: Did you leave?

GWEN: I PANICKED! So, we went in for brunch. Did I mention that he was racist? Because, he was also racist. He works with college students and continued to do impressions and make racist statements that ended with,

MAN: You know what I mean?

GWEN: So, I would respond by saying loudly, “NO! No, I don’t know what you mean!” I work in this town. People know me. I live in this town. What if he follows me home? I downed my meal so fast, while he kept trying to hold my hand and play footsies. I was sweating. But, at the end, I made it clear that there would be no third date.

CLEO: Jesus.

BONNIE: And, she called me after describing what she was last seen wearing, should he have decided to follow.

GWEN: I bumped into him at a show a few months ago. He was there with another girl. I wanted to slip her a note telling her to run, but I didn’t.

BONNIE: Proud of you.

GWEN: Aw, shucks.

CLEO: (Dryly and slightly tipsy. They are all feeling a slight buzz at this point) I once went on a date with a man who polygraphed me and compared himself to a terrorist. (They all stare at her, waiting for her to continue. Rolling her eyes, she continues to explain) He was a mechanical engineer. I began the date with what I thought would be a fun ice breaker. “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?” For reference, I would be a writer for SNL or an aerial silks artist.

EVE: Obvs.

MAN: Probably something in my field. That I liked.

CLEO: I don’t actually know much about mechanical engineering, shocker, I know, so I asked for some elaboration.

MAN: Oh, ummm, I don’t really know.

CLEO: Don’t you have your masters in mechanical engineering?

MAN: Yeah.

CLEO: Red Flag #1: not knowing anything about the field you have spent your career studying. So, I proceed to talk about my jobs and my eclectic array of past gigs… from balloon animals to working in the pharmacy etcetera, etcetera . I layed it all out for him.

MAN: I don’t believe you.

CLEO: (Laughing, thinking he’s joking) You’re funny

MAN: Give me your arm. Look me in the eye and tell me that you’re telling the truth.

CLEO: What?

MAN: Look me in the eye and tell me that you’re telling the truth.

EVE: Did you do it?

CLEO: (Giving him her arm) Sure did. Then, I realized, he was checking my pulse. This man was checking my pulse to see if I was lying to him. HE WAS POLYGRAPHING ME! Red Flag #2. I ask him about his current job. His engineering job involves mapping out and installing fire sprinklers in large buildings.

MAN: Wearing a hardhat, they let you in anywhere. I could be a terrorist. I could walk into the building with a bomb strapped to my chest and they’d let me in. But, I don’t have the face of a terrorist, so people don’t suspect a thing.

CLEO: That’s when I started trying to flag down our waitress for the check like I was air traffic control. While waiting, he shared a story about how he hopes to write adult comic books about plant superheroes where the pesticides are the villains.

GWEN: Wait—adult comic books, as in adult target audience? Or… plant porn?

CLEO: You think I was waiting around for answers like that? The check hit the table. My money hit the table. My feet hit the ground. Then, because of how the universe works, we both had to walk to the T together. TOGETHER! Fortunately, there was a Red Sox game and they won. So, I easily wedged myself into the sea of red and white never to see him again.

EVE: Baseball saves the day!

CLEO: Yay sports.

GWEN: And thus, the Polygraph Serial Killer was born!

BONNIE: (Spitting out or choking on her water in laughter/shock) THE WHAT?!

GWEN: You know, The Polygraph Serial Killer! The guy- from the story! You know when like, you go on a date with someone and something happens where that becomes their identity almost. Like… eventually you just forget their name and then they’re just ‘The Polygraph Serial Killer’ forever.

BONNIE: Ah, yeah. I have one of those.

GWEN: Just one?! Hah! How when we’ve already named like 8,000 tonight?! Even now! Casino man… Dude from the food court… Gas station creep…

CLEO: And there’s so many more…(to EVE) remember French guy?

EVE: Ugh. I do.

BONNIE: French guy?

EVE: So ,after me and Adam broke up is when the nicknames really started. I went on a whole string of dates and Cleo gave nicknames to them ALL.

CLEO: Oh yeah… there was space man… pizza guy… flower guy… sportsball…

EVE: And frenchie. Or french guy. Whichever.

BONNIE: How romantic.

CLEO: Hardly.

BONNIE: So, what happened?

EVE: His name was … wait for it… Jean. Shocking, I know! He was from France. And, yes, he had an accent. I think he was the second guy on this slew of one-time-dates. A dark time in my life, really.

CLEO: It truly was.

EVE: (Putting on a red coat) It was around the holidays.. Or was just starting to get cold out. Me and Jean made a plan: meet outside of Angelo’s on Main- you know, that Italian place? Meet there, get some dinner, see if there’s a spark and then part ways from there, probably. We didn’t really have any grand plans. So, I got there first and you know and I’m waiting (looking at phone, notification message is heard)

MAN: (From offstage) I’ll be there soon. Just parked.

EVE: (Responding) ‘Okay- great! I’m out front. I’m wearing black jeans and a red coat. See you soon! Smiley face’ (To girls) Now, I don’t know how well you all know that area… but I mean, there’s some stuff there but, there isn’t really a crazy amount. Especially not in the middle of December on a Tuesday night. When it’s freezing. So, anyway, I wait… and

MAN: Eve?

EVE: Hey - Jean?

MAN: Who else? (Small laugh)

EVE: Hah- right! Of course.

MAN: Hey- so, uh, are you hungry?

EVE: Oh yeah. I mean I could eat or I’m okay to wait -

MAN: Well I’m not too hungry yet, should we take a walk first to build up an appetite?

EVE: Oh, well - sure! But where do you want to walk to?

MAN: Well, I don’t think I’m in the mood much for Italian anymore so let’s just go down this way and see what there is.

EVE: So, we go … mind you, he chose Angelo’s. So, I’m just walking around like ‘why choose a place that you don’t want to go to after all for a first date?’ But it’s fine, I let it go. On the walk we talked about:

MAN: (In mid conversation) Work-

EVE: And what we like to -

MAN: Do in your spare time?

EVE: And eventually, we ended up down a bit far away from everything, so I said: “Is this the part where you kill me?”

CLEO: (Excitedly) AND THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT LADIES!

EVE: He was not too amused.

CLEO: But at least ya didn’t die!

EVE: No one murdered anyone. It did prompt us to walk back toward the center.

MAN: Would you be good with this Mexican place, here?

BONNIE: Wait… the one that’s literally right across the street from Angelo’s?

EVE: Yup. So we go. I really didn’t care- it was just …

MAN: There was this wedding I went to, my buddy’s wedding, a few years back. We flew to Italy for it, gorgeous venue along the coast, you can’t even imagine.

EVE: Oh yeah?

MAN: Yeah! Oh, there was so much booze to drink… really a shit ton of booze for everyone to drinks. This wedding, it must have been at least a million dollars spent on it!

EVE: Wow -

MAN: (Overstepping) Yeah! The food was incredible, though (A bit snobby) you would not have had the taste for it.

EVE: Why’s that?

MAN: There was a whole table of fresh fish and a carving station like you have never seen. I don’t think you would have liked it there.

[dazzledbybooks]

Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting goNaima Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for her. Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the sudden loss of his parents. It's causing an avalanche of secret anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in the way he, or she, expects. Candace Ganger's Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye. Excerpt: Dad cell May 3 at 7:33 PM Transcription Beta “Guess who’s getting ready to come home and take you to Ivy Springs? That’s right, Ima. It’s happening. It’s finally happening. Don’t tell Nell. I want to surprise her.” 0:00 -0:10 Speaker Call Back Delete Email Draft (Unsent) To Subject I’m holding my breath Until you’re standing in front of me Because we’ve danced this song So many times before Promise. And I no longer trust You’ll do what you Just in case, I’ll count the hexagons. NAIMA Nell is a dingy yoga mat; the sweaty barrier between total chill­ status and my shit reality (aka, my annoying stepmom and ru­ iner of all moments) (trust me on this). “JJ and Kam aren’t going to believe how much you’ve grown since the funeral,” she says on our long­ass 794­mile drive from Albany, Georgia, to Ivy Springs, Indiana. She tap tap taps her long, pointed fingernails against the steering wheel to the beat of what­ ever imaginary song she’s playing in her head. Probably some­ thing disco or hair band. The radio is silent, always silent, when we ride together, but the second she speaks with that high­pitched nasally voice I loathe, I regret this necessity. I concentrate harder on the objects we pass so I can properly pinch my toes between them. Tap my nose. Tap my nose. Tap my nose. Tap my nose. Tap my nose. Tap my nose. Click my tongue. Click my tongue. Click my tongue. Click my tongue. Click my tongue. Click my tongue. Flick my thumbnail. Flick my thumbnail. Flick my thumbnail. Flick my thumbnail. Flick my thumbnail. Flick my thumbnail. Flick. Flick. FLICK. I continue with my sequence the length of the drive. Nell hates it, but I hate when she wears fingerless gloves in the summer, so we’re even. Without my boring­ass stepbrother, Christian, to be my talk block—the dull cushion of conversation between Nell and me—(he left two days ago on a death star/plane to see his dad in NYC), the “spacious” SUV feels like I’ve been placed at a dinner table in a vast canyon and right across from me is literally the only woman I don’t want to meet for dinner. Like, why can’t I eat with the Queen of England or Oprah? I’m bound by my father’s love for Nell, or whatever, but now he’s gone, and I’m climbing the hell out of the canyon before she wants to talk about how big my naturally tousled hair is (a perfect mess), period cycles (semi­regular, FYI), sexually transmitted diseases (don’t have a single one, thanks), or worse—my feelings (happily bur­ ied!). Ugh. GTFO. The failing engine’s hum, where the metal scrapes and churns with a whir, competes with Nell’s increased tapping. I’ve missed too many objects, my toes rapidly pinching and releasing, to make up for what’s been lost. But it’s too late. My mind shifts automatically to a neon sign flashing warning! There’s always a consequence to messing up the sequence. Always. Counting is to time what the final voicemail Dad left is to the sound of my heart cracking open; a message I can’t listen to. It’ll become entombed in history, in me. My finger lingers over my phone and quickly retreats, knowing there’s nothing he could’ve said to make this pain less. Nothing can make him less gone. I look out the window to where my dreary­eyed reflection stares blankly back at me; Nell glides over the double yellow lines into oncoming traffic, violently overcorrecting just before we would have been hit by a semi. The sound of his horn echoes through the high­topped Tennessee mountains. Three thousand two hundred eighty­seven people die in car accidents every day. I Googled it. After I Googled it, I looked at pictures. And after I looked at pictures I went through the sequence. Car accident. Fatalities. My legs smashed up to my chest. Nell crushed into the hood. “Sorry,” she says; her voice rattles. “Make sure Ray’s okay back there.” I turn to investigate the vase­shaped metal urn surrounded by layers of sloppily folded sheets (Nell did that) and one per­ fectly situated hexagon quilt (that’s all me). The sun’s gleam hits U.S. Marine Corp just so, and I’m reminded again that he’s gone. Gone. “It’s fine,” I say, refusing to call that pile of ashes “Dad,” or “he.” The urn arrived several days ago in a twenty­four­hour pri­ ority package. Nell saying, “No reason to waste time getting him home,” and I was like, “What’s that?” and she was all “Your dad, silly,” and I was like, “Huh?” and she asked me if I wanted a banana­kale protein shake after she “got him situated.” A big hell no. I immediately dove into a Ziploc ration of Lucky Charms marshmallows to dull the pain of conversing with someone so exhausting. After he was transported in ice from Afghanistan to Dover, after they sorted and processed his things, after he was cre­ mated, after the police and state troopers closed down the streets to honor him as we drove him through, after we had the memorial service, after we were handed the folded flag with a bullet shell casing tucked inside, after they spoke of his medals, and after Christian and I sat in disbelief beneath a weep­ ing willow tree for three hours, Nell finally decided the ashes should go to his hometown in Indiana, after all. I didn’t think she’d cave, but after one talk with my grandma, JJ, she did. If anyone could turn a donkey into a unicorn, it’s JJ (or so she says). And so, it was decided—Dad, I mean It, was going home a unicorn. “Let’s stop for some grub,” Nell says, wide­eyed. “Hungry?” “Grub,” rhymes with “nub,” which she is. “No.” “Let’s at least stretch our legs. Still a few hours to go.” “Fine. But no travel yoga this time.” She pulls off to a rest area a few miles ahead, exiting the car. I crack a window and wait while she hikes a leg to the top of the trunk, bending forward with an “oh, that’s tight.” After, she says, “Going to the potty. BRB.” I flash a thumbs­up and slink deep into the warmth of my seat, hiding from the stare of perverts and families. My foot kicks my bag on the floor mat, knocking my prescription bottle to its side. Dr. Rose, my therapist in Ft. Hood, said sometimes starting over is the only way to stop looking back. But what about when the past is all you have left of someone? My gaze pushes forward to the vending machines. Dad and I stopped at this very place on our way to Indiana without basic Nell. He’d grab a cold can of Coke and toss me a bag of trail mix to sort into piles. If I close my eyes, it almost feels like he’s here—not a pile of ashes buckled tight into the backseat. We’d play a game of Would You Rather to see who could come up with the worst/most messed­up scenarios (I usually won). Would you rather wear Nell’s unwashed yoga pants every day for a month? Or call an urn full of ashes “Dad”? Sometimes, he’d pre­sort the trail mix, Leaving me the best parts (the candy­coated chocolate). I am one­of­a­kind Magic, Dad would say. But he was, too. A unicorn, I think. Definitely not a donkey. The more I think on it, Maybe JJ could turn Nell Into a unicorn, Too, But no magic is that strong. Dad cell June 1 at 9:04 AM Transcription Beta “Open the door.” 0:00 -0:03 Speaker Call Back Delete Sent Email No Subject Naima   Jun 1, 9:07 AM to Dad If I open it, Will you really be there Or just a memory From the last time? Nevermind. The ghost I see you, Outside my window.

http://www.dazzledbybooks.com/2019/09/six-goodbyes-we-never-said-blog-tour.html