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cordonian-literature · 4 years ago

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The Aftermath - Ch. 34

Happy Birthday, Ella

Summary: It’s Eleanor’s 18th birthday

Word Count: ~2.6k

A/N: big time jump!

A/N 2: ahhh this is the last chapter!! the one before this was sort of a conclusion but in this one is more like... the aftermath of the aftermath, haha. anyway, this was more than difficult to get out, firstly because i absolutely suck at conclusions so if this is terrible, sorry :( and secondly because this is my first fic and i really can’t believe it’s finished! am i crying? maybe... anywayyy, thank you all so much for reading!! i hope you’ve enjoyed this series as much as i’ve enjoyed writing it!! <3

Warnings: mention of character death

*All characters belong to Pixelberry, except those that are unique to my story (I’ve also used some characters and fictional instances from Donna Tartt’s book, “The Goldfinch”)*

Tags: @captain-kingliamsqueen @gkittylove99 @lovablegranny @iam-the-kind-and-thoughtful @mom2000aggie @kingliam2019 @queenrileyrose @shanzay44 @cordonianroyalty @hopefulmoonobject @hopelessromanticmonie @twinkle-320 @amandablink @texaskitten30 @pens-girl-87 @ladyangel70 @sanchita012 @cordonianprincess @cordonia-gothqueen @queenwalton @yourmajesty09 @alj4890 @choicesbutterfly

- Eleanor -

I sit at the empty desk across from my bed. There is nothing in front of me, but I stare at my neat piles of notebooks and novels: some that Daddyo had recommended to me, others that I had borrowed from his library.

My bedroom door is open. From the hall, I hear the tapping of Roger’s paws and the light thuds of Fabian’s footsteps. The noise of their arrival lightly raises me from my seat and my tired thoughts. I walk out of my room and go after them.

Roger runs away from Fabian with something in his mouth. My little brother giggles as he runs after our dog, struggling to keep up with him. The dog weaves through crowds of servants, making its way towards the front of the palace.

Fabian sighs, frustrated. I put my hand on his shoulder and urge him to continue on with me.

Once we reach the front doors, we see that Roger has stopped running and is having his belly rubbed by Aunt Rowan, while her oldest son, Rowell, races towards my brother.

Rowell and Fabian run off quickly, already in the midst of a game. Lord Maxwell gives me a side hug, holding his and Aunt Rowan’s youngest son to his side.

I hug Aunt Rowan, then give the little babe a kiss on his chubby cheek. I lead them towards the sitting room, where Mama drinks tea with Duchess Hana and Duchess Olivia.

After the adults are all seated, they usher me out of the room. I giggle, saying that there’s nothing they have to hide from me, but I know what they’re planning and agree to leave.

Outside the sitting room, I decide to go look for Gabe and Daddyo, hoping that their meeting with the dignitary was over. I check my watch and see that they should have been done about a half-hour ago, but I know my brother had probably gone on overtime.

He had started taking his duties more seriously as of late, and I know it’s because of the talk Daddyo had with us at Applewood. He had insisted that I come along into town with them and receive the same speech, even though I said I was fine with staying behind.

Gabriel and I had laughed when Daddyo told us that he was the heir and I was the spare. The silly phrase wasn’t the only thing that sent us into a fit of laughter, but it was also a bit of disbelief. My brother and I weren’t naive; we knew what the people of the court had to say about me being a member of the royal family. Daddyo never failed to remind us that their opinions didn’t matter and that I was his daughter no matter what anyone said, but of course, people kept talking.

Sometimes I wanted to argue with him and say that keeping my last name as Blaise — while Gabe’s had been changed to Rys years ago — would keep me from being fully considered his daughter, even though he had officially adopted me when he married my mother.

But I knew such arguments were ones that broke his heart. The smallest change in my behavior made him fear that I no longer considered him my father, which was heartwarming, in a sense, but also depressing. (When I was about twelve, I had thought calling him “Daddyo” was too childish, so like Gabe I called him “Dad.” One morning he pulled me to the side and with the saddest eyes asked me if I was upset with him, or if he had done something to anger me. I laughed it off but went back to calling him “Daddyo” immediately. Though I cringed every time I said it, it was better than upsetting the only man who had ever felt like a true father to me).

And so most of my daily thoughts were now consumed by the anger I had for my biological father — everything he did to my family, and to the nation and people I had come to love — but I was slowly coming to terms with it. Even though I was ashamed of him, I was accepting the fact that he could no longer dictate my life or the lives of those I love.

These past few months marked ten years after the bombing. When my father had died, and Gabe and I had been in the hospital waiting for Mama to get better, I had been childishly angry at him. My last clear memory with my biological father had been reminding him to take pictures of the new exhibit at The Met so I could get a glimpse of what he and my mother would see. He was never able to show me those photos. That is, if he even took any.

But that was a different kind of frustration. One that, if my little brother Fabian expressed, I would sadly laugh at and explain to him the seriousness of the situation.

Theodore’s actions had controlled all of us, even Daddyo, Uncle Drake, Lord Maxwell, and Duchess Hana.

But now we are all in control of our lives again. Uncle Drake and Duchess Olivia had done honorable work with the King’s Guard. Lord Maxwell and Aunt Rowan had married a few months after my parents did, and a year later Duke Rashad married Hana — around the time Fabian was born. Daddyo eventually mended his relationship with Uncle Leo, and every few months his family would come to visit us.

Any person who was a threat, such as Boris — his betrayal was one that broke my childish heart, but not a day passed where I missed him— and Uncle Drake’s ex-fiancée, Jessica, were spending the rest of their lives behind bars.

It had taken our parents a while to tell us everything, and when they finally did, it took even longer for us to come to terms with it all. But Daddyo and Mama never pushed us away when we needed to talk to them.

As I walk up the stairs to Daddyo’s office, I take deep breaths, allowing the concerns to flow out of me. Before I knock on the door, my mind is clear.

I smile to myself as I reach for the handle, memories of our obstacles so far behind us that I feel foolish worrying about them at all.

Inside, Daddyo, Gabe, Fabian, and Rowell are crowded around something on the desk. Everyone turns to face me.

“Is it time for the party?” Rowell asks.

“Shush!” Fabian elbows his friend while Gabe and Daddyo laugh.

Once the boys are done scolding each other, Daddyo asks, “What do you think about eating out for lunch?”

“Same restaurant?” Fabian questions.

“Unless you wish to go someplace else?”

I shake my head, then link my arm through his. “No, I like that place.”

As we walk out the doors of the palace, we spot Uncle Leo, Aunt Katie, Hunter, and Heather with bags in their hands. Once they see us, they lightly toss those bags back into their limo, and they join us in our car to go eat lunch.

We had eaten in this restaurant on my eighth birthday, which had been only a week after Mama and Daddyo had come back from their honeymoon. My family came here often, and Uncle Leo liked joining us.

We enter the restaurant and see that the place is empty. The menus are put in front of us, and we order without looking at it. Fabian and Rowell talk between themselves, and Heather tells me about their flight, while Uncle Leo asks Gabe how he’s feeling.

Gabe shakes his head, an amused look on his face. “You know, I thought this would all be overwhelming. I was scared that the pressure would bring the anxiety back, but it didn’t.”

Uncle Leo pats my brother’s back. “Now tell me about that girl you mentioned in that course you took.”

Gabe’s face goes red, and he gives a little laugh. Aunt Katie raises her eyebrows, while Daddyo urges him to talk.

My brother leans back in his seat, the amusement increasing. “I’m think I’m gonna draft a letter to her.”

“Oh?” Aunt Katie takes a sip of her drink.

“I’m planning on asking her to join the next Social Season. That reminds me.” He cuts off and looks towards our father.

But before he can say anything, Uncle Leo goes, “Gabe, go to your dad when you want to know what not to do. Take my advice instead—”

Hunter interrupts him: “You say that like your advice doesn’t backfire on the regular.”

“Poor soul is speaking from experience,” Heather whispers to me. Daddyo overhears her, and laughs with us.

We leave as soon as we finish our meal, not considering dessert. The ride back to the palace is filled with smooth conversations and laughs. As the limo stops in front of the entrance, everyone tells me to exit the vehicle first.

Tentatively, I crawl out the car and make my way up the stairs. Servants open the doors for me, and the entire room is flooded with balloons, decorations, and sweets.

My mother kisses my cheek, then Daddyo and Gabe wrap me in a hug. Fabian runs off quickly with Rowell.

The rest of my parents’ friends continue giving me birthday wishes, until Fabian finally reemerges with an envelope in his hand. Everyone crowds around me as I open it and take out a thin, rectangular piece of paper.

“It’s a bookmark!” Fabian cries as I examine it. I turn it over in my hands, feeling the soft edges against my skin. On the other side, there’s a drawing of six stick figures. Fabian puts his finger on the bookmark, and I bring it to his eye level.

“That’s you with the books since you like reading,” he tells me. “That’s Daddy and Mom since they have the crowns, and Gabe is the one with the smaller crown, and that’s me and Roger, and that’s our home in the background.” I follow his finger as he points to his little drawings. “I know it’s not very good, but I didn’t know what else to get you!” He giggles as I further examine it.

“No one knew what to get her,” Gabe comments. “Little Miss—” he takes on a high pitched voice— “Oh, you don’t have to get me anything! No, really, I don’t want anything!”

The room of friends laugh and chuckle at the mocking voice.

I go through everyone else’s gifts, which are mostly things that I can use, but don’t need and didn’t ask for; like Fabian said, everyone had wanted to get me something, but I was in need of nothing. I know that Uncle Maxwell was more than frustrated when I told him so, and he must have been even more upset when he couldn’t get any hints out of my parents either. His and Aunt Rowan’s present to me are new pointe shoes.

Duchess Olivia had started giving me more self-defense lessons, so her gift to me is a stiletto knife, along with stiletto shoes.

Duke Rashad and Duchess Hana give me a pearl necklace: when the Duchess had taught me how to paint, we had made portraits of each other and had illustrated pearls on our pictures. The portrait I had made of his wife was the Duke’s favorite.

Uncle Leo and Hunter give me new paint brushes and a steel paint easel. Heather hands me a cup with a picture of her and I on it — I had given her something similar for her birthday — and Aunt Katie gives me a cute bag.

Uncle Drake gifts me a new pair of skis: last winter and during the Social Season, we had raced down a slope and I had lost both times. “So you can practice a bit more next time we head to Lythikos,” he tells me with a pat on my back.

Gabriel hands me a heavy box. My arms burn as I make my way towards a table and put it down. Inside are books that are on my to-read list, candies that we had tried and liked on our last family trip to Italy, a bracelet with charms, and gold earrings shaped like a crescent moon. “You didn’t give me any clues for what you wanted, so I just put all of them in there,” my brother says with a shrug.

Mama and Daddyo’s gift is next. My father wraps me in a large hug, then holds me to his side as servants roll in a new Baroque piano — it was similar to the one I had seen in a museum the last time we visited Applewood. The old one was being wheeled out; I had played it daily in the last few years, both for the entertainment of my family and for important members of the nobility, and even though it was constantly cared for, the strings had started to become dusty. I knew we wouldn’t get rid of it; I was sure that Daddyo had plans to donate it, but again I felt that there was no need for a newer one. We could have just taken more care of the one we had.

But I don’t complain. I could never complain for this group of people who love me so dearly. I accept hugs from everyone in the room, and then the cake is brought out. The frosting looks like a painting, and is sweetly smooth as we eat it, the icing staining the corners of our mouths.

We sit and chat about nothing at all, simply enjoying the blissful companionship that came with family and beloved friends. I had told my parents that I didn’t want a big party, and this was exactly what I had in mind. The room is light and joyful: Uncle Maxwell tells jokes while Uncle Drake rolls his eyes, Mama throws her head back, Daddyo’s arm around her while he tries his best not to laugh, and Uncle Leo, Hunter, and Gabe wipe tears from their eyes.

The rest of the party is spent like that. The irreplaceable friendships that had went from nothing, to everything, to nothing again, then beyond the meaning of intimacy that came with being understood. It fills the rooms of the palace as it has these last ten years.

I think about the gifts I’ve been given today, wondering where I would put them in my room — except for the piano, which I will leave in the ballroom — and how I will use them. I smile when I remember Gabe’s joke about my refusing presents.

I don’t think he understands that I didn’t wish for specific objects because I can’t remember the last time I longed for anything, and if I ever did, there was no request that Daddyo wouldn’t strive to fulfill. My life had never felt lonely or without purpose, and I think that means I’ve found happiness. Like everyone in this room.

Daddyo notices that I’ve zoned out a bit. From the corner of my eye I can see the gentle wrinkles on his face and the graying roots of his hair. He leans towards me and plants a kiss on my forehead. “Happy birthday, Ella dear. I love you.”

I smile at him, then use my fork to steal a bit of icing off his cake. Fabian follows suit, and soon our dad’s cake has no frosting on it.

The three of us laugh, and with a mouth full of sugar I say, “I love you, too, Daddyo.”

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slusheeduck · 7 years ago

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Here’s @lancendydreamer‘s prize for the giveaway contest! She wanted a fic and drawing of alive!Hector and dead!Miguel, so I went completely overboard and wrote a whole sort-of, kind-of Reverse!AU-type story.

(I also took some inspiration from her really neat AU!! You should check it out!!)

Some notes under the cut, as well as the monster fic itself.

NOTES:

Takes place in 1918

This is my first ever attempt at any sort of Reverse!AU, so it’s pretty simplistic. It’s more “fun adventure with a guy and a dead kid” rather than “centuries-old family drama and learning that sometimes your heroes are terrible, terrible people who murder your great-great-grandpa.” Some bits are a little glossed over, so yanno, if anyone else wants to elaborate PLEASE be my guest!

The guitar belongs to Chicharron. This isn’t ever mentioned, I just died when I thought about it and you all need to know.

This was a lot of fun to write, so have some fun reading it!

“So then maybe…C to an E?” Héctor strummed the line curiously, ignoring the irritated looks from the other passengers of the train car. He grimaced. “Hm. Well, what do you think, amigo?”

Ernesto let out a long sigh. “My friend, anything you put out will be perfect.” Despite his easy smile, Héctor could hear the strain in his friend’s voice. And, honestly, he couldn’t blame him. It’d been weeks since Héctor had come up with anything halfway decent, and he was practically panicking every time he picked up his songbook. Normally, his head was full of songs—too many to write—but now, whenever he opened up to a blank page, there was just…nothing. No music, no lyrics. His brain was as empty as the page.

He suspected part of it, at least, was due to the intense schedule Ernesto had for them now that they were a little more than complete unknowns. For nearly a year now, their lives had been travel, sleep, and performing; nearly every other day, they were piled on a train and headed from one end of México to the other. At first, it’d been thrilling—the people, the cities, the music!—but now, Héctor found, there was very little time for actual living, and that was where the songs came from.

So he’d had the bright idea of going home.

Ernesto had fought tooth and nail against going back to Santa Cecilia. It was a nothing town, he’d complained, and they’d both outgrown it. But, Héctor argued back, there was the annual talent show on Día de Muertos, and wouldn’t it be something if Santa Cecilia’s two favorite sons came back with a brand new song?

That argument didn’t work. What did work was when he mentioned that homecomings made for really great inspiration for songwriting, and if he didn’t get something written soon, they could kiss their dreams of fame goodbye. So here they were on the train, following Héctor’s perfect plan.

Or, well, it would be if Héctor could actually come up with a song for the show.

Going off of his C to E idea, he plucked out a simple tune, then groaned. “No, no, no. None of it’s working.”

Ernesto sent him an unimpressed look. “I understand that you’ve been having trouble with this, Héctor, but maybe you could have come up with something before the train ride? That might have saved you some stress.”

Héctor shrugged. “I thought I might work well under pressure.”

“You constantly fall apart under pressure. Remember the show in Morelia?”

“All right, but that was…”

“Or that time in the cantina? You know, with the dog?”

“Now that doesn’t cou—”

“Or when Marisol asked—”

“Okay. Okay! I don’t do well under pressure, esta claro!” He huffed as he looked down at the beaten guitar in his hands, then got to his feet. “I need some air. I’ll be back.”

Ernesto looked up at him. “Be careful. I don’t need you falling off the train before we even get to Santa Cecilia.”

Héctor gave him a vague wave in acknowledgement as he walked to the back of the car and through the one after it. He sucked in a breath as he opened the door to the back platform, shoes clanging slightly on the metal floor and hair whipping wildly in the wind. He eyed the opening suspiciously—a little rope was the only thing closing it off—and nestled himself against the opposite corner of the railing, squeezing his hip against it to stay steady as he started plucking out the tune he’d been working on.

Come on, come on. Why was nothing coming to him? He was surrounded by inspiration: the people on the train, the towns zipping past, traveling back home—there was absolutely no excuse for him to keep drawing a blank.

He threw his hand off his guitar with an irritated pah before dragging it down his face. Maybe he’d really run dry. Por Dios, wouldn’t that be tragic? Héctor Rivera, barely twenty years old and already with his best days behind him. If that were really the case, he’d be better off—

“Ay!”

The train hit a bump on the track, and Héctor was practically thrown into the air. His free hand tried to grip the railing, but his fingertips slid off the cold metal. Ah, but he managed to keep upright…until the train hit a sharp curve. He yelped as his feet slid on the metal floor, pitching him toward the opening in the railing.

He faintly heard the crash of wood on metal as he let go of his guitar, but his brain was purely focused on not falling off the train as he managed to grab a hold of the railing at the last moment. The train straightened out, and Héctor stood up with a high-pitched little laugh. Ave María Purísma, that could have been bad. He let out a breath as he leaned against the railing. Well, hopefully his guitar wasn’t too worse for the…

Wait.

Where was his guitar?

He looked up with wide eyes at the track. It couldn’t have…No no no! He let out a cry of dismay as he saw it just off the tracks, quickly getting smaller as the train pulled ahead. It must have slid out during the turn. Was there an emergency brake or something he could…He yelped and gripped the railing again as they hit another turn.

And just like that, the guitar was gone.

He stood very still for a long moment, slack-jawed and knuckles white from gripping the railing so hard. Oh no. No no no no nooo nonono. This was…this was probably the worst possible thing to happen. He stood for a few moments longer, brain fizzling until it finally burst into full-panic mode and he launched himself back into the train car.

“Ernesto!”

Ernesto jumped up as Héctor nearly toppled into the seat. “Héctor, are y—”

“I-I lost my guitar! It fell of the train!”

“Your…guitar fe—”

“I know, I know! But…but we can make it work! We can! I just…look, if I could play your guitar and you sing…”

“And how are we going to pull that off?” Ernesto interrupted sharply, eyes blazing with frustration. “All our songs need two guitars. Dios mio, Héctor, I knew you could be completely tonto sometimes but this? This is—”

“I know it’s bad! A-a-and I’ll make it right, okay? Just…look, I can change the arrangement and…”

“With what time?! Santa Cecilia’s the next stop!”

“What?!”

Héctor threw himself over Ernesto to look out the window, biting back some words not fit for a crowded train carriage. He knew these houses; Santa Cecilia was less than five minutes away.

“Mmmmokay! Okayokay, I’ll fix this. I’ll fix this.” Héctor pushed himself back up and grabbed his sombrero from the seat. He jammed it on his head as the train started to slow. “Meet me in the Plaza! I’ll have a guitar soon, I swear!” he called over his shoulder as he headed to the carriage’s door. As the train lurched into the station, he hopped off the steps light as anything and bolted right into Santa Cecilia.

Ayy, it’d been a long time since he’d been back here, but if he remembered right, the Perez’s should still have a music shop right around…

Two yelps rang out in the street as Héctor tripped. He pulled himself up, rubbing his cheek, then turned to see what had tripped him. A mostly hairless dog with entirely too much tongue looked up at him balefully. He quickly pat the dog’s head before getting back to his feet.

“Apologizes, perrito, but I’m in a hurry. I need to find…” He started to turn, then gave a bright grin. “The music store!”

Oh, God was smiling on him today. He’d pay all the money he had on him if needed; a guitar for the talent show was worth every single peso he had. Which…wasn’t much, but still. He loped up to the entrance, still grinning, and pulled the door open.

Well, he tried to. It was locked fast.

He backed away with wide eyes, just now noticing the “Cerrado” sign in the window. Closed? Closed?! Nooo, no no no! It couldn’t be closed!

He let his head fall back with a groan. Actually, of course it would be closed. It was Día de Muertos, everything would be closed. But…maybe they had just closed? And they would feel very, very terrible for the poor man outside—with no family to go to tonight!—and let him buy a guitar? It was worth a try, at least.

He rapped his knuckles against the door until they stung, calling out, “Señor Perez! It’s Héctor! I know you’ve missed me! I just need a guitar, I’ll pay anything you’d like for one! I really will this time!”

He stood there, knocking and calling, for several minutes, but nobody came. He finally banged his head against the door with a groan, not even bothering to catch his sombrero as it fell off his head. This was hopeless. He couldn’t buy a guitar, and he knew musicians too well to even pretend someone would loan him theirs. He was completely out of options.

He glanced behind him as he heard a bark. There was that dog again, tail wagging and tongue lolling out as he looked up at Héctor. Despite himself, he laughed a bit and shook his head.

“You know, I don’t think you’re too bright, pélon. Most dogs wouldn’t like the guy that tripped over them.”

The dog barked again, then became suddenly preoccupied with Héctor’s hat, sniffing it intently. Héctor laughed.

“Well, at least you’re willing to—oyé!” he called as the dog picked up his hat and bolted. Héctor sprinted after him. It was bad enough to have to go back to Ernesto without a guitar, but with his charro suit in shambles? Ernesto would kill him for that.

Héctor kept close to the dog, but Pélon here was awfully slippery. He wound through all of Santa Cecilia, managing to keep just out of Héctor’s reach. Every now and again he’d look back at Héctor, tail wagging, and give a muffled bark. Of course, this was a game to this dumb dog; he didn’t realize Héctor’s livelihood was on the line.

Finally (and fittingly), they bolted through the cemetery gates, just barely dodging the families starting to trickle in. The dog seemed to get finally tired of the chase, and he just stopped. Héctor barely skidded to a stop before tripping over him again, and he quickly reached forward to snatch the sombrero away, only for Pélon to jump out of the way, hat in mouth and tail wagging furiously. Mierda. He stood up straight, looking around for something, anything, to get him to let go of the hat. Ah, someone had left some chicharrón on this grave. Surely the very nice soul this belonged to wouldn’t mind…

Oh.

His eyes widened as he caught sight of it. An absolutely beautiful guitar sparkled up at him, orange light from nearby candles glinting off the white, polished wood. On the headboard, a skull grinned up at him.

He was saved.

His hands immediately went toward it, but he stopped himself. This seemed…like maybe not a good idea. After all, if this guitar was left out tonight, that meant it was an offering. And a fairly pricy one at that. But…well, it wasn’t like this person would need it. They were dead! Surely they wouldn’t mind him borrowing it for an hour at most.

He pressed his lips together hard, peering down at the etching on the gravestone. Unreadable in this light. He swallowed as he looked at the guitar again.

“Ah…perdóname…but, look, I really need to borrow this guitar,” he whispered. “It’s just for a little bit, just for the talent show. You know, the one in the Plaza? It’s…I’ve had no inspiration lately, but I think this’ll help. I…I really need tonight to go well. And I’ll bring it right back the moment we’re done performing.” He looked away. “Uh, if you knew me when you were alive, I could see why you might not believe me. But I’ll keep my word this time. I will, swear on my life.”

He gave the grave a hopeful smile, then picked up the guitar. Oh, it was lovely. He ran his hand over the smooth wood, then smiled as he lifted his hand to give an experimental strum. He was stopped, though, by a muffled whine behind him. He turned, then sighed. Ah, right, the dog still had his hat.

“I’m gonna need that, pélon,” he said, leaning down to grab the sombrero. The dog leapt back, whining again. Nope, still playing apparently. Héctor stood up with a huff, then glanced back down at the grave. Well…the owner didn’t seem to mind him borrowing the guitar…surely they could spare a teeny, tiny bit of their chicharrón.

He broke off a bit of one of the chunks, then whistled. “Hey, perrito! Look!”

The dog looked up, immediately aware that Héctor was holding food. He dropped the hat, drool already dripping from his mouth, and when Héctor threw it, he scrambled so quickly that he kept falling over himself. Heh. All things considered, it was a shame to say goodbye to his new friend, but the plaza beckoned. Héctor picked up his sombrero—a little drooly, but otherwise not too worse for the wear—and set it on his head before looking back down at the guitar. He took a breath, then shut his eyes and played a quick rift on it.

Beautiful. Even the wind thought so, gusting over him as the notes faded. He laughed as he opened his eyes. If that wasn’t a sign that borrowing the guitar was a good idea, he didn’t know what w—

Wait.

The cemetery seemed…fuller than before. But something was strange about the new arrivals. Héctor squinted at one family, then sucked in a gasp.

He was never particularly good at being religious, but what he saw made him cross himself immediately. He must be crazy. Or dreaming. There was no way the graveyard could be full of…

Skeletons?

Héctor stared in shock at the dozens of skeletons milling about the cemetery, easy as anything. Most of them seemed to be in their Sunday best, staying close to groups of family members and acting as if this weren’t completely unnatural. Where had they even come from? Why hadn’t he seen them come in?

Why wasn’t anyone else freaking out?

As a man walked by, he quickly ran up to him. “Oyé! Do you see them? Is it just me?” The man ignored him. “I’m serious! Don’t you see all the…there are skeletons! Everywhere!” The man didn’t even glance at him. Was he deaf? “Hey, listen to—” Héctor reached forward to grab the man’s arm, only to gape in shock as his hand went right through his arm. He tried to grab at it again, and again, but his hand kept passing through.

No, nooo, nonono. This couldn’t be happening. He…he must have hit his head hard when he tripped over the dog. He must be having some sort of…trauma-induced nightmare. He couldn’t be invisible.

As if to prove him wrong, a couple walked right through him. A sick feeling coursed through Héctor at the sensation, and he dropped the guitar as he tried to stay upright. He shook his head as he leaned against a tombstone, breathing hard. This couldn’t be real. It could not be real.

“Ah, señor? Are you all right?” came a soft voice from behind him.

Por Dios, finally someone could see him. He swallowed down the last of the nausea as he stood up.

“I…I don’t know. But I think…” He turned to face the woman who’d spoken…and was met by a concerned-looking skull.

They both screamed.

He scrambled back from the woman, crashing into someone behind him. He whirled as he heard the man’s irritated groan as his bones clattered to the ground.

“Why don’t you watch where—” His skull started to snap, but he gasped as he saw Héctor. “You’re alive!”

The man’s exclamation turned all the nearby skulls right toward Héctor. He froze in fear as they came closer. As one skeleton reached out toward him, his brain broke out into a full panic, and he bolted away. He kept running, feet sliding in soft dirt but barely managing to keep himself upright, until he found a secluded part of the cemetery and weakly dropped down behind a tombstone. He peeked over it, watching with wide eyes as skeletons made their merry way through the graveyard and picked up spirit versions of the offerings left to them. He dropped back down again.

Okay.

This was absolutely the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

He covered his face, pressing the heel of his hand against his mouth so he could let out a muffled scream. What was he supposed to do?! He didn’t even know how he’d ended up this way, so how could he—

He cried out in alarm as something wet slid along his cheek. He looked up in terror, only to see the little pélon dog back at his side, tail wagging and grinning as if everything were just fine. Héctor stared at him, then cautiously pat his head. His hand didn’t go through him.

“So you can still see me, pélon,” he said, voice shaking. “I…what do I do?”

He didn’t expect the dog to answer, of course. But, when the silly thing sat up straight and looked very pointedly off to the side before getting up…well, it wasn’t like Héctor had any better options but to follow him.

“Wait up, pélon!” he called as the dog broke into a run. He scrambled after him, barely keeping up, only to nearly trip over him for the third time that night as the dog came to a dead stop. “Stop doing that,” he said, though the words came out more panicked than frustrated. “Look, I need to find a way…to…”

He trailed off as he looked up in front of them. Instead of a forgotten corner of the graveyard, a huge bridge made of…leaves? Flowers? No, marigolds—stretched out in front of them. Skeletons were walking back and forth across it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Was…he supposed to cross? Was he dead? No, no, he couldn’t be dead. There must be a better way to…

He jumped as the dog broke out into a run, heading straight for the bridge.

“Pélon!” Without thinking, Héctor ran out onto the bridge, only stopping when he realized he was walking on flowers. He slowed, staring down in wonder at the petals holding him up. They…were petals, right? He leaned down to scoop up a handful of them, watching with wide eyes as they fell between his fingers. Despite everything—or, maybe because of it—he let out a little laugh, throwing up the remaining petals. He really was walking on flowers!

He found the dog rolling around contentedly up ahead. He barked back at Héctor, then jumped up and kept trotting along. He…seemed to know where he was going? More than Héctor did, at least, so it couldn’t hurt to follow him.

As he walked, he heard a family on his left gasp. Ah, right. He…stuck out. He pulled down the left side of his sombrero with a grimace. There, maybe…

“Santa Maria!” came a cry on his right.

With a huff, he pulled down both sides of his hat as he continued along the bridge. There had to be some skeleton over here that knew how to get him back to normal. Of course, that’s assuming that this flower bridge ever…ended…

His footsteps slowed as bright lights came over the horizon, then stopped and stared, open-mouthed at what laid ahead. At first glance, it looked like a city, but Héctor had never seen anything so…so beautiful. Lights as far as the eye could see! Every color imaginable! Fantastical animals of all sizes, shapes, and colors swooping through the air!

Well, if this is what happened after you die, maybe staying wouldn’t be so bad.

He shook his head. No, no. He wasn’t dead. He refused to believe that. And besides, even if he were, Ernesto would find a way to kill him beyond the grave for ditching him. Now if he could just…

“Ah! Perdóname,” he said as he walked into a skeleton. The skeleton turned, smiling, only to gasp as he saw Héctor’s face. That was…getting less surprising, actually, so he ignored it and peeked around the skeleton. Looked like a line of some kind, maybe a toll or something? Who’d’ve thought you’d have to wait in line after you died? Well, at the very least, he’d be able to talk to someone who knew what was going on.

“Anything to declare?” he heard the man behind the counter ask the family in front of him, to which they eagerly showed off their offerings. Huh. He watched them walk through after they were signed off, then took off his hat as he walked up to the window.

“Welcome back! Anything to…” The cheerful guard trailed off as he saw Héctor, who gave him a hopeful smile and a shrug.

“I…might have a few things to declare.”

The skeleton stared at him for several seconds. Then, with a shaking hand, he pulled out a radio.

“Vasquez? I-I’m going to need an escort to the Department of Family Reunions.”

“Well, looks like you’re cursed.”

“What?!”

The skeleton on the other side of the desk shrugged as she looked over a ledger. “Well, this isn’t exactly a common occurrence, so I’m only able to go off of previous reports. But generally, the living who wind up on this side of the bridge are cursed, usually by disrespecting the dead.” She raised her browridge as she looked up at Héctor. “Did you happen to disrespect the dead?”

“No!”

“You didn’t desecrate any graves?”

“Dios mio, you think I’m a monster?”

“Didn’t steal any offerings?”

“I…” He trailed off, grimacing, then looked back at the skeleton. “Well, I-I asked permission!”

“Hmm?”

Héctor squirmed a bit in his seat. “Well, I did for the guitar. And it was just the tiniest bit of chicharrón for Pélon over here.” He gestured down to the dog, still by his side and contentedly gnawing on his own leg. Héctor shook his head. “Look, I’ll go and apologize to whoever that guitar belongs to. Then I can go back, right?”

“It doesn’t work like that, señor.”

“What.”

The skeleton pulled out another ledger, flipping through it with a sigh. “When the living get involved with the dead, it takes a tie between our worlds to send them back.” Héctor stared blankly at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Familia. You need a family member to give you their blessing to go home.” She peered at Héctor curiously. “And you need it soon. As in, tonight soon.”

“Why?”

The skeleton nodded down at Héctor’s hand. He frowned, then glanced down and gasped. His pointer finger, as well as the tips of his thumb and middle finger, was turning skeletal. He stared in horror as he twitched it, bones moving as easily as the skeleton’s in front of him.

“Wh-why…”

“Living people aren’t meant to be here. If you don’t get uncursed by sunrise, you’re stuck here. And…how old are you, señor?”

“Seventeen?”

“Ah. Yes, and if that’s the case, then you’re probably going to be charged with disturbing the peace, defacing of property, and theft.”

“What?!”

“Well, you are old enough to…” The skeleton’s sockets widened as Héctor jumped up to his feet and leaned over the desk.

“You’re telling me that I’m going to die and THEN go to jail for picking up some chicharrón?!”

The skeleton gave a thin smile. “Well, not if I can help it.” She got to her feet. “The Department of Family Reunions is specially equipped for situations like this. Now, what was your name again?”

“Héctor Rivera.”

“Rivera, Rivera…here we go! Now, who do you leave on your ofrenda?”

“I…” Héctor grimaced. “I don’t leave anyone on the ofrenda.”

The skeleton’s eyes widened. “What?!” Héctor shrugged helplessly. The skeleton huffed. “All right, then maybe we could go by names.” As Héctor looked away, the skeleton stared at him. “You don’t know anyone’s name?”

“Hey, if you know an orphanage that keeps family trees for the kids dropped there, I’d be glad to hear it,” Héctor shot back.

The skeleton pressed a hand to her skull, muttering what sounded like a prayer to herself. After a moment, she looked Héctor dead in the eyes as she reached to the filing cabinet and opened up three extremely full drawers.

“You see these? These are all the deceased with the last name Rivera. And, since you haven’t kept track of your ancestors, we’re going to have to go through every one.”

Héctor gaped. “But…but I only have until sunrise!”

“Then we’re going to have to start now.”

Héctor swallowed as she took out a stack of folders. There was no way they’d get through all of these in one night. He looked up at the skeleton, then took a breath before putting on his most charming smile as he leaned forward.

“Look,” he said, lowering his voice. “I don’t like mentioning this, but I’m actually a very famous mariachi. So…if there’s anyway we could speed up this process, my fans would really like—”

He trailed off as there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” the agent said, then groaned as the door opened. An officer stepped inside, holding onto the arm of a very small skeleton. “Again, Miguel?”

The skeleton boy gave an embarrassed grin. “Hola, Señora Estevez.”

“He tried to slip past us at the gate again.”

“I figured.” The agent pressed her hand to her skull again. “Look, I’m dealing with this very famous living mariachi—” Héctor frowned at the way she said that, though he glanced back as he heard the boy suck in a gasp. His eyes were wide and starry as he stared, and Héctor gave him an awkward little wave back. “—and have to focus on getting him home.” She sighed and added, “Just…keep him here at the station. And keep an eye on him; he’s slippery.”

The officer nodded, then guided the boy out. Héctor watched them leave, only to jump as the agent dropped another stack of files on her desk.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that death is the great equalizer, Señor Rivera,” she said dryly. “So, no matter how famous you are, you still have to follow our rules. It’s time to get reading.”

This was hopeless.

They’d been reading through files for nearly an hour now, and they weren’t even halfway through the first cabinet of Riveras. Héctor pushed away the file, then looked down at his hands. All of his fingers were skeletal now, and the skin of his palms were just starting to disappear. This was taking too long. He huffed, then pushed himself up to his feet and headed to the door.

“Señor Rivera? Where are you going?” Agent Estevez asked. He quickly turned and gave her a weary smile.

“Con permiso, I just need to clear my head. I’ll be right back,” he said. She frowned back at him.

“Be sure not to leave the building, señor,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. He rolled his eyes.

“Where would I even go?” he muttered as he exited the door. The dog followed close to him, then caught what was apparently a very nice scent and wandered the opposite direction. He groaned. “Pélon. I could really do without you wandering…” He trailed off as he caught up to the dog, peeking in as he heard two familiar voices through the cracked-open door. Curious, he peeked inside as well.

“All right, paperwork’s done.” The officer stamped a stack of papers, then sighed as he looked up at the skeleton boy sitting across from him. “Miguel, you need to stop running off like that. There’s a reason you’re at the home.”

The boy—Miguel, apparently—gave a huff and a shrug.

“It’s not so bad there,” the officer tried again.

“Except that I have family. You just won’t help me,” Miguel muttered, sinking down in his seat.

“Look, if we ever get—I don’t know—face scanners that can tell you who your family is, you’ll be the first to know. But the information you have is too little for us to worth with. It’s safer for you to stay there.”

Miguel rolled his eyes, huffing as he propped his chin in his hand. He looked up, and his eyes widened as he saw Héctor. Héctor froze up, and for a moment they merely stared at each other.

“Well, one of the sisters will be here in a little bit to pick you up, so just wait here for a little while longer, okay, niño?”

“Uh…” Miguel finally broke his gaze from Héctor, glancing down. Héctor looked down as well, sucking in a breath as Pélon started to nudge his head inside with a big, dopey grin. He grit his teeth as he tried to pull the dog away from the door.

“What is all that—?” the officer started to ask, but looked up in alarm Miguel suddenly threw himself into a coughing fit. “Ay, niño, you okay?”

“F-fine…” Miguel peeked up, giving a little nod to tell Héctor to go. Huh, nice kid. With a bit of effort, he managed to drag the dog away from the door and make his way down the hall.

Now, back to the problem at hand (He grimaced at the accidental pun as he looked down at his skeletal fingers.) At the rate they were going, they wouldn’t even be halfway through all the files by the time sunrise came. And that? That wasn’t good. There had to be another way to break this stupid cu—

“Are you really a famous mariachi?”

Héctor jumped at the question, whirling around to see Miguel standing right behind him. He blinked a few times, then smiled.

“Of course I am. Part of the amazing duo Ernesto y Héctor.” He held out his hand to shake. “I’m the Héctor half.”

Miguel’s starry expression dimmed a bit, and he frowned slightly. “I haven’t heard of you.”

“We’re a big deal in the living world. Hundreds of shows a year, tons of fans. But, you know, we’re…we’re just starting out. From what I understand, it’ll take a little while for us to catch on over here.”

Miguel nodded, then glanced over his shoulder for the guard before he looked up at Héctor with a smile. “Then I think we can help each other,” he whispered.

“Wha—” Héctor was cut off as Miguel quickly pulled him into a phone booth, shutting the door tightly before fixing his eyes on Héctor’s.

“They’re not going to be able to help you out there,” he said, nodding toward the door. “I’ve tried for years to find my family, and I’m still sent off to the home every time. It’s all paperwork this and filing that.” Miguel pulled a face, then smiled up at Héctor. “What you need is to actually meet people. And I know a lot of people. At least one of them should know you!”

Héctor sent him a frown. “Seems like a long shot, kid.”

Miguel matched his frown, then nodded at Héctor’s hands. “You got any better ideas?”

Héctor grimaced, then let out a long sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. On one hand, he was as good as dead if he stayed here. On the other…how much safer was trusting some random kid who might know where some of his family was?

Well…anything was better than sitting around and watching himself become a skeleton.

“Mmmokay. But I’ve got a really tight deadline, chamaco, so…”

“I can work with that!” Miguel shot him a bright smile, then stood up on his tiptoes to peek out the booth’s window. “Getting out’s gonna be hard, but I’ve managed to sneak out with worse. Okay…vámonos!”

Miguel grabbed Héctor’s arm and pushed the door open, tugging him out as a large group of skeletons walked past. The dog, who’d been stuck outside the booth whining at them, ran after them, nearly tripping over himself with excitement. Héctor shushed him as they kept close to the group, which only prompted him to bark. The officer that had been holding Miguel bolted around the corner at the noise, and he gasped.

“Miguel!” Miguel and Héctor turned, wide-eyed, as they heard him. “El Vivo?!”

Both gave the officer an awkward smile, then Miguel tugged Héctor after him with a whispered, “Run!”

Héctor did not need to be told twice, and soon enough they were running through the crowded department, dodging families and ducking around officers before they could notice who they were.

“Was this your plan?” Héctor asked as they rounded a corner and bolted to the door.

“I didn’t have a plan!”

“You said you’ve sneaked out with worse!”

“Well, yeah, when I haven’t had a tall living guy with me!” Miguel tugged Héctor out the door, the dog just barely managing to squeeze out with them. “Here, they’ll lose us in the crowd!”

They dove into a large group of revelers, sticking close to them. Héctor ducked down a bit, glancing back toward the station and grimacing as a whole group of officers poured out. He tugged his sombrero tighter over his head as they made their way deeper into the plaza. “Not to put any pressure on you, chamaco, but now would be a really good time to have some sort of plan.” He looked up just in time to see Miguel pick a marigold from a nearby planter. “Something besides picking flowers would be good.”

“Relax. I have…well, I have the first part of a plan.” Miguel tucked the marigold into his pocket, then turned back to look at him with a smile. “We need to take care of that whole being alive thing.”

“You’re really sure you can’t do anything about your ears?”

“I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve had ears, but they’re not something you can just make invisible.”

“Especially not yours.”

“Hey.”

“Pff, sorry.” Miguel finished painting a grin on Héctor’s face, then squinted at him appraisingly. “I think you’re good. I mean, your nose is still pretty big, and there’s the whole ear thing, but if no one gets close...”

They’d found a secluded alleyway to hide out in for the moment, and Miguel, armed with two tins of shoe polish (“The only way the nuns let me out on Dia de Muertos is if they think I’m working.”), had gone to town making Héctor’s face as skeletal as his hands. He tossed the tins aside, and Héctor did his best to hide his ears with his hair as the dog started sniffing at the tins.

“Hey, Pélon, don’t…” Too late. He was already licking at the tin, only to whine and shake his head once he tasted the shoe polish. Miguel laughed, giving the dog’s head a sympathetic rub.

“Your alebrije’s kinda dumb,” he said, laughing again as the dog started licking his face.

“You think Pélon here’s an alebrije? Seriously?”

Miguel wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck. “I mean, he followed you here, right? That sounds like a spirit animal.”

Héctor shook his head and pulled his sombrero on to keep his hair down. “I think it takes him a while to catch on to things. He’ll probably figure out that he wound up here tomorrow.” He smiled at Miguel’s snort, then leaned forward and looked at the boy seriously. “All right, so…you’re gonna help me out with this whole family thing?”

“Yep.” Miguel smiled as he pulled out the crumpled marigold in his pocket. “A blessing on one of these, and you’re back home.”

“Bueno.” Héctor pressed his lips together, arching an eyebrow. “So what’s in it for you?”

“You’re gonna do the same for me.”

Héctor blinked, and he laughed before he could stop himself. “You’re funny, chamaco. But seriously, what do you want from me?”

Miguel puffed out a breath. “I am serious.” At Héctor’s doubtful look, he sighed. “The whole thing with this place is that it runs on memories. The memories of the living are what keep us from fading, and it’s what brings us back home on Día de Muertos. Photos on the ofrenda are what lets us go back over the Marigold Bridge.” He let go of the dog to stick his hands the pockets of his faded red coat. “But it works the opposite way, too. The memories from your life are what they use to get you in the system. If you don’t have that…” He shrugged. “Well, if you’re a kid, you wind up in a home.”

Héctor’s brows drew together. “You don’t remember your life?”

Miguel shook his head. “The last thing I remember is waking up here. And when I tried to cross the first time, they told me I didn’t have a photo on an ofrenda. So I have nothing to go on. Well, except for this…” From his pocket, he pulled out an old, worn photo and held it up. Héctor took it and looked over it curiously. It looked like a class photo, with a row of ten boys lined in front of the school house. Miguel tapped on a boy off to the left, one cheek dimpling with a stifled smile.

“That’s me. See? My hair’s the same, and I have a freckle where I have this mark,” he said, tapping the swirled green circle on his upper jaw, then looked up at Héctor with bright eyes. “And since you’re famous, you can bring this back and get the word out! And then next year I can find my family on Día de Muertos!”

Héctor swallowed. Oh. That was…a heavy order. How many people had he and Ernesto played for in the past year? A hundred, maybe two? Definitely not famous enough for Miguel’s plan. He looked down at the photo again, then took a breath.

“Look, Miguel, I’m not really…” He looked up at Miguel. The boy’s eyes were bright as he looked back at Héctor, every hope of getting back to his family clear on his skull. Héctor pressed his lips together, then carefully folded the photo and tucked it into the pocket of his charro jacket. “I’m not…really sure how this whole ofrenda thing works.” He put on a smile as he leaned forward. “But by the time the next Día de Muertos comes around, all of México will know that a kid named Miguel needs to find his family.”

“Qué excelente!” Miguel jumped up to his feet with a grin. “Okay, but we’ve gotta move. You don’t have too long before sunrise, and we’ve got a lot of people to talk to.”

For a kid, Miguel had quite a lot of friends in odd places. Granted, he’d apparently been dead for a while (“Twenty…twenty-five years? I think? No, this is my twenty-third Día de Muertos.”), and Héctor had to admit, the kid was charming as anything. They wound their way through what felt like a dozen separate neighborhoods, each with at least one friend of Miguel’s hanging around.

“This is my friend, Héctor. He doesn’t remember his family either, but he’s a really famous mariachi! Do you remember him?” was asked over and over, but with no results aside from an increasing discomfort whenever Miguel called him famous. (At one point, Miguel suggested that Pélon could probably sniff out Héctor’s family. They spent a few minutes following him, only to have to pull him away from a pan dulce cart. That idea was scrapped pretty quickly.)

Eventually, they found their way to a huge plaza. Héctor’s eyes widened as he saw what had to have been thousands of people surrounding the stage at the far end, cheering at a very enthusiastic banda group. He let out a quick breath, glancing down at his hands. Fully skeletal now, with his wrist bones just showing beneath his sleeves.

He took a deep breath—he wasn’t panicked, but it was still worrying to be losing so much skin so fast—and set his hand on Miguel’s shoulder before he launched into the square. “This isn’t working,” he said bluntly. “There’s no way we can talk to every single person here before sunrise.”

“I-I bet if we move really fast, we could…” At Héctor’s disbelieving look, Miguel sighed. “I know,” he admitted. “But it’s not like we can ask everyone at once!”

Héctor pressed his lips together, then glanced toward the stage. A smile twitched at his lips.

“Actually, I think we can.” He looked down at Miguel, giving him a grin. “Just follow my lead, Miguelito, and we’ll both be on our way back home.”

“And it’s mi hermanito’s very first time performing. And we just need the guitar for one song, that’s all!” Héctor gave the skeletal duo he’d approached a hopeful smile; over his shoulder, Miguel copied it.

“Por favor?” he added. “It won’t be as good as seeing our parents, but it’d really make our night.”

The duo glanced at each other, then sighed. After a moment, one of them held up his guitar.

“Be careful with it, muchachos,” he said gruffly. Héctor and Miguel exchanged a grin.

“Por supuesto!” Héctor set Miguel down to take the guitar. “We’ll be back with it as soon as we’re done! Gracias, señores!” He nodded for Miguel to follow him, moving a little quicker as he heard one of the duo say, “Didn’t it look like that guy had a nose?”

Miguel looked up at Héctor excitedly as they walked to a secluded corner of the backstage area. “So are you going to play your most famous song?” he asked, pulling himself up to sit on a box as Héctor tuned the guitar. “They’ll definitely know who you are if you do that!”

Héctor just held back a grimace as that sick feeling returned. “Look, chamaco, don’t…don’t be disappointed if we’re not swarmed by fans, okay? I don’t think Ernesto y Héctor…” He froze suddenly, eyes wide. Oh. He didn’t have Ernesto here with him. Dios, when was the last time he performed by himself? Had he ever? He could play, sure, but his best performances came from the way he played off someone else.

“What about Ernesto y Héctor?”

Héctor looked up as Miguel’s question broke through his thoughts, and a wide smile started to spread across his face as a brilliant idea hit him. “I don’t think Ernesto y Héctor will mean much to the people here; I told you we haven’t caught on down here. Miguel y Héctor, though, that’s different.” His grin widened at the shocked look on Miguel’s face as he took off his sombrero. “After all, I did say it was mi hermanito’s very first time performing,” he added as he set the hat on Miguel’s head.

“What?!” Miguel pushed the hat up to look at Héctor with panicked eyes. Oh. That was…not the reaction he was expecting. “Bu-but I’ve never performed! I don’t even know any songs!”

Héctor sent him a disbelieving look. “I know for a fact that there are hundreds of dead revolucionarios out there in that plaza alone. You had to have heard at least a corrido or two.” His eyes widened as Miguel shrugged. “You haven’t?”

“We’re only allowed to sing hymns at the home!”

“No one’s going to listen if we play a hymn!” Héctor sucked in a breath and shook his head, then looked up at Miguel. He let out the breath he’d been holding and leaned forward. “Think back, chamaco. Are there any songs you can remember?”

Miguel’s browbone furrowed, and his skull screwed up slightly as he thought. He opened his eyes after a moment, expression soft. “There’s…one I can remember.”

Héctor grinned. “Allà vamos, Miguelito! If you can sing it for me, I can figure out—”

“No!”

Héctor blinked. “No?”

Miguel drew into himself slightly as he looked down at his knees. “That one’s special. I…it doesn’t feel right to perform it.”

Héctor looked at the boy for a moment. Well…he could understand that. He certainly had some songs that were too special to perform, even if Ernesto insisted otherwise. He let out a breath, then reached to his inside pocket. There was Miguel’s photo, and just behind it…there. He puffed out a breath as he opened up the notebook. He was still bored with what he’d written, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He grimaced a bit; most had been written for two guitars, but there had to be one…aha!

“All right, chamaco, it’s time for your first experience as a real músico.” He sat down beside Miguel on the box, holding up the notebook. “Which means we’re gonna learn this song in ten minutes or less.”

Miguel looked up at Héctor with wide eyes, then took a deep breath and put on his most determined face as he nodded. “Okay.”

Héctor had prepared for the worst, but Miguel was a surprisingly quick study. His timing was spot-on, and he carried a tune far better than Héctor could. This could actually work. And it was…fun? By their second time running through the song, Miguel was relaxed and already playing off of Héctor like they’d known each other forever. This was going to be perfect.

Until the stagehand told them that they were up next, and Miguel completely froze up.

“Hey, Miguelito?” Héctor set a hand on Miguel’s shoulder, prompting a gasp from him before he quickly shook his head.

“I can’t…I…”

Héctor’s eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. Okay. Two options here: He could go out alone and hope he did well enough to garner some attention (but not enough for people to realize he wasn’t actually dead).

Or…he could help Miguel out.

“Don’t talk like that, chamaco, you’re a natural. All you need to do is loosen up.” Héctor grinned at Miguel as he shook out his long limbs. He gave the boy a nod; Miguel gave him a dubious look before shaking out his own limbs with a rattle. “There we go! Now, give me your best grito.”

“My best grito?”

“You know, a shout. You’re what, twelve? You definitely know how to yell.” Miguel gave him a shrug. “It’s just like this!” Héctor wasted no time in letting out a whoop that turned several skulls toward them. He ignored them, grinning at Miguel. “Now you!”

Miguel stared at him, but sucked in a breath and let out…the most pathetic noise Héctor had ever heard. He grimaced.

“Uh, try again, chamaco.”

Miguel took another breath and let out an equally strangled noise. Héctor stared, then gave him a thumbs up. Ave María Purísma, at least the kid was cute.

As if he could hear that thought, Miguel looked even less-reassured than he had pre-grito. Héctor grimaced again, then snapped to get Miguel’s attention. “Hey, Miguel, look at me.” When he did, he gave him a smile. “It’s gonna be fine up there, okay? We’ll just have some fun like we did a few minutes ago.”

“But your blessing…”

“Doesn’t matter. Not right now. Right now, we’re músicos, and we’re gonna make sure that every skeleton out there knows that.” He gave him a grin and another thumbs up. “Suena bien?”

Miguel looked up at him, then took a breath and nodded. Héctor put a hand on his bony shoulder and led them up onto the stage as the emcee called, “And now, Miguel y Héctor!”

Héctor gave the crowd his biggest grin, then glanced down at Miguel, who looked shell-shocked. The kid still had stage-fright. What did he do? Ernesto would turn on that de la Cruz charm and hide the boy—that’d happened their very first show, after all—but…well, that wasn’t Héctor’s forte. So really, there was only one option.

Miguel turned in alarm at the loud grito that Héctor let out, but he smiled a bit at his little nod. He took the deepest breath he could, then let out a grito that was just as loud, bouncing off the buildings surrounding the plaza and sending a surprised murmur through the crowd. Héctor took that as his cue to start playing, fingers dancing quickly over the frets, and he looked up with a bright smile as Miguel jumped in like he hadn’t been scared stiff a moment ago.

“Señoras y señores, buenas tardes, buenas noches

Buenas tardes, buenas noches, señoritas y señores…”

Miguel carried the song exceptionally well, dancing around Héctor with a bright grin as he sang. Héctor played back, harmonizing where he could and matching the kid’s energy as he played the hardest he had in a while. Ay, it’d been so long since performing had been a joy instead of a chore; when was the last time he and Ernesto danced around the stage like this?

All too soon, the song came to an end with a prolonged rift from Héctor and one last grito from Miguel, and they both looked out with wide eyes as the crowd went wild. Héctor was the first to break from the spell, and he gave Miguel a wide grin as he ruffled his hair.

“What’d I tell you, chamaco? You’re a real músico now.”

Miguel blinked, then sent him a big grin back. He blinked, then whispered, “Let them know who you are.”

Ah, right. Héctor nodded, then turned back to the crowd and called out, “Gracias, damas y caballeros! We’re Miguel y Héctor, Santa Cecilia’s two favorite sons!”

There was another cheer from the crowd, but Héctor caught a strange look on Miguel’s face.

“Santa Cecilia?” he asked slowly, eyes focused on something very far away. Héctor half-smiled.

“Sorry to drag you into my hometown, but it was easier than…”

“No. I-I’ve heard of it. I just…” He looked up in alarm as the emcee ran onstage.

“Damas y caballeros, we’ve got an emergency alert. Be on the lookout for a living man…”

And that was their cue to leave. Before the emcee could give so much as a description, Héctor grabbed Miguel’s arm and bolted off the stage quick enough for his sombrero to fly off the boy’s head. The dog, who’d been howling off-stage, eagerly ran after them.

“Wait, your hat—”

“They can keep it!”

“Well, you can’t lead! You don’t know where we—” Miguel gasped. Héctor glanced back at him, then looked up. Several alebrijes flew overhead—but then, they’d been doing that all night. Miguel picked up his pace, jumping ahead of Héctor and dragging him behind. “Come on!”

“What? They’re just spirit animals, right?”

“Yeah, but those ones…” Miguel pointed up at the ones above them, which seemed to be very focused on them. “…belong to officers!”

As if on cue, a massive alebrije that seemed to be a mix of an eagle and a lizard swooped down toward them. Both Miguel and Héctor let out a cry of fright, picking up their pace and sprinting ahead.

“This way!” Miguel threw himself forward, bringing Héctor down with him into into a dry canal. They tumbled down the side, the dog rolling down with them, and Miguel just barely dragged Héctor up to pull him beneath a bridge. They huddled together beneath it, both breathing hard as they waited for the alebrije to give up. The beak just peaked below the top, clicking curiously. A large claw reached under; Héctor automatically threw his arm in front of Miguel as they took a step back. But they were too deep underneath. The alebrije let out a frustrated shriek, and, after a few terrifying moments, they finally heard the heavy flap of wings. Héctor lowered his arm, heart still pounding in his chest as he shook slightly.

“Is that…normal?”

Miguel let out a breath; he didn’t look quite as frightened as Héctor, but still shaken. “They use them as trackers, sometimes. Normally they’re not that big.” He let out a long breath. “They won’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t think of saying that first?!”

“I was focused on not getting dragged back to the station!” Miguel argued back.

They both huffed and turned away from each other; Héctor’s heart was still hammering. Well. Being angry wouldn’t solve anything. He let out a shaking breath, then turned back to Miguel.

“You said you knew Santa Cecilia?”

Miguel glanced back at him, then pressed his lips together. “I…I think someone I know lived there.”

Héctor’s eyes widened, and he walked up to Miguel with a hopeful smile. “Really? Can we go see them?” His brows creased as Miguel’s expression darkened. “What?”

Miguel looked away, then took a deep breath. “You swear you’ll find my family when you get home?”

“Of course, chamaco. I’ll start spreading the word the minute I get back.”

Miguel swallowed hard, then nodded. “Okay. Follow me.”

“Can you go any faster?”

“Listen, chamaco, it’s gonna be really hard to get back to the Land of the Living if I die of a broken neck.” Héctor wavered a bit as he made his way down to the next ledge of the bridge. “Besides, I’ve got my second stolen guitar of the night on my back. That’s a big burden to carry.”

Miguel had led the way through a winding maze of side streets and semi-climbable ledges. Half the time, he let himself fall down a decent way just to gather his bones back easy as anything. Héctor…did not have that luxury, which left him picking his way down some very steep wall reliefs. There was an easier way, Miguel explained on the way, but that’d be crawling with officers and alebrijes looking for a living man and a dead boy. This was the way he took when he wanted to be sneaky.

It took all off two seconds after Miguel announced they had arrived for Héctor to realize what he was looking at. The stark building with a crucifix on the outside told him exactly where they were.

“So this is the orphanage you stay at,” he said bluntly, looking it over. Miguel shrugged.

“I mean, we’re not really orphans. Most of us have parents, they’re just still alive. Or…we can’t remember them. And it’s…” Miguel trailed off as Héctor shook his head.

“Is it run by nuns?”

“Well, yeah…”

“And is it full of kids that no one knows what to do with?”

“Yes…”

“Then that’s an orphanage. Believe me, I have experience with that.” Héctor took a breath, adjusting the guitar strap on his shoulder. “So who in here’s from Santa Cecilia?”

Miguel was suddenly very preoccupied with patting Pélon’s head. Finally, he sucked in a breath. “Sister Maria Rafaela,” he whispered.

Héctor could feel the blood drain from his face. Oh, no. “S-Sister Maria Rafaela?”

Miguel’s eyes widened. “You know her?”

Héctor automatically rubbed his bony knuckles with a grimace. “You don’t forget being on the end of her punishments.”

Miguel huffed. “Well, maybe if I’m with you, she won’t…”

“Miguel!”

They both looked up, and a skeletal nun marched straight toward them. Miguel started to give a smile and a little wave.

“Hola, Sis—” He yelped as she grabbed his arm tightly, pulling him away before Héctor could stop her and disregarding the dog’s growls.

“Every year you do this,” she scolded harshly, grip tight enough that Miguel couldn’t wriggle out of it. “And you would think that punishment would be enough to stop you, but you’re a stubborn little…”

A memory of belts cracking against skin flashed in Héctor’s head, and he quickly stepped forward. “It’s my fault he’s out this year, Sister. I-I just arrived and I wanted to spend the night with my tío.”

Sister Maria Rafaela looked up and frowned at him. “And who are…” She trailed off as she looked over him; Héctor made sure to keep his face directly facing her as he gave her an awkward smile. “Héctor?!”

“Hola, Sister. You know, you still look great.”

Miguel forgotten, Sister Maria Rafaela took a step toward Héctor, who shuffled back. “I knew you’d get yourself into this sort of trouble,” she hissed. “Is your friend here, too?”

“Oh, no, Ernesto’s…he’s fine. But, ah, listen, Sister, while I’m here…” As Sister Maria Rafaela kept trying to inspect him more closely, Héctor kept skittering away. “…my Tío Miguel brought up the best idea…” He stepped beside Miguel, resting a hand on the boy’s head as they both leaned away. “…and we thought you might know where my family ended up.”

Sister Maria Rafaela frowned hard at him, then started to reach for Miguel again. Without thinking, Héctor hoisted him up onto his shoulders, out of the nun’s grasp. She huffed.

“Ungrateful schemers, the both of you,” she said sharply. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I’m having no part of it.”

Héctor swallowed. “Sister, please. If you have any idea where…”

“And how am I supposed to know that?” she asked sharply. “We take care of the children left to us. There are no questions asked!”

“But Santa Cecilia was so small, you had to—”

“I don’t know, Héctor,” she said crisply. “Now, give that child back or…” She trailed off, suddenly, eyes fixed on Héctor’s cheek. She took a quick breath, then let it out. “I need to make a call,” she said simply, then turned and went back inside.

Both Miguel and Héctor blinked at her sudden shift, and Héctor glanced up at Miguel before bringing him down from his shoulders. “Probably too optimistic to think she’s remembered a long-lost relative of mine?”

“Definitely too opt—” Miguel looked up and gasped, eyes locked right on the same spot Sister Maria Rafaela had been looking. Héctor’s brow creased.

“What? Are we too late?” he asked, automatically reaching up to touch his cheek. He froze as he felt warm skin instead of shoe polish. But he’d been so careful! How had he…His eyes widened as he caught the long streak of white on Miguel’s knee. Oh. When he’d put Miguel on his shoulders…

“We need to go.” Miguel’s voice was barely a whisper. “Maybe we can smooth it out? O-or I can try and get more polish and—” He was cut off by Héctor yelping when a bony finger and thumb pinched his ear hard.

“This is a low I never expected from you,” she hissed at him. “Dragging a poor little boy along in your schemes. You dese—Ay!”

Héctor’s ear was released, and he just caught Miguel slamming his foot down on Sister Maria Rafaela’s foot.

“He’s not dragging me along, he’s helping me find my family!” he shouted, then looked up at Héctor. “Come on! If we run, we can still…”

KA-CRAWWW!

Both Miguel and Héctor scrambled back at the cry, once again face to face with the alebrije from earlier. Its beak clicked menacingly at them. Héctor glanced up at the bird, then down at Miguel. He sucked in a breath, then pushed Miguel away from him before letting out a loud grito.

The alebrije’s head shot over to him, slitted pupils widening, and he bolted in the opposite direction. Well, by this point, he was going to die anyway. Might as well let Miguel get away while he could. He was keeping away fairly well, and then…

Pélon tripped him.

Héctor tripped and skidded, but before he could pick himself up, strong talons wrapped around his arm. The alebrije gave a triumphant caw before starting to flap away. As if realizing that he’d done wrong, the dog whined before jumping into action. He grabbed a hold of Héctor’s sleeve and tried to tug him back, unaware that he was being lifted up as well. But he was too heavy for the stitching, and before Héctor could grab for him, the sleeves completely ripped off, revealing one fully-skeletal arm and sending Pélon back to the ground, barking worriedly the whole way.

Héctor tried his best to twist around. Where was Miguel? Had he managed to get away? He caught sight of the red coat, weaving quickly through the abandoned streets below. That was good. The kid would be safe. He’d manage to—

Héctor’s stomach flipped as the alebrije swooped down, and he cried out as its other claw wrapped around Miguel’s arm. The boy struggled, but it was no use; the alebrije held fast. Miguel went limp, looking up at Héctor with wide eyes as the alebrije swooped and dove its way back to the station. This was it. The sun would be rising soon, and they’d be locked away in the last place they wanted to be. Héctor went limp as well, though he frowned as he caught sight of a dark opening beneath them, with something glinting at the bottom. Was that…water? If it was…

He looked up at Miguel. “I have a really terrible idea!” he shouted.

“What?”

Instead of answering, Héctor sucked in a breath and threw his legs back. His arm twisted painfully, but with a bit of effort, he managed to swing his lower body up enough to slam one of his feet into the alebrije’s soft belly.

It gave a shriek before automatically dropping the two. Both screamed as they plummeted down. Despite it being Héctor’s idea, he shut his eyes and braced himself. If he was wrong about that pit…well, he was already dying, but this way would be a lot more painful.

The air was knocked out of him the moment he hit the water, bubbling out of his mouth as he tumbled below. He hit the silt below, completely convinced the fall killed him. It was only when he gasped in a lungful of air once he resurfaced that he figured he must not be dead just yet. He coughed several times, then looked around.

“Hey, chamaco?” he called hoarsely as he paddled to shore. “Miguel!”

“Héctor?” As Héctor stepped onto the shore, he nearly topped back into the water as Miguel threw his arms around him, bones rattling. He looked down with wide eyes as the boy sniffled.

“I’m sorry,” Miguel mumbled against his chest. “I thought it could work. I thought we’d both get home.”

Héctor let out a breath, setting a hand on Miguel’s head. “Hey, hey, it’s all right, chamaco.”

“No, it’s not!” Miguel pushed himself back, brown eyes sharp as he looked up at Héctor. “It’s my fault that you can’t go back to your fans and that I won’t ever see Mamá Coco again and—"

“Who?”

“Mamá Coco.” Miguel looked away. “She’s…she’s all I remember from before I died. We’d sing together.”

Héctor’s face softened as he put two and two together. “So the song you didn’t want to sing…?”

Miguel nodded, his palm quickly scraping against his cheekbone. “It was ours.” He took a quick breath as he sat down at the edge of the water. “I do-don’t even know if she’s alive or dead. But…but if I could just find her, somewhere, I-I know I’d be home.”

Héctor looked down at Miguel for a long moment, aware, suddenly, of the second stolen guitar still strapped to his back. He pulled it off quietly, then—after making sure it was in one piece—he sank down beside Miguel.

“Can you play?”

Miguel peeked up. “What?”

“Can you play? I didn’t ask earlier.”

Miguel swallowed. “Just a little bit.”

“That’s all you need.” He held out the guitar. “A bit of music helps bad situations feel a little better. That’s what I’ve learned, at least.”

Miguel looked down at the guitar, then up at Héctor. Very carefully, he took the guitar and flipped it around, strumming experimentally at the strings. After a few moments, the strumming settled into a simple tune, with a very soft voice accompanying it.

“Remember me

Though I have to say goodbye

Remember me

Don’t let it make you cry

For even if I’m far away

I hold you in my heart

I sing a secret song to you

each night we are apart

Remember me

Though I have to travel far

Remember me

Each time you hear a sad guitar

Know that I’m with you

The only way that I can be

Until you’re in my arms again

Remember me…”

Héctor listened raptly as Miguel sang, the quiet tune seeming to fill the whole cenote. His heart lurched, and he tucked his chin against his knees. This poor kid. All he wanted was to get home, and Héctor had him running on a wild goose chase because he hadn’t thought to tell the truth. He looked up as he felt a small weight lean against his side.

“I’m sorry, Héctor,” Miguel said quietly. “Your fans will pro—”

“I’m not famous, Miguel.”

“What?”

Héctor shut his eyes and let out a breath. “When I said I was famous? That was…it was a lie. I’m just…” His newly-bony shoulders sagged. “I’m just a nobody from Santa Cecilia. That’s it. I’m sorry.”

He glanced down at Miguel, who stared back at him.

“So…when you said you’d find my family…”

“That I meant,” he said firmly. “I…I don’t know how successful I would’ve been. But I would’ve told everyone I met about a great músico named Miguel who needed to find his family.” He rubbed his cheek awkwardly, feeling the barest resistance before bone scraped against bone. Almost sunrise then. He sighed. “Well, when I get out from a century in jail, I’ll spring you from the orphanage.”

“Really?”

“Por supuesto.” He managed a small laugh. “I may be a lying, sorry excuse of a mariachi, but Héctor Rivera never lets kids…” He trailed off at the strange look that crossed Miguel’s face. “What?”

“Rivera…? That’s…my last name,” Miguel said slowly. Héctor blinked.

“You don’t think…no, it can’t. You know how many Riveras there are here?”

“You know how many Miguel Riveras there are?” Miguel asked, then shook his head. “It’s probably a coincidence.”

Héctor nodded. “Has to be, chamaco.” He stood up. “Morning’s almost here, and we’ve got to find our way out of this pit.” He stood up straight, then let out a loud grito that bounced off the walls of the pit. “Someone should’ve heard that. Hey, chamaco, maybe if we both…” He turned to look at Miguel, who pulled something from his pocket. Héctor tilted his head, then smiled a bit at the soggy marigold in his hands.

“Look, Miguelito, that’s a sweet thought, but there’s no way…”

“Héctor.” Miguel said his name curiously, and both their eyes widened as the petals lit up. Héctor took a step back.

“Miguel, I…I can’t leave you here. Besides…” He looked up as he heard a howl. “Ah! Pélon found us!” He grinned as he saw the dog’s goofy face, then automatically froze up as he heard a deafening KA-CRAAAWW!! “And…he has friends.”

“Then we have to move fast!” Miguel put on a determined face as he held up one of the marigold petals. “Héctor, I give you my blessing to go home.” The marigold petal glowed bright as anything, and Héctor’s heartbeat—which he could feel fading away like the rest of his skin—pounded in his ribs.

“Chamaco, I don’t want you to be alone again. Just let me—”

Miguel cut him off with a small smile. “Just remember me, Héctor.” Before Héctor could protest, the petal was pressed against his chest, and he was swept away in a waterfall of glowing orange flowers.

Héctor was sure he was dead.

There was no other way to account for how awful he felt, facedown in the dirt of the graveyard, as the sun rose slowly in the east. It took a few moments for him to push himself up, too tired and aching to even think about the fact he was missing a sleeve from his charro suit. He blinked for a few moments, then sat up straight. Had he made it in time? Had Miguel been too late? He quickly patted himself down, then let out a loud laugh of joy as he saw normal, non-skeletal hands. He was safe! He was back home!

And Miguel…was not. And he wouldn’t be until his family could find him.

“Just remember me.”

Well, the answer of what he should do next was pretty obvious.

The beautiful, awful white guitar was still laid out on the grave in front of him. He hesitated, then glanced up at the tombstone.

“It’s not for me. It’s for my family,” he whispered, reaching out for it. He wrapped his hands around the guitar’s neck, eyes shut, and waited a moment. Then he peeked open his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief when he saw his hands keep the skin on. “Gracias!”

And just like that—dirty, exhausted, carrying a guitar that wasn’t his—Héctor ran all the way back to the Plaza.

He knew he needed to go as soon as possible, but his stomach sank as he saw how few people were out this early. Still, maybe he…

“Dios mio, where have you been?”

Strong arms gripped Héctor’s shoulders, and he was whirled around to face Ernesto. His friend’s face seemed torn between relief and anger…ah, but that didn’t matter. Miguel needed him. He shook his head.

“I’ll explain later, it’s a long story. Right now, I need to get to the mira—”

“You look half-dead! And your charro suit…”

“I’ll fix it! Later. First I…” He tugged himself away from Ernesto’s grasp and ran straight to the middle of the square. Before Ernesto could stop him, he hopped up onto the mirador, looking out at the square. A few stragglers who’d had too much fun the night before were napping here and there, a few mamas out doing some early morning shopping…he’d missed his chance. No one would hear him.

Héctor sucked in a breath and stood up straight. Well, he’d make sure he heard them. He’d play and play until everyone in Santa Cecilia listened. He started with a loud rift, the notes carrying through the sleepy plaza. A few of the revelers woke up, and a few of the mamas paused. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ernesto being torn between wanting to pull him down and not wanting to attach himself to the crazed, dirty young man in the center of the plaza.

The tune slowed, to a simple little strumming; something easily playable for a kid just learning how to play. He swallowed, shutting his eyes as he opened his mouth.

“Remember me

Though I have to say goodbye

Remember me

Don’t let it make you cry…”

He did his best to keep his voice steady and clear. Someone here had to know what had happened. Someone had to know this song.

He opened his eyes as he held out the last note, voice wavering as the scene in front of him looked exactly the same. There were a few eyes on him, yes, but nothing that suggested anyone recognized the song. His shoulders sagged, and he swallowed as his fingers stilled on the guitar. He glanced around once more, then, exhaustion and disappointment overwhelming him, he dropped down onto the mirador’s steps.

It had been a stupid idea. Of course it wouldn’t work. But…he’d hoped…

“Perdonamé, señor…but where did you hear that song?”

Héctor looked up wearily, brow furrowing as he met the sharp brown eyes of an older woman, looking at him suspiciously. It couldn’t be…ah, but there’d already been one happy coincidence tonight. Why not try for two?

“Are you Coco?” he asked softly. Her eyes widened.

“I…no, I’m not her,” she said, a little breathless. “I’m her daughter, Elena.” Her eyes narrowed. “Look, I don’t know what kind of tonterías this is, but…” She was cut off as Héctor jumped to his feet.

“Then you know Miguel!”

Elena went silent, face slackening in shock. She looked away. “How could you know…”

“He’s my family! Look, it’s…it’s a really, really long story, but…but I have a photo of him! For the ofrenda! And I promised I’d get it to you, so…” He reached into his jacket pocket, ready to pull out the photo. But…nothing was there. “I…I swear, he gave it…I had…” He searched all of his pockets. He didn’t lose it in the fall, right? No, he would have seen it. So then why…

Oh.

Oh no, he hadn’t even thought.

The photo had been a spirit copy.

Héctor froze in place, eyes stinging. He’d come so close. He’d almost gotten Miguel back home. He gasped in a breath as a hand lightly rested on his arm.

“You said Miguel was family?” Elena asked gently.

Héctor nodded mutely. If he so much as opened his mouth, he knew all that would come out would be a frustrated sob. Elena pat his arm, nodding a bit.

“Then why don’t you come with me, mijo? I think there’s some things that need to be discussed.”

“You know, chamaco, you’re a tough guy to find.”

A year had passed since Héctor’s jaunt to the Land of the Dead, and surprisingly, not much had changed. He and Ernesto were still touring, of course, a little more known than they’d been a year ago, but nowhere near household names. Now, though, he had no shortage of inspirations for songs. He was scribbling constantly—songs about life, songs about death, songs about family—so the trip back to Santa Cecilia wasn’t for inspiration this time.

This time, it was for family.

He’d gotten the whole story of Miguel’s death last year, when Elena had brought him home and grilled him about the song. The schoolhouse just outside of the school had been caught in a landslide years ago during the rainy season; the students and their teacher were killed near-instantly. Elena had taken comfort knowing that Miguel likely had no idea what hit him (which was probably true, Héctor realized with an uncomfortable twist in his stomach, and explained the lack of memory), but even after all this time, the area was still prone to flash floods. A few of the remains had been pulled out, but most were left behind—Miguel’s included.

But, with a lot of digging, a lot of help, and some frightfully good timing, Héctor Rivera made sure that changed. And so this year, he proudly set a photo—a little dirty and water-damaged, but still clear—on the Rivera family ofrenda. He smiled as he looked at the little boy with one dimple in his cheek.

“But we got you here, Miguelito,” he said to the photo. “Hopefully you like your new place; Tía Elena said they were able to make room next to Mamá Coco for you. I hope you were able to find her before now—I know the Department’s a mess, but if she’s anything like Tía Elena, she wouldn’t rest until she found you.”

He grinned before pointing to himself. “And speaking of family, you’ve got yourself a new primo. Well. I guess we’ve always been primos, but it’s acknowledged now. Apparently she had no idea my wayward mother—she used some, ah, more colorful language—dropped me off at the orphanage. It was after most of the family packed up shop and moved after the landslide. Too much pain in Santa Cecilia, I guess.”

He glanced up out the window. “Looks like it’s just about sunset, chamaco. I’ll come visit after the talent show—heh, if I don’t end up stealing another guitar—so I’ll meet you in the graveyard.” He stood up straight, looking over the ofrenda before giving a small smile to the photo again.

“And before I forget…welcome home, Miguel. Told you I’d get you back.”

#coco fic #reverse au #Some bits are a little simplistic and I apologize for that #I maybe shouldn't have tried to do a whole AU in one go but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#Your girl slush doesn't do things by halves #Also disclaimer nuns are generally really nice ladies and I love them #Sister Maria Rafaela is an outlier and should not be counted

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wokeuptired · 7 years ago

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night 4 of natasha’s 8 nights of chanukah | read the other nights here

how the light gets in

Noah used to be the kind of person who had a plan for everything, and now she’s the kind of person who can never remember if the laundry in her basket is clean or dirty. She blames her husband for that—he is the one who went and died on her, after all.

Noah wakes up the morning after with a crick in her neck and a burning in the back of her throat, a remnant of last night's tears. There's a cold pot of tea on the stove, leftover from yesterday morning, when she’d woken up and brewed it out of habit, not knowing it would be the last one she wouldn’t drink alone. She carries it over to the sink in her stocking feet and pours it down the drain slowly, mesmerized by the wash of light brown over the white of the basin. Then she fills the kettle with fresh water and puts it on the burner to boil.

When Noah was a child, her mother boiled a pot of water every morning, even in the deepest, hottest days of August, when the air was so muggy and sticky that traveling on the underground became a means of suffocation. For Noah's mother, tea was a habit, a ritual, something that, without which, the day would feel incomplete.

For Noah, tea is something to do with her hands.

Just a week ago, there was always too much for her hands to do. There was washing to be done and bed linens to be folded and dinner to be made (vegetables to be chopped and stew to be stirred and eggs to be scrambled, sometimes even for dinner) and, most of all, there was Jam's hand to be held.

But now Jem is gone, and there's nothing but tea.

And the cat.

There's always the damn cat.

James “Jem” Robert Carsters

16 February 1993 - 23 January 2017

James “Jem” Robert Carsters passed away last weekend after a near decade-long battle with leukemia. His parents, Marie and Joseph Carsters, were by his side, along with his wife of six months, Noah Monroe. Despite being ill since childhood, Jem was dedicated throughout his life to the pursuit of others’ happiness. He will be remembered as a kind, generous, warm-hearted man who always put others first. He is survived by his parents, his wife, various aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and his cat, Bertie.

"Bertie, come on."

"Bertie, come on. Don't be like this. "

Not for the first time in the last hour, Noah wishes that she and Jem had gone with the dog they'd been eyeing at the shelter instead of this mangy, grey monstrosity of a feline. They both knew at the time that neither of them had the attention or presence of mind to care for a dog, but at least it wouldn't be trapped on top of the highest cupboard in the kitchen right now, meowing furiously.

"Bertie, I really don't know what to do with you anymore," Noah says, also not for the first time in the last hour. She hasn't known what to do with Bertie since Jem died, but that hurts to say out loud, and not because it sucks not being the cat's favorite.

Bertie hisses at her, but it's less menacing and more petulant, like a toddler refusing to eat the beans on the end of his careening fork. The sound affects Noah nonetheless; she throws her hands up and spins around in a huff. Across the kitchen, she puts the kettle on before she sits down at the kitchen table and reaches for her laptop. Vita's new episode went live a few hours ago, and Noah knows she'll get an earful if she doesn't listen to it tonight.

It takes her a minute to pull up the webpage and another few seconds for the audio stream to buffer, and then Vita's voice fills the small kitchen.

"Knock knock? Who's there? It's Vita! Vita who? Vita of Veritas with Vita! This is series 2, episode 3, and I'm your host, Vita Carver," Vita says in her posh accent. "First up tonight is a new track from a good friend of mine who happens to be here with me today, Louisa Taylor. It's called 'Rhododendron,' and it's available for download on her website, the address of which I'll be giving you shortly. But first, let's have a listen."

Louisa's voice is melancholic and coppery, rhythmic like an ocean's waves, and it soothes Noah into a moment of forgetfulness. There's no one sitting across from her, slipping his foot up the ankle of her pajamas, because of course there isn't, because she lives alone and that's the way it should be and this is normal, this is a normal Friday night and there's nothing to cry about—

Eeeeeee!

The kettle whistles on the stove, yanking Noah out of her moment of solitude. She stands abruptly from her chair, sending it squeaking across the linoleum so violently that Bertie lets out a yelp and leaps down from his cupboard perch. He lands beside the sink, ever so graceful on his cat feet, and when Noah reaches for him, his fur stands on end and his back arches. She pulls her hand back and lets him dart away. The song comes to an end as she chooses a tea bag and drops it in the pot.

"That was 'Rhododendron' by Louisa Taylor," Vita says, her sharp voice cutting through Noah's kitchen. "I've been absolutely ensnared by that track since I first heard it, Louisa. It's absolutely an honor to have you here today."

"It's a pleasure to be here," Louisa says. "I love your show, Vita. It's great that you're so dedicated to the truth."

Vita laughs. It's her fake laugh, Noah can tell, and she doesn't seem as enamored with Louisa Taylor as she's pretending to be.Truth, my arse, Noah thinks. She pours herself a mug of tea and dumps exactly three sugar cubes in, plonk plonk plonk, watching them dissolve as she listens to Louisa and Vita talk.

Vita's podcast is only an hour, and Louisa drones on for most of it, talking about her dream of having a legacy like that of Paul McCartney (Impossible, Noah scoffs) and her cat, a Scottish Fold with a penchant for lying about in sinks. The cat, Louisa claims, is her most prized possession.

Noah wonders what her most prized possession is. It's certainly not, no one would be surprised to find out, Bertie. Nor is it the baby blanket her gran knitted for her when she was but a bit of wishful thinking. And it certainly isn't the collection of dusty Christmas cards, all addressed to James and Noah Carsters, that have remained on the mantel since December, growing dusty because Noah can't bear to throw them away.

Prized possessions, Noah decides firmly, are a waste. Everything withers away eventually.

"So that's it for this week, and don't forget to hit up this space again next Thursday for this month's edition of Vita Makes Her Mates Uncomfortable!"

The mate in question is Noah, who’s uncomfortable enough as it is, uncomfortable just in her sheer existence, and agreed to participate only so that Vita would leave her alone. Noah suspects Vita has other motives: she wants to get Noah up off her arse, out of her head, and back into the world. But Noah thinks it's going to take more than an hour’s worth of conversation to accomplish that. She likes her solitude.

When she’s not alone, people look at her funny. They look at her like she’s lost something huge that she’ll never get back, or, worse, they look at her like she’s pathetic for not putting her life back together by now. Sometimes even she thinks she’s pathetic.

She’s living as a ghost in her own life. She realized this several months ago, when she was halfway through her morning routine, scooping brown sugar into her porridge. She spilled a bit of the brown sugar on the floor and, in a moment of uncharacteristic agility, Bertie had hopped onto the floor and began to lick it up.

“Oh, Bertie, no!” Noah had cried, and then she’d realized that there wasn’t really any reason that Bertie shouldn’t have the brown sugar. So she poured a bit into a dish and put it on the floor for him.

Of course, he hadn’t touched it, just sat there on the floor looking up at her as if asking, “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

Noah hadn’t had an answer.

But two months later, very little has changed. She wakes up in the morning, feeds Bertie, feeds herself, leaves the house. She goes to work, sits in her cubicle, answers her emails, works on her projects, leaves at precisely 5 PM. Goes home, feeds Bertie, feeds herself, does nothing of consequence until bedtime.

At Noah’s mum’s insistence, she met with a therapist three times. They’d made a deal—three times (“minimum, Noah!” her mum had decried) and her mum would stop calling every night to report on the status of the ficus in the front yard, which Noah’s dad insisted was growing a centimeter every day. The therapist was utterly useless, but the sessions did help Noah realize that she was grieving wrong.

“There’s no wrong way to grieve,” the therapist had said when Noah voiced this concern, but everything she said afterward belied this statement.

“It’s alright if you feel guilty,” the therapist had said, but Noah did not feel guilty. Noah does not feel guilty that Jem is gone and she is here, sitting at an empty kitchen table by herself on a Thursday night, having a staring contest with the cat.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: Darling

Noah, remember when you were 7 and the neighbor’s cat, Mr. Whiskers, died? You loved Mr. Whiskers, said you loved him more than anything on earth. You were absolutely shattered. And I told you that your heart had an infinite capacity for love, and even though Mr. Whiskers was gone, you would still love him, and you’d love other cats someday too.

Your heart has an infinite capacity for love, my Noah. Don’t keep that love from the world.

Love,

Mum

Niall is sure that he made a terrible mistake when he decided to become a vet. As he sticks his fingertips up a dog’s butt (the third this morning), he considers exactly when the mistake was made. Was it when he decided to take an extra science course instead of an art elective in his last year of college? Was it at uni, when he dropped his poetry lecture because he kept falling asleep? Or maybe it was even earlier, year three, perhaps, when he copied Billy Marx’s photosynthesis homework and was declared by the teacher to be “a true science prodigy.”

“Easy does it,” he tells the dog, who’s begun to squirm in the tech’s grasp. “We’re almost done.”

“Shh, shh,” the tech, a vet student at the uni up the road, tells the dog. “Dr. Horan’s getting you all fixed up.”

Doctor Horan. Oh right, that’s when it all got fucked up. It was when Niall was in fifth year and the teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. She listed some options, the usual -- teacher, doctor, lawyer—and when Niall thought them over, “Doctor Horan” sounded the best to him.

He really has no one to blame for this but himself. And his huge, stupid ego.

“Okay, okay, there we go,” Niall says, releasing his grip on the dog’s backside. He takes off his glove and pets the dog’s head, scratching between its ears. “Penny, would you take him out front? I’ll be up with the prescriptions in a second.”

“Sure,” Penny says, cooing to the dog as she lifts him onto the floor. As they leave the room, Niall heads for the sink.

As he’s washing his hands, he thinks about all of the things that he has to do on the way home from work tonight. First, he has to remember to set the alarm when he locks the door, because the last time he worked until closing and forgot to alarm the building, Dr. Friedman nearly killed him. Then he has to stop by the dry cleaners to pick up the shirt he needs for dinner, and he ought to go to an ATM, too, so he has enough cash on hand in case he has to pay a valet.

Niall hates valets. He also hates fancy restaurants, especially ones where the menu has two pages of wines but only six types of beer. But tonight is the night that his sister is announcing her engagement to their parents, so he really can’t miss it.

A cat and two dogs later and he’s on his way out. He nods to the girls on his front desk as he leaves, lifting a hand in response to their calls of “have a good evening, Dr. Horan!” It’s raining outside, and he curses himself for not grabbing an umbrella from the basket on the counter in the clinic. Now he’s going to have wet hair at dinner, and there’s no way his mum won’t comment on that.

The restaurant is crowded, and Niall has to push through half a dozen overdressed couples in order to get to the hostess stand. The hostess looks up at him, annoyance clear on her face, and Niall looks over her shoulder into the depths of the dimly lit dining room.

“Niall! Over here!”

“That’s my party,” Niall tells the hostess. He doesn’t wait for her reply before he heads for the sound of his sister’s voice.

This restaurant is much too trendy for Niall’s parents, he thinks as he makes his way past a bar overflowing with uni students dressed in head-to-toe black. He tries not to grow annoyed at their raucous laughter, but it’s hard. Ever since his flatmate moved out last year, he’s become a curmudgeon of the worst sort. He’s even grown to dislike himself a bit for it.

“God, Niall, finally!”

Niall comes to a stop at his family’s table, all of them rising to greet him, aside from his dad. There’s Emmy, wearing a dress so white it seems to be glowing, and her fiance, whose name might be Bobby or Brooks or… Shit.

And then there’s Niall’s mum, who nearly trips over the leg of her chair in her hurry to get to him. She smells like her going out perfume, the one she’s worn since he was a kid, and as her arms come around him, he finds himself relaxing for a bit. His mum has always been overly affectionate,

“Oh, Niall, your hair’s damp,” his mum says, ruffling his hair as he pulls out of the hug. “Don’t you have an umbrella?”

“Forgot it at work.” Niall extends his hand to the fiance for a shake. “How’s it going, Brent?”

A grimace crosses his face for a second before he manages to relax it into a smile. “It’s Blake.”

Shit again. Niall offers Emmy an apologetic smile over Blake’s shoulder. “God, sorry mate. I’ve got the worst memory for names.”

“That’s right, he does!” Niall’s mum says unhelpfully. “When he was in school he used to get all of his teachers mixed up, call them by each other’s names, you know. Drove them absolutely bonkers.”

Great, Mum, thanks, Niall says in his head. In his adult life he’s gotten better about keeping his sarcastic remarks in his mind, no small thanks to the rubber band around his right wrist. His therapist (thanks, Mum) had suggested it nearly a year ago, that he wear a rubber band on his wrist and snap it against his skin whenever he got the urge to say something snarky. He can control himself just fine without the rubber band now, but he still wears it anyway. It’s a great reminder of why he much prefers the company of animals to humans.

“How’ve you been, Blake?” Niall asks, sitting down in the chair at his mother’s left elbow. Across from him sits Blake, beside him Emmy, with Niall’s father, who, Niall suspects, is trying not to laugh, at the head of the table.

“Oh, good,” Blake says. “Emmy and I have been considering—”

The waitress interrupts him, popping up at the end of the table and reciting the specials in such a bored tone that Niall wonders if she’s a robot. When she disappears, Emmy starts up, detailing the proposal in such vivid detail that Niall practically feels like he’s there, and then almost immediately wants to throw up. Blake had proposed on the top of the London Eye.

“It was so beautiful,” Emmy says, her hands crossed on the table so that her ring is prominently displayed. Niall doesn’t know very much about engagement rings, but from the size of the diamond, he can tell it’s expensive. He can’t for the life of him remember what Blake’s job is, though, so he can’t verify the cost based on his assumed income. “I wish you’d been there, Mum. Well, obviously I don’t wish you’d actually been there, but, you know—”

“Yes, I know, dear,” Niall’s mum says, saving Emmy from finishing that sentence. Niall eyes her half-empty wine glass and wonders if he’d arrived later to dinner than he thought. “It really is a beautiful ring. Gram would be so excited.”

Here we go, Niall thinks. His mum’s already tearing up.

“Oh, Mum,” Emmy says, reaching across the table to grasp her mother’s hand. “I feel her with me sometimes, you know? Remember those white chocolate chip brownies she made? I tested the recipe the other night, but they just weren’t the same.”

Niall shifts in his seat. He knows exactly the white chocolate chip brownies Emmy is talking about. As a kid he rarely ate them, always insisting that white chocolate was only posing as chocolate. And now he’ll never get the chance.

“Emmy,” Niall’s mum manages to say just before she squeezes her eyes shut, tears leaking out at the corners.

Niall looks away, accidentally meeting Blake’s eyes across the table. Blake lifts the edges of his mouth in a women, what can you do? smile that isn’t comforting. Instead it makes him think about how the things that are supposed to bring people closer together often end up driving them apart instead.

“I’m going to the restroom,” Niall says, pushing his chair back so suddenly it screeches against the floor.

“Niall—” his mother starts, but he doesn’t answer her.

In the restroom, he stares at the ceiling until his eyes stop watering. He’s not crying; Niall doesn’t cry. His eyes just water sometimes, like when he thinks about his grandmum’s white chocolate chip brownies and how her skin stretched thin over her cheekbones during her last days.

Fuck, he thinks.

Niall doesn’t cry, but he can admit, at least to himself when he’s alone in a bathroom, that this is harder than he thought it would be. When Gram first got sick, he never imagined that nearly a year later, he still wouldn’t be able to speak about her without feeling like this.

When he gets back to the table, the conversation has been interrupted by the waiter, who’s arrived to take their orders. He looks to be younger than Niall, probably a uni student, and he can’t stop staring at Emmy. Niall watches as Blake’s fist grows tighter on the table and is grateful for the distraction.

After a few minutes, the waiter leaves and Emmy turns on Niall.

“Did you call that girl?” Emmy asks, giving him the eye, a look she mastered around age 5 as soon as her parents brought Niall home from the hospital. “Mary Jane’s sister?”

“No,” Niall says flatly. “I don’t want to be set up.”

“She’s very nice,” Emmy says. “I mean, she did just get out of a long term relationship, and you know that’s never a good deal, being the rebound and all, but—”

“Emmy,” Niall says a bit too sharply. “No thank you.”

Emmy’s fiance shifts uncomfortably in his seat as Emmy rolls her eyes at Niall. “It’s like you want to be alone forever,” she says, unphased by his oafishness.

“Not forever,” Niall says, jabbing a ravioli with his fork a bit more violently than necessary. “But for right now. I’ve got time.”

Now Emmy’s fiance looks even more uncomfortable, and Niall recalls that he’s two years younger than Emmy. Maybe Emmy’s forced him into this somehow, guilted him into it because she’s coming up on 30 and he’s still a few years away.

“Still—” Emmy starts, but Niall’s mum cuts her off.

“We just want you to be happy,” she says, turning a meaningful eye on Niall. “You’ve been so lonely ever since—”

“I’m not lonely,” Niall insists, not caring that he’s probably protesting too much. He doesn’t want to talk about Liam or Sharon or how colossally he’d misjudged them. “Emmy, I’m happy for you, but have you ever considered that maybe I don’t want to get married? Maybe I don’t want to settle down. Maybe that kind of thing isn’t for me.”

“That kind of thing?” Emmy is not to be deterred. “Niall, companionship is not a thing. It’s a necessity. It’s the point of being human. I think if you just call Mary Jane’s sister you’ll see that—”

“Emmy,” Niall says again. His sister pauses at the growl in his voice and sits back a bit in her chair. “Fuck off.”

His mother sighs beside him so deeply that Niall glances over to make sure she hasn’t deflated. Nope, she’s still sitting there, spoon poised above her bowl of soup, looking at Niall with such disappointment that he considers leaving the table here and now.

But that would probably make things worse. If he leaves now, without apologizing to Emmy and the fiance for his rudeness, his mum will probably put coal in his stocking at Christmas.

So he goes back to eating and nodding at everything Emmy says and not remarking on how rude it is that Emmy never lets her betrothed speak, and he learns that the wedding will be in four months and it will be held outdoors (his mum isn’t pleased to hear that—February is basically still winter so there’s no predicting what the weather will be). Niall will serve as a groomsmen and he will wear whatever color boutonniere the wedding planner selects for him, even if it has teeny tiny succulents in it.

Dear God, he thinks when Emmy voices that idea.

It’s not that Niall doesn’t like weddings, it’s just that he, well, doesn’t like weddings. There’s something so trite about fabricating perfection, about planning a day down to the most minute detail so that everything goes just so in hopes that the rest of your life together will follow suit.

But he congratulates Emmy and Blake anyway when he says goodbye, and as he hugs his sister, he whispers an apology in her ear and fully expects her to send him Mary Jane’s sister’s contact information before the night is up.

Emmy’s not known for taking “no” for an answer. Niall expects Blake is well familiar with that by now.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: Dinner

Attachment: rubyjones.contact

Thanks for not being a complete arse at dinner. Just a small arse. I’m grateful, really. But do please try to remember Blake’s name next time. As I’m going to marry the bloke, it’s the least you can do.

And you should be grateful, too. Here is Mary Jane’s sister’s number. Her name is Ruby and she lives in Lewisham. Call her. Also, fuck off too.

Noah shifts on the couch, pulling her legs up underneath her. The last time she recorded a podcast with Vita, they sat at the kitchen table and their voices bounced around the room wildly and echoed into the microphone. Jem was alive then; he and Noah had just moved into the house and there were still boxes on the kitchen counters waiting to be unpacked and they didn’t have a couch for the living room yet. Jem leaned against the counter while Noah and Vita talked, and if you listen closely enough to the recording, you can just about hear Jem laughing.

If Noah were dumber she might think that the bad acoustics in the kitchen are why they’re in the living room this time, but she knows better. Vita is not only Noah’s best mate, she’s also her confidant, and she has reason to suspect that this conversation isn’t going to be easy for Noah. It's an illusion, the idea that the couch will somehow make this easier than the hard-backed kitchen chairs, but Noah doesn't plan to argue.

Vita sets a steaming mug of hot cocoa on the coffee table in front of Noah and adjusts the fluffy covering on the microphone. “You ready?”

“Mmhm,” Noah says, though she’s not sure that she is. She’s never spoken about Jem’s death in this way before. She’s never spoken about it with the knowledge that so many people might someday hear what she says. And when they hear what she says, they’re going to judge her.

“Remember, I can always cut things out, okay?” Vita waits for Noah’s nod and then hits some keys on her laptop before flipping a switch that turns the microphone on. “Welcome back to Veritas with Vita!” she chirps. “I’m Vita Carver, and I’m happy you’ll be joining us today. On this edition of Vita Makes Her Mates Uncomfortable, I’ve got here with me my mate Natalie, and we’re going to be talking about grief. Hello, Natalie.”

“Hi Vita,” Noah says. They decided on the pseudonym when Noah agreed to this shenanigan. It wouldn't be too hard for a listener to stalk Vita’s social media and find out that Natalie is really Noah (they are best mates, after all, and Noah’s been on the podcast before, though not recently), but Noah hopes no one will try. Even though she's about to share some of her most intimate thoughts with God knows how many anonymous souls via the internet, she'd still like to keep her anonymity mostly intact. “Thanks for having me on today.”

“Thank you for being here,” Vita says, putting a reassuring hand on Noah’s arm. Before they began, she told Noah that they could stop recording at any time, and if it turned out that Noah couldn’t talk about it, that was okay too. There's nothing riding on this, she'd said. “Can you give us a bit of background, tell us your story?”

Noah fumbles with the piece of paper on the table in front of her. Vita helped her make some notes earlier, though there isn't anything in them that she doesn't already know. She will never be able to forget what it felt like the first time she kissed Jem, or what it felt like the last time she kissed him. What she's more worried about is not being able to manage the words to describe those memories when it comes time to share them.

“Sure,” she says, trying to match the easy confidence in Vita’s voice. “Jem and I, Jem’s my husband, we were sweethearts at uni, got married just after we finished. He studied science, was hoping to be a doctor, and I studied architecture. He'd been sick as a teenager, leukemia, but it’d been in remission. And then just before our wedding—” Noah’s voice catches in her throat as she remembers the day, the white dress her mum hemmed for her and the sprig of lavender on Jem’s lapel, and she feels Vita’s reassuring hand on her arm.

“It's alright,” Vita says. “Take your time.”

Noah swallows and glances down at the paper in front of her. These are just facts, nothing to get emotional about. “I'm fine,” she says. “Jem was having trouble walking long distances, becoming breathless quickly. He was always tired. I think he knew even before we went to the doctor that the cancer was back, but he kept it to himself.”

“That must've been quite a shock, then, finding out he was sick again,” Vita says. “Just before your wedding.”

Vita knows this is the case, because she was there at Noah’s side the whole time, taking her out for coffee or manicures whenever Noah could spare an hour. You deserve some time away, Vita always said. Meanwhile, Noah was fearing the future, the eventuality that she might have nothing but time away, time to herself. Time to herself was the last thing she wanted.

“It was, I suppose,” Noah says, closing her eyes as she remembers. Jem had the sweetest face—that was one of the things she first noticed about him, his babyface. It was so hard to accept his illness when she first found out about it. It was so hard to imagine that someone so young, no visible smile lines beside his mouth, could be so sick. “We were already engaged, but Jem tried to break up with me. He asked me to leave him, but I couldn't. I loved him too much. He wanted me to have a chance at lifelong love, something he knew he couldn't give me, but—”

“So you knew he was terminal?” Vita interrupts, and it’s good timing, because Noah feels her throat tightening. “ That chemo wasn't going to work?”

Noah swallows. She remembers the conversation they had, in the kitchen just on the other side of the wall, mugs of tea growing cold in front of them. Get your affairs in order, the doctors had said. A few months left. They argued about it for hours, but the night ended with a decision: move the wedding up, so they could do it before Jem became too weak to leave the hospital.

“Yes, we knew,” Noah says. “ That's why he wanted to cancel the wedding, to allow me to live life without him. But I didn't want that.”

“Why not?”

Noah didn't need to practice this answer. “Because I love, loved him. I wanted to spend every day with him that I could.”

Vita hesitates, and Noah knows before she speaks what she's going to press on. “Loved, Natalie, or love?”

“I don't know,” Noah says. For a couple months after Jem passed, Noah went to group therapy and listened to the same conversations over and over again as her peers progressed through the five stages of grief. And as she, too, progressed. It was when she felt like she wasn't moving forward anymore that she stopped attending the meetings. “Both, maybe. I love Jem and I'll love him forever. He was my family.”

Vita nods. “I get that. The ones we love, they become family over time, and that doesn't change easily, even when they’re taken from us.”

“Mmhm.” Noah winds a piece of hair around her finger. Jem always liked her hair short, so—or maybe that's not true. She had her hair cut above her shoulders when she met him, and since he liked it, she never considered growing it out much further. But now that there's no one around to compliment her hair and compel her to get a trim, she's let it grow, the ends now brushing her shoulder blades.

The conversation turns, Vita prompting Noah to speak more about what life was like before Jem passed, about what they were like together, Noah and Jem, Jem and Noah. After a while, they take a break, Vita insisting that they need more tea. Vita stays in the kitchen for a few minutes, giving Noah time to catch her breath. When she comes back in, she sets a newly full mug on the table in front of Noah.

“Thank you for doing this,” Vita says, sitting down beside Noah. “I know it’s tough for you. And I think you’re really brave for doing it.”

Noah tries to smile. “I think it’s helping me, talking about it. To somebody who isn’t my therapist, you know? Sometimes talking to my therapist feels like I’m just circling through all of my own thoughts over and over again, and they’re never becoming clearer.”

Vita nods. Noah can tell she’s trying to understand. As her best mate, Vita has seen Noah climb mountains and trip over molehills. She’s seen Noah’s recovery process, and she’s seen how hard it’s been.

But in all the time that they've been mates, throughout all of the hours Vita spent with Noah while Jem was sick and afterward, Noah has never cried in front of her. Never broken down sobbing, breath turning to hiccups, chest shaking. Noah suspects that Vita has been waiting for that to happen for months now.

Noah takes a sip of her refreshed cocoa and adjusts herself on the cushions. “I’m ready to go again.”

“You sure?”

When Noah nods, Vita turns on the microphone again and leans forward. “So now, Natalie, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about what the grieving process has been like for you, continuing to live your life after Jem’s passing and how that’s been for you.”

“Well,” Noah says. Vita had given her this question a few weeks ago, and Noah had spent some time pondering it, but when she sat down to write out her notes, she didn’t know what she wanted to say. She’s still not sure that she knows. “It's been nine months, but sometimes it's like he's still here, still living alongside of me. We lived here before we got married, before he relapsed, so all the good memories are here, alongside the bad ones.”

“Do you ever think about moving?”

Noah doesn't have an answer to that one. She looks across the room, where a poster from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production Macbeth hangs above the television. She and Jem saw it back when they were in uni on one of their first dates. “No… maybe. I don't know. Maybe someday I'll want to start over, but I don't think that's real life. You can't start over. You just… move forward.”

You move forward. Sometimes, Noah’s discovered, that’s all you can do. You cut your bereavement leave short and go back to work before everyone else thinks you’re ready. You’re not sure you’re ready, either. You wake up every day and tell yourself that you are okay on your own. You feed the damn cat even though it hates you, and you always chase away the thought of finding it a new mum, because it’s the only bit of him you have left. When somebody asks you how you’re doing, you look up at the sky and think that it hasn’t fallen down on you yet, so you must be doing okay. You’re managing, and sometimes that’s the best anyone could ask for.

“So how are you doing with that?” Vita asks. “Moving forward?”

Initially Noah’s instinct is to lie. She should lie and say she’s doing okay, doing better everyday, because that’s what she tells everyone. That’s what she tells Merrell at the firm and that’s what she tells her mum whenever she calls and that’s what she tells herself.

But the truth of it is, things don’t get better every day. Grief is a roller coaster. Some days you’re going up and you think you’ll never drop. You think you’re finally free of the pain. But then you turn a corner, and you drop so suddenly you think you’re going to die.

“Not so great,” Noah finally says, something that's half laugh and half cry forming in her throat. “It's… it's hard. Some days are harder than others But no matter what, I get up everyday and I go to work, and sometimes I can go a few minutes without thinking about him. It’s not that I don’t want to think about him. He was part of my life for so long, you know? He’s part of who I was and who I am still.”

Vita nods but doesn’t say anything, and Noah knows she wants her to continue. These are thoughts that Noah only ever voices to her therapist and in her journal, and now she’s sharing them with God only knows who. But she shakes that terrifying thought away and reminds her that the only person she’s really talking to right now is Vita.

“I guess…” Noah says, trying to explain further. “I guess I believe that everyone we meet affects us in some way, and Jem affected me in a big way. So letting go of him, that isn’t something that’s easy to do, and I’m not sure it’s something I could do even if I wanted to.”

Vita doesn’t say anything, just looks at Noah with that probing look of hers. When they first met years ago, that look made Noah uncomfortable. She thought Vita was nosy, a gossip, maybe, but it didn’t take her long to discover that neither of those things were true. Vita was, and still is, one of the most astute observers of people that Noah has ever met. And sometimes that can be a good thing.

“Is there anything else you’d like to say?” Vita asks. Noah glances over at the laptop screen, where the recording is now over an hour long. She hadn’t realized she’d been talking for that long. “Before we end?”

“Sure,” Noah says, but she isn’t sure what to say.

So Vita prompts her. “Anything else you’d like someone in a similar situation to hear? To know?”

Now Noah nods, thinking of what she would’ve wanted someone to say to her nine months ago.

“I think I just want anyone who’s going through a loss to know that grief can feel like an island sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be one. Let people help you. I… I have trouble doing that sometimes, as Vita can attest.” Noah meets Vita’s eye and smiles softly. “Keep your friends close anyway, though, because they’ll be there for you when you’re ready.”

Niall decides not to call Ruby, but that doesn’t matter much because Ruby calls him anyway.

He’s leaving work on a Friday evening when he gets the call. He’s just spent three hours trying to save a litter of premature puppies, and he was in a decent enough mood until he lost one. Now he feels like utter shit, just like what he stepped in right after lunch today on his way into exam room 3. All he wants to do is go home, take a long, hot shower, and drink a beer on the couch.

But then his mobile rings.

He fishes it out of his coat pocket and doesn’t bother looking at the screen before he raises it to his ear and gives a gruff, “Hello?”

“Hi, is this Niall?” the voice says.

“Yes,” he says, flustered for a second because no one aside from his mother and sister ever call him. “Who’s this?”

“This is Ruby Jones.”

“Oh, hi,” he says like he knows who Ruby Jones is. He’s not sure he’s ever met anyone named Ruby Jones, but if the girl knows his name, then it’s probably not a case of a wrong number. “How are you?”

“I’m quite well,” she says. “And yourself?”

“Just fine,” he says. She doesn’t reply right away, and he wonders what he ought to say next. Just when he’s about to ask her what he can do for her, as if this is a business call, she pipes up.

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet for drinks.”

“What?” Niall says, then tries to backtrack. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet for drinks,” she repeats. “I got your number from Emmy, and she said you like beer.”

“I like beer,” he echoes. He doesn’t like Emmy. He’s also exhausted and smells like dog urine and doesn’t much enjoy the company of other humans even when he’s showered. But, he supposes, there’s no reason to put on any airs. It’s not likely that anyone Emmy sets him up with will turn out to be the love of his life. “When? Now?”

“Now?” That’s clearly not what she was expecting him to say. “I suppose now is good.”

“Well, not now now,” he clarifies. “Maybe half an hour from now?”

“Sure,” she says. Then she names a pub in Lewisham, says she’s wearing a purple jumper, and hangs up.

Can’t believe I’m doing this, Niall thinks to himself as he looks both ways before crossing the road. Niall has always wanted to be one of those people who doesn’t look both ways before crossing the road—one of those people who just leaps out into traffic because wherever they’ve got to be is more important than their ability to walk on two legs and remember what they ate for breakfast this morning.

But as it is, Niall’s not that kind of person. He’s the kind of person who separates his whites and his colors when he does the washing even though it takes twice as long and is worse for the environment than just washing on cold.

He’s not spontaneous. He’s not adventurous. And he’s certainly not the type to make plans for a date when he’s already on his way.

But, he hears his sister’s voice in his head, you’re already halfway there, so there really isn’t any reason to turn back now, is there?

When Niall arrives at the pub, he hesitates on the pavement for a second. The pub looks just like every other pub he’s ever been to, a wooden sign above the door announcing its name (The Sheep’s Head, not very original as far as pub names go), and there are a few smokers hanging around looking moody. So it’s not the look of the place that makes Niall pause.

No, it’s what comes to mind when he thinks of pubs. Niall can’t remember the last time he went to a pub without one of his rugby mates. After their Saturday afternoon practices, they usually head to their regular spot for dinner and beers, and Niall usually comes home a bit more unstable on his feet than he’d like. Pubs are for raucous behavior and watching a match on telly, not for dates.

But, Niall reasons with himself, Ruby wouldn’t have suggested this place if she wanted to spend an evening listening to him drone on about the intricacies of feline diabetes over a candlelit table. She’s probably had an equally exhausting week at work and just wants to grab a pint.

As Niall expected, the room is full to bursting. He squints into the darkness, wondering how he’s going to find Ruby in all of this mess. What’d she say she’s wearing? A blue jumper? A red one? Maybe this was a stupid idea. Maybe he should just back out of the pub now, before anyone notices him, and then he’ll text her in an hour or so and tell her he had an emergency—

“Niall?”

Shit. Too late to leave now.

Niall turns around and plasters on what he hopes is a friendly smile. Ruby (or so he assumes) is standing behind him in the doorway, looking like she’s just walked through a hurricane. Her curly hair looks slightly damp and is blown in all different directions. As she takes a step toward him, several pieces fall over her face.

“Are you alright?” she asks, frowning at him slightly. “You look a bit peeved. We can go somewhere else if you want.”

Niall shakes his head. Emmy’s told him before that his forced smile is easily confused for a grimace, but he’s never believed her before. “No, this is great. Let’s go sit down.”

“Sure.” Ruby nods and Niall lets her past him so he can follow her through the pub.

Five minutes later, they’re back outside on the pavement. Niall takes a deep breath, glad to be outside. The pub was so crowded that they couldn’t find a table. They couldn’t even locate a free bit of bar to lean against.

“Well, that was a bust,” Ruby says, crossing her arms over her chest. She has a nice chest, Niall observes, but now that they’re standing under a street lamp, he can tell that her hair isn’t damp, it’s coated in gel.

“Should we head somewhere else?” Niall asks, hoping that Ruby will say no. While he doesn’t see anything wrong with her per say, besides the sticky-looking locks, he has absolutely no desire to spend anymore time in her presence.

That’s what Emmy doesn’t seem to understand. Niall’s favorite companion is himself, and everybody else pales in comparison. He enjoyed spending time with Sharon because it was almost like spending time alone, but slightly more exciting. And nearly impossible to replicate, because no one he’s met since has seemed anywhere near as appealing as the prospect of a night spent in his flat, cooking himself dinner and then eating it while reading or watching something on telly.

Ruby pushes up her left sleeve and looks at her watch, then shakes her head, her curls barely moving. “It’s getting a bit late, and I’ve had a long week. Rain check?”

“Sure,” Niall says, already turning away.

“Sorry this didn’t work out,” Ruby says, pursing her lips as if she’s sad about it. Niall musters up a polite smile, waves a hand, and goes home to shower.

The day after Noah records the podcast is Sunday. She sleeps in and then takes a long bath, leaning back in the tub and trying to erase everything from her mind. On his bad days, Jem would meditate, and sometimes even on his good days, too. He said it helped him see the world more clearly. And that it made him feel like less of a victim.

That was something Jem always spoke about, the desire to not be seen as a victim. He didn’t want to be someone who other people would pity, someone who they’d look away from when he entered a room just because his presence, the knit cap on his head and the cane in his hand, made them sad. Made them feel guilty about being healthy, about having a future. Jem’s tenacity, his vivaciousness—those were only two of the things Noah loved about him.

So when Vita asked her to talk about Jem on the podcast, she was reluctant. She knew that speaking about Jem would open up a monsoon of pity upon her. Even Vita was pitying her during the recording, putting her hand on Noah’s arm to comfort her and to make herself feel better. Noah knows that that’s part of what pity is—it’s what somebody does when they’re made uncomfortable by your sadness or your anger or your tragedy. They want you to feel better so they don’t have to deal with your feelings anymore.

But sometimes you don’t want to feel better. Sometimes you want to sit in the dark and cry it out without anyone there to tell you that things will be okay and someday it won’t hurt this much. That’s hard to hear, because every day it hurts less, and every day Noah wonders if she’s forgetting Jem. If her love for him is lessening.

There was a moment, when she was 19 or 20, just after she found out about Jem’s history of cancer, when her mum insisted that she was making a mistake. This is only going to end in heartache, her mum had said.

And it did. It ended in heartache, but there was plenty of good before that.

On Sunday, Noah considers sitting in the dark and crying it out. She considers letting the feelings swarm around her like flies in the stickiest depths of summer, considers taking a step backward, considers forgetting about progress. Progress, she sometimes thinks, is an illusion. Progress depends on having an end in sight, or at least an end in mind. But with a task this monumental, there’s no end.

After her bath, Noah braids her hair over her shoulder and goes for a walk. Four blocks away from her flat, there’s an animal shelter. Like she has a few times over the past month, she stops in and walks the aisles, looking in at the dogs. There are big ones and lots of little ones, ones smaller than Bertie, even. Noah thinks again that these walks she’s started taking would be so much more enjoyable with a dog by her side.

But I’m not stable enough for a dog, she reminds herself. Not yet.

Maybe that’s the end goal. Maybe that’s what she’s working toward: being stable enough, mentally stable and physically stable and independently stable, that she can get a dog and feel confident that she can take care of it like she hopes it will take care of her.

And then, a block later, she passes a vet’s office. She can’t remember the last time Bertie saw a vet. The guilt nearly knocks her over. Bertie hates her, but that doesn’t mean she should neglect him.

The dog will have to wait.

On a Thursday morning, Niall is depositing a file on Rufus the Great Dane at the front desk when he overhears something that nearly makes his heart stop.

It’s a voice, and it’s playing out of Lucy’s computer. Niall leans closer, driven by the tiny part of his brain that insists on describing the voice as having “dulcet tones,” a phrase he’s never said aloud in his life and hopes he never will.

“Turn that up, would you?” Niall asks, planting his arms on the counter. Lucy shrugs and hits the volume key on the computer a few times.

“Love isn’t a choice,” the speaker is saying. “It’s not as if I sat down beside Jem in a lecture hall when we were 18 and looked at him and thought, this is the man I’m going to marry. I choose him, for better or for worse, and it’ll be worse. It was worse than I ever could’ve imagined. But it was where I had to be.”

“What’s she talking about?” Niall asks, prompting Lucy to let out a small sigh and pause the stream.

“It’s a podcast, Veritas with Vita. She’s talking to her friend about grief. Her husband died from leukemia when they were newlyweds.”

“Hmm,” Niall says. Lucy stares at him, waiting for him to say something else, and when he doesn't, she hits play again.

The girl continues speaking, but Niall doesn’t catch any of the words. All he hears is the girl’s voice. She sounds so familiar, but he can’t place her.

“Dr. Horan? You alright?”

Niall snaps to attention, straightening up. Lucy is looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

“You zoned out there for a minute,” she says. “Marcy just took the Weaver’s cat to the back.”

“Right.” Niall nods, blinks a few times to clear his head, and follows the sound of frantic meowing.

The blinking doesn’t do any good, though, because he can hear the girl’s voice in his head for the rest of the day. By the time he gets home that evening, he’s convinced that she’s the voice on the GPS his father bought him for Christmas last year. He pulls the thing out of the hall cupboard and extracts it from its box. It’s not until he goes to put batteries in it that he realizes he’s being ridiculous. He’s never even used the thing, so there’s no way Podcast Girl (as he’s come to think of her) is the “Sexy British Woman Narration,” as the box proclaims.

As he reheats leftover Thai food, he decides that really, there’s no harm in finding the podcast online and listening to it in full, if only so he can imagine the girl’s voice saying all kinds of things to him later, such as “turn left ahead” and “keep right at the fork.”

Niall only has to google “Veritas with Vita” and the podcast pops up. The newest episode, “Of grief and gumption,” is the first link. Niall clicks on it and hits play before leaning back in his chair, his mug in his hands.

“So today we’re going to talk about grief,” Vita says. She has a nice voice, but it’s nothing like the other voice that Niall heard playing in the clinic today. Vita sounds posh, clean, like her voice has been put through a synthesizer to make it sound as pleasing to the human ear as possible.

This other voice is different. Niall only has to listen for a few seconds and then he hears it, saying, “Thanks for having me.”

Just like this afternoon, her voice barrels him over. He’s standing on the shore, wading into the water, and all of a sudden a wave comes and knocks him on his arse. That’s what her voice does to him. Which is bullshit and he knows it, because the only thing that’s barreled him over lately is the memory of his grandmother’s funeral.

Ten minutes later, he’s completely engrossed. These two women, Vita and Natalie, are best mates; he can tell from the way Vita asks questions like she already knows the answers. He imagines them in his head, no faces, of course, but two women, best friends, side by side over the course of months as one of them loses her husband. So close they’re practically sisters.

“I notice you don’t have any pictures of the two of you up,” Vita says.

Niall imagines Natalie’s flat, imagines stark, white walls, a brown sofa like the one in his own flat, a black leather recliner— No, Natalie doesn’t seem the type to go for neutrals. She probably has pops of color, bright green or coral throw pillows, accent vases, the kind that don’t serve any purpose beyond decoration.

“We don’t have many,” Natalie says. “From uni, from the wedding. But we didn’t go on a honeymoon, so—”

“You didn't have a honeymoon?” Vita asks, not sounding as surprised as Niall expects she means to. Vita clearly already knows this fact, but listeners don’t. Emmy would be horrified.

“Jem was too sick at that point,” Natalie explains. “We took a weekend and stayed in, just the two of us, but no exotic tropical trips or anything.”

“Did you—do you regret not being able to do that?”

It takes Natalie a minute to answer, and in that pause, Niall tries to predict what she’s going to say. Does she regret marrying this bloke who up and died before they could really start a life together? She sounds younger than Niall, 22, 23, maybe. To feel so much pain at such a young age—

Niall shakes his head, forcing the thoughts away. He doesn’t know this girl; there’s no reason to spend time empathizing with her. There’s no reason to picture her sitting room or make assumptions about the kind of girl she is. It’s that kind of thinking that gets people into trouble.

And it’s that kind of thinking that brings other comparisons to mind, thoughts about his own grief and how he’s not dealing with it. This girl, this Natalie, has friends that she talks to—heck, she probably even sees a shrink. And here he is, hiding out in his flat

“No. I don't regret anything about my life with Jem. And I don't want pity because of it. We didn't have a regular honeymoon, and most of the time we spent married we were going to doctors or spending nights in the hospital or feeling too tired to go anywhere. But it wasn't—it was a good life. It was sad, but we were happy anyway.”

“Even when things were terrible? You were happy?”

“Of course we were sad sometimes. Of course it felt like all of the terrible things in the world were happening to us simultaneously. But we loved each other. There was never any other choice.”

“Loving him, was that a choice?”

“No,” Natalie says, sounding completely convinced.

“Love isn't a choice,” she continues. “It's not as if I sat down beside Jem in a lecture hall when we were 18 and looked at him and thought, this is the man I'm going to marry. I choose him, for better or for worse, and it'll be worse. It was worse than I ever could've imagined. But it was where I had to be.”

“You mean fate? Destiny? Soul mates?”

Bullshit, Niall thinks. Romantic bullshit. He knows better. He knows that there’s sex and dopamine, and when it stops feeling good, when the dopamine wears off, people leave. Happiness ends. It always ends, and all that it leaves behind is an ache.

He listens to Natalie’s answer. “I don't know anything about fate or soul mates. All I know is that sometimes life happens to us, and all we can do is hold on until the wave recedes.”

“I suppose that’s what grief is like,” Vita says. “A wave. You said before that moving forward is hard, but I know you, and I know that some days are easier than others. Some days are harder.”

“Yeah,” Natalie agrees. “I guess it’s like a wave then. It’s a bit unpredictable. Sometimes all I’m doing is walking down the road and I see something that reminds me of him, and I’m sad all over again.”

“You said sometimes all you can do is hold on until the wave of life recedes. Are you in control of your life now?”

“You sound like my therapist,” Natalie says, making Niall snicker. He knew she had a therapist. “I don't know. I don't think control is the most important thing. I don't need to feel in control. Sometimes too much control means you're not really living.”

Niall looks around is perfectly ordered kitchen, looks at his alphabetized cookbooks on the bookshelf, looks at his shoes lined up neatly by the door, and thinks that she’s absolutely incorrect. Control is absolutely necessary, because the opposite of control is feeling, and when you let the feelings in, they knock you over. Before you know it, you’re showering in the middle of the day just to get a cry in, slamming your fist against the tile wall and wondering if it hurts this bad for anyone else.

From what Natalie says on the podcast, he decides that it does. Grief hurts this badly for other people, too. But the difference between other people and Niall is that other people find their way out. They find the light at the end of the tunnel and fight their way toward it.

Niall, on the other hand, sits in the dark.

When the recording finishes, he hits replay and listens to it all the way through a second time.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

re: This is your mother.

Attachements: img_149324,jpg, img_149325,jpg, img_149326.jpg

Noah, I’m emailing you here as maybe there’s a chance of you actually answering me. I’m attaching some pictures from our trip to Fiji a few weeks ago. We went snorkeling and it was beautiful! I had so much fun.

Your father and I really missed having you there. I know you said you couldn’t get off work, but I also know you didn’t ask. Please consider coming on holiday with us this summer, love.

And please give your dear old mum a call soon. She misses you.

#8nights #this is a long one #this is maybe 2/3 of what i've written #and most of it is staying if i do ever go back and work on this again #dagny beta'd this for me a while back you're awesome dagny

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angstymarshmallow · 7 years ago

Note

can you please make a fanfic where drake entered a whiskey drinking contest againts jake? and robyn will win at the end? ty.

Hi anon! By Jake, I assume you meant Jake McKenzie from Endless Summer. Okay challenge accepted! Here is a somewhat hilarious AU cross-over.

“W is for Win and Whiskey” - Drake x MC

Most of the other contestants could barely stand on their owntwo feet by the time the sixth round begun.

Drake had counted less than three remaining as he downed hisliquor in one quick go. He fixed his gaze ahead at them. The three-remainingpeople from the competition, they had also been the only people that had showedenough promise.

His whiskey driven days were all but natural to him at thispoint, and he was disappointed to find most of the other competitors droppedlike flies before the fourth round. Wherewere the rest of the whiskey enthusiasts? They were certainly not here.

He wanted to be the best inside this small town they’d visited.On a whim, they had entered the village only to realize a small drinkingcompetition had been currently going on. His eyes had piqued up with mildinterest but it was Robyn that implored him to join.

Now, his eyes were pitiful towards the rest that had already passedout near the table before they inexplicably locked gazes with the othercontestants still involved with the competition.

Unfortunately, three others still stood between him and hisclaim to victory.

Spying on them from the corner of his eyes was a great way forhim to keep track. To know how the enemy would react to every drink they took,until they inevitably would all end up with the most terrible hangover. Undeterred,Drake had battled on - expect as soon as he finished his sixth glass, doubtswere beginning to take root, and form little seeds of second thoughts.

It didn’t help that he had to start squinting to focus, and squintingwasn’t nearly as fun as he would hope. He tried to make sense of the swayedmovements of the other two that was left, and watched for slurred speeches as apartof the telltale signs of defeat.

Drake jolted in surprise but quickly lifted into a half-smileonce he swept the room again. Satisfaction prickled at the sight in front ofhim. The fourth contestant had lost his resolve, crumbling right in front of themwith a strangled cry before succumbing to the mighty powers of whiskey.

Drake watched his head snap back before the rest of the frailman sagged forward. His eyes remained closed and Drake strained to hear what hemuttered so readily under his breath. It was mostly nonsensical, grumblings andmisgivings about the competition but Drake wouldn’t let it ruin his good mood.He watched with interest though until the man had finally slammed his head acrossthe glass table and, with only the contents of half an empty glass beside him.

An uncharacteristic grin broke out. Two to go. Drake thought smugly to himself as he tipped his emptyglass at the other two. “S’ready to lose?” He taunted. It wasn’t his usualstyle, but the adrenaline rush and the occasional buzz, deluded him intothinking that feeling could last forever. It made him bold. It dared for him tobe fearless, and he grinned at the other two shamelessly.

The man in the green jacket had smirked at him. His unruly hairclung to his forehead as he leaned forward, close enough that the dog tagsaround his neck jingled by the sudden friction. “You talk a big game, but canyou deliver?” He jerked his chin at him as the staff refilled their glasses.

“Hell yeah.” Drake responded, smirking back. “Or my last nameisn’t Walker….” A pause, “for nothing.” He grabbed his glass to raise at him.

His mouth hung slightly agape, the man quickly recovered longenough to grin. He expertly knocked his glass back as if he too had a deep softspot for the substance. “You’re gonna have to do better than that. I’m aregular,” the man paused as if he was struggling to find the right words. “Whiskeyconnoisseur.”

Drake lifted a brow.

“And,” The man continued, hands gripping the side of the glasstightly. “I’ve never met someone that bragged about being named after whiskey.”He snorted, “You ain’t an alcoholic, are you? It almost doesn’t feel fair.”

“Fair?”

“Almost a damn shame, beating you at your own game.”

Their glasses filled in front of them and they both exchangedconfident smirks before drinking the liquor in one quick go. They held eyecontact as the substance trickled down their thoughts, keeping a safe distanceaway even as tension had shifted the atmosphere between them. Neither of them flinched at the other’s intensestare.

“I bet….bet I can –” Drake hicced, “…drink you under the table,” he hicced again, “ -any day of the week.”He had trouble making out the name tag on the man’s black shirt. “McKenzie.” Hedrawled finally, eyes nearly bulging to read the stupid tag. “McKenzie Jake?”

“Jake…Jake McKenzie, moonshine.” The man corrected.

“Jake…Jake McKenzie..” Drake echoed, but frowned at the words asthey left his lips. They all came out wrong, like a rush of letters mingledquickly together.

Drake was under the heavy impression that he had suddenlydeveloped an unmistakeable slur.

Jake grinned smugly, while stabbing a shaky finger in the air. Hisown face was flushed, eyes nearly glazed over. “Nah moonshine, you’re already…losingthis battle.” He hicced too before he could stop himself.

The two of them shared another look, a match of staring eachother down but neither of them looked away as another glass was placed in frontof them. They barely touched their respective glasses as they hiccupped thesame exact time, before erupting into a fistful of laughs.

The liquor sputtered from their lips, and Drake’s nose burnedbefore he snorted. The rest of it trickled down the side of their mouths beforethey both were chimed in as disqualified from the competition.

The third person had suddenly sprung from their seat, shakingbut nonetheless it grabbed both their attentions immediately. Drake had no ideahow he had forgotten her, but his eyes drank in her beautiful face easily asher smile twisted into a smirk.

Her dark hair went flying as she did a little spin,almost stumbling before his arms fastened around her waist to catch her.

When she found her footing again, Robyn gave a giant cry oftriumph and stuck her tongue out at them both. “Smuchk it boys..!” She drawledin that American accent of hers.

Her face was nearly as red as how flushed he felt.

“You sure showed us.” Jake sarcastically muttered, but herunsteady dancing tugged a smile from his lips until he was laughing again.

Drake could scarcely believe it as he stared up at her indisbelief. Robyn had actually beaten him for once. How was he ever going tolive that down?

She was never going to let him.

Already dreading their walk back to the b’n’b they were stayingat, he appealed to her vanity. “Damn Tinsley, I guess I sold you short. You’rereally good at –” The rest of hissentence died on his lips, as his stomach cramped up a minute later, bubblinguntil he lurched away. He could barely suck in a breath before he heaved in theopposite direction.

His wasn’t the only shrill sound that flooded past Robyn’s cry ofalarm.

It was as if every competitor had realized how ridiculous drinkingwhiskey in a competition was in themiddle of the day and Drake winced as he heard the others around himvomiting who-knows-where.

He didn’t know how long he sat, crouched low holdinghis stomach in pain but eventually he felt Robyn’s smooth fingers sift throughhis hair.

She didn’t say anything.

Seconds turned into minutes and eventually Drake lost count. All he could focus on was emptying his stomach, until there was nothing left.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, crouched over in pain withthe stint of regret building knots inside him. But the pressure of her fingersand her soothing voice had eased the embarrassment he felt at not being able tokeep his liquor down. Eventually when his stomach felt settled enough, he wiped hismouth with his shirt, and stared up at her.

Robyn’s eyes were warm with affection and concern as she brushedstray hairs away from his sweaty forehead. “You okay?” She mumbled softly.

A weak smile touched his lips. “Betterknowing you hadn’t left.” He uttered a shaky sigh, “that was awful.”

“It could have been worse, you could’ve been the only onepuking.”

“I don’t exactly see how this is any better Tinsley.”

She leaned forward to press her lips to his forehead before heburied his face inside her neck. “Take comfort in that, and knowing I wouldn’t leaveyou alone like that.”

He hid his smile in between her shoulder blades.

“Besides, I’m holding this over you.”

“Of course, you would.”

“Forever.”

He groaned.

“I beat you at awhiskey competition.”

Silence.

“I said I beat you -”

“I know baby, I heard you the first time.” He interjected, grumbling into hershirt. He ignored the sound of her chuckling by his ear.

When he felt strong enough, he stood and tucked her hand inside his. She tried to pester him with taking it easy and he quickly deflected her efforts. He wasn’t a child and he refused to be fretted over as such. Instead, he told her all he needed was a quick nap and her snuggled beside him in bed.

She didn’t disagree.

They walked in silence for awhile and although, she didn’t say anything - he could feel her bubbling with need to gloat from beside him as they headed in the direction of their rental. Eventually, he shifted only to meet her beaming up at him.

“I won, Drake Walker.” She murmured, eyes dancing in playful delight.

His lips curved into a half-smile. “That you did Robyn Tinsley.” He mumbled, hands entwining with hers.

Years later, she still hadn’t allowed him to forget it.

#drake x mc #the royal romance #trr: drake walker #es: jake mckenzie #playchoices #choices stories you play #asks #fic request #mc x drake #tinsley x walker #drake x robyn #drake walker #man i didn't think i'd enjoy this as much as i did but this was so much fun

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dyinglyght · 5 years ago

Text

I swear I'm confused tells me she loves me she's going stay with me every chance she gets she reminds me that she isn't here for me that I've ruined everything fashion life sucks that she has nothing that she has no friends she reminds me that I'm not her friend and haven't been her friend this whole time she reminds me that her marriage sucks and that I'm not a good husband to her she reminds me that I'm not doing anything for her or for a relationship I don't know what to do.

I want to be her knight in shining armor her best friend the person she wants to talk to you but it seems like every time I open my mouth to talk I'm not saying something right or I'm saying something she doesn't like and it ends up in a fight which ends in a long night.

She's everything I want and everything I feel like I need so why does she feel so distant why does everything feel so different she feels differently about me I know it she tells me especially when she's angry especially what she said especially when she can't take it anymore she tells me and I can hear it in the background of everything she says she doesn't want to be with me anymore I feel like she's too afraid of being alone to leave me or divorce me I don't think she wants to be with me I think she's afraid of being alone.

I don't want her to leave I don't want to be separate from her I don't want to go to sleep without knowing she's okay I don't want to wake up in the morning without seeing her face there's nothing more that I love than to see her smile it's nothing that I want more in this world then just have a wonderful year with her where every single day is just magical and everything she wants. It's going to take a lot of work though. I have to dig myself out of the hole I've been digging through the last 2 years she has no faith in me she has no trust in me so I have to build face and build trust but I keep failing at that because each day all the little things I do tip the scale out of my favor I can't seem to think in the way that she wants me to there's so many things that I don't know.

Honestly I just wish I was better equipped for this relationship.

I didn't know what I was getting into I thought that I was getting with a girl who had a normal about a problems who had you no self-esteem issue may be a little bit of body issues that was doing well for me little did I know that but only did she go through a shitload of stuff in her childhood she also was autistic and didn't know it and also developed borderline personality disorder she's going through so much in her day today that anything I do that isn't ideal tips the scale and f**** up her day and she can't take it she can't handle my constant mistakes she can't take my constant mess-ups she can't take my constant need of reassurance and correction it's too much for her I don't think she can handle me.

I realize more and more each day that I'm just a mess a ball of f***** up circumstances and situations I don't know if I'm good for her in my current state all I do is make her angry and make her upset nothing I do makes her happy and she's told me countless times that nothing I can do will ever make her happy so I should just stop trying.

A lot of the times it feels like all of the good times we have I just bulshit like anytime we're doing good it's just going to end up being a circumstance or situation where I do something that pisses her off and then it ruins our day week month.

Honestly I'm f***** up and I don't know if I'll ever get it right and I don't think she'll be able to wait for the day when I finally get my s*** together it's not like I want to be this way I don't want to be who I am I don't want to be this s*** that I am I don't want to Harbor this feelings and emotions and situations I've been through my whole life.

She doesn't think I'm a good person I know it.

I don't think there is such thing as a good person I think all the good things people do are based on selfish reasons.

I think everybody's selfish I feel like I used to be selfless but then everybody stole from me and took from me and kept stealing all of my good away.

Now I think it's just survival but I'm tired of surviving.

Last four years I've been homeless 3 times I've been married and one of my closest friends somebody I truly felt was a brother to me died was gunned down was shot multiple times and left dying in the street alone...

I feel like s*** I was supposed to be the one who is there for him we were supposed to have each other's backs we told each other that what did I do I hook them up with Tiana and forgot about him I focused on my attention in my relationship with jannera and shut everybody else out of my life and kept everybody at a distance.

Gabe is dead because of me I was supposed to have his back if I had stayed in his life he would have never been in that situation if I was there with him we would have made it out of there I would have had his back he wouldn't have died alone.

I knew that I was the level-headed one between the two of us he was the Hot Head he was ready for anything he was bigger than himself internally but I feel like I kept them under control yeah we will go out and be Reckless and get hella drunk get hella high so so what we sold whatever we could to get a couple of dollars but we kept our hands clean.

I didn't want that life for myself and I sure as hell didn't want that life for him I thought hooking him up with Tiana would keep him preoccupied, I thought you would keep a lot of trouble I just made him a man he had to provide for his family and he did whatever it took cuz that's the type of man he was.

Hardest part about everything's I don't know what the f*** is going on I don't know why I don't know why I don't know anything my brother's dead I can't even cry about it anymore and all I don't want to do is cry about it.

My brother died.

Being homeless is shity enough but being homeless with your family it rips your heart out having to go to work and chill at a friend's house every night with your dog or sleep in your car before work while your mom and sister sleeping in car.

It's one of the worst feelings in life terrible especially when it's your fault.

Then about your meeting the love of your life after you finally find some stability in your life she's the Sun she's the air you breathe she's the reason you wake up with the money she's the reason why you go to work and everybody sees how happy you are and tries to tear you two apart my family was a poison in my relationship my mom the scorpion with her flock of weak-minded daughters that bullied and tormented my life my aunt was a raging b**** they gave no fux that stole for me and the family yet my mom continue to bring her into our house and let her destroy our family unit in my life.

My mom had an uncanny ability of putting other people before her children or doing things for herself and not caring about the consequences or actions or how affect her children.

But then constantly manipulated and lied to us by telling us she would never put anybody before us and then take a plane ride to Chicago with her boyfriend leaving us at home for a whole week while she lives it up in a whole new city making all type of real estate money and blowing it all with her boyfriend like immature children like they didn't have kids of their own who deserve things to deserve a better life.

I spent my whole time having to be responsible of two adults and now that I'm in a relationship and need to be an adult I'm acting like my juvenile parents or my adult role models who are acting like children and when a 17 year old boy dictate their life's indecision and discipline them.

I don't know what to do with myself.

I just want to be okay my head I just want to be okay on my body I just want to live a healthy life and be happy with my wife.

But it seems like I can't even do that right feels like I keep walking around in a f****** Circle and just destroying everybody's life that I am apart of I don't think I'm a good person I don't think I'm a good human being I don't think I deserve anything I feel like a piece of s*** incarnate.

I just want to spoil jannera I just want to give everything she wants to need cuz she deserves it she spent her whole childhood dealing with people who screaming at her and didn't take the time to understand her or to see her beauty.

She parties I'm one of those people now and her head I'm like everybody else I'm like everybody else who ever hurt her.

Just another person that hurts her just like your parents I'm just like her ex I'm just like the guy who took advantage of her she reminds me of this often so I'll never forget.

I used to be too bright needs to be too much for her to handle two positive.

She used to stare at me like I was God.

Now she only looks at me with disgust.

There's only brief moments where I feel like I have purpose.

And it's when she looks at me with love when she smiles when she laughs and when she sees that she's beautiful.

Only then.

I feel this emptiness waiting to swallow me like a black abyss working in my subconscious waiting for the day I give....

My brain doesn't know what to do with my thoughts anymore everything that I think or feel feels like it's the wrong thing to do whether wrong thing to feel I feel so absurd.

How am I supposed to keep my promises of changing and becoming the husband that jannera deserves if I can't even get my head to make sense of my mind.

She deserves better than me I'm not anyting I don't have a future I don't have a career I don't have gifts to talents I'm only blessed with blessings.

For some reason they won't let me die I'm here either to be a tortured Soul going to save Souls and I'm not in the position to do much saving you can't even save myself.

At this point in time I am say I just ruin everything I touch.

I don't deserve your love I don't deserve to be loved I don't deserve my wife I don't deserve to live yet I have all these things.

I'm tired of destroying everybody's life around me I think it just be best if I disappeared.

Nothing I do is ever right.

How's anybody supposed to live with himself knowing that they're existence is meaningless.

I've never done anything good with my life.

I don't deserve to have a wife.

I don't deserve how much she loves me.

She doesn't deserve to be treated the way I treat her.

She deserve somebody who has something she deserve somebody who can give her everything she needs you deserve somebody better than me.

I'm not the right guy I'm not a good guy no I do is hurt and get hurt that's all I deserve.

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thenightisland · 7 years ago

Text

explanations/updates under the cut

i haven’t been able to maintain much in the way of interaction with most of the people i care about, also haven’t been able to do much more than get out of bed every day because it’s one thing to be depressed and another to have just had such a goddamn terrible few months that there’s no way your antidepressants can keep up with all the awful

i already had several weeks without my second in command because she’s cursed and had to have another surgery. our unit lost two of our main techs (for new people inexplicably reading this, i charge a locked acute psychiatric ward, and losing techs is a /massive/ loss). the admin demons have been instituting various new things that have been having terrible effects on the units which i won’t get into because that would be a really really long explanation with a lot of jargon in it. one of the things though is the fact that the “do not readmit” list has been low key thrown out the window, so all the pts who were on that list /with good fucking reason/ are of course, now coming back, and spoiler alert they’re just as terrible still.

this one bookstore closed which sounds stupid as fuck but that place was the closest thing i had to a church and it literally kept me alive when i was in high school like i say that completely without exaggeration so it closing was the equivalent of someone hacking off one of my limbs because it was still the main place i went to when i was upset and wanted to feel less miserable and i don’t have it anymore and you wouldn’t believe how hard it is like imagine if your church got demolished or whatever you believe in like it destroyed me and i feel unmoored i don’t have that safe space feeling now because it’s gone

meanwhile the person i spent seven years of my life in love with had a baby with the boyfriend she described as Guy Karen, named me godmother of their firstborn son, and unknowingly made his middle name the pen name i’ve used for a decade because fucking of course this might as well fucking happen too. but i have other romantic bullshit going on now that’s honestly fucking me up worse.

also somehow i still can’t escape a little life like it has haunted me every waking moment since march 2016 and i hate how much i am like the protagonist and it’s kind of fucking with me??????

a fucking garbage man bashed off the side mirror on my car which i still haven’t had the fucking time to get fixed that was great

spent my whole vacation anxious having panic attacks like what is the point in having a long vacation if you’re going to be constantly stressed over nothing like goddammit can’t i just have this

within the last month and a half five people i know have died. three of them were our patients which like doesn’t sound like a thing that would cause that much distress, but due to the nature of our unit, we’re the only family a lot of our career patients have most of our pts are homeless, schizophrenic, intellectually disabled, just plain unwanted people of varying illnesses, like we literally look after the people no one else wants so when we hear one of Our Patients has died it fucks us up so badly. and it’s even worse because it’s not like they died in their sleep or something all of them have been post-discharge suicides like our work already feels like a revolving door exercise in futility because that’s the nature of the field unfortunately but it still hurts like i spend forty hours or more a week with these people i literally see them than i see my friends and family our patients are mostly so close to us that like when the day shift charge nurse came back from maternity leave, pt who had been there when she was pregnant who were there again were asking about how the baby was doing so three of our pts killing themselves in the last month in a half is soul crushing

then the closest thing i had to a friend in nursing school, well, she died too. out of the fucking blue, out of nowhere. she was a 28 year old healthy woman with two young daughters. she worked so hard for her and her girls she went to nursing school to build a better life for them and she genuinely wanted to be a nurse meanwhile i originally got into it for the money like she only got to live her dream working in L&D for two and a half years. and then she was on vacation in florida with her girls who were doing like a cheerleading camp. and she just. went to sleep and never woke up. and i still don’t know what killed her no one has posted it on facebook, and unfortunately, all the people who might know are the people that i cut out of my life because the rest of our class was a toxic mess so i can’t very well be like heyyyyy so i know i deleted you years ago and all but what killed linda? so still no closure. i just hope to god her girls didn’t find their mother dead. like it wrecked me.

i also say that every time i come back from a vacation something awful happens like when i came back from boston/nyc i discovered i was the only nurse left on my shift and when i came back from st louis last fall my dog died a very traumatizing [for me] death, so when i came back from dc i was like hmm what next.

well, another fucking person died is what next. /one of my coworkers/ my alpha tech from my original 11-7 team one of the people who has literally saved my life and kept so many people from getting hurt this is someone i saw five days a week for the last two and a half years of my life. he was already going through a lot because him and his wife split, so he was staying at a friend’s house, a friend who happened to be an NP for one of the psych docs, and the NP’s sister who works as an internal medicine assistant. and then on cinco de mayo we got word that his car had flipped and killed him. and a lot of people attributed it to a classic cinco drunk driving fatality but it gets worse because of course it does because lol it wasn’t /his/ car that flipped. it was the NP’s sports car. and apparently, the NP was driving, and the sister was following. the sister and NP were off the grid for a couple days and then the sister came back to work, but the NP has been taken off the on call list “indefinitely” so not only is one of our team members dead, but he is probably dead from a /drunk driving vehicular homicide done by another team member/ because apparently the world was like fuck our unit specifically.

then i got to spend several days being targeted by a pt who was a behavioral case [aka they’re not actually mentally ill, they’ve learned to play the system to avoid going to jail, basically] and that involved her being in seclusion for seven goddamn hours and her literally endlessly threatening to kill me for days to the point that i was confined to our walled in nurses station because she was you know trying to kill me and just constantly standing on the other side of the glass throwing around some of the worst verbal abuse i’ve ever experienced like i’m already exhausted and fatigued and miserable can’t you shut the fuck up i need to find some kind of meaning in my job because it’s all i have and you’re making it very hard for me to feel like i’ve done any good for anyone

all of this built up nicely into a good old fashioned nervous breakdown to the point that i had to call in sick because lol turns out that that is a lot of fucking shit to deal with in the span of a month and a half and emotionally things are only going to get harder from here this year for a variety of personal reasons that suffice to say have literally kept me up at night and upset me enough that i even had some nightmares break through the medication because i’m seeing so many of my friends find their happiness and i hate that i can’t feel that happy for them because i’m so tired and when the fuck will it be my turn i don’t want to resent my friends’ happiness and successes i’m just fucking exhausted and would really like for some good goddamn things to start happening here any time now i’ve been under so much stress i’m just a human version of the song running on empty at this point it’s all too much and i still can’t write i’m still stuck in the same hell from a manuscript i wrote nearly four years ago all i’ve been able to write is Coping Poetry to keep from going off the deep end and honestly everything in my life just feels completely out of control and i’m just tired of so many bad things happening in such a short amount of time like i can handle my own emotional problems until you dump all this other fucking nightmare fuel on top of them then it’s too much

so for the unfinished ao3 wip i’m sorry for the sheet music requests i’m sorry for the unanswered messages i’m sorry i’m safe i’m not in any danger of hurting myself or anything but i’m overwhelmed and i barely have the energy to get through all the shit that’s been happening lately so i can’t even promise when my interactions with anyone will be back to normal especially given my already awful skill at withdrawing from the people who care about me because i don’t want to bring them down any so just. tolerate the queue’s work. if you see me posting more but not answering you it’s not you it’s me i just cannot manage even talking to more than like three people max right now hence the until further notice psa you’ve seen at the top of my blog

the worst part is that there’s actually /more/ but it’s also three in the morning and i have to work tomorrow so here’s the highlights turns out averaging one death a week takes a toll on a person who’s already isolated and exhausted

hopefully at some point, things won’t suck as much and i can go back to being regular me. till then, apologies, and enjoy the queue

#karen's adventures in trying to sort her life out #you know if i pull that tag out that it's bad tbh #it's long but it Explains #i should be asleep

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layesica · 6 years ago

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Goodbye 2018: A Year in Review with Some Stuff Left Out

Guys… this year, I saw Dear Evan Hansen. Well… I guess we’re done here!

Yeah. You’re not getting off that easy. I would very much like to have a rant here, but I’m resisting the temptation. What’s done is done, so no point in wasting time thinking about it.

Have I ever done this as bullet points? Do I always do it as bullet points, but don’t remember that because I’m tired? Well, here are the bullet points of a year gone by…

JANUARY

• Started the year with Pack people. No kiss at midnight. This was a continuing trend…

• My schedule was all over the place. Tech and Front of House all willy-nilly.

• Started Grad Revue at Second City. I worked with a whole new group of people because that’s how it worked for me. Worked in the office to pay for it.

• Started my second Whole Life Challenge.

• Auditioned for the Universal Studios Tour Guide Program. Got the callback, but failed the improv. This was a continuing trend…

• For fun? Oh! I went roller skating for Sandy’s birthday. I friggin’ love roller skating, y’all!

• Rediscovered the Los Feliz 3. Saw Lady Bird and I, Tonya.

FEBRUARY

• Things got a little more ordered. Grad Revue, Second City office, Very Famous… all my nights were allocated!

• I started working exclusively tech at The Pack and exclusively Fridays. Hunter asked me to host Go Sketch Yourself, so Katie D. and I did it from the booth. My very niche bad tech sketch went over so well with this crowd!

• Went to the Opera for the first time to see Candide. It had Kelsey Grammar in it? Still enjoyable.

• Met some friends at Gracias Madre. I’d been wanting to try it since I moved here. Finally! Expensive and scene-y, but good!

• At the end of the month, I went part-time at the hotel because… well, there were no benefits to being there full-time, and I have shit to do, y’all!

• Got a Conan taping in there.

• Ordered some Samoas from a neighborhood Girl Scout. Someone tried to sabotage me, but I got those cookies and put them in my face! Finally!

• This year had two themes: 1) Forgiveness and, conversely, 2) You are dead to me now. Forgiveness started at the end of this month. It was an awkward first step, but sometimes it’s good to take a first step. I guess it’s just looking at the big picture of whether, as a whole, someone is a positive in your life or a negative.

• I did something terrible. I killed Gary. He was a delightful little aloe (according to Reddit, an aloe aristata). He was in a sugar skull planter from Trader Joe’s. I couldn’t tell that I was overwatering him. I overwatered him to death. I am a terrible plant parent. I still feel awful.

• Another loss. My trusty Herschel backpack finally gave out. So, I got a new one. Not a Herschel. A cheaper one.

MARCH

• Mom and Dad came to visit. They got a nice AirBNB right down the street from me... but the plumbing was shot. So we got to spend a week at The Hollywood Hampty! (Thanks, George!) We went to a Conan taping. We went to Madame Tussaud’s… um… yeah. Did the double decker tour bus that I get for free because I sell them at work. We dropped by Eataly. I need to go back there. We got free breakfast every day!

• I went to a party! I don’t normally do that.

• I got to be in Book Report at The Pack. Buzz Aldrin was seated in the front row I had to do a quick change into an elaborate costume and ran out with my dress tucked into my tights.

• I learned that when you do someone a huge favor, they don’t always reciprocate in kind, so you should bear that in mind when you choose to share.

APRIL

• Took a day trip to Venice and Santa Monica. Walked around the canals. That was neat.

• I doggie-sat for George and Ian with Parker -- a very, very good dog. Their apartment is so serene PLUS they left me gin and tonic and an adorable call sheet with Parker’s day outlined. Nice!

• I interviewed for the page program at Paramount thanks to Sandy’s recommendation. Didn’t get it. Maybe they felt like I was too old. I don’t know. They seemed impressed with my resume, but I still haven’t been called in for an interview for a regular job. This is a continuing trend… At least I got to have some Texas-style margaritas in the build up.

• Started Sketch 3 at The Pack. Old version. Just talking about the history of comedy and other comedy nerd / writer pursuits with Mike Upchurch . This may have been my favorite comedy class ever. Got some insider Mr. Show information. It’s the fandom that keeps giving!

• Saw Scott Thompson’s Buddy Cole Monologues at UCB. Accidentally made eye contact with Bruce McCulloch. It was a very exciting night for me.

• During Very Famous’s April Show, I gave this gift to my family back in Texas.

MAY

• Gallegos visited and did Go Sketch Yourself.

• He and Eloy came to opening night of my Grad Revue — Clickbait & Switch. Oh yeah! My Grad Revue at Second City opened.

• FYC Season, y’all! Netflix had some good stuff! I got to take a picture of Emily with Marty Short which enjoying the open bar and passed tray foods.

• Lindsey came to visit. Lots of Marvel. I probably will not be seeing any more Marvel, though. Unless they hire me for that job I applied for. Then, I would love Marvel! We went to Universal and my favorite Harry Potter ride broke down. Then, we rode it again immediately. And then I had motion sickness that lasted 7 days

• Brent Forrester started a series of Comedy Knowledge Drops at Dynasty Typewriter. They were so good! He is great!

• Put up a sketch at The Pack’s Ladies of Sketch Night with a dream team of actors. Also, go to dance again, but, sadly, I always end up in the back. Too many ladies!

• My calendar simply says “BOB!” I imagine I saw Bob at something… Oh, Dynasty Typewriter! It was fundraiser for one of their employees to renew her visa or something. Took photos of Emily and a very nice BrBa/BCS fan with Bob before we walked through Murder Park to get to the train.

• An actor that I very much had a crush on stayed at our hotel. He’s been on a downhill slide for a while and was obviously pretty high. He was also a jerk to the person who check him in. But he was nice to me… and when he smiled at me while thanking me for calling a cab, I kind of died a little on the inside. I wish I had the video from our security cam, but I’ll just have to remember it in my mind. When I got home from work and turned on the TV, there he was in a terrible movie.

• Went on an easy hike to a waterfall in Altadena.

JUNE

• Went to ATX fest again! Mom & Dad came and stayed a night at the hotel with me. Lindsey and Andrea met up the second day. It wasn’t as fun because I live in this place where I’m constantly surrounded by TV stuff. They did a Better Call Saul thing, so I got to go to that. I had some TexMex. It was A LOT.

• Flew back from Texas earlier than I had planned because our Grad Revue closed that Sunday. We did our final show, then received our diplomas and t-shirts. I am now a Second City Graduate. But not “Alumni.” That’s different… and also not possible in Hollywood. I also resigned from my work-study job with enough hours to take 3 more classes. It was sad, but I needed that time back to make money.

• Took in some Fringe shows. I’m so supportive! But also, the lack of reciprocal support is not exclusive to comedy people. That’s a thing I learned.

• I auditioned for Sketch at Second City. Didn’t get it. This is a continuing trend…

• Went on a little weekend trip to Long Beach. Checked out the aquarium. Did a whale tour. Saw an actual whale tail. Had some decent barbecue. Got a sunburn. I recommend the Hotel Maya near the Queen Mary. All the cookies you can eat! And they have fire pits!

JULY

• This was a light month, but that was fine because…

• I went to Comic Con in San Diego! We got volunteer badges. I ended up catching a ride with my friend, Osiokeh, so I got to spend one night at the hotel connected to the Convention Center. So nice! Well, I spent part of the night because there was a Better Call Saul Panel in Hall H, so I had to camp out waiting for my wristband. Of course, they had issues and that took forever. Then, I slept for 4 hours then went to get back in line. I sat through so much stuff AND that place pretty much emptied out for some boring panels. Not enough for me to upgrade my seating, but I could have just not done that at all.I did not budget enough time to get to my volunteer shift, so I had to scoot as soon as that was over. My volunteer job SUCKED! Gordon was nice enough to come look for me, but they didn’t allow us to have phones, so I missed him. So sad. What a sweetheart, though. :(

• Volunteering at Comic-con… Oof! I just kept getting the wrong shifts. They were torturous! The last day was a complete mess, and I was one of the last volunteers standing… because of course I was. At the end of all this, I was like, “NEVER AGAIN!” I did enjoy finding a hotel to work at and just people watching. I guess the first year is when you learn. I totally missed the badge sale for 2019!

• I finally started Improv 2 at The Pack. Neal Dandade was great! All new people again!

AUGUST

• Did a better convention… CAT CON! Now, this is where I belong. I won a Litter Genie and the cat-weed company gave Penelope a CatIt Flower Fountain. She is obsessed! So, I guess it may have been better than weed. We may never know. I met Cindy from @foster_kittens. She was very nice… but the main event was meeting Felix. He was so soft, but so over being petted by strangers! I signed up to be a foster, but with a chupacabra in our apartment, I decided against it. That’ll change.

• Season 3 of Better Call Saul started. Then I started a class, so I had to miss watching it live. Emily and I watched the first one with… some refreshments. It was so good! I am turning on Jimmy as he turns into Saul though. Like, I super hated him right at the end there. We’ll wait for Gene to roll around. Oh Gene. My heart.

• Went to San Diego for a weekend. Nice to check it out as a tourist. Walked across a swinging bridge. Spent hours at the USS Midway. Went on a paddle boat ride. Checked out a Padres game at Petco Park. Almost died on a Bird scooter.

• Finally started that Late Night Writing class. It finally worked out. I love it. I wrote jokes and people liked them. I guess I can write them after all.

• Took a one-day class on sketch writing from improv with Kevin McDonald from Canada’s Kids in the Hall. It was fun. Lots of nerds. We wrote 2 sketches.

• Went to see David Cross with Emily. Took myself to Umami before hand. We got some Bonus Bob!

• Other shows: So You Do Comedy…? at UCB. Chris had John and Jessie Ennis. That was fun. Kevin McDonald did a variety show at the Lyric Hyperion Theater. First time there. Cute place! We sat so close. Tim Heidecker dropped a guitar stand on me.

SEPTEMBER

• Improv 3 at The Pack Started. Shaun Landry showed us how to be actors. We did prepared monologues for a class that John Conroy subbed. Shaun said he told her he wanted to tape one of them because it was so good. She said Justin. There was no Justin. No one even close except Jessica. So, I’m just gonna assume he meant me. Because I need it for this next thing…

• Submitted a reel to be a performer on my or a TPT Sketch Team. Didn’t get a callback. I’m starting to think maybe I am not a good performer. But giving up isn’t a thing I do, so I’ll keep trucking along. At least I get to feel like I’m SNL-era Bob Odenkirk. And from what I heard from a person who worked with him around this time, we have/had about the same pitching style for this level in our careers. That makes me feel better. But, like, he was at SNL and I’m at a little theater in Hollywood… and also he’s a genius… so maybe not that much the same.

• The good news is that I get to continue as a writer on Very Famous.

• I also got to play a terrible British stereotype in a sketch with friends at Go Sketch Yourself and UCB’s Everybody Get In Here. Multiple people told me how funny they thought I was in it. I accidentally dressed like Oliver Hardy, but thinner and with boobs.

• Dana Gould did Chopping Block at The Pack. That was amazing! They needed extras and, oh, how I wanted to be in something one of my heroes wrote… but also I wanted to watch it. So I chose the latter. I’m good with that.

• At work, a guy from Fox News yelled at me over the phone because of something dumb. I don’t even remember. Cool guy.

• Briefly joined an improv practice group. Quickly realized that I am too poor for that.

• Started another Whole Life Challenge. It had been a while.

• Went to another Conan taping. It turned out to be the last. September 18. 25 years and 5 days after I first watched Conan on late night television. A few weeks after this, the hour-long show would cease to be. A total surprise to me. A half-hour replacement coming in January.

OCTOBER

• Oh yeah! Back in September, Andrew asked if I would like to be in The Ointment at The Pack. Um… OF COURSE! So I got to play a character who murdered her husband… 10 years after she wrote a blog post about how she would do it. I also played an Octopus tentacle. It was so fun!

• Ian asked me to be in some short, blackout videos he was making to remind people to vote. That was fun, too!

• Briana asked me to be in her sketch for Tales from the Laugh Dimension at The Pack. Duh! Of course! I also did a couple of things with her for open mic sketch shows. It was a lot of fun.

• The best thing about all these parts I got was that right around this time, someone who was grasping at straws to make me a bad person declared that I was “angry about all the sketches I didn’t get cast in.” LOL Yeah, about that. So, I guess things do happen for a reason.

• After a couple months of looking for a full-time position, so I could get out of my living situation because of it being a danger to Penelope, I kicked that into overdrive. I wish I could have kept my old place, as I was the only one who really loved it, but also, all the sage in the world wouldn’t be able to vanquish the bad joo-joo. This turned out for the better in the long run.

• But more good things happen! Hunter suggested that I help produce a show at The Pack for Halloween as part of WPCK. We did an exquisite corpse with all-female writers and an all-female cast (but a male director because… I guess… let’s not go overboard?) based on the Bill Joel video for Allentown, the play No Time for Sargents (watch the TV version of this, please) and Ragnar Benson’s series of survival books. I got a pretty big part and memorized the shit out of my lines… only to have my entire intro skipped. So, I had some confusing costuming, but the whole thing was kind of that way… and I guess we can just blame the format anyway. It was still fun. And I got to go eat Doomie’s with some great ladies!

• Finally got to see 1970s-style Hollywood Boulevard thanks to that Tarantino movie. I was only there for the throwback architecture. Walking home after class, I saw Brad Pitt.

• Took myself to the beach again.

NOVEMBER

• November 1. The day I saw Dear Evan Hansen. I was not ready. It was so good! I cried the entire time. I tried to win the ticket lottery every day. I listen to the soundtrack constantly. I may have to wait, like, 3 years to see it again.

• The next day, I picked up my rental. I deserve a break, so I took one in the form of a road trip along the PCH. I ram some errands in Burbank, then drove through Malibu Canyon to start in Malibu. It was beautiful. How have I never been to Malibu before after 2+ years in LA? The first day, I stopped in San Luis Obispo. Oof! At least the Embassy had a good evening reception. I ordered some Santa Maria steak on Postmates and it was so good! Then, I just relaxed. SLO is not that exciting.

• Day 2, I drove up to Monterey. It took forever. But it was BEAUTIFUL. Just singing Dear Evan Hansen songs and trying to pay attention to the road. In Monterey, I went to some beach locations, like where John Denver crashed his plane. Then I watched the sun set on the beach. The Embassy there did not have a good evening reception.

• On the last day of my road trip, I drove up to San Jose to go to the Winchester Mansion. It was really neat, but not as exciting as I thought it would be. Still enjoyable. Had an expensive burger, went on a disappointing detour trying to find a Peet’s, then drove in the dark on The 5 back to LA. Wow! There is nothing there.

• The last day with the car, I took Penelope to the vet. Got the works. She’s all good. Didn’t even need a teeth cleaning.

• Station Theater’s Can’t Tell Us Nothing won Matt Besser’s Improv for Humans contest. They did a show at UCB, so reunited with some Houston improv folks. And also someone I worked with at the WPCK thing. Worlds collide!

• Saw a screening of Stan & Ollie at IFC Fest. The acting was great!

• There was a book event for Paul Myers’ book about Kids in the Hall at UCB with Dave and Scott. Scott is a force of nature. I love him so much! Also, Paul Myers is Mike’s brother… or Mike Myers pretending to be a guy named Paul who is also his brother.

• When I was in high school and college, there was a stand up / storytelling show in LA called Uncabaret. If I lived in LA, I would have gone. Now that I do, I went to their 25th anniversary show. It was a room full of people from the 90s, still in the 90s. Not a complaint.

• Late one night, I saw that Katie was subletting the apartment she had just moved out of. A studio in Hollywood in my budget, bills included. By the end of the month, I had the keys to that apartment. I should have gone ahead and put my notice in for December 1, but I got nervous. I ended up paying rent on 2 places.

• Started Improv 4 at The Pack. Rich is great! He has the perfect personality of a person I can get along with.

• Thanksgiving at Fogo de Chao is TOO MUCH MEAT!

• Very Famous got into SF Sketchfest! Finally going to San Francisco!

DECEMBER

• Packing! That pretty much sums it up. I rented a car for the small stuff. Asked for help with the big stuff. We did it! Penelope and I are free!

• Ian asked me to be in his directorial debut at Second City — A Fonzie Scheme. We did rehearsals to generate material. It was fun.

• I saw Come From Away. I mean, after Dear Evan Hansen, I thought I would never be able to love a new musical, but this one got me. It was good.

• I got older. For my actual birthday, we went to a Yoga guru’s Winter Solstice Celebration — even though it wasn’t the solstice yet. We did some intention setting and white people dancing and healing breathing and tarot card pulling and labyrinth walking and fireside singing. Then we got ice cream. The following day, I invited some people to bottomless mimosa brunch. It was a great time! A single mimosa, followed by a carafe of mimosa, then another single mimosa is the perfect amount of mimosa. Then, I bought some corn cookies and a slice of crack pie from milk bar.

• Spent the next few days getting the apartment in order, so I could come back home to not a mess after the holidays. I did a lot, so I’m looking forward to getting home to Penelope.

• Capped off a creative year by submitting my very first late night-style writing packet. A warmup for the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop. Guys, I’ve known it my whole life: I friggin’ love late night!

• And just for good measure, my $400 (I got them on sale for $75) sunglasses broke. I was tempted to get some Ray Bans, but opted for some MUCH cheaper Target ones. RIP Jimmy Choo star sunglasses. They were good to me for like 3 years AT LEAST.

• Went back home for the holidays. Spent a lot of quality time with Mom and Dad. Saw Mark and Jacob. Didn’t get nearly enough writing done. Didn’t finish my book. At least I got to mostly relax. Mom let me win at Scrabble a couple times before winning like 12 times after that.

A LOOK AHEAD

Tonight for New Year’s Eve, Emily, Ian and I are going to see Bob and Naomi’s Not Inappropriate Show at UCB. Then later, we are going to the New Years Eve celebration at Dynasty Typewriter. They got a lot going on over there.

I tried to focus on the high points of this past year. The low points were pretty low. I’ve struggled this year, but have done my best to try and stay positive. I lived and I learned.

The word of the year for 2019 is BUDGET. I am going to set myself up with the tools I need to budget my money, budget my time and budget my food. The main focus will be finding a new job. That has been a big issue since I moved to LA. I’m wearing myself out.

I need to cut myself some slack this year, but also continue to get shit done and be better at that.

I hope the rest of you have a wonderful year. And, if you made it this far, why are we not best friends and going to Salt & Straw every month or laughing and bitching over bottomless mimosas every other weekend? I need more of that!

BONUS

Annual kitty feet, anyone?

#year in review #goodbye 2018 #hello 2018 #la improvisers #comedy writing

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