#my degree my car my house going to my first doctor’s appointments so on

[madigoround]

Today (technically yesterday if you consider it’s 17 minutes after midnight but I haven’t gone to sleep yet so today) is the 7th anniversary of the day I got out of my parents abusive household, it’s my freedom day

[mariposa-writes]

The Assistant - Part 2

Summary: I hate writing summaries...

Word Count: 1.6K

A/N: let me know what you think! I love feedback, thanks!

It was 9:56 when Travis texted you asking for your apartment number. You didn't bother replying and just walked outside to find his car, which was parked in front of the unit you stayed in.

He was standing outside the car, leaning against the hood. "I was going to see if you needed help." He said, opening the door for you.

"I'm fine, but thanks."

"So this is where you live?" He asks eyeing the building suspiciously.

You could tell he wasn't fond of the place and wouldn't be spending an extra time here if he didn't have too. Argentine wasn't the best area to live it, but it was more affordable than Johnson County.

"Do you live with anyone?" Travis asked, realizing he really didn't know much about you.

"Nope."

"Maybe you should." He said under his breath but still loud enough for you to hear.

"Why would I? I like living alone."

"Well, I was just thinking that maybe if you had a roommate you could afford a nicer and safer place."

You were slightly offended that he was judging your apartment so harshly. "It's not a bad place to live. Most of the neighbors are good people, just trying to survive with the little money they have."

"You said most not all." You rolled your eyes, already regretting this little doctors appointment.

"Well the few that aren't so great stay out of the way. They actually aren't that bad, they try to keep the violence away from where the kids play and try not to included innocent people in their beef." You liked where you lived, maybe you could do without the nightly gunshots but for the most part it wasn't bad.

"Alright, whatever you say." He said holding up a hand in mock surrender, while keeping the other on the steering wheel.

The rest of the ride was relatively quiet, besides the music playing softly in the background.

———

The doctor’s appointment went well and in 5 days you were supposed to have your surgery. You just first had to get your knee to bend to a 90 degree angle.

You spent all week working on it, and it was much harder than you thought it would be. You were about to call your best friend when Travis’s called ID popped up in your screen.

“Hello?” You said answering the phone, confused on why he was calling

“Hey, it’s Travis” he replied

“Yea, I know.” You we’re wracking your brain on why he was calling when it finally hit you. “You’re not calling to cancel on me tomorrow right?” You asked starting to worry.

You let your mind get the best of you more often than you’d like to admit.

“What? No. I was actually calling to see if you wanted to stay here so we wouldn’t have to wake up as early tomorrow” he explained, “ I know you’re not really a morning person.”

“Uhh, are you sure?” Over the past year and a half while working for Travis you’d had many late night and early mornings, but you had never once stayed over at his house. Even if you were only gonna get 3 hours of sleep, you would go home for them.

To be honest, you didn’t really want to be alone tonight. You were nervous about the surgery, even though it was a basic routine. You’d never been out under the knife before and this was stressing you out more than you cared to admit.

“Yea, I’m sure. I can pick you up in an hour. Also the doctor said you’d need someone to watch over you so I figured you could stay at my house for a few days. Maria will be here and she can help you.”

“Okay, sounds good. See you in an hour.”

About an hour later Travis was knocking on your door. “It’s open” you yelled from your bedroom. He slowly entered not, wanting to over step.

“You ready to go?” He called.

“Yea, just grabbing my bag.” You walked into the living room with ur bag slung over your shoulder. Travis was standing in the middle of your living room, looking around at what he could see.

Your apartment had always been the perfect size for you, one bedroom with a living room, kitchen, and bathroom but with Travis in the room it suddenly felt to small.

He hadn’t noticed that you had walked in yet, you cleared your throat getting his attention “Ready to go?” You chipped, ready to get Travis out of your space.

He cleared his throat like he’d forgotten how to talk. “Yea, let’s go.” He took your bag from you and and carried it to the car.

It was silent for the first half of the ride, which you were normally fine with. You guys didn’t talk much unless it had to do with work. “Thanks for doing this Travis.”

“Yea, it’s not a big deal.”

You wanted to protest tell him that it was a big deal. He was paying for the extra expenses you couldn’t cover, he got you a good doctor, and most importantly he was there for you through this whole thing so far.

Which was something you never expected from him. You expected him to fire you since you wouldn’t be able to do your job for at least three weeks.

Maybe he wasn’t as bad as you thought. He wasn’t ever some raging asshole boss, but he liked things a certain way.

You guys never talked about your personal lives, you knew more about his due to your job but you never openly discussed or asked about his. You just let him tell you what he wanted to.

He pulled into his garage and helped you out if the car. Your knee was only getting worse, it was giving out more often and becoming more painful to walk on.

Travis kept a hand on the small of your back, the whole way into the house. Catching you when your knee gave out, on the way to his kitchen. "Hungry?" He asked as you sat down on the stool at the island in his kitchen.

"Yes, but I can't eat until after the surgery tomorrow."

"I forgot that you had to fast."

"Yup, worst thing about this dumb surgery." You laughed, earning a small chuckle from Travis.

"Ok, I figured it'd be best if you stayed in my room since there's no stairs to get there. Maria changed the sheets and set it all up for you."

"You don't have to give up your room."

"It's fine, I'll be staying in one of the guest rooms upstairs."

"Travis-"

"Don't argue." He said placing a glass of water in front of you. You glared at him, but didn't argue. "I have some stuff I need to do tonight, but I was thinking we could hang out once I'm done."

"Yea, that's fine."

"Perfect, make yourself at home. I'll find you when I'm done." You nodded as he walked upstairs to his office. You got off the couch, not sure what to do. You felt like you needed to work and be doing something productive.

But instead you sat on his couch and powered on his gaming console. He already had NBA 2k23 in so you decided to play that. You play with the kids in your apartment complex when you watch them for their mom. She normally pays you back in the best baked goods in the world.

You'd been playing for about an hour when Travis walked into the living room. "You play?"

"Yea."

"You any good?" He asked sitting down besides you and grabbing the other remote.

"I'm okay," You lied not wanting to brag. You liked to think you'd gotten pretty good at the game, often times beating the kids you watched. "Why, wanna play?"

"Yup, just don't be sad when I beat you."

"Ok," You said, rolling your eyes.

The rest of the night consisted of you and Travis playing different videos games, you beating him in NBA and MLB. He beat you at Madden, "That's not fair you have an advantage over me!" You protested, "You can think all strategically about the game since you play in real life!"

"Oh, your just mad you lost." He said powering off the console. "You're a sore loser." he mumbled.

"I am not a sore loser. It just doesn't happen often so I'm not used to it."

"Oh really?" he raised an eyebrow at you, clearly not believing you.

"Yea! See your used to it, I'm not." You smirked, knowing you were getting under his skin.

"I'm used to it? Who has a super bowl ring and who doesn't?" He asked pointing between you two.

"Oh, that was like 2 seasons ago, get over it." You laughed, as he rolled his eyes.

"Alright, well I think this is a sign to call it a night. We gotta be ready to go by 6:15."

"Okay." You nodded, getting off the couch. Travis walked you to his room.

It felt surreal being in his room. You rarely came in here, not ever really needing too. If you did come in it was to grab something from his closet real quick and leave. "Bathrooms, in there. Call if you need anything."

He said getting ready to leave, just as he was about to close the door you called him. "Travis?"

"Yea?"

"Thank you." He smiled, "I mean it."

"I know, you're welcome. Now go to bed." He shut the door to his room and you could hear him walking away from the door. You climbed into his bed, it was comfier than you could ever imagine and it smelled like him despite Maria changing the sheets.

[alloutofgoddesses]

They removed your tailbone????????????????

YES!!! Story time!

It was winter. It was seventh grade. I was walking back inside on the sidewalk. The sidewalk had not been salted properly. I slipped on a huge patch of ice and instantly felt pain right where your tailbone exists. It hurt like a bitch but I had just taken a hard fall onto concrete so like of course it hurt. It went away after a while so I figured it was fine.

Until it came time to travel to my grandparents house several states away and I was in TEARS by the end of the road trip. My butt hurt SO BAD, way more than the usual aches and pains of road tripping. And then the pain didn’t go away.

At first my mother did not believe me which Rude but eventually I went to my doctor, and she ordered an X-ray and she couldn’t really tell what was wrong so she ordered an MRI and both those things led to her noticing that I have three degenerated disks in my lower spine (honestly probably the cause of most of my problems) and it looked like my tailbone was “anti-verted” which I will forever believe is just a fancy doctor term for “idk man it looks weird”

I get sent to a specialist. The specialist has ZERO bedside manner and tells me, a scared very mentally unwell thirteen year old that my only options are to have a surgery wouldn’t really fix the problem or take Advil for the rest of my life. That sucked. My mom took me to Spirit Halloween to cheer me up because it was so bad.

By this point, I’m in pain all the time. I get a special pillow to sit on both in the car and at school, and it is put in my IEP that I have special permission to stand up in class whenever necessary because the pain was just that distracting. To help mitigate the pain, I am seeing a chiropractor on a very regular basis. It’s awkward as hell because I’m experiencing puberty and he’s constantly touching my lower back and butt.

Blah blah blah I make it to eighth grade and I am having A Bad Time. I’m in so much pain that I think it’s the only thing I’m going to feel for the rest of my life. I am being heavily bullied at church on top of getting injected with a crap ton of religious trauma. At the same time I’m going through a sexuality crisis because middle school. I am scrounging for reasons to get out of bed and it’s only working sometimes. It’s BAD.

Somewhere along the line my chiropractor takes a look at my X-ray and he goes: “This is broken. This is very broken. Your tailbone is broken.”

I look at the X-ray. Instead of being attached to my spine, my tailbone is completely detached from bone, muscle, tissue, and is existing at a 90 degree angle in my body cavity. No fucking wonder it hurt so much!!

On it goes. We know what the problem is but we don’t know how to fix it and this point I have a very healthy mistrust of doctors.

Enter my eighth grade social studies teacher. Her husband has been the gym teacher at the elementary school where my dad works since idk the beginning of time probably. And also, small town, so they both me well.

She hears what’s going on. She sees me struggling to exist on the daily. She pulls me to the side after class one day and says “Hey. My son broke his tailbone a couple years ago. We went to this doctor and the surgery they did really helped.”

Cue social studies teacher getting in contact with my parents and me having approximately a million appointments at a doctor’s office in *gasp* the great city of El Paso, Texas. The doctor decides that it’s best to remove the bone because it just floating around is causing A Lot of nerve damage.

So, July 7th, 2016 I got my tailbone removed from my body in a procedure called a coccygectomy. I had to figure out how to do things while either completely laying down or standing up for two weeks because I couldn’t sit. I walked around with a Franken-butt for a few weeks until the stitches dissolved. I still have nerve damage and I will probably never be able to sit normally or without pain again but it is so much better then it used to be.

And now that social studies teacher is my principal and I have a cool scar that I can’t ever show to anyone because well. The location of the tailbone is. You know.

[stolemythesis]

On the Suicide of a Friend

TW: Suicide I think we're trained as, I don't know, Americans(?) to constantly imagine that we could be the hero in any given story. What if I had said two more things to him Monday night when I saw him at choir? Or, what if I had just sent him the right text at the exact moment he did whatever it is he did (and I do not know what he did and I suppose it is none of my business). And, I suppose this is classic bargaining, there's the part of me that wants to sit him down (something I cannot do because he is dead) and be like "Bro, literally on Monday half the choir was wearing shirts that said 'Gary for President' clearly you are well loved." But then, suicide never exists as a logical thought. No one sits down with a life coach and makes a T-chart and is like "upon objectively reviewing all the evidence, me and my closest advisors have chosen suicide" (Or, well they do, but only in countries with assisted suicide options and only in the face of terminal disease) And I can make some educated guesses on "why" he did, he was a 50 year old single gay man who lived alone and doesn't that sound lonely? But, that's not *really* the reason he did it right? He did it because something went wrong with his brain and by extension his mind. So as a good Christian leftist (even when I'm mourning) absolutely, let me remind us, the living, and the well, to reach out to your friends, especially the ones who might be lonely (even if they've never say it) and remind them that they are not alone. This as an important ministry. I'm reminded of the first verse of "My song is Love Unknown" My song is love unknown– my Savior’s love to me; love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. Gary was lovely, and it's horrendous that his brain told him anything else. But, there's a bigger picture. There are cultural and systemic things we need to talk about: 1. Phoenix has been over 100 degrees almost every day of October. I know that seems tangential, but it fucks with our brains and so I want to start there. Climate change is deadly on so many fronts 2. We've built this disgustingly atomized society built primarily on individual's living in a house, and the only proper and adult way to occupy that house is through monogamous pairing, and with the children resulting from that monogamous pairing. That is actually not natural or historically normal. It's deeply isolating to go from empty house into empty car to work where maybe you like those people but it's easy to write off those relationships merely as professional. Gary, you weren't alone, but I understand why you thought you were. 3. Healthcare in America is impossible. It's opposed to the gospel of Christ at every turn, and that's most true towards mental health where it's generally not covered. Very few plans cover it. Even my Psychiatrist appointments (and that's a "real" doctor) come with a heavy co-pay. Gary was clearly sick, but his friends didn't know. Not really. We had inklings, but not this. Healthcare could've seen he was sick, but the insurance industry blocked that from view. So anyways, we live in a deeply fallen world. I'm doing OK. It's a shock, it'll feel more real on Monday when I go to choir practice and he isn't there, and will never be there again. It'll be a shock when I look towards the back of my humble church on my wedding day expecting him to be my friend and guest organist/ianist and he's not there, but we muddle through, don't we? He was going to play hymns, and the Rose Garden Theme from Utena, and Liebestraum no. 3 in A, and the star trek theme. We were going to do a clarinet and organ recital. That's all gone now.

[extremelyblackandwhite]

So for the Steve kemp headcanons👀 Reader is for the 3rd time pregnant again so they go to the doctor only to find out that she is pregnant with triplets. Reader would probably be like hell no and Steve be like OMG AHHHH IM GONNA BE A TRIPLET DADDY would probably cry

pairing: steve kemp x dark!reader

warnings: 18+ topics (under 18 year olds do NOT interact/reader)

part of toxic

The house was a mess. Steve had just gotten back from work right in the middle of the day, Daisy was home sick and Rose had learned how to walk and wanted to possibly kill herself as she was attempting to find any sockets and knifes available; she was her father's daughter, after all. Meanwhile, she was pregnant and trying to gather everything so she could have her first trimester ultrasound. She moved around the home, her old maternity dress on as she attempted to leave the house in a good state. Andy and Laurie had agreed to look after the girls and she had been busy for the past hour hiding all the knifes and scissors; anything Rose may grab for.

     - I checked on Daisy, my love. She’s alright but I’ll have Laurie check on her in an hour. 

     - Where’s Rose?

     - She’s asleep by now and she’ll wake up once the Barbers are here.

     - You know maybe we shouldn’t go. - she folded another tea towel. - I’ve been pregnant two times. Nothing’s gonna be different besides I need to watch the girls.

     - We’ve been rescheduling this appointment for two months now, my love. The girls will be fine.

She was adamant. Part of her knew she needed to get the ultrasound to check in with the baby’s health; up until now all she had gotten was a clinical pregnant test, no ultrasound. She had a doctoral degree, she was smart enough to know it was both in hers and the baby’s interest to get the exam done but lately she just wanted to spend time with her girls. Daisy was growing up fast, way too fast, and suddenly her baby girl was getting awfully close to starting primary school while her other baby girl was now walking and babbling every word she heard. Y/N felt she was missing most of it and maybe she should spend as much time with her girls as much as she could until the other baby came around. She didn’t want to be an absent parent, an absent parent is what Steve had and now look at him. She doesn’t want her girls becoming ... gaining the same appetites he has. 

    - My love, we are going. Either you go into the car willingly or I’ll drag you there. 

    - You’re gonna drag a pregnant woman, your pregnant wife, into your car? - she crossed her arms. 

    - Please, my love. We won’t be gone for more than an hour and the girls will be fine. 

    - Did you see the Barber’s kid? He’s weird, Steve. What if they make our daughters weird?

    - Weirder than me being their father? - he had a point. - Please. We’ll be back very quickly.

She sighed, grabbing her bag from the coat rack and following him into the car. She’d done this so many times when she had been pregnant before and yet she was still nervous. She worked too much and she didn’t exercise as much as she wanted to, besides she’d had two pizzas by herself yesterday. What if something was wrong with the baby? She remained through the ultrasound with that idea, not really listening to anything until the nurse mumbled a small ‘huh?’, then suddenly she could hear everything. 

    - What does huh mean? - she asked the nurse, her hand moving to hold Steve’s. 

    - I’m gonna call an OBGYN. 

The nurse left them in the room, as Y/N pulled the screen towards her. Her husband was a doctor, he went to med school, he must know how to do something useful with it. 

    - What’s in it? 

    - Baby, I don’t understand that. 

    - You’re a doctor!

    - I’m a plastic surgeon. - he said before rubbing her hand. - It is fine, she didn’t look worried ... maybe surprised. 

    - And you know that because you can read minds?

    - It will be alright. - he leaned to kiss her forehead, his thumb tracing the palm of her hand. 

After what felt like an eternity, the OBGYN walked in. She had delivered Daisy and Rose, so Y/N should trust her; but right now all she could think about was everything that could go wrong in the first trimester which if she could recall from the pregnancy book was a very long list and even though Steve was holding her hand, she could feel herself spiral.

    - Huh, would you look at that. - the OBGYN turned the screen towards the couple. - Three very healthy heartbeats. 

    - Three? - it dawned on her what that meant. Three heartbeats meant three hearts which meant ... - There’s three babies?

    - Yes. Congratulations. I’ll have the receptionist give you some flyers on having triplets and we’ll book you in for a next ultrasound. 

She was stressing and not hearing to anything but the voices in her head yelling that she had three babies coming, not one, not two, three. She hadn’t done this before, she’d only ever been pregnant from one baby, not three. How was she gonna deal with 9 months of looking after herself, three babies and her two daughters? She could barely look after herself while looking after her two daughters. Steve, on the other hand, was thrilled. This was what he wanted; a big family, a big family with the woman he loved and now he was gonna have three more babies to love. He helped in the car and putting the seat belt on before taking his spot next to her. 

    - I can’t have triplets. - she blurted out. - I just can’t. That’s too much. I don’t have time to spend with my two daughters? Five kids is just ... it’s just too much. 

    - What are you talking about? You’re always spending time with Daisy and Rose, they love you.

    - But can I love five kids and not make them feel isolated or less than? I can’t do this, I can’t have triplets. 

    - Hey, hey. - he cradled her face. - You’re panicking just like you did when you were pregnant with Daisy and then with Rose. You’re smashing this, you’re a fantastic mum. 

    - Three kids? Do we even have space?

    - Of course we do. We can do this alright?

    - Alright ... triplets. We can do this.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

In the Neighbourhood

Warnings: nonconsensual sex, very lightly edited

This is dark!Andy Barber and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: After your grandmother breaks her hip, you volunteer to look after her as she recovers but her neighbour is a bit too friendly.

Note: @lokislastlove​ thinks I won’t call her out anymore but I’m calling her out and you should too. Always blame her.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Your grandmother’s house never changed. Nestled between two larger homes and with grass as green as the next, it was as perfect as any along the suburban sprawl. Inside, the same framed pictures of your mother and your aunt and uncle, those of you, your siblings, and your cousins, and family members you only saw at reunions. All of them far away. All of them keeping her company only in the still images. None of them coming to care for her; none but you.

You didn’t mind so much. With two degrees under your belt, you were ready to start your novel as you pondered a third. Your online transcription job was easy enough to travel with and you loved your grandmother. The least you could do was help her out in her recovery. A broken hip but otherwise okay. She couldn’t do much from her wheelchair and you feared a worse injury if she tried.

You moved in on a Sunday. The family next door, the Barbers, were the perfect picture of a suburban clan. Andy introduced himself and his wife, Laurie, and their quiet son, Jacob. Then they asked if your grandmother, Lucille, was coming to their barbecue that afternoon and invited you along with her. Your grandmother confirmed that she didn’t want to miss out on Laurie’s potato salad because she’d tripped on a rug.

So you wheeled her over, careful as the grass slowed the chair, and you angled her through the open gate. You seemed to be the last to arrive. The air smelled of searing beef and swirled with the buzz of voices. You stood behind your grandmother’s chair as you looked around nervously and a plump woman with short curly white hair approached.

“Darla!” You grandmother greeted. “You’re back from your little getaway.”

“Arn was keen to come home,” The woman smiled up at you and back to your grandmother. “I heard you had a bit of an incident.”

“Oh, still spry, but the damn doctor has me ‘takin’ it easy’,” You grandma sneered. “I’ll be up at it before long. This is my granddaughter, you remember her, don’t you?”

“I do,” Darla smiled though you barely remembered her. “So sweet of you to come down to look after our Lucille.”

“It’s nothing,” You said. “I owe her. I spent too many holidays on campus.”

“That you did,” Your grandmother chided. “But do go on and socialise, dear. There must be someone here your own age. Or closer to. You can’t be lettin’ yourself get caught up with us old biddies.”

“I’m fine,” You chuckled. “Really.”

“You go. Get something to drink.” You grandmother snapped her fingers. “Mingle!”

You huffed but left her with Darla and another woman, you were certain her name was Betty, passed you on her way to join them. You looked around. The wives were in their clusters and the men drank from brown bottles as they laughed and talked about sports. You didn’t know about children or baseball. 

You went to the end of the table, just by the barbecue, a cooler open and waited as a young boy claimed a can of Orange Crush. You reached inside and took out a grape soda. The lid of the barbecue closed and you turned to face its master; Andy smiled as you blinked at him.

“That’s the kid’s cooler,” He said. “There’s a mini fridge in the garage if you want something stronger.”

“I’m good with this,” You cracked the can. 

“I thought you were a college girl,” He said as he set down his long spatula.

“Graduated.” You assured him. “Never was big on the scene though.”

“Really?” He lifted a brow. “I kinda miss it.” He stepped around the barbecue, closer to you. “It was a while ago now but it was fun. You know,” He put his hands on his hips as he looked across the yard. “I was in a frat with Carson over there,” He nodded to skinny man holding a bottle of water amid the sea of brown glass. “We got in quite a bit of trouble. Maybe I wrote a few of my exams drunk but didn’t do much harm.”

“Oh yeah?” You said dully. “What do you do now?”

“Law. Assistant district attorney.” He preened. “But don’t worry, I can still have fun.”

He winked and you squinted at him. He was an old man trying to relate to a youth. There was what, ten, fifteen years between you? Wasn’t that much, really, and yet it was.

“Legal fun,” You suggested.

“Well, the immoral isn’t always illegal,” He mused. “So… Miss Graduate, you have a job lined up?”

“I work online for now but I’m writing, too.” You shrugged. “Nothing fancy but it’ll do for the time being. Until my grandma’s better.”

“That’s a nice thing you’re doing,” He said. “You know, not a lot of people I know my age would drop everything to go care for family.”

“Least I can do,” You sipped from the can. “She always did make the best lemon meringue. It has its perks.”

He chuckled and backed up as he grabbed the spatula again and opened the barbecue.

“Offer stands,” He called over the smoke. “Beer’s in the garage.”

“Thanks,” You smiled and slowly walked away. This was like that party you’d spent hiding on the porch; awkward as hell.

🏡

The first two weeks passed swiftly. You woke up, made breakfast for your grandmother, her usual oatmeal and tea, then you spent a few hours working online, then lunch, an hour of writing, a walk through the neighbourhood, some alone time, dinner, and then some nightly crime dramas with your grandmother. Each day was identical to the last and you felt the vaunted slog of suburban life.

It was Saturday. You needed to get out. Your grandmother even encouraged it. A few hours at the bar, drinking, dancing, you returned with a guy, Gabe, you met there, hushing him as you snuck him in the front door. 

The house was dark as you climbed the stairs carefully and ushered Gabe into your bedroom. You closed the door and grabbed him as you stumbled to the bed. It was messy, hurried, and desperate. Entirely regrettable as you laid staring out the window at the sky after. You didn’t have time to ask him to leave before he started snoring.

You slept for a few hours and woke as the sun began to rise. You poked the stranger you knew as Gabe until he woke up and you threw his clothes at him before you dressed. You peeked into the hall and waved him out behind you. You led him down the stairs and to the front door. He left you with some empty nicety and you hid your wince. It wasn’t your first one night stand but it was definitely the worst.

“Fun night?” You turned as Andy descended the steps of his porch and opened his car door.

“You work on Sundays?” You grumbled. You hoped he hadn’t seen your regret walking away.

“Not usually but I got some hours to make up.” He dropped his briefcase in the back seat and closed the door. “I know that guy. Pretty sure he’s still on probation for the molly he was dealing at the mechanics.”

“Ugh, no.” You covered your face. “You saw?”

“I got a bit curious as I was finishing my coffee.” He pointed to the window with lacy curtains. “Great view just above the sink.”

“So you’re one of those neighbours?” You crossed your arms.

“I seem nosy but really I’m just looking out for you.” He opened the driver’s side door and planted his hand on the roof of the car. “Look, you don’t know the people around here. I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, I won’t be seeing him again.” You retreated to the door and stopped there. “Boring, to say the least.”

“Heh,” Andy scoffed. “Really?”

“Not that it’s any of your business.” You rolled your eyes and stepped inside, closing the door with a snap. You went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “Hey, grandma,” You called as you began to climb. “You ready to get up?”

🏡

At the end of the next week, you took your grandmother to her check up. Her recovery was on track but she had a long way to go. The doctor was optimistic that at her next appointment, she’d be ready to use her walker more often.

As you helped her out of the car and got her settled in her chair, you ignored the roar of the mower in the next yard. You’d seen Andy as you drove up. He was pushing the machine back and forth across his already perfectly manicured yard; shirtless. As you turned to push your grandmother up the walk, you couldn’t help but notice that he was in great shape for his age. For any age, really.

“Hey,” He yelled over the motor and shut it down. “How’s it going, ladies?”

“Andy,” Your grandmother chimed. “Great! Doc says I’m doing well.”

“Mmhmm,” You mumbled, still slightly embarrassed over your last interaction with the man.

“Well, seeing as I’m already out here and you already had such a busy day, I could do your lawn while I’m at it?” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and you quickly tore your eyes away from his chest. 

“Oh, you’re too sweet,” Your grandma giggled. “It’s so hot out here.”

“I don’t mind,” He insisted. “Laurie’s gone to see her parents with Jacob so I’m just trying to keep myself busy.”

“Twist my arm, why don’t ya?” Your grandmother shook her hand. “Fine! Sweetie,” She reached back and tapped your hand. “Let’s go make some lemonade for this young man so he doesn’t overheat.”

Andy smiled and you nodded at him awkwardly. You wheeled your grandmother up the newly installed ramp and inside. She ordered you to the kitchen and directed you to the lemons hidden in the crisper.

“The juicer is just under there.” She pointed to the cupboard, “And you’ll want to add some sugar.”

“I know how to make lemonade, grandma,” You said as you pulled out the pitcher.

“That Andy’s a nice man,” She said. “So helpful… handsome too. It’s too bad you’re so young… and he’s so married.”

“Stop,” You warned. “You said the same thing about your doctor.”

“Yes, but he’s a doctor. He’s rich.” She snickered. “And not married, just not into your type.”

“Grandma,” You snipped. “Really.”

“I don’t know how your mother ended up with you.” She said. “She was such a little troublemaker.”

“Trust me, I’ve heard,” You said as you washed the lemon juice from your hands and added water and sugar to the pitcher. “I think her stories were more a warning.”

“Too smart for your own good,” She tutted as you mixed the lemonade.

You went to the cupboard and grabbed some ice cubes from the freezer as you set a glass on the counter. You poured the lemonade and gave her a sour look. 

“You think you can look after yourself for a few minutes?” You asked dryly.

“Girlie, I was taking care of you while you were in diapers,” She narrowed her eyes.

“Oh, how the tables have turned.”

“I don’t wear diapers,” She hissed as you neared the door. “Yet.”

You went out the front door as Andy pushed the mower across the yard just along the walkway. He stopped and looked over at you. He shut down the motor again and neared you as you came down the steps to hold out the glass. He thanked you and took a big gulp before he handed it back.

“You know, I didn’t mean anything,” He said. “The other day. Sometimes… I say stuff without thinking.”

“It’s… whatever.” You shrugged and set the glass on the rail of the porch. “No hard feelings.”

“I just got a hot tub. Just gotta hook it up and it’s ready to go.” He said. “You should stop by later. Get a soak in.”

“No, I don’t think so.” You stood at the top of the steps. “I don’t wanna leave grandma all alone. She wants to watch Casablanca tonight. I promised we would.”

“Maybe another night.” He offered. “You work so hard. You deserve a break.”

“Maybe,” You said evasively as you turned and crossed the porch. You glanced back as you opened the door and he was still looking at you.

“Lemonade’s good.” He smiled. “Thanks.”

🏡

You finished lunch and left your grandmother to her puzzle at the dining room table. You went upstairs to change the shirt you’d spilled mustard down; it was all you could smell. You tore off your shirt and tossed it on the bed. You rounded the bed to the dresser that sat just below the window and opened the draw. Movement caught your eye and you looked up across the space between yards.

Andy’s eyes met yours through the windows. You’d never realised they were adjacent, let alone so easy to see through. He wore a towel around his waist, freshly showered and his gaze strayed for just a moment. You blanched and pulled out a shirt and covered yourself with it. He smirked and tilted his head. Then he winked and a shiver went through you.

You grabbed the curtain and closed it so forcefully you nearly bent the rod. You backed away and put the shirt on properly. Surely, he was being funny. A tense, awkward moment. What else could he do but make a joke? Well, it wasn’t a very good one.

🏡

You stayed inside for the better part of a week. Aside from your walks with your grandmother and a trip to the grocery store, you kept your curtains closed, and hid yourself away. Maybe you’d built it up in your mind but you were just set off-kilter by the wordless interaction. Since, you felt as though you’d been walking a tightrope, too afraid to look down.

But that night, your grandmother wanted to sit outside. It was warm and the nights were shorter; later. You wheeled her out, a book on her lap, and as you made to skirt back inside, he appeared. Andy had impeccable timing. It made you wonder if he was watching you; if he had been for much longer than you knew. Well, now you were just being paranoid.

“Hey,” He stood at the edge of the yard. “Beautiful night.”

“Sure is,” You grandma replied. “I’ve got a new book and I’m ready to enjoy the breeze.”

“Oh, a new book? What’s it about?” He asked as he neared tentatively.

“Another scary one.” She cracked the cover. “Or so I hear. Skinwalkers taking over a whole city.”

“Ah, spooky,” He commented and looked at you. “And you?”

“Writing. Inside.” You said evenly.

“I figured since it was so nice, I was finally gonna try out my new Jacuzzi,” He said. “I just… I did promise you a soak so I thought maybe--”

“Eh, I don’t know.” You neared the door. “I really should try to get some writing done.”

“Nonsense, dear,” Your grandmother intoned. “You’ve been on that computer all day. You should go, relax.”

“Really, I--”

“Laurie might join us. She’s inside doing some work.” He piped up. “She wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Go on! I’m getting sick of ya anyway,” Your grandmother snorted. “You could stand to loosen up.”

“Grandma,” You huffed.

“Go get changed,” She ordered and smiled at Andy. “She’ll be over shortly.”

You blinked and tried to hide your irritation. You went inside before Andy could notice and you stormed upstairs. You weren’t even sure you’d packed a suit. You searched through the dresser. The curtains were still drawn tight. You found your old pink bikini with the white flowers. Really? It had to be that one?

You changed, reluctantly. It couldn’t have covered less of you. You found a tee shirt and pulled it over. You descended the stairs again and stepped out on the porch.

“Thanks for that, grandma.” You scowled.

“I can see why you were never popular,” She laughed. “Go. Have fun. This old lady can handle herself.”

You stomped down the steps beside the ramp and stopped at the border of the yards. You sighed and went to the gate, it was open in expectation of you. You heard the whir of jets before you entered. Andy was just beside the hot tub, testing the temperature with his hand as you stood across from him. He looked up and gave a crooked smirk.

“Andy,” The back door opened and Laurie appeared. “Oh, hey.” She smiled at you before turning back to her husband. “I’m gonna pass. Gina’s not going to make it in tomorrow so looks like I’ll be up all night.”

“Damn, that’s too bad,” Andy said. “More tub for us I guess.”

“Yes, love you too,” She said dryly. “You enjoy yourself. And don’t leave that thing on all night.”

“Yes, honey,” He said before she shut the door. “Love you.”

You swallowed. Your mouth was dry. Maybe you had been a bit presumptuous. Andy climbed into the jacuzzi and lowered himself into the warm water with a sigh. You hesitated to get closer but you did. He watched you, expectantly. You grabbed the edge and tried to will yourself in.

“You’re wearing that?” He nodded to your tee.

“Yeah,” You lifted your leg over the side.

“You don’t gotta be shy,” He grinned.

You paused and frowned at him.

“I’m joking,” He said. “The other day. That was… funny. Bad timing.”

“Mhmm,” You drew your other leg over and carefully sat.

“You met any more cute guys?” He asked suddenly. You squinted.

“What?” 

“Not much to do around here, you know? Pretty boring.”

“No. I don’t--” You sputtered. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea. Once my grandma’s better, I’ll be going.”

“Still, it’s lonely.” He said softly. 

“What do you care?” You asked, harsher than intended. 

He was quiet. He leaned back and looked over at the house then back to you. He exhaled and spread his arms over the edge.

“So… that toy you hide in your night table? You always use it or you ever just… feel yourself?”

Your heart sank. You felt as if you would choke on air. Had you imagined his words?

“What did you just--”

“Took you long enough to catch on,” He said. “Got a good view of you when I can’t sleep but… not anymore. Too bad.”

“Andy,” You stood and the water splashed around you. “You-- You’re-- Laurie, she--”

“I haven’t fucked her in months. This is what she does.” He sat forward and caught your hand. “She works. All the time. I try and she… just doesn’t want to.”

“Let me go.” You struggled with him. “You’re disgusting. You’re married!”

“Me? Fucking awful some young girl strolls into town and tries to seduce a married man? What would grandma think? And Laurie? She’s not one to sit back and be humiliated.” He tugged on you. “I have a reputation around here. You’re just a stranger, and apparently one, who fucks strangers.”

“What are you talking about?” You nearly slipped as he spun you back to him. “You’ve been watching me and--”

“I’m just a neighbour looking out for you,” He pulled even harder and your feet slid across the bottom of the jacuzzi, forcing you to catch yourself on him. “Like I do all my neighbours. They would confirm as much.”

“Get--” You grabbed his arm as it snaked around you. “Andy! Laurie--”

“Doesn’t give a fuck and if she came out, well, she’d only realise what’s she’s pushed me to.” 

You wriggled as he held you to him. He drew your leg over his so that you straddled his lap. You pushed on his chest and grunted.

“You keep it up and everyone will hear. Even sweet old nana.” He snarled. “I saw you looking at me that day… when you brought me lemonade.”

“No, no,” You rasped.

“I’m old, not that old,” He purred. “As you can obviously see.”

“Let me go. Please.” You begged. He was too strong and your arms only ached from pushing against him. “Andy--”

“Shhh,” He grabbed your chin with his wet hand and pulled you close until your lips almost met his. “In this town, rumours travel. It might be old news that you left a bar with that dumb kid but now, it’s evidence.” His hand slipped down your neck and squeezed. “Such a bad girl.”

“No one would--”

“They have no reason not to believe me,” He rolled up your wet shirt with his other hand. “Annie across the street, she likes gossip. She’s seen you flirting with me, at least that’s how she told it to Laurie but you know, my wife just laughs it off. And now she’s no doubt seen you come into my backyard in just this.” He pulled your shirt higher. “And her mind is going wild.”

“I can’t--”

“How long did he last? A minute? Less?” He snarled and his other hand slipped down to draw your shirt up. You kept your arms down as you tried to resist. “Bet you could wait to use your little toy.”

“Stop,” You pleaded.

“Get your arms up.” His voice was deep and dangerous. “And stop your whining.”

You stopped and stared at him. His blue eyes burned into yours and sent a shiver through you. His fingertips pinched your hips as they crawled under your shirt and he pushed it higher.

“You don’t shut up and someone will hear, sweetie,” He warned. “Up.”

He tugged until you raised your arms. A wave of bile rose in your chest and you let him peel away your wet shirt and reveal the skimpy bikini beneath. He dropped the cotton over the side of the tub and his hands grazed the triangles of your top.

“Cute,” He hummed. “You hiding this from me?”

You were quiet, sickened. With him, with yourself. You knew you couldn’t fight, wouldn’t. You remembered the barbecue and how you’d been the odd one out. Recalled how Andy had talked to almost every person there. Everyone loved him and no one knew you.

“Mmm mm mm,” His fingertips walked around your neck and he picked at the knot behind your neck. The straps loosened and he let your top fall and expose your chest. 

He bent to bury his face against you and nibbled along your tits. You looked, startled, to the back door. It was still shut. A light glow from a bedroom above and the distant beat of music escaped through the slightly opened bedroom window. Another light died on the first floor and was replaced by a second on the top floor, reflecting against yours on the other side. 

You quivered as Andy took a nipple in his mouth and sucked. You felt it in your core as his hand cupped your other tit. He reached beneath you and played with the edge of your bottom. He drew you back as he leaned against the side of the tub and lifted his pelvis, and you with him. He tugged on his shorts and sat back down.

You felt hollow and a cloud of panic filled your stomach. You struggled against you and he bit you. You squeaked as his teeth threatened to break the skin and stilled. He parted and looked up at you.

“Be a good girl,” He felt beneath you and began to stroke himself.

“Please--”

“Shhh,” He turned his hand and hooked his fingers in your bottoms, pulling them aside. “It’s okay, sweetie.” He rubbed his tip against your folds. “It’ll be good.” He drew you to him and angled you over his dick. “Better than ever before.”

He forced you down and your lips formed an o as he entered you. You latched onto his shoulders without thinking and he pushed you to his limit. His lips and teeth returned to your chest as he once more began to toy with you. You quivered as he began to rock your hips.

The water swished around you, swirling and slapping against your skin. You held your breath as you tried not to cry out. You hissed as you dug your nails into his shoulders and let him guide you. Despite yourself, despite everything, it felt good. It felt wonderful. He was right and you were weak.

“You like that?” He nuzzled your throat. “Is this what you think of at night, huh?”

You bit your lip as he kneaded your hips and kept your moving.

“I think of it all the time,” He muttered. “All the time. Maybe…” His breath caught and he groaned. “Maybe I could offer to take you grocery shopping, hmm? We could have some fun in the car…”

“Andy…” You whimpered. “No, we can’t-- not again…”

You grasped his wrists and tried to push yourself off of him. A semblance of sanity returned to you as you looked him in the face. His eyes were dilated and dusky. He was entranced; incorrigible. You struggled as he held you down.

“This is wrong--”

He shoved you off him as his lip curled. You stumbled back and caught yourself on the other side of the tub. The water splashed as he stood behind you and grabbed your arm. He turned you over and pushed you over the siding, a jet blowing against your pelvis.

“Doesn’t feel wrong to me.” He growled.

He held you down with a large hand between your shoulders as he pushed your legs apart with his knee. He pressed against you and searched for your entrance, swiftly impaling you. You choked down a mewl as your hips crashed into the wall of the tub. He leaned his weight on you entirely as he rutted into you without relent. You were certain someone would hear the clapping of flesh or the stir of water all around.

“You’ll do what I want, when I want,” He sneered. “And from what I can tell, you’ll like it.”

“Andy--” Your voice fizzled as the pressure mixed with the steady stream of the jet as it hit your cunt. 

You held in a moan as you hung over the side of the tub, the blood pounding in your head as you panted wildly. You covered your mouth, afraid you would cry out as the coil inside you twisted and twisted. Your legs quaked as you orgasmed.

Andy’s hand gripped your hips and he pulled you back against him, again and again, using your body easily. You slid back and forth over the side and he bent over you, crushing you against the tub. He growled in your ear and his thrust jolted your body.

He pulled out suddenly, still looming over you as he stroked himself against your bikini and pressed his damp beard to your cheek as he shuddered. His hot cum spilled out onto the wet fabric and dripped down your thigh as he eased himself through his climax. He sighed and pushed himself from atop you, falling back into the water heavily.

You stayed as you were for a moment. Stunned. Shakily you stood and fixed your top and pulled your bottom straight. You couldn’t look at him. You climbed out of the tub and walked unsteadily across the grass.

“Ah, that was relaxing,” He said. “Come back anytime.”

You ignored him and continued onto the gate.

“Oh, and it’s supposed to be a cool night,” He called after you. “You should keep your window open.”

You slipped through and the gate creaked behind you and closed with a metallic click. You shivered as you kept to the side of your grandma’s house and entered through the back. You didn’t want anyone to see; you were certain they would know if they did.

[shiniyi-writes]

Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde - Chapter One

For a better layout, read it on AO3

______________________________________________________________

„Miss Shadowhill, are you even keeping attention?“, the voice of my mentor, Dr. Lenning, sounded off from my Laptop. It made me jump.

„I'm sorry, Dr. Lenning“, I apologised to him, „I haven't slept much the last few days and I'm really lacking in concentration because of that.“

„Yeah, I can see that“, he chided me, „Do you want to talk about it?“

To talk about it? Nothing more than that, but I couldn't. He gave me his trust and I really don't want to betray him.

„Thank you very much for the offer“, I thanked him, „But I think this would be in the way of our student-mentor relationship“

„Well, alrigth, but if you should change your mind, you know how to reach me.“

I nod to that. I knew he just meant well, after all I knew the 'little helper syndrom', which many psychologists and psychotherapists had from myself. Maybe it was exactly this, what brought me in  my current situation.

„Then we will meet again next week“, he told me, „Oh and remember that you need to pick a topic for your thesis soon.“

I startled when I saw the date on the bottom right corner of my Desktop and realised, that I really didn't have much time left to decide; but I gave my best to not show it in front of Dr. Lenning.

We said our goodbyes, I closed my Laptop and fell back into my office chair, very exhausted. In just a few month, I had to send in my doctoral thesis, if I want to have my doctoral degree in psychology ; but I couldn't concentrate for the sake of god.

The reason was, as I already told my mentor, that I haven't slept much the last few days and if I was able to sleep in, I woke up just after two to three hours.

But why I had such troubles sleeping? Well, it was easy to explain: I was really worried.

Worried about Jake.

A few days prior, I received his last message, after Lilly and I solved his puzzle. In it, he revealed two things to me: That he was Hannahs and Lillys half-brother and that he had to go into hiding, because his persecutors were closer to him as ever before.

To be honest, the first thing really didn't surprised me much. I already could imagine that he had to have some kind of connection to Hannah and I was pretty sure that he wasn't her lover. If he would have been and would have done all this because of that, he wouldn't have wrote this messages to me, which always made my heart beat faster whenever I read them.

The second thing still seemed so surreal to me. He already told me some time before, that he was wanted by the government and his messages also became less after that. But he still made sure to message me at least all three days, even if he just told me he was OK.

But this wasn't the case now, so I was completely uncertain if he was alright and safe. I was really worried that they caught him and would do terrible things to him. I already accompanied Dr. Lenning many times to appointments with his clients in prison and saw what it did to them. This people could be the hardest and most ruthless people you have ever seen, but the prison had broke anybody of them.

I took a deep breath, so I could sort my thoughts. At least there was one spark of hope, which kept me from going nuts. This spark of hope was #iamjake.

It was Lillys idea. With this Hashtag, under which many people already made a post, Jakes persecutors should have a harder time to find him, but we didn't know if it works.

Somehow I had to distract myself from this negativ thoughts, even if it was just for a moment. I schwung myself on my feet and walked around my desk towards my bed on the other site of the room. On top of it lay my cloth for the night: A long negligee out of vinous satin and a dressing gown of the same kind of fabric in black.

I peeled myself out of my cloth and when I said peeled, I really meant so. I loved Lolita-Fashion in dark colors, my whole closet was full of it. I thought it was really stylish, but putting an outfit on, or in this case off, was pretty complicated. First I got rid of my jewelery: My earings, the long necklace, my rings and the artifical rose, which rested in my hair. After that, my dress fell to the ground, which was colored in black and violett and was also made of satin. I picked it up and threw it on my bed, before I also got rid of my black tights.

Last but not least, there was still my corset. I didn't tie it as tight as this ladys from past times, nonetheless it was a good feeling to be out of it after a long day.

I will put the dress to the laundry later. Now, I loosened my hair, which was tied up into a bun. My brown locks fell over my shoulders and stopped at the middle of my back. Slowly, I felt the tension disappering from my scalp.

I slipped into my negligee and into my dressing gown. Now that I was dressed into something more comfortable, I would go into the kitchen, get myself a glas of whine and would read a good book, while sitting in front of my chimney. I knew that drinking never solved any problems, but it should be ok if I have just one glas.

So, I left my bedroom and walked through the long corridor towards the stairs. My house was an old manor house out of the 19th century. Upstairs was my bedroom, my bathroom and a lounge. Downstairs were the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, two other bathrooms and the corridor towards my employees appartments.

Now somebody could ask how a woman in her twenties, who's giving psychological guidance sometimes while she is writing her doctoral thesis, could affort this. To be honest, I couldn't under normal circumstances, but that is another story.

I quickly walked down the stairs. Dimmed lights were burning in the entrance hall, so people could still see, if they need to walk through at night. The big grandfather-clock showed that it was a few minutes after midnight, everyone else was probably already asleep.

I reached the end of the stairs and navigated towards the kitchen, when suddenly the lights on the patio lighted up. They worked by a motion detector, which meant that somebody was in front of the door. Was somebody still outside after all?

My question was negated, when the person knocked on the door just a few seconds later.

All of my employees had a key for this house and if somebody should have forgotten it, they mostly called for someone to let them in. That meant there was somebody else in front of the door, but what did a stranger want in the middle of the night?

Carefully, so my silhouette wouldn't show through the windows in the door, I walked towards a commode which stood next to the stairs. I oppened the drawer and grobed in it, until I had what I was looking for. It was a already loaded revolver.

It may sound a little crazy, but since I was involved in Hannahs case and received threats by the Man without a face, I became a little paranoid. Sure, I lived a long distance away from Duskwood, but you couldn't be carefull enough. Besides, with my 5' 1'' body height, I definitely couldn't beat someone in close combat.

They knocked again.

I slowly walked towards the door, lay my hand on the iron handle and opened the door for a little gap, to see who was standing there. I held the revolver behind my back while doing this.

In front of the door was a man, who was a whole had taller than me. His hood was hiding his face and he was drenched by the rain, which was falling the whole evening allready.

„Please excuse the late disturbance“, he said; his voice was deep but also gentle, „My car broke down at the street and I don't have any tools with me, would you have some I could borrow?“

At least he was polite, but that doesn't have to mean anything.

„I sure have some tools here“, I said, „But you could also call the breakdown service from here, if you want.“

„I... am uninsured, so I'd rather look after the car myself“

It was suspicous that he had to think about his sentence at the beginning, but what a human being would I be, if I would send him away now?

Damn to my helper-syndrom!

„Come in for now, I will look for the tools.“

I opened the door completely to let him in, but he hesitated.

„You don't have to let me in, I don't want to be any trouble to you“, he said.

That was odd. If he would have bad intentions, he would have get in without hesitation, won't he?

„You will catch your death, if you stay outside in this drenched cloth“, I said while tugging on the fringe of his sleeve, so he would move.

He eventually gave in and walked into the entrance hall. Under the pretext that I wanted to close the door, I stepped behind him and quickly hid the revolver in an inside pocket of my bathrobe, which I let one of my housekeepers sew in a while ago.

„I'm getting you a towel, so you can dry yourself a bit, then I'm looking for tools.“

With this words, I walked in the direction of my employees apartments, where one of the other bathrooms were located.

Odd enough, I came down here to let loose of some thoughts, but now many more where forming in my head.

I just let a completely stranger in my house!

Some people could say a soon to be doctor should be more intellegient than that...

Well, now it's to late to do anything about it, so I opened up the drawer of the white commode, which stood under the lavatory, and pulled out a towel, before heading back to the entrance hall.

The man was currently browsing around the hall, when I came back.

„You have a really nice place here“, he said.

I thanked him for the compliment and gave him the towel.

After he took the textile from me, he finally took of his hood and I was able to see his face. He had dark blue eyes and lightly sharp jawline. But what was the most eye-catching about his looks, were his tousled raven hair.

When I looked at him, a sudden thought arised in my head. This description would be kind of fitting for...

No... that couldn't be.

It would be too much of a coincidence.

Or wouldn't it?

„...Jake?“, a whisper escaped my mouth.

Directly after realising what I just said, I slammed my hand in front of my mouth. Damn it, did I really just said this out loud?

I looked into the mans face and... was I just imagine things, or did he look shocked?

„How do you know my...“, he wanted to ask, but paused midsentence; just as if he realised something, „Wait... Aurelia?“

[dopescotlandwarrior]

Bluegrass -Chapter 24

          Special thanks to @statell​ for all your help and encouragement

Previous chapters at AO3

Chapter Twenty-Four (NSFW)

“Oh! Dear God!” Claire landed at Jamie's side hearing him struggle to catch his breath. “Its official, this cannot be undone, the genie is out of the bottle.”

Jamie pulled her close to him and tried to make sense out of what she said. Yesterday she said she was ruined for life, today the genie is out of the bottle. He tread carefully, feeling this was big information delivered in some kind of code.

“What exactly do ye mean, mo chridhe?”

Claire opened her eyes and blushed crimson before changing the subject. “You have a few more days to rest so promise me you won’t disobey doctor’s orders not to use your arm?”

“Sassenach, remember the deal we made with Rupert and Angus? They leave for Scotland tomorrow, for two weeks. You goin back to work and me of limited use that leaves Jason to manage it all. He canna do it alone.”

Jamie started to get up when Claire reached to stop him. “What if I know someone that can jump into the job and needs no training? Do you remember Steve? He has experience with horses, and he’s bored until school starts. If you agree, I’ll call him.

That was only a small part of Claire’s anxiety at the moment. Poor planning on her part had not prepared her for the numerous calls that came in from her email about returning to her practice. Her days were filling up with appointments that she could not handle alone. Molly was no longer available at any time with her blooming romance and there wasn’t time to hire someone and train them. The butterflies of anxiety had become sharks that were consuming her stomach.

Claire stood at the sink in her scrubs and wet hair chewing toast and washing it down with juice. Her heart hurt when she looked at Jamie’s face, so sad.

“I’ve grown attached to yer company Sassenach and now I must miss ye every day.”

She kissed him so sweetly and realized that without her driving anxiety, she would feel the same sadness.

“I can’t wait to hug you tonight. I will have much to report and I will miss you every second.”

Claire gripped the steering wheel as she negotiated the merge into freeway traffic. White clammy hands and a racing heart just compounded her misery. It only took twenty minutes to get hopelessly lost forcing her off the freeway to check her obviously broken navigation system. She sat on the side of the road and saw the turn she missed five miles back. She felt defeated and just wanted to go home. She had never done her job solo and suddenly questioned if she could. How was she going to find these remote places and do a day’s work without help? It was impossible. The blinker clicked as she waited to pull onto the road.

Claire looked down at the phone in her hand and tried to calculate the improbability of her next move. When he answered she felt her eyes sting at the sound of his voice.

“Nice surprise doctor B, oh wait, doctor F, hmm, it will take some time getting used to..”

“You might have to get used to calling me Claire. Go ahead, it won’t cause permanent damage.”

“Alright, Claire, what’s up?”

“Well, I was wondering, well, hoping, actually praying that you might have some free time to help me now and then …some days of the week...not very many, maybe.”

Dustin laughed, “I happen to be unemployed now, so yes. We stayed for the first summer session so Hope could take a class she missed. Now we’re home, no one is hiring. I’m excited just thinking about it!”

Claire’s hand was cramping from holding her phone so tight and her eyes popped open. “Was that a yes?”

“Yes! I can come with you today if you want.”

“What? Really? Oh Dustin, you are a lifesaver. I am lost on the side of the rode and thirty minutes late for my first appointment. Can you guide me to where you are?”

“Let’s start with where you are, can you see a street sign?”

Fifteen minutes later, Hope pulled behind Claire’s truck and Dustin got out. Claire was in the passenger seat already, so he jumped behind the wheel as Claire waved to Hope.

They were pulling up to Claireborn Farm ten minutes later and Dustin used his excellent driving skills to back up to the large rolling doors giving them quick access to the equipment they would need. Claire’s first day back after six months and Dustin’s first day back in a year made for a timid start as they got accustomed to working together again.

Claire was a stone-celebrity at each stop and there were many of the same questions asked over and over again. Dustin would set up the treatments and the moment Claire could break away from the fanning owner she would nearly collide with the first horse. The awkwardness between Claire and Dusty could not flourish under their practiced timing and it fell away as they powered through the day.

“Jamie, could you send Rupert to pick me up please? Dustin is going to work with me for the next two months and I don’t like to drive. Thank you, sweetheart, see you soon.”

“Married life agrees with you Claire.”

“I could say the same for you young man, you look healthy and happy.”

Dustin looked straight ahead out the windshield, “Hope is great.”

Claire dug into her files and Dustin dictated the treatments done today, appointments for a recheck, what tests were being done, and special billing requirements. She heaved them off her lap and smiled at Dustin when Jamie was driving up.

“Thank you Dusty.”

He shook hands with Jamie and grimaced at his bandaged elbow before heading for home. When Hope saw the big truck still dripping from the car wash, she ran outside to embrace her husband. Claire’s energy had clung to him all the way home but when he looked into Hope’s sweet face, he was free again.

Claire was quiet on the way home, bowled over by the contrast between her old life of living alone in her little mountain cabin, spending her days with Dusty, and her current reality of world-famous jockey and wife of Jamie Fraser. The degree of change in one year was astounding and she was deep in her head about it.

Jamie looked at his wife and felt lonely for her. He steered the truck with his knee and ran his hand down her arm to get her attention.

“I'm concerned about the seat belt around ye lass. Ye see, it gets most of the wear and tear compared to the middle one. See, this one is practically new. For yer own safety, come sit here, love.”

Claire smiled and moved closer to Jamie feeling the cascade of love emotions when her thigh pressed against his.

“Claire, can I act like a fourteen-year-old with his first crush for a minute?”

“Let it rip fourteen-year-old Jamie,” was her giggled response.

“Were ye romantically involved with Dusty?”

“No, never. I worked shoulder to shoulder with him for two years and never really knew him. Molly and I drove him home the last day before he left for school. We pulled up to a house and I didn’t know if his parents lived there if they were alive, any brothers or sisters, nothing. I am very skilled at not letting people in, ever. But you changed all that, like an avalanche my life filled with people like Molly, Lulu, Michael, Jason, Rupert and Angus, and now Steve and his father. Christ my life has changed so much I can hardly believe it, and it’s all your fault.”

Jamie was listening intently. Claire didn’t talk much about who she was inside and how she got that way and he wanted to hear more.

“Why?”

“After my parents died, I didn’t seem to belong to anybody. People fed me and gave me a bed, but I didn’t belong to them. I would lay in their strange bed at night and cry for hours, watching the door for my own father to come in and rescue me. Every night I watched the door and waited for him. I felt like that little girl again when the FBI terrorized me for hours, locked me in a fifty-degree room with no chair or couch, and only the cold concrete floor to lie on. When I felt your arms slide under me and carry me out of that torturous building, it finally happened, someone came for me.”

Jamie’s heart nearly broke thinking of that tiny girl alone in the world. He leaned toward her ear, “it was two years before I saw ye again, Sassenach.”

“Well, ha, Isobel walked in on me getting out of your shower and morphed into pure evil. So I dodged your requests for a while but when you called about Runner I couldn’t stay away. It was pure luck that I checked the dam’s wing when I did and found the dead mare. As it was, we raced to beat the seconds he had left before he expired inside his mother. Since I was responsible for him being on this earth, I wanted to help him if I could.”

“Did ye know I slept with ye half the night after gettin ye from the FBI? Ye wouldn’t warm-up, it was the only way I knew.”

“I remember every conscious minute to this day, including your hand pressing into my stomach and running down my leg before you jerked awake and ran back to your room.” Claire was laughing.

“Ah, ye felt that, did ye? Sorry Sassenach.”

“Don’t be sorry, I loved it! You were my hero for what you did, and I tucked the memory in a special place in my head so I could keep it forever.”

Jaime lifted her chin to look in her eyes, “ye fascinate me, love.” He kissed her deeply before she jumped out to let him get back to work. She felt different inside. Happier, closer to Jamie and the feeling stayed with her through a hot shower and her walk to the barn. When she saw Jamie, the look in his eyes said he felt it too. Remarkable, she thought, she dropped her past like an old novel, but Jamie was hungry to hear about it. And what a lovely outcome.

Jamie handed her a lead as they approached the pasture fence and watched Runner and Porcelain gallop toward them from the other side. A safe distance from the fence Porcelain dropped to a trot and so did Runner who accepted the lead and walked like a gentleman back to his stall.

As they were leaving, Porcelain decided to make her unhappiness known by kicking at the corral gate of her stall with a lonely whiny. No consoling would help her calm down. She was done being alone.

“There you go Romeo, yer girlfriend is right beside ye now. Mind yer manners, aye?”

Jamie put his good arm around Claire and smiled to himself. “I’ve made some decisions about the rest of the day. You are to pick something on Netflix while I go pick up a large pizza and a dozen wings. Ye can eat in yer wee robe and fall asleep in my arms if ye want. How does that sound?”

Claire ran to Jamie’s truck and jumped into the passenger seat, staring at him like, hurry up!

Slow summer days stretched ahead of them. Two or three days per week Claire would tie hanging apples to the tree branches out in the pasture and leave sugar cubes on the fence in different places to keep Runner looking for treats. Steve and Jason built the breeding shed with pointers from Steve’s father now and then. A dedicated mares wing was outfitted to house the broodmares who would stay there for breeding and one stall was converted into a lab for medical equipment and on-site testing. The enormity of this undertaking was becoming clear, but time was on their side.

Jamie made improvements to the house and on one occasion demonstrated how he mounted a sixty-inch television in a newly built recess in the wall and covered it with a huge picture on side swing hinges. Claire clapped and kissed, very impressed with his ingenuity. She looked around the large room that had always felt cold and sterile to her.

“Jamie, what do you think about this furniture? Did you and Isobel pick it out together?”

Jamie chuckled, “I hate it and had no hand in choosin it. Isobel hired some decorator, and this is what they came up with. When I built the chess table, Isobel moved it to the garage. That was the first time I told her to find her own place to live. After that she allowed it in the house but always hated it.”

It became Claire’s project to order and collect all the decorating and architecture magazines they could look through for ideas. She would spread them out on the bed, and they would both make a gallant effort only to hear them crackle under the weight of two athletic bodies chasing their passion or lay sound asleep on top of them.

By mid-July, there was a new trainer in residence bringing seven two-year-olds and seven handlers with him. Boot camp for the yearling races was in full swing by August. It brought the energy of horse racing and the Road to the Kentucky Derby back to the compound, infecting the whole crew.

“I don’t think I need to eat anymore, love. I can exist on the energy and excitement alone.”

“I miss your bur and contractions sweetheart,” said as she hugged him. “Why do you try so hard to lose them?”

“That is a long and boring story for another time. I’ve come for ye to talk sense into Runner before I have to. He’s watchin the yearlings race each other and pressin his chest against the pasture fence. I have to replace a whole section, so c’mon and fix him.”

Claire laughed as Jamie pulled her outside to his truck. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and spending some time with Runner was an excellent idea.

Claire loved these low- key summer days but when August came to a close, she hugged Dustin and cried before doing the same to Hope. She drove herself home that day and when out of sight she pulled over and cried in earnest.

The breeding room was finished, and Steve was leaving for the academy. Jason got moody because he would be shipped back to New York until February and he didn’t want to leave Lulu. When Claire asked if he would like to stay and assist her it seemed like a reprieve to him and he was very grateful.

As with Molly, Claire bit her tongue for the first month until Jason knew the routine. He would never be as good as Dustin, no one would be that good, ever, and she wondered why. She compared Jason’s actions with Dustin’s and realized that she was Dustin’s priority, not the treatment, or the horse. It would require someone loving her to the bone to be as good as Dusty was, and she would not wish that on anyone.

The onset of fall, with cooler weather and colorful foliage was the delight of Kentucky residents and tourists alike. Dogwoods and Sumacs turned red and purple, Sugar Maples were orange and red, Poplars and Hickories added yellow and gold. The dense forests of hardwood trees and the numerous lakes provided a romantic canvas for long walks, deep talks, and Jamie’s inspiration for a different future at Highland Brothers.

“We are blessed with a miracle horse. If he is fertile it will guarantee unspeakable wealth for the two of us. I have never been comfortable with that level of wealth especially when our crew will never see such comforts. My memory fades from the early days in Ireland working at a stud farm. It’s a huge operation and we will need all of them to pull this off.” He stopped and pulled her into a hug. “Runner can change two lives or six lives. What say ye to that?”

Claire’s smile was beaming when she jumped up and wrapped her legs around Jamie’s waist, punching the air above her head yelling yes! Her generous heart was just fed a super-size of glee and she hopped along the trail until her feet became obedient again. Jamie laughed at her sparkling happiness until she pulled him to her with a very serious face.

“Jamie, I know we have much to do but I have one request. Will you dance for me tonight?”

He ran his finger over her jawline, “I will.”

For the next four weeks, they worked on the business plan almost every night. Jamie met with stud farm owners that were very generous with their time and education. He showed humility and an eagerness to learn and kept a diligent log of each meeting. Claire met with fertility vets and was treated to a cart blanch atmosphere from her peers. They shared protocols that had worked for them and Claire let her gratitude show. The first Saturday in December they hosted a workshop.

There was a full breakfast spread before starting and hot coffee that was refreshed throughout the day. Jamie started with a quick explanation of the business plan, and an overview of each person's role.

“Lulu, yer the first contact and qualifier for serious inquiries. Through phone or by mail, yer the one to decide which mares make it to my desk. Don’t be scared,” said chuckling at her white face, “we’re gonna teach ye. There will be a mountain of information arriving on each mare, Sire and Dam lines, registration copies, genetic profiles, test results, vet checks, fertile histories, racing history and foal statistics. That is yer domain and it’s essential.”

Lulu’s eyes were tearing, and she shook her head side to side, “I can’t be responsible for all that, what if I mess everything up?”

Jamie’s face softened at her fear. “I have never met a grid brain more suited to this task. What was Tacitus’s last race, how did he do?

“Aqueduct, second place.”

“How did Code of Honor do and where I wonder?”

“Breeder’s Cup, seventh place.”

“What are Tacitus’s earnings so far?”

“Six hundred thousand.”

“Who told ye to memorize those stats?”

Lulu blushed crimson and looked around defensively, “no one.”

“If ye don’t see it in yerself, lass, trust me, yer the best for this job.”

“Rupert, Angus, ye do transport, bed and breakfast ID checks, turn-outs, follow special feed instructions, and handlers in the breedin room…”

Jamie stopped while they joked about having such a hard job. “Seems easy ye say. There will be five to seven mares with us rotatin in and out for four months, some look identical, if ye return a mare to the wrong owner we sell Runner and close this operation down. Can’t recover from a mistake like that. The mares are your responsibility gentlemen if ye turn out six hormonal mares and they have a throw down out there with no one to stop it?” Jamie paused while the ramifications sunk into their brains. “I trust ye with my life, now I’m trustin ye with theirs.”

“Jason is the manager at stud so questions and concerns go to him and he will make any changes needed.”

Rupert and Angus were wondering if they could eat more, Lulu was bursting with pride over her boyfriend, and Jason’s self-esteem swelled knowing he would head up this huge endeavor.

Claire went next and gave a biology lesson in equine conception, what it meant to cover a mare, how they would use technology and medicine to bring on the mare's estrus, confirm ovulation, and then verify fertilization.

“Adding to the tasks Jamie mentioned, Rupert and Angus, you will be in the breeding room for every cover. One holds the mare, the other collects the semen that leaks out when he jumps down. I will teach you both how to do this properly.” Claire couldn’t help laughing at their green faces.

“Runner is unproven, so we take it easy this first year. The mares that are chosen to breed will arrive spaced out through March until late May. When they arrive, we run tests for health and fertile readiness. I will bring them into estrus with hormones and hope to get ovulation so they can breed. After that, we watch for fertilization using ultrasound, or breed again. The mares return to their own farms pregnant and then we get paid, not a cent before.”

When they stopped for lunch Claire ran for the doorbell. She stared at Michael who held up a hardback book with her and Runner on the cover crossing the finish line. The title read, Midnight Runner A Champion for the Ages. The tears came in sobs as she hugged him to her, and Jamie extended his hand when she finally let go. He handed the book to Claire and was led into the kitchen where the whole crew was there to greet him. He was stunned and very happy to see everyone.

Claire sat with the book on her lap while Jamie wrapped up the meeting answering questions. He could see Claire was in another world wanting to read the book more than she wanted to breathe.

“I want to wrap this up with the best part and thank ye for accepting the extra chores and responsibilities we gave ye without question. Yer good people, loyal and hard workin. This operation will flourish if ye work together as a team, help each other when needed, give support and encouragement, and do yer individual jobs like it was yer own company, yer own money on the line. Because it is. If Runner is infertile or has a poor breedin outcome, then I alone suffer the initial investment and ye get yer regular pay. I don’t think that will happen, so I’ve set my attorney to write up a profit-sharing plan. Your hard work and integrity will pay off. If the profit is there, and it will be, you get a piece of it.”

“How much of a bonus Jamie?” Rupert smiled and waited.

“As we said, the first year will be very low key while we prove Runner’s ability and we all learn the business. A conservative number…” he held up a piece of paper with $50,000.00 on it.

Angus chuckled, “not bad to start, ten grand extra each year will be nice.”

Jamie held up his hand until he had their attention. “Each. The second-year and those that follow…” he wrote numbers on another piece of paper and held it up. $200,000.00 to $300,000.00. “Each.”

There was a stunned silence as four sets of eyes stared at the paper. Each of them knew Jamie to be an honest man of integrity. Never boastful, never wrong. They filed out of the house trying to say something intelligible as they continued to process the numbers Jamie showed them.

When the meeting ended, Michael stayed and chatted while the food was put away and the house put back in order.

“What are yer plans Michael?” Jamie noticed Claire was peeking at the pages while he and Michael talked.

“I have a book signing tour for the next four months because the publisher believes it will be a best-seller. If it’s not, the tour will surely end early,” said laughing. “I would love to assess Runner tomorrow if you don’t mind. I know he is still here because I talk to the receptionist every month or so.”

“I feel great pride in ye laddie.”

“So does my father, a blessing I never expected when I started all this.”

Jamie drove Michael back to his hotel later in the day and Claire was finally alone to start reading Michael’s book. She turned the first page almost shaking with excitement.

‘Dedicated to the bravest woman I have ever known, risking life and limb through every race so Midnight Runner could be the champion he was born to be. Midnight Runner will never be forgotten, and neither will you, Claire Beauchamp.’

The book landed on the bed as Claire ran to the bathroom for tissues. She cried so hard and wrapped her arms around her middle like she would die from the emotion. Every terrified day came rushing back in her memory. The day she prepared her speech for Jamie, telling him she was done and would not race Runner. The gate crash in their first race that almost toppled Runner, to her certain death. The crippling fear being loaded into the gate at the next race, so sure she would die this time. Runner telling her she would be a winner on him, telling her when to tuck, gloating after the race, seeing no other horse in front of them when they crossed the finish line. Her deafness, hearing only Runner breathing as she stretched her arms forward with every stride.

She processed the memory of every race and realized that Runner knew he would win, always. His only weakness was the race in the rain when she took over the race and he put his faith in her to guide him. Runner knew he was a champion and he proved it at Belmont with a thirty-one- length win for the Triple Crown. All he needed was a rider to make his claim in history and he chose her.

It was the first time since winning at Belmont that she considered all the private moments, the struggle against her fear, the elation of winning, and her emergence as a jockey with a single-minded determination to win it all, even if she lost Jamie in the process.

She picked the book up again, almost fearing the emotion it would invoke and turned to chapter one. Michael wrote from his point of view, so she was reading a different story than her own. She was fascinated.

She read how Michael tried to hide his excitement in that first meeting at Aqueduct after they fired their trainer. His effort to overcome his introverted personality and accept the offer to come to Kentucky. When Claire read the details about Rupert disclosing her gift after almost strangling Michael in the middle of the night and his desperate attempt to escape what he perceived to be lunatics on a remote farm, she lost it. The book hit the floor first followed by Claire, on her hands and knees laughing until she cried and struggled to breathe.

Jamie stood in the doorway to their bedroom and watched his wife laugh until she dropped her butt on the ground and leaned back against the bed, wiping her tears.

“This is hysterical Jamie! Reading about Michael’s midnight walk to the barn in the dark, Rupert accosting him from behind, telling him I discuss the odds with Runner. He thought we were all crazy and looked for a way to escape!”

“What chapter are ye on?”

“Page two actually.”

Jamie had secretly dreaded what Michael would write. Hoping he would be kind to Claire and not write a tell-all gossip book full of half-truths.

“I have been worried he might write something unsuitable.”

“Well, I will be sure and let you know if I read anything unsuitable.”

She pulled Jamie toward the shower pulling her own clothes off so she could join him under the suds. When she covered him in soap her arousal jumped into the one-alarm fire zone which could be ignored since Jamie had some work to do before bed tonight. She put on her robe and jumped on the bed to keep reading. In ten minutes she was daydreaming and put the book away. She stretched languidly watching images of Jamie between her legs driving her crazy. It was now a two-alarm fire and her heart was racing.

Jamie was recording expenses in his ledger by the light of a single lamp on his desk. He felt it. A low-level electric current that made the hair on his arms and neck stand up. He felt her arm across his shoulders and looked up into steamy whisky colored eyes that he was powerless to disobey. She nudged his chair so he would slide it back and she pushed his work to the side sitting directly in front of him. Jamie stood up and pulled her mouth to his by his grip on her hair, tasting blood in his mouth when she bit his lip. He continued to assault her mouth letting his fingers touch her thighs and stomach lightly until she moaned in complaint. It was a blazing three-alarm fire burning her core and stealing her breath.

Jamie stopped suddenly and stood above her, watching her breasts bounce while she panted, eyes just slits looking up at him. She looked like a wild cat sizing up her pray and the electric current he felt started to buzz in his balls and up his spine. She reached for his mouth to kiss him, but he put a hand on her chest easing her down to lay across his desk. He could see the whole lower floor twenty feet below them and wrapped her hands around the wrought iron safety barrier. He pulled her knees up and pushed them apart before sitting down in his chair where he would take his time tasting and teasing her. Claire moaned with her first orgasm and, he let her slippery pulsing pull him in. He did not move until the pulsing stopped and her eyes opened.

“Turn your head to the side and look down Sassenach. You mustn’t let go.”

Claire felt her stomach do flip flops when she looked over the edge into the floor below. As Jamie’s arousal increased, his thrusting pushed her ever closer to the edge. She lost focus of the perilous drop-off and gave in to her lust, moaning loudly and watching this brute take her roughly. Jamie stepped away from her and carried her to the bed where he lit a candle. He poured a whisky for each of them and watched her.

She’s a purring wild cat now until I remind her of my power, he thought and dropped his head to her core to lick her once. Her face looked a bit shocked. He sipped his whisky and without warning dropped to her bud and sucked it into his mouth for a few seconds and then sipped his drink raking his eyes over her perfect curves. There was a third lick and a fourth, and the purring stopped. Jamie’s heart was ramming in his chest at the way she looked at him like she would sink her teeth into his neck if he didn’t ease her pain. When he did, it was forceful and commanding, followed by brutal thrusting that nearly cost him control.

He stretched his body over hers and looked at her with such love it almost stopped her heart. The wild cat gave way to an open-hearted woman who wrapped her love around his soul and kissed him softly. When he moved in her again it was softly as he told her of the most profound love and devotion and then he kissed the rolling tears from her face.

Claire snuggled into Jamie’s arms with a deep sigh. He figured she would read all night, but the book laid on her side table forgotten. He kissed her forehead and smiled in the dark.

[faithhopeloveandtherapy]

What has changed in the UK since the beginning of the pandemic?

Oh my, where to start....

So first we had lockdown 1, where schools closed to most children and we all had to stay at home unless exercising, shopping or attending medical appointments. Keyworkers still went to work and schools stayed open to provide childcare for their children. The government motto was “Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save lives”

Then that lockdown gradually got lifted, and over the summer we had some degree of normality back. The new motto was “Hands, Face, Space” ie wash hands, wear a face covering, social distance. Oh and we had “Eat Out to Help Out”, where meals out were half funded by the government Mon-Wed to help the economy.

Cases started to rise and England went into a tier system 1-3 with varying rules on what we could and couldn’t do in each tier. Cases continued to rise and now we are in Lockdown 2.0. Schools have stayed open but we are supposed to be staying at home unless necessary to go out. However people are weary of everything and this lockdown has quite a different feel. It’s not the same shut down as the first lockdown. If you go out, cars are still on the road, people are still walking down the street.

In terms of what is different right now to before the pandemic, we all wear face masks when in any indoor public space, we can’t meet indoors or in a private garden with anyone from another household. We are allowed to meet one person from another household in an outdoor public space, such as a park, so I suspect we are all doing a lot more walking than before because it’s the only way to see a friend face to face. Currently non-essential shops are closed. Restaurants and cafes can only serve takeaway. Most doctors appointments take place over the phone or video call unless they decide we need to be seen in person. We are supposed to avoid using public transport unless absolutely necessary. There’s a whole load of other rules about specific things and specific exemptions. All these things are put into law by the government so we can be fined if we don’t follow the rules. Several people around the country have been fined £10,000 for hosting house parties in direct contravention of the rules.

We are all a bit focused on Christmas and whether we will be able to get together in family gatherings. Right now, who knows? It makes it hard to plan.

[gillytweed]

Now that I think about it and I’m not (as) hopped up on drugs (and they were very good drugs), I should give a life update to whoever still lurks around my lil’ watering hole on this site.

Just for an immediate update for those who don’t have time to read exposition: I recently (like just over a week ago) had spinal surgery to remove a benign tumour from within my spine! Fun right!

Everything went as expected, and I’m healing extremely well. While still in the hospital, it’s expected I should be able to be released to live with my parents for the rest of the duration of my recovery.

Now, for the backstory: During the last fall semester of University, I was working as a teaching assistant to get the last few qualifying hours for my degree (which I did succeed to get but I digress).

Around November I started noticing my feet beginning to go numb and lose general sensation. At first I thought it was my really (really really) bad desk chair, and so stopped using it. At first it seemed to help, sensation coming back somewhat, then it began to decline again. My feet were extremely numb come New Years, and I was planning on finding a GP in my home city as soon as I came back from isolating with my parents for the holidays.

Over the course of January and February, the numbness in my feet began to spread, creeping up my legs, and weakness was starting to become an issue. Walking was becoming harder and harder. Eventually my feet just couldn’t retain heat anymore either, even when wrapped in a heated blanket.

My life was essentially consumed by doctor’s appointments, physiotherapy and trying my best to get around the house enough to take care of myself. After having multiple tests, blood, urine, and a nerve conduction study (essentially they shock you and poke you with needles to see how quickly your nerves work), I finally went to my doctor basically incapable of walking.

For that specific visit, I asked my mom to come down to discuss options, because if we couldn’t do anything there was no way id be able to continue to live where I was. It was decided between my mom, myself and my doctor that the best course of action would be for my mom to drive me up to the larger city north of us, which was also where my parents live, and straight to the ER. We couldn’t wait any longer.

After a long car ride, I was in the ER and put to the top of the MRI list. After staying overnight, I was scanned the next morning.

What was found was a large Benign Tumour within my spine. That little Satan’s Egg was 3cm long and 1cm wide.

Considering how big it was, it had definitely been growing for a Very, Very, Long Time. Potentially, probably, since even before I started puberty. The reason we found it and why it was effecting me so much now was that it had finally reached capacity in my spine and was squishing my spinal cord so severely the previously mentioned symptoms were being caused.

With how big it was and how much pressure it was putting on my spinal cord, I was scheduled to have surgery 2 days later. That was the 18th of March.

Now, a wee bit more than a week later, I can feel my legs and feet, I can stand up (carefully), I can walk around with the assistance of a walker, and while I’ve felt better than this before, I’m guaranteed to improve back to essentially my previous range of motion and sensation (except for one part on my stomach where a nerve had to be removed. It’s numb and very fun to poke).

In addition, while getting the tumour out is amazing, if I’ve had it for this long, since before I was even a teenager, it could explain so many of my health issues in the past, my chronic fatigue being one of them. It’s possible I’ve never had the ability to feel or function on the level of an average adult up until now all because my spinal cord was being squished, and by god am I excited to find out what average feels like!

[myheartrevealedocs]

Untouchable Ch 13- Home, Again

Warnings: swearing, mentions of torture and injuries, family drama and stuff? (if there’s something in this chapter that you want me to tag, let me know, I’m just not sure what to classify some of this stuff as)

Ch 12 | Ch 14

~ ~ ~

Beck threw herself into her sister’s arms as Lydia entered the waiting room.

“Thank god. Lydia, I’m so sorry, but I’m so scared. Watching her fall apart like that, then start seizing- What would we do if we lost her? What would I do? The system will take in Katie and Adam, but I… I’d be alone.”

Lydia pulled away to look into her sister’s cloudy eyes. “You will never be alone. If something actually happened to Sonia, you could come to DC with me in a heartbeat. Please don’t ever think I’d leave you alone.”

“You hate me,” Beck claimed. Her face was a blotchy mess and she didn’t make it any better be rubbing her hands over it frustratedly. She’d recently cut her hair short, which was perhaps the only thing stopping her from ripping it out. “I’ve been such an ass. I wouldn’t blame you if you left me here and went back to Virginia. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a college degree, I don’t even know how to drive a car! I’m useless!”

“You aren’t useless,” Lydia insisted, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “You’re stubborn. You were angry. But you know who knows even more about anger than you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing you, you menace?”

They both giggled, Rebecca hiccuping slightly through more tears.

“So, you won’t leave me to be a homeless prostitute?”

“Not this month,” Lydia joked. “What have you heard? Did they dissolve the blood clot?”

Beck nodded. “It’s gone. Now the only concern is figuring out how much damage it did.”

“Okay. Well then, one of us should stay here and wait for news and the other has to take Katie and Adam home and get them to bed. I really think you could use the rest, but I’m okay with either.”

The two twins were seated in the corner of the room. Katie was asleep across the armrest between her and her brother’s chair. Adam looked bored out of his mind, picking at his fingernails.

Beck looked back at them, then bit down on her bottom lip. “I need to make sure she’s okay. I don’t think I could fall asleep if I went home anyway.”

Lydia could understand that. She gave her sister a nod, before stepping around her and approaching the kids. “Hey Adam. Long time, no see!”

He pushed himself out of his chair quickly and wrapped his arms around Lydia’s waist. “Hi Lydie! Why didn’t you come home for Christmas this year?”

“I had to work,” she admitted, feigning disgust.

“You have to see the Legos that Becky got me! I already built them all!”

“That’s so cool! You’ll have to show me once we get home.”

He bounced excitedly, turning around to wake up his sister. “Katie! Lydie’s here!”

The girl blinked, rubbing her face where it was previously squished against her arm. “Adam,” she grumbled. “What do you want?”

Lydia knelt down next to her seat. “Hey Katie,” she said, softly. “I’m here to take you two hooligans home.”

Katie blinked, recognizing Lydia’s voice and her silly nickname for the twins. “Lydie? Mommy didn’t say you were coming home.”

Lydia didn’t want to freak them out by making them think the stroke was a big deal, so she held up a finger to her lips and said, “Sonia doesn’t know yet. It’s a surprise.”

“Is mommy sick?” Adam asked. “Becky said she was hurt, but when I hurt my arm, I didn’t have to stay at the doctor’s this long.”

“Mommy did get hurt,” Lydia admitted. “But she’s super strong. Right now, you two have to get some sleep. In your own beds. Okay?”

They nodded and followed her out, saying their goodbyes to Rebecca as they passed. Lydia called a cab to meet them outside and take them back to Sonia’s house.

As they were packing in, her phone rang. Spencer. Shit…

“Spence, hey…” she began, but couldn’t for the life of her come up with anything else to say.

“Lydia? Hotch told us that you had a family emergency, what happened?? Are you okay? Did you get home?”

She sighed, relieved he wasn’t angry about her sudden disappearance. They’d just been talking face to face and then she was on her way to the airport. “Can we start with one questions at a time? I’m so tired.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he agreed, quickly. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m leaving a hospital in Oakland, California, on my way to my foster mom, Sonia’s, house.”

“Why were you at the hospital?”

“Sonia had a stroke.”

“That’s awful. I’m sorry. What kind of stroke?”

“Uh… I’m not sure? I didn’t speak to any of the doctors directly.”

“Do you know if she had a hemorrhage or-?”

“No. No, it was a blot clot.”

“That’s good!” he said immediately. “The chances of surviving a ischemic stroke are higher than a hemorrhagic stroke. There’s also a higher likelihood of a full recovery.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Spence. How did the case go?”

“We found and recovered all the kids, but Jane and Frank disappeared.”

“Oh no…” she fretted. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you talking about? You weren’t even in Nevada when it happened.”

“But I was… I told him we could negotiate for Jane and-”

“You saw her,” Spencer reasoned. “She was throwing herself at him. Frank would have gotten away either way and Jane would have followed him. You helped us get those kids back.”

“When did you become so good at cheering me up?” she teased. He didn’t reply, so she kept going. “Spencer, I should go. I’m almost at Sonia's house. Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Tomorrow.”

~ ~ ~

“Lydia? What are you doing here?” Sonia demanded as Lydia walked into her room the next morning.

“What are you doing in a hospital bed?” she fired back. “You went and scared the hell out of us!”

“Honey, I’m old. It happens.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Not old enough. You’re like… one of the least likely people to get a stroke. You’re 50, you’re a woman, you’re Asain… do you have any blood pressure problems I don’t know about?”

“Apparently I have blood pressure problems that I don’t even know about,” she chuckled, trying not to focus on how bad that could be. “Since when do you know so much about stroke statistics?”

Lydia was perfectly ready to tell her that she’d done a bunch of research at the airport, but it was a lie. Spencer had been sending her little tidbits of information all day. Some to try to cheer her up, others to help prepare her for how Sonia’s recovery might go. As she thought about those texts, a smile pulled at her lips and Sonia was on her in an instant.

“What’s that? That smile. You just got all blushy on me, what happened?”

“I work with profilers and somehow you’re already onto my little secret, hm?” She rubbed her forehead. “You should probably go work for my team if you’re going to be so observational.”

“You should probably stop being so obvious,” she argued. “You’ve got a crush written all over you. Did he tell you about the stroke statistics?”

“His name is Spencer, he texted them to me to make me feel better, and I’m not crushing on him.”

“Oh please!” she cried. “Your cheeks are bright red! I know a crush when I see one. Tell me about this Spencer. Where did you meet him?”

“We work together. And I’m not lying, I’m not crushing on Spencer… because we’ve been dating for almost a year now.”

“You what?!” she exclaimed. “Lydia, you have to tell me these things! Almost a year?”

“Yeah. It started last year in April.”

“Why would you hide this from me? Look at you! You’re so happy!”

Lydia bit her tongue in contemplation. Why hadn’t she told her family? “Because I’ve been keeping it a secret anyway. None of the team knows we’re together. We never agreed that we wouldn’t tell our families, but… I don’t know, I guess I got so caught up in the lie that I didn’t even think about telling you guys.”

“Why are you hiding?” Sonia asked.

“Our work.” Lydia shrugged. “When we went on our first date, we didn’t want the whole team to be invested in a relationship that might not last. We didn’t want things to get weird. But now, it feels wrong, you know? Our boss wouldn’t be happy if he found out that we’ve been lying to him all this time. Spencer’s an agent, so in-office relationships are frowned upon for him.”

Lydia’s phone buzzed in her hand and instinctively, she looked down at it.

“Did he just text you?” Sonia teased.

Lydia glared back. “Fucking profilers.”

~ ~ ~

“Katie! Adam!” Lydia called as she shuffled upstairs.

“Hold on!” Katie’s muffled squealing came from the twin’s room.

Lydia smiled at what she could only imagine to be wild shenanigans going on behind that door. But, she turned and walked farther down the hall, opening up the door to Sonia’s room.

She’d been let go from the hospital after about a week, and had been recovering quickly. Lydia was glad to see her sitting up in bed stretching her arms out in front of her. Her left arm was weak and shook dramatically, but it was an improvement.

“Good morning, Sonia,” she greeted, walking over to the side of her bed. “Make sure to do your leg stretches as well today. I know they’re uncomfortable, but if you don’t build up that strength again, you’re going to end up with only one working leg. I want you to think about how frustrating that would be.”

She dropped her head back. “You’re right. That would be awful. Then I’d look like you.”

“Very funny,” Lydia deadpanned. “But my leg works fine, thank you. At this point, I’d say better than yours. But nevermind that, I won’t be here and neither will the car. If something happens, Beck will handle it and I’ll be back before your physical therapy appointment, okay?”

Lydia leaned down and gave her foster mother a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m ready, Lydie!” Adam shouted as he burst into the room. His backpack hung loosely from his shoulders, seeing as there probably wasn’t more in it than a folder.

“Is Katie ready?” she asked.

“No. Katie’s tying her shoes.”

“Oh, well then she’s almost ready. Let’s start heading down, shall we?”

He nodded, eagerly. “Bye, Mommy!” he said, before scurrying downstairs.

“Bye, Sonia,” Lydia followed suit, closing the door behind her as she left. “Beck?”

Her sister popped her head out of the bathroom, only half her makeup done, looking thoroughly unamused. “Must you be so loud?”

“Make sure Sonia gets up soon,” she ordered. “I won’t have my phone with me, so if something happens, call the doctor.”

“Won’t have your phone…?” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you not coming back after dropping the twin’s off?”

“No. I thought Sonia told you.”

“Told me what?”

“I’m ready!” Katie cried, rushing down the stairs to meet her brother.

“Head out to the car, little hooligans!” Lydia instructed. “I’ll be out in a second.”

“Where are you going?” Beck tried again.

Lydia sighed. “I’m visiting Dad today.”

~ ~ ~

Not that visiting a prison was ever a pleasant experience, but Lydia was comforted to find the place exactly the same. She had enough anxiety going in as is, but trying to navigate new rules or requirements would have made it ten times worse. Her dad didn’t even seem to notice her walk into the room, sitting alone at a table, staring intently at a wall.

Lydia cleared her throat. “Um, hey Dad.”

He blinked at her for a moment, before pulling her into a hug. “Lydia! Look at you! You’ve changed so much, sweetheart!”

She shrunk away from him, slightly as he spoke, both because the guards would yell at them if they were in contact for too long and because it had been so long. It was just weird.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “It’s been a crazy two years.”

“I hear,” he said, the two of them sitting across from one another. “Rebecca tells me that you work for the FBI full-time now.”

“Not exactly. I’m contracted out by one of their teams. Sometimes I’m home for a few weeks, other times we solve one case and fly straight to the next. It isn’t exactly 9 to 5.”

“I’m really proud of you.” He smiled and Lydia’s lip twitched as well. “I was shocked to hear you were coming. Rebecca says you very rarely visit.”

“I’m not in California for a visit,” she admitted. “Sonia had a stroke, so I’ve taken some time off work to look out for her and the other kids in her care.”

Her dad had warmed up to Sonia over the years, seeing as she had to escort Lydia and Beck to the prison when they were still minors. He looked genuinely sad to hear the news. “That’s terrible. Tell her I hope she gets well soon.”

“I will. It was pretty mild it seems. She’s regaining strength quickly.”

They didn’t have the time for this small talk. Her father knew that. But Lydia almost hoped that they could keep the conversation going. As if he wasn’t an inmate in a prison. As if they weren’t being watched carefully. As if she didn’t have mixed feelings about speaking to him.

“So, Lydia, why did you come?”

Lydia blinked, pushing up her glasses habitually. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen you for two years…”

“I know,” he chuckled. “But if you wanted to come say hi to me, you’d do it when you were visiting home. Not when you’re busy taking care of a whole family.”

“Well… your sentence is almost done. Seven years… And I was talking to Sonia about it and she asked when the last time I saw you was… I felt bad.” She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Because he knew that wasn’t it. “I haven’t really… told anyone in DC that my dad’s in prison. And with this new job, I talk to serial killers. I learn a lot about them, get into their heads. And in the end, we always put them away. And now I see prison in this whole different light and I think I needed to prove to myself that you… you aren’t one of the bad guys.”

“Okay, so… how do I prove I’m not a bad guy?” he asked.

“You don’t. You just-” Lydia’s eyes started to burn and she stopped herself from getting emotional. “I wanted to see you. That’s all. Recently, it feels like I can’t remember much about anyone in the family.”

“Is this about your mom?”

“I don’t know what this is about,” she rambled. “I just… I was finally starting to be okay in college and then, the whole Jenna thing happened and I was an angry monster again. And when I realized I had settled down, I was a different person. I worked for the FBI for crying out loud! And I’m looking at the people around me, and they look different, too, but I can’t figure out if it’s them who’ve changed or just my view of them. And I’ve always-”

She was tearing up again. Lydia gritted her teeth, feeling frustrated. She came here to check up on him, not have a meltdown. But if she shut down, he would keep bugging her about it, so might as well keep going.

“I’ve always been so mad at you,” she said, gnashing her teeth like an animal. “And then I’m looking through a serial killer's house and all I can think is, ‘At least my dad didn’t become this’. And I feel guilty that I’ve been so hard on you for seven years. So, I came here because I needed to prove to myself that this face belongs to my dad and not a bad guy.”

“Could it be both?”

Lydia glared at him, but didn’t have anything to say. She didn’t need the ambiguous question right now.

“Lydia, I know what I did was stupid and it hurt people. And all the excuses I made for it at the time don’t justify my actions. I wasn’t wrongfully accused and I’m not trying to pretend I was.”

“I don’t want to have an argument with you,” she grumbled. “I want to look at you with my new profiling eyes and determine whether it’s worth rebuilding a relationship with you when you get out.”

That shut him up. Lydia’s face burned in shame, but there was no taking it back. They sat there in silence for what felt like years. She didn’t know what there was to say. It had been on her mind for months now that his release was approaching. She’d considered Beck to be her only family for almost 7 years. Her father was a distant memory. But maybe when his time was up… maybe it’d be nice to have a dad again. But she had sworn at 16 never to forgive him.

“Did you decide?” he asked, his voice grim.

Why did she have to decide? Why couldn’t someone tell her that she was going to have to learn to live with or without him and be done with it? Why did it have to be her to walk away or make the effort. Shouldn’t family come naturally?

But for now, at least, she knew what she wanted.

“I want my family back. I don’t want to leave California one day and never have a reason to come back… I want to know my mom… And maybe, just maybe, I want to remember my dad, too. Because somewhere in the far recesses of my mind, he was a cool dude.”

“I’m sorry that I ever left you,” he said.

Finally, Lydia felt a sense of relief. She stood up. “I need to go, Dad. Luckily, the next time I see you, you probably won’t be behind bars.” And then, she opened up her arms, welcoming him in for a hug.

For the past seven years, she’d never been the one to initiate a hug with her father, but it felt like it was time. Her stubbornness had kept her from too much. She’d missed out on so many opportunities to be happy all because she was hinged on being in complete control of the image of herself that other’s saw. And she hadn’t felt like she’d had a parental figure in a long time.

He accepted quickly. “Go be an amazing bad-guy-catcher,” he teased.

“I will,” she replied with a smile. “Keep being a neutral guy, alright?”

As she headed for the door, he said, “Lydia? One more thing…”

She raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“Happy birthday.”

He remembered. She didn’t expect him to, for some reason. She didn’t really expect him to know the exact date.

“I love you,” she told him, but didn’t wait around to hear his response. She didn’t plan on spilling any tears today.

~ ~ ~

“You’re hunched over your computer like Quasimodo,” Rebecca joked as she dropped a bowl of ice cream next to her sister.

Poor Lydia was so wrapped up in her paper, she didn’t even notice the gift, ignoring the dessert completely. “I need Spencer,” she admitted. “He’d be able to give me more accurate information than these pathetic websites.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Sonia offered from across the table.

“He told me this morning that he was leaving for a case. Really bad one, too. He doesn’t need the distraction.”

Beck rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to get a PhD for this guy.”

“I’m not getting this for Spencer,” she tried to argue. “But I mean, look at me! I’m set to graduate in the spring. Have you ever seen someone get a doctorate in 2 years? Spencer did that for me. I could become a college professor in about a year, all thanks to him. At 23 years old.”

“Don’t act like you’re not a genius all by yourself,” Beck grumbled. “Just because he’s super charismatic-” Lydia laughed out loud when she said that “-does not mean that he got you your PhD.”

“I’m not saying that!” she tried to argue. “Think about how much money I’ve saved! I mean, I was terrified when I took that internship at the BAU that once it was up, I’d be stuck. With this, I have so many options open that I-”

She paused, noticing her phone screen light up with Hotch’s name. Rebecca and Sonia gave her funny looks, but she held up a finger.

“My boss is calling me. Strange.”

“If he says you have to go back to Virginia, do it. You’ve taken enough to time off as it is,” Sonia instructed, but Lydia just rolled her eyes.

“Hey, Hotch,” she answered. “What’s up?”

“Lydia, I’m going to need your help with something…”

“That’s fine. Is it case related?”

“No it’s…” He sounded exhausted and Lydia wondered where he could be. It was 9 in California, so unless he was on the west coast, it was late. “Lydia, Reid has been taken captive by an unsub.”

Her heart stopped. Seeing her family's confused faces across from her, she jumped up from the table and rushed out of the room.

“What? I- What are you… How bad of an unsub?” she sputtered.

“He’s sending us a live feed of it. As of right now, Reid’s forehead has a large gash in it and one of his feet is mangled. We’re doing everything we can to find him.”

“Is there something I can do?” Her breathing was labored and her chest, constricting. This was all wrong. Spencer had to be okay. He needed to be…

“Lydia, Spencer’s strong. He’ll keep fighting until we can get to him. But I have a feeling when he gets out, he’s going to want to see your face.”

She was far too stressed to even consider what he was implying. “You want me to- I’m not sure if I can-”

“Two days. That’s all. I’ll get you a ticket to Georgia as soon as possible. He’ll need your support. Can you be here?”

Leaving suddenly, once again. But Spencer might need her. Hotch was certain he would. And after news like that… she’d need to see him for herself to even imagine that he was going to be okay.

“I’ll pack my things now. Send me that plane ticket and the case file. I need to know what to expect when I get there.”

“I’ll let you know if anything changes,” he assured her. “Thank you.”

She heard him hang up the phone, but didn’t move it away from her ear. All she could hear was her heartbeat in her ears, as if it was trying to break out. She blinked a couple of times and turned to see that her sister had followed her into the next room, eyes wide.

A tear slipped down her cheek, which she quickly wiped away. “I need to go,” she told Beck and ran to her room to gather some things.

Tag List: @kris-stuff​, @wooya1224, @spencerelds​

[chilling-seavey]

Anything But Mine (d.s.) - Chapter Six

A/N in celebration of my one year as a Limelight, here’s another chapter :) (and yes I edited this picture to make him brunette again lol)

Friday, September 13th, 2019

The next week was keeping Florence busy. Grayson was preoccupied with work, and Daniel and their friends were trying to keep up with their increasing course load. Clementine had a doctor’s appointment early in the week, which she passed her check up with flying colours. Nights were getting restless for the eight month old, however, as she was quick realizing someone was never around anymore. Matt was rarely home during the day but he always had a bit of time in the mornings to sit with the baby while watching the news. The only thing that would put Clementine to sleep was his black flannel tucked into bed next to her. Every night, after Clementine was gone to bed, Florence sat alone on the balcony overlooking the city with a cup of tea and her thoughts. She often thought about what her life would have been if she stayed in LA with her family. She would be financially stable and have her brother with her - if her parents would have even kept her around after finding out about the pregnancy. There was no other option for Florence.

Friday night came around and Grayson had invited Florence over for dinner with him and Ethan. This meant she needed a babysitter for Clementine. That’s where Michael and Like came in again. Michael and Luke Clifford had been there for her (and her brother) since they first moved to Toronto and were extra supportive when Florence moved back alone, letting her stay at their house until the baby was born and she was on her feet. The men loved Clementine; never complaining about having to take care of her because after raising two boys it was nice to have a bit of a break with a little girl.

Once Grayson texted her that he had arrived, Florence had been dressed and ready for almost 45 minutes; Clementine long gone to the Clifford’s at that point.

Grayson, as usual, was stood against his car when she got to the parking garage. She had to control herself to not literally run to him. Even still, she threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed him. His pink and white striped T-shirt was soft to her touch and the quirky colours made her smile more.

“Hi.” he chuckled, opening the car door for her again.

Grayson and Ethan’s house was out of the downtown core. It was farther west of where the DiCaprio’s lived but just as north. Real estate in Toronto was not cheap and Florence was impressed by the just the fact that two nineteen-year-old’s could afford a single house there. When Grayson turned onto the private street, Florence was even more in awe by the tree lined driveway and the large, single story black painted house and matching car park. A white Jeep with black and red accents as well as a teal old style Bronco and two motorcycles sat under the car park. The sun was setting behind it, golden light spreading over the roof of the house and the paved entryway. Florence was raised in a more luxurious lifestyle than what she was looking at, but growing up on her own meant she had an appreciation for how hard money was to come by.

The double doors let into a small foyer, a hallway to the left and the living room through an open space off to the right. The natural wood tones made the place warm and comforting and had a sense of luxury to it that was far different from the DiCaprio’s.

“E!” Grayson shouted across the house. Florence startled a little bit but played it off.

Ethan came out from the hallway, dressed in a black t-shirt with a white graphic printed on it and white pants. The white designer sneakers were expected.

“It’s you again!” Ethan smiled at Florence, going right in for a hug.

Taken by surprise, Florence hesitantly hugged him back, “Nice to see you again.” she laughed.

Although identical, Ethan’s warm embrace didn’t come close to what she felt like in Grayson’s arms. She wondered how much they told each other. Did Ethan know about how she kissed his brother the same day they met? Did he know about the stories she shared? Did he know that she invited Grayson home on their first date? She told Callum everything so there was no doubt Grayson and Ethan were the same.

Embarrassment bubbling inside her at the idea of it, Florence tried to push it away, following the twins to the living room. The open ceilings revealed the peaked roof and a stone fireplace reached to the top. Two grey couches lined the room with a modern coffee table and area rug in the centre. A record player sat on an antique stereo table in the back corner. The floor to ceiling sliding glass doors at the far end of the room opened onto a tree lined backyard and glistening swimming pool that was a few steps down from a large stone porch. Florence couldn’t help but smile. She felt more at home than she had in almost a year.

The three sat around the living room, Grayson pulling her close next to him. The simple action made Florence eye Ethan shyly, not being used to such displays of affection in front of others. The older twin didn’t think much of it as he asked Florence about Clementine. Florence’s favourite topic of discussion.

Their conversations were filled with laughter and smiles, Florence feeling as light as air with the twins. Usually, in her childhood, conversations were held over glasses of wine and brandy but Florence learned that neither boy had ever had a sip of alcohol in their lives. Thinking back to her father’s short temper under a few drinks, Florence was relaxed by that fact.

It wasn’t long before they started discussing what to eat for dinner. Ethan coming in determined with a, “I was feeling pizza.”

“Sounds good to me.” Florence nodded, looking to Grayson who sat on her left.

“Sure. I can order it.” he agreed.

“Dairy free cheese though.” Ethan pipped up.

“Yes, I know.” Grayson rolled his eyes as he took out his phone to order it.

“Dairy free?” Florence crinkled her nose in Ethan’ direction.

“Yeah I’ve been dairy free for a year. It just doesn’t sit well with my skin or my stomach-“

“Yeah.” Grayson cut him off lightheartedly. “So I have to suffer too.”

“Hey!” Ethan frowned. “I have to suffer with anchovy pizza half the time so you can shut up.”

“Ew. I’d take dairy free pizza over anchovies any day.” Florence shuttered. “I just don’t understand how someone can eat them when they still look like fishies.”

“Fishies!” Ethan laughed.

Grayson chuckled, pulling the blushing girl into his side, kissing the top of her head. It only made the pink on her cheeks turn to red.

When the pizza finally arrived, they moved to the kitchen. Florence felt so comfortable with the two, feeling like she had known them for years already. Dinner finished quickly, the three of them working on the dishes together. Grayson and Ethan ended up chasing each other with wet dishcloths, seeing who could leave the biggest bruise on the other. The evening came to an end, Florence and Grayson finding themselves in his bed, watching a movie on his projector screen. He explained that he and Ethan remolded each other’s rooms and the projector was his brother’s touch. It was ultimately impressive. The movie ended but neither reached to turn it off, letting the credits roll down the wall across from the bed. Grayson had his arms around her, the white sheets tucked up to their waists.

“What’s your goal in life?” Florence whispered through the dimly lit room.

“We’re getting to the deep questions now, huh?” Grayson smirked. “Well...I want to keep working with Ethan in film and media. Maybe produce a couple movies? I want to have a family eventually. Kids for sure. Nice house but not too big. Who needs a big house anyway? Takes money away from traveling.”

Florence smiled up at him, “I love traveling.”

“Have you been to Europe?”

“Italy, England, and France. Father’s work trips.”

“Italy is my favourite.” Grayson admitted. “But I’ve always wanted to go to Norway.”

“Scandinavia looks beautiful.” Florence sighed.

They let the silence rise, their minds set across the ocean.

“Probably will never go, though.” Florence shrugged.

“Whys that?” Grayson asked.

“I would need to start saving right away and I have no job.” Florence laughed lightly like it was obvious.

“Do you want a job?”

“I mean, yeah. But I have no university degree so I won’t get far. Not Norway far.”

“I could get you something at CTV? Nothing big, probably a paid internship but it’s something?”

Florence sat up when she heard this, turning to him in shock, “You can do that for me?”

“Sure I can.” Grayson smiled gently, pressed his palm to her cheek. She leaned into him habitually. “Just to get you started.”

“That would mean so much. Thank you.” Florence whispered.

“You’re welcome.” Grayson chuckled, pulling her in to kiss her softly. “I’ll keep you posted on that.”

Florence nodded, a wide smile taking up her face.

“You have a beautiful smile.” Grayson whispered, tucking her hair behind her ear. The girl looked to her lap, not quite sure how to respond. Her fingers danced over his forearms, soaking in each beautifully chiseled curve of his skin. The trail came to an end where his neck met his jaw, light stubble reaching the surface under the soft touch of her fingertips. His dark hazel eyes watched her carefully, a beautiful honey as sweet and enticing as he was. Grayson watched her silently as her wide eyes soaked in his features, his hands holding her loosely by her waist. She forced herself not to get attached; they had only known each other barely a few weeks. But when his lips were on hers again, every thought in her mind melted away.

Grayson was gentle with her; incredibly gentle to the point that he held her like she was made of glass. He laid her back against the fluffy white bedsheets and down filled pillows, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Long minutes passed before his hand fell between their bodies. Florence grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

Breaking their kiss, she spoke, “You don’t want to do that.”

Grayson leaned back from her, “Why not?”

“I had a baby eight months ago...it is not the same down there. Matt’s told me plenty of times.” she laughed humourlessly. “Believe me, you don’t want to see it.”

“Well, no offence, but I couldn’t give two shits about what that jerk thinks.” Grayson’s kind yet obvious bluntness stunned her. “You know what I think?”

“What?” Florence ask timidly.

“I think that you grew a human in here and brought a new life into this world all on your own. That’s pretty damn incredible. Your body did that, you know? And there’s nothing that is more beautiful than that. Absolutely nothing.”

Florence didn’t know what to say except to kiss him. He knew just how to make her feel more loved than she had in her entire life.

~~

Saturday, September 14th

It was a morning like in the fairy tales; and Florence guessed that if it was possible, birds would be flit fluttering and singing beautiful music outside the large paned window. The sound was definitely not beautiful birds, however, as she awoke to a sharp buzzing. Blinking her eyes open to take in her surroundings, she merely smiled at the sight of Grayson asleep beside her. He, too, shifted at the noise, starting to wake, so Florence hurried to grab her phone from the night table. Daniel’s name flashed across the screen.

“Hey.” she answered quickly, her voice rough.

“Where are you?” Daniel’s normally gentle tone was filled with an edge and it took Florence back with surprise.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly, her mind instantly going to Clementine.

“Nothings wrong unless you count me sitting here in this restaurant alone like an idiot waiting for you to show up.” Daniel grumbled.

Florence pulled her phone from her ear to look at the time. 10:48 meant she was way too late to their brunch date.

“Shit, Dani, I’m so sorry.” Florence sighed, rubbing a hand over her face.

“Where are you?” Daniel asked again. “I’ve been texting and calling for 45 minutes!”

“At Grayson’s.”

The silence from the other side of the line made her stomach turn.

“So I’ll just go home then.” Daniel finally spoke, his voice suddenly quiet.

“No!” Florence sat up. “No, I’m sorry. Don’t go home. I’ll be there. 15 minutes. Please.”

“Fine.” Daniel mumbled.

“I’m sorry, Dani.” Florence sighed, closing her eyes.

“Yeah.”

The line went dead without so much as a goodbye. Florence slowly lowered her phone and started at it for a few long seconds.

“Everything okay?” Grayson asked from beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist that was covered by the blankets.

“I’m a terrible friend, is all.” Florence groaned. “Totally just stood up Daniel.”

A low chuckle fell from Grayson’s lips, “That’s rough. Are you going to go still?”

“Yeah. If he’s going to wait for me. Do you want to come?” Florence laid back down, pushing her fingers through his dark hair.

“I would love to.” Grayson smiled, pulling her close to kiss her.

“No more of this!” Florence giggled, pushing him away, before leaning down over the side of the bed to grab her clothes. “We have to go!”

Grayson drove them through the city, as fast as he could legally go. Ethan was still asleep by the time they left which Florence was silently grateful for; she liked Ethan but she wasn’t sure if she was strong enough to be at the end of brotherly teasing after staying over. Florence kept checking her phone in the passenger seat, finding no texts from Daniel their entire way there. The small cafe was just on the way into downtown, a little place near the boys’ house. Grayson parked on the street and paid the meter before they headed inside. Daniel was sat at the corner table, his green Adidas jacket zipped up to his neck and he stared down at his mug of coffee, stirring a spoon around haphazardly. Florence couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her best friend and she pulled Grayson by the hand towards him.

“Dani!” Florence called.

The boy looked up at her and what was supposed to be a smile faded into almost a straight line at the sight of the two in front of him.

“This is Grayson.” Florence introduced happily.

“Nice to meet you finally.” Grayson smiled a warm grin and held out his hand across the table. Daniel hesitated before letting the silver spoon clink against the saucer and he shook his hand.

“You too.” Daniel mumbled. Grayson and Florence sat across from him and picked up their menus. Daniel watched them silently, going back to stirring his now cold coffee. The waitress came by and took their orders and poured them coffee before leaving again. Daniel didn’t take notice, instead, his eyes fell to the collar of Florence’s t-shirt, noticing the small pink bruise that was peaking out the top. There was a matching one under her jawline which she probably hadn’t noticed in her rush to leave that morning. Daniel noticed, though. He noticed Grayson’s hand on her thigh and how he leaned in close to whisper things into her ear that made her giggle. Daniel kept stirring. The clink of the silver against the porcelain cup was consistent and comforting.

“Dani.” Florence called. When he didn’t respond she frowned for a moment but tried again. “Dan.”

She finally resorted to reaching over the table and taking the spoon out of his hand.

“I think your coffee is plenty mixed, dear.”

Snapping back to reality, Daniel met her concerned gaze.

“What’s up with you?” Florence frowned.

“Sorry. I’m just tired.” Daniel waved his hand to brush it off, slouching back against the bench.

“Been working hard?” Florence asked.

“Yeah.” Daniel nodded.

“What are you in school for?” Grayson asked.

“Music Production.” Daniel replied.

“Oh! That’s cool. I’m doing video production at CTV right now.” Grayson smiled.

“Oh my gosh, imagine if you could work together in the future!” Florence laughed.

“We might have a place for you.” Grayson sent a small grin to the boy across the table.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Daniel answered dryly. His response made Florence frown and look to Grayson who shrugged lightly.

“Dani, I’m really sorry for being late.” Florence whispered, leaning in closer. “I don’t know why you’re being so upset with me this morning.”

“I’ve been waiting here for an hour.” Daniel snapped.

Florence sat back with wide eyes at his out-of-character outburst.

“I woke up early to meet you and you completely stand me up and I’m left to eat alone.”

“I said I’m sorry. Time got away from me.” Florence frowned.

“I can tell.” Daniel eyed the hickeys on her neck.

“Daniel!” Florence whispered sharply.

He placed his napkin strongly back on the table and started to slide out from the bench. He then turned to Grayson, “It was nice to meet you. You seem like a really great guy and normally I’m not such an asshole so I’m sorry for that. But I’m late for rehearsal.”

“Daniel!” Florence gaped, watching as he stood up from the table and started for the door. “Daniel Seavey!” she called again. The door of the cafe closed behind him with a jingle from the bell above. Silence filled the space between Grayson and Florence who were now sitting alone.

 ~~

Once breakfast was finished, Grayson dropped Florence back off at home. They took their time saying goodbye but eventually Florence went up to her empty apartment. She called Daniel right away, being sent to voicemail after the second ring.

“Hey. I’m still sorry, you know.” she spoke into the phone. “Call me please. I love you.”

He didn’t return her call. 

[maren-as-an-adult]

The 2020 Experience, Part 4

December was...rough. Every free moment I had was spent looking for better paying jobs and more apartments. Christmas gifts were planned and purchased under extreme budget. I had an upcoming OB-GYN appointment. And the accumulated stress finally broke me physically and mentally.

I started noticing it when I had my OB-GYN appointment. My appointment wasn’t until 4:30pm, but I wanted to get some Christmas shopping done, so I took an early train into Atlantic Terminal to do some shopping in and around Barclay’s Center. I didn’t have breakfast before I left, so I grabbed a latte and a slice of iced lemon cake from Starbucks. There were some benches outside where I sat down and ate. Afterwards, I hit up Target and Marshall’s. Once I was in line for Marshall’s, I started feeling... off. I could feel my pulse rushing in my face, and my stomach felt simultaneously empty and twisted upside down. I couldn’t tell if I felt like I was going to vomit or poop, or if I was just really gassy and needed to fart. I made it through purchasing and left to sit down somewhere, anywhere. I think I settled down in front of either TJ Maxx or Burlington on the ground. I pulled my knees into my chest, waiting and hoping for this feeling to pass. After about 15 minutes and no change, I knew I needed to find a bathroom. And in COVID times, I had a better chance of finding a four-leaf clover growing out of the concrete than a public toilet I could access.

Target, however, was my savior. Having purchased from them earlier, I happily took advantage of their open and clean bathroom facilities. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say I spent a long time on that toilet trying to feel better. Eventually I had to move on, and I decided I would go outside and get as much fresh air as I could, hoping that would somehow cure me of this... whatever feeling it was. It helped, or at least that’s what I told myself as I slowly sipped water from my water bottle. I tried to make one last stop at one last shop before heading down to Bay Ridge for my OB-GYN appointment, but after two instances where I was forced to sit down again and wait for the feeling to pass to something barely more manageable, I decided the best course of action would be to arrive exceptionally early to my appointment and hope they had an unoccupied bathroom I could access.

Thankfully, they did. I somehow managed a thirty minute train ride, a ten minute wait for the bus, a ten minute bus ride, and a ten minute walk to the doctor’s office, where after filling out a few forms I retreated to their very clean single occupancy bathroom. I felt awful and wanted something done about it, so I open mouth breathed while kneeling in front of the toilet bowl for a while. It’s a technique I use when I feel like I may throw up and want to encourage my stomach to expel whatever’s clearly upsetting it. [I also wish to take this moment to make this very clear: I am not, nor have I ever been, bulimic. I don’t endorse or condone bulimia. I’m sure it’s very easy to read what I just wrote as inducing vomiting to purposefully purge, but it is not. I was not trying to make myself vomit, but I was prepared for that to happen should my body have decided that’s what it needed to do.] What ended up happening was about five minutes of dry heaving before my body apparently decided that because there was nothing there, that nothing was wrong anymore.

What was wrong with me? I hadn’t interacted with anyone who was sick, had I? I had recently started babysitting, could I have gotten something from one of the kids? Was I not as diligent as I thought I’d been with maintaining social distance and wearing a mask and sanitizing and washing my hands? Or was it something else? All I’d had to eat that day was some processed cake and a sugary latte, could I possibly have developed celiac disease overnight? Was my body finally shutting down it’s lactose-digesting functions? Was I just really overcaffeinated because I forgot to specify “half-caf” in my Starbucks order?

I posited these queries to my doctor while she poked around my vagina. She said it was possible I could be lactose intolerant or I could be crashing from the caffeine. When the staff had taken my temperature I wasn’t running a fever, so it wasn’t likely I’d caught anything off of someone. With a final fingering to gauge the position of my uterus (I learned it has a slight anterior tilt), my appointment was done and I was free to go home. Though I felt better, I decided against calling on my old roommates and to instead just head back to Graham’s. I made one last gift purchase before hopping on the LIRR, and my Christmas shopping was essentially done.

The feeling didn’t disappear though, and on some days it became unmanageable. My GI system was clearly in distress, and not a lot was helping. I found a few packs of ginger turmeric tea at Graham’s house and made myself a cup, firmly placing my faith in the healing properties of what some (uncultured) people call “hot leaf juice”. I think it helped, but I can’t be sure. I’d told Graham about what was going on and what I thought it could be, and he could sympathize and to a degree empathize. It wasn’t until one night when I was again dry heaving into a toilet bowl that Graham fully saw what an awful state I was in. I told him at this point I thought it was a manifestation of the stress we’d been under for the past eight weeks. For eight weeks we’d been searching for apartments, passing on nice ones just out of our budget, trying to come to terms with the infinite number of mediocre same-floor plan, same-color, same-appliances, same-building looking ones, and getting discouraged with the shitty, falling apart ones. I had spent my first Thanksgiving away from my family and had resigned myself to spending Christmas apart from my family for the first time as well. I’d had three separate COVID tests in the past two months. I hadn’t spoken to my therapist since before Thanksgiving. And I had spent the entire month at Graham’s family’s house, which was not something I had wanted.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Truly, I’m indebted to Graham’s mom for letting me not only stay with them rent-free (but agreeing to walk their dogs) but also keep my stuff there while she is also getting ready to move out. But I have never felt comfortable calling someone else’s place my home. I cannot help but feel like an outsider, and no matter how many times people tell me to “make [myself] comfortable” and “help [myself] to whatever food there is” I will feel like an imposition and a burden. It’s only my anxiety coming through, but it comes through LOUD.

I finally scheduled an appointment with my therapist again, and poured all this out to him. I told him exactly how bad things had gotten, and not for the first time I considered asking to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication and possibly antidepressants. I decided to keep going without them...for now.

Christmas Eve came and Graham, his family, and I all celebrated together. We were gifted some lovely items to start our life living together, like a knife set, a set of glasses, new bedding, and a casserole dish. It was a lovely respite from the stress.

On Christmas Day, Graham and I went to see another apartment. This apartment was in the same building as the apartment we almost signed for, and the only differences were that this apartment was on a lower floor and didn’t have a balcony. It was also almost $100/month less than what we had almost agreed to. The owner said he would send over the application and answers to our questions on Monday. We both felt good about this apartment.

When Monday came with no e-mail from the guy, I reached out to him to ask when we could expect it. His response was that he had just been diagnosed with COVID-19 and now wanted to sell instead of rent. This became all too much for me, and when I got back into Graham’s car as we were out running errands, I started screaming. I hadn’t screamed like this since a particularly bad day of work I had back when I worked at Target. It was cathartic, but I felt cold and disconnected from Graham for the rest of the day. Something had broken inside me, and I wasn’t sure if it was my heart, my soul, my mind, or all three. It took a while for me to recover, and honestly I’m still hurt and feel betrayed by this guy. I understand I cannot speak for what’s best for him or what he felt he should have done, but Graham and I felt that we were given the runaround by this guy. We scheduled another COVID test for ourselves, and tried to move forward.

We made it to New Year’s Eve, and stayed up to watch 2020 end. New Year’s felt somber this year, and it felt hard to celebrate the start of a new year when the one we just went through was so damaging.

But we made it. We’re here, and it’s the first week of January in 2021. Currently there are radical conservatives storming the Capitol protesting the electoral college results, but in less than 20 days, Trump will be out of office. I’ve given myself goals that are manageable for the new year, and Graham and I have three applications out for three different apartments, and there’s a chance we may be able to get the apartment we saw on Christmas Day. We keep moving forward, because the alternative is to not move at all.

And I refuse to allow that for myself.

[chickensarentcheap]

Best Part of Me - Chapter 4

Warnings: none

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​, @alievans007​, @thunderintheshadows​, @innerpaperexpertcloud​

While it is a more peaceful existence, it is often a lonelier one. The safety and security of seclusion at times feeling like isolation. Their property…their home itself…is beautiful beyond anything she could have imagined; surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature, the dense and lush woodlands and the pristine beach and majesty of the ocean. Aside from the noise and activity of their own residence, they are very much shut off from the rest of the world; two hundred yards from their closest neighbour, tucked at the very end of a three kilometer stretch of recently paved road. Weeks can pass by before she even sees another human being, let alone speaks to them.  There’d been scares and complications during the last three months of her final pregnancy and she’d had to relegate herself to living the life of a ‘shut in’ for the sake of both her health and that of her unborn daughter; never leaving the property aside from specialist appointments. Addie had been an incredibly determined little girl; wanting to make her debut long before it was safe for her to do so. It had been nothing short of a miracle when the doctors had managed to tide things over until week thirty-four, and everyone that had been providing care had thought she’d been in the NICU for the long haul. Only for her to prove them all wrong; being released after only a week and a half.

 A fighter. All five pounds, ten ounces of her.

 Normally Esme would spend the first part of her morning -after the older kids had been shipped off to school-  on the beach; Addie in the carrier strapped to her body, Declan toddling along beside them, allowing him to stop every so often to splash and stomp in the water or play in the sand. Today they walk the road instead, Mac’s leash secured around her waist, one hand pushing the baby in her stroller, the other tightly gripping Declan by the wrist. He is quick and has no fear and won’t think twice about bolting into the woods or onto someone else’s property.

 The pavement is hot but comfortable against their bare feet. It was one of the things that she had found so unusual at about Australia at first; no one ever seemed to wear shoes unless going into businesses, and even then, occasionally footwear would be noticeably absent. It is one of the charming ‘quirks’, going hand in hand with their laid-back natures and accents and hilarious slang words. An entirely different way of life; a refreshing and welcoming change of pace. Everyone seeming much more relaxed and calmer.  Friendly. Always willing to help one another out, whether friends or strangers. And while Colorado had been lovely in its own right, it often felt too ‘fast.’ That life was constantly hectic, barely given you a chance to catch your breath, never mind admire your surroundings. Everything about Australia is incredible to her; the scenery, the people, the way you just take time to enjoy everyone and everything around you.

 But it is still lonely at times. Outside of her own family, she doesn’t really have a life; no relatives that can visit, no friends to talk to or hang out with. It has been that way for years; long before she’d ever met Tyler. Once her first marriage had disintegrated, she’d begun the long and arduous journey of ‘rediscovery;’ more than content with the job she had, jumping from place to place, and living out of suitcases, never forming bonds, or putting down roots. She’s older now though; almost thirty-six. And lately she’s found herself craving more.  She had thought that she was perfect content with just being a wife and a mother, but her heart has begun to yearn for something extra.  Mom friends that she can talk to whether it be face to face or through a text, other women she could have lunch dates and engage in ‘girl talk’ with. Needing to be more than that someone’s spouse. Someone’s mother. Needing…wanting… to exist outside of the comforts of those two realms.

 And she feels guilty for that. As if she’s taking every thing she already has for granted. That she is makes her selfish for wanting more and she should just be happy with the way her life already is. She has a lot more than a lot of women in the world:  a supportive, loving, and helpful husband, five beautiful and amazing kids. Shouldn’t that be enough?

 ****

 It is a beautiful morning. Brilliant sunshine, the sky a vivid shade of blue and cluttered with enormous, pure white clouds. The temperature is always cooler where they are; a few to several degrees lower thanks to the abundance of trees and the winds that roll in off the ocean. And she is comfortable in a pair of tattered and weather jean shorts and a hoodie over her t-shirt, one of her husband’s ball caps pulled low over her eyes. It’s become a habit that she wishes she could break herself of; a hat used more for disguise than a cute accessory or protection from the sun. That paranoia still lingers; that there could always be someone out there watching, hell bent on revenge and looking for the perfect opportunity to enforce it.

 The walk is slow going; Declan routinely stopping to investigate things, whether it be rocks and sticks he finds particularly interesting, or wildlife that lingers at the tree line that he wants to watch. He is infinitely curious about the world around him, noticing everything and anything, big or small. He hasn’t met and animal or person he hasn’t liked, and vice vera. Out of the five, he’s the ‘charming’ one; able to melt hearts with those striking blue eyes and mischievous smile. Extremely affectionate and loving to everyone he meets, even old ladies in the grocery store who always seem to be enamoured by the thick red hair and the outrageously long eyelashes. While Esme may be biased -as all mothers are- he is just damn cute. A sweet little personality to go along with an even sweeter face. And she can’t resist pausing to take pictures of him with her phone; so adorable in his backwards baseball hat, loose tendrils of hair sticking out at the ears.

 She sends one of the photos -of Declan holding a baby garter snake and flashing that trademark smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes (his father’s smile)- to her husband’s cell, along with a text that reads: see what cute babies you make?

 The house closest to them has been up for sale for three months; a one-story white stucco place with elaborate Japanese inspired front gardens and an interlocking brick driveway. The property itself is much smaller that what they own, but no less stunning. She notices that not only has the ‘for sale’ sign been taken down, but there’s a bright blue Suzuki hatch back in the driveway; tailgate up, surrounded by boxes being unloaded by the home’s new owner. A tall, statuesque blond with vibrant pink, purple, and aquamarine highlights in her shoulder length tresses. And she watches -albeit briefly- as the woman continues to remove items from the back of the car. The couple that had lived there before had been in their eighties and absolutely hated kids and would complain about Millie and the twins ‘running wild and unsupervised’ in the road despite the fact that their father would have been  less than ten feet away. Never directing the complaints to Tyler himself, but waiting until they’d see him leave and then knock on the door to confront her. So it’s nice to see someone younger. That hopefully won’t be such a miserable asshole.

 The front door of the house has been left open and a pug comes waddling out; immediately noticing them at the end of the driveway, which starts off a round of barking from both the smaller dog and Mac and absolute excitement from Declan who begins repeatedly shrieking ‘oggie!’ and tries to yank his wrist out of her grasp. He’s incredibly strong for a little guy; heavy, solid, and powerful. And Mac -still barking yet thankfully not bolting- parks himself right in front of the toddler to block his path.

 The woman in the driveway smiles and waves to them in greeting, and that’s when Esme makes the ultimate mistake; letting go of her son’s hand to wave back. He seizes the opportunity; taking off up the driveway the second he feels his mother’s grasp release.

 “Oh my god Declan! Get back here!” she bellows, and unleashes Mac from around her waist, allowing the dog to chase after him. At the most he’ll grab the toddler by the back of the shirt or knock him to the ground. He’s done it before with each one of the kids; showing an incredible instinct -and with no training- to protect the little humans. “Declan William!” she hollers as she hurries after him and the dog. The latter now making friends with the initially startled pug; the new homeowner scooping Declan up and settling him on her hip.

 “Well hey there cutie,” the blond gushes, gently taking hold of his hands as he tries to tear the unique and colourful glasses off her face. “Who are you?”

 “This is Declan,” Esme responds. “And he’s not usually this much of a shit head, I swear.”

 “You’re just a curious little man, aren’t you! You just wanted to come and meet Stan-Lee. Here, let me introduce you…” their new neighbour drops down to one knee and places Declan on her thigh, taking his hand in hers and then running it over the pug’s fur. The toddler giggling with the dog licks at his hand. “See that? He likes you already! He loves to meet new friends. Especially little ones.”

 “I am so sorry,” Esme can feel the blush in her cheeks. “I’m usually not that stupid. Letting him get away like that. Especially on the road. Although no one but us ever comes down this far. We used to get people that would speed down here and park on our property to get into the woods. But we own all that, so my husband went out and scared the crap out of them with a hunting rifle and they never came back. You must think I’m a shitty parent.”

 The blond waves off the mere suggestion. “Not at all. They get away sometimes. No matter how hard we try to stop them. Not to mention he’s crazy strong! Two? Two and a half?”

 “Seventeen months. I know. He’s absurdly tall. But so is his dad. I am sorry he ran over like that. Bothering you and your dog and…”

 “It’s no bother. Honest. I’m Salena,” she offers a hand, and Esme accepts it warmly.

 “I’m Esme. And that’s Mac,” she nods at the German Shepherd as he playfights with the pug. “It’s actually Macaroni. Don’t ask. My son named him. And this is Adeline,” she gestures to the stroller. “Be we call her Addie.”

 “Is this your little sister?” Salena speaks to Declan as she places him on the ground and takes him by the hand, leading him to the stroller. “How about you show me your little sister. I bet she’s a cutie, just like you. May I?” she asks Esme, taking hold of the corner of the blanket that covers the buggy.

 “Of course.”

 She peels the blanket back, then places a hand over her chest. “Oh my gracious! Look at you, pretty girl! Aren’t you just a darling! You’re just new.”

 “Very new,” Esme confirms. “Only two weeks.”

 “And you already look like that?”  Salena looks over the top rim of her glasses as she eyes Esme from head to toe.

 “Please! The clothes hide everything, trust me. I’m huge. And I feel gross.”

 “You’re crazy! You look amazing. Are these your only two?”

 “No. There’s three more,” she says, and the neighbour’s eyes widen. “Five-year-old twin boys and a soon to be six-year-old daughter. I know,’ she laughs. “I’m crazy.”

 “I just can’t believe that body’s had five kids. Five’s the limit?”

 “Four was the original limit but by husband wanted one more. I don’t know who is more insane. Me or him.”

 “Well if these two are as beautiful as they are, I can only imagine what the other three look like. The red hair comes from your husband?”

 “His mother. Declan’s the only one with it. The other three are blond. Or light brown. Whatever you want to call it. And the last one is all me. Which I feel I deserved after having four that look and act exactly like their father. All that work and getting fat and I don’t get one that looks like me? That is some bullshit.”

 “Would you like to come in?” Salena inquires, nodding towards the house. “I have a breakfast casserole in the oven, and it is way too much for just one person, even with leftovers.”

 “We shouldn’t. We were just on a walk before lunch and we don’t want to impose or…”

 “You won’t be imposing at all. We can sit out back and chat some more. You’re the first person I’ve met since moving to Cookstown. I was staying a hotel right in town while waiting for the house to close. It would be nice to have a friend that’s close by.”

 It’s tempting, and as much as she loves the idea of having a friend…especially a neighbour…she knows Tyler will be hesitant. He’s severely overprotective. Beginning after Dhaka and becoming increasingly worse over the years, hitting its peak after the McMann incident. In his mind, everyone is a possible threat. Including the neighbour with the funky glasses and the colorful hair.

 “Just stay for a little while,” the other woman urges. “Just for something to eat and a little chat. I don’t bite. I promise.”

 “It’s not that and it’s not you, believe me,” Esme attempts to explain. “This is going to sound really weird, but things went really bad before we moved here and I’m a little…apprehensive…when it comes to new people. It’s not personal. I swear. It’s all my own issues.”

 “I promise I am not a serial killer. Just come in and have some lunch and let me spend some more with this cutie pie,” she tickles Declan’s stomach until he’s giggling hysterically and beaming up at her with the utmost adoration. “Just an hour,” she says. “If I bore you or I annoy before then, you can leave. I won’t hold you hostage.”

 “Okay,” Esme finally agrees, as Salena scoops Declan up once more and leads the way towards the house.

 ****

He receives the text message just as he pulls his truck up in front of his father’s new place; a small, cottage style bungalow in a newly established retirement and nursing care community in Port Douglas. It had been bittersweet when he’d eventually found out that the old man had sold the family home. The years there hadn’t all been horrible; there’d been a handful of good memories made between those four walls. That house was the last physical tie that Tyler had had to his mother, and the new owners had bulldozed it with plans on custom build for the lot. The demolition had finally erased all the dark secrets that the place had once held. All the cruel words, all the tears, all the holes in the walls, all the beatings.

 Killing the engine, his pulls his cell from the side pocket of his cargos and checks the message. A slow smile spreading across his face when he sees the picture of his youngest son, and the words that his wife had sent afterwards. If there is one thing they excel at, it’s making beautiful children. And the activities that help with the actual creation of them. He texts her back, telling her that they’ve just reached his dad’s place and have two stops afterwards close to home. That he loves her and the kids and will see them soon.

 He begins to ask where she is but decides against it. It will only irritate her if she feels as if he’s keeping tabs on her and attempting to control her. She claims he’s overprotective to the point of suffocation, something that the therapist had said they’d touch on in the next session. Why he is the way he is and what he can do to either control it or stop it altogether. Tyler doesn’t necessarily want to be that way; he doesn’t want her to feel as if he’s locking her away in the house and controlling every move she makes. But he’s already come so close to losing her. Twice. And he doesn’t want to take the chance of there being a third time.

 So he doesn’t ask. Even though it gnaws at his stomach that she’s out there. Off the property. With two of his kids in tow. Instead he pockets his cell, pulls the keys from the ignition, and then finishes the coffee that sits in one of the cup holders between the front seats.

 “How are we going to explain me?” Ovi inquires. “Am I just going to be some guy that you hired or…?”

 “He already knows all about you.”

 “How much does he know? Or what does he know?”

 “Your folks were friends of mine and Esme’s, they died, left us you in their will. Nice and simple. It doesn’t need to be complicated.”

 The lying never stops. Not when it comes to the old life. To the old Tyler. But at this stage in the game -with his father not functioning properly in the first place- he doesn’t see the need to burden the old man with the truth. Chances are he’d be extremely pissed and/or disgusted and wouldn’t even remember what he’d been told the next day.

 “And you think he believes it?” Ovi asks.

 “Mate, I don’t even know if he knows who I am anymore. Chances are he doesn’t even remember I have a wife and kids. Or that I even told him about you already. But if he asks, that’s what we tell him. Got it?”

 Ovi nods.

 Tyler opens the compartment between their seats and fishes out the extra bottle of anti anxiety meds. It’s always smart to have them on hand; never knowing what situations or environments will bring on an attack. But he can already feel the heaviness in his chest and the dryness in his mouth, and he takes three of the pills and places them under his tongue, waiting for them to full dissolve before putting the bottle in his pocket.

 It’s a hell of a way to live. Having to dope yourself up just to be able to get out of the goddamn car.

 And he’s plain fucking sick of it.

 ****

 The personal support worker greets them at the front door; a short and stocky Aboriginal woman clad in brightly patterned scrubs and bearing a name tag that identifies her as Maggie. She as kind, almost sad eyes, and a soft, pleasant smile and her grip is deceptively strong when she shakes their hands.

 “You must be Trevor,” she addresses him.

 “Tyler,” he gently corrects, and removing his sunglasses, hangs them on the neck of his t-shirt.

 She offers an apologetic smile. “He told me he was expecting someone named Trevor.”

 “Trevor was his brother. My uncle. He died twenty years ago. But I’m Tyler. His son.”

 “This happens, you know,” she sighs. “Moment when they can’t remember the people in the present, but they remember the ones from the past. It isn’t personal. It’s just the disease. It’s a cruel thing; what it does to people.”

 He nods in agreement, trying to at least appear sympathetic. But he feels nothing. No empathy. No pity. No sorrow that his father is slipping away. No regrets that they’ve let the years go by without even attempting a reconciliation.

 “You just moved back, I hear,” Maggie comments, as she leads them from the front foyer and towards the back of the house. “Were you gone long?”

 “Five and a half years.”

 “That’s a long time to be away from home. What made you come back?”

 “I came into some money and I was able to retire early,” Tyler explains. It’s not a total lie; that part did happen. It just wasn’t as easy as he’s making it sound. “My wife and I decided this was the best place to raise our kids.”

 “Well I can’t argue with that. Is this them?”  Maggie pauses in the hall between the living room and kitchen, nodding at the frame photographs on the wall. “Your kids?”

 It’s their school pictures from last year when they’d still been in Telluride. Before they’d ever heard of Michael McMann. And one of Declan when he’d just been a baby; not even crawling or walking yet.

 Tyler nods. “They’re a year older now. And we added another. A little girl. Two weeks old.”

 Maggie arches an eyebrow. “You’re telling me you have five kids?”

 “Yup.”

 “Five kids,” she breathes and shakes her head. “Boy, you’re either both brave as hell or you’re both just plain crazy.”

 “Maybe both?” Ovi suggests, and then laughs when Tyler directs a playful elbow into his stomach.

 “I actually have six kids,” Tyler says. “If we count him,” he jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “When he’s not being a smart ass.”

 Maggie looks Ovi up and down. “You’re one of his…” she nods at Tyler. “…kids?”

 The young man nods.

 “And just how does that work? When you look like you do…” she looks at Tyler, then at Ovi. “…and you look like you do.”

 “They took me in,” Ovi explains. “Six years ago. After my parents died. It was in my mother’s will. That I was supposed to go to Tyler. So…. here I am.”

 “Here he is,” Tyler confirms, and tousles Ovi’s hair. “Congratulations. It’s a boy. All six foot one and two hundred pounds of him.”

 “He’s not my father, but he is my dad,” Ovi says. “And that’s good enough for me.”

 Maggie gives a slow nod of agreement, and then once again leads the way down the hall. “Your father insisted we put those pictures up as soon as he moved in. He’s extremely proud of his grandkids.”

 Tyler doubts it. On both counts.

 “He’s having one of his ‘okay’ days,” she says. “Woke up knowing what day is, what month, what year.”

 “But thinks his dead brother is going to show up,” Tyler tosses out. And again, nothing. Not even the slightest hint of sadness. The man doesn’t deserve any. Not after the life he’s lived. Not with all the things he’s said and all the things he’s done.

 “He may have just screwed the name up,” she suggests. “I mean, you’re his son. He obviously knows your name.”

 “I haven’t been his son in a long time,” Tyler says. It doesn’t hurt to admit. It just is what it is. In the same way that Ovi may still bear the Mahajan name, but his father had stopped being a part of his life a long time ago because of his own selfish and evil choices. Just as Tyler’s old man had destroyed their relationship with the use of a belt or a fist or whatever else his father could get his hands on.

 “You’ll always be his son,” Maggie’s tone has a scolding tone to it. “He helped give you life.”

 “That’s about all he did. He knocked my mum up. That’s it. I know you mean well, but you shouldn’t be lecturing about how things are between him and I. I lived with him. You didn’t. So how about we just cut the chit chat and you mind your own business.”

 She holds her hands up un surrender, then nods towards the sliding glass door that leads out onto a small patio. “He’s out there. Likes to sit in the sun and listen to the birds. He’s a very sweet man. Very gentle. Very good to us.”

 Tyler gives a derisive snort. It will be a cold day in hell before he acknowledges any of those traits. Because before the old man’s brain started going on him, he was a tyrant. Controlling and manipulative. Drinking far too much. Treating his mother like a slave and then degrading her and beating her if she dared stand up for herself. And when she’d died, all that cruelty and abuse had been turned onto his only child. He could forgive what his father had done to him, but there’s no goddamn way he’d ever forgive him for what he’d done to his mum.

 ****

 His father sits in an old porch swing; frail and sickly looking, a far cry from the man he’d been the last time Tyler had seen him six years ago. When he’d still carried himself with a hint of cockiness and superiority; shoulders still broad, eyes still icy and intimidating. He’s a shell of his former self, and Tyler almost hates himself for viewing this as a form of karma. That after years of treating people horribly, the old man has been reduced to needing help from complete strangers to perform even the smallest of tasks.

 “William, “ Maggie speaks from the doorway. “You have company. Your son and your...” she looks at Ovi for clarification as to just who he is.

 “Grandson,” Tyler finishes for her.

 “Your son and your grandson are here,” she continues. “They’ve come to visit.”

 Tyler gives her a small, appreciative smile and then waits until she steps back into the house and shuts the door before turning to Ovi. “Why don’t you go and find that list he supposedly made of the things we need to fix. Probably on the fridge or the kitchen table or...”

 “TV,” his father speaks up. “It’s by the TV.”

 Tyler smirks. “Go check there. See what you can do on your own. I’ll be in in a few.”

 Ovi nods, then gives a nervous smile and a small wave when he notices Tyler’s father watching him, a puzzled look on his face.

 “Go on,” Tyler encourages. “I need a few minutes here.”

 “Okay,” Ovi agrees, and slips back into the house.

 “Hey dad,” Tyler greets, as he grabs one of the patio chairs and places it facing the swing, sighing heavily as he sinks down into it. “You know who I am right?”

 His father nods, then leans forward and takes a hold of Tyler’s chin, turning his face to one side, then the other. “They let you keep that fur in the army?”

 “I’m not in the army anymore. I haven’t been in it for a long time.”

 “The war is over? They sent you home? From Afghanistan?”

 “I was in Afghanistan sixteen years ago. The war’s been over for a while. That one at least.”

 “So you’re home now?”

 Tyler nods.

 “I don’t know if I have enough room here for you. There’s not a lot of space. I had to get rid of the old place and downsize and...”

 “Dad, I have my own place to live. In Cookstown. With my wife and my kids.”

 He looks puzzled. “You have more than one now? When did that happen? Wasn’t Sarah just getting ready to have Austin?”

 Tyler sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then over his face. “Sarah and I haven’t been together in a long time. Since Austin died. That’s almost sixteen years ago now.”

 His father cocks his head to the side, confusion in his eyes and lining his face. “It is?”

 “I got married again. You were at the wedding. In Sydney. Same little place you and mum got married at. Near the opera house.”

 “Tiny little dark haired thing?”

 “Esme. You made a joke about her having a weird name.”

 “Esme...Esme...” his eyes squint as he tries to remember. “...cute wee thing. I like her. She’s a sweetheart. You’re still married to her?”

 “Six years and counting. She’s still putting up with me somehow. Do you remember meeting your granddaughter? Amelia? I brought her to the old house.”

 His father nods.

 “She’s going to be six in a couple months. I’ve also got twin boys that just turned five. Tyler and Tanner and another boy that’s seventeen months, Declan. And we just had another baby two weeks ago. A little girl. Adeline.”

 The old man smiles. “Your mother’s name.”

 “We call her Addie for short.”

 “That’s nice. Real nice. That you named her after your mother. She loved you so much, you know. Your mother. You were her pride and joy. The light of her life. I’d never seen her so as happy as she was the day you were born. She was a good mom to you. A real good mom.”

 “Yeah....” Tyler clears his throat noisily, trying to rid himself of the lump of emotion that sits squarely in his windpipe. “...she was.”

 “She’s a good mom? Your wife?”

 “She’s an incredible mom. I couldn’t have asked for a better mother for my kids. Or for a better woman to give me children.”

 “Six years?” his father asks. That you’ve been together?”

 “Six years and a couple of months,” Tyler confirms. “I haven’t screwed this one up. Not yet, anyway.”

 “Must be a good woman. A strong woman. To put up with the likes of you. You’ve always been a handful.”  It isn’t said with malice; there’s a soft smile curving the old man’s lips.

 “She keeps hanging in there. Keeps giving me another chance every time I screw up. Which has been a lot, unfortunately. But she never gives up on us. On me.”

 “Don’t let her get away. You’ll regret it if you do. And treat her right. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. You’re better than that. You always have been. You’re better than me. Thank Christ.”

 “Well I guess that’s one thing I do have to thank you for,” Tyler muses. “Showing me how not to be.”

 “And you’re back home? In Australia?”

 “We were in Colorado. We just move back six months ago. We should get you out to the house. You’d love it. It’s right on the beach. Awesome spot. And you’d get to see Amelia again. And meet your other grandkids.”

 His father smiles. “I’d like that.”

 “Maybe for Amelia’s birthday,” Tyler suggests, and then stares down at his hands; palms up, studying all the callouses and scars that years on the job have left behind.

 There’s so much he wants to say. Things that he needs to get off his chest in regard to the nightmare that he’d lived through growing up. He wants to punish his father; make him feel even the slightest bit of regret and remorse for all the things he’s said and done.

 But he doesn’t. Because whatever he says will never come close to the torment that’s always taking place in father’s broken mind.

[seasonofthegeek]

Here comes a personal post because this week has been a doozy and I want to get some words out. Also please don’t reblog this post. This is just for me to get some thoughts down and there’s no reason to spread it. Thanks. :)

Back in May, I began having passive suicidal thoughts and knew I needed to get some help. I didn’t want to actively hurt myself, but I thought it might be better for everyone in my life if something happened to me and I died. After a visit to the doctor, I started an antidepressant that worked for me and I got back to a mental level I was more comfortable with. A few months later, something happened to someone I love dearly and it showed me that I was just teetering on the edge, even with the meds, so I sought out a therapist to have someone outside of my life to talk to.

It’s been a great experience and my therapist is easy to talk to but also good at keeping me accountable in the tasks I’ve set for myself, while also reminding me that it’s okay to fail. She listens and offers advice when it’s warranted and some sessions I’ve just walked in and word vomited for an hour and that’s been fine. A few sessions ago, she suggested I start seeing a psychiatrist to get to the root of some of my issues. She was wondering if I had bipolar disorder (my brother was diagnosed with it ) and put the ball in my court to contact someone if it was something I wanted to explore further.

I was an anxious mess but called one of the psychiatrists my therapist recommended and set up an appointment. That appointment finally came up this past Tuesday and after battling an angry child not wanting to go to school, no time for breakfast, construction traffic, and school traffic, I finally made it to my appointment twenty minutes late (I called on the way, of course). 

I was a wreck and almost didn’t get out of my car when I pulled into the parking lot, but I forced myself out into the cold and then into an unknown office. After a few minutes, I was taken back to meet my psychiatrist and he was one of those people who can immediately put others at ease. He recognized the My Hero characters on my hoodie and told me his daughter loved the show. He smiled and made small talk.

And then he read aloud the notes my therapist had sent him with my consent.

I’m going to be honest, it was ROUGH hearing everything I’ve been dealing with read by someone I just met in the span of a few minutes. He went through it simply, not commenting, just relaying information. I took a big breath when he finished and told him it was hard to hear it all at once. And he smiled and suggested we just start from the beginning.

And that’s how the rest of the appointment was. He was pleasant and kept things simple and asked questions that led me down different paths of conversation. He told me that I would be diagnosing myself with his help and that I had all the power.

It was refreshing.

My therapist is great and she has helped me with a lot of issues, but she can mainly just offer advice on how to deal with things.

My psychiatrist led me to understand why I deal with the issues I have and where they stem from. It was something I’d never given much thought to honestly. I’ve had bad things happen to me, I think everyone has in different degrees, but I didn’t think any of them really shaped the person I am. I was wrong.

After discussing things, we both decided that I’m not bipolar because it didn’t fit for me. I do have depression and anxiety though and they were manifesting in ways that can mimic some of the symptoms of bipolar disorder. I have a feeling I’m always going to remember how he explained my level of anxiety too.

Dr. S: If I said to you, Kayla, do you think most people deal with this level of anxiety in their day to day lives? Would you say “no” or would you say “duh”?

Me, thinking my high level of anxiety is completely ordinary, laughed: I’d say duh.

Dr. S with his nice smile: Ah, see, that’s not the case.

Me: ...oh. Ohhhhhhh.

It was a bit of a revelation to find out this brain stuff I deal with constantly isn’t the norm for everyone else. I didn’t realize most people don’t think when they tell their family goodbye in the morning that it might be the last time they see them because something horrible is going to happen or that their house is going to catch on fire when they go on vacation. I didn’t know most other people didn’t check for their keys three to four times before locking their cars in the fear of locking themselves out. It didn’t occur to me that a lot of people don’t think their friends hate them just because they haven’t spoken in a few hours/days/weeks. 

It was almost a relief to find out and at the same time there was morbid fascination in realizing how off my thinking is because of the anxiety. 

He helped me trace it all the way back to being a child and what caused it and how the depression came into play because the anxiety was fear and fear made me feel helpless and that made me angry. I used to have angry outbursts and temper tantrums out of the blue up to adulthood. I learned to monitor myself better and get things out before they blew up as I got older, but with Dr. S’s help, I could go back and see where it had started and that I’ve carried it my whole life. 

I’ll probably always carry it, but now I know and now I can start working on it.

So that’s what happened with me and my brain stuff which is more than enough for one week, but my son’s brain stuff came into play on Friday.

My son is, goodness, he’s just amazing. He’s my world. He’s funny and goofy and creative and a butthead and moody and loving and better than I could’ve ever imagined. For the past couple of years, it’s become more and more obvious that he wasn’t quite like other kids his age. He was developing slower and didn’t start really speaking until he started doing speech therapy.  Even after a little over a year, a lot of his speech still comes from mimicking. 

He started school this year and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I was called back in on the first day after he’d been there for two hours. He’d had a meltdown in the cafeteria because it was too loud and his speech therapist (who thankfully was the same person he’d been working with the previous year as a private student) picked him up from his class and took him to her room as a safe space for him to calm down. He adores her and was able to soothe himself as soon as he was in that familiar setting. I went to a meeting on the first day of school to find that my son was not going to be able to make it through the whole school day, but the school wanted to work with him so he’d still be able to attend. We cut his days down to two and a half hours and went from there.

A month or so after that, a meeting was set up with the district psychologist who wanted permission to observe him and see what further help might be needed. She suggested letting an occupational therapist and physical therapist observe and test him too and I consented to all it. He was having issues connecting to the other kids in his class and he couldn’t seem to follow the schedule. The teacher worked with him the best she could, giving him a visual task calendar he could follow and use to point to and other similar things, but she also has seventeen other students. I knew more help was needed.

So for the past couple of months, he’s been going to his general education class and his speech therapy while also being observed by a psychologist on some days. He did a couple of sessions of testing with an occupational therapist and a physical therapist (who cleared him with a laugh that he is definitely strong and super fast). It was all coming down to the meeting we had on Friday.

Seven women sat around the table and showed me how each of them wanted to help my son. I’m tearing up just thinking back on it, to be honest. The psychologist broke everything down for me and made sure I could see every step of the process they’d all gone through while watching my son. At the beginning of the year, he’d started with paperwork stating that he was receiving help with speech and language but that was being moved to a secondary position because he was now being categorized as mild to moderate on the autism spectrum.

I’d had a feeling about autism. I’d wondered about it from time to time. He fit some of the indicators. Like with finding out about myself, it was a bit of a relief. There’s something about knowing that is just so helpful because then you can ask, “Okay, what are the next steps we need to take?” 

They suggested moving him into the special education class. It’s half the size of the class he is currently in, he’s already familiar with the teacher, his speech therapist works in that class a lot, and he knows two of the students from his group speech sessions. 

LIfe is kinda funny how it works out sometimes. My mom has worked with special ed kids most of my life. I went into her classroom all through high school and got to know the students in there. We’ve discussed the past year or so that my son might need that kind of help, even if it is only for a little while. So when this group of teachers and therapists and the psychologist recommended moving him, I felt comfortable agreeing. I know from the other side of things that it is not something done lightly or suggested easily. 

The psychologist even said it might be something he only needs for a year or two and if they can get him coming to school for longer periods of time, they want to get him back into the general class he was in for short periods. I know they’re looking out for him. They’ve already done so much to accommodate him and I can see they truly care for his development. I feel really lucky that he is going to the school he’s at.

I’m relieved and I’m worried. He’ll start his new class on Monday and I know it’s going to be a tough transition, but I hope it’s for the best. He’s such a smart kid and he’s got a great imagination and I know he’s got a lot going on in that lil noggin. I just want to do the best I can for him.

So I’m watching out for him and I’m trying to take care of me for me and for him (and for my husband and my best friend and my parents). It’s been a lot to learn in the span of a few days but I feel hopeful for the future. <3

[alleiradayne]

Another Update

So right after I wrote that long ass post about all the shit going on lately...

I still have the $200 extra Google Store dollars sitting in my account and I’m highly tempted to fucking buy something with it just to see if it fucks everything up again. Because I’m chaotic neutral like that.

And then last Thursday night I became very very ill. To the point where I thought I was crying because I didn’t want to die and thought I might.

My fever spiked to 102.7 F in four hours. Full body aches, chills, uncontrollable shivering. Tylenol brought the fever down but I had to take that shit like clock work and keep track of how much I’d taken to make sure I didn’t OD on it. The worst was Friday morning when my fever hit 103.1. Out of fear of having COVID-19, my husband and I had worked together to isolate me in our bedroom the previous night. He moved some of his stuff to the guest bed/bath (I am forever grateful and fully acknowledge the privilege I have to own such a large house) to protect himself and our daughter.

He made a phone call appointment with my primary care physician (which was the only appointments they’re taking right now, no in-person) and at the time she said there wasn’t much that could be done. She prescribed me an antibiotic for the same damn sinus infection I’ve had for what seems like ten years now that I can’t shake.

I need to back up a step. Wednesday I felt fine. Like, good, even, for the first time in a few days. I’d had a lot of sinus crud going on from the snow melt and had gone back to the ENT on Tuesday for another look at my nose. All he did was prescribe me a saline rinse. Which, whatever, it’s... sort of helping. But by Wednesday the worst of the sinus symptoms cleared up (burning sinuses). Still had a lot of green snot but... that’s normal for me (which I realize is really fucking awful but no doctor I’ve gone to thus far knows what the hell to do about it).

So, Wednesday I’m fine. Liz, however, could not get to sleep or stay asleep if she did fall asleep. She was up until about 11. Which meant I didn’t sleep a wink after that. I was terrified for her. Because I hadn’t slept and I’d woken up with a swollen gland in my throat and was generally feeling run down, I was going to take Thursday off. I have PTO. I’m fucking lucky right now.

My project manager really pestered me into making it to some phone calls that we had scheduled that day. Basically, I ended up working all day, talking most of the time. That did my throat and swollen gland no favors.

I thought the gland was a blocked salivary duct. I even looked in my throat and thought I saw the polyp that had it blocked (too far back to reach it). It eventually lead to a nasty headache. By 10 pm Thursday night, I had the 102.7 degree fever.

Saturday morning at 2 am I woke up with a busting migraine and the swollen gland was now on both sides of my throat. This was no blocked duct. I figured then that I had strep. My fever had crept back up a bit, so I took another Tylenol and passed back out.

I woke up again at 7 am, no fever, aches, or chills. Only a raging headache, like I’d been out drinking all night, and a very swollen throat. Over the course of the day I felt okay except for my throat and headache. By that evening I could hardly eat or drink, so I resolved to call the care line the next day.

8 am Sunday, I called the care line, talked to a nurse eventually, and she said I needed to go in immediately. I took a shower (because I hadn’t in probably five days). Went to one urgent care that is now permanently closed (whoops), went to another one and they’re only seeing people for musculoskeletal issues. But they directed me to a third only a few minutes away that was testing for anything respiratory. Including COVID-19.

Great.

I get to this clinic, and they had a nurse in a full suit, face shield, mask, and goggles standing in the atrium between the two entry doors. They had as much vital-checking equipment in there on bench seats and all the necessary tools to do damn near any kind of quick respiratory test. I told her my symptoms, touched nothing, and she swabbed my throat. I went back out to my car to wait for the results at her behest because they had confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the building.

I noped the fuck out.

My strep result came back positive 10 minutes later. I ran two more errands, picked up my penicillin, and went home.

I feel much better today. Turns out, if you let strep go too long, a complication from it is rheumatic fever. Problem is, I didn’t even know I had it. I had no symptoms until Thursday really, and then I tanked that night.

So that’s been my deal the last few days. I’m still in isolation until tomorrow morning to protect Liz, but she should be good. Today, I’ll be getting back to some tags for some meme type posts.