#ratralsis strings

[ratralsis]

Strings: Mini-Prequel and Mini-Sequel

In the time between my first attempt at writing the story I'm currently calling "Strings" and the version that I just posted, I took a couple of short-story-writing classes from the same school that I then took two longer novel-writing classes from.

Because I lack creativity, or possibly because I thought it would be fun, I decided to use characters from Kevin and Marigold's little story in a couple of the prompts.

One prompt was to write a 250-word story based on the phrase "Love Hurts." This is what I wrote.

Henry tilted his head from side to side, his neck cracking loudly. He yawned, alone in his car with his briefcase and a fast food bag, still slightly warm from holding the dinner he'd eaten while driving. He grabbed the briefcase and walked to the door of his house.

He knocked. After a moment, the door was opened by an older woman who looked almost as tired as he felt. "You can't keep doing this," she said.

"It won't be forever, ma," he sighed, raising his arms for a quick hug. The briefcase made the motion clumsy.

"Until when, then?" She asked. "Until the girls are old enough that you just leave 'em by themselves all day?"

His shoulders dropped. He looked past his mother at the curtains. Pale blue. Emily's idea, bought just over a year ago. Before the twins, when it was the two of them living here. Now it was the three of them. It had never been the four of them.

He swallowed that thought along with a piece of hamburger bun that had been stuck in his teeth. "What do you want me to do? I gotta work. I'm all they've got."

"No, for half the day, I'm all they've got," she said.

"And I appreciate it," he said. "But we're both too tired for this right now. Can we talk about it this weekend? Please?"

"Fine," she said. "They're asleep, God only knows how much longer."

"Alright, ma," Henry sighed. "Good night. Love you."

This is much of a prequel as I ever plan on writing for Marigold. 250 words, all of them very carefully chosen as I pared down a much longer piece until it fit that requirement, about Henry as a young man, and Marigold and Lily as tiny babies who don't even really appear.

Henry's struggling to get by. He's working overtime at the law firm, trying to establish himself as a lawyer or possibly still trying to pass the bar, I'm not really sure myself, at age 26 or so, while the girls are still too young to be left alone. In another year, he'll have remarried, and in a few more, he'll have divorced, and then a decade or so of peaceful days before one of his daughters dies in a car accident.

It's not worth writing more about him. I love Henry as a character, but his story, to be blunt, doesn't interest me much. As a character, he's fascinating, though. He's worked hard and found himself thrown about by fate and chance in a million different directions, and through it all, he's perservered, and worked hard, and done his best to keep his chin up. When we meet him in the main story, he's 47 or 48 years old, still working, making somewhere around $100,000-200,000/year in his day job (but not, like, millions), living in a big house with a big yard, but he's living by himself, and finds himself facing life as an empty nester while also knowing he's going to have to keep working for probably another decade or two before retiring. He's not sure he made the right decisions, but he did what he thought was right, and now things are the way they are and nothing can change the past.

But what's the conflict in his story? If I actually wrote it out, it would just be "Decent, hard-working guy keeps having bad things happen to him and his family," and that's not an interesting story.

So no prequel for Henry, but I absolutely love the 250 words I did write. "It had never been the four of them" is one of the best sentences I've ever written.

A while later, as a POV exercise, I wrote this three-part story. It's a sequel to the main story, and I really enjoy it, too.

Part 1. Marigold arrived home later than she had planned. There was no way to sneak into her apartment after the guests had already arrived. She tried to look on the bright side: this way, she could avoid the suspense of having to wait for them to show up.

She had helped Kevin set up the Christmas decorations earlier in the week, so those were no surprise. The bright paper streamers along the walls were his idea, as was the tree in the corner that took up a bit more of the room than she would have preferred. It did look nice, though, she had to admit. Extra chairs had been placed at the table, but nobody was sitting at it.

She hadn't known what food he was going to be preparing, and the spicy smell of it hit her like a wall as she walked in, guitar on her back. Her heart in her throat, she scanned the front room, hoping to see Kevin first. She saw him, but he was standing near the kitchen, chatting happily with the guests of honor: his parents.

Part 2. "Oh, there you are," Kevin said, turning to face her when he heard the sound of the door. "I was just finishing up the grand tour, such as it is."

"Oh, great," she said, giving them her best stage smile. "Let me put my guitar away, and I'll be right back for introductions, okay?"

Kevin smiled back and nodded. His parents said nothing, staring almost blankly at her. She darted into her music room and placed the guitar case against the wall. She could fuss with it later. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and came back out. Kevin and his mother had disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving his father standing by himself. She walked over, stuck out her hand, and looked up at him. He was as tall as his son--nearly a foot taller than she was.

"So, I'm Marigold, and you must be Mister Stiles."

He took the offered hand and shook it. "Please, just Kevin," he said. "I think we can be on a first-name basis."

"Sure, but, that's also what I call, you know, Kevin Junior?" She kept smiling, though it felt a bit strained at this point.

Part 3. "I'm sure I can figure out which of us you mean from context clues," he said. "So, my son told me you're a musician. Tonight's performance ran late?"

"Um, well, sometimes that happens when I'm playing a reception," she said. "I'm paid by the hour, so when the family is willing to keep paying me to stick around, I… let them. Plus, they're more likely to leave me a good review if I'm a good sport, you know?"

He furrowed his brow slightly and looked closely at the petite woman in the pink dress in front of him. "Certainly. And that's what you wore to a wedding reception?" He asked.

She bobbed her head to one side and continued smiling. He wondered if this was her best dress. "Yep," she said, after a moment. "Sure did. I'll be right back, I'm just going to get a drink."

She was back in only a moment, full glass in hand.

"I like the decorations," he told her, gesturing.

"Thank you," she said. "They were Kevin's idea, actually."

"I know," he said. "I still thought you should know that I liked them."

"Okay," she said, and downed most of her glass.

I can't remember what all of the rules were, but I believe Part 1 was required to have no dialogue, part 2 to be from one character's point of view, and part 3 to be from another's. Part 3 is meant to be from the point of view of Kevin Stiles Sr., though it's not as obvious as I wish it were given how short the story is.

I loved writing this, because I loved showing Kevin's dad as this very uptight and stiff conservative sort of guy who looks down on Marigold's line of work and lack of education (she's a high-school dropout with a GED, remember), sees her as irresponsible (for showing up late to an event like this Christmas party), and wonders if the outfit she has on is really the best she has (maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it's what she wore to a wedding reception where she played acoustic guitar for just as many hours as her client was willing to pay her to). He's not a bad guy, but he's not willing to meet Marigold at her level or engage with her as an equal. He doesn't accept that she's going to have trouble calling both him and his son "Kevin," because, even if this guy says he'll know who she means, when they're at the dinner table and she says "Say, Kevin," both Kevins are going to look at her and she's going to have to point at one of them.

Marigold also has a rough relationship with alcohol in the original story. After her car accident, she quit drinking. It's the real reason why she refused a drink from Kevin on the night they first met. Her "I don't drink while I'm working" excuse was a lie. She doesn't drink alcohol because the last time she did, she thought it was a good idea to get behind the wheel of a car and her twin sister died. It's based on a guy I knew whose drunk driving accident scared him sober, but I don't know how common it really is.

Yet, in this sequel story, she downs most of a glass of something that presumably has alcohol in it simply because Kevin Sr. is being kind of weird to her and she's having a hard time coping with it. So either

A) She's gotten over her fears of alcohol and now drinks on occasion, B) There's actually no alcohol in her drink and she just finds the act of drinking ANYTHING to be calming, or C) I thought it was funny and knew nobody else in my writing class could possibly have read her story and known she didn't drink.

Take your pick.

While I truly love the character of Kevin Sr. as seen here, as the guy from whom Kevin Jr. gets his serious and boring sides from, a stereotypical no-nonsense German dude (Kevin is 1/2 German, 1/4 English, and 1/4 Mexican, though only the 1/4 Mexican part is specifically mentioned in the story; Marigold's ethnicity was spelled out in an earlier draft as being equal parts South Korean, Syrian, Northern Indian, and Puerto Rican, but I decided for this draft that it was more fun to just leave her as "light brown" and never let the reader actually know), but going on from there, it's not the most interesting story. It would just be Marigold having a very awkward night, and while I did truly love writing from her POV after so long writing from Kevin's, and showing her fears and insecurities for once instead of Kevin's, as well as showing how Kevin appears to her from the outside for once, where does it go from here? Eventually, Kevin Sr. and Mary will leave, and Marigold will sigh heavily and say "Wow, that was rough" and Kevin will say "Haha what" and then they'll… live happily ever after, probably?

Again, there's not much conflict there. I don't want to bring back anything from Marigold's past to threaten the happiness that she and Kevin have together. No childhood friend is going to appear and threaten to get her canceled online. Her probation officer isn't going to show up and threaten to lock her up because she crossed state lines. Her career isn't going to fizzle out and force her to get a real job. Kevin's not going to lose interest in her and find solace in the arms of another woman. They're just going to be a boring couple like every other boring couple from here on out. They'll have ups and downs. Maybe Marigold will eventually be able to have kids, and maybe she won't. Maybe they'll adopt, and maybe they won't. Maybe they'll drift apart in ten years and get divorced, and maybe they won't.

I'm really and truly happier not knowing. I'm happier leaving them just as they are, a young couple starting their adult lives together, unsure of themselves but sure of each other, doing their best to face things one day at a time, just like everyone else.*

*I love this kind of ambiguity in storytelling sometimes. It's why the second chapter ends with Kevin saying that he isn't sure if five minutes will be enough time to make up for two months of not having kissed Marigold. What happens next? Does he give her a little peck on the lips? Does he shove his tongue into her mouth? Do they fuck right there on the loveseat?** It's whatever you want it to be. I'll never tell.

**They probably didn't fuck on the loveseat. They really did only have five minutes, after all. But given that Kevin reflects on how he's seen Marigold's spiderweb tattoo before when she shows it him a few months later, it's reasonable*** to assume that, at the very least, he's seen her in her underwear.

***My headcanon is that Kevin's social awkwardness and Marigold's fear of letting someone get too close to her mean that neither of them has as much experience with sex as they want the other to think they do (it's entirely possible that they began the story as a couple of virgins), but it's not on the page, so it really is just headcanon, and mine is no more valid than anyone else's if it's about things that didn't make it into the story.

So there won't be a prequel or a sequel, because I've already written them, and they were a lot of fun, and there's nothing else to say about Kevin Stiles and Marigold Spade that I want to say.

For now, at least. If I live long enough, I may change my mind.

This is already more of an afterword than I had planned. There won't be more.

[ratralsis]

That's all there is of that story

And that was the end of that.

A couple of years ago, as part of my short story writing classes, before I started working on my novel in earnest, I actually did write a pair of extremely short (I think 400 or 500 words?) stories that were a sort of prequel and sequel. I might post those later, just to prove that there's no sense in writing any longer prequel or sequel story. The story's told. Kevin and Marigold met, spent a year together, fell in love, and probably got married way too young.

It was an exercise. A way to keep writing between drafts of the novel without working on the novel itself. I enjoyed writing it, for all its flaws.

Here's something I said to a friend of mine who read the previous version of this story and really didn't like it:

-----

The story is still what it was three years ago. Kevin barely has a character arc: he starts off with a lot of the autistic awkwardness that I have, and he ends with it, too. I don't know if he's actually autistic or even all that awkward. It could be that he comes off as insensitive or mean. The intent was to show that he doesn't know how to react when Marigold becomes emotional or distraught about discussing her past, so he just kind of freezes up and starts thinking hard about what the "right" thing is for him to do. That's me. That's what I do. His growth is that he learns to trust Marigold more and accept her for who she is, and make more compromises in his life to suit her needs. But I don't know if that's really much of an arc.

Marigold's arc is meant to be about how she starts off as a stereotypical beautiful manic pixie dream girl, and Kevin gradually comes to realize that it's a facade and a defense mechanism and that she's very emotionally fragile when she has to lower those defenses and be herself and let others get close to her.

There are parts I'm proud of and parts I'm not. But I still don't think it's good. I'm at that point in my creative development where I can read something like Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn and see a sentence like "With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart" and think, god DAMN but that is some incredible description, but there's a world of difference between being able to appreciate someone else's art and being able to make my own at that same level.

So I write a lot about facial expressions. People smile at each other a lot. They grin. They beam. They light up. They nod. They lean one way or another way. They bend down. Sit. Walk over. Move toward. At one point, Kevin pads his way up a flight of stairs. It's a limited vocabulary, because it's how I think. It's how my head works. Blame it on years of video games with limited verbs. "Walk" is a solid verb to describe a character moving from one area to another. But nobody "ambles" or "strolls" or "leisurely makes their way" anywhere. Maybe they should.

This story was an exercise. A bit of practice between rewrites of my novel, which I find myself hating more and more with each draft and each pair of eyes that reads it.

Hopefully, you find at least a little enjoyment in it. I'm glad I wrote it, and I had some things in it that I very badly wanted to say (that loving someone is a choice you have to make every day, that loving someone and trusting them are two very different things, that trusting someone is a painful thing, that family means more than who your biological parents were, that anything can be forgiven, and that violins look like ukuleles to the untrained eye), but I'm not so vain as to think "I meant well" and "I did well" are the same thing.

-----

That about sums it up, I think.

But, as I said before I started posting any of it, I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any. I can say that with such confidence because I don't expect anybody to ask me anything.

That's not reverse psychology where I'm daring you to ask me something. It's just good old-fashioned self-deprecation.

[ratralsis]

8. The Anniversary

Table of Contents

Kevin stepped down from the stepladder. "Merry Christmas," he said, wrapping Marigold in a big hug.

"It's still two weeks away, even with a star on the tree," she said, her arms at her sides as she was squeezed. Seeing his disappointment, she rolled her eyes and added, "Still, sure, Merry Christmas. When it gets here."

Kevin released her and took half a step back. "Do you know what today actually is?"

"The eleventh?" she ventured.

He sighed and imitated her eye roll, having seen it too many times by now not to be able to do so perfectly. "It's the first anniversary of the night we met," he said. He turned and looked up at their fake tree, its cheap plastic star shiny with metallic yellow paint. There were garlands around the window next to the tree, and a stuffed snowman watched them from the end table next to their sofa. A scented candle provided them with the fresh scent of artificial pine, its flickering light reflected on the star and in the snowman's little black eyes. "A year ago I was buying you coffee. Now we're decorating our home together and everything."

"I can't believe you remember that," she said. She picked up her mug of hot cocoa and slid in next to him, and he put an arm around her without thinking about it. "Though I can't help but feel it's a waste to spend time and money decorating when it's just the two of us."

"About that," Kevin said, turning his head away from her. He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath of pine scent. "I was wondering if you'd mind if my family came to visit."

"If you really want them to," she said. "I guess that'd be okay. We'll have to find a night when I'm not busy."

"How about if we invite Henry and your sisters, too?" Kevin asked, because, sometimes, it was worth it to push his luck and ask for everything.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Marigold's eyes dart from the tree up towards him. He pretended not to notice. "I don't think this apartment is big enough for that many people," she said. "Not to mention we'd be asking them to take a long trip to come all the way out here."

"We could do two different nights, maybe," he suggested. "I don't think my parents will mind not meeting Henry. I mean, I'm sure they'd like to, but, you know."

She drummed the slender fingers of one hand on the mug she held, then took a long sip as she thought it over. "We can ask them, I guess," she said. "It might be fun to show the place off to everybody."

"Oh, and speaking of our families," Kevin said, turning to look at her. "Maybe I'm overstepping, but have you considered going to, like, a DNA or genealogy site or something to see if we could learn more about your heritage? Track down some other blood relatives of yours?"

She beamed at him and looked into his eyes. His heart still skipped a beat when she did that. "We don't need to," she said. "I already know what I am."

"Okay, sure," Kevin said. "But look, it's nice to say you're a musician or you're a Spade or whatever, but aren't you curious?"

At that, she laughed, and Kevin tried to hide his flinch of surprise. "No, I mean I've already spit in a few different tubes over the years and sent it off to some of those places." Seeing the confusion on Kevin's face, she continued. "They're all a little bit different, but I can nail down my lineages to a few percentage points." She drew herself to her full unimpressive height and smirked. "Care to take a guess?"

"I do not," Kevin said immediately. "Not even a little."

"Oh, boo," she pouted. "You're no fun at all."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Not until you guess," she teased, but Kevin shook his head. It seemed he was unlikely to find out the answer anytime soon, and that was fine with him. She went on. "I found some suspected fourth or fifth cousins through one of the sites, but they were dead ends as far as tracking down closer relatives went. But yes, I am also a musician, and a Spade, and a lot of other things."

"Well, I'm glad I asked before ordering any kits, then," Kevin said, then, because she was still standing tall and presenting an easy target, he decided to lean down and kiss her on the cheek, more to see how she'd react than anything else.

Fast as lightning, as though she'd expected him to try this, she grabbed the drawstrings of his purple hoodie and pulled him down to her level. "And you know," she whispered seductively into his ear, "if you ever get around to giving me that ring I found so cleverly tucked away on the top shelf of the closet where you think I can't reach, I could add a couple more things to the list of things that I am."

Kevin froze, and only partly because he was worried that she might tear his third-favorite hoodie if he moved too quickly. "Oh," he stammered, and licked his lips. "That's actually, um, that's my grandmother's old wedding ring, you see. My mom inherited it, and she gave it to me when I turned eighteen. For someday, she told me. I've sort of held onto it since then, in case, that is, it wasn't meant to…" He trailed off.

Marigold let go of the drawstrings and leaned back, her eyebrows bunched together in a hurt look that pained Kevin to see. She bit her lower lip, her shoulders slumped. He tried to gauge her reaction, hoping she wasn't too upset. "You mean it wasn't for me?" she asked.

He could see the disappointment in her eyes. Kevin thought fast, and, after a moment that he feared was still a little too long, asked, "Did you want it to be for you?"

Her gaze flicked to one side. She squared her small shoulders, then looked straight at him, searching for her answer. A year into their relationship, Kevin still never fully knew what she was thinking, but he could tell the wheels were spinning in her head as she struggled to reach her conclusion and find the words to say it.

"Yes," she said. "Don't you?"

He looked into her big, brown eyes, and felt his heart thumping against the inside of his chest. What did that ring mean to him, anyway? What did she?

She reached out and gently took his hand in hers, and he felt the roughness of the calluses on her fingertips. It had been long enough that he knew he'd never get used to the feeling he got when she locked eyes with him.

But he thought it might be worth it to spend his life trying anyway. "I do," he said, and he did.

[ratralsis]

7. The Barbecue

Table of Contents

Kevin pulled the van into the long driveway. Its tires glided smoothly along the blacktop, and he parked in front of the spacious attached garage. He followed Marigold around to the rear of the house, noticing a faint yet tantalizing aroma. Henry was there, wearing an apron and a mesh cap, cooking hamburgers on a small grill.

A middle-aged man with a round, cheerful face and an equally round, cheerful physique, Henry seemed to have aged quite a bit since the day of the photo Marigold had shown him. Kevin had expected him to be taller, but realized that he'd merely seemed tall compared to the teenage version of the petite woman he'd arrived here with.

Henry lit up at the sight of his daughter. "Hey, kiddo!" He called out to her, waving with a spatula in his right hand. "I figured I'd get everything set up and start on dinner before you got here. Hope you brought your appetites."

"Hey, dad," Marigold said, unusually warmly, and she walked over and gave him a hug as though they did this every day. He hugged her back with one arm, keeping the hand with the cooking utensil in it clear of her. "It's good to see you."

Kevin lifted a hand in a half-hearted sort of wave, then turned it into a gesture to the grill. "You didn't need to do all this," he said.

"Maybe not, but I was looking for an excuse to fire up the grill anyway. Feels a bit sad to set it up and cook for myself." He set down the spatula, removed the bulky grilling glove from his right hand, and, with another glance at the sizzling burgers to make sure they weren't going anywhere, took a step towards Kevin. He wiped his now bare hand on the apron and stuck it out in front of him. "You must be Kevin."

"Um, yes, sir," Kevin said, and shook it. "And you must be Henry Spade."

Henry beamed. "That I am," he said. "I imagine you've heard more about me than I have about you. Marigold did mention that you're an accountant, if I recall?"

Henry turned to the grill, leaving Kevin standing several feet away by himself. Kevin wasn't sure where he was supposed to stand. He decided that perhaps he should follow and watch Henry work.

"Next week," Kevin said, and cleared his throat. "I start my first job next week. Just graduated."

"Very nice," Henry said, genuine appreciation in his voice. "What kind of accounting? Corporate? Public? Government? Forensic?"

"Corporate, I suppose," Kevin answered. "I'll be working on financial reports for the company, or at least that's the impression I got from the interview."

Henry nodded, his eyes on the beef patties. "I don't actually know anything about accounting," he admitted. "Except the buzzwords."

"Fair enough," Kevin said, with a slight laugh. "I don't know anything about, um, lawyering."

Henry pointed at Kevin with the spatula. He was really waving that thing around a lot, Kevin thought. "That is the right word for it, so you're ahead of some folks," he said, and gave another nod. "So are you a burger man or a hot dog man?"

"Oh, er," Kevin said, and glanced to Marigold. She seemed cheerful, as far as Kevin could tell, but she offered no help to him as he struggled with this difficult question. "Either's fine."

"Hot dogs for Kevin, then," Henry said. "Listen, while I finish up here, why don't you two bring your stuff up to your room for the night?"

Kevin mumbled a quick goodbye, then went and grabbed their bags from the van. Once again, he found himself following Marigold as she guided him through unfamiliar territory. She went inside through the garage and up a flight of stairs to a room in a long, dimly lit hallway. He craned his neck to look around as he made his way through the unfamiliar house, but his head was swirling with too many different thoughts to focus on what he was looking at until he set everything down in what he realized must have been her old childhood bedroom.

"Not much in here, is there?" he asked. The walls were bare, with a blackout curtain drawn over the lone window that would have looked out over the yard. He could faintly hear Henry from here. A bunk bed was tucked away in one corner, and a pair of desks stood against the wall on his left. A large dresser and a closet were the only other things he could see.

"I took everything when I moved out," Marigold said, looking around. She slid the toe of her sneaker along the thin, aging carpet, looking down at it, tracing some kind of pattern that existed only in her memory. "No sense leaving behind anything I could use, right?" She took a deep breath, and Kevin found himself unconsciously mirroring the action. It earned him a lungful of dust from a room that hadn't been disturbed in several years. Marigold sighed and stared at the desks, a faraway look in her eyes.

"Makes sense," Kevin said, eager to return to more practical matters for now. "So, do you want to sleep on the top or bottom bunk? Which one used to be yours?"

Marigold put her arms around his neck and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. He bent down to allow her easier access. "Nobody's sleeping on the top bunk," she said.

Kevin eyed the twin-sized mattress. He wondered if the blankets on it had been changed since Marigold had moved out. They must have, he decided. "Might be a little tight," he said. "Two adults on that."

"We'll make it work," she murmured into his ear. She released him and began to leave. "Let's go eat."

Before long, all three were gathered at the table in the dining room, the sliding glass door to the back yard letting in the evening light as they made small talk and finished the meal that Henry had prepared for them. Kevin didn't have much experience with charcoal grills, and, judging from how eagerly Marigold had devoured multiple hamburgers, he wondered if he needed to learn.

"I saw that piano in the other room," Kevin said, which was true, but he hadn't had a chance to examine it. "Do you play?"

Henry laughed. "No," he said. "There's not a musical bone in my body, I'm afraid." He turned to Marigold. "All that talent came from Emily's side of the family. You still practice, right, kiddo?"

Marigold tilted her head from side to side in a noncommittal sort of gesture. "I have a synth at home, but I can't fit a real piano in my apartment."

"I wondered," Henry said. "I listened to your last album, but I didn't know how much of it was you doing the instruments, or if you had some help."

Marigold blushed. "Seriously, dad? You still listen to all my music?"

"Sure!" Henry said, leaning back and placing a hand on his chest, pretending that he was offended by her accusation. "You're easy to find online."

"Gotta be, in her line of work," Kevin said, with a wink in Marigold's direction.

"Really?" Marigold said, looking between the two of them. "You're teaming up on me, now?"

"I can't help it, I'm your father," Henry said. He pointed at Kevin. "I don't know what this guy's excuse is."

"Okay, well," Marigold said, sliding her chair back. "I'm stuffed, and we had a long drive getting here. We can chat some more in the morning, when we're not so tired. Want some help cleaning up?"

"I'll get it," Kevin said. "I'd feel bad not helping out after getting both free room and board for the night."

"Alright," Henry said. "Kiddo, why don't you go make yourself at home while us boys take care of things here?"

Marigold gave Kevin an uneasy look. "Go ahead," Henry said. "I'll behave, I promise."

Marigold stood and left Kevin alone with Henry. They sat in silence for several seconds, before it became too much for Kevin to bear. "So, um, I want you to know that I'm really serious about Marigold." Henry said nothing, so Kevin felt that he needed to elaborate further. "I really love her a lot."

"Of course you do," Henry said. "Why would I possibly think otherwise?" He stood and started piling plates and silverware into a stack to bring into the kitchen. Kevin did the same and followed after him.

The expansive kitchen matched Kevin's expectations for such a large house. The counters were mostly bare, and all the cupboards and drawers were closed up tight. Every surface shined and radiated a lemon-scented sterility. It seemed Henry didn't use this room much while he was living alone.

"Was there something important you were hoping to learn today?" Henry asked, putting the dishes into the sink and turning on the water. "I'm afraid I can't offer relationship advice. If anything, maybe I should ask you for dating tips. I've got the whole house to myself now, after all."

"I don't think I can help you much there," Kevin said. "I'm mostly following Marigold's lead in that area."

"You want me to tell you about her childhood? She was into fairy tales as a kid," he said, in a wistful tone Kevin hadn't expected. "Liked princesses and storybooks, but I can't imagine that's very shocking."

"Uh, no, thanks," Kevin said. "Marigold's been telling me a little about her childhood on her own lately. I'd feel bad going behind her back and asking about anything she isn't ready to tell me herself."

"Oh? Then how about some folksy platitudes about fatherhood? Like how it was the most difficult and the most rewarding thing I've ever done? That going to the store by yourself to buy tampons is awkward?" His back to Kevin, he began scrubbing the dirty silverware. "That I was happy and sad to see my daughters move out?"

"Marigold told me about Lily," Kevin said, interrupting the flow of cliches. "That she feels responsible."

Henry froze for a second. "She isn't," he said. His voice was flat, now, any sense of wistfulness or humor gone. "It was an accident. I don't know what she said, but, nothing personal, you understand, it's settled, and I don't think there's much to discuss about it."

He pointed to a towel and turned his body without facing Kevin to hand him some forks. Kevin took them in one hand, the towel in the other, and began drying.

"Marigold's never been the same," Henry said. "If I'm being honest, I haven't, either. I don't know what I could have said or done differently, but what I did after burying my daughter was help another to leave me." His shoulders sagged, making him look deflated, and older than he was.

"She told me you kept her room for her if she needed to come back," Kevin said. "That you were nicer to her than she deserved after what happened."

Henry sighed and continued passing Kevin plates and glasses. "No, not if she needed to," he said. "It's still here for her if she ever wants to return for any reason at all, and will be for as long as I'm around. I'm happy she's done well for herself. She's a grown woman, and she can make her own decisions. What she does for a living. Where she lives. Who she loves. It's none of my business to tell her what to do anymore. But I do miss her. I miss them both."

He handed Kevin the last of the dishes and dried his hands on a second towel. He turned and forced another smile. "That's how it works, though. The goal is to see your children leave and be successful on their own terms."

"About that," Kevin said. "Do you know anything about Marigold's biological father? I mean, no offense, but it seems odd to imagine that you married her mom without knowing anything."

Henry's expression flickered, but, with some visible effort from the older man, held strong. "I'm sure Emily knew, or at least had a short list of suspects," he said. "Unfortunately for you, me, and the little lady upstairs, I waited for Emily to tell me when she was ready, and we ran out of time. We met when I was on a trip to England, we hit it off, stayed in touch. She asked me not long after if I could help her get out of her current situation. I didn't ask questions." He gave a vague wave of his hand by way of explanation. "I was young and in love."

He leaned back, placing his hands on the kitchen counter. "Well, I was twenty-five. That might not sound young to you. Anyway, we realized Lily and Marigold were on the way, had a lot of long talks, and got married. When they were born, I saw the two of them, and suddenly, all I wanted was to be their dad, biology be hanged. But, as things turned out, by their second birthday, I'd known the two of them for longer than I'd known their mother." He chuckled at some old memory and shook his head. "I had no idea what I was doing. Was I any good at all as a dad? I don't know."

"I'm sorry," Kevin said, unsure what else there was to say. It wasn't easy for him to relate to someone who'd been both widowed and divorced, lost one child, and seen the other three move out. It felt like he needed to offer some kind of encouragement. He cleared his throat and looked down at the spotless tile floor. "Marigold thinks you are, at least."

Henry nodded, his mouth a tight little smile. "Always nice to hear that. Here's some unsolicited advice from me, Kevin: make the most of it." He clapped Kevin on the shoulder and started to leave. "Nothing lasts for as long as you think it's going to. And now, I'm going to go watch some TV."

Kevin padded his way upstairs to Marigold's room. She had kicked her shoes off and was laying on the bottom bunk, staring up at her phone. She looked his way when she heard the door open.

"Oh, hey," she said, then furrowed her brow, examining his face. "Everything good?"

"Yeah, sure," Kevin said. He rubbed the back of his head, turning to one side, then the other. He stopped himself before he began pacing. "I wanted to ask you about something."

"Oh, no," she sighed, lowering her phone to her stomach. "What'd dad say about me?"

Kevin knelt down beside her. She sat up and looked into his eyes. His heart skipped a beat, but he did his best to resist the effect that her gaze always had on him. "I'm serious," he said. "In the last two weeks, I've realized how much I love spending time with you. I don't want us to go back to living separate lives as soon as we get home."

Marigold paled. "Um, yeah?"

He took her hands in his and swallowed. "Do you want to move in together?"

Marigold let out a heavy sigh of relief, her usual color returning. "I thought you were going to ask me to marry you!" she said, laughing and looking away.

It was Kevin's turn to go pale. He swallowed again, trying to push his heart down to its usual place from where it had leapt into his throat. "Did you want me to?" he asked.

"No, I, sorry, yes, I mean, let me sleep on it," she said. "Maybe we can try living together on a trial basis, but let's not even talk about marriage yet, okay?" She leaned forward and hugged him, still laughing.

Kevin also began to laugh, hugging her back. "Okay, sure," he said.

"We'll need to find a bigger apartment," she mumbled into his shoulder. She pulled away from the hug to kiss him, instead. He leaned into the kiss, and they lost their balance, falling onto the bed together.

There was a knock on the door. It briefly opened, then closed again with a loud click. "Just wanted to let you know, I forgot to mention there's a couple of pies in the fridge if you wanted dessert," Henry's voice, muffled, came through. "You two take your time, though, no rush."

"Oh, great. Did you want any dessert, Marigold?" Kevin asked, before a pillow was shoved into his face.

[ratralsis]

6. The Confession

Table of Contents

"Okay," Marigold said. She looked over their motel room, their home for the last six days. It hadn't been much of a place to live, but it hadn't needed to be. It was where they had slept at night and showered in the mornings, and as far as that went, the cramped space with its stained carpet that didn't bear thinking about and its bed that was barely big enough for the two of them had done its job well enough. After opening and closing all of the empty drawers one last time, she gave Kevin a nod. "I'm pretty sure we got everything packed up in the van."

Kevin scratched the stubble on his chin, and said, in a faux-serious tone, "Almost everything. There's one last thing I still have to carry out."

Marigold cocked her head to one side, confusion spreading across her face. "What's that?"

He walked over to her, bent, put his arms around her, and scooped her off her feet. "The most important thing of all," he said.

"No fair!" Marigold yelped, clasping her hands behind Kevin's neck for support. "You're twice my size!"

Kevin scoffed. "What's unfair here is how pretty you are even in your last clean sweater and no makeup. I'm barely a foot taller than you are. I just work out."

She tried her best to scowl at him, but it wasn't easy for her. "You're a giant, is what you are," she said. "You should be nicer to me. You know I'm older than you, right? Didn't your parents teach you to respect your elders?"

"You're precious cargo, to be handled with love and care until you arrive safely at your destination," Kevin said, walking through the door and to the parking lot. The sun was already high overhead in the clear blue sky. "And besides, from March to June, we're the same age."

"That's not how it--" she began, but Kevin cut her off.

"I just got a degree in how to count," he said, his chest swelling with pride. "I'm starting a new job as a professional counter in nine days, in fact. I tell you as a highly-trained and state-certified expert in numbers that twenty-two equals twenty-two, and that's indisputable."

He pushed the door closed behind him with one foot and carried Marigold, who was blushing furiously, to his van. She craned her neck to look at the windows of the other motel rooms, biting her lip and hoping nobody saw them. The sparkle in her eyes betrayed the fact that, deep down, she was enjoying herself. Kevin placed her down next to the passenger door and planted a quick kiss on the top of her head before she could react. He opened the door for her, using it to shield himself from her. He darted around to the other side, by which time she had leaned across and opened his door for him.

"I talked to my dad last night," Marigold said, buckling her seat belt.

"Yeah?" Kevin asked, climbing in and doing the same. He started the van, and it rumbled to life. "How's he doing?"

"He's fine," she said. "Remember when I said he lived a few hours from me?"

Kevin nodded, still smiling to himself from his little stunt earlier, and pulled out of the motel parking lot. He gently tapped on the steering wheel, watching the traffic.

"I was thinking," she went on. "It would add a day to our trip home, but do you want to meet him?"

The question hung in the air, heavy with opportunities for Kevin to say the wrong thing. He glanced her way. She was facing the window, pointedly not looking at him. "You sure you want to?"

"No," she said, too quickly for Kevin to think it was anything but the truth. "I'd rather you didn't ever meet him, actually. But as much as we've been talking this week about things, this is the best way I can think of for you to get to know more about me." She slid her phone from the pocket of her jeans and unlocked the screen. As Kevin stopped at a red light, she handed it to him.

"I asked him to send me this photo," she said. "It's from our last summer together. Me, him, my three sisters."

"Kim, Kelly, and, um, Lily, right?" Kevin asked, struggling to remember the names of people he'd first heard of a few days earlier. He tried to divide his attention between watching the light and looking at the picture on the phone's screen. "Oh, dang, is that you? Or, wait, which one's you?"

"The one in red, of course," Marigold said, with a rueful laugh. "Lily's the one in yellow. It was always her color. That's dad behind us, Kim on the right, Kelly on the left. Lily and I were seventeen. They were fifteen and fourteen."

"You and Lily were the same age? Were you twins?" That would explain the floral naming theme. The light turned green, and Kevin returned the phone.

Marigold went back to staring out the window. "Yeah," she said.

"What's wrong? They can't be that bad."

"They were great. Really great. Then I left."

"Yeah, you quit school and moved here," Kevin said. "Well, not here. You know what I mean. You told me all about it." He tapped a quick rhythm on the steering wheel to cover his embarrassment.

"You remember a month ago, when I told you about the car accident I was in?"

"The one where you got hurt?" Kevin asked. Confusion crept into his voice. "Was that why you left? Because you totaled the car? Too many medical bills?"

Marigold let out the heaviest sigh he could remember ever hearing from her. He stole another quick glance at her as he checked the side mirrors. She still wasn't looking at him. "I'm going to tell you something," she said, digging her fingernails into the armrest. "And I'm scared of what you're going to think of me when I do."

"Marigold," Kevin said. "I already know enough about you to know that I love you. You mean the world to me, so whatever you want to share with me will only help me know you more."

"Okay," she said, barely reacting to Kevin's words, though Kevin himself was surprised at what a cheesy thing it was to have said. "To you, it's the accident where I got hurt. To me, it's the accident where I killed my twin sister."

Kevin's eyebrows rose of their own accord, and he focused all of his attention on the road. He realized then that that was Marigold's reason for waiting until he was driving to bring this up. She'd had the whole morning to tell him this, after all.

"Um," he said, gathering his thoughts. "I'm sorry, that's a lot to take in."

"Yeah. Do you also remember when I said I wasn't hiding anything from you on purpose?" She took a deep, wavering breath. "That wasn't true."

"Okay," Kevin mumbled, trying to think of anything at all to say. "Okay, then. Better late than never?"

"It wasn't about damaging the car, or the hospital bill," she said, once he'd quieted down. "Dad's always had enough money. He had enough money to take care of us after our mom died. He didn't have to do that, but he did it anyway."

"The four of you?" Kevin asked, uncertain about the legality of a dad not taking care of his kids after the death of their mom.

Another pause. "No, it was just me and Lily then."

Kevin did the mental arithmetic. "Kim and Kelly are your half-sisters?"

"No," she said again. "Stepsisters."

More arithmetic. A possible answer came to him. "Oh!" he said, glad to have solved it. "He's not your real dad."

"Not my biological dad," Marigold corrected him. "He's as real a dad as I've ever had. The only one, even. I never met my biological father. I've never even heard anything about him."

"Okay, so," Kevin said. His concentration was split between driving, listening, and deducing Marigold's family tree. He was sure he needed to keep focusing on driving, so the other two were getting harder and harder. "Look, there's a few ways I can think of for that to work, can you please break it down for me so I can stop guessing wrong?"

"My mom came here from the U.K. eight months before Lily and I were born," she said. "Didn't know she was pregnant. She met Henry, and, a few months later, when it was obvious she was, they got married. There was an ultrasound, they knew how far along she was, did the math, figured out what must have happened. So he knew everything going in, and, a few months later, she gave birth to two girls who obviously weren't related to her husband."

"I didn't want to say anything," Kevin said. "I figured your mom must have been a lot darker than he was. And she had extremely different features."

Marigold laughed, once, and Kevin looked her way once more. She kept on staring out the window as though it were the most interesting thing in the world. "No, my mom was the same color I am. She died a few months after she had us. Childbirth wasn't good to her."

Before he could stop it, Kevin heard himself say, "Seriously?" he coughed. "No, of course. Of course you're serious, I mean, not of course she… I'm just going to stop and let you talk, okay?"

"Okay," she said, no trace of amusement or annoyance in her tone. "Henry adopted Lily and me after mom died. His parents helped with babysitting for a year or so, and then he found a second wife. Kim and Kelly were born, one after another. Then, a few more years later, the new wife divorced him, and he raised four girls pretty much all by himself. Probably because he was a highly-paid lawyer by then who was able to hire one of his other highly-paid lawyer friends for the custody hearing, he had us most of the time. Kim and Kelly got to see their mom every other weekend."

"He was a lawyer?" Kevin asked, working through all this new information one piece at a time.

"He still is," Marigold said. "He isn't even fifty yet. Before you ask, yes, that's also why I got off pretty much scot-free after what should've been DUI manslaughter. But I still couldn't stick around after that."

Kevin hadn't been about to ask, but he still filed that away with everything else. "Why couldn't you, then?" he asked.

He saw her clench her fist from the corner of his eye, the knuckles whitening. "Because I killed my father's daughter!" she shouted, and he flinched. "I killed my kid sisters' big sister! I killed the only blood relative I had left, and maybe ever will, now!"

Kevin blinked, utterly out of his depth. He blew a long breath out through his mouth, unable to think of anything to say.

Marigold wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her voice was breaking, but she forced the words out anyway. "How was I supposed to roll into the second half of my Senior year with my crutches and broken family and all the other students who knew what I'd done?"

Kevin briefly considered pulling over.

She took a ragged breath and interrupted Kevin's thoughts. "Dad understood why I couldn't stay. He helped me get my GED, get moved out, get a part-time job. Get my life restarted. Told me that if I changed my mind, I could come back. He was great. He was a better dad than I deserved."

"Don't ever say that," Kevin said. "Of course you deserved it."

"If you say so," she said. There was a long silence as Kevin drove. He tapped the steering wheel a few more times.

"One day out of our way, you said?" he asked. "I'd like to meet him. Your sisters, too."

"They're out of state at college."

"Right, rich dad, makes sense," he said, then forced his mouth shut before another word could make its way out.

Marigold sniffed and wiped her eyes again. She retrieved her phone. "I'll let him know we're coming."

[ratralsis]

5. The Convention

Table of Contents

Marigold sat alone at their table, smiling at the few people walking by. She wore a plastic badge on the breast of her long-sleeved red t-shirt, her name written in black marker on it. Kevin worked his way behind the row of tables, one arm raised to keep his tote bag from bumping into anything. He mumbled apologies to the other vendors and tried not to step on anything as he stumbled his way back to the empty chair next to his girlfriend.

Stashing the bag between his legs under the table, he plopped down. He bent and retrieved one of the two bottles of soda from within, and handed it to Marigold. He scanned the convention floor, seeing far fewer people milling about than he'd expected. "Kind of slow, isn't it?" he asked, hardly above a whisper. With so few people around, the background levels of conversation were quiet enough that it was all he needed to be heard. He unzipped his hoodie, his second-favorite of his three purple ones, and slipped it off, exposing his own name badge. He draped the garment over the back of his chair. Wearing his favorite seemed too risky, in an environment where it might become stained or torn.

"It's only the first day," she said, unscrewing the cap of the plastic bottle. "It'll pick up later, especially after my show. And even if someone only takes a postcard, they'll look at it later when they're home unpacking, and they'll look me up then. Then they'll tell their friends, and they'll look me up, too, and tell their friends, and so on. Compound interest, right? You know all about that."

He stopped himself before saying the first reply he thought of, and went with a more diplomatic one. "Yeah, I get the idea." He looked at the posters, pins, and CDs at the table, then back over his shoulder at the unopened cardboard boxes that contained more of the same. His shoulders ached at the memory of unloading them from his van and carrying them here. "Have we sold any CDs yet?"

"It's more about the posters and stickers, really," Marigold said, keeping a straight face. "You can't stream a signed poster to hang on your wall or a sticker for your laptop. Even you haven't bought one of my CDs."

He coughed and looked away. "Hey, are we even allowed to eat at our table?" he asked, changing the subject. "I put the sodas in my bag before showing the guy at the door my vendor badge, in case we aren't."

Marigold turned her chair in place so that her back was to the table. "Maybe." She leaned forward and retrieved the insulated lunch box they'd packed in one of their merch boxes, unzipped it, and withdrew a plastic-wrapped gas station deli sandwich. "I'd rather not bother asking someone at this point. Let's eat one at a time so one of us can still talk to customers. If it turns out we can't, it's protein bars and fifteen-minute lunch breaks outside one at a time, I guess."

"Got it," Kevin said, his lips a thin line. His turn to eat would come later, it seemed. "I guess we won't have a lot of time after the hall closes each night to do much."

Marigold unwrapped one end of her sandwich and took a bite, her face scrunched up in concentration. Kevin idly tapped his fingers on the table as she chewed, trying to pass the time without hurrying her. He nodded at someone walking by, who looked at their posters and kept walking.

"It's only like nine hours a day," she said, after several seconds. "There are panels and stuff all night. It literally doesn't end, you can check the schedule we got that lists it all. My show tomorrow starts at eleven and goes for an hour, and then, if I'm lucky, I'll be signing stuff and talking with fans for another hour after that. We'll get a few hours of sleep every night and pound caffeine all day if we have to. It's one week. We'll be fine."

"I guess," he sighed, bouncing a knee up and down. "Somehow I feel like we're both busier and less busy than I expected at the same time. How much did it cost you to rent this table, anyway? And how long ago did you reserve it?"

"Don't sweat those kinds of details. I'll make what the table and the motel cost. If not during this week, then over time as I get new long-term fans. And the reservation was a while ago." Kevin stole a glance and saw that she was making serious progress on that sandwich. Even when she was talking, she was a fast eater.

"A while ago?" he asked, knowing he should have bitten his tongue again as soon as the words left his mouth. "Before you asked me about driving you last month? How much before?"

Marigold tipped her head back and groaned. "Oh, come on," she said, rolling her eyes. "Who cares? And I'm glad I did ask you, it's been great. You've been super helpful."

"Helpful?" he asked, sliding his elbows forward on the table and turning his head to look at her. "You know that when we're done here, I have to get to our room to check my laptop, right? Hit all the job sites? Contact all the recruiters? Send out applications and resumes for every opening I can find? That's supposed to be my job right now, not loading and unloading boxes and driving across the country."

"And this is my job right now," she said, and washed down the last of her sandwich with some soda. "I'm sorry it isn't as fun as you hoped, but I would have expected you, of all people, to get that not all jobs are fun all the time."

Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, you're right. But I feel like there's always something you aren't telling me."

She arched an eyebrow and looked sideways at him.

"Like, what's your favorite color?" he asked, dropping his palms onto the table.

Marigold pinched the front of her t-shirt between two fingers and held it up. "Red. What are you talking about?"

"Okay, okay, that was a bad example. I've been thinking about things a lot lately. You and me. Us." He slumped forward even further, feeling he'd lost the argument before they'd even had one.

"Things are great between us." She paused and looked over her shoulder at the back of his head. "Aren't they?"

"Sure," Kevin said, without a moment's hesitation. "They are. They really are. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. But what about in six months? Or a year? When I'm working a nine-to-five desk job somewhere at some soulless corporation as an accountant?"

"If anything, won't it be easier than us trying to work around your college schedule?" Marigold asked.

"I mean I need to start thinking about the future. As much as I love you, I keep thinking there's so much I don't know about you. Don't you think that this proves it? You're telling me that there's this whole other part of your life I had no idea was there, that you've been working on planning this trip entirely in secret from me for I don't even know how long!"

"Are we having this argument right now? Here?" She reached into the lunch box and pulled out the second sandwich. "Look, you're hungry. Eat this and you'll feel better."

With a grimace, he took the sandwich from her outstretched hand. She turned her chair a hundred and eighty degrees, and he did the same, so that she was now the one manning the table while he discreetly ate his lunch. "Yeah, probably," he said, hunched forward, elbows on his thighs, peeling off the damp plastic. "But listen, we're going to be together more this week than we ever have before this. Can you please try to talk to me more? Like, tell me about your family?"

"That's kind of a weird thing to ask," she said from the side of her mouth as she looked pleasantly at the convention-goers in general. "How would it make you feel if I asked you for your parents' names out of the blue?"

He bit into the soggy bread and lukewarm meat and cheese, chewing on both it and the question, feeling like a feral animal as he hurriedly ate in this position. "It's not weird to ask that. They're Kevin and Mary."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Marigold's look of shock, and then she laughed. "You're kidding, right?" When she glanced at him and saw how confused he was, she went on. "You're not kidding? Your parents' names are our names? That's messed up."

"My mom is Mary. It's not short for Marigold, and I've never once shortened your name, either. It's from the Bible! The most common woman's name in the country! And her mom, Maria, has the most common woman's name in the entire world!" He took a swig from his soda, the bubbles in the sugary drink filling his nose. "And my dad's Kevin Stiles Senior, obviously. What else would he be called?"

"You're Kevin Junior?" she asked, her big eyes going even wider than usual. "And you're worried that I'm the one keeping things from you?"

Kevin moaned and rested his forehead on the palm of one hand. "It's not a secret," he said. "It was never a secret that I was hiding from you. I must have never mentioned it before, that's all."

"Right, same as me." She focused her attention on a random passerby and beamed her most charming grin at him, then turned to Kevin. "I'm not hiding things from you on purpose, you know that, right? It's fun being with you, and when I'm having fun, I don't want to be a downer and talk about my crappy childhood. Unless you thought that it was a happy home life that led to me moving to the city to become a freelance musician? And as for this convention and not telling you that whole plan ahead of time, between recording, streaming, performing live, and running an online store, I have four part-time jobs that I do to make ends meet. The same way you don't tell me all about how you, I don't know, learned how to file taxes, or about every person you drove around in a given day, or whatever, I do my job and then I keep my work life and personal life separate."

Kevin stared at the stacks of cardboard boxes in front of him, crammed a fourth of his sandwich into his mouth, and said nothing.

"Let's talk more about this later when we're alone, okay?" she asked, a tinge of desperation in the words.

He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. "Alright." He finished off the sandwich, took a few more swallows from his soda, cleaned his mouth and hands with a napkin, and returned his chair to its original position. "I really do love you, you know that, right?"

"Of course I do," she said. "And I love you, too."

Still facing forward, he put an arm around her waist and pulled her sideways, closer to him. In the same motion, he swiftly turned his head to plant a light kiss on her cheek. "I know you do," he said, and he did.

[ratralsis]

4. The Sunrise

Table of Contents

Kevin awoke shortly before dawn, as always. He took a moment to take in the unfamiliar surroundings and get his bearings. Once he remembered where he was, an idea struck him. He sprang out of bed, threw on his clothes from the previous day, and shook Marigold awake. She moaned and lifted her head from her pillow.

"Hey, good morning," he whispered, as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and squinted at him. "Hurry up and get dressed, I have an idea of something I think you'd like to see."

He was a blur as he dashed around their cramped room, grabbing their jackets from where they'd been hung up. He pulled on his own and handed Marigold hers as she stretched and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She mumbled a "good morning" to him and he helped her into her jacket. She stepped into her sandals, still wearing the sweatpants she'd worn to bed the night before. He took her hand and led her out of their room and into the corridor.

"We left home a little later yesterday than I expected, and we got here so late that we missed it," he began to explain, the words rushing out of him in a single breath. "But when I saw that patio near the entrance where folks were eating dinner, I thought, man, the sunset over that lake's gotta be amazing."

"Okay," Marigold mumbled, her voice thick with sleep. She nodded, or perhaps she was struggling to keep her head up, Kevin wasn't sure.

"Then when I woke up a few minutes ago, I thought, well, we can still see the sunrise, right?" He bounced as he walked, holding his girlfriend's hand, thinking of how exciting their first sunrise together would be. Though they'd been together now for five months, they'd never both gotten up together at the same time like this before. This was his big chance to make a special memory for them both.

"Sure," she said, rubbing her eyes with the back of her free hand. "We can do that."

They made their way down to the lobby and opened the sliding glass door to the wide patio. The fresh air carried the scent of spring, and of the grass, and the lake, filling Kevin's lungs and invigorating him. The sun would rise over the hills instead of the lake, of course, but that was alright. Kevin guided Marigold, who stumbled a bit on the wooden planks of the patio, to one of the benches and sat beside her.

She leaned back and scanned the cloudy sky overhead. "Is it about to rain?"

Kevin chuckled. "Probably not," he said, slipping an arm around her small frame. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the way the faint orange light of pre-dawn touched her long black hair, hanging loose around her shoulders and down her back in soft waves. It shimmered as though it were almost glowing.

She noticed him looking at her and turned toward him. "Are we almost done?" she asked, half-yawning. He hesitated, looking into her warm brown eyes. Even now, being this close to such a beautiful woman still gave him pause. He wondered if he'd ever get used to it. If he hadn't after this long, he probably wouldn't.

"Let's enjoy the moment," he said, and made a sweeping gesture with his free hand. "We've got all this space to ourselves." It was too early for breakfast, and there were no others outside to bother them or interrupt this magical event.

She placed her head against his shoulder and let out another long yawn, cuddling against him and relaxing.

Though he appreciated her closeness, he winced at her lack of enthusiasm. This wasn't going at all the way he'd hoped. Hindsight told him that Marigold had never been a morning person. The kind of places where she was used to performing were open past midnight, and few wedding receptions started in the morning. This sudden shift in schedule must have been hard on her, and here he was, dragging her out of bed to look at the sky. He could hear birds singing behind him as though mocking him.

The sun was halfway over the horizon, casting its warm light onto them both. Kevin took in the sight and rubbed Marigold's shoulder, holding her close to him. In the cool outdoor air, her warmth had a greater effect on him than the sun's. As the sky lit up on their first uninterrupted day together, he felt closer to her than ever. Despite the inconvenience he'd forced onto her, he hoped she felt the same.

"I thought we could take some time this morning to talk, you know?" he whispered. "Since we decided to take this trip together, I've been thinking a lot about, well, us. I feel like all we talk about lately is work stuff. My job search, your next show, all the planning for the trip. I want to get to know you."

When no response came from the woman leaning on his shoulder, he decided to press on. "Obviously, I know you. I wouldn't be here with you if I didn't know you. We've been together almost half a year. I mean, where did you grow up? Do you have any brothers or sisters? What's your favorite color?"

He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts, the hazy sunlight shining through the thin clouds onto him. "What other hidden scars do you have? I want you to be a part of this life I'm establishing for myself. And I want to be part of yours, too, if you'll let me."

He waited again for her to answer. Marigold began snoring softly.

Kevin bit his lip and watched in silence as the sun became fully visible on the horizon.

[ratralsis]

3. The Web

Table of Contents

"Wait, in five weeks? The middle of May?" Kevin asked around a mouthful of diced chicken and onion. He coughed, then took a drink of water to wash it down. "I graduate then. I invited you to the commencement and everything. My parents are going to be there."

"I know, I know," Marigold countered, poking at the last bit of a green pepper on her plate. She was always a faster eater than he was. Or maybe he spent too much time talking between bites. "But we wouldn't have to leave until a few days after that, right? So it should be fine. You can do both things!" She lowered her chin and looked up at him, her eyes wide in a puppy-dog stare.

"Hrm," Kevin shoveled the last of his own food into his mouth. He didn't feel much like trying to savor it any more. He stood and held out a hand, and she dutifully passed him her plate and silverware, which he took to the sink.

Marigold, he had learned since his first visit, did not cook for herself, and lived mostly on takeout and frozen meals that she heated up in her microwave. That was a travesty, as far as Kevin was concerned, and so he had taken it upon himself to come to her place at least twice a week with ingredients for them to have a home-cooked meal together. This evening, it had been a traditional Mexican stir-fry recipe that his grandmother had taught him. It was one of his favorites, but now his stomach was trying to tie itself into a knot as he contemplated Marigold's request.

"Even if you say we can do both," he said to her over his shoulder as he loaded up her dishwasher, "I was going to go home over that weekend with my parents, spend a few days visiting old friends. Not to mention that I have to focus on my job search. What if somebody asks me to start the next week?" Marigold was still pouting at him. He averted his gaze. Prolonged exposure to that was lethal to his willpower, and she knew it. If he looked at her for too long, she could get him to agree to anything.

Some distance might help him to stay strong. He walked past her to the loveseat in front of her television, settling himself into its soft, worn cushions. Marigold joined him and leaned into him, her smaller frame nestled under his raised arm. "Then you tell them that you need three weeks, what's the big deal?" she pleaded with him. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, and it's not like I know anybody else who can do it."

He groaned. "Did you ask?" When Marigold reacted with silence, he continued. "Anybody else, I mean. Did you ask anyone before you came to me with this big of a favor?"

"Yes," she said simply. "I did."

"Who else did you ask to drive you two thousand miles and back?" he said, feeling an edge creep into his voice and trying to stop it.

"Nobody you know," she said. "It doesn't matter. I have other friends, Kevin." He turned his head and looked directly into her eyes, his annoyance at the obvious lie allowing him to endure the power of her eye contact. Her gaze flicked to one side, then to him.

"Okay, fine, yes," she admitted, lifting her hands a few inches from her thighs and letting them drop. "You were the first person I asked. Can you blame me for that? You're the one guy I know with a big enough car, and you're obsessed with working on it, so I know it can handle the trip. And, I don't know, I thought it might be fun to spend two and a half weeks together, the two of us, doing something important to me."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "This is important to me. I wanted it to be important to you, too."

He sighed and leaned back on the sofa, pulling Marigold with him, and they sank into its many cheap cushions. He turned and put his other arm around her, hugging her. "Of course you're important to me. But this is the first step of my career, and I have to be careful of any missteps. Gaps in my resume from when I graduate to when I start my first job are going to look bad, and I have to start repaying my loans as soon as possible."

"It's three weeks! You're gonna be an accountant for the next, what, fifty years?"

"Okay, I know you think you're kidding, but that hits pretty close to home," he said. He closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. "Look. Maybe, I don't know, I'll bring my laptop, keep sending out resumes as much as I can and checking my email when we stop somewhere at night. I can do interviews over the phone, I guess. Lots of people take some time off after graduation. Nobody I know, but probably some people do."

Marigold craned her neck to lightly brush her lips against his cheek. "Yes, exactly!" she said. "See? There's no downside. It's not like anybody's gonna ask you to start working the day after Memorial Day, right? There's gotta be a little flexibility there."

"Considering how many people graduate compared to how many entry-level jobs open up every year, not really," he said, feeling his stir-fry turn into a heavy lump in his stomach as he resigned himself to this new fate. "Still, if this really is once-in-a-lifetime for you, I'll figure something out. I can't exactly force my girlfriend into using a less reliable car to get all the way out there and back while I sit at home pretending everything's fine."

"You will not regret it, I promise," she said, and gave him another kiss. He felt himself smile automatically, and he reminded himself that he was supposed to be angry. "It's gonna be so much fun. I planned everything out. You can drive for ten hours a day if we take breaks every few hours, right?"

"Maybe?" he said, unsure himself. "I've never done it. Can't we take turns?"

Marigold stared blankly at him, the confusion on her face obvious even to him.

"Like, I can drive in the mornings. Then you can, um, drive after lunch?" He trailed off as Marigold kept staring at him.

"Kevin, I don't drive. You know that." She said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"What I know is that you don't have a car," he said. "Your driver's license is valid, though, right? I've seen you show ID before."

"Legally, I can drive," she said. "But I haven't done it in a few years. And I've certainly never driven a van."

"It's not that hard, especially once you're on the freeway." The look on her face made it clear to him that that wasn't the point, and his plan involving teaching her how to drive a van died before he'd had a chance to finish figuring it out.

"I don't drive," she said again. "It's not up for discussion."

"I don't get it, though. Why not?"

Letting out a weary sigh, Marigold distanced herself from him, his arms falling limply away from her. Her gaze drifted away. "It's a long story. I don't really like talking about it."

He inched closer to her, partly closing the gap she'd made between them, but he didn't try to hug her again. He felt like he towered over her even from a seated position, and he didn't want to seem intimidating. "At this point, I feel like I've known you long enough to deserve to know, don't I? You're asking me to spend, what, sixty, seventy hours driving you around without offering to help with it at all?"

She crossed her arms over her stomach and looked away from him. "Okay, fine," she said. "But you gotta keep this between us, okay?"

"Who would I even tell?"

She let out a frustrated sigh as she squeezed her eyes shut, her brow furrowed. "Humor me," she said, then looked at him again. When Kevin obediently stayed quiet for several seconds, she continued. "It was when I was seventeen. Christmas break of my Senior year. I was driving home. It was late, I was drunk, I hit some ice going way too fast and got into a really bad accident. Totaled the car. Lost my license for a while. First offense, I was a minor, it wasn't that long. But still, now I don't drive."

Marigold looked at Kevin, silently pleading for some kind of a response. "That's terrible," he finally said. "Were you okay?"

A bittersweet smile formed on her lips. "No, Kevin," she said. She shifted in her seat, bringing her legs up and under herself so that she was sitting on her knees. With a delicate movement, she lifted her shirt with her right hand to show her stomach. It was nothing he hadn't seen before. Radiating out from her navel was a black spiderweb tattoo, a solid pattern of shades and gradients that went from the bottom of her rib cage to the top of her hipbones. He'd been impressed the first time he'd seen it, but she'd never made a big deal about it. She took his right hand in her left and traced it along her skin.

"You feel that?" she asked. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be feeling, exactly, but he was confident that he wasn't supposed to tell her that he enjoyed touching her. He nodded, instead. "I was pretty messed up in the accident. Critical condition for a while. I don't remember much of my time in the hospital, but it was pretty touch and go."

He bit his tongue. This was heavy stuff. He'd made the right choice in nodding, and continued to be silent as he processed this new information about the woman he cared for so much.

She took a long, shaky breath. "When I turned eighteen, I got this to cover up the scars. I didn't ever want to see them anymore. I wanted something that I put there on purpose. Something big enough to cover it all up. Something beautiful, that I could use to pretend it wasn't there."

"Jesus, Marigold, I had no idea," Kevin said, the words tumbling out of him. "But you're okay now, right?"

"No," she shook her head. "I told you, I'm not. Probably, if I hadn't chosen to get a tattoo, the scars would be hard to see by now. But that's only what's on the outside. The internal scars are still there." Her gaze flickered to his eyes before retreating again. "That's not a metaphor. There's a chance I'll never be able to have kids."

Kevin was at a loss for words, and the room fell silent. He wished there was music playing, at least, but all he heard was the sound of the city through the closed window. He looked down at her stomach, his fingertips still lightly brushing the scars below her navel. Scars that he hadn't known were there until a minute ago. He swallowed. "Ever?" he asked. The question hung heavily in the air.

"I don't know," she whispered.

He withdrew his hand and she lowered her shirt. "I'm sorry," he said.

She laughed once. "What are you sorry for?" she asked. "Nobody's fault but mine that I did what I did. I was a dumb kid and I did a dumb thing and now I get to carry it around with me forever."

He shook his head. "I mean I'm sorry I brought it up like this. That I forced you to tell the story. You said you didn't like to talk about it, but I insisted, and that wasn't right."

"No, you were right, you deserved to know."

"And you deserved your privacy," he interrupted. "And to tell me when you were ready, if ever. Not because you wanted me to do all of the driving to get you to a convention to sell merch and do a few live shows."

She sniffed and rubbed her nose. "So, about that." She looked into his eyes again, blinking away a few tears. "You'll do it?"

Whatever annoyance or frustration he'd been trying to conjure up earlier about the inconvenience of the favor vanished in an instant. "Yeah," he said. "I will."

Her expression lit up, and she sprung forward from her kneeling position on the sofa, hugging him again. "I love you," she said, resting her chin on his shoulder, and he wondered, not for the first time, how caught up in her spiderweb he was.

He closed his eyes and returned the hug. "Love you, too," he said, and he did.

[ratralsis]

2. The First Kiss

Table of Contents

Kevin stood in front of his bathroom mirror. He pulled on a clean shirt and ran a hand through his short, brown hair. He then touched the side of his face, and decided that he could get away with his current level of stubble and put off shaving for one more day. He had another date with Marigold tonight. Were they really dating? Did she consider their lunches together dates? Did only dinner dates count? He tallied up every time they'd seen each other in the two months since they'd met, weighing how many times they'd been on an indisputable date against the times they'd simply hung out somewhere or seen a movie together in the middle of a Tuesday when he didn't have any classes. With their age difference, did she even take him seriously? Did she hang out with a lot of guys she met at bars between sets?

He found himself leaning his hands on the cold porcelain of the bathroom sink, staring into the eyes of his own reflection, when his phone buzzed, shaking him from his thoughts. It was a text from Theo. Kevin had sent Theo a text earlier that night telling him of his plans with Marigold. Maybe Theo was annoyed that Kevin had been spending so much more time with her lately. If he was, he didn't show it. Kevin unlocked the phone and took in the message. "Hey, so what's with Marigold, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" Kevin hammered out the text as questions hung in his mind.

The response was immediate. "I mean the name, like, where is 'Marigold' from? What is she? Just curious."

Goddammit, Theo. Kevin sighed and counted to ten before he wrote back. "I don't know. Light brown? I thought you meant is she my girlfriend."

He'd no sooner put his phone into his pocket than it buzzed again. He shook his head and fished it out.

"Sorry for the short notice, but I don't really want to go anywhere. OK if we stay in and get a pizza?"

It took Kevin a few seconds to realize it was from Marigold. "At your place?" Regret washed over him as soon as he hit the send button. Of course she meant her place. She didn't have a car. She'd need him to come get her if she wanted to go to him, and that wouldn't make any sense. He stopped himself from pacing in his little bathroom. There was no sense in getting worked up over asking a dumb question. Theo sent him something, and Kevin marked it as read without reading it and continued waiting.

Marigold's reply was two words long. "That OK?" Kevin didn't know what she thought of him, but this seemed a pretty good sign.

"On my way," he wrote, and he soon was.

In what felt like seconds, he was at her door, adjusting the collar on his shirt and hoping that he looked alright. She greeted him in a baggy sweater, red like most of the tops he'd seen her in, and a pair of sweatpants, also red. Her ponytail was damp, as though she'd recently gotten out of the shower, and he was pretty sure this was the first time he'd seen her without any makeup on. He wasn't sure if it would be rude for him to tell her she looked good without it.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"What? Yeah, of course," she said, eyes widening in surprise. "Just kinda tired. It was a long week. I didn't want to put makeup on and get all dressed up to go out. Figured we could stay in and play a game or watch a movie and eat here, you know?"

"Long week?" Kevin asked, stepping inside and unzipping his hoodie. "Lot of shows?"

He looked around, scanning the cozy corners of Marigold's modest apartment. The living room also played the roles of kitchen, dining room, and lounge. The smell of a plug-in diffuser on the counter filled the room with a faint artificial floral aroma unlike flowers that existed in nature. A table barely big enough for two stood at the center, covered with scattered notepads that surrounded a vase of flowers that looked as artificial as the diffuser smelled. A loveseat, complete with multiple cushions, showed signs of heavy use. Across from it, against a wall, a TV stood on a wooden entertainment unit next to a combination CD and record player.

A warm glow was cast by several floor lamps and a ceiling light. The walls were adorned with bookshelves, half-filled with worn novels, knick-knacks, souvenirs, and the rest with CDs and records for the player. A few area rugs covered the floor. Kevin could see fresh tracks from a vacuum cleaner and footprints in the shape of the slippers Marigold was wearing.

Branching off from the living room were three others. One, the bathroom, he assumed, had its door closed. The others had doors carelessly swung open, inviting him to look inside, but the lights were turned off.

Marigold nodded. "Yeah, you wouldn't think a lot of people get married in February, but I played two receptions this week anyway." She gestured to a coat rack for him to hang his hoodie. He did so, and left his shoes next to the door.

Kevin raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Really? I never gave it much thought. A lot of people like having a guitarist at their wedding?"

Marigold burst into laughter, the sound resonating and filling the space. "No, no, not the guitar. I play the harp for weddings. It's more--" she gestured vaguely with one hand, "--magical." She paused as the information sank in, then cocked her head to one side when she saw his expression. "Wait, you didn't know I played the harp? I guess you didn't dive deep into my back catalog, huh?"

"What, like Cupid?" he asked, covering his embarrassment by pretending to pluck at the strings of an imaginary harp.

She shook her head, giving him a warm look. "Not quite," she said, amused. "Come on." She took his hand and pulled him into the larger of the two open rooms.

This was where Marigold kept her instruments: her private music studio. Acoustic and electric guitars of various styles hung in racks against two of the walls. Against the far wall stood a desk with a computer and webcam, with a piano keyboard and some freestanding lights nearby, along with some other equipment he couldn't recognize. Acoustic foam covered most of the walls, and a soft carpet covered the floor, giving the space a distinct feel separate from the rest of the apartment. But the main attraction stood proudly in one corner, effortlessly stealing Kevin's full attention: an elegant grand harp, tall as he was, with a small chair next to it.

Kevin took in the sight. He'd known she was a musician, of course, but he hadn't understood the lengths she'd gone to in order to pursue her line of work. "You play that?" he asked, pointing to the harp. The sound of his voice startled him. All that foam on the walls made a difference.

She grinned her wide grin at him. "I play everything in here," she said. "For about as long as I can remember, I've been learning or practicing something. I've cherished that harp for over a decade now. It's my business partner, my closest friend, and earned enough to pay for the month's rent all by itself just this week."

Kevin took another step into the room, conscientious of where he put his feet and making sure not to collide with any of the other instruments or equipment, one hand outstretched to touch the harp's wooden frame.

"Whoa, careful!" Marigold hurried over, slippered feet silent on the unusual carpet, avoiding bumping anything despite her speed. Kevin wondered if her smaller stature made that easier. He lowered his hand.

"Sorry, but please don't touch that," she said, placing her hand on his arm. "It's not the most fragile thing in the world, but it does weigh eighty pounds, and it's the most expensive thing I own. Have ever owned. I don't like anyone putting a hand on it but me, even experts."

"Ah," Kevin mumbled, moving his hand to the back of his head. "I was just curious. I wasn't going to try to lift it."

"I know," she said, her ponytail swaying with a shake of her head. "But I can't afford to replace it if it breaks. It costs a lot on maintainance alone. All those strings put a lot of pressure on the frame, so I have to do what I can to keep it as long as I can. It's not like how my guitars might last my whole life or my violins that could be passed on to future generations."

Kevin gave the room a second look. "You have violins in here, too?" he asked.

She pointed to one of the smaller racks, with two appropriately small black leather cases. "Two of them," she said. "I guess it's easy to overlook them when that harp is right there."

Kevin glanced down at them. "Oh, yeah, no, I saw those," he said. "I thought those were small guitars or something. Like ukuleles, maybe."

She stared at him for a moment, one dark eyebrow raised. She put her hands on her hips. "Did you really think you were dating a ukulele player?"

Dating. At the sound of that magic word, tension Kevin hadn't realized was in his shoulders left them, and he allowed himself a satisfied smile. "Come on, there's nothing wrong with playing ukulele."

"Nothing at all, except that I don't," she said.

He laughed. "And anyway, so that means we're officially dating after all, does it?"

She blinked, then blinked again. "Aren't we?" she asked, and took Kevin's hand to lead him back to the living room. It seemed the tour of her music room was over.

"I had hoped so," Kevin said, letting her. "But I wasn't sure." She brought him over to the loveseat in front of the television, and they sat down next to each other. The thin blanket she'd placed on it carried a strong smell of fabric softener, as though having been washed within the last day or two. As they settled next to each other, Kevin's heart raced, torn between the fear of misreading Marigold's signals and the longing to express his own feelings.

"What else would you call it? We've seen each other at least once a week for, what, two months now?"

"Yeah, but what if we were just hanging out? You know, as friends?" He soldiered on, realizing even as he said the words how foolish they sounded. "Like you might do with anyone else you met in the middle of a random show at some bar."

"Kevin," she said, in a tone that made clear that she had also realized how foolish he was being. "I'm a young woman, living by herself, and when we meet, things almost always end with you driving me back to my place in your big, unmarked van. Either I'm in love with you, or I'm the most trusting idiot in the world."

"You love me?" he asked, stunned. Marigold nodded, her demeanor unchanging. "Right, yes, I love you too, obviously. But I didn't know that was how you felt." Joy and disbelief surged through his veins. The weight of it threatened to suffocate him. Not only were they definitely dating, she was in love with him? Gosh, he was learning an awful lot tonight.

She let out a long sigh, swung her legs up and onto the loveseat, then laid against his side. Instinctively, Kevin turned towards her, his arms encircling her. She placed her hands on his, which were clasped together over her stomach. "Of course I love you," she said. "It's always effortless, being with you. Like little vacations every time we hang out. It doesn't make any sense. You're an accounting student who moonlights as a rideshare driver. On paper, you've got to be one of the most boring guys on the planet." She closed her eyes, leaning into him.

He considered it. "Well, I can't say I loved hearing that, but yeah, I know what you mean." The smell of her shampoo overrode both the fabric softener and the diffuser. For a moment, all he could focus on was how close she was to him right then.

"Still," he went on. "After two months, we've never even… kissed." She looked up at him, forcing him to look down into those big, beautiful eyes of hers, and he faltered, his last few words trailing off into silence.

She smirked. "Was I supposed to invite you into my apartment after lunch, when we both had work we needed to get to?" she asked. "Or maybe we could have started making out in the middle of that Italian restaurant after eating all that garlic bread? Or had sneaky sex in the movie theater bathroom? Maybe in the back of your van? I didn't think it was that important to you."

Kevin rolled his eyes. She knew he loved that van. He would never risk making such a mess in it. Though, for her, he might make an exception. Actually, no. Not even for her. "Okay, no, it's not, I guess, but maybe a goodnight kiss after I dropped you off here or something? Forget it, okay? It makes sense now, but I needed to hear you say it. I didn't want to be the first one to say it and find out that I'd been misreading things for the last two months." He lifted a hand from her stomach to rub her upper arm, feeling the softness of her sweater and the warmth of her skin through it.

"Would it be weird if I kissed you now?" he asked.

Her smirk widened into her trademark grin. "I think we have about five minutes before the pizza gets here. Gotta find some way to pass the time, right?"

Kevin rubbed the stubble on his chin and narrowed his eyes, looking into the distance, feigning contemplation before he leaned closer to her. "I don't know," he said. "I have two months of missed kisses to make up for. That might not be enough time."

[ratralsis]

1. The First Meeting

Table of Contents

"You should go buy her a drink," Theo said, leaning back in his chair. He laced his fingers together over his stomach, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

Kevin whipped his head around to look at his friend. He opened his mouth, about to deny that he had been looking at her, but closed it. Instead, he looked down at his glass and shook his head. "No way. Are you serious?"

Theo blinked and shrugged. "What's the worst that can happen?" he asked. "She brushes you off? You're no worse off than if you didn't try it, except for the cost of the drink."

Kevin's gaze involuntarily darted to the woman perched gracefully upon a stool at the bar. She was splitting her attention between a small pad of paper and her phone. There was no chance at all that she would have noticed Kevin from where she was sitting. From his vantage point, her profile was visible, framed by her long bangs. She was wearing a plain, form-fitting long-sleeved red sweater and jeans that highlighted the curves of her figure. Her shining black hair cascaded down her back in an ordinary ponytail. Despite the casual attire, Kevin found himself unable to keep his eyes off of her.

"What if she doesn't drink alcohol?" Kevin asked, still looking at her.

Theo sighed a weary sigh, his eyes shifting towards Kevin's glass, empty save for a handful of melting ice cubes. Kevin's fingers tapped lightly upon the chilled surface in an anxious rhythm. Theo leaned forward with a sly smile. "Neither do you," he said. "Offer her a soda, a cup of coffee, or even a cranberry juice."

Kevin wanted to take Theo's advice. Theo was four years older than Kevin, and they had known each other since early childhood, when Theo was the cool older kid Kevin wanted to be like. They were both adults now, but Kevin still looked up to Theo as a source of wisdom. When Theo spoke, he did so with the confidence of one who believed he knew what he was talking about. And in that aura of confidence, it was easy for Kevin to believe it, too.

Still. "Yeah, but then what do I say? I've never gone up to a woman at a bar out of nowhere before. And what if she already has a boyfriend, or she's not even into guys?"

Theo sighed again. "Most people start with their names," he said. "Go from there and see what happens. If she's not interested, she'll tell you so, and you turn around and come right back here. I've done it a hundred times. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. And the times it didn't work, I somehow managed to survive it, didn't I?"

"But--"

"You think you're the first man to ever get shot down at a bar? Heck, you think you're the first one she's shot down? You've been looking at her all night! Go! No more discussion!" Theo glared, then sat back and nodded, satisfied that his point had been made.

Kevin sighed and pushed himself to his feet, his palms clammy with nervous sweat and the condensation from his glass. With deliberate focus, he brushed off the front of his hoodie. He was lucky. Tonight he was wearing his favorite purple hoodie. He owned two others just like it, but this one, he felt, looked the best. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He swept a few strands of sandy-brown hair off of his forehead and made his way across the room, the mingling smells of coffee and alcohol wafting into his nose. Faint acoustic music played from speakers on the ceiling, compensating for the lack of a live performer on the stage, and drowned out the sounds of clinking glasses and soft conversations.

"Hey," he said to the young woman at the bar, his voice catching in his throat and somehow stretching the word into three or four syllables. She looked up from her phone, her dark eyebrows raised. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Oh, hey," she said. She blinked at him. Kevin felt his knees go weak as they made eye contact for the first time. There was something about those brown eyes of hers. "Um, sorry, I don't drink while I'm working. I'm on stage again in ten minutes."

"Maybe a soda, then?" Kevin asked. "Or a coffee?" He put one hand on the stool next to her, unsure if he should sit. He felt his arm, unused to this kind of indecision, wobble. He hoped she hadn't noticed. Was it too late to suggest cranberry juice?

She laughed, then looked him up and down. "Okay, coffee, then. I can't drink something that'll make me burp while I'm singing."

Kevin's lips curled into a smile, a wave of relief flooding through him. He sat down. The cool leather of the stool sent a shiver up his spine. He wasn't sure whether to lean forward or lean back, caught between anticipation and nerves. "I'm Kevin," he said.

"Yeah, I remember," she said. "It was in the app when you came to pick me up. Kevin… 'S'-something, right?"

Oh. Right. "Stiles," he said. "Kevin Stiles. I, uh, figured that since you just loaded in your guitar and got into the back seat and didn't say a lot, you might have forgotten." He shook his head to clear it. He licked his lips, his mouth having gone dry. "Anyway, you're Marigold, right?"

Marigold glanced meaningfully at the little plastic table tent that listed all the live musicians scheduled to play at the bar over the next three months. The name "Marigold Spade" was next to the current date. "Yep, that's me."

Kevin felt his face start to heat up, but he pressed on. "Um, I wanted to say I really enjoyed your music." Very smooth. That would really flatter her.

"Thanks," she said. "If you want to hear more, I've got an Instagram where I share all my upcoming live show dates. And if you're curious about exploring beyond acoustic guitar songs, you can find me on Spotify, where I have pretty much all of my other music." She tapped her pen on her little notepad and looked down at it.

"I'll be sure to do that," Kevin said, getting the hint. "Alright, then, anyway, nice meeting you." He patted his legs and stood up, looking around for the table where he'd left Theo.

"Hold up," Marigold said, raising the hand with the pen in it. "You didn't buy me that coffee yet. And anyway, I said I had ten minutes, remember?"

"Of course," Kevin said, sitting once more. He waved to get the bartender's attention and ordered a cup of coffee. She went back to tapping the notepad with her pen. She had red nail polish on her short fingernails, almost the same shade of red as her sweater. It suited her.

"Did you just think I looked thirsty? Most guys don't offer to buy me drinks unless they want to spend some time with me, you know." She turned, putting an elbow onto the bar to face Kevin more directly. Her ponytail swayed with each movement of her head, and the soft glow of the bar lights reflected in her eyes. She flashed him a wide smile. "I'm guessing you don't have a lot of experience hitting on your passengers."

"Uh, no, I mean, yes, I mean--" Kevin stammered. He'd thought he'd recovered from the earlier eye contact, but now, combined with that open, honest smile she had, the effect was dazzling. "I mean, yes, I wanted to talk with you, but I'm actually in this place because my friend Theo over there invited me. It's a coincidence, I swear. I wasn't trying to follow you around." He gestured to the small table where Theo sat. Theo was checking his phone, ignoring them both.

Marigold's eyebrows went up, and she continued to grin. "Oh, I see," she said. "But you know, it's still probably not professional for you to be talking to me at all. Wouldn't want you getting in trouble for trying to sweet-talk me into giving you five stars. And I already have a ride home, if that's what you're wondering. A friend in my building normally drives me to and from these things. She just couldn't make it here tonight until later."

"Oh, er, I wouldn't, that's…" Kevin straightened his shoulders self-consciously as the bartender arrived with Marigold's coffee, aware of his posture only when he remembered someone else might be looking at him. "That's the kind of thing that'd get me deactivated as a driver. But the odds of us meeting like this were really low, and I really did like your music, and thought you looked nice, that's all."

"Oh, my God," she laughed. "Calm down, calm down. I'm just having a little fun at your expense. I promise I won't report you for trying to bribe me with coffee. You're lucky I like your taste in music. You start driving recently?"

"Uh, yeah," Kevin said, smiling back and relaxing a little. "I turned twenty-one this year, and Theo suggested it as a way to help me make some money while I'm finishing college. This is my first time in a bar this nice, actually."

"Yeah? You liking it so far?" she asked. She sipped her coffee, still looking at him. He felt himself swallow at the same time she did. "Driving, that is, not the bar. The bar's fine. I'm a year older myself, but it feels like a lifetime of doing gigs in bars exactly like this."

"Sure, I like the job okay," Kevin said. "Having a van lets me pick up riders like you who need a bigger vehicle for luggage or instruments or whatever. There's more demand for that than you might think, so it's usually pretty easy to stay busy. Which is good. But still, I only plan on doing it until I graduate and find a full-time job."

Marigold tilted her head to one side, acknowledging his statement without offering an opinion. "There are some advantages to a full-time job," she said. "Though I've never had one myself." She looked at her phone, still sitting on the bar in front of her. "Listen, it's been good talking, but now I'm down to like five minutes before I have to start playing again. Let's talk some more later, okay?"

She downed the last of her coffee in a final gulp. Kevin wasn't sure what to say. "Yeah, sure," he finally managed, voice wavering, a mixture of excitement and uncertainty swirling within him. "I'll… um, get in touch. Can we exchange numbers?"

Marigold smirked. "I'm easy to find online," she said. "Gotta be, in my line of work. Catch you later, Kevin Stiles." She stood up, hopping down from her stool, and extended her right hand.

Kevin stood as well, suddenly embarrassingly aware that, at a hair under six feet, he was close to a foot taller than the woman in front of him. Recovering quickly, he took her small hand in his and shook it. Her hand was still warm from the coffee cup, and felt rough against his. "Nice meeting you, Marigold Spade."

[ratralsis]

Strings: Table of Contents

As the chapters go up, links will go live. That's just how this works. Sorry, mobile readers. I realize this isn't the easiest way to navigate. Maybe, at the end, I'll have one last post that features the whole story.

This is a story called, for now, "Strings." Odds are good that I'll write it again in another few years, like I rewrote it this time about two or three years after I wrote it last time. You might recognize it, if you're an extremely close reader of this blog.

But this is a newer version. It has some differences. It's about 15,000 words long, in total.

The First Meeting

The First Kiss

The Web

The Sunrise

The Convention

The Confession

The Barbecue

The Anniversary

Mini-prequel and mini-sequel, or, why there won't be any prequel or sequel

I don't plan on doing an afterword for this one like I did for the Daisuke story a year ago. This simply is what it is. I suppose I'll answer questions about it if anybody asks, but nobody asked me anything last time and I'm not expecting anybody to ask me questions this time, either.

I don't think that I'm some great writer, but I did my best, and I still hope that you enjoy this story, despite all its flaws.