#rose saying she's glad corey came 😭💗

[hersweetrevenge]

ahhh this is such an interesting chapter, in so many ways !! we all know i'm not an expert, so bare with me while i botch this explanation, but the way the structure really works for the pacing and tone in a pretty unusual way is blowing my mind a little bit 🤯💗 the way we start with corey and his thoughts and feelings and perspective, then there's this build up in tension and narratively as the perspective is switched to be more reader-centric. even though corey isn't even there for the later half of this chapter, his presence feels so overbearing. there's this weird sort of discomfort that comes from so many aspects of your physical work (like the actual words on the page) and the ideas that you're constantly weaving through this story !! i'm so deeply in awe of you 💗

They all feel wrong, everything feels wrong. 

these little mentions of corey's developing taste and personality and interests soothe me so much. and reader giving him the option to be the car dj, where every song is his choice from his collection/playlist, ahhh !! 💗 but then this first taste of his nervous, it runs right through this chapter and is set up so well. i love thinking about our perspective vs. the in-universe perspective. we know exactly why he's so nervous, but in-universe it's so interesting to think about how people perceive him, how his anxiety plays to people who have no idea.

also, this sentence alone works so well !! maybe the repetition? but just the sense of how overwhelmingly big everything feels for him. corey can't have just a "regular" bout of anxiety, it always goes to the upmost extremes for him. he's just going to a party, but everything is terrible.

He feels pathetic, but he misses you when you’re in the next room.

💔 nooo !! but you're so right. it's the abandonment issues, it's the obsessive personality. i love these details so much where you can see it as just someone who is really, really lonely (or has been really lonely and still isn't used to company, who expects people to leave as soon as they arrive) or as some major red flags.

He fights the urge to ask you how many people will be there, a third time. You haven’t given him an answer he can work with... How many people is everybody? On top of the everybody already there.

(i see you 👀 lol) man he's so real for this, this is just anxiety💔 wanted murderer or not lol. i totally feel that corey gets stuck in his little echo chamber, he can't let go of a certain thought -- the need to know how many people will be there, in this case -- but knows he can't keep asking or it'll be suspicious, which just further reinforces his need to know the answer because he needs to know how to not be more suspicious. poor thing.

He knows he sticks out like a sore thumb among all these cool people... He should’ve asked you to pick his outfit or something.

noo !! baby, you're so cool, i promise !! 💔💗 you always get these little character moments so right for him, the way this is really a pretty reasonable thing to be worried about but seems so insignificant to the rest of corey's worries. i feel like it's something that actually comes up a lot for him because he never got the right kind of socialisation, like he plays at being a real person but doesn't feel like one.

ohh but him wishing reader had just picked his clothes for him 💀 something something, stockholm syndrome, boundaries, seeking familiar behaviours even if it's unhealthy, reverting to past versions of himself when things get too stressful. or maybe he doesn't even realise the connection? maybe it feels far enough removed that this time it'd be okay.

Corey wouldn’t trust the bottle she holds out to him if she hadn’t popped the cap right in front of him, but now that she’s here, he does feel a small sense of relief.

!! oh this is brilliant !! the way he's developed such a complex about it, i knew (lies, i thought lol) he'd latch onto the idea of veronica purposely sabotaging him. and even then, when he's so untrusting of her, she's familiar enough that he wants her there.

For some reason Daddy is the one thing from his past Corey tells you about without hesitation

i love, love, love how you write corey thinking about his dad !! the same way that joan will always be momma in his mind, wally is always daddy.

and i love the idea of his dad being this safe point of reference where it is personal, he is absolutely telling the truth when he tells reader something about him, but it's also in that sort of ambiguous space of him never really having known him. maybe it doesn't feel so difficult to talk about when the person he's talking about is half-imagined.

Do they all have to fucking hug you? He feels a little better when you give your chair up to a new addition to the circle and perch on his knees instead, draping an arm around his shoulders and fluffing his hair.

it's not hot that he's so jealous, it's not hot that he's so jealous, it's not hot that he's so jealous it's so fucking hot that he's so jealous 🥵😈 you're right for writing him so jealous, but not in the classic(?) way. he's so scared of losing you, he's so desperate for love and affection that it morphs into this anger of like, why is he always so wanting? why won't the universe just let him have something without having to compete all the time?. he doesn't necessarily want to control you, but things would be so much easier if he could control situations you are in.

They aren’t using enough kindling, and it isn’t getting enough airflow when they set the big log on top, so they just keep snuffing out the whole thing.

corey's internal mean streak 😈 i love when he knows that he knows what he's talking about !! i love when he has even the slightest bit of confidence in his own abilities. how really he knows he could help but it's more than he could bare when he doesn't know the response.

The last time Momma slapped him she didn’t leave a mark, but other times she had. Fucking Doug had knocked the air out of his lungs on the Allen’s front lawn.

commence the joan cunningham hate club meeting. but seriously, i love this detail, joan's specific brand of violence and affection is complex and its so important to recognise that duality. it was never just violence.

i'm also so very intrigued by the way in which violence has weaved its way through corey's life. it starts in insidious but (unfortunately) mundane ways: his momma hitting him, his parents fighting. and then the more intense instances simply stem from that beginning: his automatically violent reaction to jeremy's prank, his own accidental violent crime, the police brutality, his want to turn the welding torch on other nonspecific parts of his life, the casual violence from people who know that no one will give them shit for fucking with the local kid killer, and finally his own intentional violent crimes. tbh, i've never agreed with hcs that suggest he gets beaten up on the reg. just in the street. i think his ostracization is a lot more psychological (or verbal) than that. not that i don't think he's never been shoved around before, but i doubt it happens frequently. but it doesn't need to, not in that way anyhow. seeds of violence have been planted from the very beginning and it culminated in the worst possible breakdown.

where was i going with that? idk, but corey's rationalisation of how he killed the people that abused him first (and he was right to do it) reflects that cycle that in some ways he is trying to break, but also doesn't really know any other way. he knows what happened to him was bad, but it's been so watered down and no one else seemed to care (because ignorance can seem so very uncaring) that it's difficult for even corey to reckon with. why he weighs up what he did vs the song, whether he was really justified. but he knows he did what he had to, just like the protagonists in that song...

If he was all you had then it would be fair.

literally just beat me to death next time lol 😭💔💗 this line is my new epitaph. this is it !! this is everything, boiled down into one sentence. it's not fair that corey has to share you, that he isn't enough when you're enough for him !! i will not go on another spiel about how the way he learnt love was very dysfunctional, because you already know what i'll say lol, but i'm obsessed with how he views relationship dynamics. how he never feels wanted or important or loved enough if there are other people in the way. how he really doesn't have anything (or anyone) else but you but that is enough for him, but only if it's the same for you.

He is the king of the long smoke break. His face is so expressive, sometimes you feel like you’re eavesdropping on his thoughts, but if you’re ever left wondering what kind of mood he’s in, all you have to do is time his absence. 

the switch in perspective here is soooo well done !! it's the perfect moment -- leaving corey on a very tense, unstable moment where we do have some uncertainty about him -- to go to reader and let corey's thoughts simmer in us as her concern grows and radiates this really restless energy.

ohh that is such a good phrase, eavesdropping on his thoughts via his facial expressions !! it's so real, and i can actually imagine feeling bad about it, with how guarded corey is, it feels wrong to be able to read him so easily. but i love how reader learns these habits, knows when he'll be gone for a while and when he'll be back soon. it's a really cool contrast between corey's clinginess and reader's understanding of when he needs to be alone.

“Looking for Corey? You haven’t found him yet?” “No! I keep getting sucked into conversations and shit. Have you seen him?” You don’t like the desperate edge in your voice. 

this whole movement -- from reader starting her search through to finding rose in the laundry room -- is so, so, so good !! there's a real sense of unease and restlessness, we really feel what reader feels. it's like there's a countdown somewhere, and we are begging her to find corey in time -- in time for what? we don't know, but you make us feel that it is deeply imperative for her to find him asap !!

each new interaction has corey's presence hanging over it, and it's such a great metaphor(?) for the broader dynamics of their relationship. these conversations would (mostly) be of interest to reader, with old friends, or about her work, or her career, but corey is (inadvertently) in the way of her enjoying those moments. she loves him, and cares about him and wants him to be happy, but at what point does that start to compromise her own life unfairly? you've worked this idea in a fascinating way, where the necessity of finding him almost does seem to outweigh reader's other connections, until you look again and think, is this sort of tension -- brought on by something that would be pretty minor in regards to anyone other than corey -- not actually a blaring red flag? [the previous paragraph was written by a certified corey lover, who would absolutely kick everyone else to the curb for that precious man lol 💗]

Maybe he found an unlocked bedroom to hide in, or maybe, against the odds, he made a new friend and they’re holed up somewhere discussing fuel pumps or something. 

the way i want this for him so badly !! for a miracle to occur: corey makes a friend. but no, it cannot be 😞 as truly sad as i find it that corey never really got any good chances for socialisation and therefore has had very few strong relationships (of any variety), i do find it incredibly funny that reader is like hmm i hope my weird surly boyfriend made a little friend today, a little buddy to talk about manly car stuff with heehee

That should’ve been the first place you looked, somewhere hidden and familiar he could retreat to.

this !! corey loves familiar. he's been thrown into a new and scary and social experience, i totally believe he'd retreat somewhere safe and quiet when it gets too much. and idk if he did it on purpose, reclining so far back he couldn't be seen, but i do love that his instinct is to hide.

i feel like what happens next is going to be a sick parallel to the halloween party and his, "you threw me in the middle of it" moment. maybe not so accusatory, but his inability to adapt (or choice not to, because we know he can, when he wants to) to any form of social situation is bringing up so many possibilities !! i'm so, so, so excited to see where you go with it 💗

also, me showing up to the annual plymouth records summer solstice bonfire with corey:

edit: ahhh re-read this and i can't believe i overlooked the midwest emo comparison 😭 he's so midwest emo. he's literally the midwest emo. working class job, failed romance, juvenile perception of drug use, never escaping your hometown even when you leave. ugh.

Clean Again

Chapter 13: LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR read on AO3 | previous chapter | tumblr chapter index make sure to check AO3 for this fic's playlist and other extras! there is also a (smutty) deleted chapter that was replaced by this chapter that can be read on tumblr and AO3 The Annual Plymouth Records Summer Solstice Bonfire general warnings for this fic - angst, fluff, smut (MDNI), canon-typical violence, canon-typical gore contents/warnings for this chapter - drug and alcohol consumption, angst, mentions of abuse 5,115 words @rebel-blue @heartrot666, @wolvesandvampires @cordelium @toxicanonymity @multifandom--mess @hersweetrevenge @futurewife @yllcm @ethanhoewke

Corey snaps the headphone jack spooling from the cassette converter into his phone. It was your idea for him to be the DJ, to help him relax on the long drive to Gordon’s uncle’s house. He appreciates the suggestion, but it isn’t helping him at all. He struggles to make it more than 45 seconds into a song without skipping it. They all feel wrong, everything feels wrong. Every fiber of his being is screaming that this is a very fucking bad idea. His hands tremble as he taps skip over and over.

You put a sympathetic hand on his thigh when the tight turns in the narrow country lanes don’t call for both of them to grip the wheel. When you brought the bonfire up a few days after Rose spilled the beans, you told him you knew the party was exactly the kind of thing he despised, that you weren’t going to ask him to come. Your intentions were to just tell him you had to go, and let him make his own choice to ask to come if he wanted. He was relieved, and thankful that you weren’t going to make him say no directly. Until you delivered your Final Smash. I’ve already accepted I’ll just have to miss you the whole time. Game fucking over. Corey misses you constantly when you’re not around. He feels pathetic, but he misses you when you’re in the next room. He assumed you’d miss him if he was gone forever, and hopes you miss him during the three days apart you maintain less and less consistently. He never dreamed that you would miss him for one single day, surrounded by other people. He texted Will the moment you left the room, before he could come to his senses. 

Eventually he gives up on DJ duties, turning the radio off to focus on the rumble of the road and the rattle and slosh of the coolers weighing down the trunk. He fights the urge to ask you how many people will be there, a third time. You haven’t given him an answer he can work with. Not that many people during the day, just all the employees and their partners or whoever their guests are. That doesn’t sound like not that many people to Corey. That sounds like a lot of fucking people. He can think of at least six of your coworkers by name, plus your boss and his wife and at least one kid. He’s never around that many people at once. He runs his errands at midnight to make sure he’s never around that many people. When it gets closer to sunset, we build the fire up bigger, and that’s when everybody shows up. Everybody! How many people is everybody? On top of the everybody already there.

When you arrive there are several cars and trucks parked in the grass away from the house. He doesn’t recognize Veronica’s Jetta among them. He isn’t sure if that makes him feel better or worse. She may be the harbinger of his demise, but she’s also one of the only people who will be here that he’s met. On this night, if not any other, she’s an enemy he might prefer to keep closer. He wishes he knew what Rose drives. 

“We can sit here for a minute if you want,” you tell him as you put the car in park. “As long as you need to.”

Corey is deeply grateful for the way you try to anticipate his needs, but no amount of sitting in the car will prepare him for what he's about to endure. 

“Let’s just go,” he says.

You hold his hand as you walk across the yard. You stop at the top of the step to give him a kiss before you let yourself in the front door. The entrance to the house is insane, the whole foyer open to a loft above. A drippy chandelier dangles down in the center. The massive first floor is empty, except for a commotion in the kitchen. Several people all lean against the kitchen counter in a big circle, talking and laughing, already a couple beers in. You recruit a few helpers to carry your coolers to the back yard. So many of them come out to your car that Corey ends up empty handed. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he stays close to your heels like a shadow, right behind you as you make your rounds to say hi to everyone, present Drew with your contributions for the barbecue, and finally settle in a lawn chair in front of the unlit pile of wood set to become tonight’s fire.

He pulls another chair as close as he can to yours, so your toes and elbows touch. He can’t help but bounce his leg, even as he worries it makes him more conspicuous. He knows he sticks out like a sore thumb among all these cool people. They’re all dressed like they got a memo he missed, in black shorts that used to be pants and black band shirts that used to have sleeves. Corey feels out of place and overdressed. He should’ve asked you to pick his outfit or something. Now everyone he meets tonight will remember him as the guy who was dressed like he was at work. Even his boots are wrong, Red Wings when everyone else is in Docs and Timbs and cowboy boots. 

More people arrive, entering the backyard in small groups. A couple of guys lumber onto the back porch with big speakers on stands. Veronica appears with three beers in hand, announcing herself with the same lilting “Hey y’all!” as she did at Krelborn’s. Corey wouldn’t trust the bottle she holds out to him if she hadn’t popped the cap right in front of him, but now that she’s here, he does feel a small sense of relief. She wanders away when Shelly comes into the yard. You wave from where you’re seated and Corey’s thankful you don’t make him choose between sitting by himself and trying to fit into that conversation. He doesn’t remember her from the pub until you mention it. Then a hazy vision of her setting water in front of him surfaces. You look like you could use that, she said. A burst of static erupts from the speakers, causing everyone around to jump. A man sticks his head out the window and shouts “Sorry, y’all!” Then music flows from the speakers, starting small but growing quickly as the man inside adjusts the volume.

“Country music?” Corey asks, leaning even closer into you.

“Don’t judge,” you say. You sound like you have to defend country music often.

“Never. I’m just surprised. Just cause everybody here is…” He shrugs. You know what he means.

“Well you are in Georgia. Rednecks and punks have a lot of overlap around here.” You gesture around the yard, indicating everyone in attendance. “There’s even a whole country-slash-punk crossover genre I should introduce you to.”

“I’ve listened to country music, some. My dad liked Merle Haggard. I found some of his tapes, when I found the ring.”

For some reason Daddy is the one thing from his past Corey tells you about without hesitation, even as anxious as he is right now. He just finds himself spontaneously telling you the few other facts he knows about his father. He informed you that the ring had been Dad’s the first time you laced your fingers with his in the flickering light of the grocery store late at night, telling you how he hadn’t taken it off since he found it, but that he did have to move it from his middle finger to his pinky at some point. Last time you said something about wanting another tattoo, he confessed his desire for one of a duck like Daddy had.

“That’s so awesome. Merle is one of the all time greats. I love hearing Dad Facts.” 

Veronica and Shelly drag more plastic chairs over. People join and leave your little group so quickly it makes Corey dizzy. Rose sits next to him and tells him she’s glad he decided to come. Her girlfriend and Shelly’s boyfriend both pass through. One of them is Jesse and one of them is Bobby, but he doesn’t know which is which. Someone you introduce as your first sewing customer shows him all the patches you attached to their vest. Current and former coworkers appear to wrap their arms around your waist and smack their lips against your face before vanishing again. It makes his stomach sour. Do they all have to fucking hug you? He feels a little better when you give your chair up to a new addition to the circle and perch on his knees instead, draping an arm around his shoulders and fluffing his hair. He’s reluctant to let you go when your old seat is free again. 

In time the circle is reduced to just you, Corey, and Veronica. In front of him, several partygoers attempt to get the fire started. They aren’t using enough kindling, and it isn’t getting enough airflow when they set the big log on top, so they just keep snuffing out the whole thing. He could help, but he’s already spoken to multiple years worth of people this afternoon, and he knows the end is nowhere in sight.

A long chord organ chord pours out of the speakers, met by a cheer from all corners of the yard. You hold your hands out to Veronica and start singing. She takes them, singing back to you, a huge grin on her face. The lyrics you belt into each other’s faces are about a pair of high school friends. It irks Corey how long she’s been in your life, that if you had to choose between them, she has a massive amount of seniority in her favor. She’s been through everything with you. He’s just another thing you’ll get through with her help.

The instrumental picks up and you pull Veronica out of her chair to dance. The song isn’t just about high school friends. The song is about two women murdering one of their exes. It didn’t take them long to decide that Earl had to die!, you and Veronica and all the other guests shout. You hook your elbow with hers and the two of you skip circles around each other like children, gleefully detailing poisoning a man’s dinner and wrapping his corpse in plastic. The case goes cold, the women start a business together, and they don’t lose any sleep at night after they toss the body in a lake. 

The man in the song was a violent abuser. He beat his wife, so she killed him. Corey can relate to the protagonists. People like that are vermin to be exterminated. Everyone he killed on purpose had beaten him, verbally if not physically. The last time Momma slapped him she didn’t leave a mark, but other times she had. Fucking Doug had knocked the air out of his lungs on the Allen’s front lawn. Corey’s blood still boils knowing he doesn’t know the half of what that shit stain put Allyson through. So he enjoyed the killing. It was fun. Even more fun than the song makes it sound. Under other circumstances this might be a new favorite of his, prompting him to ask you for  recommendations of similar songs, a playlist of jaunty tunes about the consequences of being scum. There’s just one problem — Veronica.

Could be it’s only his imagination, being on the run so long causing his already weak ability to trust to rot and wither past the point of no return. But he swears as she sings, she makes meaningful eye contact with him. Over your shoulder her glare says Watch your step, motherfucker. This song could easily be about you. It doesn’t matter that all of the lives he ended were Earls. People who had to die for what they’d done to others. Because he knows she’ll think what he’s done is worse. Stabbing someone with a corkscrew or a kitchen knife is worse. Setting someone on fire is worse. Poisoning someone isn’t that bad. Stomping someone’s skull in and driving over their corpse is much, much worse. He generated just as much evil as he extinguished, and should Veronica ever find out, it won’t take her long to decide that Corey has to die too.

The only reason he’s here right now is because you said you would miss him if he wasn’t. How could that possibly be true? Your friends love you so much, and you have so many of them. What do you need him for? The yard and the house are full of people more eligible than him, people who understand your hobbies better than he ever could, who know how to act at parties, who aren’t endangering your life and their own every moment they spend with you. You’re all Corey has in the entire world. When Veronica sprinkles the poison over his food, you’ll have him replaced with one of those assholes who lined up to hug you before his body is even cold.

He wishes again that there was a way to have you all to himself. If he was all you had then it would be fair. He could mean to you what you mean to him. You would have no choice but to miss him. You and Veronica are still dancing, shrieking the lyrics to another crowd pleaser he’s never heard before. The day is scorching. It already feels like he’s burning through the sunscreen you smeared all over him before the drive out here, and you’re dancing, with only a rag that barely qualifies as a tank top to cover your sports bra, skin sparkly with sweat, 10 feet in front of him. That is what he should be focusing on. Not doing mental inventory of the weapons he’s seen so far — a pile of sharp grilling utensils next to the smoker, shovel, rake, and pitchfork lying in the grass beside the idiots who still can’t get the fire to light right, the knife he gave you, clipped to your pocket as you swing the hips he’s trying so hard to think about instead. 

Corey’s major concern earlier in the afternoon had been someone recognizing him for something he had done before. If he doesn’t get the fuck out of here right now, he fears he’ll do something new for people to recognize him for. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The fifteen minutes Corey was gone to smoke the night he met V was nothing. He is the king of the long smoke break. His face is so expressive, sometimes you feel like you’re eavesdropping on his thoughts, but if you’re ever left wondering what kind of mood he’s in, all you have to do is time his absence. 

The bonfire is such an event, you can barely believe he agreed to come. When he whispers in your ear that he’s going to step away to smoke, despite the fact that he is already outside and a respectful distance from everyone but you, you know he’s going to be gone for a long time. 

You have another beer. A joint is miraculously placed between your fingers and you take two puffs before you hold it out for someone, anyone else to take. Your sense of time warps, and you wish you looked at the clock when he left. You keep thinking you’ll give him five more minutes, until you notice how much the sun has moved. He’s definitely been gone too long. You drop your eyes from the sky to scan the yard, making sure he isn’t just sitting off to the side in the shadows of the trees, or stuck talking to some verbose asshole and waiting for you to come save him. You don’t see him anywhere.

“Haven’t seen Corey in a minute,” Veronica says, following your gaze. 

“Yeah…” You send him a text.

To give him time to text you back, you go get water out of one of the many coolers on the deck. You grab two bottles and dry them with paper towels from the snack table, sliding a bowl of watermelon cubes out of your way.

“Hey, cutie,” says a man pouring Doritos onto a paper plate.

You ignore him.

“Hey! I’m talking to you,” he says, waving orange dusted fingers in your face. 

“I have a boyfriend.” You don’t look at the man as you drop the wet paper towels into the garbage bag tied to the deck rail.

“Yeah, I saw you with that guy earlier. He looks like a whimp. Don’t you wanna be with a real man?”

“Sure, I do!” You say, in a fake chipper tone, finally looking at him. “But you know, I just don’t see any around here.” You tuck the water bottles under one arm and stomp off the deck before he can say anything else.

Corey still hasn’t answered, so you send him another message as you walk back to Veronica.

“Ugh, some sleazeball tried to talk to me,” you tell her, bumping the backrest of her chair with your stomach.

“Are you good?” She asks, looking back and up at you.

“I’m okay. Be better if I knew where my boyfriend was. I’m gonna go look for him. If you see him, tell him to text me.”

“You got it,” she says. 

You start in the front yard. As you walk past the front porch, three overlapping voices call your name. On the swing you can make out three familiar faces. You wave and keep walking but they beckon you, chanting “Come here! Come here!”, and pretending to fish for you. You feel pulled in the opposite direction, down and over the wide yard, but you allow yourself to be caught and reeled in. You do “Hi” and “How are you?”, but when one of them asks what you’ve been up to lately, you cut the long hello short as gracefully as you can.

“Are you gonna be here all night? I would really love to catch up later! I’m actually looking for someone right now, though.” You start to slowly back away as you speak. 

“Aw, okay.” “Hope you find them!” “Good luck!” 

When you turn away from the porch, you see a pod of people coming up the slope from the direction of the cars. You wave to them, and they wave to you, and you hope that’s that. But a guy you recognize and a girl you don’t wander off the driveway to intercept your path.

“Hey! I have a sewing question!” He declares as he jogs towards you. 

“How can I help?” You smile your customer service smile, feeling obligated not to piss off a potential customer.

“I’m thinking about buying a machine to try to make some of my own clothes. Do you have any suggestions or advice or anything?” He asks.

“No, I’m sorry. I hadn’t even like, totally decided I wanted a sewing machine when I bought mine. I didn’t do any research or anything, it was just an expensive machine that was basically new and dirt cheap at an estate sale. And it’s not designed that great, I don’t know if I would’ve bought it if I read reviews first. I had to have my boyfriend clean it out once when it jammed.”

“Damn. Okay. Thanks anyway, dude.” He holds out his hand and you allow him to do some kind of secret fist bump handshake to you. 

“Yeah, you’re welcome. Sorry I can’t be more help. But speaking of my boyfriend, I’m looking for him right now. Did you see a guy that’s like 5’9”, broad shoulders, curly, shaggy brown hair down there? He’s got like, Midwest Emo vibes, kinda?”

“Can’t say I did.”

“Alright,” you sigh, “Good luck with your sewing if I don’t see you later.”

If he didn’t spot Corey down by the cars, there’s no reason to walk all the way down there, so you cut across the yard toward the pond and the gazebo instead, looking over your shoulder to the cars at the edge of the yard anyway, just in case.

A few people sit in lawn chairs under the scattered trees. Thankfully none of them call out to you. There are no bodies on the benches around the koi pond, but there are silhouettes in the gazebo. As you approach, you can tell none of the shapes belong to Corey. Instead, it’s Gordon and his family. You recognize his wife from other work events. You’ve never met the person on the other side of Gordon, but you recognize her too. A young woman in her late teens or early twenties, who looks like someone put a girl filter on Gordon’s senior photo. There’s no one else in the world who’s daughter she could be. Despite how excited you are to finally meet her, you try to back away before you’re spotted. You can talk to them after you find Corey.

"Hey you!" Gordon says from the shadows. Shit.

"Hey!” You climb the two little steps to join them under the pointed roof. 

"Got another customer complaint about you."

You feel like the air has been knocked out of you. Another? What was the first one? What could you have possibly done that was complaint worthy? A weak "huh?" is all you manage.

"Yeah, this lady said she was looking for a record for her little sister, she wanted a recommendation based on a list of bands she knew her sister liked." 

"I thought that went well?" You remember the interaction now. It had been a lot of fun, the kind of day where you really appreciate how cool your job is. You can't possibly imagine what she would've had to complain about. 

"Well, so did she! She called the store and went on and on, talked my ear off about how her sister loved your suggestion so much that they're going to see the band you recommended in Orlando next month. She said you're a genius, and it was great how you didn't judge her for not knowing anything." 

"Wait," you said, concerned and confused, "so what was the complaint?" 

"That you're too fucking good at your job, and I'm gonna have to give you a raise. Oh shit, did I say that was her complaint? Sorry, I meant my complaint."

You exhale sharply, ending in a huffy little laugh. All you can think to say is “How much?”

“We’ll talk about it next week.”

"You're such a dick, Dad. You actually had her scared," his daughter chides.

“Have you met my lovely daughter, Dani?” Gordon asks. 

“Hi, Dani.” You wave and introduce yourself. 

“Do you have someone for us to meet tonight too? That elusive boyfriend of yours, maybe?” Gordon wants to know.  

“He’s here, but you’re right about him being elusive,” you say with a forced chuckle. “I’m looking for him right now.”

“Well, don’t let us keep you. But bring him to meet me when you get a chance.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” 

Once you’re away from the gazebo, you walk as fast as you can towards the house, not even really processing that you’re getting a raise. Gordon’s joke wouldn’t bother you normally, you know your boss is one of those nice assholes. When he doesn’t make jokes at your expense is when you need to worry. Taking it the wrong way rattles you. Corey still hasn’t texted, so you try calling him. It goes straight to voicemail. Goddamnit. 

You vault the concrete stairs up to the porch and swing open the front door, getting blasted in the face by the music pouring through the speakers in the ceiling throughout the first floor. The sun is sinking lower in the sky, and the crowd has grown a lot. You get stuck in a traffic jam in the sitting room, pinned on all sides by the bare limbs of strangers. Through the open French doors you can see someone finally got the fire to burn tall and strong, and a new supply of logs has arrived in the back of Harker’s goofy white pickup truck. For a second you feel like you should give up on searching the house for him and go through those French doors to where Corey’s surely tending the fire, finding a way to be useful like he loves to do. Your little arsonist. 

Something clicks into place for the first time. The story about his neighbor’s garage. Was that another coded confession? Are the “bullet holes” in his shoulder actually burn scars? Was he stabbed in retaliation for a fire? Did he set a fire in retaliation for being stabbed?  

Finally somebody gets out of the way, and the tangle of bodies you’re trapped in spits you out. You stumble over your own heavy feet, taking several bumbling steps away from the doors, and away from that train of thought. Later tonight you can match up all the evidence like you have with your other theories, trying to find the situation that seems most likely. For now, it will only distract you, when you need to focus searching the house. Maybe he found an unlocked bedroom to hide in, or maybe, against the odds, he made a new friend and they’re holed up somewhere discussing fuel pumps or something. 

You kind of remember the layout of the house from last year’s bonfire and the holiday dinner in December. You head towards the kitchen, and get tangled up again before you can even cross the threshold. As you pass through the kitchen on your way to the garage, a girl standing in front of the fridge mistakes that for your destination, and yanks the door open wide for you, blocking the exit. When she realizes her mistake, she swings the fridge door closed harder than she meant to and it slams closed. She squeaks out an apology, face turning bright red, and you assure her there’s nothing to be embarrassed about as you edge past her. In the garage, five or six people stand in a circle, pocket knives poised to puncture horizontal beer cans in their hands. They offer for you to join them in their impending shotgun, but you decline and duck back into the house.

You cut through the dining room and run up the stairs. The second floor is comparatively much more quiet, even with the big hole looking down to the first floor. Soft voices guide you out to the huge balcony that floats over the portico below. The people on the chairs and benches outside are all strangers. They ignore you. When you come back in to the loft you spot Veronica with a couple of people across the opening to the foyer below, racking pool balls. 

“Wanna get in on this?” She asks, removing the plastic triangle from the balls and hanging it back on the wall.

“No, thanks. I still have bruises healing on my ass from how hard you kicked it last time. And I’m still — “

“Looking for Corey? You haven’t found him yet?”

“No! I keep getting sucked into conversations and shit. Have you seen him?” You don’t like the desperate edge in your voice. 

“No.”

Fuck. If she hasn’t seen him, then he probably didn’t help get the fire going. You’re starting to worry he might’ve wandered down one of the trails into the trees and lost his way or something. You excuse yourself and Veronica wishes you luck, twisting chalk onto the end of a pool cue. You wander down the long hallway that branches off the loft. Unlocked bedroom, empty. Locked door you remember leading to a bathroom. You knock and the voice that calls back “Occupied!” is too light to be him, not enough grit. Another empty unlocked bedroom. A couple of locked doors, and a third bedroom at the end of the hall where you stop to send him another text.

You barrel back down the stairs, checking the rest of the first floor as quickly as you can, just glancing into the open doors of another bathroom and an office where someone cuts lines on the glass topped desk. The last room to check is the laundry room where several people sit on the counter over the washer and dryer, Rose and Jesse squeezed in with them. 

“Hello my love!” Rose exclaims and hops down from her perch to wrap her arms around you. It only takes one sentence for you to tell that she is very drunk. 

“Have you seen Corey?” You ask without much hope.

“When we got here, yeah!” She nods. 

“Have you seen him since then?” You always hate when you see a drunk girl’s less-drunk friends be condescending to her, so you do your best to keep the anxiety and irritation out of your voice. 

“Noooo.” She shakes her head. The long, low sound she makes reminds you of a dove. 

“That dude we met with you earlier? We saw him again after that,” Jesse says.

“Oh, yeah!” Rose confirms.

“Where!? When!?” 

“We had to get bug spray out of Jesse’s truck before we went for a hike. He was laying all the way back in your car. I wanted to wave but he looked like he wanted to be left alone.”

“How long ago?” 

Rose looks to Jesse.

“Like, 20 minutes ago?” 

“Fuck, I’m so stupid,” you mutter. That should’ve been the first place you looked, somewhere hidden and familiar he could retreat to. You should’ve been more thorough than just asking someone and taking a quick glance. If Corey’s been reclining in the car this whole time, he would’ve been practically invisible unless you passed right by the windows.

“You're not stupid. You're so smart,” Rose corrects. “Do you want me to come with you to get him?”

“No, I need to go by myself. You stay here. And drink some water.” You offer her one of the bottles you’re still carrying around.

“I got her,” Jesse says and indicates a half full bottle she pinches between her knees. 

As soon as you pry Rose's rubbery drunk arms from around you, you rush out the front door and over the yard to the treeline where your car is parked.