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convexicalcrow · 2 years

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Cub wasn't one to dig himself into a hole and hide, especially after only a day on the server. He could just leave, of course. He'd done the redstone they'd brought him on for, so he could go back to his other world and just stay there, right? Well, maybe. But he wasn't going anywhere, and he didn't know why.

He hadn't anticipated how ... being around other people would feel. His face didn't reflect the rest of his body, which is why he covered so much of it up. But then they just saw his face and made assumptions, and that was what he wanted, right? It wasn't really his face though. Just a mask to cover up what he didn't want them to see.

They'd all been so nice and welcoming, that wasn't the issue. He liked them! But somehow he still had the urge to slip away and hide in a hole in a hill, just needing to be alone. He wouldn't tell them. They didn't need to know. He'd never told anyone before, why would he start now? No. Better let that secret remain his own. Let them see him as that old guy who knows redstone.

He wanted to rip off the bandages around his chest. Their texture against his skin was just suddenly the most aggravating thing in the world. They felt like sandpaper, all rough and tight and cutting into him. He wanted to be rid of them, but then he'd just be reminded of what they were concealing.

He hugged his knees to his chest, hoping it might help. It didn't, but the hope was there. He didn't like it when his body felt like this, all wrong and hurting. He never really knew how to make it go away. Just sat it out until it was gone, mostly. He resisted the urge to claw at the bandages, knowing it never helped.

After all, there was nothing between his legs either, and that was always most obvious when he sat like this. He'd tried to make a packer that he felt comfortable with, but they'd all felt wrong. Not enough weight, too scratchy, too dense, too heavy, didn't sit right, never felt like it was a part of his body.

Clearly sitting in a hole on his own instead of just leaving like a normal person was not helping. It was just making him wallow, and he hated wallowing. But he'd just been a little too overwhelmed once all the redstone was done, and needed a break away from the others, so he'd told them he was going to go look around, get the lay of the land, that kind of thing. A thing other players would understand for someone new to a server.

Instead, he was curled up in a hole, wishing the earth would open up and swallow him.

"Ah! Hallo! There you are, my friend! I wondered where you had disappeared to! Mind if I come in?"

Iskall's voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned to the doorway, wondering if he could simply keep quiet and he might go away.

"It's alright, no one else is with me, I promise. We're the only ones on the server right now. I just want to make sure you're okay, because you said you weren't used to playing with friends, and maybe things got a little too much! It's okay if it did! Just let me know if I can do anything," Iskall said.

Cub listened to his words, unsure what to do. Invite him in, probably. He did like Iskall a lot. But he wasn't sure if he wanted him to see him like this.

"Clearly something is not okay if you are hiding away, Cub. You don't have to tell me anything. But I am here and I can listen! Or I can just talk about nonsense, that also works!" Iskall said.

"I-, no, you can come in, it's fine. Well. It's not, but. You wouldn't understand," Cub said.

"Perfectly fair, I do not understand much about you yet, Cub, but I am keen to learn!" Iskall said. "Okay, I will join you inside, which is good, because it has started raining, and I do not want to get wet!"

Cub laughed in spite of himself as Iskall joined him, closing the door to the rain outside. Iskall set down another torch and offered him some food, which Cub brushed off. He was fine.

"Do you need me to keep some space for you? Like, do you want me to stay here or are you okay with cuddles? Because you look like you need cuddles!" Iskall said.

Cub looked at him. "I-I don't know. I- my head's a bit of a mess."

"Cuddles it is, then!" Iskall said, sitting down next to him and bringing him into his arms.

Cub resisted it for a moment, but Iskall was big and strong and his arms felt like protection and comfort, and he soon hugged him back. It... it helped, a little bit, more than he was willing to admit.

"What are your pronouns, by the way, Mr Cubfan?" Iskall asked, in between talking about an old base build and some friends he wanted to go and see.

The question caught Cub off-guard, and he sat up, pulling away from him a little bit. Iskall had made good on his promise to talk nonsense and it had helped Cub feel better. It had at least been a good distraction. Until that question, of course. Cub felt like he was a rabbit in headlights now. Did he know? How could he have known? He hadn't felt his bandages, had he? How was he going to explain that away if he had?

"M-my pronouns? Why do you ask?" Cub said, unsure where this was going.

"I do not like making assumptions! And I should have asked earlier before I introduced you to everyone, but things were a bit chaotic and there wasn't time, sorry!" Iskall said.

"Oh, okay, yeah. Uh. Male, I guess? Sorry, no one's ever asked before, so. I wasn't expecting it," Cub said, anxiety gripping his heart even though he clearly didn't have anything to fear. Saying it out loud to someone else was scarier than he'd thought it would be.

"Good, good! You can use any pronouns for me, I don't mind. My gender's a bit-" Iskall gestured, unable to really grasp what he was trying to say. "Yeah, I don't know. Thought you should know that at least. I hope I didn't upset you with that."

"No, no, it's- like I said, no one's ever asked before, that's all," Cub said, laughing it off.

Iskall brought him into his arms again. "Sounds like you've been waiting for someone to ask, hmm?"

Cub settled back against him. "I don't know, maybe?"

"If you say you are a man, Cub, then you are a man. Why would I question that? You know yourself better than I do. I don't need to know more than that," Iskall said. "But I take it you have never talked about this to anyone before, yes? So it feels weird? It was like that for me too, when someone first asked me. So that is why I ask now, because sometimes it's the only way you know you're talking to someone who will understand."

Cub was feeling a lot of things all at once. Hating himself for giving himself away, but thankful for Iskall's kindness. Unsure he had the words for anything he was feeling about his gender. Unsure he even wanted to talk about it yet. He could, of course, but was he ready? He didn't know.

Iskall took his hand then and brought it under his shirt. Cub wasn't expecting to feel bandages, and he looked up at Iskall, unsure how to process any of that.

"We can talk when you're ready, Cub. But know I understand and will not judge you. Because I have been there too," Iskall said.

Cub woke beside Iskall, in their slightly larger dirt hole. Iskall had made some beds and a little more space, and it was ... cosier now. Iskall was a heater to sleep next to, and Cub sat up, feeling strange.

Iskall was somehow just like him. But somehow telling him that was the scariest thing he could think of doing. And so he hadn't. He'd felt Iskall's bandages over his chest, and didn't know what to do with that information. So Iskall just kept talking nonsense until they were both sleepy enough to want a bed. And now he was here, and awake, and wanting to run away as much as he wanted to stay.

No, he didn't want to run away. Well, not really. He'd joined, and he was going to stay, it might just take him a while to adjust to being around people. They were building things together here, and that was an exciting thing to be a part of. He just had no practice at, well. Being around people. That's really what it came down to. On his own, it never mattered. And now it was all he could think about.

Did they need to know? Did they really? Iskall didn't seem to care. But the thought of carrying around that secret when he's not just doing his own thing felt too heavy a burden. And yet. He couldn't even tell Iskall when he knew, he knew, what those bandages represented.

Speaking of bandages, though, his were itching again after he'd slept in them. Got all rubbed the wrong way. He glanced a look at Iskall, still sleeping soundly in bed. If he was quick, he could fix it without him waking up. Right? Maybe.

He still dug himself a small hole into the wall and sealed himself in, just in case. Setting a torch on the ground, he began to undress, letting his coat, shirt and tie fall to the floor. He didn't... like seeing himself like this. He liked it even less as he unfastened the bandages and rolled them up over his hand, feeling his breasts fall forward once more as he felt their weight on his chest. He wanted to cry. He wished they were smaller, and not as obvious, so he didn't have to rely on bandages. They shouldn't be there at all. But they were, and he had no idea how to get rid of them, save for simply slicing them off himself in desperation. He wouldn't, of course, but in his darker moments, he did think about it.

There were angry marks all over his chest from the bandages. He tried not to make a habit of sleeping in them, but sometimes it happened, and now he had to deal with it. He hadn't felt safe sleeping without them next to Iskall, to be fair. He wasn't sure he was ready for him to know.

"Cub? Where did you go? Are you okay? Can I help?" Iskall called, interrupting his contemplation.

"I'm okay, I just needed a moment. I'll be with you in a bit, okay?" Cub called back, hoping that would satisfy him.

"Oh! Okay! I will get breakfast! There is a nice lake where I saw some fish before. That will do nicely," Iskall said.

"Sure, sounds good to me," Cub said.

"Oh, and Cub?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for letting me in. I hope you feel a little better today."

"Maybe, maybe, yeah."

"That's good! I will bring back all the fish now! See you soon!"

And with that, Iskall was gone, and Cub turned back to the bandages in his hands. His chest was aching as it often did when he wore them too long. He should let himself breathe a while, but he knew that wasn't an option, not with Iskall coming back soon. So he bandaged his chest up again and got dressed. He'd take them off later. He'd be fine till then.

"What gave me away?" Cub said, because surely something had, right? What had he not done that made Iskall know? Or suspect, at the very least. "As being... you know."

Iskall shrugged as he handed over some freshly cooked fish and bread. "Nothing, really! Your responses to asking for your pronouns did make me wonder, but I figure you'll tell me if you want to. None of my business really! If you say you're a man, that's enough for me, and for everyone here, I promise. No need to explain yourself, especially if you're not ready."

Cub took the food and sat by the fire outside their little dirt hole. "Thanks, it's just... Thanks."

"You're welcome!" Iskall said cheerfully.

Cub smiled, appreciating that he wasn't being pushed on the matter. Maybe he suspected, maybe he didn't. Iskall talked more nonsense as they ate, going over more building plans for the kingdom and what he wanted it all to look like. It was a good distraction, and Cub was excited to see where this project would end up.

"Okay, well, if you are okay now, I will get back to building! And if you ever need to talk, just come and find me, okay?" Iskall said as he packed up his things and extinguished the fire.

"Yeah, sure, will do," Cub said. "Thanks again, man. Just- thanks."

"No problem! Also! I invited you here not just for your skills but because I thought you'd fit in well here. We want you here, Cub, as a friend. You are friend-shaped, Mr Cubfan! Just always remember that, okay?" Iskall said.

"Thanks, I- it is really nice to be here. I think we're going to make something really nice here," Cub said.

"Me too! Anyway, I will be back working on the base. Join me when you're ready, yes?" Iskall said.

"Sure, I'll see you there," Cub said.

Cub watched him go. He still hadn't told him. Just- the very idea that he could just talk about all his gender stuff to someone else was still scary to him, even if it was someone else who would understand. He wasn't sure he had all the words. Wasn't sure he could explain it, and he hated that this was the one thing he couldn't explain. He hardly understood it himself, let alone knew how to tell someone else.

He went back inside the dirt hole and shut himself in again. He needed to breathe, much as he would hate seeing his chest again, and he appreciated Iskall giving him space and time to do that. His ribs were definitely asking for a rest at any rate.

He undressed again, taking a moment to inhale deeply once the bandages were wound up and sat aside on top of his clothes. Did Iskall do things like this? Did he need to? He couldn't remember if Iskall had removed his bandages before they'd gone to bed; what he did remember was falling asleep against his chest, so perhaps he'd moved him later. Maybe that was it. Yeah.

Cub sat against the far wall, thinking, his shirt loosely covering his chest so he didn't have to look at it. It didn't entirely help, but not seeing his breasts was always better. Maybe, in time, Iskall would know. Maybe one day he'd feel brave enough to talk about it. But not yet. And he was grateful for Iskall for giving him that choice, a choice he was not expecting to be given. Maybe this server would be good for him after all.

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roosterbruiser · 1 year

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𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 — 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎

—𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇-𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐍-𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍. —𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒: 𝟏𝟑.𝟗𝐊 —𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 —𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 —𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃 —𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄, 𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐓. 𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐋 𝟏𝟓𝐓𝐇, 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟖

The gurney breaches doorways, breaks crowds of baby blue scrubs. The wheels scream, unoiled and abused. Everyone is talking--terms you usually can synthesize but cannot now. You stare at the ceiling tiles, desperately trying to keep your heavy lids open.

You’re not in immeasurable pain now, but you would be without the needle in your spine. Maybe you’re going to be on the table and the monster you’ve been incubating is going to break through your skin and then a fire is going to eat the both of you--unless, of course, you bleed out first.

Maybe this is the end. Maybe this is what your summer has been coming to all along.

This is it. What a silly thought that is. What gives?

With the world flying by you from up above in shades of white and crisp blue, you wonder what this was all for. All this pain, all this torture, all this fever. What good did it do anybody?

Flames over flesh.

It’s the last thing you think before your eyes close and you sink into a meperidine haze.

♀

The sun is warm on your cheeks and shoulders as you step out of the passenger side of Maverick’s Jeep, the worn straps of your duffle digging into the bare skin of your shoulder. Your flimsy sandals--you should’ve known better than to wear sandals--sink into the gravel and gray dust kicks up your shins.

Inhaling deeply, you’re almost startled at how clean the air smells. Nothing like the choking scent of leather and gasoline in Maverick’s Jeep--it was making your eyes damn near water on the ride up. But here it is fresh and purified by pine and oak and crabgrass.

“Got anything in the back?” Maverick asks you, already headed towards the trunk with his shades intact and his jet-black hair wind-kissed from your ride with the top down. You shake your head. “Just the duffel then, huh? Light packer! I like that in a woman! Would you so mind helping me grab some of the supplies from the back?”

“Sure thing,” you tell him, setting your bag on the gravel and following him to the back of the Jeep.

He’s grinning as the two of you begin unloading.

“I love it here,” he tells you with a content sigh. He glances around the property, notes where a screen needs to be repaired and a hinge reattached and paint touched up, and glances at you. You’re diligently unloading jugs of water and big boxes of raisins with your brow knit. There’s a faint smile tugging on your lips, a heat about your face and chest that gives you a sheen of excitement. “You’re going to love it here, you know. What do you think so far, nurse?”

Face warm from his nickname for you, which feels like a pretty high compliment for a prospective nursing student, you smile very politely.

“Well, it's sure…picturesque. If that isn’t too corny,” you tell him, quickly glancing at the trees scraping the endless blue sky. “Quiet, too.”

“Just wait until the rugrats get here. You won’t even remember what the word quiet means. It’s completely fantastic,” Maverick tells you, wiping his hands on his khaki-colored shorts. He slams the trunk of the Jeep shut. “I’ll give you the walking-talking tour if you carry that jug aaand those boxes for me.”

Trailing behind him, arms full of water and pantry goods, you’re only half-listening to him. Your heart is beating steadily in your throat, arms already aching.

“--officially opened the doors with Pen about two or three years ago--oh, that’s my wife, by the way. Penny, Pen, P. You’ll probably meet her sometime this summer, I’d guess! Anyway, it was the year our daughter, Mel, started school. Didn’t have anything to do, so we thought--why not?” Maverick says. He stops suddenly and props a heavy wooden box on his thigh so he can wipe the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He glances at you and notes you taking it all in still. He smiles. “Pen used to go here as a little girl. Some of her favorite memories of her childhood are--well, right here. She’s always passing the camp folklore down to the masses. Don’t believe a word Jake says, alright? He’s gullible and he embellishes.”

You imagine writing it down on a sticky note and plastering it to the inside of your skull: don’t trust Jake--he’s a storyteller.

“Has it always been open to the public? Camp, I mean.” You ask. “Heck, I’d never heard of it until this summer.”

Maverick shakes his head.

“So much for advertising, right? Guess word-of-mouth isn’t the best way to spread the good news about camp,” he laughs. “It’s got kind of a funky history. Opened first in 1945 after the war and stayed open until--huh, I think about…’57 or ‘59? And then it was closed until Penny and I opened it up again in ‘80.”

“Wow,” you say softly. “Was it in rough shape?”

“Everything but the camp sign,” Maverick says, nodding towards the large arched sign at the mouth of camp. It is a heavy and thick thing made of wood--hand painted in clear, concise letters. “That's why we kept the name.”

“Camp Arcadia,” you say aloud. “It’s got a nice little ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“It definitely could’ve been worse,” Maverick agrees, laughing. “Like Camp Crystal Lake.”

“Don’t remind me,” you say, laughing softly. “I’m trying to forget about that film’s existence.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Maverick says. “Do you know what Arcadia means?”

“Uh,” you say, thinking. Heat has sprouted in your chest from the exertion of carrying such heavy items. “I don’t think I do.”

“Get this,” Maverick starts, grinning. “A place of simple pleasure and quiet.”

“Well, then. It sure lives up to its name!”

“That’s what Penny says,” Maverick sighs. “But she usually stays away during the talent show.”

“There’s a talent show?” You ask, grinning. Maverick nods. “How sweet. Must get all the kiddos excited.”

“Oh, boy--does it ever.” Maverick glances at you, but then stops again. You’re both panting when you dig your heels into the gravel and halt. He nods to your strained arms. “That too heavy? You alright?”

Really, you’re struggling to carry all the items in your arms. But dammit if you’ll so much as let your bottom lip quiver.

“Nah, I’m good!” You say, panting. “I’m great, actually.”

Maverick has already decided he likes you. But he especially likes you when you’re lying to save face. It reminds him of himself.

“From your lips to God’s ear,” he says with a wink.

Maverick takes you through the courtyard and into the mess hall, where he tells you to just throw the items anywhere. And you quite literally hardly make it through the door before your knees are buckling and you’re setting everything down with complete haste.

“That’s quite a hike,” you pant to Maverick, slightly embarrassed as you fan yourself. “You didn’t give me a fair warning.”

“Would you have come?” He asks, all charm and charisma as he wipes his balmy hands on the thighs of his jeans.

“Touché,” you breathe.

“Thanks a million, by the way,” Maverick tells you, plucking his sunglasses off and hooking them to his linen button-down before he grins at you again. “How you feeling? Nervous? Scared? Excited?”

Maverick moves about a million miles a minute--he’s a fast talker and an even faster driver. As you catch your breath and chew on your answer, you begin to feel like you have a crick in your neck and a Hell of a summer ahead of you.

But you just smile at him.

“I’m feelin’ dandy,” you answer him. You glance around the cavernous mess hall, which has been freshly mopped--diluted bleach stings your nostrils, coats the roof of your mouth. “Where is everyone?”

He points at you, eyebrows coming together.

“Good question,” he sighs. “Let’s go find ‘em, huh?”

You don’t have to go far to find everyone. Just as soon as the two of you are out the door and in the heat again, you hear splashing and hollering. Turning your face towards the water--a beautiful, blue lake that stretches from one side of the tree-lined horizon to the other--you see them all.

“There they are,” Maverick grins, hands on his hips. “Guess they needed to cool off.”

“What were they doing before?” You ask, brow furrowed. You wring your hands together as you scan the water--a handful of men, all brawny and tan and long hair and sex, and one petite brunette--swallowing hard. “Like, you know. What got them so hot?”

“Orgies tend to get a tad steamy,” a voice says from behind you, a teasing lilt sinking into the notes. “But so does repainting the latrine.”

“Ah,” Maverick says, grinning at the man that has suddenly materialized behind you. Maverick throws an arm over his shoulders and doesn’t seem to mind how much he is dwarfed by this man. He slaps the man’s bare chest a few friendly times. “My favorite nephew.”

“Don’t worry,” the man says, eyes wide. He holds his hands up to you like you’re an upset animal he’s cornered and he’s trying to get back on your good side. “Not related biologically.”

“Why would she worry about that?” Maverick asks him, already fighting an eye roll.

“‘Cause I don’t want her thinking my genes are tainted or anything,” the man answers with a boyish grin. “In fact, I don’t want anyone thinking that!”

“Tainted? You mean blessed,” Maverick says, letting his eyes finally roll. He glances at you, still smiling. “Nurse--this is Rooster. Rooster, this is nurse.”

Rooster’s sopping wet, only wearing a small pair of swim trunks, and his curls are dripping lakewater down his back. His hair is dark gold, curly, and long enough to sit just below his shoulders. And his chest glistens in the sun, wide and hard from manual labor.

And you--you look way too young to be the new nurse here. The last nurse was closing in on her seventies and always had a butterscotch candy tucked inside her cheek. You aren’t in uniform--camp or otherwise--and he wonders if you’re the new counselor he heard about last week. A last-minute hire, someone Maverick was going to bring in personally.

“You’re the new camp nurse?” He asks, brows furrowed. He looks you up and down, sizes you up. He’s wondering how old you are to already be a nurse--you can practically see the question on his tongue.

You hold your hip with one hand and shade your eyes from the sun with the other.

“You’re named after a farm animal and you’re worried about him tainting your genes?”

Maverick laughs--a deep and proud belly laugh--before clapping Rooster on the shoulder.

“Ouch,” Rooster says, mocking offense. He can’t wipe the grin off his lips. “That cut deep, little mama.”

“Great. A regular Elvis Presley,” you say. “Just what I needed.”

“Hey, I take offense to that,” Rooster says as lake water rolls off his tanned shoulders and down his arms. You’re trying not to stare, nose twitching with concentration. “I’m much more of a Jerry Lee Lewis type! It’s undeniable!”

“Cry about it,” you say.

Smiling yourself, you bring your index finger to your eye and drag it down your face--mocking the rolling of a tear.

Rooster laughs--a laugh that you can feel in the soles of your feet like it’s coming from deep inside of the earth, like it was born there just to die in the foundation of your body.

“Only if you’re there to make it all better,” Rooster says.

It feels like a challenge.

You’re just about to lip something back when Maverick glances at his watch and cringes. Amelia has a ballet recital later and he doesn’t even want to think about what Penny will say if he’s more than five minutes late.

He claps to draw both of your gazes to him.

“Here’s an idea. Why don’t you two get acquainted while I get some work done, huh? I’m in a crunch here. Give her a tour, Rooster! Introduce her to the flock! Finish that latrine!” Maverick lists as he starts for the Jeep again. He stops and turns quickly, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. You wonder, momentarily, if he’s made of plastic. “And play nice, kids!”

You and Rooster look at each other for a long moment, each of you biting smiles, taking each other in as Maverick jogs back towards the Jeep with all the haste and grace of a prancing deer.

“Who’re they?” You ask, nodding towards the water.

He crosses his arms, stepping closer to you.

“The others,” he says.

“The others?” You mock. “Ominous.”

“Coyote, Hangman, Fanboy, Payback, and Phoenix,” he answers.

“Which one’s the girl?” You inquire, brows pinched.

He grins at you. His lips are pink with enjoyment.

“Guess,” he simply says.

“I’ll go out on a limb here and say it isn’t Fanboy or Hangman,” you answer. He nods, amused. “Payback?” You ask.

“Other P,” he says, impressed and delighted.

“Damn,” you answer, tutting. “Phoenix, then.”

“Bingo,” he tells you.

“Nurse is a nickname,” you say finally, pressing your toe into the gravel.

“So is Rooster,” he says, nodding. “Thank God.”

His Adam’s apple bobs. Something between your leg twitches--you want to know what that bobbing would feel like below your open mouth.

Swallowing hard, you nod.

“I know,” you say. “I was only kidding before.”

“Yeah, me too,” Rooster says. “‘Cause no way you’re old enough to be a nurse.”

“I’m not,” you say, crossing your arms. “But I’m old enough to be a counselor.”

“Righteous,” Rooster says. He thinks for a moment and then slowly says your name, unraveling it from his memory like a fragile thread. “Right? Did I say it right?”

“Yeah,” you answer. Your name coming off his tongue sounds ultra-casual and cool, like it’s just been said on the radio or over the loudspeaker on a beach. “But I’m gonna go out on a limb here and deduce that everyone here gets a nickname.”

“Are you studious or just one of those people?” He asks, pushing his wet hair back.

You grin at him and warmth blossoms in his chest. You’ve got a pretty smile--especially this one that eats your whole face and scrunches your eyes. This one, the one he’s staring at, is harder to earn than the docile smile you wore on your way in.

“Just one of those people?” You ask, eyebrow cocked. “Do tell me what kind of people you’re talking about.”

“Well,” he says, stretching. “The kind of people that know everything.”

“Ah,” you say, nodding. “A know-it-all, in other words.”

“Hey, I never said that,” Rooster says, laughing. “You’re already putting words in my mouth!”

Shrugging, you sigh.

“Yeah, well--I already knew what you meant! Apparently.”

He licks his lips.

“So, you are one of those people then, huh?” He asks, his brow cocked identically. You blink at him, opening your mouth, when he suddenly stops you. “Wait a minute--don’t tell me. I wanna figure it out myself.”

You nod, pretending to zip your lips.

“Game on,” you tell him. “You’ll report your findings by Labor Day, right?”

“Right-o, captain!” He grins, saluting.

Cringing, you sigh through your clenched jaw.

“I’m hoping that one doesn’t stick,” you tell him.

You imagine everyone having to call you--the newest counselor--Captain. Yuck and a half.

Rooster imagines it, too, and laughs again. Hangman would get a real kick out of that.

“Consider it forgotten. Here, lemme get changed and I can finish the tour.”

He starts for his cabin, nodding for you to follow, and you do. You don’t even know that you’re doing it--your feet are just picking themselves up and dropping themselves down on the gravel a few inches further from where they started.

“Where’re you from?” You ask him, just to fill all the air around the two of you.

He grins down at you.

“Everywhere,” he says.

Smiling, warm from the sun, you nod.

“Military brat or on the lamb?” You ask. “Wait--don’t tell me. I wanna figure it out for myself!”

He’s laughing again--that booming laugh that is like your own private earthquake.

“The former,” Rooster says, laughing. “How about you?”

“Here,” you answer, pointing to the ground.

“Weird,” Rooster teases. “I’d think I’d have seen you before now since you’re local.”

He opens the door to his cabin--cool air rushes out, kisses your cheeks. The air smells thicker in there--like mint and pine and vetiver. It’s an undeniable boyish smell, one that you can’t seem to get yourself to mind inhaling.

Stepping over the threshold, you find yourself inside of his cabin for the first time. Everything is happening so fast--first you’re being whipped through the thick wilderness in a speedy Jeep, then you’re unloading non-perishable items with Maverick, and now you’re in Rooster’s cabin with him and he’s shirtless and flirting with you mercilessly.

“I’m from just outside of Portland,” you answer distantly, glancing around at the bottles of half-empty colognes and random nail clippers and bandanas strewn about. “So, pretty much here.”

“Ah,” Rooster answers. “A Maine native. What are y’all called again?”

“Mainers,” you answer. “You might be onto something with Maitive, though.”

He grabs a towel that’s been drying on the back of a chair and begins to pat himself dry of the fat water droplets. He’s watching you look around the cabin, all your features seeped in delicate curiosity and a quiet sort of pleasure. He’s suddenly hyper aware of his unmade bed and mustache trimmings and unpacked duffel bag and the scraps of posters he was cutting earlier to hang on the wall above his bed.

“So, you share with the kiddos?” You ask, nodding to the empty bunks. You know which bed is his--it’s the one in the corner that’s unmade, the one that is so heavy with his scent that you can practically see it wafting upwards in waves of amber and white. “What if they aren’t Deadheads?”

He looks at you and you’re looking at The Grateful Dead poster he puts up every summer, the one that is faded from the sun and water damaged and older than most of the kids at camp. His old man had it hung in the hanger way back when--when he was still alive and young and flying with Mav.

Rooster lets the towel drop to the ground as he holds his hips, shrugging.

“Then they’ve got a whole summer to become one,” he tells you. He looks you up and down again. “You a Deadhead?”

“Please,” you say, nose wrinkling. “You ask every lady that?”

“Just the ones trying to get in my bed,” he says. He glances at you and you’re indeed touching his sheets, freezing when you feel his gaze. “Go on--sit. Where are my hosting skills? Would you like anything? A water? Glass of wine?”

You sink into his bed and the mattress squeaks with your weight--Rooster tries hard not to look at the plush skin of your thighs expanding on his sheets.

“Got any Blue Nun?” You tease.

“It’s chilling,” he says. “Would a lukewarm water bottle do in the meantime?”

You nod.

He grabs one out from under the bed and presents it to you like a fine wine.

“It’s vintage,” he tells you.

“What year?”

“April of this one,” he says with a wink.

You twist the cap off and he grabs a t-shirt from his duffel and slips it on.

“Is it a bummer sharing with the kids?” You ask. You graze his pillow and then glance back up at the Polaroids on his walls. You can tell, even from where you’re sitting, that a few of them have been taken here. “You know, without privacy and everything.”

“What would I need privacy for?” He asks, slipping into a pair of denim shorts. He is watching you as you scan the room, your hair a touch messier than it was before. “Usually can’t get any of the outside folk to trek through the wilderness for a slumber party.”

“Outside folk?” You ask, brow perched. “You mean girls, right?”

“Do you want me to mean girls?” He asks.

Your face is hot.

“You have a radio,” you say when you suddenly spot it perched on the windowsill. “Can I turn it on?”

“Be my guest,” Rooster says, shrugging the towel around his shoulders.

While your back is turned, he takes a few seconds to sweep away his mustache hairs from the dresser and tucks his duffel beneath one of the other bunks.

You tune for a little while, listening with half a heart as you look out at the courtyard.

“It’s really beautiful here,” you tell Rooster. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it.”

“Trust me--you will,” Rooster sighs good-naturedly, leaning against the bunk opposite his bed. “Especially when you’re wrangling a bunch of ankle-biters.”

You hum, shaking your head.

“So, is it hard work?” You ask him, still tuning. “I mean, I’ve babysat and all that. But never anything like this.”

He drinks you in--the sun is shining on you through the window, grainy from the film of dust on the glass. You’re smiling, peachy and warm, as you try and find a song to punctuate this moment the two of you are sharing.

“Yeah, I mean--there are moments. You know?” Rooster asks. You nod, not looking at him. “For the most part, it’s chill. Super chill.”

“Good,” you say. “I’m trying to save up, so it’s good to know I won’t wanna quit by July.”

Rooster smiles.

“What’re you saving up for?” He asks. “A radio of one’s own?”

You grin.

“Nursing school,” you say. “Made the mistake of telling Maverick that already.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Rooster laughs.

You pause suddenly when Sugar Mountain by Neil Young begins.

Pleased with your choice, you turn back to Rooster and find him biting a grin.

“What?” You ask.

“You’re making fun of me for being a Deadhead and you’re a Rusty?”

Warm all over, you nod.

“Loud and proud,” you say.

“Bold,” he tells you. “Super bold.”

“Well, that’s me,” you tell him. “Bold.”

It's so noisy at the fair But all your friends are there And the candy floss you had And your mother and your dad

“I think you’re gonna fit in alright,” Rooster says decidedly.

You turn your head to the side, swallowing a face-eating grin.

“Oh, you do, do you?” You ask. He nods, eyebrows raised. “Hallelujah, the chicken thinks I’ll fit right in!”

He sits down beside you on the bed and you’re suddenly more aware than you’ve been since stepping into this cabin how beautiful he is. Curls still dripping onto his red t-shirt and tan skin smooth as it coats rippling muscles, you almost can’t breathe with him this close to you.

“You’re really saving our asses this summer,” Rooster says, leaning back on his palms. You try not to look at his hands--his fingers spread out and gripping the sheets that his skin touches every night. “We desperately need another lady.”

You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon You're leaving there too soon

“It shows,” you tease. “How has Phoenix survived all this time? It’s a real…testosterone-ified place.”

“She’s survived by the skin of her teeth,” he tells you, smiling. “And by batting for the other team, if you’re picking up what I’m laying down.”

Oh. You nod. Okay. Cool.

He looks to the radio and at the sheets--you’ve touched both these things now. Later, when he’s sharing you with everyone and you’re in your own cabin and everyone is excited, he’ll have this private part of you. Pieces of you, particles, that will stay his.

You move to say something when you suddenly feel a sharp and distinct pain. Immediately, you draw your hand up from the bed, gasping. Your finger is bleeding--just a little bit, just a few drops.

“Shit,” Rooster tuts, grabbing the scissors off the bed. His ears are bright red. “I’m so sorry--I totally forgot to throw these back on the dresser earlier.”

“It’s alright,” you tell him hurriedly, cupping your hand. “Don’t let me bleed on your sheets!”

He chucks the scissors and the land somewhere opposite of the bunks. Then he turns towards you, puts his hand out.

“Let me see,” he insists.

You do--immediately.

He inspects the wound carefully. Just a little slice, a parting off your delicate skin and a few droplets of red coating it. He nods like he’s seen this all before.

“It’s not deep,” he says.

“I know,” you say with a soft smile.

“I probably won’t get away with just spitting on it, though,” Rooster sighs, brows raised.

Too flustered to say anything, you just shake your head. But you know, deep in your gut, he could get away with just about anything. Especially spitting on it.

Rooster takes your water bottle and opens it with one hand, keeping your injured hand in his own. You watch him with half-lidded eyes, your pulse racing in your throat and beneath your tongue.

There's a girl just down the aisle Oh to turn and see her smile

“This won’t hurt,” he says, brows raised. He has the cadence of someone who’s used to bandaging up tikes--his concerned voice not without a fun lilt. “Squeeze me if it does, huh?”

“I’m really getting the full treatment,” you say, tickled. “You must’ve run the other nurse outta town.”

He pours some water over your cut and it drips into your own lap like pink nectar.

“Tape,” he says. He looks up at you. “Stat!”

“Watch it,” you warn, still smiling. You hand him the pale masking tape. “Not too tight.”

“This ain’t my first rodeo, birdie,” he says.

It’s natural--the name that falls from his lips. Like this isn’t his first time saying it. Like he’s uttered it to you over many summers, here and there, back then and in days to come. The feeling sits warmly on your tongue, peculiar and comforting.

He wraps your finger and you watch with your heart in your throat.

“Good as new,” you say, inspecting the tape job. “Didn’t hurt a lick!”

“Good,” Rooster says. “You know, not to be a pig or anything, but I’m pretty good at this.”

“Taping girls?” You ask, tilting your head and biting your lip.

Rooster nearly chokes as he swallows, smiling and face freckled from the sunshine and so very warm. He brings his brows together dubiously, shrugging.

“Do you want me to be good at that?” He asks.

Now you’re the one narrowing your eyes and chewing your bottom lip as you stare at him, wondering already how you’re going to survive this summer when he looks at you like that.

“You’re pretty easy to like,” you tell him decidedly.

“You aren’t too bad yourself,” he quips instantly.

“Really?” You ask, slightly surprised. You’ve been accused, mostly from the peers in your clinicals, of being cold. Callous. But, really, you’re just focused. In the zone. Careful. Precise. You think that will count one day, will make you a good nurse. Rooster nods immediately, smiling with his brows knit. “Well. Thanks a million, then.”

“What? People call you frigid?” Rooster asks, teasing. But then you nod and he leans back, surprised. “No way. Get outta town! You’re bluffing.”

Silky laughter falls from your lips--easy. It’s so easy to laugh around him. Despite the humor in all of this, you’re still warm. But it’s a warmth you welcome, like lying back on hot concrete after a long swim. Looking at him, laughing with him, it makes your stagnant limbs feel sore like you’ve been cutting water for hours. You can finally sit still, though.

“They really do,” you say, only a little bit embarrassed. It feels a bit pathetic to argue this with him, like he knows you better than you know yourself. “What, like you even know me.”

Rooster stiffens, a smile still tugging on his lips, as he crosses his arms defiantly.

“Yeah, well, maybe I do know you,” he challenges. You’re wrestling a grin. “Try that on for size, Miss Know-It-All!”

“A-ha! Guess you do have me figured out,” you say with a shrug. “Didn’t even take half the summer!”

The two of you look at each other for a moment. And when the sun kisses his face, golden and warm, you get the overwhelming feeling that this is not your first time meeting him. No, it can’t be. You know those eyes and those flecks of gold that surround his pupils. You know the feeling of his hand on yours. You don’t know how you know these things, or why they’re tinged with pain like the delicate edges of antique paper rolling in on itself, but you just do. And you don’t even consider yourself a know-it-all.

Rooster holds onto your thighs, his thumbs pressing into your skin.

“Oh. You’re here,” Rooster says in realization, chills running up his legs and halting in the pit of his knee. “I was--well, shit, I was--I was…waiting for you. Hi, birdie.”

He doesn’t look away from you, gauging your reaction. You’re blinking back at him slowly, brows coming together in an innocent confusion. But he can see in your eyes that you know him. He can see in your eyes that you’re here with him now the way he’s always here.

“Hi,” you whisper. You glance around and everything is fuzzy and warm and pink. The radio is still playing in the corner. This is a memory, you realize. Memories are always tinted pink, which just happens with the passage of time. Like skin cells regenerating. Like cuts scabbing. “Are we…where are--?”

“Camp Arcadia,” Rooster answers. “Your memory of it, at least.”

“My very first memory of it,” you whisper to him, glancing around the cabin. And, yes, everything is exactly as you remembered. Even the discarded scissors in the corner. Even the tape around your finger and the heartbeat in your neck. “And my first memory of you.”

Cupping his cheek, you thumb at the damp stubble on his cheeks.

“I never dream about you,” you whisper to him, holding his cheeks in your hands.

“You dream about me all the time,” he tells you carefully. “You just don’t remember.”

It must be true if he’s telling it to you. You know this. Maybe the nightmares have been drowning out all the goodness that happens behind your eyelids.

“What makes this time different?” You whisper.

“Usually you aren’t sleeping under anesthesia,” he whispers back. “What’d you call it? The meperidine haze? That’s a good one, baby. Very psychedelic.”

Yes, he’s right. The meperidine haze. You’re not really here, at camp, baking in the sun and inhaling vetiver and mint and pine. No, you’re laid out on top of an operating table and the stranger is breaching and you’re artificially asleep. Really, you couldn’t be further from this moment you’re living right now. Why this faux one feels so much more grounded than reality stupifies you.

Looking down at your hand and they’re the hands of a twenty-year-old girl halfway through her bachelor’s degree. The rubber ring you will lose on your twenty-first birthday is sitting snug on your pinkie, safe for now. Your knuckles are free from scars and cracks acquired at the hospital. There are so few indentations on your hands, lines pressed there by age and work and life.

You suddenly feel so much older than you were in that moment--older than you really are. You quietly begin to cry.

Rooster leans into your touch, smiling fondly at you. He’s missed these palms, these fingers. He doesn’t mind looking at you, meeting you, teasing you over and over again. Sometimes you remember him and other times you don’t. Most of the time, you don’t. He doesn’t mind--he always plays along, never misses a line. Anything to just be near you again--to be held by you. Even if he knows he isn’t real, even if he knows he’s just a figment of your imagination.

“I don’t understand,” you tell him.

He knows he can’t say anything to make you understand something he only distantly understands himself. So, he just kisses your fingers.

You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon You're leaving there too soon

“Is this where you are?” You ask him. “Here? Forever?”

“It’s where you want me to be,” he answers you. “But only on this day. The first day.”

“Rooster, I--!”

A sob rips from your throat. He holds tight to your legs, still smiling sadly up at you.

He knows that he is dead. He knows that you are dreaming. He knows what’s happening on the outside and the inside. He isn’t real. He knows that. But it all feels very real in this moment--he has the sudden and overwhelming urge to hold onto you tight, even if he knows it won’t stop you from going. He wants to dig his nails into your body until he meets bone. He wants to keep you here with him in this obscurity, when you’re both young and untouched by horror.

You don’t belong here, though. This--this he knows in the depths of his body, in the arches of his feet. You belong on the outside, in the real world, where your skin gets bruised and scarred and your chest rises and falls.

“Don’t spoil it,” he tells you, thumbing some tears from your cheeks. He swallows all the metal in his mouth and smiles at you sadly. “Just be here with me.”

Another sob wriggles out from your lips, but you nod. You’ll do whatever he wants.

“You’re so young,” you marvel, stroking his face. “I can’t believe it. Really, I--I hardly remember you looking so…boyish.”

“You’re pretty young yourself,” he whispers with a smile. “In the springtime of your life. Or whatever the poet’s say.”

If this was the springtime of your life, you wonder what season you’re in now. Surely winter hasn’t come so quickly, even if it feels that way. You’re not in the summer or the autumn, though.

You’re in-between.

A blizzard in April.

Another beat passes and you still drink him in, unable to tear your eyes away from his dripping curls or his sweet gaze. It has been a long, long time since you’ve thought about this day. It has been a long, long time since you’ve thought about this first meeting with Bradley. You cannot afford to linger in hurtful memories such as this one--not after everything.

“I miss you,” you whisper. Another sob sits pert in your throat. “I miss you more than…more than anything in the world. I miss you all the time. I have so much I wanna talk about.”

Bradley’s chest tightens. If he was being completely honest right now, he’d tell you the same. But he can see how hard you’re trying to stop crying, can see the tears beginning to breach your waterline.

“I’m always around,” he says and you know that he means here, as a figment of your imagination, in your dreams. “Just close your eyes and poof! There I am.”

“I think about you,” you tell him, nodding and sniffling and trying not to cry again. “When I can afford it. When I can stand it.”

He nods solemnly, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Oh, yeah? Like when?” He asks. He tries to sound not-so-severe, tries to sound teasing and sweet. But his voice is flat and his tone is serious.

Choking back another sob, one that makes your nose ache, you hold onto him tighter.

“Every time I hear The Police,” you say and a dry laugh crumbles from your lips and into your lap like peeling drywall. “Which is, like, all the time now.”

He laughs--his eyes are wet.

“Yeah, I bet,” he says.

“And whenever…whenever I feel them move,” you tell him and you mean the baby and he knows that. Cautiously, you move to hold your belly. And, yes, it’s empty--just like it really actually was when you were twenty. Rooster watches the movements, chews on his bottom lip. “Whenever they kick or-or elbow or…”

He can fill in the blanks. Whenever they roll, whenever they hiccup, whenever they flex, whenever they stretch, whenever they twitch. What you mean is that every time you feel the physical evidence of the life inside of you, you think of the man who put it there.

He nods, jaw clenched. He can’t say anything for a moment. He’s certain the dam will break. He’s certain he will hold onto your legs and never release you.

So, then it’s quiet for a moment. Neil Young is still crying quietly on the windowsill.

“I love this song. I forgot it was playing,” you whisper to him. The two of you look at the radio together. “Was it really playing?”

You’re wondering if Dr. Titus is playing the radio during your operation. Yes, operation. You’re being operated on. Right now, you’re not really sitting on Bradley’s bed at Camp Arcadia. You aren’t really breathing in clean, clean air. You’re breathing in oxygen from a mask and antiseptics.

“Yeah, it was,” Rooster answers. “And you really made fun of me for being a Deadhead.”

“Warranted,” you whisper, a few tears streaming down your face. “You kinda ruined me, though.”

“In what way?” Rooster asks, hoping the answer isn’t the obvious one.

“I remember that after this--after this moment, this conversation--I stopped changing the station when they came on the radio,” you say and it’s the honest truth. You’ve never told anyone this. “Ripple isn’t half bad, you know.”

That’s when a few tears slip down Bradley’s face. He’s still smiling--just barely--and he nods a few times.

“Will you show them?” He whispers.

You know what he means--will you show your child the music he so loved?

“Of course,” you tell him, sniffling. “But no promises they’ll be a Deadhead.”

“Their dad sure was,” he whispers. A few more tears slip down as his bottom lip quivers. “Just like my dad was.”

“Runs in the family,” you say quietly.

So does having your old man croak, I guess, Bradley thinks. Must be fate.

You hold his cheeks, thumb his tears away. You wonder, marvel almost, at how real this all feels. This is what his face felt like that day all those years ago, freshly-shaven and smooth and boyish. Untainted by time and its pinkness.

The feeling comes on suddenly--starting in your toes and shooting up your shins, your knees, your thighs.

“I’m cold,” you whisper to Bradley.

Rooster nods, flat palms grazing your goosed skin. He wipes a few of his tears away.

“It’s just a side effect,” he tells you. You nod. You know that shivering--that your temperature falling--is a commonplace issue during deep sedation and general anesthesia. “It’s almost over, you know.”

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Emergency cesareans are usually pretty speedy.”

He imagines what you really look like right now--laid out on the table, cut open, bleeding. It seems so utterly against your grain to take something so heinous lying on your back. He feels like you could be the first person to ever elect to be awake during a major surgery, blinking up at the ceiling and gritting your teeth and meditating through the pain.

“You’re having a baby right now,” he says and incredibility drips from his tone like honey. “Our baby. How trippy is that?”

Belly turning, fingers quivering, you nod.

Yes, you’re not really here. You’re not really here.

“I’m scared,” you admit quietly. It’s the first time you’ve said it out loud in almost ten months. Rooster looks up at you, listening and watching and waiting. “I’m so scared.”

He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t need to. Maybe it’s because he understands--or maybe it’s because he’s you and you’re him.

“I wish I was there with you. I wish I…I wish I could’ve stayed. For you. For the baby,” he tells you. “I wish I could hold them,” he admits.

It’s silly. You’ve wanted nothing more than to not hold them, than for them to be removed from your body. You’ve held them for nine months. You’re tired--anyone would be. But Rooster--Rooster will never get to hold his child. Not even in your dreams.

“I wish you could, too,” you whisper.

There is so much more he could say. He could say that he considers himself the luckiest man in his recent knowledge for having you as fleetingly as he did. He could say that his version of Hell is watching from far away, where he is now, and not being able to touch you. He could say that he hopes the baby looks a lot like you and a little like him so they don’t break your heart. He could say that he’s always thought of the name Ruth fondly and he’s never like the whole Junior thing for boys. He could tell you how much you meant to him, that he’s never felt alone, that he never did feel alone. He could tell you how sorry he is for dying, for leaving you behind pregnant with his child. He could tell you how much it hurts that his child will grow up without him.

He won’t break your heart today--the day your child is born. So, he just kisses your hands and feels the bones delicately pressing against your skin. He holds you tight.

“Do you think I can, like…do you think I have what it takes?” You whisper.

Rooster doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t tease. He just nods very solemnly.

“Of course I do,” he answers. “I don’t really have a doubt.”

“Not a single one?” You whisper.

Now he solemnly shakes his head.

“Afraid not,” he whispers back.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” you utter to him. The seams on his wrists are pressed against the back of your eyelids for eternity--the jagged, loose slices that didn’t hold for more than a few minutes. “I wish I could--I would do it differently if I could do it again.”

“I wouldn’t,” he whispers. He shakes his head. “I couldn’t have…”

Lived with himself. You both know it.

You kiss his fingers, try and remember the way they smell right now. Like lakewater and skin and wood.

“We would’ve been good together, huh?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Yeah. Maybe we would’ve.”

The song is almost over.

Now you say you're leaving' home 'Cause you want to be alone Ain't it funny how you feel When you're findin' out it's real?

“Is he good to you?” Rooster whispers.

He’s talking about Jake.

“The best,” you whisper back, nodding. “I love him. But not like I loved you.”

There is no way to measure these things--more or less, bigger or smaller, wilder or calmer. There is just love and different love. That’s all.

Rooster is choked up.

“Birdie?” He whispers.

“Yeah?” You whisper.

“Can I hold you?”

Without another moment of hesitation, you fall into his arms. You slip off the bed and into his lap and he wraps his arm around you and you wrap your arms around him. You’re overwhelmed by his heat, by his scent, by his breathing. There is salt and there is cloth as the two of you mold against each other.

Really, in these younger bodies, you didn’t hold each other like this. The first summer was chalk-full of merciless flirting and stolen glances and chaste touches. You never fell into his arms like this, a desperate heap, and cried into the red t-shirt that was still wrinkled from his duffel.

It is not in your nature to beg. It never has been. There are very few times in your life where you’ve resorted to it and Bradley was there for most of them, a figure looming or a warm body near you. The urge to beg right now--for him to hold you so tight that you can’t breathe, for him to keep you here with him forever, to stay--sits like a lump in your throat.

“I miss you,” you say instead of please, please, please. Your teeth chatter and you hold him tighter. “I miss you so much.”

“I know,” he whispers, voice strained. “I know.”

You look at him--really look at him. It feels like it is the last time you will ever see him. It feels like you’re on your knees in the mess hall and you’re about to pull a sheet over his face, like Joni Mitchell is dying on your tongue again. It feels like you’re standing in a morgue and you’re worried about him growing lonesome and cold. You’re crying too hard to memorize his nose or his sun kissed cheeks or the stubble on his chin. You just look at him and let your vision grow blurry with tears.

“Bird,” he whispers, brows drawn together in a happy sort of anguish.

Your entire body is cold now. The shivering is coming from deep within your connective tissue and marrow and nerves.

“Bradley,” you whisper. His name dies on your tongue.

“She’s waiting for you,” he tells you.

Something is tugging you backwards--like an invisible rope made of your own hair, a strong wind made of your own perfume.

“Who?” You ask.

He kisses your hands. His mouth lingers there--his breath is warm, his mustache is neatly trimmed. It is all so achingly familiar, so achingly real.

“Our daughter.”

♀

Two days blink by.

Well, really, they don’t blink by. They slink past Jake at an agonizing pace, like he is seeped in gelatinous animal fat. He used to like slow days--days that were dipped in honey, when the two of you were suspended in a quiet sort of sweetness--and the way they crawled forward.

But this diverges severely from that sweetness. It’s harder to move. He feels, for all intents and purposes, like he’s rotting. Decaying.

They brought you back into the room sometime between the afternoon and evening the next day. You’d spent a night in recovery, completely sedated, and been given two blood transfusions. The doctor explained something about injections, something about vitamins and narcotics, but Jake was having a hard time hearing because he was holding her.

Every time he held her--the baby girl you brought into this world with your eyes closed--his ears rang. It was like someone was firing a shotgun pressed against Jake’s cheek, like the kickback had sent him reeling and buckshot had deafened him.

He was still on the phone with his ma whenever the nurse wheeled an incubator in. It was only an hour after the flurry of white coats and scrubs that wheeled you out of the room, and he was still trying to catch his breath between broken sentences.

The nurse was whistling joyously like everything was hunky-dory, smiling down at the baby girl inside the glass. She glanced at Jake, smiling, and cleared her throat as she parked the incubator by the guest chair.

“Delivery!” The nurse sang.

Jake turned at once, eyes wide and wet and still crying.

“What--?”

He nearly fell out of the chair when the incubator registered. The phone slipped from his hands, hung on its cord and bounced like a plastic bungee jumper. His mama was still on the other line, southern drawl thick as she tried to get his attention.

“--Here she is! The lady of the hour!” She sing-songed, presenting the bulky machinery like a rare cut of steak at some snobby restaurant. He imagined the baby lying on a silver platter on a bed of inedible greens and the nurse pulling away the dome cover, wafting the scent of baby powder and milk towards him. “Your baby girl!”

Jake was frozen. There he sat, his hands empty and his face red and blotchy, and there the baby was only a few feet in front of him. The room changed--a small change, like being attuned to the frequency adjustment of a television--and he suddenly felt warm all over.

“My--my what?” He asked. “That’s--you mean it’s a girl? Mine?”

Quickly, glancing down, she read the label on the side of the incubator carefully.

Baby Girl Seresin.

“You’re Mr. Seresin, right?” She asked, suddenly feeling faint.

He nodded slowly, the lump in his throat impossibly large.

Her shoulders relaxed--she should’ve known better. She’s never mixed babies up before.

“All yours, daddy. Trust me, you’ll get proof of purchase at check-out,” she said jovially. She hummed, leaning down to tuck the white blanket beneath the baby’s chin. Already the nurse was touching her with such conviction, like they were old friends, like this little creature lying and crying wasn’t the reason Jake’s shoulders were stuck pinched by his ears. “And, yes--a girl. A blushing baby girl.”

He stared at the incubator. Yes, he could see her there. He could see that little nose and those big cheeks and those closed eyes. He could see her tiny face finally. He’d dreamed about her--about what she’d look like, about who she’d be. And she was finally there, right there.

But you weren’t.

“What’s going--is she okay? Is--is Gale okay--?”

The nurse’s cheeks flooded red, her smile dying slightly. She cleared her throat, looking down at the baby girl before her. She wished Jake would look down at the baby girl, too. Babies make everything better--they soften the blow with their ruddy cheeks and little lips and curled fingers.

“So, before the operation, she suffered what we call a placental abruption. Now, a--well, a placental abruption is when the placenta detaches from the uterine wall. In layman’s terms, it means that the baby couldn’t breathe--hence all the hullabaloo before the operation. But baby is okay--her levels are great and she gave us a good and loud cry when she was born,” the nurse explained softly, smiling at the thought of the baby’s first piercing cry. Even after all this time, all these years and these births and these babies, it still felt like a bell that called her home. “Passed all her tests with flying colors.”

Jake’s knees felt weak at the thought of the baby crying for the first time, suddenly in the air above your open abdomen and in a stranger’s hands and covered in your blood, and him not hearing it. He didn’t hear it. He was all the way in there, talking to his mama, and you were in there alone and asleep and bleeding.

The nurse sucked in a deep breath and met Jake’s gaze. She hated this part. Her palms were clammy as she slid them down the front of her nurse’s uniform, swallowing thickly and straightening her shoulders.

“Now, because of the sudden separation, mama’s uterine wall got knocked around quite a bit,” she explained. “Which, in layman’s layman terms, means that it poked a big ol’ hole. That can cause--well, it can cause a slew of issues, including internal bleeding, which we want to avoid at all costs. Obviously.”

Jake’s mind was racing--images and sounds and feelings and smells swirling around him, flitting past in milliseconds. Behind his eyes, his veins throbbed and pulsed.

“Okay. Okay--what does that mean? Like, you mean, she’s gonna be alright?”

The nurse sucked on the back of her teeth shortly, wishing there was something she could say or do to ease Jake's worries. But she couldn’t. She knew this.

“Her uterus experienced very severe trauma during delivery. It was already weakened from carrying to full-term and prior medical history. So, with all of that in mind, Dr. Titus went ahead and did a full-fledged hysterectomy. Well, he’s still--it’s still happening now. It was touch-and-go for a while there,” she said softly, nodding at Jake with soft, soft eyes. And what she meant by that was that your heart rate had dropped dangerously low after the baby was born. So low that it had been considered a Code Blue. “But she’s a tough cookie. Right? We’ll bring her back in after her time in recovery.”

Jake didn’t know what to say or do.

He was being turned inside out by grief. There you were, short corridors and white tiles and chrome door knobs and metal chairs separating your body from his, and you were being dissected. A part of you had been killed by the little baby in front of him, faultlessly, and was being cut out.

“No, you decided it. And never for a second have I second-guessed it,” Jake says. You’re watching him with big, soft eyes. “I’ve been game from day one. I…Gale, I love that baby already. I’m all in. But are you?”

“Ask me that tomorrow,” you whisper.

Something heavier than guilt and thicker than anguish slammed down on top of Jake’s head, grabbed him by the ears, and forced him back into the chair he was sitting in. The nurse watched him cautiously, just then noting the crutches beside him.

“When is she coming back?” He heard himself ask.

“No telling,” the nurse said. She wished she had a more concrete answer--she knew how awful it must be to be on the outside of it all, waiting and worrying and wringing your hands together. “We’ll keep you posted. Hell, between me and you, I’ll keep you posted. That’s a promise. Okay?”

Jake nodded flatly.

“In the meantime, I thought I’d bring this little angel in to keep you company,” she’d said, then. A weight was lifted from her chest as Jake looked down at the baby for the first time properly--that was usually the part they melted. And she watched him melt--watched his shoulders fall and his brows slope and his lips tremble. “Ain’t she a beaut?”

Jake’s jaw trembled.

“Is she…is she okay?” Jake asked, eyebrows furrowed. He suddenly couldn’t stand the prospect of something happening to your baby girl, too. Already he loved her so much--she only just got here. She couldn’t leave. “She’s not…she isn’t hurt or anything, right?”

The nurse smiled at him, prideful by proxy.

“Healthy as a ham,” she confirmed. “All seven pounds of her are perfect.”

“Seven even?” Jake mused, unable to stop himself from smiling.

The nurse nodded.

“It’ll be her lucky number,” the nurse offered.

Seven. Seven’s have followed him all his life.

He was born on the seventh of June, the fifth child, which rounded out his family unit to a party of seven.

On his seventh birthday, the song Crystal Blue Persuasion debuted on the radio and he thought, very concretely, that he was the luckiest kid on the planet. Who got to share a birthday with the song of the decade?

He graduated college on the seventh of December, a semester later than the rest of his friends.

And you--he saw you for the very first time on the seventh of May at Camp Arcadia.

You were standing just up the gravel hill, talking to Maverick with your hands on your hips. The sun was so blinding that he had to squint and hold his hand over his eyes. He could see from the water that your feet and calves were covered in gray gravel dust--kicked up your shins, coating your knees. He watched you for a long time, ignoring Coyote’s splashing and Phoenix’s diving and the beating sun, watching your lips curve around every word that fell from your mouth. His spine suddenly prickled when your calves flexed and your belly tightened with laughter, when you smiled and the sun kissed your cheeks and sweat dripped down the column of your spine. He didn’t even mind that Rooster was the one who’d made you laugh, standing across from you with his arms crossed over his damp chest.

Things just melted away. Things like long division and baseball scores and Pink Floyd lyrics and urban legends and the memory of his tenth birthday--they were all gone, dissolving, pooling out of his ears. Nothing else besides this one thought sitting fat and proud in the soft shell of his skull: I want to wash the dust off her.

He had never thought anything like that before. It made his jaw quiver.

“What’re you looking at?” Coyote had finally inquired, hooking a sopping arm over Jake’s warm shoulders. Coyote turned, noticed you, then smiled. “Hey! Fresh meat.”

Jake didn’t look away from you.

“Javy,” Jake said seriously, evenly. He sucked in a deep breath, brows knitting. “I’m gonna marry her.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Javy had said back, chortling. “Girl wore her flip-flops on a hike.”

“It’s my lucky number, too,” Jake said quietly to the nurse, unable to stop himself. His brows knit. “Seven.”

“Aw, are you trying to impress daddy?” The nurse sang jovially down to the baby, a grin splitting her features. “You planned this, huh? Didn’t you?”

Jake swallowed hard, reeling.

“She’s so quiet,” he whispered to the nurse. He was the youngest child--he wasn’t ever around fussy baby sisters or even cranky cousins.

She glanced up at him, nodding.

“Just wait ‘til it’s time to change her diaper--that’ll get her hollering,” she said. She kept watching Jake and his clenched jaw. “Would you like to hold her? I can bring her to you--I see you’re a bit disposed currently.”

She pointed to the crutches.

Jake swallowed hard, his tongue suddenly made of sandpaper.

“Okay,” he said, too scared to say anything else.

“Go ahead and take your shirt off,” the nurse instructed Jake, not taking her eyes off Baby Girl Seresin as she carefully cradled her head. Jake blinked at her, brows furrowed. “We call it skin-to-skin or Kangaroo Care if you’re a fun nurse like me--the hours after birth are crucial for bonding. Best to do that with her skin on your skin.”

Jake nodded, slowly moving to slip out of his sweatshirt.

The nurse turned, cradling your baby in her plush arms, and Jake had never felt so small in his entire life. He sat still, skin goosing from the cold air, and watched the nurse move towards him with the bundle of blanketed baby in her arms.

“Just hold her head now,” the nurse urged as she transferred the baby into his arms.

“Like--?” Jake said, red in the face and neck and chest. “Like that?”

The baby was against his body, her little cheek pressed up against his collarbone, her tiny body sinking into his chest and stomach. He didn’t hear the nurse’s answer--he didn’t need to. As soon as his body registered her heat, the heat of a tiny and most precious human life, he knew the answer.

Yes, he was holding her right. He knew how to hold his daughter. It came to him suddenly and naturally, which people said would happen. He cradled her head with all that soft hair, which was the color of yours, and carefully touched her plush cheek.

“Oh,” he whispered quietly. Two fat tears rolled down his face and onto his neck. “Well, you’re just a tiny thing, aren’t you? You’re just a…a little mite.”

She whined, shuddered against him, before her body relaxed into him.

The nurse softly situated the blanket so it covered the two of them, pink with joy, and watched on for a few moments as Jake craned to look down at his daughter’s face. She knew he was gonna be a crier from the moment she laid eyes on him. She’s always privately vindicated when she’s correct about these things--some sort of nonverbal reinforcement that she’s meant for this.

He wasn’t sure how long the nurse stayed after that--his ears were ringing too loud for him to hear anything outside of the baby girl’s breaths.

He held her close, back teeth still clenched, and overwhelmed by her scent. She smelled like you--like your skin, your body. He knew, just from holding her, that you had held her. Held her close, inside of your body, closer to you than anything or anyone ever had been.

Already he could see you in her face--your brow, your nose, your mouth.

“My, my,” Jake whispered. It was funny--he had never been the kind of guy who said my-my before. His dad was the kind of guy to say my-my. Or maybe, Jake thought, every dad is the kind of guy that says it. A sad smile tugged on his lips. “Aren’t you just--just pretty as a picture? You look just like your mama. And your mama is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Can you believe that? Huh? Well, I’m no liar. I really mean it.”

She whined shortly, brow furrowing. He moved her down so her cheek was resting between his pecs, her little lips puckered and parted.

“I would’ve shaved for you if I’d known,” he whispered weakly, stray tears rolling off his chin and onto her hospital blanket. He stroked her cheek as she continued to slumber. “I’m sorry, baby-lou.”

♀

People have been in and out of the hospital room since, filtering like transients.

A nurse comes every hour to check your vitals, fiddling with your IV stand, pressing buttons on the machines beside your bed, smiling apologetically when the baby cries.

Doctors do their rounds in the morning and at night, talking about you and your condition just outside the door, giving Jake a curt nod in greeting.

And in between all of the people, the masks and the gloves and the hand sanitizer, Jake sits at your bedside with the baby tucked close to him. Everything is sterile and white and your oxygen is a constant hum in the background.

It’s late at night now--so late at night that it’s really almost morning--and Jake is slumped in the chair beside your bed. The baby is asleep just beside him in the incubator, lying on her back and dreaming silently. She’s a good baby--quiet. Peaceful. But he still won’t be more than a few feet away from her at any time--Hell, he won’t be more than a few inches away from her at any time.

Here he is, then. Sitting between his girls, both of them sleeping, waiting for something to happen.

“She should gain consciousness at any time,” he heard the doctor say that morning during rounds. “The extended loss of consciousness is due to the trauma sustained during operation.”

Your face is placid. You hardly wrinkle your nose or crinkle your brow or frown or do much of anything at all. You just sleep, reclined, wrapped up in tubes and wires and cords.

Beneath his aching fingers, your hair is soft. He strokes it carefully away from your face so it falls over the pillow, wishing he could smell your shampoo from here. He wishes he could smell any of you right now. You smell like the hospital now--more than you do after a twelve-hour shift.

He wonders what’s going on beneath your eyelids--if you’re dreaming or if there’s nothing like you’re sitting in a pool of black water. He hopes that you’re dreaming. Sweet, sweet dreams about all the summers before last, about all the almost-good days you’ve had since May. And if you’re not having sweet dreams, he hopes you’re just resting. That you’re just catching up on all the sleep you’ve missed having to sleep on your side, curling around a belly you resented.

“I hope you’re havin’ good dreams in there,” Jake whispers to you. He sniffles, itches his nose. He keeps trying not to cry--not once with success. “Like when we drove all around town, grabbing furniture from the curb. I’m still shocked you could pick that table up by yourself. I shouldn’t be, though--I don’t know why I haven’t learned by now. You’re stronger than me. Like, way stronger. Stronger than I’ll ever be.”

Nothing. No response. Just sleep.

He glances at the baby girl beside him--she’s still sleeping peacefully. He’ll have to wake her up in an hour or so to feed her. She’s a pensive little thing when he gives her a bottle. She furrows her brow as she gazes up at him, somewhere between cranky and grateful, trying to figure him out the same way he’s trying to figure her out. He feels like he’s being sized up each time he feeds her--it reminds him of you. When you look at him, it isn’t just that you see him--you see right through him, too, as if he’s just a piece of thin membrane you cohabitate with. He’ll always be honest with you and her because he knows dishonesty wouldn’t even get as far as the front door.

Now he looks back at you. No change again.

He keeps hoping that one of these times he looks away, he’ll return his gaze to you and find that you’re already looking at him. He bides his time, measures the movements of his eyes, when he isn’t looking at you to give you enough time to come to. Hoping. Praying.

But no change.

“I want you to wake up,” Jake whispers, voice trembling. “I know that you’re tired and I know that you could probably sleep for the next--for the next millennium and still be exhausted, but I want you to wake up, honey. C’mon, girly--wake up now. Wake up for me--wake up for her. You’ve got--we’ve got a daughter and you haven’t even met her yet. Well, maybe you have--like somewhere in the cosmos--but I don’t feel like that counts. So c’mon now and open your eyes. I wanna…I wanna talk to you. I wanna tell you that I’m sorry for picking a fight, that I’m--!”

Jake thinks about the blue light in the bedroom and the way it goosed your skin, chilled the marrow in your bones. He wishes he could puncture that moment, like a needle sinking into a balloon, and let all the cold air out. He wishes he could wrangle the sun and pull it close to you, close enough to burn the tip of your nose and make the hair on your head hot to the touch. He wishes he could just stop thinking about the argument--everything he said, everything you didn’t say. He just wishes you would wake up.

“Just wake up. Please.”

Without stirring at all, face calm and still, you wake up. It happens suddenly, like someone’s just said your name.

It is still dark and blue and pink and quiet. The snow is still falling outside the window and you’re still numb from below your chest, so your breaths are heavy and unreal. It’s still night--or, at least, it looks like it is.

Jake is sitting just beside the bed--you can imagine him pulling it all the way out and plopping down in it with his hair askew and his breathing hard--tears slipping down his cheeks and his brow furrowed as he strokes the back of your hand.

“What?” You whisper. Your voice is ragged and crumpled--this is when you know that it’s been a long time since you’ve spoken. Probably days.

Jake’s head snaps up--his face is suddenly facing yours.

“Baby?” He asks, on the edge of his seat as he reaches forward to fuss with your hair and your cheeks. He cups your chin, carefully navigating around the nasal cannula. “You wakin’ up, girly? Are you confused?”

He doesn’t know what you’re saying what about.

The muscles beneath your skin unfold like pressed flowers, brittle and delicate, as you reach up and wipe a tear from his chin. It’s a small and stray one. You weakly present the finger to him, the pad wet and glistening with salt, then nod.

“Did they find cancer or something?”

And it seems like precisely the moment Jake finally lets go. You don’t know how you know, but you know suddenly that he has been the cracking wall that’s held everything together, standing up straight and tall against thousands of pounds of dirt and water to protect the pristine valley below.

But he lets go now--his sobs suddenly puncturing the stale air in the hospital room, rousing the hair on your arms and legs and the phantom searing burn in your underwear.

He stands--it isn’t an easy thing to Jake Seresin to do, especially after missing a physical therapy appointment yesterday. But he does it, does it for you, locking his knees and gripping the metal rails on your hospital bed.

“I’m so happy,” he tells you and his Southern accent sounds thick right now--you know he gets like this when he’s been talking to his mama.

Okay; you know you must’ve been out for a while and he must’ve been calling his mama. You can deduce this. Make an educated guess.

He’s rapidly stroking your hair, in utter disbelief that you’re here again with him. It has only been two days without you--which is only forty-eight hours--but that is enough to make Jake feel like you’ve been out for an entire lifetime. Even one hour without you is one hour too long.

“Baby, I’m so happy,” he mutters over and over again, kissing your face--your eyelids, your nose, your ears, your cheeks, your chin. “I’m so fuckin’ happy.”

Reality is beginning to dawn on you now. It’s been days. Days since they cut the baby from your womb. You’re doped up enough to not feel anything at all, and you know they only give the good stuff when it’s serious. This must be serious.

Looking down, beyond the flurry of blonde hair and salt and skin, you see the deflated pit of your belly. Yes, the little stranger is gone. All that remains is the excess skin and fat and fluid that kept them warm and safe and quiet.

“Are you okay?” You ask Jake.

Jake holds both of your cheeks, presses his forehead against yours. Your face is wet with his saliva, his tears. He kisses your dry lips a few times.

“I’m the happiest guy around,” he tells you. “You’re awake.”

“Has it been that long?” You ask, straining and willing yourself to just know how much time has passed.

“Two days since they took you,” he tells you. “We were just waiting for you to wake up. Me and the little lady.”

Something punctures you--it feels like an ax. Sharp blade digging into the skin of your chest, snapping your bones, stopping the precise beats of your heart. But then it makes you warm all over your body, warm from the tips of your ears to the soles of your feet.

You have a daughter. Just like Susie told you that you would. Just like Bradley told you that you did.

A daughter.

Jake realizes what he’s said to you and watches as your face falls--fuck. He meant to tell you slower than this, meant to break the ice. He didn’t mean to throw you into the middle of it.

Two tears roll down your cheeks and he thumbs them away, tutting.

“A girl?” You whisper. “We have…a girl?”

“Yeah,” Jake answers, unable to bite the grin on his lips. “We do. A little mite--seven pounds even, eighteen inches long. She’s…well, she’s a mite. Tiny. Tinier than anything ever in the world. We’re gonna have to bathe her in a spoon.”

That makes you cry harder--you don’t know why. Maybe it’s because you’re scared or maybe it’s because you’re in love or maybe you’re scared to be in love. You don’t know. But you clutch him.

“Is she…?”

“She’s healthy,” he answers even though that is not the question you’re asking.

All the same, you nod. Petrification sits coiled in your belly like a slick snake.

He doesn’t want to pop the pink bubble you’re in right now, overwhelmed with goodness and graciousness that you’re finally awake, so he doesn’t say anything about the complications. He knows you’ll ask--and when you do, he’ll tell you. But for now, he just wants to be close to you and watch your pupils dilate in the dark room.

“Can you believe it?” Jake asks, sniffling. “A baby girl. A girl!”

Unable to speak, you just shake your head.

But you can believe it. You don’t know what happened and you don’t know where you went or why you didn’t stay, but you know that Bradley told you the truth. Your daughter, the one he gave you, was waiting on you.

Carefully, you peer over his shoulder. And, yes, right beside the chair he was sitting in is the incubator. It’s a big and bulky piece of machinery, but inside there is a little tiny baby’s face peeking out from a white cotton blanket. Her eyes are closed. Your toes are numb.

Jake follows your gaze.

“Do you wanna hold her?” He asks softly.

“No,” you answer quickly. “I’m still numb.”

Your arms aren’t numb--you could hold her. But you’re too afraid that she’ll open her eyes, that she’ll look at you, that you’ll know. Then what will you do? You never got this far in any nightmare.

Jake nods, kissing your forehead again.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, baby. That’s fine. That’s all good.”

♀

Jake isn’t in the room. He left only a few minutes ago, crutches tucked beneath his arms and hands holding your empty dinner tray, pleased as ever before that you were awake with an appetite and sitting up in bed. He kissed your face one thousand times, grinning, before leaving his girls alone to make some calls in the hallway.

So, it’s just you and her now. She’s still sleeping in her incubator, all tucked in, which has been pulled up against the side of your bed so you can hold her when you’re ready. You know that Jake is eager for you to hold her--you know that it’s what he’s dreamed about for the past nine months.

But the potential horror of it all is sitting in your throat, making it hard to swallow. You won’t survive another summer like the one before. And if you take her in your arms, if you look into those eyes and know, then you’ll have to reckon with terror all over again. You can’t. You can’t do it.

You’re only alone for a few minutes whenever you decide to pull down your blankets--they’re thick and heavy, warm from trapping all your heat. A gust of you-perfumed air slips underneath your nose and onto your tongue. You smell like the hospital.

The gown you’re wearing is new--it’s not the one you wore before, when you first came to the hospital and they told you that you were already three centimeters dilated. You know because there is no jell-o stain on your chest, because there are hardly any wrinkles. It’s pristine. Placed on your body by a nurse while you were still under anesthesia.

“Weird,” you mutter to yourself because it is weird and you need to hear your own voice. How out of control you were just hours and hours ago, asleep while you were cut. “Strange. Odd.”

Pulling the hem of the gown, your tongue thick with saliva, you pull it up slowly. The fabric is warm as it pools beneath your breasts, already crinkling with the movement. Part of you was expecting to see red streaks, puss-filled burns, loose stitches--but that isn’t what is really there.

No, what’s there is everything that should be. Bandages. Yellow antibiotic. Gauze.

Gently, you reach down and press your fingers to the gauze. You can’t feel it on your belly, but you can feel it with the tips of your fingers--it’s smooth and warm. If you didn’t know better, you would rip it off and look at all the scars that make up your belly now.

A very quiet whine breaks your gaze from your belly.

Looking up, squinting in the dark room, you glance at the clock. It’s closing in on six in the morning, which you know you’re gonna regret later today. Shit. She needs to eat--Jake said he’d wake her up before he left but had forgotten to in all the excitement and relief of you waking up.

“Shh,” you whisper quietly, rolling your gown back down and letting your curled hands fall in your lap. With wide eyes, you watch as she begins to turn her head slowly from side to side, blinking herself awake. She whines again--louder, longer. “Hush now, it’s okay. It’s fine.”

That’s when she cries for the first time--it sounds like a baby’s cry, like all the other babies in the world. It’s not deep and guttural or strange and silent. It’s just a baby’s cry.

“It’s okay,” you try again, voice weak. You glance at the closed door, willing Jake to bust through. “Daddy’ll be back any--he’ll be back any minute now, alright? Can’t you just wait it out?”

It becomes shrill--finally, you move.

Ears ringing and pulse quickening, you scoot yourself closer to the edge and look down at her. She’s becoming more and more upset by the second, her fists balled and her mouth parted and wet.

“Here,” you whisper, grabbing the corner of the incubator and pushing it before pulling it. Makeshift rocking. “There, it’s okay. See. I’m here.”

You continue pushing and pulling, the wheels squeaking, and the baby does not stop crying. You glance at the door again--Jake is still not here.

It’s like something pops--all of the sudden, you can’t take it anymore. Fibers that make up your body and soul and heart suddenly vibrate like splitting atoms and move your body for you. Suddenly you can’t just sit on the edge of the bed and rock her with your teeth grit--you have to reach down and take her in your arms.

Blinking, sitting back against the bed, you look down at the baby stunned. She’s in your arms, wrapped in cotton, still crying herself into a cloudy face. But she’s pressed up against your body and you can feel her weight in your arms--all seven exact pounds of her--and you can’t help but marvel for a moment. She’s real. A real human being with frowning lips and a voice and hair sticking out from beneath the ridiculous hospital beanie.

“What’s got you so upset?” You whisper to her because you don’t know what else to say. “Huh? You just a feisty little thing or something? You’re…well, you’re like me, then. I guess.”

When you speak--the cries begin to quiet down. Like all she needed to know was that you were there with her, that you would speak to her. Her mouth slowly closes and her eyes begin to slowly blink themselves open.

Your heart nearly stops when her eyes meet yours for the first time. You’d imagined this before, thought about it on coffee breaks and while brushing your teeth or stirring a pot of soup in the kitchen. You’ve imagined them one thousand times since you looked into them for the first time at Camp Arcadia, when you saw all the light dissipated and flecks of gold washed away from Bradley’s eyes.

All this time, these long nine months since the Camp Arcadia Annihilation, you’ve imagined that this creature is the one that ushers in your demise. But now she’s here, blinking up at you with her father’s eyes--flecks of gold surround her brown velvet irises.

“Oh, my--!” You choke, bringing a quivering finger up to touch her cheek. It’s plush and warm and she keeps slowly blinking up at you. “Well--my, my, my, aren’t you so…you’re so pretty. You’re the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen.”

Parts of you are melting that have been frozen since July.

“Oh, my baby,” you whisper to her. She gazes up at you, eyes glazed over with sleep and love and antibiotics. “It’s so good to meet you.”

Jake comes back into the room ten later, having called Javy and Natasha and rattled off all of the baby’s statistics and updated them on your condition. When he opens the heavy door, he finds you on the bed and holding the baby in your arms as she nurses. There are tears falling off your nose and onto her blanket, a small smile tugging on your lips.

His heart swells in his chest. He thinks he might keel over for a minute.

But then you look up at him, awestruck and so in love that it’s practically written across your forehead in Magic Marker. And he can’t help but come to your side, can’t help but keep moving forward to be near you.

He kisses your temple long and hard, glances down at the baby as she suckles. Her hat is gone--you must’ve taken it off to look at all of her hair. He strokes her hair gently and watches her eyes slowly slip shut.

“She’s kind of perfect,” you whisper to him. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t expecting that.”

Jake glances at you. You’re looking at him with knit brows, with your lips held in a partial frown.

“Yeah?” He asks. “What were you expecting?”

“More of the same,” you whisper.

He knows what you mean: horror. For things to end the way they ended at camp--in flames.

He kisses your temple again.

You look at him, tear-stained and worn out and lovesick. This man, this man who threw himself in front of an ax for you and somehow lived through it just to live in a little house with you and share a carton of orange juice every week, looks back at you like he’s never loved you more than this very moment. Maybe he hasn’t before--maybe every moment beyond this one will be just like this, so chalk-full of love that it spills out of your ears.

And you have left him on the outside of everything. Everything bad and everything good, everything you’ve thought and felt and said to Dr. Messina. It’s on the outside of this bubble, waiting for you to come back. But you know, without a doubt, that he will love you through all the ugly.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you, Jake,” you whisper to him.

He’s choked up. So, he just nods. He kisses your forehead again.

Thank you, God, he thinks. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“We’ve got a lot to do,” he whispers to you.

You nod, laughing quietly. You don’t have a crib set up. You don’t have any clothes washed. But there’s a certain peace sitting in your chest, a certain calmness that you haven’t known in a very long time. Because it’s okay. It’s really, really okay. You will do all of these things in time, but for now, you’ll just hold the seven-pound baby girl against your breast and give her every single part of you. It’s all that matters to you.

Suddenly, the baby turns her cheek away from your breast. She doesn’t cry, but she whines, nuzzling against your gown and balling her fists.

“You’re okay, birdie,” Jake whispers, stroking the top of her head. Her hair feels like feathers. “It’s okay, baby.”

“Birdie,” you repeat yourself, looking down at her placid face as she finds your chest again and resumes eating. Your spine prickles. “Birdie.”

“Haven’t heard that name in a long time,” Jake says slowly. “I don’t know why I--it kinda just fell out of my mouth. Couldn’t help it.”

“Maybe it’s what she wants to be called,” you whisper. “Do you wanna be Birdie?”

Sunlight suddenly breaks through the gray clouds and punctures the cracked asphalt parking lot. It is not a lot of fun--but it is just enough to draw your gaze over to the window, where you watch as it gleams off windshields and piles of sludgy snow.

Oh, you think. It’s finally morning.

𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. WE COULD TALK ABOUT HOW THIS WAS ME AVOIDING THIS STORY ENDING BECAUSE I LOVE IT SO MUCH + I'M REALLY BAD AT GOODBYES. BUT WE COULD ALSO SAY THAT IT'S BECAUSE I WANTED IT TO BE PERFECT. EITHER WAY...

FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY LITTLE HEART, THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO READ THIS STORY. THE REACTION I'VE GOTTEN HAS BEEN SO UNEXPECTED AND MAGICAL AND FANTASTIC. I HAVE ENJOYED EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF SHARING THIS WITH EVERYONE. Y'ALL ARE SOME OF THE FUNNIEST PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET AND YOUR REACTIONS TO THIS STORY PROVED THAT.

THIS IS MY LOVE LETTER TO HORRO, BUT ALSO GRIEF. I'M PROUD OF IT. I'M PROUD OF ME. I'M PROUD OF YOU. THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO SHARE THIS. I'M HUMBLED AND GRATEFUL. STAY TUNED HERE ON ROOSTERBRUISER BECAUSE WE HAVE SOME REALLY FUN STUFF COMING UP. I'M NOT DONE YET!

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐒

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