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When Raul was four, his mom entered him into the Rust Bank Catholic student lottery. Every year, one lucky little girl from Rust Bank was chosen to attend RBC on a reduced tuition. It was good PR for the school, giving them some increased funding from the state, and everyone knew it, but nobody complained. Raul’s mom personally found the whole thing to be a little exploitative, but getting her kid into a good school was more important.
Back then, Rust Bank was still thriving, and Raul was still Ramona. He was considered very lucky to have won the lottery, and he felt lucky, too. He showed up to his first day of kindergarten in a perfectly ironed shirt, pressed skirt, and pigtails that his mother had done herself. As he sat in the gymnasium with the other new students, in outfits just like his with their hair styled in similar fashions, he felt like he would fit right in at Rust Bank Catholic.
Eight years later, and he was finally starting to get that feeling again.
It had been a couple of weeks since Kat had shown up and everything about Raul’s life had changed. Rust Bank was already seeing a revival, with the news of Klax Korp’s downfall having already spread across the state. Families who had fled the town years ago were moving back in, and it looked like RBC would have a full roster for the first time in five years when the next school year rolled around. Kat had told Raul that they had a lot of work ahead of them, reopening her parents’ brewery and welcoming more Break the Cycle kids to the school, but for now, everyone was just recovering. Going to class, having meals together, and trying to process the fact that they had raised the dead and saved the town less than a month ago.
Raul, Kat, and Siobhan were considered something akin to celebrities at RBC now. Sister Helley managed to get the other students to leave them alone, but that didn’t stop the stares in the halls and the whispers in class. The three had taken to hiding out in Kat and Siobhan’s room (the latter now living at the school, since her parents’ arrest had left her as a ward of the state) whenever they weren’t required to be in class. Two weeks to the day after they had saved Rust Bank, the three were spending their lunch in the room once again. Raul was sitting cross-legged on Kat’s bed, leaning against the wall as he ate the sandwich his mom had packed for him the night before. Siobhan was across from him, sitting on her own bed with her legs dangling over the edge and eating the meal the school had provided for her. Kat was ignoring the fact that it was lunch entirely, instead crouched on her desk chair, which she had dragged into the center of the room, animatedly explaining all the new features she was going to add to the brewery when it was eventually re-built. Raul and Siobhan watched as their friend explained her plans, hands furiously cutting through the air as she spoke, with twin smiles on their faces. Kat had been closed off and angry when she’d arrived at the school, but she seemed more at ease now. She seemed happier.
“Raul’s gonna create the new sign,” Kat explained. “I saw it in my vision. It’s gonna have both of my parents and two dragons and it’s gonna be badass.” Kat had explained every detail of the vision she’d had the day they stopped Klax Korp, and the details of all the ones she’d had since, to Raul and Siobhan many times, but neither of them minded listening as she recounted them once more. Like she had the couple of other times Kat had explained her vision for the brewery, she turned her attention towards Raul and kept speaking. “I bet you could design new labels for the bottles, too. Maybe it could be a simpler version of the new sign, or-”
“Kat?” Sister Helley called from the other side of the door, her words accompanied by a knock, cutting off Kat in the middle of her sentence. Kat rolled her eyes at the interruption, but the grin on her face didn’t drop as she crossed the room and opened the door. In fact, it only got bigger as she looked up at Sister Helley, who smiled back at her. “Manberg and I need you in the basement for a bit. Nothing serious,” she added hastily as Kat’s face momentarily dropped, “just some stuff to do with your training. We’ll be done by the time lunch is over.”
Kat glanced back at Raul and Siobhan, as if asking for permission, and the two nodded, Raul waving his hand at her in a “go-on” gesture. Reassured, Kat stepped out of the room, looked back one more time, and closed the door. Raul and Siobhan were left together in the silence.
“She acts like we’re going to disappear if she’s not with us at all times,” Siobhan said, breaking the somewhat-awkward silence. Raul and Siobhan had been best friends when they were younger, but in recent years, things had been tense between the two of them. Even now that they were tentatively friends again, it was still a bit difficult to talk to each other without Kat around.
“I mean, she did just watch her parents die again, like, two weeks ago,” Raul replied, earning a grimace from Siobhan as she ducked her head to take another bite of her lunch. Raul winced. Both Kat and Siobhan were happy to recount the more cheerful parts of their adventure, but when it came to things like Kat’s parents, they tended to avoid talking about them at all costs. Now here Raul was, bringing it up. The sudden guilt made his stomach hurt.
“Sorry,” he said after a few seconds. Siobhan looked up, eyes wide, and shook her head.
“No, it’s okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird. I just-” she paused, looking up towards the ceiling as she thought. Raul gave her a minute to get her thoughts together. That was something she had been doing a lot more recently. Collecting her thoughts, thinking carefully before she spoke. It was a weird change, but Raul didn’t mind it.
“I just feel bad for her, y’know? I mean, it was awful enough watching my parents get arrested, I can’t imagine how she feels.” Raul cocked his head to the side.
“You’re upset your parents got arrested?” he asked. Once again, Siobhan grimaced, and once again, Raul felt guilty. “Sorry, I guess I just thought you would have been happy about it, since you’re the one who told us their plan and all.”
“I mean, yeah,” Siobhan said, setting her lunch to the side. “I’m glad they got in trouble for what they did, and I’m glad their plan failed, but- ugh!” she exclaimed, dramatically falling backwards with her hands in the air. She stared at the wooden slats of the empty bunk above her for a minute, collecting her thoughts again, and Raul was content to finish off his sandwich and wait.
“They’re still my parents, you know?” she said eventually, speaking to the ceiling instead of sitting up to look at Raul. Even though she couldn’t see him, he nodded. “Like, they did bad things and I’m very mad at them for it, trust me. But they still raised me and loved me and all that. I guess I just wish they hadn’t been evil in the first place.” Raul took in Siobhan’s words, suddenly feeling like he understood her a little more than he had before.
“I think I get what you mean,” he said. Siobhan, who clearly hadn’t been expecting him to say anything, sat up suddenly. Raul continued, “My dad left when I was little, so I hardly remember him, but I still miss him. Even if my mom says he wasn’t any good and that it’s better that he left, anyways. Doesn’t mean I can’t wish things were different.” Siobhan smiled at him, an understanding having passed between the two.
They sat in silence for the next few minutes, Raul drumming his fingers on his legs and Siobhan finishing her lunch. Raul could tell she was still a little lost in thought, and he didn’t want to bother her. If she wanted to talk, she would. She may have become a bit more thoughtful recently, but that didn’t mean she had lost her love for talking. Sure enough, the moment she finished the last of her meal, she started speaking again.
“I think I owe you an apology,” she said suddenly. Raul immediately snapped his head up to look at her. She was looking down at her lap, hands wringing together, quite obviously trying to avoid catching his eye. “When you told us you were, well, a boy, we didn’t support you enough. I didn’t support you enough, and then we stopped being friends because of it, so I wanted to say sorry.” Raul, stunned, couldn’t speak for a minute. He’d never really expected an apology from Siobhan, especially considering he didn’t particularly blame her for anything. Still, he couldn’t deny that, as unusual as this was, it was a little nice for her to apologize for something that most people wouldn’t even consider as having made him uncomfortable.
“Um, it’s fine. I’m not, like, mad at you for any of that,” Raul said after a moment. Siobhan just shook her head.
“Raul, I literally called you your deadname like two weeks ago. When you came out, I told you you couldn’t be friends with me and Sweetie and Sloane anymore because you weren’t a girl. I called you the wrong name on purpose for months! I was horrible.”
“Siobhan, two weeks ago was an accident, and the rest of that was ages ago,” Raul countered, sounding to himself like he was trying to calm down a frightened animal.
“It was only a year ago!” Siobhan shouted.
“We were twelve!” Raul shouted back, which was enough to shock Siobhan into jumping where she sat and finally looking up at him. “I mean, yeah, it was shitty. You weren’t very nice, but no one else was either, besides my mom and Sister Helley. And I know your parents told you that you weren’t allowed to hang out with me anymore, so don’t go blaming that on yourself. I know it wasn’t that long ago, but it was still when we were younger and stupider. I think I forgave you for it a long time ago.” Siobhan just stared at Raul, whether it was because she was processing his little tangent or she simply didn’t believe him, he wasn’t sure. Hesitantly, he got up from Kat’s bed and sat down next to Siobhan on her’s. She looked down at her hands again, where she was tugging on her fingers so hard that Raul was afraid she might rip them off entirely.
“Thank you for the apology, though. I do appreciate it. I just don’t want you to beat yourself up over it. I don’t wanna think about everything that happened last year, I just wanna be friends again,” Raul said, his voice soft. Siobhan sighed, her shoulders drooping, before looking up to meet Raul’s eyes.
“Okay. If that’s what you want to do,” she said. Raul smiled.
“It is.” Siobhan smiled back, and even if her’s was a little bit shaky, it was enough for Raul.
They spent the rest of lunch on Siobhan’s bed, reminiscing on the time they’d spent together before Raul had come out. Slumber parties in Siobhan’s mansion of a home, summers at the beach with Sloane and Sweetie, dinners at Raul’s house. Raul knew that they’d probably have to talk about what happened after he came out one day, but for now, he was happy to leave it at what they’d already said and think about the happier times, instead. That seemed to be what everyone wanted to do these days, forget the bad and remember the good. For now, he thought, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea. They could let themselves be happy for at least a little while.
Right before their afternoon classes were about to start, Kat slipped through the door, stopping in the middle of the room when she saw Raul and Siobhan sitting together.
“Y’all good?” she asked, her eyes flicking between the two of them as she analyzed the way they were both relaxed and smiling, almost as if she didn’t believe that they were able to get along this well. She looked suspicious, but underneath the suspicion, she also looked a little bit hopeful.
“We’re just peachy, Kay-Kay,” Siobhan said, the nickname clear bait. She shrieked when Kat snatched her pillow off her bed and came after Siobhan with it. Raul clutched his stomach as he laughed at Siobhan, curled up and giggling, and Kat, a grin on her face as she whacked the other girl with her pillow. Raul was happy, and while there was plenty for him to worry about when it came to the future of Rust Bank and RBC and the brewery, he was content to let it all fall to the side. For now, he would laugh with his friends, and he would be happy, and everything else could come later.