Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, you waste your life being safe.

You spend sixteen years trying so hard to be the person you should be, the one that would make your mom happy, make her proud. And you fail. And she dies. The person who made you promise to take care of her, to never leave her, leaves you first.

And you try it all over again, try to adjust to someone else who actually tries taking care of you for a change.

It doesn’t work. You both know that. No one takes care of you, no one should. No one has ever wanted to. Your own name sounds strange when someone tries to say it soft.

And then, you get lucky. You get someone else to help with. You spend all your free time taking care of your niece, trading shifts on the weekend so you can help pay the bills. You’re tired. You’re happy.

And then… there aren’t so many bills. There isn't so much need for help. Abby and Janice are… fine.

Steve can take care of them.

And then you’ve got a diploma and a perfectly serviceable job that you never leave. An apartment that’s too bright with rotating roommates that are too loud and your skin starts to feel too tight and you can’t wear color to the office. You can’t paint your nails.

Fuck.

You can’t.

You’re always the one who can’t.

The one who has to push it all down and wrap it all in.

You can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t

“You can’t fire me,”

Lauren lifts an eyebrow. I know she’s not the one who made this decision, I know that. She’s just the hand that brings the decision down. But I have to try.

“It’s not a ‘firing’ Mr. Palmer-”

I grit my teeth.

“-we’ve had to let some people go-”

“I’ve been here for nearly ten years. You can’t just… just replace me,”

She smiles in what I think is meant to be sympathy but comes off more like a hungry animal.

“We aren’t replacing you, no. I am sorry, Mr. Palmer. Please shut the door on your way out,”

“That’s… that’s it?”

She starts writing in a manila folder on the desk.

“What about… about severance?”

“You’ll receive an email-”

“This is not fair,” I snap.

She sighs and looks up, the same smile still in place.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Palmer, life simply isn’t fair,”

***

It feels like it ought to be raining when I leave the office with a box of half-remembered belongings from my corner desk.

It isn’t.

It’s as sunny and cloudless as most days. Maybe even more so.

I trudge home, hunched over a bit. I don’t bother with the bus schedule. I need to move. I have to keep going. I might burst open if I stop for long enough to think.

I’m sweating by the time I reach the apartment, the stiff neck of my collar sticking to me in a way that makes me want to scream.

No one’s home at this time of day, and I’m not sure I’d welcome them if they were. It’s not a nice place, hardly any better than my college apartment. But without any consistent income? It’s not something I’ll be able to keep up. I have some savings, sure, but the job market is rather dire. I don’t know what to do.

I set my box on the bed and lay down beside it. I want to move but there is nowhere to go. I have no choice but to think.

And I am forced to admit my life is hollow.

I am forced to admit that I have spent years shambling around an existence that has left lacerations on my soul, and I can’t even be bothered to care anymore. I can’t even bother to cry, to do more than sit numbly on my back in a bed that suddenly feels too small and too large all at once.

It’s all awful enough to admit by itself, but it’s compounded by the ticking clock of my own existence.

Too late to start over.

Too late to be something.

Too late too late too late too late too late.

I stare at the ceiling, the dull ache in my head growing into a painful throb. I don’t know what to do, who to call. I can hear my roommate get back from work, chatting excitedly with their partner on the phone.

I pull the duvet cover over myself, still in my work clothes.

Sleep seems like the only option.

Maybe the only thing I can still do right.

So I sleep.

***

I wake early enough that the sun isn’t up, a byproduct of falling asleep before I could even eat dinner. My stomach screams.

I do not want to eat.

I do not want to take care of myself.

The sky starts to change. The automatic coffee pot kicks on with a low screech. My roommate gets dressed and leaves for work, lock clicking back in place behind her.

I finally move.

I usually start the day by getting dressed, but the clothes I have are dull and utilitarian, not even really comfortable. They were what I needed for work, but now that there is no work I have nothing. Maybe I have always had nothing. I stay in my wrinkled suit from yesterday.

And really, there is nothing else to do. Nothing else to wait for now.

So I call Abby. I should have called yesterday, but it all feels a bit pointless. She’ll be worried, but it’ll sound more like anger than concern. I don’t usually handle that well. Abby’s concern has always felt too much like derision, too much like scolding a child rather than worrying for an adult brother who fucks up far more than any kid could.

The phone rings once, twice, three times. I stare at the wall. Maybe she won’t pick up. Maybe I never have to tell her it’s all crashing and burning. Maybe I can just suffer in a vacuum, deteriorate down to nothing as the universe continues to expand around me. And then she picks up.

“Ugh, Gersh, I’m at work right-”

“I got laid off,” I tap my fingers on the cardboard box, still perched beside me on the bed, through the following silence. I am unable to keep still once more.

“Fuck, you’re not joking are you?”

“No,” I close my eyes. As if I’d joke about something so shit.

“I…” I hear the shuffle, the way she gets quieter. “Are you okay?”

“No,”

“No, I… I didn’t think you would be…” she sighs. “Can you wait until 3? I have a presentation at 1, and then I can head out around 2:30,”

“I got time,” I say, closing my eyes.

I have nothing but time.

***

I edit my resume, update my cover letter, send it all off to every job I can possibly find. I check my Strex email for information on the severance. It’s not great, but at least it’s there. I do wish there wasn’t a smiley face, but that’s Strex HR for you.

That hardly carries me to 12.

I try to turn the TV on, try to tidy the apartment. I end up abandoning everything I start and instead circle the apartment like a caged animal, walking the same path as I chew my nails all down so far that they bleed.

It’s only 1 when I finally decide that’s enough. I can’t stay here. I take my coat and throw some things I own in a bag, I’m not even sure what makes it. I leave, I walk and walk until I can’t think anymore and I realize I haven’t eaten in nearly 24 hours.

I stumble into a convenience store. I buy one of the shitty prepackaged sandwiches and the coffee that tastes like dirt. I buy a pack of Red’s, too. I haven’t smoked in eight months, and even that was just one yellow Spirit. But now? Now I can hardly think of a reason not to smoke through all twenty.

It’s good, burning my throat. It’s one of the few things I have always been able to do, even when I was a kid trying to be good I could always sneak a cigarette. I had a sweatshirt I hid under the back porch that I’d put on before I went on a walk, take a shower to get it out of my hair and swish with mouthwash until my gums stung.

I don’t brush away the ash that lands on the back of my hand. I can’t be bothered. Why should it matter anymore?

Somehow I make it to Abby’s at 2:45, no incident. Steve gives me the most pitying look when he opens the door, one that makes me want to turn back and leave.

“Uh, Cecil,” he says, grimacing as I move to step inside. My entire body tenses up, on edge and prepared to snap. “No smoking inside, okay?”

And I can’t even be mad at Steve. That’s reasonable and it’s his fucking house. I turn away and sit down on the porch to finish it. I get down to the filter by the time he leaves, on his way out to coach wheelchair basketball practice at the high school, and Abby pulls in before I have to wonder what to do with the butt.

“Cecil,” she says, swinging her car door shut behind her. I can’t even bother to meet her eyes, just sit there and stare at my work shoes that are a bit dusty from walking around the city all day. “I thought you quit-”

“Laid off,” I correct.

“Smoking,” she finishes, sitting down next to me. “Quit smoking,”

I shrug, twisting the filter between my fingers. I want to light another, but it’s been months and I don’t want to piss her off.

“Gersh, hey,” Abby shoves my shoulder and I slouch down further. I can feel her staring, but I can't be the one to start this conversation. She sighs after a while and stands. I think maybe she's given up.

“Come in?”

I shrug again, but I follow when she opens the door.

I know where she keeps the booze, the really good stuff that two incomes lets you afford. She can’t deny me anything right now, and when she sees where I’ve gone she pulls down two shot glasses.

I’ve at least got an hour or two alone with Abby before Steve and Janice get home.

Which is equivalent to about three shots. For me.

“Fuck,” I flex my fingers and crack each knuckle on my left hand. I can’t stop moving, haven’t been able to since I woke up. “Fuck I worked there for almost… almost ten fucking years-”

“But you hated it,”

I grind my teeth and throw back shot number four. Abby makes a face when I pour it, and she slides the bottle away from me.

“Cecil, you hated Strex Corp-”

“I know, fuck,” I snap, dropping my face into my hands. “It’s all I got, Abby. I don’t… I don’t know what to do,”

“I know, hey,” she takes my shoulder but I don’t look up. “I know it’s hard. But I think… I think it might be good-”

“Good?”

“Think about what you gave up for this shitty job,”

“I don’t… don’t have any choices, Abby,”

“You were laid off yesterday, right?”

I shrug.

“So you don’t know what might happen, Gersh. You might get a better job!”

I snort.

“Abby, I don’t know if you noticed but my list of skills is pretty narrow,”

“You’re good at a lot of things,”

I shake my head, pushing the shot glass back from the counter. She may be right about one thing; four was probably enough. Anymore and I might walk into the street.

“Cecil, believe in yourself, you have plenty to offer,”

I clench my jaw and look down at my feet.

Because I have tried to be good at things. All my life, to be good at maybe just one thing. I have tried to be good for other people, for myself. And I invariably fuck it all up.

“I… I gotta get going,” I sigh, staggering to my feet. “I’ll text you when-”

“Not that drunk, you’re not,”

“I’m not-”

“Four shots, Cecil Gershwin Palmer,” she points her finger at me, the vaguely ridiculous gesture that made us both laugh after Mom died. The way that someone who used to tackle you to the living room carpet and climbed through your bedroom window when they came home late could turn into the responsible one. But now…

Now I just sit back at the counter.

I don’t think I can laugh.

I don’t think I want to.

Chapter Text

It’s been three weeks. Three miserable fucking weeks of searching and calling and pleading to a God that doesn’t exist or give a fuck about me to please, please let me find a job.

And I have nothing to show for it. I have been avoiding Abby’s calls, the over friendly texts from Steve.

The numbness seeps into everything, and I don’t feel the way I think I should.

I can’t even be angry with anyone anymore.

And I wish I could be angry.

Susan knows I lost my job. She told me she couldn’t afford to pay rent by herself and I’d need to leave if I couldn’t swing it. She actually used the words “can’t swing it.”

And it’s fucking reasonable.

Susan Willman, the worst roommate I’ve had since I moved into my college dorm, is actually reasonable.

I don’t do much these days. I sit on the balcony and smoke cigarettes, I send emails, I avoid the mirror. Susan’s pissed about the cigarettes. I can’t blame her, the smell leeches into the apartment and burrows into my clothes and sheets. I don’t know the last time I changed clothes, if I’m lucky it’s once a week before I go to have dinner with Abby, Janice, and Steve.

Those dinners might also be the only time I remember eating. I can’t think enough to cook, to feed myself on a schedule, but when there’s real food in front of me? I can manage.

I know Abby wants to ask, wants to know what’s happening, but I, rather unfairly, use Janice as my shield.

I can fake it for Janice. She might see through it all anyway, she’s smart in a way I never was, but I can at least put on a smile for a few hours for her. I know she smells the smoke, sees the dark shadows under my eyes and the shake in my hands. We continue to play games of HORSE in the little backyard court, talking about her life and crafting a universe that doesn’t exist.

It would be nice, really. The few hours away from the dwindling number in my bank as the end of the month draws closer and bills start their automatic withdrawals. But tonight? Tonight it looks like rain. Rain means Abby will drive me home, and there will be fifteen minutes of crushing silence or serious lecturing that I do not have it in me to withstand. Rain means I’ll have to stay inside after dinner with Abby and Steve and answer their polite questions.

Rain means I can’t avoid anything.

I debate not going at all, really, but Janice sends me a text asking if I want garlic bread and I feel a wash of guilt. It’s stronger than anything else I’ve felt in weeks.

***

I show up as the drizzle starts, waving to the bus driver as I go. It’s a short walk to Abby’s, but by the time I get there the soft patter of rain has turned into an incessant drum.

Janice isn’t around.

Steve says she’s doing homework, gives me a weird smile, and then leaves.

I sit on the couch, staring at the subtitles of the muted TV.

And then, because I have never been very good at sitting still or leaving things alone, I get up. I head down the hall towards Janice’s room, intent on disturbing her “progress.” She always does her homework at the kitchen table, so I’m fairly certain all I’ll be interrupting is a conversation with one of her friends on the phone.

I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but that doesn’t matter. I never make it to Janice’s room, stuck instead in front of the mostly closed door to Abby and Steve’s room.

“-I know, Abby, but he’s not going to ask for help,”

Any good feelings I had about coming here tonight are gone. I am not self-centered enough to think everyone whispers about me, but I know. I know that’s what Steve’s face was about, why Janice is hiding out. This is why. Even the garlic bread was likely a cleverly devised ploy.

“Maybe he doesn’t need it,”

“Abby, of course he does. He looks like he’s lost twenty pounds, just skin and bone and ash,”

“I have tried to be Cecil’s mother once, Steve-”

“That’s not what this is! He’s struggling, just… just tell him we have a place, okay? He can refuse, but… but I don’t want to think about what could happen to him,”

I swallow hard, a knot of panic in my throat. I think Abby starts talking but I can’t breathe, can’t hear over the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. I stumble back to the living room, shove my shoes on and stumble out into the rain again, slipping on the pavement as I go.

What the fuck?

I reach for my cigarettes, but I left my coat inside. The rain is pounding against me, soaking my shirt through and making me shudder, but I don’t want to turn back. I can’t get anywhere, my keys and my bus pass are in my coat.

I know I’ll have to go back. And I know Steve is going to convince Abby to offer me a place to stay. I can’t think of a single better option. And it makes me…

Feel dead.

Feel this complete lack of agency that’s been driving me in circles, been forcing me awake at 3 am to walk the darkest parts of the city.

I feel like I’m choking, drowning. None of this has ever been my choice. I did everything I was supposed to and now I’m still moving back in with my sister, still single and rapidly approaching forty and unemployed and so damn fucking stupid.

I stumble and slip on the sidewalk. I scrape the heel of my hand and tear a hole in the knee of my slacks. I lay there on the wet pavement, too tired to stand.

I have spent so much of my life pretending to be alive.

I don’t know if I ever believed that pathetic façade, but the fact that it’s come so wholly unhinged, the fact that it’s laying crumpled in a pile at my feet? I wonder if anyone ever believed I was anything. If my attempts ever reached someone, ever made them trust that I was capable of a single fucking thing.

I don’t know when I get up, if it’s before I start crying or after. Don’t know if the blood dripping down my palm is worse because of the rain or if something is really really wrong. The skin that scraped the ground is painfully buzzing, but not in a way that registers as grievous injury. I sit on a bench, somewhere between Abby’s house and my bus stop.

I see a car pull too close to the gutter, but they slow down so the rain doesn’t splash me. Like it would matter now, anyway. My clothes are plastered to me and my shoes squelch at every movement.

 And then they roll the window down.

For fuck’s sake.

“Cecil,” Abby shouts into the rain. “Get in!”

I stand slowly. I’ve already fallen once, and I’m not eager to do it again. I lean over the gutter and pause, hand on the passenger door.

“Gersh,” her voice is a bit softer when she sees my face. “It’s freezing, come on now-”

“Gonna get your car all wet,” I sniffle pathetically.

“I don’t care,”

So I get in. Abby turns up the heater and keeps her eyes on the road. She doesn’t acknowledge the way my body trembles, the horrible whimpering noise my breathing makes. She just drives.

And then we’re back, and I’m dripping wet on her front porch where she stops me. She sets down a towel carpet leading to Janice’s bathroom, and I follow.

“Shower,” it’s the first word she’s said since she picked me up. It’s about all I can handle right now anyway.

I turn the water up as high as it will go. There’s dirt and blood and more dirt, a disgusting stream swirling down the drain. And then I just sit on the shower floor, knees to my chest as I start to get feeling back in my toes. I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to know if I’m still crying.

I don’t want to talk about it.

But I am fucking starving .

When I do manage to turn the warm water off, I find a pair of much too large sweats and a massive t-shirt that I know has to be Steve’s folded neatly on the bathroom counter. I might rail against them ordinarily, might put on my old clothes in defiance, but I am not stupid enough to care anymore.

Janice isn’t at the table. Neither is Steve. It’s just Abby, a plate of homemade lasagna and garlic bread left at my usual spot.

“Not eating?” I ask, avoiding her eyes as I sit.

“Gersh,”

I shove a bite into my mouth so I can’t respond. It really is fucking fantastic what cheese can do for a man.

“You heard us talking,”

It isn’t a question.

I shrug.

“I’m sorry," she sighs. "I just… I need space sometimes. I didn’t want to give it all up like… like when Mom-”

“I’ll be fine,” I interrupt. It’s a lie, but I’m good at those. Well, that itself is also a lie. Abby can always tell when I’m lying, but if she wants to believe it she will.

“You were walking in the rain, drenched to the bone and clearly…”

I close my eyes tight.

Don’t say crying.

“Not okay,” she finally finishes. Bless that sibling telepathy. An acknowledgement of tears is more than I can handle right now. “You need a place to stay,”

“I have a place-”

“For how long?”

I shrug.

“Cecil, fucking talk to me,”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say what you need, alright? I know that isn’t easy, but if you tell me I can help. You know Steve and I have space-”

“You didn’t want me here,”

“No, that’s not what I said,” she groans. “You gotta stop acting like Mom,”

My fork scrapes the ceramic plate as my entire body tenses. I think my teeth might snap, or maybe I’ll break the bones in my hand where I’m holding the table.

There are many things I thought I would be in my life. Things I wanted to be.

There is only one thing I never wanted to be.

“All I said is that I didn’t want things to be like before, when you and I fought almost everyday,”

“We… we didn’t fight everyday,”

“Well it certainly wasn’t good, was it?” she grumbles. “I told you to get a jacket once and you didn’t come home for two days,”

And what’s worse is I remember that. I remember that Abby had been on me earlier that day to make it to school, that she had too many calls from the counselor and that she was worried I wouldn’t graduate on time. And I was worried, too. But I couldn’t tell her that. I just… just told her I was going out to a friends.

“Take a jacket, it’s going to be cold,”

I slammed the door behind me. I didn’t have plans with a friend that night, but I crawled into Earl Harlan’s window all the same. Earl, who brought food up from his kitchen and looked over my shoulder while I stumbled through my math homework. Earl, who drove me to school for the rest of the semester and let me sit in his car at lunch. Earl, who softly asked me in the backseat of that car if I’d like to go to prom with him. Earl, who tried so hard to love me when all I could do was spit and bite and scream.

I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough that tears spring to my eyes. Have I always been like this? Covered in barbs? Was it ever worth it to try?

“Gersh?” Abby touches my arm and it takes everything I have not to jerk away. “I’m… I’m not saying it was all you. I know it wasn’t. I know I probably drove you insane, too, but when Janice… When she was born, you were there, remember?”

I nod meekly, fork still frozen and teeth still clenched against skin.

“I didn’t have anyone, and I had you . You and I… we m-made it through,”

At the little hitch in her voice I lose that small sense of balance I had. I start to shake again, clamp my hand over hers on my arm.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t… I can’t do it right. I d-don’t want to r-ruin things…” I stutter as the tears start to well up and obscure my vision.

“Hey, hey, it’s all going to be just fine, okay?” she removes her hand and I am too ashamed to ask for it back. I sound dumb enough without begging for contact. But she comes back. She brings me tissues, which end up soggy and balled in my fist. She takes my glasses and cleans the lenses. She makes me drink some water and, when I can stop sobbing long enough, she reheats my dinner and makes sure I finish it.

I wonder once where Janice and Steve are, if they can hear this miserable exchange or if they left when I was in the shower.

“Better?” Abby asks as I push my empty plate back. I nod. Her face is little more than a pink blob without my glasses, which is definitely making things easier. “Now, can you tell me what you need?”

“I… I really don’t know. I haven’t heard back from anyone about jobs,” I run a hand through my hair and think. Is there any other way around this?

“Steve… We want to offer you the basement. We don’t use it really, just a couple boxes that need some going through. It’s not much, but… but it’s yours if you want it,”

“I…”

“Before you say anything… I want you here, Gersh. I know it sounded bad, but… but I do want you here, alright?”

“O-okay,”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “I’ll… thank you. I’ll take it,”

Chapter Text

The only expectations set for me moving into the basement is that I play nice with Steve and maybe take Janice to school every once and a while. There’s not much to move from my apartment, a couple boxes and a single trip and I’m completely moved out.

So many years boiled down to so little.

I work. Well, I try to work. I take the freelance stuff I can find, I’m applying for jobs. I really am.

But I can only do so much.

“Gersh, you’re killing me,” Abby groans, when she finds me fuming on the back porch. Steve just asked me about the job search, and regardless of how nicely he phrased it I snapped. “Can you get a fucking hobby?”

“Hobby? Ab, I don’t have a fucking income -”

“I know that, for fuck’s sake,” she groans, sitting heavily next to me on the stoop. I offer her my cigarette and she rolls her eyes. I shrug and continue smoking, letting the anger dissipate into nothing once again.

Abby glances at me and chews her lip. I ignore her.

“I’m… I’m worried about you,”

“I am looking -”

“Not about that… you… you get so focused on… things. I know you think everyone is on your back about the job thing but… Steve was asking to be nice, Cecil, he doesn’t mind you not finding one. He’s worried, too. You spend all day on your computer, wound tighter than a fucking rubber band, and you… you don’t release,”

“I don’t have time-”

“You don’t have to kill yourself, Cecil. For fuck’s sake, you’re finally out of that shitty Strex job and you can’t even take a moment to enjoy life,”

I shrug. Abby pats me on the shoulder with a heavy sigh, then leaves me. I stay outside. I smoke another cigarette. It’s dark when I go back in. No one in the kitchen, no Janice at the table doing homework. Just empty, dark. I descend into the basement, the only stairs in the whole house. It’s still largely boxes of old holiday decorations and whatever I kept from my apartment shoved into a corner.

I stop.

My bed’s made.

I didn’t do that.

What’s more is there’s an ancient cardboard box on it.

I open it. Of course I fucking open it.

It’s packed with books and tissue wrapped figures, loose dice scattering when I move any of them. It’s all of my Dungeons and Dragons stuff that Mom didn’t toss. The figures are crudely painted, the metal edges chipped clean, but they’re familiar. I don’t know the last time I picked these up. Maybe fifteen years ago? I’ve certainly played more recently… haven’t I? I played with some of the interns at Strex a… wow, that must have been at least nine years ago now.

I sift through the box, finding an aging composition book that cracks when I open it. There’s the messy scratch of my late teens, detailing a character backstory that I’m not even sure was ever revealed.

Huh.

I spend what must be hours there, reading through I wrote and shuffling through the physicalities of it. The miniature that must have been the monster I spent half a composition book detailing that fits in the palm of my hand.

“Cecil?”

I drop it to the floor with a heavy metal thud.

“What Steve?” I hiss, feeling a rush of embarrassment and protectiveness.

“It’s uh… it’s 5 am,”

“Oh…”

***

There isn’t much time, then. Steve is up for work, and Abby’s lent me the car today so I have to drop her and Janice off.

So I don’t sleep.

I make sure Janice is up as Abby fills up two travel coffee cups.

“Think you can get some groceries today?”

“Sure,” I shrug, but my brain is still in that box downstairs. I didn’t pull it down. Janice can’t have been down there. But how would Steve know what it was? It has to have been Abby, and yet… Why would she want me to think about Dungeons and Dragons?

She fucking hated it when we were kids, and she hardly tolerated it when I was a teenager. She was good, too, and people dropped out so often there was always a spot for her.

Abby and Earl. They always showed up.

“Gersh?”

I drop the orange juice. I didn’t know I was holding orange juice.

“You okay?”

“I… yeah. I…” I look around for a towel.

“Hey, I can get groceries later if-”

“I got it, really,”

But I feel in a haze.

I can’t stop thinking about Earl Harlan.

***

After I’ve dropped everyone off, I sit in the grocery store parking lot, hands fixed on the wheel.

Earl was…

A lot.

Earl was my best friend. My best fucking friend. And I miss him.

I hadn’t talked to him in years when he died. I had withdrawn so far, so humiliated with what I’d done, and what for? To lose one of the only people who had ever really given a fuck? To squirm away from someone who cared just because I couldn’t imagine sitting still long enough for him to really love me?

I made it to the funeral. I remember that. I remember standing further towards the back, remember Abby pushing me forward to say something to his parents. Remember that she let me run out of the church before I got to the body. Fuck, what is with people wanting to look at dead bodies?

She came out, rubbed my back as I doubled over the planter and wretched.

It was before Steve moved in. Abby and I stayed up that night on the couch, we talked about Earl and about how much he had meant. About the accident, about how it shouldn’t have happened. About what could have been different.

I didn’t cry. I vomited, I bit a hole in the skin of my cheek, I stayed awake through the night and the next day, but I didn’t cry.

Why didn’t I cry?

I shake my head. I get out of the car and get the reusable grocery bags. I head in with the list Abby gave me this morning. There’s a huge guy in front of the produce, massive biceps crossed over his chest. Earl was big, too, but not in a scary way. I suppose it’s the same way I think about Steve being big, in the roundness of his shoulders and the fact that you don’t feel scared in a crowded room because they’re behind you. But no, Earl and Steve… they’re not the same.

I stand in front of the apples for an eternity, just looking, not even picking any up. Earl liked apples. Or at least he always had them. There was a bowl of apples on his counter that morning, the morning after…

I shouldn’t have gone. I had already had a few drinks, and when I showed up it was clear he had, too. Neither of us should have let it happen. I wish he had dumped me out of his lap when we sat on the couch, wish he hadn’t held my waist and let that thing continue into territory that could destroy us. It’s not like it was his fault, of course not. I’ve always been the one to push too far, to fuck things up.

I should have left the next morning before he woke up. But I made us coffee instead and we both talked around it so far that he was nearly late for work.

“Excuse me, young man,” an old woman edges around me and takes one of the apples I’ve been staring at. I blink hard several times and take a step back after she’s left.

Why didn’t I call? Why didn’t I just tell him?

Why did I ignore his texts for months? Why did I let months fade into a year, then two, then three, then nothing at all as they lowered him into the ground?

I stare at the frosted doors of the ice cream aisle. Huh. I usually get ice cream last. I look down at the list, finding everything crossed off except for “ice cream - pick your favorite flavor” in Abby’s loopy but neat writing. I look back to find the cart almost full.

I rub my eyes. Suppose I didn’t sleep much, and maybe I’ve been going a bit too rough on the cigs. But cigarettes don’t do this.

I toss the most horrendously sugary looking thing I can find into the cart and then catch my face in the glass as it swings shut.

I don’t recognize myself. I don’t know the last time I looked in a mirror, but what looks back at me is…

It’s not me.

I sweep a thing of razors into the cart on my way to the checkout. Maybe a fresh shave will do it. Maybe that will… what? Change me? Oh God I’m losing my fucking mind.

No.

No I… I’m fine. I stand in the checkout line, blink hard and flex my fingers against the metal bar of the cart. I am fine. I am myself.

No. I suppose that is not fine. Who I am is not fine. Who I am is fifty shades of fucked up. Who I am is the person who ran away from Earl Harlan, who never once told me when I was an asshole. Even when I was.

Fuck. I leave my cart and the person behind me in line gives me a look as I shove past them. I grab the first bottle I find, I run back and toss it on the belt with my ID before the kid at the checkout can even ask. I don’t know how else to deal with this, the compression in my ribs, the spinning in my head, the-

“Do you have bags?”

“Y-yeah,” I dig them out, practically flinging them at the other kid who’s bagging. They give me a weird look. Do they see it, too? The something wrong?

“Mister,”

I wince. I have never liked being called “mister.”

“You don’t need an ID to buy sparkling cider,”

I close my eyes and exhale as quietly as I can. And then I laugh. I laugh so loud that the kid bagging my groceries drops the eggs and the one at the register looks vaguely terrified. It hurts to laugh like this. A laugh that certainly does not come from a well man.

“No, I guess not,”

It’s a miracle I make it out of the store without being met with some sort of security. I’m still laughing, but it’s quieter now. I don’t think I stop until I’ve got the groceries in the car and I sit in the front seat, hand on the sun visor.

“For fuck’s sake, Cecil,” I groan, rubbing my face. “Pull it together,”

But I’m afraid. What will be in the mirror? Will I recognize it? Is it even me anymore?

I take a deep breath and I flip it down, the little automatic light blinking on and…

I look like shit, but I look like me. Still all bones and angles, maybe more so now that I haven’t been eating quite so well, but the structure is all what I remember. Still the same long, slightly bent nose, still an Adam’s apple that sticks out too far, still the narrow shoulders that can’t carry the weight of a single one of my actions.

I shudder. I want to look away, but now I see how dark the shadows under my eyes are, now I see the crease between my brows as my glasses slip down. I look… gray. Colorless.

This is who I am, what I look like, just as I remembered. But I wish I hadn’t looked. Hadn’t noticed that despite it all, nothing has changed.

I flip the visor back up and turn the keys. I should go drop the groceries. Should… should sleep.

***

I don’t get the time. I hardly get the groceries put away before I get a call from the school. It’s Janice, some sort of stomachache. I stop by a store, a different one so I don’t freak the same cashiers out, and get some ginger ale and saltines. It isn’t anything serious, but enough that they send her home to get some rest. I tuck her in, something she (correctly) mumbles that she is too old for, but something I do anyway.

When I’m sure she’s sleeping, I expect to be able to just drop off and go to sleep myself. The errands are all done, and I’m getting to the point where I’m stumbling into walls.

I make it down the stairs, almost missing the plastic bag on my still strangely-made bed. It’s on top of the box of Dungeons and Dragons shit I left out last night… this morning, I guess.

I tentatively open it.

It’s a Dungeon Master’s Guide, brand new. Still in shrink wrap.

Chapter Text

I spend most of my day looking for jobs, doing what freelance work I can get. I spend the rest writing a campaign. It’s clunky and hardly anything original, but it’s been years, and that’s okay.

It takes me a week to work up the nerve to ask Abby if she’d like to join, and more begrudgingly… Steve.

I still have Intern Dana’s number in my phone, though I suppose she’s not actually an intern anymore. Of all the people I knew at work, she’s the one I’ve checked in on most.

She’s the one I text to ask if she’d like to play again.

She says yes, but asks to bring her roommate.

I can’t say no.

***

I clear everything out of the basement, vacuum it from the cobwebs in the corner to the dust on the baseboards. I tack up a curtain around my bed to try and give myself some semblance of privacy, and then I set up one of the folding tables.

Steve promises to make some snacks, and Dana texts me to tell me she and her roommate will pick up a few drinks. I force myself to get into bed by 11 pm, but I stare at the ceiling for what must be hours, going over everything I’ve written in my mind until I can’t physically stay awake.

The alarm rings. I get up, take a shower, decide to give the bathroom a last minute scrub down.

“Cecil, for fuck’s sake,” Abby sighs.

I hit my head on the bathroom counter as I stand. She takes a step closer, the big sister/Mom instinct taking over.

“I’m fine,” I grumble, swatting her away. “I’m not an egg,”

“An egg? Cecil, did you sleep-?”

“Yes, God Abby, I am an adult,” I stand up, this time putting my hand on the counter to make sure I don’t really crack it.

“You’re… you’re doing it again, you know,”

I want to pretend I don’t know what she means, but the bathroom smells like bleach and my fingers are sore from scrubbing. I know I fixate, I know I overdo it… I…

“Yeah… yeah, I know,”

“We still have some time before they come over, can you stay still or do you need to move?”

“I… I have to do something ,”

“Alright, can you drop Janice off then? Steve and I can handle things here,”

“I… yeah. Thanks, Abby,”

She pats my shoulder and heads down the hall, hollering for Janice to get her stuff together.

Janice is spending the day at a friend’s house. I’m not sure if that was planned before D&D or if it was a reaction to hearing me talk about it every morning on the way to school. Regardless, I’m glad to leave the house.

“Music?” Janice holds her hand out for my phone and I roll my eyes, passing it into the backseat.

“You know, usually the driver gets to control the music,”

“Not true, you like my music,” she sticks her tongue out at me, scrolling through the music as I adjust the mirrors. Abby always sets them too narrow. “You’ve got a text,”

“We haven’t left yet,” I snort. “Tell your mom-”

“It’s from Dana the Intern,”

“Oh,” my heart drops. She’s canceling. She’s canceling and it will just be Abby and Steve and me and I don’t think I can-

“She’s asking if you guys want any coffee?”

***

Dana’s bright blue Honda fit is parked in front of the house when I pull into the driveway. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I mean, Abby and Steve will be nice, but I haven’t seen Dana in a couple years. Should I have asked Steve to drop Janice off? Is it weird that I wasn't here?

I walk in and can hear Dana chatting with Steve immediately. Both of them are loud and boisterous, happy voices that echo from the kitchen to the front door.

What if she likes Steve better than me?

I’ve never been particularly good at making friends. What if Dana realizes she hates me? That I was always too-

“Cecil?”

I look up in time to see Dana sprint towards me, to take a second to brace myself before she launches herself at me with a hug that feels…

Well, honestly, it feels amazing.

I hug her back and laugh. I don’t know the last time I felt… easy.

“Hey, Dana, good to see you!”

“You look…” she steps back and her smile quirks a little. Dana doesn’t like to lie, but she’s too kind to be honest. “Different,”

“Ah, you know… been a while! When did I see you last? Maureen and Michelle’s wedding?”

“They would kill you if they heard you call it a wedding, you know?” she laughs, rolling her eyes. She looks… good. Much better than me, that’s for certain. Her hair’s shorter, tight, dark curls that sit above her shoulders, and her eyes look bright. She looks healthy, or at least healthy next to me. Not too thin, not bones and… how did Steve put it? Ash? No, Dana looks…

“You look incredible,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets with a smile.

“Thanks, that’s what you get when you quit Strex!”

I lean back against the door with a groan.

“What? Come on, Cecil, I’m just saying you should apply-”

“Dana, they laid me off,”

“O-oh,” she sighs. She pulls me back into a hug, albeit a less satisfying one, but still reassuring physical contact. “They didn’t deserve you, you know?”

“Sure,” I pat her on the back. “Now, you said you got me a coffee?”

“ Carlos got everyone drinks, I bought some sodas and beers yesterday but he figured we might want a caffeinated start,”

“Mhm,” I slip my shoes off at the door, not really paying much attention.

“Cecil?”

I look up. It’s a new voice, higher than anticipated. Nervous.

Oh no. He’s… he’s gorgeous. A solid, square jaw, a stocky, strong-build, and the hair? Dark waves, one side that he tucks behind his ear when he sees me. His eyes… his skin… he smiles and there is a gap in the middle of his perfectly white teeth.

“Hey, it’s good to meet you,” he extends his hand and I stare at his face for an interminable amount of time before Dana nudges me in the ribs.

“Uh, yeah, you too-”

“Carlos, sorry, I hope I didn’t interrupt-”

“No, ah, it’s… no,” I try to smile but it feels all wrong,  too wide and toothy. He doesn’t seem to notice as he withdraws his hand and slings his arm around Dana.

“We haven’t got to play in a while, we don’t know any DM’s in the area,” he says, but I find it increasingly hard to focus when I can instead just watch his mouth form words.

“Uh… yeah. N-neat,”

“Poor Ceec, I think he needs some coffee,” Dana chuckles, and then she’s dragging me to the kitchen to press a hot cup into my palm.

The first session is… not smooth.

I bumble for a good twenty minutes, I struggle to explain to Steve what he can even do as he’s never played before. I blush nearly every time Carlos looks at me. That is rather inconvenient. But by the time we reach a logical stopping point for the day, I find myself beaming.

“It was so, so good to see you, Ceec!” Dana gives me another bone-crushingly tight hug and kisses my cheek. “Let’s do it again soon?”

“I’d like that,” I say, waving to Carlos who is standing at the passenger side of the car. He waves back.

***

I’m in the middle of preparing something for dinner (Abby and Steve are both a bit caught up today and aren’t going to have much time) when I get a phone call.

“Cecil Palmer?” I say, not looking at the caller ID first.

“Hello, Cecil! It’s me, Dana!”

I nearly drop my phone into the pan of clarifying onions.

“D-Dana?”

“Yes, Cecil! Dana!”

“Uh… hey. What… uh… what’s up?”

“I was going to go to Friendly Ghost Comics; they’re having a sale on minis. Did you want to come?”

“Uh… what?”

“Friendly Ghost Comics, surely you’ve been there?”

“Nope, never heard of it,” I turn the burner off and shuffle through the cabinets without a purpose. “I don’t read comics,”

“They sell a lot more than comics! Half the store at least is board games and tabletop stuff, they even have a big back room where Carlos and I have gone to play games before!”

“Neat,”

“Cecil, you don’t have to go,” she laughs. She’s always so easy. So happy.

I don’t want to ruin that.

I know I’m not fun, I know I bring things down. Dana doesn’t deserve that.

“I just thought you might like to look around and… well it’s Warhammer night,”

“Huh?”

“Some of the guys… well I just don’t like to go alone on Warhammer night,”

“What the hell is Warhammer?”

“It’s a tabletop… Will you come or not?”

Well if she doesn’t want to go alone…

“Yeah, I… I was just putting something together for when everyone gets off of work, but… but I can go,”

“Awesome! You’re on my way, can I pick you up?”

“S-sure,”

***

I don’t know what I expected Friendly Ghost to be, but it is certainly… well it is. It’s right off the freeway in one of those run down business centers next to the gas station and Arby’s. It looks like they’ve bought two adjacent storefronts with only one entrance between them, a little cart of sun faded board games out front that are marked “50% OFF.”

Inside is larger than I anticipated, even from the signs out front. It’s deep, far enough that with my outdated prescription I can’t even read the signs at the back. Immediately I see comics, stretching to the back of the store and interrupted by shelves of other brightly colored books. To the right of these is a floor to ceiling shelf of board games, so thickly packed I can’t see how far back the shelves go. There are spinning racks by the front windows, dice and miniatures hanging from the metal pegs. I wander over to one, lifting a little skeleton brandishing a spear.

“Wait, come see these first,” Dana drags me away and around the first row of board games. I force her to stop before the door that leads to the other half of the store, one hand on her arm. It’s at least the same size as the room we’re in, but there are no shelves. There are tables set up, eight in all, with enough space between them for movement. On three of the tables right now it looks like there are a hundred miniatures each, one man on either side of these tables rolling dice and moving pieces. One of them pulls out a ruler and curses.

“What is this?”

“Warhammer 40K,” she tugs on my arm. “Come on,”

“This is why you didn’t-?”

“Cecil,” she hisses. It’s urgent enough that I let her drag me away.

“It looked-”

“The game isn’t the problem,” she sighs, shoving a miniature package into my hand. “Some of the people who play… are less than fun,”

“Oh?”

“Something about a fascist dystopia brings out neofascist assholes,” someone says on my other side and I flinch, hitting my hip against the wall and sending Halfling Rogues to the ground. She’s young, incredibly young, with a backwards cap and long, dark hair. She smiles in a lazy way and crosses her arms, eyeing me up and down. She’s wearing a short sleeve button up with bizarre-looking spirals and faces, and with the way she’s crossed her arms…

She could absolutely kick my ass.

“Uh…”

“Jackie!” Dana saves me from having to speak, though Jackie is still staring at me. “This is Cecil, we just played Dungeons and Dragons last weekend. Remember, Carlos and I came in for-”

“Queer?”

“Excuse me?” I sputter, dropping the miniature Dana passed me with a little gasp.

I feel the world narrow around me, things hollowing down to a single point of tension and I need to run I need to get out of here I need to-

“Relax, for fuck’s sake,” she snorts, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you know one when you see one?”

“Huh?” I swallow, my entire mouth dry. Dana touches my elbow and I flinch.

“Cecil, hey-”

“I… I forgot I have to-”

“Hey,” Jackie uncrosses her arms, the toughness dying down. “Shit, I didn’t mean anything but… Look I… I’m sorry. I just thought-”

“No, I…”

I suck in a deep breath.

“I… uh… yeah. I mean, I am,”

She offers me a small smile and extends her hand.

“Sorry about that, I just assumed Dana’s friend… usually a safe bet,” she winks at Dana who rolls her eyes. “Also you look-”

“Please,” I wince. “I don’t… don’t want to know,”

I never exactly thought I passed for totally straight and narrow. I figured even with all the restrictions I placed on myself someone would see through it all, but… so immediately? So blatantly? And I suppose I don’t really want to know what it is that marked me, what it is I’ll have to scrape out of my skin and leave behind for my next job interview.

“Right, well, the Warhammer guys… not all bad, really. Just the ones who don’t grasp the whole criticism and satire aspect. The whole point is fascism drove this future into complete madness and shit, and they still think the whole thing is a pro-fascist love letter,” she shrugs.

“N-neat,”

Jackie snorts.

“I like your new friend, D,”

“I’m not-” new.

“Thanks!” Dana interrupts me, looping her arm through mine.

“You guys looking for anything specific?”

It’s the first time I notice the lanyard, decked out in enamel pins and bearing a square, clean name card. Jackie - I’m the manager .

“M-manager?”

“Yeah?”

“You… you can’t be more than…”

She waves her hand dismissively.

“I took over from my mom, its fine,”

“I… huh?”

She pats me gently on the shoulder.

“Let’s get you guys something good for the next campaign, alright?”

Jackie is, unsurprisingly, incredibly helpful. Dana ends up with a pile of discounted minis, but I don’t feel comfortable buying anything with no income. Jackie sets a set of rainbow dice on the counter and exhales loudly.

“Those are for you,”

“I… I’m okay-”

“They’re yours, really. I… I didn’t mean to freak you out,”

“I… thanks,” I shove them in my coat pocket and follow Dana to her car.

And as we approach the house, I have this awful, sinking feeling. A feeling that I did everything wrong. I try to swallow it down as Dana leans over and hugs me from the driver’s seat, try to smile back as I wave from the front door.

Steve and Abby are on the couch, watching a movie. I nod to them and head downstairs. I don’t know if I can be awake in front of someone else. I crawl into bed.

And I think.

I could very well think myself to death. That’s what’s always made me lonely, maybe.

I spent time with Dana, and now all I can think is how much she must hate me, how I am always too much or too little for everyone. How Jackie probably thinks I’m a prick when really this is the first time I’ve heard someone say “queer” and not mean it as an insult. Something pitched at me before much worse things creep in.

I don’t know if I can keep trying not to be lonely. I don’t know if it’s worth it.

If I am worth it.

***

Abby gives me a sleepy smile when I walk into the kitchen, pulling a second mug from the cupboard.

“Morning,” she yawns, eyes falling back on the coffee pot. “How was the comic shop with Dana?”

I shrug, picking up an orange and digging my thumb into the rind.

“I don’t think people like me,”

“What? Did… did something happen with Dana?”

I shrug again.

“Gersh, she invited you,”

“She was just being friendly,”

“Cecil-”

“When did you know?” I interrupt.

“What?”

“That I… that I was…”

There are so many words, so many different things that might describe what I am. None of them belong to me, nothing feels like I am allowed to wear it. Every word I try to say sticks to my throat, crumpling like wet paper as the ink bleeds back down my throat. But when Abby turns, I know she knows.

“You were always you, Cecil,”

I bite my lip, stare down at the little fragments of the orange peel I’m butchering. I’ve been better about not biting my nails, but right now…

“I… did Mom feel the same?”

“I didn’t talk to Mom for the last few years, you know that,” Abby sighs, but there’s something else there.

“She hated it, didn’t she?”

“No, Cecil, Mom was… she…”

“She wanted me to be normal,”

“Is anyone normal?”

“Fuck off,” I snort. “You can’t pull sappy shit like that-”

“I absolutely can,” she sets a coffee mug next to the pile of unfortunate orange remains. “Listen, Gersh, regardless of who you ever were, it wouldn’t be enough. I don’t think she loved you less because you’re gay-”

“No, not that,”

“What?”

“I’m not just… there’s a lot more to it than…” I groan.

“Alright, hey, take your time. It’s okay,” she rubs my shoulder.

Fuck, she’s a good mom.

I think? I don’t have much to compare with.

Either way it’s good that she doesn’t push for an explanation, a label. It’s in here somewhere, buried under something I don’t want to dig up.

***

The campaign is only slightly less awkward the next go around in two weeks. I still hardly know Carlos, and I’m relying more on the manual than my own writing, but it’s… fun.

At the end of the session, Carlos and Dana want to take us all out for dinner. Abby and Steve have excuses, jobs and a kid. I don’t, so I head out with them and that is also… good.

Not Big Rico’s, no, by no means has that ever been good. But spending time with people outside of the house makes me feel like a real person.

“Have you ever listened to Levar Burton’s podcast?” Carlos asks between mouthfuls of pizza that is somehow molten hot and frozen at once.

“Huh? No I don’t… don’t listen to podcasts,” I still feel the burn in my face when he speaks, I still stutter. But I can’t look stupid forever. Right?

“He runs a really cool campaign, just did a false hydra,”

“Huh,” I catalog that away. Maybe I can listen and seem less like an inarticulate idiot next time. Maybe I can mention it and seem cool and smart.

Or maybe not.

Dana looks at her phone and frowns.

“What is it?” Carlos nudges her in the side and she sighs.

“Jackie… she keeps asking if I know anyone who can help out weekdays at Friendly Ghost-”

“Like a job?” all the cheese slides off my slice of pizza, but I can’t even be disappointed. Even the freelance work is drying up now.

“Yeah, you know someone?”

“Dana, I’m unemployed ,”

“I… I guess you are,” she picks up her phone. “Want me to give her your number?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

Jackie texts me almost immediately, asks me to show up the next morning with an ID. She hardly interviews me, just throws down a packet of paper and asks me to read it over.

At the end there’s a line to sign.

And I have a job again.

Chapter Text

Work is… not miserable. It’s the first job I’ve ever had where I can do things I like, where an esoteric and frankly obscene knowledge of something actually benefits me. I help a kid pick out some mini for their first campaign, help some older DM find an incredibly specific terrain piece, have a twenty minute long discussion about which Slaad will be the right one for an encounter… and I get a 20% discount.

And unlike my old job, I’m not the strangest one. I think that goes to Lee Marvin, the other guy who works weekdays. Lee… is weird. Really hated the joke I made about Cat Ballou . And he keeps reminding me that he’s thirty. I get it, he’s younger than me, but every day we work together he mentions it. That seems excessive. But he’s easy going enough, says he’s more into the graphic novels section. We generally split the store, and Jackie fills in the gaps.

I’m still applying for other jobs. Friendly Ghost only pays a bit more than minimum wage, and that isn’t enough to move back out. I spend my lunch break on applications, and leave it at that.

And when I’m not at work, I listen to Levar Burton’s podcast. Well, “devour” seems more apt. I finish the first season four days after Carlos mentions it. I find myself writing with a different kind of vigor, something I haven’t felt since I was in college. Things feel… good.

The next session I ask if I can record. It’s an old mic, one I bought in college when I worked at the radio station. I don’t even have a camera, but it’s not like anyone’s going to watch this anyway, right?

It’s awkward at first, a bit bumbling, but I still post it after trimming out moments of silence and our long lunch break.

I don’t really expect anything.

Dana asks for the link, she wants to show it to her brother. So I pull it up.

50 views.

Holy shit.

50 people listened? To me? 

There’s even three comments and a few subscribers. There’s not much besides this video, just an old and slightly embarrassing voice reel I stopped sending out when I got too comfortable at Strex (which I private near immediately).

And despite myself, despite the fact that I know 50 people is almost nothing, I start to think. To hope.

I don’t let myself believe it really means anything.

I can’t.

***

As much as I tell myself this doesn’t matter, that it’s all silly and pointless, I do find myself desperately writing and rewriting for the next session. I stay up late in the night, chewing on my thumbnail as I debate the progression and whether I should add some new encounter. I leave work on Friday and stop by MicroCenter, spending the last sixty dollars in my bank account on soundproofing that I tack up around the basement. I even make everyone do vocal warmups before I turn the mic on. I trim the audio meticulously, search for a suitable copyright free image to use as the video’s background, and post it.

I check the video almost hourly.

It has 0 views for the first four days.

I force myself to close the browser after seven days and a view count of 3.

A fluke.

It’s enough to knock me back to reality. Harsh, uncomfortable reality.

I don’t know why I thought 50 people would be interested in the things I make, I can hardly find one in real life.

I unplug my laptop and toss it into the leather case I used to bring to work. I don’t want to look at it anymore. The composition book I keep beside my bed makes it in as well. The pathetic scribblings of an overenthusiastic asshole.

I turn the lights off.

I resolve to stop hoping.

***

When I wake up on Monday, I want to send Jackie a text and tell her I’m sick.

I’m not.

I’m very physically fine.

But I just can’t make myself believe that it matters. That anything I do matters. Why did I think something would suddenly matter when I made it?

That idiotic optimism always ends the same way. A few good weeks and then a crash. Why did I think this would be any different?

Why did I think that anything I did was ever worth anyone’s attention?

I hear Steve and Abby upstairs, moving around in the kitchen and getting the week moving. They’ll ask if I’m not up for work soon.

They’ll know.

Or at least Abby will.

She’ll know I’m kicking myself around in my own head, and she’ll fold her arms and raise her eyebrows and say Cecil you’ll think yourself to death. She’s just like Mom that way. That she always knows.

And then what can I tell Abby when I have to ask for an extra hundred something dollars to cover a bill? That skipping work had nothing to do with it? That spending money on my stupid fucking sound foam didn’t do this?

I sigh and throw the covers off, scratching the stubble that I absolutely do not have the energy to shave. No, I have to go to work. I have to at least pretend I function.

***

It’s easy enough to fall into a rhythm at work, to let myself be sucked into mindless tasks and polite conversation. But then it’s time to go home. To sink down on my bed and stare at the same spot so long that the time moves from single digits to double digits and back to one again.

I’m tired.

I have the early shift tomorrow.

But I can’t be bothered to make it any different.

Can’t be bothered when I know it’s late to walk up the stairs and brush my teeth. To shower. I turn the lights out and sink back into bed.

***

I want to cancel this Sunday’s D&D. I want to lay in bed and sleep.

I want nothing.

But I know I’ll be utterly starved for companionship if I do. I know I will probably spiral if I have the whole day to myself. So I shove my unfolded laundry onto my unmade bed and pull the curtains around it.

I set up the table and stumble upstairs to splash cold water on my face and accomplish the very basic care in myself I failed in this week. I shower. I shave. I brush my teeth and even floss. It’s not going to deceive anyone. I still look like shit, but at least I’m clean.

I didn’t really write much after the last session, and not at all this week, so I force myself to do some planning instead of going upstairs and making myself something to eat. Steve always brings snacks downstairs anyway.

I roll out the dry erase map and dig out my laptop. Dead. Great.

Old school it is.

My composition book doesn’t have all the same details, certainly it’s missing the updated stats sheets on everyone’s characters, but it’s got enough for me to throw together a summary of last week while my computer charges. I map out a few options for things we might do today, flip through the post-its in my Dungeon Master’s Guide for ideas on what kind of stats we might work with.

This shit sucks.

I groan and pull out my dice bag. Random generation it is.

“Hey, Cecil!”

I jump, sending d20s sprawling across the table as I turn to see him standing in the doorway. Perfect Carlos takes a step back, holding up a hand as a gesture of peace, while in the other hand he holds…

“Coffee,” I say stupidly before looking back to his face.

“I’m sorry, I thought you heard me walk in-”

“I…” I scratch my head, noting that yes, my hair is dry so it’s been at least half an hour since I showered. “Distracted,”

“I gathered,” he smiles, that sweet, no-tooth smile I give customers that screams polite friendliness.

This man does not like me. He is Dana’s friend, he is handsome and he is here, but he is here for Dana not-

“I thought… well I thought maybe you’d like to try my favorite drink?” Carlos presents the coffee, a clear plastic cup with condensation beading on his fingers. It’s dark, and there’s a dried orange slice swimming on top of the ice.

“Uh…”

“It’s a Cafe de Olla cold brew, I know you don’t like sweet much, but this is very good,”

I want to say something, but I’m honestly a little distracted with the way his mouth moved over the Spanish words.

“I… I can drink it if you decide you don’t like it,” he looks over his shoulder and that’s the first time I notice.

We’re alone.

“Where’s Dana?”

“Upstairs, she was helping Steve with the plates, I think,” he nervously swirls the drink in his hand and avoids my eyes.

“I’ll try it, I’m not usually one for cold coffee, but… I’ll try it,”

The corner of his mouth tugs up in a little smile as he hands it over. I try not to focus too hard on the brush of his fingers on mine. I raise it to my mouth.

Even if I hated it, I would tell him I loved it.

I would lie because Carlos did a nice thing for me without asking. A thing that means so much more than I could possibly say. Is there any greater act of making someone feel like they matter than thinking of them? Anything that could make my heart expand quite like receiving something from Carlos because he thought I might like it?

Despite who I am, what I am, despite everyone in this world who does not know I exist, someone remembered me when they didn’t have to.

I exist outside of myself, and that’s nice enough that I’d lie.

But I don’t have to.

“Shit, that’s good,”

He smiles, and his teeth are like a military cemetery.

***

It isn’t long before everyone else makes their way downstairs. Steve brings me a thoughtfully prepared plate of food.

I don’t bring the microphone to the table.

“Hey,” Carlos says as I start to read my hastily prepared recap. “Where’s the mic?”

I sigh.

“Really more trouble than it’s worth, right?”

“What, recording the session?” Dana glances over to me, confused. “I like it, it’s nice to listen back,”

I tuck my tongue behind my teeth and shrug.

“He’s upset that it didn’t do as well as the last one,”

I glare at Abby and she glares right back.

“You’ve been moping about all week, Gersh,”

Well, I figured she’d notice. I hate that she did.

“It… it doesn’t matter-” I start, straightening the pile of papers.

“I liked having the recordings,” Carlos says with a quiet smile. “It’s… nice,”

“Come on Cecil, please?” Steve begs and yes. Normally I’d do the opposite of what Steve asks. But I’m still riding the high of Carlos doing something nice

I pull out the USB mic.

***

“Don’t look at the view counts, Ceec,” Dana says, before getting into the car.

I don’t.

And it’s better that way.

Chapter Text

It’s a weird day. Things are off from the start, from the moment I wake up and my head already feels like it’s floating over my body. When I stand in front of the mirror to shave I stare at myself for an extra ten minutes, eyes tracking over the creases of my skin that I didn’t remember having, the deep dark rings that look sickly and greenish under these lights. I look…

Old.

I can’t stop on it for long, but it is nagging at the back of my brain as I button up my shirt. It’s in my head as I unlock the door to Friendly Ghost. It never really goes away.

I feel old.

I guess… I guess I am old.

Or getting there, at the very least. I guess this kind of rises up about this time every year, around the end of summer. Summer is always weird, but the end is worse. When the black hole that was the sky crawls back in. When I remember fragments of a thing I’d like to forget.

I should have forgotten. It’s been twenty years now. I’m old enough to move on, to let it go.

And then Jackie comes in and I’m relieved from the front desk. I move to the back of the store and slide in my headphones. Try and drown the thoughts with something else. But my joints crack when I bend down to stock the game manuals, my back aches as I haul the box along with me.

I am old.

“Cecil!” I hear Jackie shout over my headphones.

“Sorry, what?” I call back, turning the music off.

“I’m putting together the work calendar for next month,” she says. “What days do you want off?”

“Off?” I’ve been running on automatic so long my arms are starting to ache.

“Yeah, off . We aren’t a corporation, you do get days off,”

I shrug, but that’s a little dumb, I guess. She can’t see it. I roll my shoulders back and something pops pleasantly.

“I don’t have much going on,”

“Nothing? When is your birthday?”

I wince. I don’t much like birthdays.

When I was younger it was always… tense.

Every year Mom was alive I remember it ending with her and Abby in the kitchen, hushed voices that rose and fell like one of them was trying to keep it in control. Something I pretended I couldn’t hear, or maybe it had nothing to do with me, while I sat on the couch picking at loose threads. Abby was always there, always. Even after she moved out and left me there with Mom, she always came home for my birthday. It seemed like a test sometimes. A test to see if Mom knew Abby would be there by the time I got off school, to see if she would remember what day it was before Old Woman Josie arrived with something freshly baked.

I told Old Woman Josie I hated cake, and so she baked something different every year. Cookies, brownies, pie… anything I wanted. The only rule is I had to go with her to the store to get the ingredients. I know now part of that was finding out what other foods I liked, making sure she kept some in her kitchen for when I got hungry and Mom couldn’t be bothered.

I liked Old Woman Josie. She was weird, and made up stories about angels, but she was nice. She lived next door, left a key under a rock for me. She gave me her daughter’s old clothes when she noticed mine were too small or too wrecked, showed me how to alter them. She even let me have the dresses, gave me a happy smile when I asked and gestured to them like they were already mine.

“What’s your star sign, then?” Jackie sighs, appearing from behind the shelves and I drop one of the manuals in panic.

Fuck.

I turn, hurriedly wiping my eyes on my sleeves. I’m not certain I’m crying, but it feels like I should be.

“Uh…”

“No, no, I’m really good, I bet I can guess,”

I lean against the shelf, back to Jackie, and take a deep breath.

Just like Josie taught me.

Taught me to breathe deep, to focus on something in front of me that I could see. Taught me to bowl a two hundred on a bad day. Taught me how to make pasta on the stovetop. Taught me how to paint my nails. Taught me how to write a better essay, how to apply for college, how to live, how to…

“Aquarius,” Jackie says, clapping her hands together.

“Yep, you got it,” I blurt, not giving her the surprise or awe I’m sure she wanted, but I can’t catch my breath. “I… I gotta go,”

“What-?”

I’m already at the staff door, already in the back room. I have my coat on, keys clenched tight in my fist as I make my exit through the back. I opened today, and there’s usually an extra hand on Fridays. I’m out in the parking lot before Jackie has even gotten back to the front counter, in my car and peeling out before Lee can even look up from where he’s sitting on the curb on his phone.

I don’t go to the grocery store. I don’t stop at the house. I do stop at the dinky liquor store on the corner, the one that would look at Earl’s fake ID and shrug. I do buy what’s on sale (a brandy that is barely 20 dollars). I park on the curb that is little more than cracked concrete now.

It is not the first time I have been here. It is the first time in a long time, though. The door is cracked, the front gate creaks and has not worked since before Abby moved out. Maybe it never worked. I go inside, holding my 20 dollar bottle of brandy like it can save me. Like it will protect me from what is inside.

Nothing.

No one.

I sit on the couch, the one that I used to pick at when Mom and Abby fought in the kitchen. It’s where I crack open the bottle and take my first swig.

It’s awful.

Awful enough that I stumble back to my feet and into the long dark kitchen and spit it into the sink that belongs to nature now, overgrown and alive.

But I need to drown.

I know I drank all of the liquor left behind. I know there is nothing that can make this more palatable. So I just hold my nose for the second sip. The third. Until my head is distant enough that the foul taste means almost nothing to me.

I sit back down on the couch. There isn’t much of the house I can access safely, probably. But I can see it all well enough. I know what is where. I know the room at the top of the stairs, right off the landing with a hole in the wall. The hole that used to be the size of my fist, that used to be covered by a poster. The hole that was alive with mice for years, long enough that it became normal to hear them and long enough that I stopped trying to bail them out the window like a man on a sinking ship. I know there are things in Mom’s room I will never see again, things that maybe make her more of a person and less of a hole in my body. I know where Earl and I laid down in front of the TV, carpet scratching our skin as we leaned in too close.

I know where my first and only dog is buried in the yard. I went outside the morning after she died, unable to stand still now that I had no one to run with. Remember the day I dug the ragged hole, shoulders shaking with tears and exhaustion because a twelve-year-old isn’t strong enough to move that much dirt. I know the depth that the second shovel dug in at, when Abby came out and said nothing, when she just stood beside me and dug. I know we buried her in a blanket Mom had made, maybe before I came along. I know Mom never knew a thing about it, even if she had been watching from the kitchen window with blank, nothing eyes.

I wonder if Mom knew about the hole in my wall. The hole it paralleled inside of me. The things it was made out of. I wonder if Abby ever saw that hole. If it was the reason she decided we needed out of this house and that she’d rather live on the opposite side of town.

Maybe Abby had a hole in the wall in her room, too. Maybe she knew the house would eat us both alive. Maybe she saw the way Josie’s front porch sagged, all those years vacant after her death. Maybe it was just more expensive to fix than to leave like this.

I think I belong to this house. I am caving in, structurally unsound. We are the same; old and forgotten. We do not belong around people, people do not belong around us.

As I am falling asleep on that couch, the cigarette burns on the arm so familiar I can find them without opening my eyes, I wonder if Josie knew it all would turn out like this.

I want so badly to be someone people care about.

But I am not.

I am not even a person.

I am only so much skin.

***

It’s cold, cold enough that I can feel it through the alcohol. Cold enough that it wakes me shivering. I finally stagger off the couch when there isn’t light left in the sky. I stumble out onto the street, walk past the car. I may be fucked up, but I’m not dumb enough to drive. And a walk isn’t so bad anyways, not with half a bottle of whisky to slug down.

Or maybe a quarter.

That’s more than enough to get home, and I can break into Abby’s stash when I get there.

There is no one outside, just streetlights that are too bright. I see headlights once or twice, I slip the bottle into my coat before they draw level. Just in case. But they are distant. They never get anywhere close to me. I make it home without incident, without even that old nightmare of a charcoal gray car to haunt me.

I let myself into the house, clumsily slide off my shoes, and dig through the liquor cabinet for something better.

That will do nicely. Some bright blue vodka I remember drinking straight from the bottle in my college dorm. I wouldn’t do that here of course, no. I take down a glass and throw some ice in it. I pour it full to the very top and sit at the table, where the only light is from the moon.

The alcohol is still deep enough that thoughts cannot swim, that for a while I don’t remember what’s happened. I was at work, and now I’m here, sweet liquor rewarding the decision.

And then the light flicks on.

“Cecil?” Abby says, voice quiet and careful but enough to make me lurch forward like a guilty teenager.

“Fuck, don’t sneak up on me like that,” I breathe, running a hand through my hair.

She moves into my line of sight, sits at the chair across from me. She’s in a fuzzy robe and pajamas, glasses slipping down her nose. Abby always wears contacts unless…

Shit. I woke her up.

It hits me then that I don’t know the time. I glance over to the stove, and the neon green digital display reads 2:22.

She sees the bottle then, looks directly at it and then into my face. I wonder what I look like, based on the way her mouth twists. If I have broken blood vessels and hazy eyes, or if I just look more generally like shit. If she knows how much I’ve had. But it’s Abby.

She knows.

“You weren’t home for dinner,” she finally says.

“Didn’t know I had to be,” I grumble, taking a drink to avoid having to see how her face changes at that. I know I’m being an ass, but I don’t know how else to proceed.

“You don’t have to be, no,”

Careful. Measured. Like she’s trying to stop the impending breakdown. The fight brewing in the space between us.

I don’t say anything, just lean back and drain the tumbler.

“How long have you been drinking?”

“Who cares?” I shrug, but my voice comes out rough enough that I decide to pour myself another drink. The neck of the bottle clinks against the glass. I’m certain Abby can see how it shakes, how close I am to dropping and shattering it, how unsteady I am inside and out.

But Abby doesn’t always want to see things, I think. After all, wasn’t it Steve who invited me to live here? Wasn’t it Josie who made sure I was eating? Earl who checked to make sure I felt alive?

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you know that’s not a solution, Gersh,”

“Not like anything else will solve it,”

“Cecil,” she says firmly.

I duck my head.

“Did you drive here?”

Of course that’s the question she asks. Unendingly practical Abby.

“I’m not a fucking idiot, you know,” I hiss, tossing the glass back and nearly gagging on it. It burns like acid going down.

“I never said you were-”

“No, but you’re thinking it,”

“Cecil-”

“I know I’ve fucked it all up, okay? I know this whole thing is-”

“What the fuck happened today? You were fine this morning!”

Was I? I don’t know the last time I was anything remotely close to fine for more than a few days.

“Nothing… nothing happened , alright? That’s just fucking it, nothing happens! Nothing happens and it… it never will,”

The tension is creeping back in, the threat of tears, and I try to pour another glass. I don’t take the lid off. Abby snatches it out of my hand, removing it from my reach before she sits back down.

“What are you talking about?” she says evenly.

“I’m too old, Abby-”

She makes an indignant sound and I stop, knuckles white on my glass. It’s too close to those noises Mom used to make. Too close to her dismissing me. Too close to the moments when Mom was there, was present, and all it meant for me was cowering in a corner.

“Cecil, you’re not dead . It’s never too late-”

“Says you!” I snap. “Says you who has a fucking job and a life with people who love you, who has a fucking perfect-”

“Cecil Gershwin Palmer,” Abby stands, hands planted firmly on the table and yeah. That’s Mom too. But I’m not cowering.

“I’m never going to be like that, okay? I don’t have people who wait for me to get home, I don’t have-”

“You have us,”

It isn’t Abby.

It’s Steve, voice cracked and groggy.

I close my eyes and force myself to release the clench in my jaw. It was bad enough with Abby. Bad enough with just one person, and now?

“Steve, sweetheart,” Abby’s voice drops back down to its normal volume. “I didn’t mean to wake you-”

“You have us, Cecil,” Steve repeats, hand suddenly on my shoulder and I can’t help but buckle. I collapse to the table, woven placemat scratching my cheek as I cry. And sure, normally I’d throw Steve’s hand off, normally I’d want him to leave. But right now?

“I’m sorry,” I sob and he kneels down next to my chair, making soft sounds as if comforting a child. “I’m so sorry, Steve… I love you,”

“I love you, too, Cecil, hey,”

I launch myself at his chest and he makes a great oomph as I latch on in quite possibly the most aggressively pathetic hug to ever exist.

And Steve?

Steve, as it turns out, is made for hugs.

When I do finally let him go, I’m more than a little surprised to find Abby standing closer, face… well. She doesn’t look angry anymore.

“I haven’t just skated by, Cecil,”

“Fuck,” I groan, wiping my face. “Yeah, I’m… I’m sorry Abby, yeah… I know I don’t make this easy, I’m just… everything’s all fucked up-”

“You don’t have a monopoly on suffering,”

“No. No you… I’m sorry,” I stand up, swaying a bit. Am I still that drunk? “I just feel… feel stuck. In the basement, I want to do… I want to be… I’m sorry, I’ll go-”

“Cecil,” Abby catches my arm, hauling me back into a hug. “You’re doing fine . It’s okay to just be alive sometimes, you know?”

I see Steve’s face over her shoulder in my smudged glasses and he offers me a small smile and steps in to wrap his arms around both of us. I hold Abby tighter and nod.

Chapter Text

The new schedule is… good. Shockingly good. The mornings are easier, I take Janice in the van, run any errands, get back home and write for a few hours. Sometimes when I pick Janice up we go to the park. Some days I go out with Maureen. But these days feel like I own them, like they’re mine, like-

“Gersh?”

Like anytime Abby says something in that slightly edged tone it all crumbles back to nothing.

I’m not doing something wrong. Am I? I’m just in the middle of packing Janice’s lunch, Abby is filling travel mugs for her and Steve… did I use the wrong one this morning? Did she actually like the shitty one with the crooked handle?

Abby turns to look at me when I don’t respond. I feel like an asshole teenager who's been caught skipping class.

“W-what?”

“You don’t have to wear those suits anymore,”

I freeze, the peanut butter jar held tight in my hand.

“I… what?”

“The collared shirts, the slacks… that’s not you,”

“That’s… that’s all I have,”

“I know, that’s why I’m saying you should spend your money on yourself,”

“Ab… the…”

I’m living here for free.

I close my mouth and shake my head. She knows that. She doesn’t offer things she doesn’t mean. She doesn’t want my money, or maybe I look shit enough that she’d gladly lose the small rent I’ve offered. She won’t let me worm my way out of keeping that cash.

So I have to argue for something else.

“I can’t dress myself,”

“That’s not true, you used to,”

I know what she’s trying to say. I hear it louder than if she just said it.

I know that this isn’t really about the suits.

This is about the Cecil who had never heard “unprofessional,” who didn’t think twice about colors. The Cecil who never thought he was too much, who could wear what he wanted and did . The Cecil who painted his nails without fear and dressed camp and loved it.

The Cecil who hadn’t spent ten years of his life falling down so many times that he stayed there.

“I… I don’t know if I can,” my throat catches and I close my eyes against the rush of suffocating emotion worming its way out. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry .

“Cecil, can I hug you?”

I nod. I don’t know if she used to ask, if I’ve ever been given that moment to think. To give permission. But it feels good to decide.

Abby has always been strong. Emotionally, sure, but physically, too. She nearly crushes the air from my lungs, but it feels good for a body too long out of contact. I crumble, slumping down and fuck . Yeah, I’m definitely crying now.

“You deserve to be comfortable, alright?”

I make a pathetic sort of noise in my throat and she rubs my back.

“It’s okay, Gersh, you’ve got this,”

“I-I’ve been so good at pretending,” I gasp out. “At being normal… I’m afraid I can’t be me anymore,”

“Let’s try, okay?”

***

I sit in the parking lot of my old favorite thrift store for nearly twenty minutes, staring at the front door and willing myself in. I have hours before I have to pick Janice up.

I drum my fingers on the wheel, I clench and unclench my jaw. I check my bank account four separate times.

I’m here. I text Abby.

Stop stalling.

I snort, unbuckling my seatbelt.

It’s humiliating to start over. But for once I know what to look for, what I’m doing.

I find things that are still safe, things that won’t put a target on my back. Clothes that are… normal. Not suits, but not me either.

And then I see a pink satin scarf. It’s garish, loud, it’s… it’s captivating. I look at myself in one of those warped mirrors, hands shaking as I drape it over my shoulders and carefully arrange it.

And I see myself. Not now, not an aging, sickly looking bastard in a poorly lit strip mall. But the way I was. The puffy sleeved silk blouse I wore under a dress Josie helped me sew little eye appliques onto, wearing so much jewelry that I couldn’t so much as shift in the passenger seat of Earl’s car without making a racket of clanking and jangling. The fingerless lace gloves Abby had found for me in a box of old halloween costumes. The cat ear headband that Janice adored and tried to steal off my head.

I blink hard, hard enough that a tear rolls down my cheek. I’m still here. I’m still the same. Still… still The Same Cecil. And Cecil? He’s not a controlled person. That is a thing I have always known. A thing I have tried to strap down and dispose of for as long as I recognized the emptiness. Regiment and schedule, rules and boundaries… they aren’t me. And I don’t want them to be.

***

I don’t know how long I take in the store. Some blur of time that could have extended forever if I let it. My phone buzzes, and I toss the end of that pink scarf over my shoulder as I answer. I don’t even check the caller.

“Hellooo?” I can feel the smile, can feel this energy that I haven’t had in years.

“Cecil?” Steve. Steve’s calling. I hum and shift through the rack. “Hey I don’t know if you saw but I’m off early, I can grab Janice if you’re still out…”

Janice! Oh Janice will have to come and be a part of all this.

“Can you two meet me in the shopping center off Main?”

“Uh… okay. Should be twenty or so-”

“Perfect,” I hang up, not holding onto Steve’s anxiety at all as I push a frankly excessive cart to the cash register.

Steve and Janice pull in beside Abby’s coupe as I leave the store, overladen with bags of secondhand clothes.

“Hiya Uncle Cecil,” Janice beams. “You got a lot of bags!”

“Shopping, munchkin,” I grin back as I approach the trunk.

“New clothes?” Steve makes eye contact with me in the rearview mirror and there’s something in his eyes…

Something I think I used to ignore.

Steve should be a part of this, too.

“Everything okay?” he asks, looking around the lot in a vague gesture of concern. It’s nearly empty. He casts a glance at the huge number of bags still hanging off my arms. Janice turns her head as I step towards her door first.

“What’s going on?”

“ I am going to get my nails done, and I want to take you as well,”

Janice cheers from the back seat and Steve unbuckles his seatbelt with a deep sigh.

“Alright, let me just get the chair and then I can head-”

“Both of you,”

“M-me?” he whips around, jaw slack.

I nod, still breathless with the joy of this thing bursting out of me. Something I thought had long been dead.

“I… I can’t-”

“Daaaaad,” Janice whines. “Come on,”

“Yeah, Steve, come on,” I cross my arms in my best impression of Abby.

“I-I bite my nails-”

“So? They can still paint them,”

“Are you sure you want me there?”

It’s quieter. A reminder of the damage I’ve done.

How could the answer be any different?

“Absolutely,”

***

I expect Steve to just get clear nail polish, to play along without really giving in. But he holds up colors to Janice one at a time until she picks two: a bright magenta and a deep indigo. I find the one with the most glitter I can get.

I pay for it, but Steve won’t stand that for long. He makes me get into the passenger seat of the van and we head to the Moonlight AllNight Diner, where dinner is on him.

***

I start to ease a bit. I’m not so tightly wound in a body I feel at home in. Abby doesn’t mention it beyond a smile. Janice excitedly tells me she likes my new clothes. Steve hardly notices except when Janice says something and he brightly grins.

“Yeah, Cecil, you look happy,”

I choke on my coffee.

“I… uh… I am… thanks,”

He pats my shoulder and I bite back the urge to cry again.

***

When people start to arrive on Sunday, I’m more anxious than usual. I tried to tone it down, to wear something subdued. But I’m finding who I naturally am has never been subdued. I’m wearing green flared pants and a checkered tank top over a mesh long sleeve. That’s what I manage to find “subdued” now.

I get wrapped up in setting up. Maybe as an excuse to forget that I don’t look the same as last week. Maybe I don’t have to move the table and test the sound before everyone gets in. But it means that when the doorbell rings, it’s not my first thought. I jog up the stairs, open the door wide and-

“ Oof ,” Dana knocks the wind out of me in a tight hug.

“You look so good , Cecil!”

“Oh… h-hey thanks,” I swallow back my self deprecating instinct and look up to see Carlos… well, he’s not quite looking at me.

Uh oh.

Dana releases me and glances back with a sly grin.

“I’ll see you downstairs,” she says to him, eyebrows lifting in a gesture I thought I understood but makes no sense here. I stand there as Dana moves down the hall and greets Abby and Steve, shifting a little nervously between my feet. Carlos is wearing his normal outfit: dark jeans and a nondescript shirt with a dark, outdoorsy jacket I find charming. But he’s never seen me like this.

Like myself.

“Uh…” he chokes out, finally meeting my eyes and turning bright red.

“W-what?” I say, smoothing my hair back. I know I’m not twenty anymore. I know these clothes don’t look the same, but I can’t bear to think of Carlos thinking I’m… silly. As the silence progresses I get more anxious. Maybe he didn’t realize how fruity I was before and now he’s reconsidering the whole show and maybe even being my friend and-

“You look great,” he says, a shy smile breaking the tension. “Really, that’s a cool outfit!”

“Ah… thanks,” I pull at the mesh sleeves and look away. “Uh… you… you ready to  play?”

Chapter Text

I don’t know the last time it was just Abby and I. It must have been years… at least as long as Janice has been around.

Not that I’ve ever missed the way things were.

Not as they were then (contentious children playing at being grown ups).

But now, with the van out of the driveway, with Steve and Janice halfway upstate for a chair basketball tournament neither of us could make it to…

It’s… nice.

Calm.

Easy.

We get in the car to get something to eat, just a frozen pizza and maybe personal pints of ice cream that we’ll end up switching every ten spoonfuls like we used to when Abby was pregnant. 

I think things were almost okay then.

Almost.

We checkout without incident, and it isn’t until I’m back in the car, that Abby rolls her eyes at my feet on the dashboard as she puts the cart away, it isn’t until then that I realize all of this… aches.

It feels good. Normal. Like things sometimes did with Abby around when I was a kid. When she tried to take care of me. Or when we were really little, and Mom smiled in the rearview mirror at us fidgeting in the backseat.

Was that real?

Did she smile?

Abby slides into the driver’s seat and I flinch away, suddenly unable to look at her.

“Abby,” I say, fidgeting with one ring that’s too big to fit on any of my fingers.

“Don’t tell me we forgot something?” she groans, closing the car door.

“Was… was Mom always… was she ever happy?”

Abby buckles her seatbelt with a deep sigh.

“Ceec, it wasn’t your fault,”

“I… that’s not…” but the tears roll down my face anyway. Because maybe it really isn’t, but maybe that’s what big sisters are supposed to say. “Did… did she ever try to get better?”

“No, I… I did try,” I see her shoulders sag a bit from the corner of my eye. “I wish she had,”

“I… I don’t want to be her, Ab,” I blubber. She reaches over, pulling me across the console in a pathetic hug.

“You aren’t, hey, Gersh-”

“I-I don’t like feeling like that…”

“No, I… I know,” she sighs, one hand smoothing over the back of my head. “Cecil, will you promise not to be mad at me?”

I nod meekly, gasping for air through horribly loud tears.

“Would you want to try therapy?”

I stiffen up, but she pushes on.

“I did it, okay? Lots of people do it. Someone to talk to might really help you. And there may be medication that can help! I know a few people in the area who might…”

She falls silent when I shift back, enough so I can see her face.

It’s a look I have seen so many times, a look I didn’t understand for years. The look she gave me when I got laid off, when I was clawing my way through junior college. The look she gave me when Earl picked me up for prom.

“What?” I snapped, tucking a borrowed blouse into the culottes Josie helped me embroider with countless stars. “It’s not a fucking dress,”

Her mouth quirked up sadly.

“Let me just take a picture of you two,”

Now, sitting in this car, I know that look isn’t doubt, isn’t judgment. It’s hope . It’s my sister, who was alone for so much of her life, who seldom had the luxury to hope. And she’s hoping for me to have a chance.

“W-will you g-go with me?” I snivel.

“Oh, Ceec, of course I will,”

***

Therapy is uncomfortable.

There’s no pretending it isn’t.

I sit in front of a stranger, someone I’m sure is kind and takes their job seriously, but still a stranger. Abby holds my hand. She pushes me when my answers fall flat, a simple “fine” or “good.”

“It’s just an intake appointment,” he explains in the last five minutes, twenty minutes after I started crying. It hasn’t stopped. “We won’t be able to address it all today, of course. But what do you want from therapy?”

“I… to be better, of course,”

It seems like the right answer. The thing I’m meant to say. But Abby frowns.

“What is better, to you?” the therapist asks. He tries not to defer to Abby, despite the fact that she’s clearly the one in charge. That I’m only here because of her, and that only one of us has a handle on things.

“I… I don’t know,”

He nods, and sits back in his chair. Abby clears her throat.

“May I?”

He looks to me.

I swallow hard and nod.

“I would like for Cecil to learn that he’s worth the effort,”

That is… quite simply not what I expected.

“I… I want to… to be a good friend. Uncle. Brother. I want to be… myself,” I say, the words forcing themselves out before I can choke them down, falling as involuntarily as the tears.

And I think that’s probably the right answer, with the way Abby curses and wipes her eyes. With the way she holds onto my arm as we walk to the car.

She takes me to a coffee shop across the street when I stop crying and buys me an affogato. She does it the same way she’d buy me an ice cream after we got flu shots: with love and care that I hardly believe belongs to me.

She gives me the number. She doesn’t tell me to call, to make another appointment. She just gives it to me. I think if she had done that years ago, maybe even months ago, I’d have thrown it away. Let it molder in the dusty bin under my desk. Scowl every time I saw the doctor’s name, written in Abby’s careful writing.

I call him in the parking lot of work the next morning.

I make an appointment for two weeks from now.

***

Steve and I bring the microphone setup upstairs to the ill-used dining room while Abby and Janice are out. I spend all of Saturday setting up an elaborate and poorly painted scene, hot gluing leaves on the borders of the gridded mat until nearly midnight. Dana arrives earlier than usual Sunday morning, and she takes three trips between the car and the dining table, carrying boxes of carefully painted miniatures and snacks that we couldn’t keep in the fridge for fear of discovery. And then Carlos appears, coat draped inconspicuously over a box I know must be the cake.

Steve helps Dana set the food up, more snacks than any thirteen-year-old could hope for.

And then we wait for Abby to pick her up. For Janice to wheel in and pretend to be embarrassed when she’s been begging me to play for weeks. 

It was something of a surprise to find that Janice had been listening to our playcast, an even bigger one to find that she wanted to play in it. She even pitched me a character that could ostensibly fit in the current campaign.

She had even started pestering Steve and Abby, begging them to let her in. My niece, who never played a single tabletop game, wanted to be a part of mine .

Knew our characters names. Their backgrounds. Had ideas .

So, here we were, setting up a secret game on the dining room table. Setting up an episode for Janice.

A heist.

Chapter Text

It’s been a few months of carefully crafted peace. Of some days I want to give it up, and others where I can feel like it’s really getting better.

And then my therapist says something that nearly makes me laugh.

“Can you accept yourself as you are?”

“What?”

It’s simple.

So fucking simple.

“I don’t mean that you can’t change, can’t get better, but how would it feel to just say ‘I accept myself as I am in this moment?’”

I do laugh then. A shocked, abrupt little noise that has tears rising at the corners of my eyes.

“Can I do that?”

***

The bell on the door chimes and I look up.

Carlos. Beautiful, wonderful Carlos. In my store.

“Hey, Cecil,” he strides up to the register and my heart ticks faster.“How’s it going?”

“Super!” I say too emphatically. That was dumb. “And you?”

“Good, good! Got out of work early to pick up my new release, you know,”

“Ah,” I lean over the plastic bin and flip through the folders. There, with no last name. Carlos. I pull out one issue, wrapped in plastic. “What do you do for work?”

“I work in a lab,” he beams. “Today was blood feeding day,”

“O-oh?”

“I’m taking care of some mosquitoes they’re using for an olfactory bioassay,” he continues. Well. That certainly makes more sense… “Apparently if you have a high carboxylic acid content on your skin they find you more attractive-”

I can’t help but glance down at my arm. How much carboxylic acid does it take to attract Carlos?

“-and the wind tunnel is all messed up because of the airflow. We had to push back tests another week, which means I have to start a new generation,”

“Wow,”

“Oh,” Carlos, perfect, intelligent Carlos, blushes. If I wasn’t already pathetically in love with him, that seals it. “I… I didn’t mean to go on, I just can’t help myself when it comes to-”

“I like science,” I blurt stupidly. Carlos’s smile returns, though it looks a bit more shy.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, really into science these days,”

I am incredibly glad Jackie and Lee aren’t here to witness this pathetic thing I’m doing.

“Well, hey, if you ever want to see the lab let me know! I just have to clear it with Nilanjana, it’s her project, her funding, but I’m sure she won’t mind!”

“I’d love to see your mosquitoes,”

Carlos nods and then glances down.

Shit, right.

Work.

I clear my throat and hold the bag up for Carlos.

“Ah, so you just had this one?”

“Yeah, I know, I’m sure you read all the new issues. I just can’t keep up anymore,”

“I-I’ve never really much been into comics,” I shrug, typing in the code for new issues into the register.

“Really? I’ve been reading them since I was a kid,” it’s his sweetest, most breathtaking smile and I have to concentrate on the buttons oh God.

“My section is the tabletop games, really,” I shrug.

“Do you read any graphic novels? Or manga? That’s at least half the store,”

“Never,” I feel my face burning, and perfect Carlos, before I can ring him up, leaves.

“Was it that bad?” I mumble, tapping my fingers against the dice case. He stumbles back from behind a shelf, holding something over his head.

“This too!” he beams, setting it down. It’s a white cover, two people and a baby. One has horns.

“ Saga ?”

“It’s one of the best ones, believe me,”

I shrug and scan it, take Carlos’s card and prepare to put everything in a bag.

“No, I don’t need a bag,” he says, holding his hand out. I extend the issue and the… Saga . He only takes the issue.

“Uh… do you want it or…?”

“It’s for you, silly,” Carlos chuckles. “I hope you like it!”

I stare down at the cover, glancing back up as the door swings shut behind him.