Chapter Text
Alex wakes up with a headache. He isn’t surprised. It seems like every day for the past month has started with that stabbing pain behind his right eye, pressing his skull together. He should probably go to the doctor about it, like Henry keeps saying. He will, soon. For now he’ll muscle through with liquids and the bottle of ibuprofen he keeps in his office. There’s a glass on the bedside table, half full. The water is a little dusty, but he downs it in one go. The headache doesn’t subside.
Next to him, Henry is still sleeping. Henry has taken up journaling recently, writing at least a page every night before bed, and his pen is still curled in his fingers. Alex smiles just slightly as he pulls it from Henry’s grip, watches Henry’s long piano fingers loosen.
It is still dark, will be for nearly an hour, but Alex has to drag himself from the warmth of his blankets. He’d gotten the call late the night before that there was a new, pressing case. Something he was going to want to take a look at. Alex had promised Jovan, his assistant, that he’d be in before six.
He heads down the hallway to the stairs in just a towel, tied securely around his waist, after his shower. It’s almost nice, how dead quiet the house is. Alex can hear Theo’s open-mouthed breathing faintly behind his door. Antonio rolls over, maybe subconsciously hears Alex’s footsteps next to his room, and his sheets swish lightly. Something tugs a little in Alex’s chest, a yearning, the type that remembers late mornings when the kids were small. When Jada would come wake him up by jumping on his bed and almost suffocating him in her unexpected hugs. When Ileana would tuck herself between him and Henry, and fall back asleep, her toddler body so small beneath the massive comforter. Alex can’t believe she’s eight, now. Can’t believe his youngest is starting third grade today.
He fills up his thermos with hot coffee in the silent kitchen. The house creeks, old bones settling. Alex rolls his head around, feels his spine crack. His muscles catch around the edge of his headache. It helps, just slightly. It’s almost 5:30. He rifles through his backpack, double checks his pen and highlighter supply, presses a hand against his laptop to make sure it's there.
The time when mornings didn’t start before the sun seems a billion years away. Like it wasn’t just four years ago that Alex made pancakes before Jada’s first day of third grade to celebrate. He’d driven the kids to school, back when they were all young enough to go to the same elementary. Theo didn’t want to let go of his hand, even when all the other parents had stepped out of the classroom and said their goodbyes. He hasn’t driven to the kids’ school in forever. He’s barely driven in forever. Safer, really, these days, to let the body guards take the wheel.
Andie doesn’t say anything to Alex during the drive. They know all of his moods now. How some days he’s bursting so full of energy they have to drive around the block for an hour just so he can finish talking before getting out of the car. How others he’ll nearly scratch his skin off thinking his brain into a ball of flames, and they know to let him out at the park and tell him to run. But lately Andie has become the most familiar with these sorts of mornings, where the headaches and the stillness have to sit. So that Alex can tell himself it’s not worth wishing for the warm bed and the warm covers and the warm Henry because he has his coffee and his job is important. And today there is something new, something that will pull Alex’s heart into a faster but steadier rhythm.
—
Henry’s eyes strain against the sting of light coming in through the window as he blinks awake. Alex’s side of the bed is cold, and for the briefest of moments, Henry’s heart lurches, remembering those mornings after nights of secrecy when Alex had left at three, and Henry had woken up alone. But it does not last. He is more than used to Alex’s schedule. Henry can’t really recall the last time Alex was around to get the kids ready for school. He wasn’t around for last years’ first day, either. Or the year before that, when Theo had sobbed into Henry’s shirt because his Papa wasn’t there to hold his hand like he used to. They had a secret hand-holding code. One squeeze for “I’m scared”, two squeezes for “I love you”. Henry isn’t sure if Theo remembers it any more. The code had never caught on between the two of them. And Theo hadn’t cried last year on the first day. Hadn’t even asked if Alex was going to come.
The shower down the hall is already running, which means that Antonio has been up for likely half an hour, if not more. He’s been getting some exercise in every morning for the past few weeks, to “get in shape for high school PE”. Henry has no doubt he’ll be fine, and also no doubt that he absolutely needs the shower.
Henry has just convinced himself that it really is important he gets out of bed when Ileana rushes in. She’s got tear streaks down her face, but he doesn’t think she’s still crying because when she cries she makes these high pitched squeaking sounds with her nose. She tries to pull Henry down to the floor, but only manages to encourage him to sit up. He pulls the blanket up around himself to ward off the chill coming in from the hallway.
“What’s up sweetpea? You alright?”
Ileana looks at him confused for a moment, then touches her tear-stained cheeks. “Oh. No, I'm fine. I was just scared. For a bit. But not any more. Because Theo said the kids were mean in third grade. But then Tonio said I would be fine because I have friends. So that’s— It’s all good.”
Henry hides an amused twitch of his lip. “Well terrific then. What’s brought you racing in here?”
“Because you have to make pancakes! You have to do the ones with chocolate chips. And also whip cream! Those are Tonio’s favorite and it’s his first day of high school! That’s so big! He said there’s like, thousands of people there and the hallways are always packed and you might see people fighting.” She pauses for air, but keeps her mouth open so Henry knows she’s not done talking. “And also I left my backpack in the car and I need you to grab it because I forgot to put my new pens in.”
Right, her backpack. It’s new and blue and sparkly, the perfect combination of her two favorite things at the moment — anything ocean-related and anything with glitter. She’s been taking it everywhere with her since she got it two weeks ago. There’s already been one incident involving a spilled banana smoothie that makes Henry think the backpack won’t survive a month. He is more than happy to take her shopping for another one, likely themed something completely different given the fleeting nature of her interests, when the time comes.
“Alright, I’ll be down in a minute. Why don’t you go wake up your sister?” Henry runs a hand over his eyes, as if that’ll make him awake enough to deal with the morning.
Ileana pouts at him even as she jumps off the bed and starts to head towards the door. “Jada’s so mean in the morning. Why doesn’t she just set an alarm so we don’t have to deal with her grumping around.”
“That is an excellent question,” Henry tells her. He glances at the clock, and then down at the covers, then at the clock again. He has some idea where Jada gets this whole anti-waking-up thing from.
—
Antonio can’t stop bouncing his knee. Every time he tries to hold it down, pressing his foot to the floor of the car, another jolt of panic sprinkled with irrational what-ifs makes it jump up again. Jada let him ride shotgun for his first day of high school, but now he wishes she hadn’t. The new driver, a guy in his twenties named Austin, keeps looking over at him. With each second they get closer to the school, Antonio can feel him debating whether he should say something. The guy twists the side of his mouth down, flicks his eyes over, and then tries to relax his expression again. It’s infuriating. Antonio has barely exchanged more than two sentences with this guy. He’s hardly got a right to notice that Antonio is nervous, let alone comment on it.
It’s not that he’s nervous, either, really. He’s just… a bit stressed. Which is fine. To be expected. Really normal. And not the sort of thing that’s going to make him cry, like he definitely didn’t do in the shower earlier. Not that crying is bad, of course. Alex isn’t the best at hanging out with his kids, but when he does he likes to pile on the advice. Crying is good, repressing your emotions is bad, kicking transphobes in the balls is always moral. Sadly, none of those things are something most teenage boys seem to agree with. Certainly not the ones Antonio is going to be stuck in classrooms with for the next four years.
Austin makes a right, and now the school is just down the street. Traffic slows to a near stop with so many people rushing to the same place all at once. Good. A few extra minutes to sit here with a knee that can’t figure out that Antonio is fine, and a driver who honestly isn’t even trying to make it seem like he’s not having a deep internal conflict about whether or not to make an attempt at comforting words. There’s no way in hell the guy is actually good at comforting words. God this is annoying.
And there Jada is, sitting in the backseat. Probably on her phone. She doesn’t have the decency to break the silence. Antonio guesses it’s nice enough that she let him have the front seat. He shouldn’t really expect more, not when he knows that tomorrow she’s going to literally wrestle him for it. But he’s been working out, and she hasn’t. He’s finally got more muscle than fat on his chest, enough that maybe Jeremy will stop making fun of his man-boobs. That’s another thing Alex preaches about. How you’re not supposed to treat the fat on your body like it makes you a worse person. It’s not like he knows anything about that, though, when he’s America’s fucking golden boy. It’s not like when Alex googles himself, he gets articles that display his eight-year-old body under titles like “How to Get Your Picky Children to Eat Healthy” and “Ten Celebrity Children Who are Not Living Up to Their Parents” and “The Growing Youth Obesity Epidemic in America.”
—
Jada’s middle school starts fifteen minutes after Antonio’s high school, which gives Austin just enough time to abandon Antonio—shaking like a leaf—at the front gate before speeding off again. The tension seeps out of the car when Antoino leaves. Jada takes in a long breath. So does Austin.
“I hope everything goes alright. He certainly seemed nervous,” Austin says, after a minute.
Jada doesn’t bother to look up from her phone. “Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She’s playing sudoku.
“I was nervous for my first day of high school, too. I walked into the wrong classroom twice.”
“Oh. That sucks.” Another row finished.
“I should’ve told him that. Made him feel less alone.”
Still no way to figure out where that two goes. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“How are you feeling about the first day? You seem pretty put together.”
Ah, three, and then five there. “I’m fine.”
“Well that’s good! Do you have a lot of friends, then?”
“Nope.” Eight, six or nine, which means…
“Oh? Just a few close ones? That’s what my friend group looked like in school, too.”
The two goes on the left. “No. My best friend moved. Everyone else is closer to each other than me.”
“Ah. Did you keep up with any of them over the summer?”
“Tried to, none of them really responded.” It’s just the ones now, and then smooth to the end.
“Oh damn. That’s shitty.”
Ha. Yeah it is. “It’s fine.” The one could go either place. She might just guess.
“You don’t have to say it’s fine if it isn’t.”
How close is school? “I know that.” The guess seems right. Smooth sailing.
“That’s good. I mean, I say I’m fine a lot too when I don’t mean it. I think it’s pretty human, you know?”
“Sure. No one wants to be a burden.” Fuck, it was wrong. Backtracking is the worst.
“Yeah, exactly— wait, do you feel like a burden?”
Why the fuck is this car ride so long? “Um. That’s really not important.”
“Is someone making you feel like a burden?”
There we go, now the one is in the right place. “No, I— I didn’t mean it like that.” How can one not feel like a burden when saying one wrong thing means your parents have to deal with twitter judging everything about their parenting for a month.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
Puzzle over. Yay. Win. “I don’t.” When will this car ride also be over.
“But you can, you know, any time. When you do want to.”
“Thanks.”
“We’re almost there. Do you want me to drop you at the front or the back?”
Thank god. “The front’s better.”
Jada pulls her backpack onto her lap. Her water bottle is the same one from last year, the one Ellie bought for her before she moved away. It’s dented on the side, and it leaks if you twist the cap on at the wrong angle. Henry picked up a new one for her when he went back-to-school shopping with Ileana and Theo. But she doesn’t think he expects her to actually use it, judging by the fact that it wasn’t sitting by her stuff this morning.
“Alright, we’re here.”
“Great.”
“Try not to eat lunch with mean people.”
“Okay.”
“But I’m here to chat on the way home if you do. I promise I’m great at an after school cheer-up.”
“Ha. Thanks.”
Austin gives her this smile when he turns around and tells her to have a good day. The type of smile that makes something twist in her stomach.