#i know he was calling KYLE the riffraff but | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

litwitlady · 3 years

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happiness, a kind of holiness

I do writing warm-ups most days that I never post because they are rarely any good. But this week’s are set around Christmas so here you go. Please be aware that this is not edited and exists only to get the writing juices flowing (which is a disgusting turn of phrase).

It’s Monday. Early. Christmas week. The sky is cloudy, gray. Casting gloomy shadows where the filtered morning sunlight doesn’t quite reach. Michael parks his truck, cuts off the engine, and tries to see past the holiday decorations obscuring the interior of the small coffee shop where he is meeting Alex for breakfast. It’s not a date. It’s not a date. Even if they are both single.

The door opens with the jingle jangle of sleigh bells, the warmth of the furnace immediately wraps around him. He scans each table quickly, spotting Alex in the back corner. His head buried in a Manila folder, brow furrowed as he reads what Michael hopes is good news concerning their new ex-military friend, Eduardo Ramos.

Alex drags his eyes away from the papers in the folder at the sound of the bells. He smiles, full and bright, when he sees Michael. Waves. Moves to stand for some reason, but Michael shakes his head and points to the counter. Alex nods and returns his attention to the folder.

There are a few people in front of him so Michael takes the opportunity to not at all discreetly observe Alex. They’ve spent a lot of time together recently but always surrounded by the rest of their friends as they plan to go on the offense against Jones. Other than a stolen word or two on the way to their cars, they haven’t had any real time to talk.

Until this morning.

Michael had called Alex to relay information for their next meeting at Kyle’s house and Alex had suggested this meetup. The two of them alone together for no real discernible reason. Michael had easily said yes and spent the next 12 hours talking himself out of believing this could in any way be construed as a date.

But seeing Alex now makes him realize he’s failed. Badly. Because he desperately needs this to be a date. And he convinces himself that’s what Alex wants too. That his maroon sweater and black leather jacket and perfectly fitted jeans aren’t on accident. Michael looks down at himself and tries to imagine what Alex sees. Certainly the expanse of exposed chest. The worn, frayed edges of his shirt, the oil stains on his jeans, the scuffs on his boots. But maybe also the way his fingers always flex at the sight of him, the way the pulse in his neck races, the way his eyes linger heavy and for far too long.

He orders a small black coffee and heads to Alex’s table, sliding into the chair opposite him and throwing his hat into the chair between them. ‘Good news or bad news?’

Alex pushes the folder across the table, spinning it around so that Michael can read the document. ‘Most of what he said checks out. He was discharged from the Army eight years ago, but he left out the part where it was a dishonorable discharge.’

Michael’s eyes narrow as he skims the information. ‘What’d he do?’

‘Not sure. That’s classified above my clearance, but give me a few extra days to keep digging.’ He sips at his coffee and flips to another page in the folder. ‘He’s been off the grid for two years. Hardly any digital footprint which suggests he’s been in hiding.’

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘I would advise extreme caution until we know more. There are dozens of stupid reasons people get dishonorably discharged, and he might just be paranoid. Happens to a lot of guys once they get out.’ His eyes dart back to the door, the bells jingling again.

‘Nothing you have any firsthand experience with.’ It’s meant as a joke, but Alex’s forehead wrinkles. ‘Which is earned considering the lives we lead.’

‘Nah, you’re right. I had all those cameras installed long before I understood anything about aliens and mass government conspiracies.’ Alex taps his fingers on the lid of his drink and his forehead wrinkles disappear.

He smiles, lopsided. A fair amount of flirt implied. ‘I always just thought that was your very thorough way of screening guests. No riffraff allowed. Mainly, your dad.’

‘Well, then I hope you also noticed that you’ve always been welcome.’ Michael hates how much that makes his heart pound. How much hope that spreads warm throughout his chest. Forever and ever he’ll be this easy.

‘I did.’ He’d rarely had to ring the doorbell twice. Often not even at all.

Tension joins them at the table, shifting them in their seats as they readjust to the extra weight. Michael clears his throat. ‘Why did you invite me here this morning?’

Alex’s eyes fall to the folder like maybe the answer is in his carefully constructed research. ‘To warn you. Ask you to be careful with this guy.’

‘That’s why? Probably could have waited until tonight. When you could tell everyone to be careful at the same time.’ Michael leans forward, elbows on the table. Hands as close as he dares to Alex’s still wrapped around his coffee.

Michael watches him battle himself for the right words. A decade’s worth of emotions working across his face, haunting his features. His words when they come are quiet, simple things. Certain. ‘I missed you.’

Closing the gap between them, Michael’s fingertips tap at Alex’s knuckles. ‘We’ve seen each other every day.’

‘I know. But there were always too many people in the way.’ He takes a shuddering breath and concentrates his gaze on where their fingers meet. ‘I guess what I mean is, I missed us. Just us. I’ve missed us for a long time now.’

Michael nods and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, considering. ‘Has there ever really been an us? One that wasn’t a secret?’

Hurt flashes in Alex’s eyes, mouth immediately parting to bite out a response. But he stops. Takes another breath. Swallows. ‘No, not really. So maybe I missed what I wanted us to be.’

‘I missed that too. You wanted to be friends once. That’s what you said. And we never really got there.’ Their fingers twine together of their own accord. Very little thought playing into the touch.

‘I’d like to try that now. How about a standing coffee date every morning this week. As a start?’ He rubs his thumb lightly over Michael’s, face open and flush with possibility.

Michael pulls Alex’s hand to his lips. Presses a soft kiss. ‘As a start.’

#not even tagging this #now i'm off to work on smh #it's really so easy to disclaim away my writing #look this isn't great! proceed with cautions #yes #caution plural

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star-nova · 5 years

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The Lives of the RiffRaff: Sophia Bolshevik-Elsie’s Boyfriend

We Are the RiffRaff Rickie Johnson-The Art of War Vera Sherwood-Little Sister Kali Muburu-Hair Tracy Kwan-Vergil Franz Fawke-Hecklers James Weaver-The Preacher Mamoru Hayagawa-Three Weddings Charmain Dekker-Frankfort Talia Santiago-Queen of the City

(WARNING: Depictions of rape/sexual assault)

In a town like Tanager, your business is everyone else's business. It's because there aren't enough people, and therefore not enough businesses, to mind only your own. The only way to keep your neighbors' watchful eyes away from you was to do everything by their specific codes; follow the pack, never take the road less traveled, and never do anything that may be considered “against the grain.” Small-towners are so starved for difference because it's so rare, yet at the same time, they're afraid of it. If you stood out at all, you were the subject of both fascination and horror, and therefore you were labeled a troublemaker.

In Tanager, I stood out because I tried too hard not to stand out. I've always been quiet, preferring not to speak or have others speak to me, and if somebody did speak to me, I tended to lock up because I had no idea what to say. To not know what to say was considered a crime in Tanager, where everyone always had something to say. Not only that, but they thought I was childish. At twenty-three, I still played with dolls and chased butterflies and jumped rope in the park with my sister and Ellia. I didn't understand why you were expected to stop having fun for fun's sake once you reached the age of adulthood. If anything, your sense of wonder should increase as you're more and more able to see the world for what it is.

In Frankfort, we could jump rope in the park and watch the people pass by without so much as a glance in our direction. We could start up games of tag and hop along the stepping stones in the brook, and no one asked why we were darting around “like we ain't got nowhere to go,” as our neighbors would put it. I could catch all of the butterflies I wanted and no one paid me any mind. In such a big city with so many businesses blended together, you don't have the time or energy to mind anybody's but your own.

Frankfort was a magical place, where the unwritten rules and regulations of Tanager did not apply. In Tanager, I was often side-eyed and whispered about because of my quiet nature and my childishness. I once overheard a neighbor say, “Sophia's like a six-year-old. She just goes along with whatever you say and doesn't have anything to say for herself.” My appearance didn't help matters; though I'm three years older than Elsie, I'm also several inches shorter. A cherub-like face with apple cheeks isn't cute anymore when you're twenty-three. Elsie and I were both born with the typical blonde heads of Appalachia, but mine had darkened to brown by the time I was fifteen. Elsie's would have stayed blonde if she hadn't dyed it dark red. The Hecklers went around calling her Ronald McDonald. I think she looks more like Angela Chase.

Our appearances don't matter in Frankfort either, except when they do. The guys at the bar at Clarke's Tavern make eyes at us, and on our second night in the city, we went to a club where men wanted to dance with us and told us we were “a couple of real beauties.” Elsie and I had never in our lives been called beauties. Charmain Dekker's nose and harelip, the subjects of real contention in Tanager, were entirely ignored in Frankfort in favor of her curly dark hair and her soft hazel eyes—uncommon in Tanager. Nobody called Ellia “lanky,” and her hair was compared to sunshine rather than straw. And in the magical city of Frankfort, my sister, largely ignored by the male population of our hometown, had managed to attract a boyfriend.

Elsie and I slept in the same room in the rental house in Frankfort; we didn't mind, as we had shared a bedroom until I entered high school. As we were on our way to sleep one night, Elsie told me that she'd met somebody when we went out to the arcade the other day, and she was planning to see him again.

“Met somebody?” I asked, just for clarification. “As in...somebody somebody?”

“He's pretty cute,” Elsie said. “His name's Kyle.”

“How'd you meet?” I asked her. I was tired from a day spent shopping and streetcar-touring, but this new development was far too interesting to sleep on.

“I was waiting for the NeoGeo machine,” Elsie told me, “and he was on it. I was watching him play for a while. We started talking about the games, then we started talking about other games, then we started talking about other stuff. Then he said I was pretty cute, and he asked me for my number. I gave it to him, and, well, the rest is history.”

“Well,” I said through a yawn, “good for you.” I was too tired to say much else. Elsie gave me a mischevious little smile and turned out her light. Truly, we were in a different world if my sister, ignored by guys for most of her life, was able to find somebody. A part of me envied her, which wasn't anything new. It was just another thing she had an advantage over me in: she was taller, she was prettier, she was much more confident, and even her name—Elissandra--was longer than mine. Now she had a date before I did. There were guys in the city who talked to me and asked me for my number, but they never followed up. Oh well, I looked forward to meeting him either way.

Kyle was tall and thin as a rail. He was clean shaven, with blonde hair that went everywhere, and he wore glasses that made him look sort of like a young Bill Gates. My first thought was that he looked like a noodle, or like Napoleon Dynamite. I shouldn't have been judging him on his appearance, since I had my own appearance judged more times than I could count. But the truth was that there wasn't much else about this guy besides the fact that he did look like Napoleon Dynamite. He didn't say anything when Elsie told him, “This is my big sister, Sophia.” When I said hi to him, he said “Hey” back, but his voice was dry and uninterested. When Charmain offered him some of the tea she'd bought in a shop down the street, he just shook his head and sat himself down on the couch, his legs spread wide apart. “He's a shy boy,” Elsie said, patting his shoulder. “He was probably in the middle of a game when I called him up.”

“I wasn't,” Kyle told her.

“Ray lets us use his PS4,” Elsie said. “We'll play a few games. Sounds good?”

“Sure it does,” Kyle said. He was looking at the wall, not at her.

Elsie left to go and fetch the games. Charmain, who always preferred outdoors games to videogames, left us alone. Talia was out in the city, surely causing trouble, and I figured Ellia was in her room watching Netflix. I went to work setting up the PS4. I had nothing to say to Kyle, and he had nothing to say to me. I felt bad that he seemed so uneasy around us. I fumbled in my head for a conversation-starter, but I knew how hopeless it would be. It would come out as nothing but stutter and babble, and he would feel even more uncomfortable than he already was.

It was only after I had connected the last of the cables that I noticed Kyle was staring at me.

“H...hi,” I managed to stammer. I tried to smile. I wasn't sure if I'd succeeded, until I saw him smile back at me. When he smiled, I finally knew what Elsie saw in him.

“Hey, Sophia,” he said, his voice still flat and dry, “c'mere, will ya?”

“You...you need something?” His eyes followed me as I made my way across the room and sat down on the arm of the couch. He started to scoot in closer to me, and I stood up. “I...what do you...what do you n-n-need?” I asked. Suddenly, I longed for Elsie or Charmain. I would have even felt okay with Talia walking in right at that moment.

“Nevermind,” he told me suddenly. “It's nothing.” Elsie had returned with a stack of games and a bag of Fritos, and I realized I'd been holding my breath.

Kyle was just as boring the next time he came around, and I was starting to wonder just what was the appeal of dating a human two-by-four, even if he had a pretty smile. But Elsie seemed happy with him, so it wasn't my place to judge. She brought him around to watch Guardians of the Galaxy with us, and he continued to be the most uninteresting person I had ever met in my life.

Charmain and Talia had gone out to see Talia's aunt, “Baroness” Maven, and Elsie and Ellia were going to go pick up the pizza. I wasn't too thrilled to be left alone with Kyle, but if I had objected, I would've had to tell Elsie what happened the other day. I couldn't think of any positives that would result from that. Besides, it was probably nothing at all and I was just overthinking; I had a tendency to see things that weren't really there. When the girls walked out the door, I got up from the couch and told Kyle that I had to get something out of my room.

“Whatcha gotta get?” he asked me in monotone.

“My phone,” I told him. It was charging in the socket next to Elsie's bed.

“I'll go get it for you,” Kyle said. “Where's your room at?”

I didn't like him asking that question. “N-no,” I stuttered. “I'll...I'll get it, it's fine.” I fled to my room before he could say anything else. I unhooked my phone from the charger and sat down on my bed to browse the web for a while. I figured Kyle wouldn't care if I stayed here until the girls came back.

I heard the room door open and close. I looked up to find Kyle standing there. He was smiling again, and I hated how much I liked it.

I got up from the bed, slipping the phone into my pocket. “What...what do you w-w-want?” I asked.

“Just checkin' up on you,” Kyle said. He sat down on Elsie's bed and pretended to be very interested in the generic lavender-colored sheets.

“I'm fine,” I told him, “just checking Facebook.” I headed for the door, but then he grabbed my arm and pulled me down onto the bed beside him. I found myself looking right into his big Bill Gates glasses. He smelled like Old Spice.

I tried to move off of the bed, but he put his hand between my legs and made his way up my shorts. I jumped up and hit him as hard as I could. He recoiled, placing his hand—the one he'd just touched me with—on the spot where I'd hit. I ran for the door, and he sprung off the bed and grabbed me by my hair. “Don't be so difficult, Sophia,” he said. “You don't seem like a difficult girl. And if you get difficult with me then I might have to get difficult with you, and neither one of us wants that, do we, Sophia?”

I went to hit him again. He dodged it. I turned to flee, and he grabbed me again. His hand was right at my waistline. I never wanted to smell Old Spice again.

“Sophia,” he said, “ you care about Elsie, right?”

I knew that if I spoke, it would come out as nothing but blather. I might even cry, and there was no way I was letting him see that.

“I care a lot abut Elsie,” Kyle assured me. “She's a real great girl. You think your sister's a great girl, Sophia?” I was going to throw up. When I did, I'd make sure it was in his mouth.

“I wouldn't want anything to happen to her,” Kyle went on. “But if you tell anyone what went down today, I just might have to do something to Elsie. I wouldn't want that. I know you wouldn't want that either.”

He wasn't a man. He was a beast, a creature, the most vile thing that had ever crawled up out of the ninth level of hell to curse us with his evil presence. I finally managed to break free of the spell he had me under and I elbowed him in the gut. I ran, without really knowing where I was going or what I was doing. Elsie and Ellia are back now, I told myself. It was only wishful thinking; I was alone in the house with this demon. He slithered his way into the den and pinned me against the door with his gaze. He was a basilisk. Don't look into his eyes or you'll die in seven days...

It was like a nightmare where I couldn't move. He was coming closer to me. “Sophiaaa,” he sang, like he was playing a game with a child. “Think of your sister now, Sophia.” I backed away. I wondered where Talia kept all her knives. “I don't wanna see Elsie get hurt.” He was two inches away from me now and his hand was going down my shorts. Now I kicked and got him right in his erect dick. Now he was angry.

“If you do that to me again,” he said with his hot breath that smelled like A&W, “we'll both see what happens to Elsie.” He pinned me to the floor with his knee. His basilisk eyes bored into me and I was done...

I have no idea what happened. I must have fainted from the pain. My god, it hurt like hell, and even now it was hardly any better.

I was lying on my bed. I tried to move, and I felt something burn. I screamed. Someone put their hand on the back of my head and I slapped them.

“It's me, honey,” Charmain said. I felt her pull my blanket up to my chin. I tried to roll over, but I was burning. Rolling over meant rolling into an open flame. Charmain sat down on Elsie's bed, and Talia came round and stood beside her. I had never in my life been comforted by the sight of Talia Santiago until now.

Charmain reached out to touch my shoulder, hesitating for a moment as if she had to be careful not to break me. “Are you all right?”

I wasn't all right and I'd never be all right again. If you tell anyone what went down today, I just might have to do something to Elsie. If I opened my mouth at all, I would sign my sister's death warrant. I remained silent, and my whole body started to shudder.

“Should we go to the hospital?” Charmain asked. Did she know? How had she found out? I screamed at the top of my lungs for Elsie. Some horrible thing told me she was dead, that between now and the moment I had passed out, they had found her body tossed in some back alley somewhere. “Elsieeeeeeee! Elsieeeeeeee!” Talia raised a hand to slap me, but Charmain said, “Don't you dare!” and grabbed her wrist. She held me as I fell apart.

But then there was Elsie in the doorway, and it was all right, everything could be all right again. I made a move to fling myself out of the bed and go running for her, but the fire in my body quickly called me back to reality. I screamed, and in a moment Elsie was at my side. I held on to her. I'd never let her go, not ever.

“Oh, Sophia...” Elsie patted my head, which she did quite a lot even though she was the little sister. I could see Ellia standing in the hallway, listening.

“Where's Kyle?” I asked. Just the mention of his name made me feel cold.

“He left when you got sick,” Elsie said.

“Sick?”

“Yeah, sick,” Elsie said, patting me again. “Do you remember anything, Soph?”

Did I remember anything? I remembered that my mouth now had the power to end my sister's life, and it was all that monster's fault. He'd laid a curse on me. I started to cry.

Elsie kissed my head and turned me on the pillow. The pain was still there, but it wasn't quite so bad in the face of her gentle attentions. “Kyle said you threw up and pissed all over yourself. You couldn't even move to go to the bathroom.” She shook her head and regarded me with genuine sympathy. “What in the world did you catch, Sophia? You poor kid.” Usually I hated when she called me “kid,” but in the face of everything else, it wasn't a problem. The sticky wet feeling in my shorts was nothing at all like piss.

“How...how did I...how did I get in h-here?” I asked Elsie, but I felt like I already knew the answer. My body tensed up.

“Kyle took you to bed,” Elsie said. “Ellia and I came in with the pizza maybe five minutes after, and he told us you'd gotten really sick and he had to go. He told us everything.”

Kyle took you to bed. He told us everything. An electric jolt went through my body. My head spun around like it had the day Ellia and I went on the swing ride at the county fair. I willed myself not to think about it, but my will wasn't strong enough. I threw up.

“Ew!” Talia moved a full two feet away from my bed. Charmain said, “Poor thing” and shook her head. Elsie went to pull the blankets away. Without a thought, I slapped her.

“Yikes!” Elsie took a few steps back. “Sophia, what was that for?” Her eyes were wide with disbelief, as if perhaps I was an impostor in place of the real Sophia. Maybe I was. Maybe that creature had the real Sophia with him. Still, if she pulled the blankets back she would see everything and know everything. That vomit-covered blanket was my only shield. I held it close to me with a Herculean grip.

Ellia said, “We gotta get her to the hospital.” Charmain knelt down on the edge of the bed, reached for my blanket—my shield—and said, “Come on, let's get this nasty thing cleaned up.”

I screamed. I screamed so loud that I was sure I could be heard all over the world. Charmain jumped up off the bed. Ellia cried, “Sophia! Sophia!” She said something else, but I couldn't hear it. All I could hear were my own screams, which must have rested dormant inside of me for my whole life, waiting to escape. I couldn't turn them off. I couldn't make them stop. Elsie had her arms around me and my head was pressed into her shoulder. Talia ripped the blanket away and tossed it to the floor. I couldn't stop her.

My bloody, stained shorts were right there in front of everybody.

#The Lives of the RiffRaff #Fiction by Me #writing #work in progress

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star-nova · 5 years

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The Lives of the RiffRaff: Ellia Rambeau-The Sound of Secrets

The quiet solitude of our little town welcomed us back with open arms. Everything was exactly as we had left it, and there was no grand fanfare to celebrate our return. The town had been free to forget we existed in the two weeks we had been away, and now that we're back three days before our planned return, it could decide for itself whether or not it wanted to remember us again.

But there was our bretheren, the fellow RiffRaff. The first ones we passed were Aaron and Jager, who must've been on their break from work and were carrying wrapped sandwiches from the deli. They waved at us, and Aaron called out, “Hey! Hey, you're back!” Talia didn't stop for them, nor did she stop for Paige when she climbed up onto her fence to watch us pass by, nor did she even stop for her good friend Arthur when he darted off down the road after us, shouting, “He-ey, Talia! Talia's back! She's back, y'all!”

The hours-long drive back to Tanager was eerily silent. Even Talia, who normally never shut up, hardly spoke a word. She, and we, had too many secrets to lock up, and the sound of secrets is a dead, spooky silence. The city had changed us all in the worst possible way, and left us with these heavy new burdens that nobody asked for.

Talia pulled up into her driveway, where her birthday motorcycle dutifully waited for her, and said, “Show's over. Get out.” I didn't think I'd be too willing to take a trip with Talia again, which I'm sure was just fine with her. I opened Sophia's door for her, but she made it clear that she wanted to be the last one out of the van. We allowed her that.

Charmain said, “Thank you for taking us all out, Talia. Even on account of...” She stopped herself. “Well...I'd like to try to think of it all in terms of how much fun we all had before...”

“Fuck it, Char,” Talia said. “There's no other way to think about it, so we just won't think about it at all.” She held all of the bitterness that came with being prematurely forced out of your element. Talia owned the city. She was the city. She would have liked more time in her home, with her family, where she was the queen. Now, she was back in Tanager where she would be RiffRaff again. I never felt sorry for Talia Santiago until now.

“We'd better get going, then,” I said. “Home missed us.” I looked to Sophia, who was holding onto her suitcase like it was a shield. Now, everything had to be a shield. I motioned for her to follow us back to the rental house we both shared. It was at that moment that Arthur came vaulting over the fence. “There she is!” he cried out, flinging his arms around Talia. “Welcome back, you fucking queen, you! Welcome the hell back!”

She socked him in the gut. It meant she was glad to see him.

Our first night back in town, Ramona invited us over to McEvoy's to share our vacation stories. Sophia declined to go, as I expected her to. When we got there, we found a small party of RiffRaff there waiting for us, providing all of the welcome we didn't get from the Others. There was Ramona and Paige, Bex, Aaron, and Jager, Leon and Vera, Kali, Zatch, and Rickie, and Franz and Emery. My heart swelled with sudden warmth and love for our neighbors, and I realized just how much I'd missed them all while we were in the city.

The first thing Ramona asked us was, “Where's Sophia?”

“She isn't feeling well,” I told her.

“Aw, that sucks to hear,” Ramona said. “But how was your trip? Tell us everything!”

Oh, Ramona, we can't tell you everything. I looked at the others, who were all locked up inside themselves with everything to hide. Finally, Charmain was the first to speak: “Well, we met Talia's family.”

You could have heard a pin drop. I don't think any of them had even thought of Talia having a family. To be honest, they weren't at all what I had expected either. Vera asked, “What were they like?”

“I can talk about my own family, thank you, Charmain,” Talia spoke up. But instead of the truth, she said, “They rest seven feet beneath an old graveyard, deep in the heart of the city. On the night of a full moon, they come out when summoned by an incantation spoken by the bearer of a cursed artifact...”

“Oh, Talia.” Charmain rolled her eyes.

Talia shrugged. “They're a typical big-ass Portuguese family. There isn't much else to them.” She was holding back. There was nothing at all typical about the Santiago family, but I suspected she'd rather let the others' imaginations run wild.

Zatch asked, “Did you do anything awesome? See any cool sights?”

Charmain passed around her phone full of the pictures we'd taken in happier times. There was a picture of me, Sophia, and Elsie hanging upside-down from a jungle gym in the park. Our faces were red from the blood rushing to them, Elsie's tongue was hanging out, and Sophia had the goofiest grin on her face. I wondered if I'd ever see her smile like that again.

Out of nowhere, Paige asked us, “Did you pick up any guys?”

Some of the others chuckled. RiffRaff only picked up other RiffRaff. I wanted to tell them all about how the city broke that rule, how we'd been waved at by guys on the road and how guys at the club had asked for our numbers, and how Talia's brother Monty kept coming around the flat just to see Charmain, under the pretense of “checking up on us.” In Tanager we were RiffRaff and in the city we were beauties. But to bring any of it up would eventually lead to the monster Elsie found at the arcade...

“No,” Elsie told them, “we didn't.”

I washed down the secrets with my draft of ale.

By Monday, life settled back into place. Charmain returned to her flower shop, sending Melinda off with two weeks' pay in her pocket. I went back to work at the library, and that's where I discovered that Sophia had quit her job there.

I knew nothing would ever really be the same again.

That afternoon after work, I found Sophia sitting on the couch and staring into nothingness, as she tended to do these days. I sat down beside her. “So,” I said, “you quit your job?”

Sophia looked at me as if she was afraid I might be mad. I put my arm around her to reassure her. “What happened, Soph?”

She was silent for a good fifty seconds. Then finally, she said, “I j...I j...I j-just c-can't handle it right now.”

She just couldn't face the world, not anymore. The world was too sinister and uncertain and full of dark secrets. I gave her a hug. “It's okay, Soph,” I said. “Just do what you need to do, all right?” I patted her on the back. “We'll get by.” Secretly, I had no idea how we'd be able to keep up with the rent and bills with only my check. Elsie had her own apartment to worry about and I didn't want to burden her by asking her for help. But now was not the time to worry Sophia. I could worry about it all on my own. “We'll be okay,” I said, more to myself than to her.

“I'm...I'm so s-sorry,” Sophia said.

“I'll figure something out,” I assured her, squeezing her hand. “I just want you to focus on you right now.”

“Ellia?” Sophia looked at me like she had been concealing secrets all day, and none of them were any good. I nodded to her; after all that had happened and then finding out I'd have to keep a flat afloat on my own, I figured I could handle anything else. I was wrong.

“Elsie...us...we....we might h-have to...to go b-back to our parents...”

Crash. My entire world toppled like a giant game of Jenga that Sophia and I had both lost. That awful Kyle had moved the one block that would send the tower falling down. Too many thoughts spoke all at once: No! Not without Sophia! Sophia can't leave! I can't live here without Sophia! We had lived together since our college days, when we had been eachother's only friend. We'd graduated together, got jobs together, moved to Tanager together “just to see what it would be like,” became RiffRaff together, and now we had to carry eachother's pain. At the same time, I wanted to slap myself for being so damn selfish. My best friend in the world had been so violated and devastated that her entire world had to change, all in the space of one horrible moment, and I was only thinking about how I'd go on without her. In the space of that one horrible moment, everything that made her Sophia Bolshevik had been taken away from her. I thought about the big goofy grin on the jungle gym. I thought about jumping rope in the park and racing eachother across the community pool. I thought about her pretty caroling voice at Florence's Christmas party and our sparklers last 4th of July—would the 4th of July even be allowed to come this year? All of it was a thing of the past, and it was all because of that one awful, awful moment.

I didn't know what to say. There didn't seem to be a damn thing I had any right to say. I pushed aside the overwhelming sound of secrets in my head, secrets that the two of us now had to carry together. I wrapped my best friend up in my arms and I held her and held her and held her.

#Fiction by Me #The Lives of the RiffRaff #writing #work in progress

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