#i would come visit my moms house and shed be miserable | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

myluciferiscody · 5 years

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In Case You Don’t Live Forever P.4

pairing: Xavier Plympton x Reader

word count: 2,313

warnings: language, sadness, fluff, slight angst

not entirely proof-read. *title inspired by Ben Platt’s song*

part 1 part 2 part 3

Life was fucking weird.

If it wasn't apparent to you then, you definitely realized it now.

Camp Redwood should just be burned to the ground, you thought to yourself. Your body felt like it was floating; nothing was holding you, you were just floating. Your eyes would not open, no matter how many times you attempted it. The air around you was cold, gently ruffling your hair and tenderly brushing against your skin. You had been there for a few moments, you thought.

In the real world, you were gone for weeks.

The day you died, everyone had come running back to the cabin, their arms loaded with supplies to take care of you. The sight of Xavier holding your dead body would haunt them forever. His cries of agony could probably be heard in Los Angeles as he begged you to come back.

The boys attempted to pull Xavier away from you, but he refused, picking up the dagger Richard Ramirez had left behind when he was dragged out. Your blood had already started to dry, and the others held their hands up, promising they wouldn't touch you. At least, not yet.

Montana sat next to Trevor outside, Ray and Chet leaning against some trees. They sat in silence, unable to hear Xavier as he forced them out, slamming the doors in their face.

"She has to come back, right?" Chet asked.

"It wouldn't make sense if she didn't," Montana frowned, "All of us did, he needs to calm down,"

Ray glared down at the blonde, straightening up. He knew nothing about you other than your name, and you were friends with Xavier. Yet, he still felt the need to defend you, to defend Xavier. You didn't deserve this.

You were here to grieve, not die.

"Why are you so miserable all of the time, hmm?" Ray snapped, prepared to fight a girl. Montana could probably beat his ass if he let her, but he was tired of being unheard in the group.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Montana asked, standing up. Trevor rubbed a hand over his face while Chet watched excitedly.

"You have nothing nice to say about anybody! You have no respect, did you know that, Montana? What the fuck did y/n ever do to you?"

Montana remained silent, sizing up Ray from head to toe. Maybe she wasn't in love with Xavier, but she liked him enough. All he would talk about was you, before and after 1984. It pissed her off that nobody loved her like Xavier loved you.

"You only care about yourself, an innocent person just died! You're Xavier's friend, right? How about you go in there and say what you just told us, see how fast he knocks you-"

A loud slap came from nowhere, his head whipping to the side. Trevor's mouth dropped open, slightly turned on by what just happened. Chet was speechless, looking at Montana with concern.

Montana was never one to apologize for her actions, and today was no different. She turned and stomped off, heading in the direction of the kitchens. Nobody bothered to go after her, knowing it would be a death sentence to disturb her.

"You okay, man?" Chet finally spoke up, placing a hand on Ray's shoulder.

"I'm fine," he said, blinking away the slight tear that formed in his eye. "I just, I did a lot of screwed up shit in my life, I want to be a better person."

"It's not too late for you," Trevor spoke up. The two boys turned, giving him a quizzical look. "We uh, we need to go in there, Xavier shouldn't be doing this to himself."

The boys agreed, slowly climbing up the steps and opening the door. It was silent in the other room, and as they joined Xavier, he was still holding you, his head resting on your head. Your eyes had already glazed over, the beautiful orbs now dead to the world.

"Xav," Ray said, holding out a hand. Xavier glared at them, his eyes still glassy, but no tears fell. "We need to move her,"

"LEAVE us alone, please!" Xavier said, his voice cracking.

Chet took a step forward, mimicking Ray's actions, "Plympton, she wouldn't want you doing this, we have to get her somewhere, they need to find her and bring her home."

Xavier couldn't argue with that, he knew Chet was right, damn him. You would be upset with him if he made himself suffer like this.

Xavier pressed a final kiss to your forehead, before slowly climbing off the bed. Ray kept him in place as Trevor and Chet gently grabbed you, wrapping you in a blanket and carrying you out.

Since nobody could get beyond the gates, they had to come up with a solution. The chances of you being found right away were slim to none. Xavier stayed back, his blue eyes shedding tears like a broken faucet.

You were one of the purest souls in the world, the most genuine Xavier had ever known. Would you come back to him? Would he be stuck for eternity in a world where you ceased to exist?

Xavier permanently residing in Camp Redwood was not easy. He managed to have a lot of good days, his new friends, and the things they did daily kept him grounded. But when it came to you, he had missed you dearly. It was more comforting to know you were alive in Los Angeles, leaving your mark on the world.

Now that you were gone, and that you might not return is what killed him the most.

Some poor souls found you while going on a hike.

They ran to the nearest payphone, calling the police, and once again, the camp was a crime scene.

Xavier and the others made no appearances, for the time being, Montana surprisingly honoring Xavier's wishes. The slight bruises and cuts along your body were clues, but it baffled the on-site coroner who was trying to figure out how you actually died.

Your car was then relocated, possibly going into evidence or to your parents who had filed you missing within two days of not hearing from you. When authorities questioned them, asking what business you had being there, they immediately brought up Xavier Plympton.

They found no substances in your system, obviously. Your injuries weren't deadly, so suicide was immediately ruled out. It brought some comfort to your parents, though. Your mom knew how distressed you were about Xavier, but the knowledge that a monster took you away stuck with them.

Eventually, Richard Ramirez was finally caught. Now that his count was to fifteen, he had no trouble admitting that he was the one who killed you. Though it was a freak incident, he took credit much to the horror of your parents and the family of the victims. Richard would eventually die in prison from cancer.

Your apartment was cleaned out, everything going to auction, or with your parents or the Plympton family. A framed photo of you and him was now hanging in your parent's house. They didn't just lose a daughter, they also lost a son.

You guys had known each other for years. The birthday parties, sleepovers, school plays, eventually going to homecoming dances together, (though Xavier had better things to do, he went because you did). Your mother wiped her tears, thinking of the more innocent times as they lowered your body into the ground.

December 1985

Your body slowly stretched as you woke up, yawning loudly. Your eyes were crusty, and you wiped at them with a slight grimace.

Your memory had been a little foggy, but as you sat up, you remembered where you were. You visited Camp Redwood in June, to see Xavier. He showed up, somehow, and then-

You slowly ran a hand down your torso, before feeling your legs that were clad in shorts. There were no cuts, no bruises, nothing as you started to observe your body. You knew you had died, and now you came back as a ghost?

You sat up and went to a dusty mirror, your hands touching your face. You looked flawless; any blemish, freckle, anything you hated was gone. It was like passing over made you into your most beautiful self, and it confused you.

You lightly smacked yourself in the face, seeing you could still feel pain. Your knuckles cracked when you flexed them, and your hair was silkier than ever. You looked and felt entirely human.

"This is crazy," you mumbled to yourself. Did everybody else react like this when they came back?

Since the sun was out, you decided to venture out. The air was crisp, telling you it had to be Fall, at least. Los Angeles never got cold, just a little nippy during the Fall and Winter seasons. You wondered why you woke up wearing shorts, but the long-sleeved top you wore (did you buy this in Heaven?) kept you warm. It was a plum purple, and it looked lovely on you.

You were hoping to run into somebody, just to feel like you weren't alone anymore. The last few months in what seemed like a dark, cold chamber left you isolated. You just wanted human interaction.

You remembered the others, Chet, Ray, Montana, Pornstache? You thought about calling their names, knowing they were around somewhere. You were anxious to see Xavier again, you remembered his words to you right before you died.

Even if you guys had the rest of eternity, you were dead. It was weird to think about.

"Hello?" You called your voice bored. "Somebody? Any help will be appreciated!"

Crickets.

You huffed, continuing on your trek until the sound of a twig snapping caught your attention. You looked around, the last time this happened, the Night Stalker abducted you. You still didn't see anything.

"Ray? Montana? Chet? The guy with the porno mustache?" You asked, refusing to step into the woods.

"Did you forget about me already, babe?"

Xavier poked his head from behind a tree, giving you a cheeky grin. You smiled at him, feeling as if an electric current was madly sparking between you two. He took a quick moment to observe how bright you looked, how beautiful you were. The past six months of endlessly waiting were finally here.

You were home.

You wished you could say the reunion was perfect, but you nearly stumbled into him as you overlooked a small hole in the ground. Xavier caught you, holding you up as the two of you giggled.

"I'm sorry!" You gasped, your hands fisting his now white shirt. He shook his head, cupping the back of your head and allowing your face to hide in his neck.

"I don't care, y/n, I'm just happy you finally came back to me," he whispered.

Xavier really didn't mean to say that last part out loud. His cheeks turned red as you looked up at him, your hands cupping his face as you smiled. His blue eyes were uncertain as they glanced from your eyes to your lips.

"I love you, Xavier Plympton," you stated proudly, loving the comical way his eyes widened. "I've loved you for so many years,"

Xavier's tear ducts were a work of art as he struggled not to cry. "I wish I hadn't been so stupid when we were alive, to tell you how I really feel,"

You nodded, "I was stupid too, Xav," his cheeks warmed up at your nickname. "I guess we have eternity now, huh?"

"You better believe it, babe," he said before he smashed his lips against yours. You gasped in surprise, squealing like a little girl in your head.

Your first kiss with Xavier was the best kiss you'd ever had. Even in death, he was a total babe.

It was quite a sight, the two of you making out in a wooded area. Xavier's hands stayed above your hips, running along your back, eventually sliding up your side to wrap his hands around your neck, just feeling you.

"GET A ROOM!"

You jumped from Xavier, but he didn't seem surprised. You hadn't had the chance to perfect the powers you now had as a ghost, but Xavier felt their presence before they even turned the corner. You hid your face from them, burying your head in his shirt.

After that steamy session, Xavier had a permanent smirk on his face.

"Well, I never thought I'd say this, but it's going to be nice to have another lady around here," Montana sighed, her arms crossed over her chest. The others were all smiling at the sight of you and Xavier.

"At least one of us can get laid around here," Chet mumbled. You gave him a surprised look, this time your cheeks becoming cherry red.

"My name is Trevor, if it doesn't work out with Plympton, I'm your man," he said, joking more than anything. Xavier glared at him, squeezing you tighter.

".. Joking," Trevor mumbled.

"How do you feel?" Ray asked, kindly.

You smiled a little, shrugging, "It kind of feels like I'm still alive,"

Montana grinned, the first time she really seemed genuine with you, "It's great, isn't it?"

"Is it still 1985?" You asked, and they nodded.

"Almost into the new year, actually," Xavier said, "They need to restore the power out here, give us a chance to have a New Years' kiss," he said, ignoring the fake gags and whistles coming from the others.

You gently nudged him in the belly, smiling at him.

"Well, I guess it's time we show you how things work around here, y/n," Montana said, stepping forward. She yanked you from Xavier's grip, poking her tongue out at him when he pouted. "It will be fine, come on," she said, dragging you along.

Maybe being dead wasn't that bad.

*if I missed anyone, please let me know! if you want to be added to my taglist, you know the drill. only one part left!*

taglist: @thexmancometh @the-walking-daryl @trichy-knitts @shydragonrider @thefandomzoneisdangerous @lemonwhiskers @jetblackpayne @langdonsvcrd @okoktrinity22 @uwonman @stefanmikaleson1864 @sevenwonderwitch @rubbrninja

#xavier plympton #cody fern #ahs 1984 #michael langdon #jim mason #duncan shepherd #xavier plympton imagine #jim mason x reader #duncan shepherd x reader #xavier plympton x reader #michael langdon x reader

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gaamagirl565 · 4 years

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Matters of the heart ep 8

Matters of the heart Episode 8 Building bridges {OPENING CREDITS} {Open to Varian rushing around his lab grabbing various bags of items} Varian: okay let’s see...sand...calcium...silica...copper...water.. {Isaiah walks into the lab rubbing his eyes still waking up} Isaiah: Dad what are yo-!? {Varian grabs Isaiah and forces him into a corner; he ties him to the workbench and puts goggles on him} Isaiah: hey! What the!? Father explain! Varian: Okay look last time I worked this machine was 18 years ago and it ended up making a vortex that nearly pulled the entire courtyard into doom so….Stay!...Love ya, buddy! {he kisses his forehead and runs back to the machine and pours various minerals into it; he pulls the leaver and stands back; Quirin walks in through the front door} Quirin: Morning so-..... {the machine zaps and makes loud mechanical noises; Quirin closes the door walks back out and closes the door} Isaiah: *yelling* AND THIS WAS FOR A SCIENCE EXPO!? Varian: come to think of it maybe 18 years is too long to leave a machine gathering dust in a shed...HIT THE DECK! {he throws himself over Isaiah; the machine explodes sending debris everywhere around the lab; Quirin rushes in} Quirin: Son!? Isaiah!? Are you alright!? {Varian pushes some debris off of him and holds up a small pink gemstone} Varien: EUREKA! {Isaiah stands up hair a mess and goggles sideways on his head; he coughs up a cloud of smoke} Isaiah: and so is...the life of the son of...the alchemist...uggh… {Varian unties him from the workbench chuckling} Quirin: Son what is that? Varian: I’m glad you ask… {Varian puts the gem into a ring} Varian: I call it...Zapadium… Isaiah: Huh? Quirin: Za...Son, are you going to…? {Varian nods} Quirin: Son I’m so happy for you! She’ll love it! Isaiah: Um. hi, uh, hello? What is Dad doing? Quirin: you didn’t...uhh...tell him? Varian: I was hoping you could help with that… Quirin:...yeah...of course…you see...Isaiah...When a man loves a woman he- Varian: N-Nevermind! I got this!... Isaiah… {Varian gets down on his level} Varian: I..I’m going to ask Zapada...To...well her caravan is going to be leaving soon and...I really like her..and She really likes me...and she really likes you too… Isaiah: okay...and? Varian: I’m going to ask her...to marry me… Isaiah: WHAT!? Quirin: now Isaiah… Isaiah: B-but What about Mum!? Varian: Isaiah it’s been several years...and I loved your mother and I still love he- Isaiah: Clearly not enough! Varian: Isaiah! Isaiah: NO! you’re...You’re betraying mum! Varian: Don’t you speak to me like th-! Isaiah: I wish mum was here! I-I wish she was here instead of you! You traitor! {Varian looks on in shock; Quirin goes from shock to a stern face} Quirin: That’s enough, Isaiah! {Isaiah tears up and runs out of the house; zoom out on Varian kneeling on the floor and Quirin placing a hand on his shoulder; cut to Isaiah running in the road and he smacks into someone} Zapada: OH! copilul meu! Are you alright!? {She reaches a hand down to help him up and he pushes it away} Isaiah: This is all your fault! Zapada: W-what? Isaiah: Just take your caravan and go!! {He runs away leaving Zapada shocked and teary-eyed; cut to Isaiah sitting in the orchard crying with his head in his knees} Lily: thought I’d find you here… Isaiah: H-huh!? P-Princess I-...*kneels* Lily: don’t...you’re a friend...did you forget I was visiting today? Isaiah: right...sorry… Lily: sooo...what happened...your dad said you ran away upset. Isaiah: My dad’s gonna marry that...lady… Lily: who!? Zapada? That’s great ‘saiah! You’ll have a new mom! Isaiah: I don’t want a new mum! I have a mum!...or I did… Lily:...you wanna talk about it? Isaiah:...Bandits stole her from us...or does dad just forget that!? Lily: I’m sure he doesn’t! He loved her too! My mom says love makes the world go round so...isn’t this a good thing? {Start the song like a dove}

{ISAIAH} Lily, my friend you don’t know the pain that I feel

When I see my father talk to that girl All that romance makes me wanna hurl And even if he smiles, has his heart truly healed Or are his true feelings deeply sealed? It seems mum was here and then gone Suddenly gone like a dove! {LILY} Isaiah my friend I know I have no room to speak But have you stopped to think about what you truly seek? I know one always loves their mother There will never be another who shows a love A love beautiful like a dove! {ISAIAH} How do you know what I seek? You think “I’ll just open his mind and take a peek!” Do you think you’re some “seer”? Well, guess what? Your mother is still here! {LILY} Hey no need to put up a defense But I really think you should recompense She may not be your mom But she still has a heart that loves- {ISAIAH} -I don’t care what she loves! I don’t want her, my only mother is sadly up above! {LILY} Isaiah, I’ve had enough of this! Feel free to sulk in your selfishness Your father wants to live in wedded bliss! What about his own happiness!? Did you ever think to consider this!? He found true love…. But you’ll make her fly like a dove!

{End song “like a dove”; Lily gets back on her horse and rides away} {Isaiah lets out a yell and throws a rock at a tree; it bounces off and hits him in the face; he falls back onto the ground with a groan; cut to the Lab and Zapada walks in} Varian: Z-Zapada hey! What’s up? {She starts to cry} Varian: H-hey! Hey! What’s wrong? Zapada: Îmi pare rău, dragostea mea, iartă-mă… Varian: what? F-forgive you for what? Zapada: my caravan is packing up...I must go soon… Varian: W-what!? But Zapada I-! Zapada: Please do not make this harder...I must go and..I do not know if..I’ll ever come back… Varian: Zapada… Zapada: Varian...Isaiah hates me...it won’t work...I’m sorry…I’ll never forget you… Varian: Zapada...I love you… {Zapada kisses him passionately} Zapada:...I leave you this only...forgive me… {She runs away and Varian falls to his knees in tears cut to Isaiah looking over the fields from a hill} Nathaniel: Hey loser… Isaiah: ugh...I have no time for you, Nathaniel… Nathaniel: relax you idiot I’m not here as an enemy… Isaiah: What? Nathaniel: you heard me...saw you freak out on that albino lady...got curious..what’s up with that man? {he sits next to Isaiah}

Isaiah: Why do you care!? Nathaniel: cause...I know what words can do… {he holds up his arms to reveal his burn scars; Isaiah’s eyes widen} Isaiah: So what!? You deserved it!... Nathaniel: yeah..maybe I freaking did...But that lady didn’t deserve any of what you said! Isaiah: What do you know!? Nathaniel: I know you’re better than this! Better than a bully...better than me… Isaiah:... Nathaniel: You've always been the type of kid did likes to prove himself right? Well, you’re doing a pretty crap job of it right now! all you've been able to prove is that you’re a serious jerk when it comes to change! Isaiah: Why don’t you shove off, you milksop!? Nathaniel: Call me whatever you want but you know I'm right... you get defensive when you know you're wrong... I've known you for years, Isaiah... let me give you some food for thought... do you realize how much your father's probably sacrificed being on his own? Isaiah:... everything he's ever done he's done for you! I stood up to my father multiple times because my dad wanted to have you paraded through the streets for your little incident at the sunflower Festival. you know what? maybe you should have been humiliated! You try and act like you're one of us you're an old Corona but face it you're just a Pampered spoiled rich brat... you were born that way and you'll die that way… Isaiah: You wanna go!? Nathaniel: Oh trust me I'd like nothing better than to knock your lights out right now! but that's not why I'm here! I got a lot of time to think as I've been recovering from what you did to me... trust me I wasn't in the right I freaking know that... and look what it got me... I'm going to walk around for the rest of my life with a reminder of what I did. and it looks like so are you... think about this... that lady has been nothing but nice to you ever since she arrived here. your dad has done nothing but sacrifice for you... I may not like Mr. Varian but I'm not just going to sit here and watch you throw a Pity poor me party because your dad actually wants happiness. Isaiah: So what do you think I should do then!? Nathaniel: maybe actually give her a chance!? Isaiah let me tell you something... if you continue to let this happen you're going to ruin it for your dad and you're going to regret that for the rest of your miserable life! you love your dad right!? then freaking suck it up! I know you miss your mom… Isaiah: Watch it Nathani-AH! { Nathaniel punches Isaiah to the ground} Nathaniel: shut up for 2 seconds would you? I know you miss your mom and no one faults you for that but you've got to give this lady a chance... If no one going to freaking lay the smackdown on you I have no qualms about doing it myself... cuz you're going to screw up your life acting like this trust me I know… Isaiah: why do you care!? just answer me that one question! Nathaniel: because I'm not going to watch somebody else screw their life of any more than they already have... every time I look at your face or my arms I think of what I helped cause... I go back to that day in the marketplace... that is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I still have freaking nightmares about that day man…. I still see the fire... still feel the pain... I still see you lying there in a puddle of your own blood... and one thought passes through my mind every single time I wake up from that nightmare... I caused that... don't screw up your life man... if you ruin this for your dad... if you make her go... you're going to regret it... and you're going to think you caused that every time you wake up. {Isaiah gets up off the ground and rubs his swollen cheek} Isaiah: ...If it helps…. I still have nightmares about it too... I didn't mean to hurt you... I didn't mean for any of that... I just wanted to make you feel the same humiliation that I did... I didn't mean for it to blow up... I'm sorry… Nathaniel:.... whatever... so what are you going to do now? Isaiah: I have to find Zapada… and my dad... Nathaniel: Who you better hurry up... Caravan scheduled to leave at sundown… Isaiah: WHAT!? Nathaniel: you didn't know about that? why do you think I came up here? Isaiah: to be perfectly honest I thought it was to beat me up… Nathaniel: wow thanks for the vote of confidence… Isaiah: Oh shut up would you? where is my dad!? Nathaniel: when your grandfather went to go see the Caravan off you better hurry up if you want to make things right again… Isaiah: yeah I think I know what to do... Nathaniel... never in my life did I think these words would utter from my mouth... but thank you… Nathaniel: like I said... whatever... and if you tell anyone about this I will beat you up… Isaiah: riiighhhht...thanks… {Isaiah runs to the lab; he busts in through the door} Isaiah: Dad!?... {The lab is empty and on the table sits the pink Zapadium ring; Isaiah grabs it and runs out the door; Cut to Varian helping Stoica load the last bit of cargo} Stoica: I want to thank both of you for your hospitality... you've been very kind to me and my people... well most of you anyway… Quirin: we were happy to have you… { Varian looks off towards Zapada; Zapada turns away from him; Varian walks over to her} Varian: Zapada I… Zapada: Don’t...Don’t make this any more difficult… Varian: I wanted to say... I'm sorry it had to end this way... I'll never forget you either… {he brushes her cheek and she leans into it; Isaiah runs into frame} Isaiah: Wait! Varian: Isaiah? Isaiah what is it!? {Isaiah gasps for air} Isaiah: give me a second... why did you guys Park them in the farthest field?…. {he catches his breath} Isaiah: I need to say something...Zapada... I'm sorry I said those awful things to you and my dad... I was just... I was really angry and Confused... I don't really know how to describe my actions... nor can I come up with a good excuse for them... dad you've given so much for me in the years that you've raised me...and Zapada you've been nothing but nice to me... and I've been nothing but rude to you…. maybe it's time I started being a little more understanding... and Dad maybe it's time I started giving back to you… Varian: Isaiah? { Isaiah walks over and places the ring in his hand} Isaiah: it's okay Dad... really it is... {Varian hugs him and turns to Zapada} Zapada: Varian? {Varian gets on one knee and Zapada covers her mouth with shock and starts crying} Varian: Zapada...Ever since I saw you I knew you were special...and boy was I right, you’re funny and shy, and just all-around perfect...I can’t imagine my life without you...So without further ado...Zapada...Will you marry me? {everyone holds their breath} Zapada: Oh iubirea mea...Da! Yes, I will! {She tackles him to the ground and people cheer} Varian: oh and you left something… Zapada: I did? {Varian kisses her Passionately; Isaiah gags} {Begin song “give yourself a chance reprise”} {varian} You say people hate then so be it Our love is beautiful I hope you see it People might judge at first glance But glad I’m you gave me a chance! {Zapada} How do I describe to make you see All the things you’ve done for me Your love has given me hope For better days yet to come! {Varian} Even when the world looks down on you There’s no need to feel blue Bide those worries Adieu Because Remember I’ll always love you! {Isaiah} Zapada? I know I made you sad But I promise that I’m not all bad People normally don’t give me even a second glance but I’m glad you gave me a chance {end song; they all hug} {END CREDITS}

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel’s tangled adventure #matters of the heart #Varian #Quirin #Zapada #Isaiah #TTS #RTA #tts oc #rta oc

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keemchijihaeloveswannaone · 5 years

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Happier

Notes: this story was inspired by the song with the same title by Ed Sheeran, recent dating status of KDN and a real-life story. Dedicated to all fans

PS. This one is a hurried fanfiction in the midst of the heavy traffic so forgive the grammatical errors 😅

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I was preparing to go to school for a research when, I got a message from my friend, saying that I should turn on the tv. There, I saw a news about you and her. It seems surreal when I remember seeing you few nights ago.

It's night time yet the moon shines bright. I opted to take a detour in a park near where my friends and I will hang out. I saw you with her. You are hugging her tight. It's been a month since I last saw you in this area with the hiatus and all, I knew you have someone now. Seeing you and her right before my eyes, you look happier. You really do. You two walked in a bar, that's where I will go to. I saw how you talk. She said something that made you laugh. I saw your smile, it's as twice as wide as ours when you were still with me. No one might notice the two of you with the disguise you both have but, I knew it was you. I can tell immediately.

I knew I hurt you like no one can. But, I did that because I love you so much and I don't want to be a distraction in reaching your dreams.

"Daniel, I'm sorry..." I said, not looking at him in the eye fearing that I might able to contain myself. "Y/N please don't... We can do this. We can work this out." You said, pleading for me to stay. "No we can't... You know that being an idol means a lot to you and I can't be in a way to reach your dream. Besides, you deserve someone better, someone like you not just an ordinary girl like me." I said, holding back my tears threatening to spill. "No, I don't need anyone, I just need you! Please Y/N, don't leave me. I love you." You said, trying to hugging me tightly.

I resisted and push you away. "I no longer love you please let's stop this. I'm done with this relationship." I said as I walked away

Honestly, I won't take it personal if you are moving on with someone new, someone like her because, you are happier. My phone rang and it's Seongwu. "Hey..." he greeted. "What's up?" I asked even though I knew what's this all about. "You saw the news right? I just want to make sure you're ok." He said. "Yes I am Seongwu, don't worry about it." I said, trying to hide the truth by pretending to be happy. "You'll find someone else so, cheer up, Y/N" he said. "I guess so, by the way you're filming right? Let's just talk later ok? Fighting Seongwu-ya!" I said, changing the subject. "Ya! Y/N wait..." I heard Ong Seongwu said before I hang up.

I sat here in the corner of my room, it reminds me of the days I had with you. Every little thing in this house reminded me of you. I walked to the kitchen and got a bottle of water. I saw a bottle of wine, I'm never a drinker but, I always kept a bottle of wine in case you drop by and want a drink. However, there's no longer you so, I picked it up and placed it on a bag to give out to my friends. "You're happier, aren't you?" I told myself.

I know no one dared to hurt you than I did. You are the nation's number one. You deserve another person who can always be by your side. That someone isn't me even though, you're the one I need the most yes, I'm still in love with you.

"Y/N-ah are you ok?" Seongwu asked. For a moment, I thought it was you. "What are you doing here? Did he send you here?" I asked back. "No, I came here on my own. I already know he's miserable but, he has the other members however, you're all alone so, as you bestest pal, I came here and as expected, you never let anyone see you cry." He said. He's lying, I know you send him here. "Did they forced you to break up with him?" He asked and took your silence as a yes. "You know you don't have to do that? Who cares about their opinion. Y/N fight for him please, don't leave him. He's miserable like you so please come back." Seongwu said, holding your hand. "Please, Daniel loves you and he need you right now, he's been crying and hurting too." He pleaded. It's all my fault that you are crying. "I can't. They are right, Daniel is at peak of his career and I cannot be his side any longer. He deserves someone like you guys, an idol who can understand him more than I do. He deserves every good thing in this world and I'm not one of them." You said. "Is that what you wanted? Do you love him?" He asked. "It doesn't matter Seongwu. This is what it supposed to be there's no room for what I wanted." I said. It hurt but, I have to bear it. "Ok, that's your decision and I, your best Ong friend, will respect that. I hope you'll be happy." He said, trying to cheer you up. "Yeah, someday I will."

But, I guess I will never be fine. Seeing you looking smiling with her by your side, hurts so much. I could only pretend a smile to hide the truth because I know, you're my only happiness.

All this time, I know you'll fall for someone new. Someone who can stand by your side more than I could.

Baby you look happier, you do

I knew one day you'd fall for someone new and she'll mean the whole world to you.

It’s the day of your last concert and its been a while since I saw my favorite boygroup with you in it. I braced myself and went to the venue. I blend with the crowd so no one from the staffs and the Wanna One's family, including yours will know. I saw how broken you all are in this event. You never wanted to be part with your brothers. You cried the hardest, was this how you did when we broke up? I thought as I wipe a tear I shed.

The night had ended. I prepared to leave the venue with a heavy heart like other fans did, at least, that's what I'm trying to tell myself, I knew clearly it's not the case. "Ms. Y/N." A staff said, I recognized her as one of the people in the company I used to see whenever I visit you back then. "Hi, it's been a while, Ms. Yuna." I greeted. "Can you please not tell anyone especially the members that I'm here." I said. "Actually... About that Kang Daniel-ssi wants to see you, he asked me to call you." She said. You knew I attended the concert, I still wonder how did you managed to know it.

I let her lead me to where you are. I know I should runaway but, I my hearts screamed to go where you are for one last time. She lead me to an empty waiting room, telling me to wait for you. In a few minutes, you are there right in front of me. "Y/N" you said. It sounded so sweet in my ears yet it felt bitter. "It's been a while." I manage to say. "Yes it was, it's been a year." You said. "Yeah..." I said, not daring to look at you. I feel my tears forming around my eyes. "How are you?" You asked. Sitting right in front of me. "I'm ok. What about you?" I asked, as I regained my control of my emotions. "I cried a lot, I'm gonna miss Wanna One for sure. You saw that right? How uncool." He joked lightly. I try to smile not letting you see my real emotions. "Yeah I did. You're still cool. I'm KDN stan after all." I jokingly said., humoring myself to prevent my tears to fall. "How did you know I am here?" I asked. "I just know you're going. So I asked the staff to look out for you." You said with all sincerity. "Why?" I asked again. You smiled as you kneel down in front of me. "I just want to see you maybe to have a closure." You said, grabbing a hold of my hand. "Y/N I know that we can't be together and you don't feel the same but, in my heart still beats for you. And if I ever, love someone else please know that I will never love anyone else as much as I love you." You said, my tears that I'm holding back were getting out of control. It fell the moment you said those words. You wiped my tears and smile, that beautiful smile I always love. "Why are you crying?" You laughed. Your hand still on my cheek "Because, Kang center is being cringy, it made my tears fall." I joked. "Silly kid but, I'm serious. You'll always be in my heart no matter." You said, messing up my hair. "I'm sorry. I hurt the nation's center." I said, another tears threatening to fall. "Aye... Stop crying Y/N." You said, bumping our foreheads together. "Don't cry, it makes me feel sad seeing you like that. I don't want seeing my number 1 fangirl cry." You said. You placed a kiss on my temple and held it there. We went out of the waiting room and you walked me out of the venue. You were holding my hand the whole time. I let you be and I stay silent the whole time, not trusting myself to utter a word because I know, my heart would speak before my mind and I will opted to stay with you. "So this is goodbye." You said. "Yeah it is." I replied. You pulled me again in your arms. I hugged you back this time for one last time. You pulled back and you place a hand on my chin, you lift my face up and place a kiss on my lips. You hugged me tighter not wanting to let go but, I knew we must because you are no longer mine. I responded to your kisses and tomorrow I'll try to forget you, I'll try to move on. We broke apart. "Y/N I said it before but, I'll repeat it again. I love you and my love for you will never be replaced." You said. "It's getting late, you should go." You said. "Yeah uhh... Thanks. For walking with my on my way out. I guess I'll see you around, Kang-ssi." I said, smiled at him and waved goodbye.

It's been 6 months since then, this news isn't new to me anymore I knew the moment I saw you few nights ago but, it still hurts hearing this news. I couldn't cry anymore, I could not feel anything. I might be in dazed the whole time not to notice my phone's blowing up with messages the whole time. I grabbed my phone from my bed and see the members messages, my friends and there's one from your mom but what had caught me is yours.

I hurried out of the house to my university. I saw you waiting on our usual spot unknown to most people "You never changed schedules after all these years. Today is still your off from school yet, you have research to finish, am I right?" You said as you walked to where I am. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at your company?" You asked. "I know but, I figured I should see you first." You said. "Why?" I asked. "I just want to tell you something but, I guess the media beat me to that." You said. "You don't have to, Daniel. I kinda know about you and her, I saw you at a bar few nights ago. I'm glad you found her, she seem nice, you deserve Jihyo." I said. "Yes, I'm glad I met her. I really want to tell you about her last time but, I'm not sure of anything that time, she's just a friend and we kinda happened after the concert." You said, scratching the back of your head. "I see. Does she make you happy?" I asked. "She does." You answered. I can see the sincerity in your eyes. "Well then, that's enough for me." I saw you were surprised by what I said as we seated on a bench at the back of the school building. "Say... You will support me right? You will always believe me?" You asked. "It depends on how well behave you are, choding." I teased, lightly to ease off this uncertain feeling. "Ya! I'm not choding, you mean kid. I'm taller than you." You protested, I laughed at your childishness. "Yeah yeah, whatever you say." I said to make him stop whining. "So, what will you say?" You said, waiting for an answer. "What?" I asked. "Will you trust and support me?" You repeated. "I will, I'm your fan, you knew that." I answered. "No, not as a fan as someone permanently dear in my heart?" You said. "Of course I will, you asked for it after all." I said with a small laugh. "Thanks it means a lot to me." You said. "It should matter, I'm you number 1 fan after all." I joked, nudging him playfully before standing up. "I'll support you no matter what. As long as it'll make you happy but, if she ever break your heart like lovers do, just know that I am here waiting for you." I said, playfully with a wink to mask my real feelings. "I gotta go now, see you around!" I said as I walked away from you trying to hide the pain as I let you go completely.

"But I guess you look happier, you do

My friends told me one day I'll feel it too

I could try to smile to hide the truth

But I know I was happier with you" - Ed Sheeran (Happier)

#wanna one scenario #kang daniel imagines #wanna one imagines #kang daniel scenario

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sterekloveaffairs · 6 years

Text

Found - Derek Hale (Lost Part 2)

Author: sterekloveaffairs

Characters: Reader x Derek (platonic)

Warnings: angst, trigger warning!!!Suicidal thoughts!!!!, violence, lots of emotions, mentions of blood

Word Count: 2127

Read Part 1 Lost here

The days went on and on. I felt myself slip away, piece by miserable piece. I stopped talking to people. First it was the people in school. I didn’t answer teachers when they asked me a question. I ignored classmates when they tried to make conversation. Then it was Scott and his pack. Mostly because I avoided running into them. And then I stopped talking to Isaac. He was hurt, I could see that, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t even handle my own pain. And he had made his choice. He seemed happy with his new pack. Good for him. Eventually, I stopped speaking with my parents too. I didn’t come down to watch tv with them. I didn’t come down for breakfast or dinner. And after a few weeks, I didn’t leave my room at all. I curled up under the blankets in my bed, not looking at my mom when she tried to coax me out, not looking at my dad when he tried a sterner approach. And I didn’t say a word. Not even to the therapist they probably paid a lot of money for a house visit. She seemed nice enough, but she didn’t know. There was so much pain, I couldn’t deal with it. I hated every second I was awake, and I dreaded falling asleep, fearing Derek would haunt my dreams again. I had horrible thoughts. I thought I would never be happy again. I thought how Derek left without a second thought. He obviously didn’t need me. He didn’t miss me. And if even my own alpha didn’t miss me, who would? Sure, my parents would be sad, but they would get over it. It’s not like they wouldn’t have seen it coming…

I stared out the window, the crescent moon barely shedding any light in my room. It was a quiet night. My parents were not at home, they were at one of my dad’s work dinners. My mother had begged me before she left. She would stay with me all night, all I had to do was ask. And she wouldn’t be angry about the school I missed, we’d find a way to fix all that. If I would only talk to her, just once. She had given up after a few minutes, and somehow I knew she wouldn’t try again. Or maybe she would, because she’s my mom.

The silence was broken by the tiniest tap on the window. A quiet little tick, and then another. I frowned, but my instincts kicked in. What if someone was checking the house to break in? Sure, I couldn’t care less about me, but no one was robbing my parents on my watch. I sneaked out of bed, the first time in days except the occasional bathroom breaks. I tiptoed to the window and glanced down, the anger flaring up in my heart when I saw Scott standing there. He had to learn how to give things a rest. I didn’t say anything, just raised my eyebrows.

“Can you please come down? We need to talk to you.” He said, voice a bit muffled through the closed window, but perfectly understandable for my ears. We? Right, that Stilinski kid is attached to his butt, he was probably around too. I still didn’t speak, I just turned around and crawled back into bed. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t care. Outside, I could hear him talk to Stilinski, but I couldn’t care enough to make a decent effort to hear what they were saying. I closed my eyes, tired and restless at the same time. I was just so sick of it all.

My eyes opened wide when I heard the sound of the back door opening. How did they have the nerve to- I didn’t have time to think, Scott was already barging into my room. I sat up in the bed.

“Get out.” My voice was hoarse, and my throat itched when I spoke again after all this time. Scott lifted his hands defensively, and I was more than confused. So he knocks on my window, then breaks into my house, but then doesn’t want to upset me?

“Please, just listen to me for-“

“No! Get out before I kill you!” I got up from my bed, stalking towards Scott.

“Scotty, she’s not listening, just drag her little werewolf ass out of here and show her.” After Scott, Stilinski would be next. I snarled at them, feeling the wolf inside me howl and snarl. The anger changed to panic when Scott followed his friend’s advice. I tried to fight him off, but the lack of food and exercise was taking its toll on me, on top of the fact that Scott was still an alpha. I didn’t know what they wanted to show me, what was so important for me to know. I didn’t want to know. As soon as Scott had dragged me to the jeep, I curled up in the back and covered my eyes and ears. I didn’t block the sound completely, but Scott gave up and didn’t try to talk to me anymore after he had tried for a couple of minutes. When I peeked through my fingers, he had turned his back to me, staring out the window. Fine. Whatever.

The blood in my veins turned to ice when I recognised the surroundings. I knew this road. It was going straight to the old train depot. Maybe we weren’t going there. Maybe they were taking a shortcut to someplace else. But the jeep pulled to a stop exactly there, and I jumped up.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” I shouted, “You are sick in the head, Scott!” I tried to scramble out of the car, pushing Stilinski on the horn and earning an offended curse, but I didn’t care. I had to get away from there, had to get away from the smell, the sounds, the memories that were made there.

“Will you just- Jesus Christ, Y/N!” Scott grabbed me by the waist again and dragged me into the building, avoiding my claws and fangs that I didn’t even realise had appeared. A familiar scent hit my nose and I nearly started crying when images of my old pack filled my head. Isaac was there, I could hear his heart beat. He tried to talk to me, calm me down, but I kept fighting, screaming, cursing. Until I heard him.

“Y/N.” I froze, my chest heaving and my eyes searching for him. A large figure was standing in the middle of the depot, leather jacket on his shoulder, brooding eyes underneath his all too familiar frown, black hair moving in the breeze that always seemed to be there. And the scent. It wasn’t just a ghost of the past. It was really there.

It was him. It was truly him.

Derek.

I stopped fighting, but I pushed Scott away from me as soon as he loosened his grip. Scott let go of me, Isaac tried to come closer to me, but a growl rumbled in my chest and his feet stopped. I was just staring at Derek. My former alpha. The one that had made me what I am. The one that had taught me how to live like one of them. The one who had ruthlessly abandoned me with no hesitation.

I snapped.

All the anger, all the loneliness, all the hurt bundled up in my stomach, and all I could see was Derek, standing there as if nothing had happened, as if he had never left. As if he had never broken me. I ran for him, claws and fangs out, and I let it all out. I hit him where I would, clawed him where I could reach. The snarls escaping through my clenched jaw where nowhere near human, the pain fuelling me to hurt him as much as he had hurt me.

And he let me.

Derek stood there, allowing me to break his skin, allowing me to bruise his flesh, allowing me to punish him. It seemed to last forever, but I knew it had only been a few minutes when I felt my energy burn low. I was out of breath, shaking on my legs and crying.

“How could you!” I sobbed, “how could you do this to me?!” He didn’t say anything, he just put his hands on my back when I clenched mine in his jacket. His eyes showed nothing but guilt.

“I needed you, Derek. I needed you so much and you weren’t there. You were supposed to be there!” I rested my head against his chest, and he curled his arms tighter around me. I inhaled his scent, sobbing and crying and wheezing hysterically. And then I dawned on me. Derek was back. Derek came back. He was here, I was holding him, I could feel his heartbeat under my cheek and his breath on my hair. He was here, with me again. If I could, I would have crawled under his skin, curling up like the wounded pup that I had been for weeks. When I heard him sniffle, I knew he was crying too. Had he been hurt too? Had he missed me too? I looked up at him, my cheek still pressed against his chest.

“I thought you had forgotten about me,” I said softly, “or worse, that you didn’t care anymore.” Derek’s eyes were watery, and a wave of relief washed over me. He had missed me. He did care. And that’s why he came back.

“Scott called me,” he then said, and hearing his voice made my heart lose all the heaviness that had gathered there since Derek left, “If I had known it would be so hard for you…” I knew. I hadn’t known until he was standing on front of me again. Of course Derek never hurt me on purpose. Of course he cared about me. I put my hand up to his cheek, my fingers softly wiping at a stream of blood. His wounds had healed already.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. Derek kept stroking my back, softly cradling me.

“Don’t be. I deserved it.”

“Derek? Please don’t leave again. I don’t think I can-“ A desperate sob left my mouth when I realised what I had been feeling. When I realised how close I had been to making a horrible mistake. How badly hurt I was. If Derek would leave me again…

“Never. I will never leave you again.” He was telling the truth. He would never do it again. But there was something else. Unease as waving off him, mixing with his scent and unsettling me.

“What?”

“I’m not an alpha, Y/N, and I never will be again. You need an alpha.” My lip trembled.

“No! Not without you!” I clutched to his chest, afraid he would disappear, like he had done countless times in my nightmares. I was crying again, tears staining his shirt. But he didn’t let go. He didn’t push me away. He didn’t disappear.

“Why did you not join Scott’s pack like Isaac? You could have been with them all this time, you didn’t have to be alone.”

“It wasn’t being alone that hurt. It was being without you that I couldn’t deal with.” Derek didn’t say anything anymore. He knew I wasn’t ready to listen. I was barely ready to talk. But he was back. Derek was back.

Derek brought me home that night. He had stayed with me, held me throughout the night and for the first time there were no rude awakening, no nightmares taunting me. When I woke up in the morning and he was still there, I was happier than I had ever been. When I let him out through the window and joined my parents for breakfast, my mother started crying. I apologised for not talking to them and I cried too. My father smiled and hugged me the way only dads can hug their daughters, and he had told me he’d look for a tutor to help me catch up with school. Mom said it would take some time, and a lot of effort, but I would get there. In every possible aspect.

And I did. I caught up with school, spoke to people, left the house again. Mostly thanks to Derek. He was patient and supportive with me, apologised a million times and made even more promises to never let me down again. He convinced me to give Scott a chance, and I really tried. No one can blame me to wait for Derek’s approval before doing what Scott asked. I wasn’t there yet. But I would get there.

Because for the first time in months, I was home.

#teen wolf #derek hale #fanfic #teen wolf fanfic #derek hale fanfic #platonic derek x reader #isaac lahey #stiles stilinski #scott mccall #angst #suicidal thoughts #deppression #injury #violence

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thtsadbean · 3 years

Text

to my kryptonite.

06-13-2021. 12:42am.

When I got the call from Annie, I wasn’t sure what to think. One thing for sure was that I knew it was your time. I wasn’t ready. I had already spent the week with you. A week where I watched your body and mentality deteriorate. I don’t think anything would have prepared me for this. I just turned 23. I already lost grandpa and great-grandma. I am so young and still learning about the world. Inside I still feel like the little girl that got lost when things got shuffled around. You and mom split up and the rest was history.

When things went down as a kid, I hated you. I hated you so much that I wished to never see you again. But we all know deep down I never stopped hoping. I never stopped hoping that you would reach out for me and love me the way I deserved. I never stopped loving you. I was just a child that felt abandoned. I was introduced to a family with someone who I was suddenly supposed to call ‘mom’. I didn’t even know you got married but suddenly you wanted to be a family with a new family. In my small eyes, you treated my step siblings the way I wanted to be treated. Not only that but you allowed your family to control your life and you sided with them. You didn’t defend me or my siblings. You let it be and that hurt. I was a child. You didn’t protect me, your daughter. Then we left.

As the years passed and I grew up into a woman, I inched closer to graduation. There was not a time in my life between leaving and graduating where I didn’t think about you. Where I didn’t think about if you cared or missed us. Of course I missed you and wished you were apart of my life. So I took the chance and became mature enough to try and put aside all the hurt and pain that I felt as a child. I invited you to come attend my graduation. You said yes and you came. That then began our relationship as a family once again.

Things shifted once again. My brothers moved in and became attached to you while I never left my mom’s side. I still visited and talked to you. I had even asked you to go out for lunch with just the two of us. It was awkward, but I know you tried your best. I understand that things weren’t easy and expressing your love was hard, but sometimes it felt like it wasn’t there enough. Where was the point where I had to keep pushing hard? Why do I feel at fault for not trying hard enough when I did? I visited and came to family events. Sure, I didn’t move in and yet I still felt like the forgotten child. I tried my hardest but I felt like you were just getting further away the more I grew. And now you’re so far where I can’t reach you. Life is so unfair.

When I found out you had cancer, I was so angry. Not at you, but at your cancer. I thought I had a lifetime to figure out my trauma with you and my time was taken away. It goes to show that life is indeed short. I didn’t visit you as much as I should have when you got diagnosed and that is my guilt and pain to carry. That is the most thing I am sorry for. I can’t imagine how scared and sad you felt. And I saw it firsthand when I watched you go. The tears you shed before you took your last breath. I am just happy that I got to do what I wanted and felt I needed to do.

When I went to take care of you for the last week of your life, I had to mentally prepare myself. I knew you didn’t have much time left and I saw the signs. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast. We exchanged a few words during the first two days of the week. You even made me laugh because you were confused why uncle was saying something about you being older than him. And you made me laugh when I asked if you knew who I was. You said, “Of course. You’re my daughter, Halle.” I didn’t know that was the last words I would hear from you when you were mentally there. Then come Wednesday and you didn’t speak. You only groaned and shouted in pain. But there was a moment, the night before you passed, where you looked at me and began shouting for someone to help me, your daughter, in Hmong. Step-mom proceeded to tell me, ‘aww... he’s worried for you’. I guess that’s something that I can take with me. Knowing that deep down you still cared. I took care of you for the rest of the week and even stood up with you for 24 hours the night before your passing. You were constantly sweating and in so much pain, I wiped off the sweat from your forehead and massaged your legs so you could rest and step-mom could get some sleep. I don’t regret doing all of that. Yes, I was miserable and it pained me. But in the end, it somehow makes me full knowing that I didn’t stop reaching out for you in different ways till the very end.

On the day of your passing, I came rushing with Blade. He dropped me off and I opened the door to see everyone surrounding you and crying. I heard your labored breathing and you were in your little suit already. I remember thinking how large your feet was and how handsome you looked. It made me so sad to see you struggling to breathe. I think that is what makes it so much harder to move on. Knowing how much you were hurting in your final moments. You didn’t get to go in peace no matter how much meds step-mom gave you. I just stood beside you and whispered calming words cause I saw how much you were hurting. You even had enough energy to groan like you did the whole week, even when you couldn’t breathe. Your oxygen tube was then moved from your mouth back to your nose cause mom could see how much you didn’t like it near your mouth. But even with all that, you suddenly went. Everyone started sobbing and even Aaron started sobbing. As I’m writing this, I still can’t believe you’re gone. I’m so angry with life.

Yesterday was father’s day and we watched the video you had recorded for the time capsule. I can’t believe you had even recorded a video. The fact that you knew that just maybe you wouldn’t be able to beat cancer. You told everyone just how much you loved them, to take care of each other, to follow our dreams and have big ones, and that you would try to fight cancer as hard as you could because you’re strong. And you did fight as hard as you could and did your best.

I think what I am most happy about from all of this is that I think you lived a full life. Yes, you did not give to live it out till old age, but you got to marry the love of your life. The first half was rocky and I understand going out and trying to find your happiness. You started a family and raised my step-siblings and half brother as if it was your first family. You traveled and had a job you felt proud in doing. You had a nice big house and did many family activities. Though cancer cut your life short and you had many other things you wanted to do, I am glad you had gotten to do what you did and left with a room full of people.

It has been awhile since you passed and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I didn’t post about you on social media because I still needed to process the fact that you’re not here anymore. Then I realized no words can compare to the pain that I feel with losing you. But though I have lost you, somewhere gained an angel. I am just happy that you can now be in peace and not feel anymore pain. Cancer may have taken you but it will never take away the strength, memories, and love you left here with us. Don’t worry about us here, dad. We’ll be okay. I love you very much.

I hope that you can watch from wherever you may be and continue to watch us grow. I am really sad that you didn’t get to meet Blade but I feel happy that I at least got to tell you about him. You said you didn’t care who it was as long as they treat me nicely and love me. I really love him. He has been helping me cope with your passing and I really want to be with him forever. If it ever happens, you’ll still walk down the isle with me. I hope that you can smile and be happy. Don’t worry about mom, Sawyer, and the rest of us. Things aren’t okay, but we’ll be okay with time. You’ll never be forgotten. I can promise you that.

From your daughter,

Halle.

“... Spread your wings as you go. And when God takes you back we'll say ‘Hallelujah. You're home.” ‘Supermarket Flowers’ - Ed Sheeran

#( a letter from me to you : ♡ )#( my kryptonite. | thc. )

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mylifemydiary · 3 years

Text

We made it back - 8 days later

2/22/21

Our quick 4 day trip turned into 8. After booking, cancelling, and rebooking plane tickets, our closing date was scheduled for Saturday. Cool. So we fly down Friday. I surprised my son. Surprised my grandma. And surprised my mom. Good times. Then the snow came. Then the rolling power outages were threatened. Then those happened, about two times, until the power went out for good. My husband built a fire in our fireplace for the very first time in that house. We’ve lived there 5 years. Unfortunately, we only had one bundle of firewood. My husband did his best to cut all the 2 by 4s he had in the garage and shed, and it burned way too quickly. By the night time on day one of power outages we were just too cold to stay. We packed up what little food and water we had bought and headed 20 min to his cousin’s house, who had rolling power but no water. They also had a generator that could keep their small space heaters going when the power cut off. We were able to keep our electronics charged and stay warm in a room of our own while their kids slept together. My oldest son came to stay there too after a night at work. After about 33 hours our power came back, but we had no idea for how long. We went back home and took quick and scary showers and invited them to do the same. We stayed there another night and saw that our power looked like it was back for good, so we packed back up and headed home.

The temperature got as cold as zero, with the feels like temp -17. That is unheard of in Texas. People’s water pipes were bursting. People died, frozen in their homes. There was snow and ice on the roads. Flights were cancelled, of course. I was able to change our tickets before my phone died, and before they cancelled it on us. We were able to enjoy one snow free day with family and then we caught the flight back the following day. It was insane.

I have never seen that much snow fall or temperatures that low in my entire life. It was like living up north, but without adequate preparation. The day before we flew to Texas actually there was a huge 100 car pileup due to black ice on the freeway early in the morning. Cars, trucks, and 18 wheelers just rear ended each other and people died in that, too. There’s lots of cell phone footage of that that’s pretty hard to watch. Cars just crunching into each other over and over and then 18 wheelers just obliterating the mess.

I am grateful that our pipes did not burst and we were not under a boil notice at any time. I am grateful that our power was only out for less than 2 days. I am grateful that my son was able to travel to work and back safely all of those nights. I am grateful that my husband had family close enough to safely get to, and that they were gracious enough to let us stay. His brother also invited us to stay with them, they didn’t lose water or power, BUT they were twice as far and most freeway travel. I needed to be able to get back home to take care of our cats. And my son wanted to come home from Grand Prairie and get his clothes before going to bed and that would have been a crazy long drive for him. Not to mention dangerous. I think it all worked out, and we all stayed safe and warm in the end. God was watching out for us all.

Did I mention we were all sick the entire time and the cold didn’t help? lol I was so miserable on day 3 of being there that I called a nurse line who set up a virtual dr visit, only to be told because I hadn’t been sick for 10 days that it was still viral and just to use a neti pot and he called in a prescription for a cough tablet. I didn’t even bother to go pick them up. I lived on Mucinex and Sudafed for 10 days. My husband did, too. And my youngest son had a runny nose and cough. It was pretty miserable but we got through it.

We got our bank stuff done, everything but getting a debit card which we were going to do but everything was closed because of the snow and ice. And power outages. We lived off of sandwiches and cereal for 3 days. I lost about 3 pounds, first vacation back home where I lost instead of gained weight.

I felt like my husband was angry with me for a different reason every day and it was crushing my soul. He seems to be ok now that we are back in Florida, maybe it was the stress combined with the sickness that made him angry, but I feel like it was directed at me most days. Hopefully we are in a good place now. I can’t stand to feel like he’s mad at me all the time. I need to feel the love!

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zoebechtle-blog · 6 years

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Unlikely Chapter 14

It never occurred to me that Niall had a key to his bathroom. When he opened the door and found me curled in a ball on the side of the bathtub, crying my eyes out, he pulled me up and into his arms. I buried my head in his chest, ugly crying. I didn’t want him to touch me, but it was also the only thing I wanted. My face was streaked with makeup and I smelled like vomit. I tried to fight him off so I could at least straighten myself up, trying to gather my wits, but he took control, turning on the shower and getting me out of my clothes and then shedding his own. He pulled me in and sat on the bench, pulling me onto his lap. The whole time he was whispering words that weren’t even registering. My brain just keep shouting at me that he was done, that it was all over. My abrasive personality (my father’s word for it) had chased yet another person out of my life. He ended up washing my hair and body, and basically carrying me out of the shower stall, drying me off, and laid me down in the bed. I was wrecked physically and emotionally. He left for a few minutes and brought back a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. We both swallowed a shot and stared at one another. I was naked with just his duvet wrapped me around me and he was in a pair of shorts. I was pretty sure I’d just cried more than I had in the last five years of my life combined. He looked distraught, moving his feet and picking at his hands. I wanted to talk, I wanted to yell, but I didn’t even know how to start. So I opted to just crawl over and lie my wet head on his shoulder.

“Z…” I waited on him to continue, lifting my head which suddenly felt too heavy to hold up. I laid it on his pillow, looking at him from the side.

“Goddamn it, you’re beautiful.” He said it reverently, leaning down to touch my cheek. It was two thirty. He would be leaving for the airport in five and a half hours. There was so much between us now, and I didn’t know how to fix it. Was it even mine to fix?

“I’m...I’m sorry, baby.” He kept caressing my face, his voice almost a whisper. “I fucked up. Didn’t mean to smother you. I’ve never done this before. Thought we were supposed to be together like that all the time, that’s what a girl wants. I shoulda asked you.I freaked out when you left the other day. I had no idea what was going on and I thought you were just done with me. ”

Where the hell were all these tears coming from? Fuck them. “I held it in and didn’t tell you when I started getting annoyed. I blew up and overreacted.”

“And I was hurt. So pissed. I lashed out at you. Calling Kimmy was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Shoulda just left the plans like they were.” He hung his head.

“If this is going to work, and previous to Sunday I think we were both pretty gung-ho on making it work…”

“You don’t want to anymore?” Sheer panic crossed his face, his lips parting.

“I do. I mean, I’m pretty sure. But fuck, these last two days have sucked. We have to be better and talk about shit. But we’re still on the learning curve. We have to figure it out together.” He nodded at me, his eyes wide and unblinking. “And you can’t goddamn run away from me.”

“If I could stay, I would.” He bent his forehead and pressed it to mine.

I hated to beat a dead horse, but… “Five weeks?”

He had the good sense to look miserable when he nodded. “One of the Nashville guys is only available that last week, and they’ve spread out some of the studio time. The gaps aren’t enough to really make it home.” He started biting his fingers again.

“You’re going to miss my birthday,” I whispered.

“Oh my god. Zo.” I could see him trying to do the math in his head (carry the one, June has 30 days…). “Fuck. July 29th. FUCK.”

“Nashville?”

“Baby girl, I’m so sorry. I’ll fly you in and we can go away for the weekend. We can find someplace quiet that won’t require you to be near bugs.” Points, he did know my phobia.

I shook my head. “We always have a big party. Go to Brighton the weekend before and stay at Aaron’s grandparents’ beach house. Paulie has named it Zoepalooza. Ruth always comes and makes me banana cake. I’ve never had the heart to tell her I hate bananas.” I gave Niall a wry smile, basically telling him I wouldn’t be coming to America for my birthday. I have my own thing, and him not being there was going to hurt.

He buried his face in my neck. “I will make this up to you, even if it takes me twenty years. I’ll buy ya whatever you want.”

“Sounds like you can’t get me the only thing I want.” I wasn’t trying to be an asshole (well, just a little). Being with him was what I wanted.

“You’re still going to visit your family for your mom’s birthday, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. In two weeks. But I fly into St. Louis Friday morning and leave Sunday night. Dr. Summit has that conference in Glasgow the week after.” He sighed.

We laid quietly for a moment. “So…” He let out a shaky breath.

“Yes?”

“If I sign with, um...an American label? Like Capitol?”

“That’s what you want, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, it uh...makes the most sense. And the idea that they even want me, Z. That was Sinatra’s label, yeah? But I’ll be in L.A. more now.”

Another thing I wasn’t aware of. I leaned away. Not running. Just processing. How much is more time? “I didn’t know that.”

He nodded. “I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t know that they really wanted to come after me this hard. You think we can do this? Your life is here.”

“Isn’t yours?” I was confused - his friends and his home were here. I was here.

“Yeah. But if I’m in L.A. part of the time, then tours, and promos...Zo, that’s a lot of time I’m not in London. Like two years ago I only spent 59 nights here over the course of the year. All the time I’ve been here now has kinda been a fluke.”

Well this would have been helpful knowledge to have had at the beginning of March. “I think I’m too far gone to do anything but try to figure it out, eh?” I felt a sort of deflated but peaceful. I rolled into his shoulder and buried my head, biting on my inner cheeks to not cry. He ran his fingers up and down my arms, singing “Unsteady” by X-Ambassadors, then “Gale Song” by The Lumineers softly. Eventually, our mouths found one another’s and the desperate kisses began. We made love with tears in our eyes until Deo knocked on the door to tell him it was time to leave for the airport. Willie drove us to City Airport, Niall and I cuddled in the back of Range Rover. When we got there, we stood apart from the boys, our heads bent together, making promises to talk every day, to facetime, and telling one another how in love we were. I knew it was all true and despite my sadness, I felt relief. Deep down, I knew we’d be okay. The text he sent from the lounge of him holding a teddy bear with a shirt that said, “I Left My Heart In London” made me smile. He was flawed and clueless about matters of the heart, but he was mine. I needed to get over the demons in my brain and my stubbornness, but I was his. We had to learn how to do this together and it was going to hurt. But it was also going to be the best experience of my life. I knew it. Willie took me home afterward, stopping to buy me a peppermint milkshake. He didn’t let my tears scare him and he gave me a long hug outside of my flat.

“You survived it, Z. The first fight. I told you, he was going to take patience. I’m glad you’re giving him the chance. You two are meant to be.”

I hugged him again and thanked him. For everything.

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dfnews · 7 years

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Episode Recap of "Joy and Austin Tie the Knot"

Season 5, Episode 6 - October 16, 2017

"Joy's wedding day arrives after months of planning, and the final touches are added as family and friends come together to celebrate the new Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth."

On October 23 it will be "Joseph's Wedding""Joe and Kendra's wedding day finally arrives, but there may still be a few surprises in store for the happy couple."

On October 30 it will "Josh and Anna's Divorce" Just wishful thinking. I will keep this as short as possible because it's a beautiful day and all I want to think about this weekend is the new episode of The Walking Dead starting tomorrow night. It's a horror holiday weekend for me and a Duggar clone wedding isn't going to ruin it for me! PS. After watching the show and writing all this horror I have missed my beautiful day. When did it start getting dark at 7:00?!

1. The fundie zombie Joy wedding episode begins with something a little new. There is a montage of Austin and Joy scenes played with a cute love song. I'm guessing the montage is there to try to hide the fact that there is an arranged marriage about to happen. The Duggar zombies are all hanging out at the airport waiting for DerJill and Izzy to arrive back from El Salvador for the wedding and forever. Joy is hanging onto Austin's arm with a deer in the headlights look. There is only four days until the wedding. DerJill's friend, German, will be murdered in El Salvador right after they left and right before the wedding. I think that's how that tragic timeline went down. This tragedy doesn't make it into the episode.

2. The bridal gown arrives. Ooooos and ahhhhhs happen. Joe takes Kendra to Jessa and Ben's for dinner. They need a chaperone on the car ride because they were afraid to travel alone due to the zombie apocalypse. Rick and Michone weren't available to chaperone so they got Kendra's sister instead. They all cook and talk about themselves as usual. I don't see any dirty diapers on the greasy stove so all's good. Jessa and Joe agree that they never saw Joy and Austin getting together. That's odd. Joy has said she has been swooning over Austin for years. See! Arranged marriage! Proof right there!

3. Three days to the wedding and Joy and Austin's house is still a complete mess. Yeah, I didn't think they would get much done in three weeks. I've seen houses on The Walking Dead look nicer after a hoard of zombies ate their way through them than Joy and Austin's house. They have been given an RV to live in so I'm guessing their first child will be named Wheels Forsyth. Now why didn't they hold off on the wedding until the house was done? Because they needed something to fill up last season's dull schedule so they arranged the marriage and pushed for a wedding to happen when the show needed it. How romantic. Austin comes off as a very poorly educated young man in this clip. He seems a little slow on the uptake. Maybe it was just nerves.

4. Joe arrives at some shed-like building to ask pastor Caldwell if he can ask Kendra to marry him. At least it's a step up from the closets Jim Bob was in when some of the guys asked to marry his daughters. Jim Bob in a closet is where most of us think he lives anyway. How does pastor Caldwell look younger than Joe? He's in great shape for a fundie walker.

5. Wedding prep begins with Miss Cindy. Sage grass is cut and gathered. Jinger and Jeremy arrive for the wedding and nobody bothers to greet them. I'm sure they were fine without a Duggar blood thirsty mob meeting them. They drop off all the bowls and stuff they bought at the church and my hope for a Duggar dish disaster didn't pan out. Darn. Miss Cindy has to put up with more Duggar stupidity when they run out of gas delaying her efforts to decorate the church. They screwed her up last time by forgetting to bring buckets. Miss Cindy needs to fire these bums and get a new A-Team. They finally get to the church and a hurricane of wheat, grass and hay blow into the building. Anyone with grass allergies may want to avoid a Duggar wedding. A few props are placed on the stage and then the guys complain of being tired and don't finish their work for the day. They wouldn't survive an hour in the zombie apocalypse. 6. The girls, including Anna and Austin all congregate in the girls' dorm. Joy and Austin are presented the rusty camping stove. They don't seem impressed. They like the something new hard hats a little better but Jana never hands them the hats. Others need to sign them first. Then Jessa presents her something borrowed basket which Joy thinks is cute. Jinger presents the something blue basket which is a hit but I wonder where they are going to put all their gifts in that small RV.

7. JoyStin visit the church for the wedding rehearsal. They see the decorations for the first time. To me it looked like Miss Cindy finally had a breakdown after too many Duggar goof-offs helping her that she just threw all the flowers and hay all over the place. The stage was a mess! I love how they think a "stage" in a chapel is normal. Why would a house of God need a stage? Build God an altar already. Many altars were built for God in the Bible and they weren't all for sacrifices. They were to worship God. The Bible never mentions building a stage for God. Anyhoo, that's my rant so now back to this mess. They rehearse the wedding and then leave. JoyStin eat at the rehearsal dinner and notice JinJer's dishes. They better eat a lot because they won't get much after the wedding the next day. Speeches begin where again get we see Jill's zombie like brainwashing. She talks about demanding to raise Joy instead of the reality of her parents brainwashing her into that adult duty at age 7. Austin's brother-in-law gives an odd speech where he warns Joy that there will be times when Austin messes up but he'll get it back together and be better than before. Austin seems a little grim at this point. What exactly did he mean by messing up? This all gave me a creepy feeling.

8. Here we go! Another Duggar wedding. Yawn....I'm having deja vu. I think I've seen this all already. Oh, I already did months ago. Joy claims to be relaxed and all the other married Duggar girls also claimed to have not been nervous at their weddings. I'm guessing this is part of their Gothard training. Relax and trust the Lord. Just ask Him to close his eyes on the wedding night. Joy still doesn't know what to do with her hair. Jason says Austin is like a brother which makes the wedding even creepier when there's a brother marrying a sister or just normal by Duggar standards. Austin is sleep deprived and getting nervous. He needs a stiff drink and Daryl to see him through.

9. I'm skipping some now because I'm done with this crap but now I'm up to Joy and Austin seeing each other in their wedding uniforms before the wedding. Jenni breaks down again before the ceremony. It's always sad to lose your mom. The Godbobber wears the same old wedding suit and makes the same old speech as he did for all the other daughter weddings. They walk the aisle and pastor Caldwell gives a horrifying speech about the covenant of marriage. He says the only way to break the covenant is to die... and eat Negan. Yeah, Negan needs to go. The only way? Pastor, if your wife left you for another man would you stay legally married to her even though she's in Jamaica with the pool guy or would you kill her or yourself? How does this work exactly? So if Josh cheats again and again and again, Anna should remain with that pig and just hope to die as quickly as possible? Ick! Fundies do morality so badly. Austin answers "I do" to that speach but Joy barely has time to say yes before the pastor moves on. Since he rushed Joy through her answer, I say that nulls the covenant contract. Joy, you may divorce Austin if needed. Don't let Bible picking make you miserable your entire life. They kiss, they run through the hay strewn aisle and then are pistol whipped by a confetti cannon. Typical Arkansas wedding. Snacks happen in the lobby. JoyStin cut the cake and Joy sticks her finger in Austin's mouth for a good licking. Joe and Kendra then steal the limelight by getting engaged. Joy describes the wedding as epic and then they drive off in a big assed truck with tons of arsenal to keep the walkers away as they breed for God. Is it Sunday night yet?!!!

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dammit-stark · 7 years

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Talk, Talk, Talk

This is a jotch fic requested by the wonderful @dontshootmespence. It’s actually the first jemily that I’ve written, so I really hope I did alright haha. Please, please enjoy, my loves :)

JJ loses Will after Hotch loses Haley. It starts as just two people confiding in each other, but maybe it devolves into other feelings, hmm?

“Hotch?” JJ gasped, pulling her sweatshirt tighter around her, “What are you doing here?”

Hotch held out the wine bottle, a sort of olive branch, “I figured you could use somebody to talk to you.”

“I’m fine,” She answered, lips a firm, straight line. He knew better.

“C’mon, just talk. It was a tough case, and what with everything that’s happened…”

“You wouldn’t unders-” JJ stopped because that wasn’t true. If anybody were to understand what she was going through, it would be hotch. He had gone through it, too. He’d been widowed and dragged down into the terrifying trenches of single parenthood. JJ sighed, “Come in,”

They end up settled onto the couch, wine glasses clutched in their hands, and popcorn on the table. That night, the two of them talk late into the night. JJ cries and Hotch hugs, shares advice. He’d learned things the hard way, and he knows that if he can do anything to prevent this amazing woman- coworker, he reminds himself- that she can make it through this, then he is most definitely going to do that. Just because he’s a good guy like that.

At 2 in the morning, JJ walks Hotch to the door, feeling tired, exhausted, and… better?

“Thank you, Hotch,” She tells him, “For everything. I really appreciate having somebody to talk to that actually understands.”

“You have no idea what I would have done to have somebody to just talk to after I lost Haley. I know what it’s like. I’m always here.” He reassures her, and she smiles softly as she shuts the door behind him and watches Hotch’s receding figure down the snowy driveway toward his car.

They do the whole ‘late night talk’ thing for a couple weeks after that. They do it every night they don’t have a case, and a couple nights that they do. It’s good and… familiar somehow.

One night, the dimness of the Jareau living room doesn’t feel like enough, and the two of them somehow end up at a coffee shop a couple of blocks over. Her mom volunteers to watch the kids, and JJ has the opportunity to talk and breathe and be out of a space that reminds her of somebody she lost, of a loss that left her as a widow and her children fatherless.

She tells Hotch how she feels, how congesting the house feels, with its haunts and memories, and she does her best not to shed tears (she’s stronger than this, dammit). But with Hotch everything feels easier and now Hotch has his arm wrapped comfortingly around her, his thumb rubbing soft circles against her palm, whispering quiet reassurances into her ear in the center of a coffee shop.

She tries not to think about how nice he smells and he tries not to attempt to pin down the scent of her shampoo (it’s vanilla and strawberries, he decides). They both fail miserably.

When they get up to leave, JJ realizes that her hand had been folded in his for the past hour, and that she’s reluctant to let go. She chalks it up to loneliness and the warmth of just having a good friend, and tries not to think about it too long as they step out into the cold, dark winter outside as they say their goodbyes.

At first, they try to keep it private, not make a big deal out of things. They’re just friends, it doesn’t matter anyway. But then one day, Hotch falls asleep beside her on the couch as some movie plays on the television. When the credits play, JJ doesn’t have the heart to wake him up.

In the morning, she makes pancakes and bacon for Henry and Michael. Hotch wakes up to the smell of the bacon and the sound of plates and forks and glasses clinking together. JJ left a mug of still-hot coffee on the coffee table for him to drink when he got up, made to order just as he liked it (black with the smallest amount of milk).

Hotch grunted as he rose off of the couch, shuffling into JJ’s kitchen to find Henry and Micheal chowing down hungrily on pancakes and bacon in the bright breakfast nook.

“Good morning, Mr. Hotchner!” Henry coos happily through a mouthful of pancake.

Hotch just smiles back at the young boy as JJ berates him for talking with his mouth full. He doesn’t say much over breakfast, he feels like he’s intruding and he allows Jareau domesticity reign over his silence.

When the two boys scurry off to get dressed for the school day, each pressing a kiss to their mother’s cheek, Hotch remarks to himself that for all of the sadness that plagues JJ, she’s an amazing mother, who has done an amazing job shielding her son’s from the pains of the world during her own troubles.

“You’re a really good mom,” He says quietly as he grabs for the last piece of bacon.

“Thank you,” JJ says back just as quietly, tensing a little for some reason that even she isn’t sure of.

She moves to do the dishes in silence then, and Hotch tries not to think too hard about how he possibly just messed up very much there.

The boys race back in ten minutes later, smiling and laughing and somehow making all sorts of noise as they get ready for the bus to come for them.

“Mr. Hotchner?” Henry looks up, “Can Jack sleep over at our place this weekend?”

“If it’s okay with your mom, “ Hotch answers, and all three of the boys look over at JJ in freakish unison. JJ tries not to think about how good the three of them look together, no sirree she does not.

“Jack is always welcome here,” She answers, and the way Hotch smiles back makes her insides feel a lot more at ease, which is weird to say the least.

After the boys get loaded onto the bus, JJ turns to Hotch, “Are you going to go home or straight to work?”

“I have my go bag in my car, I figured I’d just use that.”

JJ smiles, “We can car pool. It’ll be fun.” Hotch laughs at that and JJ smiles a little wider, “And Hotch? You’re always welcome here, too, just like Jack is.”

“I know, JJ.” He answers softly, “Thank you.”

The BAU profilers (and the brilliant technical analyst) start to notice the times JJ and Hotch car pool to work are starting to add up after about two and a half months of them car pooling with their late night talks and twice weekly trysts. Some of the junior agents are rumored to have started a betting pool about the whole thing. Everybody is very suspicious about the whole thing. But nobody, nobody, is more suspicious that Penelope Garcia.

The technical analyst has seemingly made it her life duty to discover what is going on between her unit chief and best friend. Unfortunately, all of her attempts at intrusion and infiltration proved fruitless. JJ and Hotch denied anything other than professional friendship. According to them, they worked cases together and that was it- yeah, right!

It all changed when JJ rushed into work late one day with her kids trailing after her. She looked a mess, stressed beyond belief.

“I am so, so sorry about this guys,” She told her coworkers, and she looked even more sorry about it than she claimed, “The babysitter fell through, and my mom is out of town visiting my uncle, and apparently nobody can babysit last minute on a Wednesday, and they didn’t tell me they had the day off until last night, and-”

“It’s fine, JJ,” Hotch said from the door of his office, “We all know they won’t make trouble. We understand.”

“Thank you,” She nodded her head in his direction just as Garcia appeared.

“Children! Yay!” And then the vibrant woman was hugging the Jareau boys, “What did I do to deserve the pleasure of seeing my two favorite boys in the world today?”

“Mom couldn’t find a sitter, so we came to work with her!” Henry announced excitedly

“Cool!” Garcia announced, “Do you guys want cookies? I made some last night!”

They cheered, looking to their mom for the ‘ok’ before racing off after Aunt Garcia. After being fed and sugared, they collapsed in chairs, giggling as they played games on one of Garcia’s computers.

“So, can I ask you two something?” Garcia eventually turned toward them, deviously quiet, “You can’t tell your mom that I asked you this, okay?”

They nodded eagerly.

“Do you ever see your mom hanging out with Mr. Hotchner?”

“Oh yeah,” Henry replied easily, taking another bite of cookie, “He comes over all the time.”

“Really?”

“Mhm,” Little Micheal piped up, “He sleeps on the couch sometimes. We always have bacon the next day when that happens!”

Garcia smirked, “Interesting.”

“Gonna have to take a rain check tonight, Hotch” JJ said as she leaned into the doorway of Hotch’s office. She had felt much better in the weeks that followed the Incident of No Sitter a few weeks earlier.

“Oh?” Hotch grunted, trying to convince himself that that was most definitely not disappointed buried in his stomach because he hadn’t felt that since he had dated Haley, “Big plans?”

JJ shrugged, “Garcia insists on hosting this big slumber party thing for the girls. She seems to think that we need to bond more or something. I suspect that there will be lots of alcohol and giggling, and not much of anything else.”

“Alright, well, have fun. Don’t let Garcia get into too much trouble. We don’t want a repeat of what happened last time.”

JJ’s laugh was real and big and made Hotch’s stomach churn, “Of course,”

When JJ showed up at Garcia’s house, cheap wine in hand and an extra pair of sweat pants in her purse, she had not expected to be attacked by Garcia within the next two hours. But of course, she had willingly shown up at Garcia’s house. She should have expected something.

“Excuse me?” JJ repeated, incredulous. She never should have agreed to drinking so much if she knew this would happen, “Why would anything be happening between me and Hotch? We work together?”

Emily snorted from the chair across from her and Penelope laughed from her spot on the floor.

“How about the fact that you two frequently car pool to work together?” Emily supplied

“We both have kids that go to the same school!” JJ attempted to dispute

Emily continued to provide reasons that there was apparently definitely something going on between the blonde profiler and Hotch. JJ did her best to deflect them, and she did fairly well, all things considering, until Garcia smirked and declared, “What about the bacon?”

“What does that mean?”

“I have an inside source that tells me you always make bacon whenever he falls asleep on your couch.”

“WHY IS THIS BOY FALLING ASLEEP ON YOUR COUCH, JJ?” Emily drunkenly bellowed, “YOU LIKE HIM!”

JJ blushed, but okay she was much too drunk to properly be able to keep this up, “Okay, so maybe I… like him a little.”

Garcia was smirking and JJ hated it just a little bit, “We need details now,”

“I don’t know. He just… he was the only person that really understand what I was going through after I lost Will, and he was always there to comfort me, and always willing to talk…”

“JJ LIKES A BOOO-OOO-OY” Emily bellowed obnoxiously, devolving into nothing but giggles as she fell off her chair and onto Garcia’s hardwood floor. JJ felt like she didn’t stop rolling her eyes for the rest of the night.

“So, how was the slumber party?” Hotch asked, as he took his usual place beside JJ on her couch

“It was alright,” JJ shrugged, feeling her cheeks burn because they had talked about him, “I was right. Lots of alcohol and giggling.”

Hotch chuckled lowly, shaking his head, “Was there bonding like Garcia had hoped?”

“Yeah,” JJ said, taking a nervous sip of her wine and rather determinedly not looking at Hotch’s face, “We talked about, um…” She almost shared something she most definitely should not, “Well, we talked about lots of things,”

“Really?” Hotch laughed, leaning naturally toward her, “Like what?”

JJ looked up to find him incredibly close. Incredibly close. She could see every part of his face, every wrinkle and memory, smile lines and brow lines alike. He was chuckling softly, his lips pink, his face light, and before she realized what she was doing, she was swept up into the moment and found herself breathing out, “You.”

“W-what?” He stuttered, surprised, just barely pulling away.

Oh, god. Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god. She had really screwed up, hadn’t she. Oh, no. JJ felt her face burn.

“We, um, talked about you,” She murmured embarrassed

“You did? About what? Did Garcia complain about her hours again?” He refused to believe that this wonderful woman that he liked so much talked about him to her best friends in a capacity that wasn’t purely about their work. There was no way she liked him enough. No way.

“No, um,” God, she screwed up, didn’t she, “The girls seemed to have noticed that we come to work together sometimes, and Garcia managed to get me to admit that…” It was all or nothing. JJ took a deep breath and look nervously up toward Hotch, still incredibly, comfortably close, warm and terrifying, “that I like you.”

“Really?” Hotch breathed out in surprise.

JJ nodded weakly, but Hotch didn’t move away, didn’t flinch in disgust like she had expected. Instead, after the original surprise subsided, he… smiled, “Well, that’s really, really good news, JJ because I like you, too. Kinda a lot.”

JJ smiled at that, because how could she possibly not. Her face lit up, beyond happy, beyond everything.

Hotch leaned in closer, and she could feel his warmth, his absolute electricity. She felt his shoulder bump against hers, and his elbow push into his couch, and then….his lips against hers. She tried not to gasp, but it escaped because it had been so long since she had felt this, power and passion and happiness all rolled into one.

When he pulled away, JJ groaned a little in disappointment. Hotch just smiled, slightly breathless, “So,” He said, “Good talk.”

JJ just laughed and kissed him again. Maybe they’d talked a little too much.

#jotch #jennifer jareau x aaron hotchner #jennifer jareau x hotch #jennifer jareau #aaron hotchner #hotch #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #dontshootmespence #fanfiction

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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man, i don’t want to write anything... i’m tired. i will write anyway.

i had a dream about being surrounded by people but being, sort of, for some unexplained reason, unable to communicate with them. like, i could talk and they might have heard me, there’s no reason they wouldn’t have, but they didn’t respond to anything i did. we were in a mall and the floor was glass. toward the end of the dream there was a blizzard and the glass had cracked. i tread carefully, but it never broke.

right at the very end, someone asked me a question, and as i opened my mouth to respond i woke up because my alarm went off. i was so incredibly frustrated for about half a second and then i couldn’t remember what i had wanted to say any more.

oh! there were also zombies. and undead, but they were different from zombies. i had come to the mall to do something about them but i got sidetracked and then people stopped paying attention to me. that’s how i got there.

it was really complicated, but i don’t remember what exactly was happening. i was trying to bring the dead back to life? but the zombies were beyond help and converting the undead into the FOR REAL dead. i spent a lot of time in a garden shed and under a concrete ledge.

dreams aside, i woke up and got ready for the day and then sat at the computer for a little bit. i think i was checking tumblr? i was so hunched over the dang desk that i may as well have been laying on it.

then we went to gramma’s! before we left dad was being super passive aggressive and i’m not sure why. it was really confusing and also annoying. mom ended up leaving without him and taking us to gramma’s. i put on some music and didn’t think about it too much.

the easter celebration was good. i totally wrecked my cousins at batman dice. the score was 1 to 2 to 3 to 16. and i visited with gramma and her friends and neighbors a lot. apparently dad’s mom barbara was also supposed to attend but she wasn’t feeling well. dad showed up eventually and brought the batman dice game with him. after that it was lunchtime. i gorged myself on my aunt’s salsa and tried to also eat fruit and chips and potato salad and an apple cinnamon cookie... i got so sick i passed out on the couch. grampa woke me up to get me to go lay on his bed instead. it was a little warmer in there and i felt the room spin around me while i dozed. i heard my name one point and i think it was mom telling a dumb story about me, but i felt my muscles tense up for a few seconds anyway. an hour later my brother came to get me and i rolled on my back and my whole abdomen just throbbed and every single heartbeat was a wave of nausea.

i felt junky the whole way home but i tried to count the number of songs i listened to while we were on the highway and that helped. when we got inside i hung out with the dogs a while. i tried to brush some of the mats out of diogi’s fur but wiley and eve were suddenly very interested in standing directly on top of my lap and tipping diogi over. my brother and i fed them, and then after i coaxed eve into eating her food they were outside for a bit. and then i came upstairs until i got a little hungry. i went downstairs to reheat some rice from my family’s previous burrito adventure and had a tiny cup. dad left to go take barbara to the hospital. she spends a lot of time there.

i mean, i don’t doubt that she is sick and needs to go. but... there are a lot of ways she could make this, easier and less expensive for my family? like one time she slipped and fell and hit her head on the bathroom door. she called our house in the evening and thought it was morning, so we went to check on her.

if she’d had, say, one of those life alert things or a check-in plan now that she’s living alone she wouldn’t have been laying there for almost a day. and i think this inability to take care of herself is part of what led her to the decision to kill her dog, DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE WERE WILLING TO AND HAD PREVIOUSLY TAKEN CARE OF THE DOG WHEN SHE DIDN’T WANT TO/COULDN’T, AND ALSO THAT HE WAS NOT THAT OLD YET. HE WAS 2 YEARS OLDER THAN EVE, BUT HE IS A TOY POODLE. HE LIVES LONGER THAN 14 YEARS. THEY CAN BE REASONABLY EXPECTED TO LIVE TO 16-18.

like yeah, i’m sorry your husband died and you aren’t putting your life back together. i’m sorry you both suffered an addiction to nicotine that led to the disease grandpa developed. but when we are forced to take you to the hospital because you have no system in place to get yourself anywhere or alert people when you are not doing well, you don’t even take the doctor’s advice, and you refuse to stay in rehab because they don’t let you smoke when you’re hooked up to an oxygen machine! you had a heart attack and you walked out of the hospital a few days later when they wouldn’t let you smoke!!! you stole grandpa’s pain killers while he was alive! you tried to sell your house despite EVERYONE telling you that was a bad idea for many, many reasons!!! you ditched all your furniture in preparation for selling the house anyway and tHEN CHANGED YOUR MIND. you killed your dog and changed your mind the next day so you got a cat, AND THEN YOU DITCHED THE CAT A FEW WEEKS LATER. and then you got ANOTHER cat, and then moved to minnesota or wherever WHERE YOUR FAMILY ASKED YOU NOT TO BRING A CAT AND YOU BROUGHT IT ANYWAY, and then moved back a few months later because you didn’t like paying rent!!!!!!!!!!

i’m sorry life is hard. i’m sorry that bad ideas seem like good ideas to you??? but you’re hurting literally everyone you come into contact with. you’re not even nice to dad when he comes to do your chores for you. you’re just a jackass and you smoke when he’s in the house even though you know the smell makes him sick. and the new cat is too terrified to ever come out from under the bed.

i hate barbara. not as much as i hate craig, because she doesn’t seem aware of what she’s doing, but god it’s hard.

i did put on some bug spray before i went outside this evening. it helped. tomorrow i gotta go to the mental health hospital place. i am afraid that i am not sick enough for their help. because i am too sick to NOT get their help. but i might not be sick enough for them to give me a spot on their roster. like some kind of hellish middle ground.

do i play up my anxiety? would that be lying? am i really not that bad? maybe i should downplay it. but then i’m less likely to get help... am i not depressed/anxious enough because i know i need help? usually with depression it’s like “ohh it COULD be worse, i must not be bad enough for real help.” i know, the cognitive dissonance is making my head explode too.

being evaluated is horrible. what if they happen to catch me on a good day and get the wrong idea? what if they catch me on a bad day and i’m not good enough? standardized tests, medical evaluations, people watching when i say “hey look at this!” they’re just clouds, sammie.

my legs are miserably itchy. i can’t sit comfortably with the itching cream on. the texture of the chair’s fabric against my calves is irritating. the wood of the desk rubs my thighs wrong. my feet are rough and catch on fabric like velcro and they never seem to sit at quite the right angle. my back hurts. my stomach hurts. the skin on my fingers and knuckles is splitting because i wash my hands too much and don’t drink quite enough water. and my body is always telling me i need to go to the bathroom but when i try to go i can’t because there is nothing there. i just went 20 minutes ago. and if my eyes water for any reason something in them gets really dry and it burns and hurts.

it doesn’t even help when i’m, like, outside and not on the computer. my abdomen starts really hurting when i’m out on walks and it only fades, doesn’t go away. my eyes hurt when the sun’s up. i’m tired all the time. eating is usually awful. the lawn is wet and muddy on my feet and i immediately get bug bites. nothing on my body is healing properly.

i’m just... really frustrated tonight. i saw my sister at the easter party. i asked if her childhood stomachaches ever went away. she said no, and it still usually hurts when she eats. i don’t know how she functions if it’s anything like this. no wonder she never wants to do anything and gets irritable if she can’t eat what she wants.

i’m afraid it’ll never go away. no one can even figure out what’s wrong. i’m not any more anxious than i was while i could go to school. the only thing i could think of with the doctor was that it was years of general anxiety that built up this problem. at least with depression there’s literally a chemical reaction happening in your head that can be changed with medication. but like, they can’t even find an ulcer or anything. there’s just... nothing wrong.

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gracewithducks · 5 years

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Like a Tree (Jeremiah 17:5-10)

My family recently returned from a trip to Florida. We went primarily to visit family – my grandparents are in the process of moving out of their Florida home there as we speak – and we wanted to visit them, to enjoy some sunshine together and to swim in their awesome pool, one more time before they sold. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate. Our visit was overcast and cold – not “polar vortex in Michigan” cold, but still, Florida cold, 50-and-drizzly cold, too cold even for little girls to go in the pool. Fortunately, even though the girls missed the pool, we had a lovely visit with grandma and grandpa, and we also had a surprise in store: the girls didn’t know it, but we were going to Disney World. So there was this one beautiful day. It was one day when the sun actually came out – and I tell you, I think I am at least partly solar powered, because when the sun came out that afternoon, it was like my soul woke up – and the sun was shining and it was in the 70s, probably the most beautiful day of our whole trip. And I remember so vividly sitting that afternoon on a bench in the sun, with my eyes closed, the light on my face, letting the crowds bustle right on by, taking a break in the sun in the happiest place on earth... and my hands are like this (up in front of me, fists almost closed), one hand tightly wrapped around each wrist of my four-year-old, who is in the middle of one of the most epic and out of control temper tantrums of her life. You see, Disney is a wonderful place. And my kids got to go on a lot of amazing rides and meet a lot of fantastic characters. Along the way we learned that both of my girls love roller coasters. They love the thrill rides, the dips and the swoops and the big drops and the wind in their faces... they both love the roller coasters, but many of those rides for safety reasons require you to be a certain height to ride. And for a lot of those rides, in order to be safe, in order to get on the ride, you need to be at least 44 inches tall.

I can now tell you with absolute certainty that, with her sneakers on, when she stands up as tall as she knows how – B is exactly 43 and 3/4 inches tall. And sometimes life is hard when you’re 43-and-not-quite-another-whole-inch tall. Sometimes it means your sister and daddy go ride Space Mountain, and you get left behind.

B and I did a lot of fun and special things while daddy and big sister stood in line. We rode the People Mover – which is a really nice ride, but it’s not Space Mountain. We met Buzz Lightyear – and he’s a really cool guy, but he’s no Space Mountain. We went on the Carousel of Progress, which has the voice of Tom Hanks and a catchy song and lots of educational value and a rotating theater and absolutely no waiting at all... but it’s no Space Mountain. And now we had to wait just ten more minutes, ten more minutes for daddy and sister to finally ride their ride and come meet us. Ten minutes until our family was back together and we made our way to dinner with Cinderella. And those ten minutes were the longest ten minutes of our lives. I told B how lucky we were; we did all those things while daddy and sissy just stood in line. I reminded her we were at Disney World, and the sun was shining and we were on our way to meet Prince Charming. I explained to her about lap bars and rules that are meant to keep her safe. I told all the things that were right. I told her why. But all she could see was that it didn’t feel fair. And she screamed at me. And she cried. And she stomped. And she kicked. And when she started hitting, that’s when I held her hands and didn’t let go. We were past the point of reason. We were neck deep in the disappointment and anger of a not-quite-44-inch-tall four-year-old who was hot for the first time in days and who was tired and overstimulated and who didn’t want to be the little sister any more. And all I could do was hold on. It’s easy in those moments to let it get to you. Too often, I do. Too often, I forget that’ I’m the adult, and when the kid starts yelling, I yell right back. Too often, I start thinking: we never should have come. This is why we can’t do nice things. I start to feel like a lousy mom. I should have found a better way to keep her happy. I should have taught her how to manage her feelings. And when she’s yelling, “You’re mean” and “You’re a bad mom” and “I don’t like you” – sometimes, it feels like she means it. And in that moment maybe she does. So I hold on. I hold on to her, literally, so she doesn’t hurt herself or anybody else. And I hold onto the knowledge that this too will pass – and the amazing thing is, it does. And I hold onto how much I love her, and how much she loves me. And the sun shines. And the tantrum ends. And life goes on. B probably doesn’t even remember that tantrum. But I do. And what I remember most is the calm that I had – which isn’t like me at all – the calm, the peace, that helped me hold on.

At a recent gathering of moms, a speaker talked about grace – specifically in the context of marriage and parenting. They said, grace as a state that you’re in, a state that God puts you in, a state of being where you are loved and valued just as you are now, with no conditions or changes – and if you’re in that state of grace, if you know who you are, and you know that who you are is someone who is beloved and valued by God, and you know that nothing can change that – then you can weather the storms that come.

And the speaker never used this imagery, but I wish they would have – because that’s what comes to mind when I read our scripture for today:

Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is in the LORD.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

and its leaves shall stay green;

in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

Blessed are those who are rooted in the LORD – who are planted by deep water, who can weather the drought and the heat and the storm. Blessed are those who know that your value doesn’t depend on whether or not your kids throw tantrums, or if they get into the best schools, or your house is a mess, or how your job is going, or if you’re married or single or widowed or divorced – your value doesn’t change when you have a bad day, when you mess up, when you get completely overwhelmed… you can keep going, because your roots run much, much deeper than that.

There is something powerful about being rooted in God’s love. There is something powerful that comes from knowing that you are beloved by God, that God values you so highly that God would trade God’s own life for yours – and nothing that happens to you, nothing that you do, nothing that you don’t do – nothing can change who you really are: you are beloved by God.

It’s a powerful truth. It’s a powerful image, and it’s one I need to hold onto more often – I wish I could tell you that every time my day spirals out of control, every time my kids lose their tempers, I manage to hold onto mine. I wish I could tell you that I always draw on those deep roots, that I turn my face to the sunshine until the storm passes. I don’t. But I’m working on it… and the good news is that, even when I blow my top, those deep roots of God’s love still don’t let me go.

But this imagery, this scripture, runs even deeper than that; it’s about more than just the strength that helps us get through our lousy days. Even in the middle of that miserable tantrum, when B was fighting and screaming and railing with all her might, part of the reason I could keep holding on is because I knew: I was right. I knew that, no matter how much she yelled, she couldn’t go on that ride. And even if I broke all the rules and found a way to smuggle her onto that ride, even though it might make her happy for a few moments – it wouldn’t be the most loving thing I could do for her. She couldn’t go on the ride, because she wouldn’t be safe on that ride; it wasn’t made for her, and as much as she wanted it, it wasn’t right for her. And no matter how much, in that moment, she screamed that I was mean and life was unfair – I knew that I still loved her, and eventually, she’d know that all I was doing was acting out of that love.

When you know what you’re doing is right, when you know it’s rooted in love – even when that love doesn’t look the way people want it to, even when those decisions are hard and your voice is unpopular – when you know, then it’s so much easier to keep holding on.

There’s a reason that this image – of the tree, by the water, that will not be moved – there’s a reason that it became an anthem for the civil rights movement. Because when you know what you’re doing is right, you can weather the storm, you can weather the drought, you can hold on through the violence and the hatred and the anger – because you know, deep down, love will prevail, and if you keep holding on, if you just don’t give in, sooner or later, justice will roll down.

I’ve been thinking a lot about temper tantrums and the deep roots of justice lately. We find ourselves, as a nation, guided by leaders who are willing to bend the rules and abuse their power and manufacture a crisis in order to get their way. And sometimes it seems easier to just give in to the tantruming todder – but in the long run, all that does is hurt them and everyone else. If our leaders want to address a real national emergency, then let’s talk about the 1 in 5 children who go hungry in America.[1] Let’s talk about the 1 in 5 Americans who can’t afford or access the health care they need.[2] Let’s talk about the 100 Americans who are shot and killed every single day – and the hundreds more who survive being shot and have to live with the trauma and the fear.[3] Let’s talk about the fact that our national infrastructure has been reviewed by the American Society of Civil Engineers and given a grade of D+.[4] Our airports, our dams, our water pipes, our roads and bridges are literally crumbling out from under us. Let’s talk about the real global threat of climate change, and the reality that we are running out of time to do something about it – if we haven’t already.[5] Let’s talk about the fact that, here in Michigan, hate crimes are on the rise,[6] and the people of Flint still don’t have clean water three years after a federal state of emergency was declared.[7]

One of the other scripture readings suggested for today is from the gospel of Luke, from Jesus’ sermon on the plain. Jesus sees the crowds, the multitude who have come to him for healing and for hope, and he goes down to a level place – he goes and stands with the people on level ground. And Jesus says,

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh…

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.[8]

Jesus’ words challenge us – but this, this is the root of his message, and this is where we are meant to be rooted, too. Are we content to be a people who speak comfort to the rich, who stay silent in the face of abuses, who rob from the starving to fill the pockets of the powerful? Or do we, like Christ, put ourselves on level ground with the community around us? Are we proclaiming good news to the poor? Are we healing the sick, and feeding the hungry? Do we weep with those who are weeping – and work to bring them peace?

It’s a lot. But Jesus never promised that discipleship would be an easy road. And it’s more than any one person can do together. But if enough of us keep holding on – if we refuse to be silent – if we don’t give up the fight – then there is always hope.

Holding on is exhausting. But I keep holding on, because I know what’s right, and I am rooted in God’s love, and I believe that – if we keep speaking up, if we keep holding on, if we refuse to give up, then we will keep bearing fruit – and in the end, when the chaff is withered and blown away, justice will prevail and love is going to win.

In the coming days, the United Methodist Church is going to make some important decisions. They’re the same decisions the church has been facing since the very beginning: are we going to be about laws, or are we going to be about love? And many of us are anxious, because those decisions are going to impact the kind of ministry we do, together. But here’s the thing: I may be anxious, but I am not afraid. I am not afraid, because I know what God has called me to do. I know where God has called me to serve. I know that God’s love is for everyone, everywhere – and the sin that God is calling us confront is greed, is the love of power, is injustice and prejudice and racism and fear. And I am going do all I can to keep speaking hope, to keep speaking truth, to keep following that calling God has given me, regardless of what the General Conference decides. I am going to keep doing justice, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with God – no matter what.

I, for one, by God’s grace, am going to keep holding on. I’m going to choose what’s right, even when it’s hard. I’m going to turn my face towards the sunshine, and I’m going to put my roots down deep. I am going to trust that the truth can set us free. And I am going to trust that God’s grace is sufficient even for me.

Oh God, help us to be trees planted by your waters. Give us roots that run down deep in your love. The icy storms around us are turning us brittle and cold; give us tender spirits and warm our hearts again. Help us, even in dry and difficult seasons, to bear fruit of your grace. Make us people who do justice, who love mercy, and who walk humbly by your side. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.

[1] https://mashable.com/2016/07/14/child-hunger-united-states/#7uhoiUr0jaq3

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4509618&page=1

[3] https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-america/

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/09/engineers-give-americas-infrastructure-a-near-failing-grade.html

[5] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-02-10/climate-change-isis-seen-as-greatest-global-threats-survey-finds

[6] https://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/20181114/fbi-michigan-hate-crimes-on-rise

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

[8] Luke 6:17-26, abridged.

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strawberryspeachy · 5 years

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Part 1))- washed my hair today. It’s doing that thing where it does those cute giant curled parts. I get my hair permanently straightened. It costs me anywhere from 100-180 dollars every 6 or so months. I have been the one pay for this since 2010. However. My mother is the one who initially found a place offering the service I wanted in Philly — granted I didn’t go to the one she found cause it was like a class of some sort and I found a better place down the road in Chinatown. But credit to her for being the only one to listen to me in the 2 years I was pleading to get the Japanese thermal straightening

——- about a year ago when she saw my hair doing this she went on rant about how she’s paying so much money for my hair to be straight why is it curled.

Of all the things I complain about in regards to my hair.... it’s amazing that... just that. I’ve never complained about the random waviness my straightened hair will get sometimes. 1) it’s random 2) is mostly straight which is 10000x better than the growth I’m currently dealing with since I haven’t gone in almost 8 months. Really tight super spiral curls that only look that way right out of the water. All they do is frizz and tie together. I spent 40 minutes brushing JUST THE GROWTH and my hair doesn’t even grow fast. And everytime I have to brush huge knots out of my hair I’m reminded why I hated having curly hair my whole life and why it was always in two braids.

One of the best thing about having straight hair is the ability to wake up and walk out of the house. I couldn’t do that with curly hair. The knots are so bad that putting a had one just pulls it all in the wrong way and hurts AND the knots are too big to even fit the hat on my head. And that’s just from sleeping.

Part 2)) my hairs been falling out due to stress the past few years. It started in 2014 when my entire college friend group left me. And then I became bulimic and tried to kill myself several times and my hair decreased in length by half. The next time I got severe loss is when I took that birth control shot and I had hair loss the last time I tried birth control... and for the past two years I’ve just been super stressed and when to the dermatologist to see if anything else was wrong (granted last time I went she did offer to give me a biopsy but I don’t want to lose MORE never growing back hair forbit or encase I gotta go get ANOTHER esp since) she listed about 20 stressers that cause hair loss and I have 19 of them

So yea stress makes me lose hair

I’ve always shed more in the winter anyhow

ANDDD when I had curly hair I lost enough hair all the time for me mom to look in the drain and be like !!!!!!!!!!! And I was just like oh yeah no that’s normal. And I had pretty thick hair through school despite that —— that said when new growth comes in I’m like - yea that’s probably normal.

soooooooo years ago before my mom got bad she made a side comment about our house having “hard water” and told me it meant there’s more proteins in it so it bad for our skin and hair. I didn’t have either problem at the time and was like. Hm I guess the protiens are good for me. —- cause I’m dumb. And I haven’t thought much about it since.

Well I got my hair chemically straightened my senior year of high school and thus left for college soon after.

While I was in college I was super into beauty tutorials and did diu treatments all summer when I was home. And I guess the combination of helping my hair to stop the hard water damage and the fact that I had to wash egg out so I wasn’t super surprised to see a lot of hair come out... made me not think too much on it...

During short breaks I was still under the initial repulsion one gets upon entering my house and generally decided I’d wait till I got back to school to wash my hair

All that said. So i washed my hair at my House form 2015-2017. 2016 I had the depo shot.

End of 2017 my best friend moved back home. I’ve always basically lived at her house and since she was back I spent a lot of time going over to visit her. And because she has an actual shower and a cleaner house it’s seemed a lot easier to just wash my hair at her house a lot. Espeshally in the summer when I went over to swim all the time. And my hairs been growing and getting thicker.

Then I started working at the haunted house at the end of September and noticed my hair was an absolute mess. I attributed to having to wash it EVERY DAY which I generally don’t do.

I’ve been looking back at pics to see what’s going on since cause the year before my hair wasn’t that bad. In fact it was quite nice. Though I have forgotten I did give in to taking my mother to the gym periodically because she nagged me and they had a shower which is much easier than a bathtub.

Wel when I started working at the haunted house. I got home late and was tired so I started washing my hair at home mostly. And since then I’ve been super miserable and haven’t wanted to leave my house.

Last night While looking up if the chlorine was to blame for my hair loss (cause I did notice my hair get really bad a few years ago from swimming in cholorine) it said th coconut oil I was protecting my hair with should have worked but in the same post said hard water was to blame for this kind of problem

Anddddddddd

Suddenly I realized all that I just wrote.... apparently hard water can have PERMANENT LASTING DAMAGE TO THE HAIR FOLICULES SO IM SCARED OF THAT

And I guess it effects me more because the chemical straightening makes my hair weaker.

I was looking for some kind of filter but there are none for bathtubs

The ones for showers are like the Brita and need carterages and my grandfather would throw a fit at me for tampering with his shower anyway and having to share it with my family would mean if have to change it ALL the time

And the ones for the house are SUPER expensive

Sooooo

I went to my friends house to shower this morning..... guess I’m buying large water pails and refilling them at her house for when I have to wash my hair here

And dumb on me for not fogur by this put months ago and losing half my hair first.

I HAVE LOST HALF MY HAIR. ITS SUPER THIN. LIKE A THIRD OF WHAT IT WAS IN SEPTEMBER.

my longest couple strange are down to my butt. If I wasn’t so slow and stuper my hair could be the length I’ve wanted it to be for 20 years but no. Now it’s basically the same length it was 2 years ago cause the hair below was that point is so thin it barely counts as hair

I hate my life

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itsworn · 5 years

Text

Getting My First Mopar

Greetings, my fellow Ghoulz!

It’s that time again … I would like to open by expressing my heartfelt thanks, to everyone who takes the time to read my little articles. I have great fun writing them and most assuredly, never really have the time I’d like to devote to them, but today is different. It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I’m at the shop. The Worman family has made it a tradition, since we moved into our new location, to have Thanksgiving meals here, along with other family celebrations. I mean, why not? We have a full commercial kitchen, a killer diner area adorned in early 1970s decor, including an original, unrestored Rock-Ola 444 to spin the “Hot Wax” as the Wolfman himself would often proclaim. We even have the wonderful Graveyard Theater to amplify the feelings of the era. But, logistics aside, I can’t think of a better place to give thanks than here at the Graveyard. I not only recognize, daily, just how blessed I am, but also equally, that I’m thankful.

Now, please don’t think that because I’m feeling especially nostalgic and sentimental, or that it’s a holiday, that this article is going to be filled with doting recollections of warm times past or bromides of hopeful futures. Undoubtedly, you’ll get your fill of old-fashioned yarns spun by your favorite grandfather, filled with platitudes like “those were the days” and “you should have been there.” So, I’ll save that for the next time I’m paid a visit from the ghost of Thanksgiving past.

The Dodge Charger Part: It was the summer of 1977, and I was 14, going on 15. I had saved up my paper route money to buy a 1971 Honda CL-100 Scrambler. It was a whopping $296 at Gillette’s, a little motorcycle shop in Glenwood. I loved that little bike and so did my mom. I rode it everywhere, even to deliver papers on my three routes. Of course, I know you’re wondering how a 14- to 15-year-old kid with no driver’s license could ride a motorcycle on public highways … well, I just did. I rode alleys, back roads, behind stores, you name it. I also confess that I received my share of tickets along the way, 19 if I recall correctly, and all before I was old enough to drive.

The reason I ended up with three paper routes is the exact same reason I have a best friend named Royal Gayland Yoakum. You see, I had two paper routes near my house for quite some time, and one day I got a call from our team leader at the Eugene Register-Guard, Dave Harding, who asked me if I’d like to take on another route. I quickly accepted the offer, as I liked having money of my own to buy model cars, or for trips to 7-Eleven for Big Gulps and candy, among other things, and I didn’t mind the work because it gave me a legitimate reason to ride my Honda. Just before we hung up I asked, out of curiosity, who it was that had the route before me. Dave replied, his name is Royal, and he’ll take you on the route your first day to get you familiar with all of the houses and customers. I thought nothing of it and the following week, I met Royal for the first time.

Upon meeting Chrome Dome, I was shocked to find that he was the same age as me. I thought for sure someone with a name like Royal and the eagerness to just hand his paper route over, was bound to be old and decrepit … like 30 or something. After exchanging introductions, I found myself unable to resist asking him, “Why are you giving up your paper route, don’t you need money?” To which he took a semi-deep, relaxed breath, planted his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, blinked once, all with slow, intentional motions and replied, “I need my space, man.” And those five simple words have always best described my friend, Royal G. Yoakum.

I recall the moment I spotted the Dodge Charger that would serendipitously link me to my legacy, which is Mopar. I had gone with a buddy to the employment office in Springfield, where he was to fill out an unemployment claim, having just been laid off from a truck washing job at UPS. The employment office was located upstairs, in what now is Springfield City Hall. The library is also located upstairs. In fact, this building is all “upstairs.” It was originally built as a retail mall. It had functioning escalators, retail stores, and snack shops. Underneath was all parking. For some reason, the mall didn’t last long, before morphing into the current Gateway mall located several miles away.

When you walked up the stairs on the north side of the building, there was a small landing area, just outside the doors to the entrance. This is where I told my friend, George, I’d wait for him. Now, his first name isn’t really George; that was his middle name. But, for some reason, there were people who called him Andy and some who called him George. I don’t know why I chose to be in the latter group, but I did. His brother was a good friend of mine, Jerry. You’ve heard me tell stories about this, larger-than-life guy who befriended me and quickly became my version of Bill Brasky. That Saturday Night Live character who seems much larger and more far-fetched in death, than he ever was in life. Like in the sketch, I have many tall tales of Jerry and myself — things I witnessed and things I heard. Jerry died early in life, he was just 30, but his legend lives on in my heart.

Soon after George went into the building, I found myself leaning casually on the concrete barrister, spitting from the second floor to the steps beneath, in an attempt to tighten my pattern. It was minutes later when I looked up in a northeast direction and spotted her. It took a moment for my brain to calculate what my eyes were seeing and cross-reference the vision with my, at that time, shallow database of cars. As soon as my brain caught up, and I realized what I was seeing, I felt a sense of urgency for George, Andy, what-the-hell-ever, to get out of here so we could go check it out. I had to wait, that’s to be sure, because that’s how it works. Like watching grass grow as my dad would say. Everything takes longer if you’re in a hurry. I guess I felt like Arnie Cunningham must’ve felt when Dennis drove by Christine that fateful day. Arnie was impatient for his friend to “go back,” and I was impatient for my friend to “get out.”

In what seemed like an eternity, as the saying goes, my buddy finally made it out of the building to join me at the top of the stairs. I was pacing by the doors so as not to lose any time on garnering his attention. We walked over to my former spitting nest, and I pointed her out to him. The house was probably 500 yards away, as the crow flies. The Dodge Charger was covered in maple leaves, dirt, sap, and pretty much anything that had landed on it over the years. It hadn’t been washed in a very, very long time — three years to be exact. Not since the Charger was towed out here on a car trailer, behind a 1976 Dodge Power Wagon, from Michigan, by its owner. An owner who I was about to meet.

I remember it well, my buddy’s reaction to the Dodge Charger was much like Dennis’ reaction the first time he saw the 1958 Plymouth in Roland Lebay’s yard; in the Stephen King novel, Christine. While George didn’t come right out and call it a piece of “crap” like Dennis quipped of Arnie’s first love, he sure had no interest in checking it out. He said, “It’s a Dodge Charger, right?” I replied, “Yes, indeed, a 1970 in fact.” I was pretty proud of myself at the time for being able to call the make, model, and year. However, my prideful moment quickly transformed to make room for angst as George, in his infinite desire to constantly damper the spirits of anyone in his proximity. It didn’t really bother me as I was tempered to most of his cutting jabs, already. With some hesitance, he accompanied me on the short walk to 626 N. A Street.

The small house sat on an elevated piece of land, back from the road 40 feet, or so. I remember feeling that the house felt like a person, sitting on high and looking down on us in judgment as if to say, “What the hell do you want?!” Well, I know what I wanted, and I wasn’t leaving without knowing more. As I circled around the Dodge Charger and inspected it closely, even to rub my finger on the fender to see what color the car really was under all the muck, George sat aloof at the foot of the maple tree, smoking a cigarette, Camel, I’m sure. The same tree that had shed its organic spring coat to cleverly camouflage the car’s true color was providing shade to my miserable friend.

After looking over the old gal (that’s what guys sometimes refer to cars as) for reasons unknown, I walked up the short, steep stairs to the front porch and knocked on the wooden screen door. It took a minute or so, but I didn’t have to knock twice before I was greeted by a, shall I say, portly fellow with a large beard and an even a larger smile. He opened the screen door before he knew what I wanted and introduced himself with a handshake, “Howdy, I’m Butch (who was also the owner of the 1976 yellow Dodge Power Wagon).” At the time, I thought “Wow, this is a really cool dude, what a nice cat.” At first, I thought to myself, “Maybe he’s always this way, and if so, what a great guy to know.” Upon further reflection, he was a great guy and had a heart of gold, but, he probably also knocked on his fair share of doors in hopes of buying some discarded automotive relic, much like I did, and felt the need to, as the Bible says, “Do unto others.”

We talked for a little bit on the porch. Shortly after discussing the car, how it got here to Oregon and what his involvement with the car was, he offered to start it up. Frankly, I was shocked that he had the confidence to make that offer, considering it didn’t look like the hood of the car had been opened in at least a couple of years. Butch sat in the car, pumped the gas pedal a bunch of times and cranked her over. It didn’t fire. Then, like the shampoo commercial, he lathered, rinsed, and repeated, until it thundered to life. He had put glass packs on the car with 1971-style B-Body exhaust tips on it, and it sounded great! Oddly, it didn’t smoke or make a much-anticipated death rattle or knock, it just purred. We walked around the car for a bit as George sucked on his death sticks under the big tree, occasionally darting his eyes up to give me the “Gawd, look at ya, Worman,” look. That was his favorite, I think, just to look you up and down and invite you to “look at yourself,” with a contemptuous, judgmental pitch in his voice. “Well, whatever George, this is my day so look all you want. I’m buying her.” I thought to myself.

Butch killed the mill, we walked back to the front of the house and up the steps to the quaint porch area. We exchanged pleasantries for a moment, but I was anxious to get down to “business.” I waited for a pause in the conversation and then asked the question I had been dying to ask since I saw the car from up on the stairs at the employment office, “How much are you asking?” Now, while I was prepared to hear the worst, “Sorry, the Charger’s not for sale, kid.” I was ever hopeful that not only would it be for sale, but also that the price would land somewhere in the realm of possibility for me, but honestly, I had no idea. My robust new found friend didn’t take long; he was ready for the question and launched the answer without aim. “$475,” he exclaimed. That number rolled off his tongue with all the poised surety of a coverall-clad, used car salesman named Junior Samples, professing that you should, “Come down and have a look, I’m honest Junior Samples, if you can’t trust me, who can you trust? The stock number is BR549.”

Well, it wasn’t Junior, it was Butch and in fairness, Butch was much sharper than old Junior Samples had ever dreamed of being. Butch was a Mopar guy from the time he was 16 years old and had never stopped, at least not by the time I met him, and he was 35 years old. I extended my hand to him, shook it firmly, in classic salesman fashion and said, “Sold.” It took me over a year to wheel and deal and save the money to buy my Charger. I traded my little Honda CL-100s in on a 1968 Impala, two-door hardtop, at J.L. Morgan Motors over on South A Street where it meets Main and becomes a four-lane highway. I then traded the Impala a few months later to a guy who lived in the El Rancho trailer park, across the street from the 7-Eleven that Royal and I frequented multiple times a day. The guy had a 1972 Toyota Corona Mark II, four-door sedan. I thought a straight trade would be fair, so I made the deal. It took me a few months to get the Toyota up to where I thought I could list it in the Money Saver. The Money Saver was our family bible. As kids, we couldn’t wait for it to hit the newsstand at 7-Eleven so we could grab a copy, along with a Big Gulp, and head to my house to dream.

It took one day for the Corona to sell. I got $375 for it — not bad, considering I was in the Impala about $300 clams. This money, along with $50 I had earned from my paper route and mowing lawns, put me over the top. So, finally, I was off to visit Butch.

Look, I could drone on and on about my experience buying the car. You know, the way Chrome Dome and I hot-stepped it from 14th and E Street to 6th and North A Street in record time. Or how we wrote up the deal, Butch counting the cash while informing me, with what seemed each lick of his finger, how he bought and sold this car and that car and all of his wheeling-dealing conquests to my expressionless face. I could tell you in detail about how Royal and I drove the car to my house and how we spent the afternoon cleaning it with sponges, brushes, and an entire can of Mom’s Ajax cleaner as she dotingly looked on from the living room window. But in truth, I’ve already burned up way more than my allotted word count for this article and that part of the story deserves much more time.

In closing, I’ll leave you with this postscript to ponder. I no longer have my beautiful Charger. I haven’t seen her in almost 40 years. I hope she’s out there somewhere, alive, and that her new owner is loving her as much as I did — though I doubt that’s possible. But in truth, it’s probably gone to that great Mopar graveyard in the sky, waiting patiently for me to shuffle off this mortal coil, so that we can be at last reunited. At least that’s the way I see it.

I’ll write more about the old gal and the times I had with her. The times in my life that, at the moment, seemed like nothing extraordinary. But now, in the rearview mirror, are much great than they appeared.

I’ve been called a memory chaser, one who lives in the past, ya know. Well, maybe I am, that’s OK by me. If you’re not, that’s cool too. I just would like to say, if you come across a 1970 Dodge Charger and she’s still wearing her dog tags, check and see if there’s an XP29L0G118 still visible through the windshield, and if so, tell her I miss her.

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jessicaro-blog1 · 6 years

Text

Journal Entry #4

Dear Journal March 21, 1946

I forgot to mention the most momentous part of what life had in store with me. Right now it has been a couple of months since the war has been over and I’ve never felt so determined to return back home in Leningrad. I’m inside Vladimir's home preparing to leave with Thor right by my side. I’ll summarize what I’ve been through in over the past few years.

After I became a partisan, we heard sounds of shots. Except it was more like warning shots rather than those threatening ones where you can feel the lust of blood behind every sound. No one needed to tell us who they came from. I helped Miss Galina carry only half of the supplies that we had inside, and then stash them nearby the shed. It would be too suspicious if we hid all our supplies away and then they would know that we were really hiding something. We waited in silence and in despair. Hearing the clock tick tock away as it match the pounding in hearts as waited and waited. I got tired of waiting and ask if I can play my concertina. They glanced at each other with fear and then finally Auntie say yes. As I played I could feel the atmosphere beginning to change as I was consumed with nostalgic memories of my home in Leningrad. You can guess what happened next. Nazi commander Major Axel Recht was lured into the house by my music along with a few dozen other soldiers. Axel appeared clever and a hint of cruelty can be detected in his eyes. That’s where I met Zasha and Thor. I had the most idiotic but most gutsy stunt that I pulled out. I decided to pour my life into that performance so they can take me in and I could spy on them. It was stupid because I didn’t speak German. It was gutsy because me, a partisan, willingly decided to go neck deep within their quarters. That’s where I saw the way they were treating Zasha and Thor. One day they came running away from their trainer as he was trying to hit them with his whip. I asked Axel what the dogs were being trained for, that’s when he told me, they were going to be used to kill Russian soldiers.

I knew I had to do something. So I figured that I could help them escape and take them with me to Uncle Boris’s house. I told Petr, who was the leader of our Partisan group (in Vilnov) he denied me completely. Until we learned Josef was now being held as a prisoner, that’s when we decided on a rescue plan that included the dogs. The plan worked. I can even remember Axel’s threat that he will find us and kill us. For some reason, I never doubted his words.

When we arrived at Uncle Boris’s house, we were greeted by an old man name Taavo. He described his situation about how he and my Uncle switched lives. My Uncle, now being a nomad, visits only for only a couple weeks a year. We spent two decent years here helping around the farm and building new rooms. The crops were used to help feed the army and the new bedrooms were used to rehabilitate the soldiers who were traumatized by all the blood they have seen. The tragic part about when Uncle visits is that attracts this intrusive lady named Mrs. Chemakova who is in love with Zasha. She was waiting for her to get pregnant so she can have one of her babies (but for God’s sake, I would never give her one). Thanks to her and her loud mouth she spilled our exact location to the exact man we didn’t want to know. Yes, you guessed it. It was Axel. The same day that she informed this to us, I heard my name being filtered through bloodshot scream coming from Petr.

I found both of them fighting. I tried to help but when I saw a chance to escape with Zasha or to help Petr, I decided to stay. Just so I can be knocked out unconscious. When I woke up, I felt dizzy and my body felt so sore because of Axel’s attacks. To my happiness but also to my dismay, I saw only Thor. I tried looking for them with Thor but to cover all these acres and acres of wilderness by ourselves would be too much for a single teenage a boy and a dog. So I had to walk all the way to Vladimir’s house so I can contact the rest of my friends, which took almost the whole day to travel. That's when our search began. After hours and hours of searching for them. We found Axel lying down by a river bank. If he was in this condition then that meant that Petr was in an even worse condition and matters didn’t help when I remembered that Zasha was pregnant. We had to call the search off so we can turn in Axel into the authorities.

Just when the war was over, something just had to go wrong. Now I’m here with Thor, packing my stuff away in my suitcase. Only time will tell if those two are alive. But only God has that kind of time, with Petr’s open wound, he wouldn’t last. I blame myself for being too weak for not being able to protect them. At least I had Thor. Whose smell and fur consoled my miserable tears that yearned for Zasha.

Yours Truly,

Ivan Savicheva

P.S: Mom if you are reading this. I’ll be waiting for you at home. Love you.

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visitationrpg · 6 years

Photo

Congratulations, LOTTIE! You have been accepted for the role of Sofia Dixon. You have 24 HOURS to send in your account, and don’t forget to look over the CHECKLIST!

Note from Admin Sidney: This app was really one of my favorites, Lottie! Sofia has always been my baby, and I was really excited to see this vague idea of a girl surrounded by things she’s supposed to be, but still, she chooses her own path. And you understood that so well. I’m so excited to see her on the dash!

Welcome to Visitation!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME/ALIAS: Lottie

PRONOUNS: she/her/they/them

AGE: 23

TIMEZONE: Eastern

ANYTHING ELSE? One time, [REDACTED] told me she had a [REDACTED] [REDACTED]

IN CHARACTER:

WANTED SKELETON: Sofia Dixon

GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis woman, she/her

BIOGRAPHY:

Everything that anyone thinks they know about Sofia Dixon can be summed up by a couple of sentences and a few citations on her mother’s Wikipedia page. Her whole family history is spelled out there in unfeeling black and white. This is where her mother was born, these are her mother’s parents, this is where her mother went to school. This is when she signed her first record label. This is when she received a Grammy. And then, tragically, abruptly, this is how she died. “Debbie Dixon,” the page reads near the end, “died on November 15, 1995 at the age of 27, due to complications during labor and after giving birth to her only daughter.” Above all that there is a list of accomplishments, a series of various awards, a picture of Debbie Dixon smiling, radiating a kind of demure happiness that Sofia has only ever been able to find the shadow of when she looks in a mirror.

In comparison, Sofia’s own Wikipedia page features very little information, stating only that she currently attends Reed College where she helps produce a low budget youtube series by the name of Visitation. She also has her own channel with a modest following where she’ll post the occasional remix or mashup, but the channel isn’t associated with her real name. There are no accomplishments listed, there are no awards. There is no picture where she smiles like she is exactly where she wants to be. Since her mother’s death 23 years ago, the media has largely turned its eyes away from the Dixon family, especially when, as she grew older, Sofia never showed any interest in following up her mother’s legacy. Now, only Debbie Dixon’s most committed fans recognize who Sofia is. This is how Sofia would prefer it to remain.

Similarly, her father has always been a reserved, if not a very sweet and gentle, sort of man. He was never made to shine like Debbie was, more to reflect the warmth and light of those around him. After his wife’s death, he would have gone as dim and hollow as a used-up lightbulb if it weren’t for the fact that he was tasked with raising Sofia on his own. It was a close thing too, though not many outside the family know of this fact. When Debbie was in her hospital bed, already fading, Sofia came into the world quiet, her lungs filled with liquid. It was then that Sofia’s father learned the terrifying nature of silence, and even years later, when the danger had passed, he never did feel comfortable in the stillness of quiet moments. Sofia grew up in a house filled with music, with her mother’s voice crooning through the echoing halls. Throughout Sofia’s childhood her mother was a presence made up of the aching absence she had left behind, and to this day, Sofia can’t help but resent the distorted facsimile of her mother that the world pushes on her, demanding that she replicate Debbie Dixon’s nostalgia. It’s why she keeps any time in front of a camera to a minimum when she’s working on Visitation. The one hope that she has for the project is that it become so big, that when people associate her with anything it will be this, something so removed from her mother’s work that people will finally stop comparing her to a woman she’s never even met.

ANYTHING ELSE? This section is optional, but feel free to put any extra headcanons or writing/musing here!

- The monolith of her mother’s shadow means that Sofia has never been one to sing in public. She avoids the very idea of it, though that never stopped well-meaning teachers and tutors pushing her to join school choirs or attend talent shows. Even her father encouraged it until he saw how miserable the prospect made her, then he’d get that sad, longing look in his eyes that never really fully receded, and Sofia would feel the bitter guilt weigh heavy on her shoulders. He’d say he wasn’t disappointed, that he just wanted her to be happy—and maybe that was partially true—but what he really wanted, she was sure, was a daughter who could shine in the exact same way as her mother did, so that he could know part of her lived on. But Sofia can’t stand the thought of being a symbol or a vehicle for her dead mother’s memory. She just wants to be Sofia. And even still, when she’s alone, she’ll start to hum, and a feeling in her chest will grow, like some wild animal trying to escape a cage, and the voice that leaves her throat frightens her because it sounds like someone else’s.

- Thea was a distraction at first, someone that Sofia could get lost in because she was so unlike anyone she’d ever met before. Well, really, she’d met people like Thea before, but she was the first one Sofia had actually gotten to know instead of immediately dismissing her as a shallow socialite. Growing up the daughter to a famous musician, Sofia had had her fair share of encounters with spoiled kids who had their parents’ credit card numbers memorized, and Sofia had never imagined there’d come a day when she’d fall in love with one. She also never imagined that she’d be the one left feeling fractured and incomplete, crying openly under a mountain of blankets in her bedroom, by the end of their relationship, but life is apparently filled with surprises.

Also, here’s a shitty youtube playlist I threw together of songs Sofia probably likes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWigCggVv2Y&list=PLaZ8O2c-5vTo9YC2TeC8LrimzzNwBTw2U

QUESTIONNAIRE:

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE PARANORMAL?

She sighed, running a hand through her hair and looking off to the side. “When I was a kid, my dad used to… coincidentally find himself in the company of a lot of people who claimed to be psychics.” Her tone made it clear that whatever circumstances her father had found himself in with these people, she didn’t believe any of it had been coincidence. “He’d come home, and he’d be crying because they’d say things about how my mom was still here, in her own way, and that she loved him. One woman even claimed my mom was standing right behind him.” She paused. Her lips turned pale and thin as she pressed them together. “After that, when he thought I wasn’t there, I’d hear him talking to her. Having whole conversations with her.” A harsh breath suddenly left her as if it had been punched out of her and she laughed, shaking her head. “He never moved on. Never even tried to. I guess some people think that’s romantic. But the truth is, no one ever let him move on. All these psychics came to him and played on a weakness they could exploit until all he could think about was her ghost following him around.”

Finally, she turned back to stare directly at the question asker. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know if ghosts exist or not. Science usually has a pretty hard time proving a negative. But I do know the culture surrounding the paranormal is filled with exploitative bullshit, and if I have a chance to shed some light on that, then I will.”

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A PARANORMAL ENCOUNTER?

Sofia closes her eyes, remembers the feeling in her chest that fills her when she sings, like something reaching out of the chasm in her rib cage, sliding up her throat, trying to make itself known. She remembers that even though she is always alone when she sings, she never feels like the room is empty.

Sofia opens her eyes. “Not personally, no.”

IF YES, DID SAID ENCOUNTER CHANGE YOUR VIEWS ON THE PARANORMAL?

“Sometimes when I look at you, it feels like she’s staring back at me,” her father says, smiling from the driver’s side of the car. He isn’t looking at her now, which is a small mercy. He stares ahead of them at the forever-distant skyline. Sofia feels like she’s going to be sick, pretends it’s brought on by long hours on the road.

“But she’s not,” Sofia mutters back, tries to make herself sink into the passenger seat.

“There’s so much of her in you,” he insists. Sofia reaches down and pulls the lever that makes her seat go all the way back so that she’s staring up at the roof of the car.

“I’m taking a nap.” The rest of the trip is blissfully quiet except for the radio that plays no louder than a whisper.

IF NO, WHY NOT?

“Sometimes I feel like you hate her.” They’re in the kitchen, making dinner, and the smile falls off Sofia’s face, like it always does when her father tries to have this conversation with her.

“I don’t.” Her tone is crisp, clipped. She turns her back to him and goes back to stirring the sauce.

“She would have—” He stops himself. She can hear the emotion welling in his throat. An icy, numb feeling starts to spread throughout Sofia’s body. “She loves you so much. She wanted to be here to see you grow up.”

“Dad,” the word is spoken like a plea. How many times will they say these words before it’s enough? When are they allowed to be people separated from the tragedy of Debbie Dixon?

“I wish you’d known her.” He is so quiet now.

“Yeah.” She sighs. “Me too.”

The ghost of her mother lingers, never so far out of reach as to be ignored.

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