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throughthenotes · 3 years

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Bowling w/ @AMindfulChaos @ALoverOfDreams & @InspiredAdams

Jaiden:

Just one or do you want a pitcher? <Beer. Talking about your traditions, it was nothing for Rainey and I to put a large pizza, nachos and a few pitchers of beer away while bowling in our day. It was the one thing she had insisted on once we found ourselves aged out of the system. She called it our one day of the week that we could look forward to for years and the old pastime had quickly became a favorite to us both. The problem was ever since my run in with gallery guru as she had come to call him, I had been laying low when it came to my partaking in any substance. Drinking mostly. Apparently, my issues tended to turn into a variety of problems that only people with policing authority could handle and wasn't that just the bitch of it all. "Actually, how about a Pepsi."> Rainey.. <That earned her a look. "What? I just don't feel like drinking any tonight." Right. Shaking my head, I took a turn towards the concession and headed there while Rainey set up our game. The half hearted glare she had given me in return, earned herself a chuckle of recognition. I knew why she wasn't drinking. Not that my sister was a lush or anything but beer and bowling, normally went hand in hand. Shrugging it off though and having to grab a bowling ball on the way back, I finally made it up there to look over the menu, even though it didn't take me long to figure out what I would be ordering. It was almost always the same. However, my thoughts were suddenly stolen from me because of the lovely brunette directly in front of me in line. You would have to be blind not to notice her but even with that, it would still be a poor excuse. That's when it hit me. What was I thinking? She has be here with someone. Another friend maybe. Seeing not another soul around on half price Wednesday night, I finally spoke up when you seemed to be lost in menu land.> Do you normally bowl by yourself? <So it wasn't the greatest ice breaker but my first impression wasn't a total loss I hoped when I flashed her that crooked grin.>

Camryn:

{I had fully intended to lock myself in my room and binge trash TV with a boatload of munchies. But @InspiredAdams wasn’t having any of that. He was insistent that we do something “outside of the house.” I held out for a long time. But then he promised me one of those ooey gooey cheese pizzas they had down at the bowling alley. And that sounded way better than the stuff laying around the house. Especially since we were down to slim pickings as we approached grocery day. As soon as we were inside, I left him to figure out all the technicalities while I made a beeline for the snack bar. The question was just pizza? Or did I want some wings too? Nachos? Oh, they had sliders too… Suddenly I was pulled from my decision making from a voice behind me. I spun around, intending to lie and say I was here with my boyfriend. It wouldn’t be the first time I had forced Chris to play the boyfriend role to save me from some random. Then he offered me that crooked grin, and my heart did a little flip} Oh, I’m not alone. {the look on your face told me you were assuming, and my eyes flew open a little wider} Brother! {jerks my thumb over my shoulder in the direction that I had left him} I’m here with my brother. {smiles, glancing around now for anyone that looked like they were with you} What about you? Are you here alone? {cringes internally at how hopeful that sounded}

Jaiden:

I'm not alone. I mean if you count us both, we're here together. [Chuckling low, I glanced in the direction you looked before turning my gaze back to yours. My grin only growing wider at the mention of a sibling because what were the chances of you believing me when I told you it was the same for me.> That was a joke. I'm here with my sister. <Not a joke. It couldn't be if it were true and we very much were not alone. Those kind eyes of mine, won you over then when you smiled my way, letting me off the hook only to have it falter when the clearing of throats could be heard. "You ordering, hun?" Arching a playful brow, I point up at the menu you had been looking at only moments ago.> They are waiting on you. The pizza is good and so are the nachos. My sister likes them.

Camryn:

{I wasn’t ready to stop talking to you. And I had just opened my mouth to ask if it was an older sister or younger when I heard the cashier asking for my order. My cheeks instantly flushing as I let out a laugh at myself and turned to her} Oh, geez. I’m so sorry. {flashes her a bright smile before beginning} Um, a pepperoni pizza, please? And a pitcher of Pepsi? {glances over my shoulder at you, taking that nacho recommendation to heart} Oh, and some nachos too please? {I quickly paid her, and stepped out of your way, off to the side where she told me to wait for my order to be ready.}

Jaiden:

<"Same for you?" I actually laughed, shaking my head out of my thoughts at the order you had already placed.> The Thomas special. <I knew you were watching on. The fact that we spent that much time here wasn't lost on me or you for that matter when asked for my own order. It was our usual and I paid accordingly once she rang me up. Receipt now in hand, I casually slipped it into my pocket and walked over to wait beside you when our pitchers of Pepsi were set down in front of us.] They will put the rest on a tray and bring it out.

Can I walk you back to your lane? <I didn't want to part ways just yet. Besides, I still needed to get your number and when you offered me that smile again with a touch of a soft nod, I held my arm out for you to hook your arm around. Leading the way, carrying your soda for you, we reached our fork in the road so to speak, and I cleared my throat before addressing the situation we found ourselves in. Again.] I guess the question now is are you seeking out lust or looking for love? [Can't help but smirk when I look you way now.]

Camryn:

{pops my brows at mention of the Thomas Special. Wondering if Thomas was the first or the last name. Then it dawned on me that it meant you came here a lot if you had them knowing your order so well. And I smirked to myself. Suddenly I was very interested in bowling more often. Chris was going to be either really pleased, or wishing he had never made me come out tonight. Then you were standing next to me again. I didn’t even have the ability to care how lost I seemed because all I could think about was how good you smelled. If Ed or Chris were here they would be rolling their eyes and accusing me of already mentally doodling our names in a notebook. That’s…if I knew your name at least. Thomas though! I knew Thomas! Then you asked to walk me to the lane and I probably agreed way too easily. But it was such a cute offer. And you were hot so…} Umm…? {Your question had caught me off guard. Both is a bad answer right? I laughed nervously because I had half a mind to be really honest and tell you that it was both. But I also knew that was going to only get me in trouble. So I said what I hoped wasn’t going to scare you off} Honestly? I would love to be in love. I write a lot of songs about it. But, yeah, actually experiencing it would be…cool. {cringe number two of the night. I needed a better vocabulary}

Jaiden:

Love it is then. <With a soft tug of my arm and a wink, I began the short walk with you down to the LOVE side of the lanes, pointing it out on the wall with a kick of my chin in that direction.> Does this look familiar now? <I knew in asking that you could have taken it literal, and began looking for your brother, or you could have taken it all the way back to my original question itself. For whatever the reason, I chose to stay in that space and ask the question that had been dancing to get out since you said you had never experienced being in love before. My desire to know more about these songs was fueled by your same statement as well.> Never. Not even a guy in high school? <You have to at least be in college, right? There was no way around it and you really hadn't offered that up yet either. So I took the plunge and spoke up with a grin.> What name could I find these songs under if you don't mind me asking. You already know my last name is Thomas.

Camryn:

{I had to stop myself from facepalming when I saw the big letters written on the wall. But before I could turn too red with embarrassment at my awkwardness, you redirected my mind with your next question} No. Most of the boys in high school were too scared of my brother. {CRINGE! Why would I say that? Now you were really gonna run. But rather than make things better, I did what I always do and just kept talking. Making it worse, I’m sure.} He had a little bit of a temper and… {Trails off as I finally manage to stop myself from rambling, and clears my throat} Nothing has been released, released. I mean, I have a Youtube. Camryn Adams. {smiles} But you can call me Cammy.

Jaiden:

Ah, an older brother. <With a temper no less. This was getting better by the second. Was it possible I was walking towards that sense of impending doom? Or would I be spared of your brother's wrath upon his first impression of me. Fuck... Glancing back over my shoulder, I look Jaiden Thomas. Trust me when I say, I'm still going to check out that Youtube. <Flashing that crooked grin again, I pulled you closer to me by that hook of my arm you had.> You want to head back the other way?

Camryn:

{my eyes had scanned all the lanes close to LOVE, and I hadn’t spotted Chris. I guess I should’ve waited long enough to figure out where he was going before I went to the snack bar. But then, if I had done that, I might have missed you. Giving one last scan, I nodded my head} Hmm…yeah, I don’t see Chris anywhere. Maybe I should’ve known he wouldn’t have gone this far. {laughs more to myself than anything, relief flooding my body that you hadn’t dropped my arm the second you heard about my brother} Oh! There he is! {lifting a finger, I pointed to him before pulling you to stop for a second} But if you contact me through my Youtube…I might mistake you for a weirdo that wants pictures of my feet and not answer…

Jaiden:

Do you want me to contact you again, Cammy? <It was only a quick glance in the direction you pointed, your brother not that far from where @ALoverOfDreams was before I turned my attention back to you and that death grip you were suddenly imposing on my arm. Smirking at first, I welcomed how forward you appeared to be, going for gold as it were only to be cut short with the rest of that final thought. Yeah, the second you said feet, I knew I pulled a face. It would have been smart of me to pause when you held me back by that arm of mine but I couldn't stop the chuckle if I wanted to. You laughed at the expression on my face, and nervous or not, I leaned in to whisper against your ear, unbeknownst to me that @InspiredAdams was about to make his presence known just in time to see you cozying up to yours truly.> How about you give me your number and I'll text you. That way you have my cell too.

Camryn:

{Flushes instantly at your first question. I was making a ton of assumptions, and I knew it. But I really liked you already and it just happened. Then you leaned in and whispered and my stomach filled with butterflies, causing me to completely forget about the proximity of @InspiredAdams, already reaching for my phone in my back pocket to hold it out to you} Here, text yourself with my phone.

Jaiden:

Sure thing, beautiful. <And just like in the movies, it really was that simple. You had been getting your phone out when I heard a shuffling of feet and yours of course, came to a full stop when I heard the clearing of a throat next. "Cammy, this guy bothering you?"> Who, me? <It was your brother. There was no way it was anyone else and from the way you had spoken, I believed this wasn't a normal thing for you. Bowling that was.> She's fine. Just giving her my number. You mind holding this? <I didn't give @InspiredAdams a chance to really reply. Instead I simply handed the pitcher of Pepsi over so I could take your phone from you. All the while your other arm was still hooked around mine as I plugged my number in, quick to snap a pic of us together while your brother watched on and waited for you to introduce us.>

Chris:

What the hell is taking her so long? [I glanced toward the snack bar and didn’t see @ThroughTheNotes over there anymore. Then I finally saw her coming toward me. But she wasn’t alone. Immediately I was on my feet and making my way over to her. She was way too fucking nice for her own good. And I was fully prepared to pull out whatever card I needed to make him get lost] Cammy, this guy bothering you? [He barely looked at me when he answered with that, “Who, me?” And my brow shot up as I was handed a pitcher of soda, looking between @ThroughTheNotes and @AMindfulChaos.] Camryn, who is this? Do you know him?

Rainey:

(I must have entered @AMindfulChaos's name three times before the electric scorecard saved it. The final time, I changed the spelling to L O S E R and would you look at that, it set up the sheet no problem. Laughing quietly to myself, I hadn't heard the gentleman walk up until he asked me if I needed assistance. Politely declining his invitation to join him when I explained I wasn't alone, he didn't seem to take the hint until I held up my hand, sporting a gold band. The fact that it was found inside the bowling bag of one "Fred from Kentucky" and after many, many failed attempts to locate its previous owner, Fred from Kentucky had been born. Thinking back to the day that I found it, I remembered the crap Jaiden had given me over the name. "Fred the blue ball. Do you hear yourself, Rainey?" We had a good laugh about it but it worked seeing how Fred always came through for me from that day forward. Smiling now too, I waited to look up until the guy had made his exit to return to his own lane, taking a gander around the bowling alley in search of my brother. It wasn't like Jaiden to take a stroll, always one to come right back anytime we were here, I furrowed my brows when the snack bar attendant showed up with our food. It was only after further inspection though I realized it wasn't ours and I got up to go in search of you, heading back up to the bar to let them know our order was wrong in the process when I spot you with a girl. And a guy... Feeling that pit in my stomach already, I started to head towards you all instead. Our food long forgotten as worry started to set in.)

Camryn:

{squints my eyes at @InspiredAdams in warning. He was NOT going to scare this one away. And I hoped he was picking up on my unspoken message as we stared at each other. Until you held up the phone and I smiled for the picture before finally speaking} I do now. Chris, this is Jaiden. Jaiden, this is my totally going to not be a jerk brother, Chris.

Jaiden:

<Chuckling, I waited until I handed the cell back to you before I extended my hand.> Nice to meet you ... <Not a jerk Chris almost flew out of my mouth when I happen to see Rainey heading our way on a mission. Her purpose plain as day the closer she got and I mumbled "Shit.." under my breath. The last thing I needed was this guy on my ass about you but to do it in front of Rainey, well I wouldn't live it down if I got us kicked out of our favorite home away from home. Not to mention, it was your brother.> ... Chris. She was alone so I offered to escort her back to her lane. I plan on asking her out soon too. <What the hell was I saying? This was suppose to make it better, right? Laying out my intentions. Rainey always said it was the best policy to be honest so why stop now.> I was just on my way back. <Looking to @ALoverOfDreams as I spoke, that last part was meant for her when I finally cleared my throat, only taking the moment to introduce my sister to @ThroughTheNotes, purposely.> Cammy, this is Rainey.

Chris:

[I kept my eyes on Cammy as she gave me her damn looks. And continued to stare at her when she introduced me as her “not gonna be a jerk brother, Chris.” Then @AMindfulChaos said that bit about asking her out that had my eyes finally flicking over to him, really assessing him now as I firmly shook his hand. He looked like he could be another clown in the business Cammy played around in} Are you an artist too? {I smirked because I was out of slapping range of Cammy. But then we were joined by another person which left my question unanswered. But one look at her and I wasn’t too bothered to hear the answer anymore. If this was his sister, maybe I could keep an eye on him if it meant she stuck around…]

Rainey:

It's nice to meet you, Cammy. (My gaze darted between @ThroughTheNotes and Jaiden, seeing her arm still wrapped around my brother's like her life depended on it until I saw him shaking hands with the other guy privy to our little gathering here. The gesture between the two was older than dirt and more so added to complement the giving of your word on something. I could read body language pretty well though. The guy didn't seem to thrilled about Jaiden escorting her back but all that changed the second he looked back over his shoulder at me.) He boxes. I mean, boxing. Like bowling. I mean it's not like bowling per say but it'ssss a sport. (Damn it. Not now... My smile was small as I gave Jaiden a look of my own. If he wasn't going to tell him, I was.) That is if you consider kicking ass an art form.. (Maybe I wasn't so good at ice breakers either. Being met with utter silence was clue number one. Not even crickets as the four of us stood there as if we were in a stalemate. Only I wasn't going to allow that.) Would you guys like to join us for a game? Or maybe you two would like to play your own? Oh I know, teams!

Camryn:

{smiles brightly at Rainey when she addresses me. Then squeezes Jaiden’s arm at the mention of his being a boxer. Should I point out the obvious to Chris that they had something in common? That could be good? Or maybe very bad… Before I made up my mind, the silence was broken again, and I jumped on it} Yes! Chris! We would love to. {nods}

Jaiden:

<Fantastic. Can't wait. Those were just a couple of options for answers to that ever popular question my sister asked and as I felt you give my arm a second squeeze, your brother's gaze sizing me up once again caught my attention after Rainey had let the cat out of the bag.> I do good for being fairly new to the sport. I get by. <Giving another nod of my head, I wink and start to walk with you as Rainey leads the way, speaking loud enough for Chris to hear me.> So you want to play against me, Cammy or with me? I could show you a few things too.

Chris:

[Boxing. So, he wasn’t a clown in her business. He was one that dabbled in mine. Now I was assessing him in a whole new light. Cammy was in for an earful on the way home. I’d seen how fucking cocky some of those guys could be… “I do good for being fairly new to the sport.” Cue my brows shooting up again. Maybe not too cocky… “I could show you a few things too.” Nope. There it was. I opened my mouth to bite back on that bullshit only to have Cammy fucking kick me. I let out a grunt and glared at her as she shook her head at me. It was clear I wasn’t getting her away from him tonight. So now, I needed to make the best of it. With a smirk, I spoke up again, bruised shin be damned] Cammy doesn’t need to learn anything new. And the Adams are better as a team.

Rainey:

Family first always. You guys like pepperoni pizza? We have plenty! (Yep. Making lemonade shouldn't be too hard with the lemons this bunch was carrying. Trying to make light of the tension that seemed to shift into second gear and right on into third when I reached our lane, I didn't even look in the direction of the guy from earlier as we passed him. Opting to stop at our scorecard to enter in your names instead as I see Jaiden assist Cammy with finding her ball.) Chris (Lifting my gaze to yours, I smile, before continuing on.) With a "C" or "K"?

Chris:

[Clearly I was speaking French. And this guy wasn’t the least bit deterred by me. As I watched the two of them picking out balls, I was redirected by my name being called. My gaze catching with @ALoverOfDreams’ and grinning crookedly at that smile. disappointment, but did my best to hide it]

Rainey:

That's right. Like the rain but with an EY at the end. (Don't ramble. Don't you do it! Telling myself that should have worked but I wasn't so sure it was going to. Not when I saw that crooked grin of yours.) It's okay, they seem distracted. (Taking your hand when you offered it right away, I gave it a light squeeze, my smile growing kinder by the second. That was until I followed your slight change in direction with your eyes down to our clasped hands. Oh no! How was I going to explain this? And even better, the follow up question to that, was were you going to believe me?) Fred from Kentucky.. (That questioning brow lift you gave had me laughing nervously as I started to explain it, still holding your hand until I realized it and I let your hand slip free suddenly. The game hot potato had nothing on me.) My fake husband. I use the ring to keep creepers away. Like the guy we walked by? (Fighting the internal groan won out over hiding the heat that seemed to rise on my cheeks at how close you were and I broke my gaze away from yours so I could finish putting your names in.) Do you guys bowl a lot? I don't think I've seen you here before.

Chris:

[Fred. From Kentucky. At first, I thought you were trying to tell me you were in a long distance marriage. But then the pieces of the puzzle started to fall together. And oddly enough, when you mentioned a creeper, I felt that same protective instinct I had a few minutes ago bubbling up again. But this time it was about you and not her. Apparently he had felt the weight of my stare. Because he looked over just in time to lock eyes with me in a stare down I wasn’t going to lose. And I smirked when he were out of my mouth] I wonder if I could convince Cammy to get a Fred from Kentucky… [just as quickly as I said it, I realized that was probably offensive to you seeing as how the current dude was your brother. And I mumbled out.] Sorry… [looks up at the screen where our names finally popped up, welcoming the chance to ignore my little outburst] We used to bowl a lot with our pops. He was on a league. But after ma passed, he became a bit of a hermit. [jerks my thumb over my shoulder in Cammy’s direction] She’s been in a funk lately. So I thought I’d pull her away from the Netflix and out into society again that doesn’t involve the shitheads that she dances with.

Rainey:

Oh, I don't know about that. Fred is a good man, he works hard for his family. A very upstanding and loyal guy too. I wouldn't have married him if he was a cheater. (Teasing a little, I gave your arm a soft nudge but only after spying your stare down that bounced between Jaiden and Mr. Creepy, himself. Waiting until your gaze finally met mine again and I nodded softly as I spoke.) You two have more in common than you think. Jaiden is just as protective of me as you are of her. (My voice took on a softer tone then but didn't lack in conviction as I spoke about my brother. He was the only family I had left. I loved him.) I know you just met me...us really but Jaiden is a good guy, he just has some issues sometimes controlling himself when people are assholes too. (Taking a moment, I looked behind you to see them standing there a ways back, bowling balls in hand and lost in their own conversation. My smile widening further when they start to make their way back over to us and I'm quick with my own curiosity taking center stage for a second as I added to the "story". Only this time, it included you..) So was your wife busy tonight too?

Chris:

[I wanted to take you at your word about Jaiden. But it wasn’t that simple for me. I’d seen her go through too much shit with her overly trusting heart. What if he had a hidden shitty guy side that you weren’t privy to as his sister? Still, I didn’t hate the protective side you hinted at. As long as his aggressions didn’t ever turn toward Cammy. The thought alone causing me to tense up for a second before blowing out a calming breath. Your question causing my eyes to snap back to you in utter shock] Me? Wife? [shakes my head with a chuckle] No. There is no Francesca from Kentucky. Real or fabricated.

Jaiden:

<There's a first time for everything right? As sayings went that one there was a great indication that I was pulling double duty, while trying to appear cool about it, and was failing miserably at that. It was the first time I not only had tried to keep my eyes on Rainey but then there was you, and that pull to let my gaze linger on your beautiful face was just too great.> I apologize. I don't normally leave her for this long. <And therein lies the dilemma. There was the asshole that was in here every time we were that constantly hit on my sister too that was a factor. So the protective streak kept hopping the rails like a train would, the direction it sought suddenly flipped like a switch and damn if that didn't make me feel exposed for all of 60 seconds too long. In fact, it put me downright on edge. I had a feeling you could sense it too because suddenly I was met with a pair of the kindest eyes I had ever seen and I braved that grin for you. Having found the right size ball, our trip back over to our lane was met with one last pitstop and that was to ask for a fresh pie and pitcher to be brought over, the clerk letting me know it would be on the house for the mix up anyway.> Be honest, are you any good? <Chuckling, I take the ball from you to carry as we head back that way. The sight of your brother sitting so close to Rainey causing me to pop my neck and grin over at you.> At the game. Any family secrets I should know about?

Camryn:

{I could sense the anxious energy rolling off of you. And after a few seconds of watching your eyes flick back over to your sister, I recognized that same brotherly protectiveness that Chris sported most of the time. Which honestly, made me like you even to her, but I knew if I were talking to Chris, that wouldn’t have comforted him either. So I stopped myself, instead just following your lead first to the snack bar and then back toward the lane} I used to be decent. {glances over at you with a smile} Our papa was on a league and he used to take us bowling a lot. But I haven’t been for a long time. So I might be a little rusty.

Jaiden:

Rusty or not, it's cool that your family use to bring you. Rainey and I went once before when we were kids but it wasn't until we left the system that our love for it really took off.<Too much, too soon? I didn't think so. The way I looked at it if you weren't interested after that then I knew where you stood. Something told me though that wouldn't be the case as I gazed into your eyes.> Does your Dad not bowl anymore? You said was.. <Which led me to believe something happened or he would have been here today. Still holding your gaze, I stopped just a few feet away from the lane. Close enough to hear your brother start to clear his throat and I motioned for you to go on.> He can wait.

Camryn:

{my curiosity was piqued by your statement. But then you were asking me about papa. And I didn’t know which way to go. With a laugh, I decided to tell you just that} First, I want you to know I’m very curious about your past now. {smiles} I hope you’ll share with me whenever you feel comfortable? And papa is still around. He just… {makes a face} I don’t know how to explain it. He’s different. After mama passed, he stopped leaving the house. We go over there a lot to make sure he’s okay. But he doesn’t like to come out, he stopped working on cars with Chris… It’s almost like he died in a way too. {sighs} I’m sorry. That’s super depressing.

Jaiden:

No, I'm sorry that happened with him. Sometimes things happen to people and they just don't come back the same. <My eyes flickered briefly over to Rainey as I said it, hearing her laugh at something your brother said and I offered you an apologetic look when I turned back, adding a crooked grin into the mix.> I am glad you told me for what it's worth. As for me, I'm an open book. You can ask me anything.

Camryn:

{laughs with a shake of my head} Oh, Jaiden. You shouldn’t have said that to me. Watch this… {pulls you over to where Chris and Rainey are sitting and taps Chris on the shoulder} Hey, Chris? What would you do if… {laughs hard and looks at you again when he groans instantly} See? I ask TOO many questions. And it annoys some people. {sticks my tongue out at Chris}

Jaiden:

Yeah but I'm not some people. I'm Jaiden. <Taking a moment to watch the exchange between you two, I chuckle and shake my head. There was no question you were siblings and as I looked over to Rainey, I kicked my chin up next, our secret signal as if to ask if everything was okay. When she gave me that kind smile of hers in return, I felt the tension leave my shoulders a bit and took a glance up at the scorecard, ready to start our game. As I looked up to see who was going first I see the name LOSER in the spot where mine normally went and my eyes narrowed playfully in my sister's direction.> Cute, Rainey. I'm on your team, remember?

Chris:

[“What would you do if…” Those words meant Cammy was about to unleash a million hypothetical questions on you. And I couldn’t help but groan the second I heard them. I didn’t even care that she was setting me up to prove something to Jaiden if it meant I didn’t actually have to go down that path. But it was my turn to laugh when I realized Rainey had put his name down as loser] I like the odds already. [shoots Rainey a wink]

Rainey:

(There was no Francesca. At least not from Kentucky and not real either. That meant no girlfriend and no wife. Suddenly, I found myself smiling wider at that little known fact now and started to say something moronic like, "That's really great!" when it hit me out of nowhere. Just because there was no Francesca didn't mean there wasn't the possibility of a Fred for you too. I felt silly then for my assumption at first, thinking I read your body language all wrong and was about to ask if there was a Fred instead when both of our teammates showed up. Our conversation cut short.) There you guys are! (It was then that I moved to sit on my knees and address them both, only to be reminded that it was moments ago that it had been just us planning to play, and not teams with new friends.) It was before I asked them. Give me a break. (My tone was teasing even when you give me that wink and I mouthed a quick "Sorry." to my brother. Our fresh pizza and Pepsi arriving then too.) I'm up first! (Gathering up my ball, I took to our lane after thanking the server for bringing our food, making sure Jaiden tipped before I moved to the middle diamond, marking my spot with the tip of my shoe, seeing my shot right as I take it and I come back after rolling a spare. Not bad! Now, it was game on.)

Camryn:

{rolls my eyes at my brother’s cheesy remark, grabbing a piece of pizza instantly. It was, after all, the thing that had convinced me to come in the first place, and taking a seat on one of the chairs off to the side of the lane as I watch Rainey take her for my overprotective brother}

Jaiden:

<I probably sat there and watched the whole thing unfold before me for a good ten minutes. Long enough for your brother to damn near trip over his tongue with the way it rolled out like some damn cartoon with wolf eyes. Only my sister wasn't Jessica Fucking Rabbit. It was payback for the way I had handed the pitcher over and seeing the both of them interact as they were, Rainey all smiles more so than normal, I had to wonder just exactly what your brother's story was, and yours too.> Is it good? The pizza? Best in all the state as far as bowling alley food goes. Not to mention, they serve Pepsi. Speaking of which, do you want? <Chuckling, I got up while you took a bite of pizza to grab us both a cup. The soft nod you gave me as you brought your hand up to cover your mouth was adorable and I poured us some of the tasty beverage, handing you the cup as our siblings became lost in their own conversation, with your brother finally getting up to take his shot when I clear my throat loudly as if to say some time today..> So I'm curious about something. What are you going to tell your boyfriend about me taking you out? <Sitting down beside you now, I ran my arm along the back of your chair, the action causing you to scoot in closer to my side and I take a drink, grinning over at you.>

Camryn:

{Mama always told me to take my time when I’m eating. Especially around boys. It’s not lady like to stuff your face like you haven’t eaten for a week. I never listened to mama. And this pizza was exactly what I wanted. So when you asked me if I wanted some Pepsi, all I could do was nod. Luckily I had managed to swallow and hadn’t taken a sip of my soda yet when you asked that. My eyes automatically darting to my brother because of how he’s covered for me in the past before returning to yours} There is no boyfriend to speak of. {smiles} What about your girlfriend. Will she be mad at me for sitting this close?

Jaiden:

No girlfriend. You know I had to ask with you being so beautiful and all. So what is it that you do? You working anywhere or go to school? <Taking another drink, I watched as you did the same, this unspoken conversation we were having with our eyes was just an added bonus when I bring my free hand up to tuck a loose strand of your hair behind your ear.> Your brother have a job? <I didn't see anything wrong with asking that. Doing a bit of recon work myself, I wanted to know what I had to look forward to in the likes of your brother suddenly hanging around too. I wasn't about to let anyone hurt Rainey.> He got a girl?

Camryn:

{takes my time with my next sip, only popping my brows in response first. If you spent any time around me, you would quickly recognize the tells that I was about to tease you} Hmm…were you thinking about asking him out too? {smiles wide at you. I knew what you were doing. And I didn’t blame you. But I had to tease. Had to. Finally letting a laugh out, I answered you} I am a Laker Girl. {smiles proudly} I’ve worked for it all my life. And my ex ALMOST screwed it up for me. But I made it. I also do a lot of acting and singing. I’m a born entertainer. I’m also in school. It’s one of the requirements actually. {nods seriously} As for Chris, he’s a photographer and does web design to pay the bills. So he lives on his computer. {leans to the side, placing my hand beside my mouth as I whisper} And he’s single. So you’re safe to make your move. {nudges you before busting into a fit of laughter}

Jaiden:

I don't know though.. What if I'm not his type? <Laughing this time, I had been busted before but not quite like that. You were smart, funny and hot. Did I really meet a Laker girl at the bowling alley? Could I be that lucky? You were definitely beautiful enough, that was a given but as I let my eyes wander down along your body, checking you out, even with you sitting I suddenly had visions of you in your uniform. Those routines at half time coming to mind then too and I quickly snap my gaze back up to yours before looking back at the scorecard, coming face to face with a shooting glare when I see that it was officially my turn.> Looks like I'm up. Hold that thought. I want to know more about this singing career of yours and your channel. <I hadn't forgotten about that part either. Grabbing up my ball, I killed what was left of my drink and set the cup down. Moving to take my position to serve you with a strike first thing. Setting the bar pretty high where my competitive nature was concerned.>

Camryn:

{I watched as a series of emotions seemed to play out across your face, relishing in the fact that you seemed to be just as animated as me without meaning too. Then follows your eyes to the scoreboard, nearly humphing that you had to leave, and watching maybe a little too closely as you took your turn. Jumping up and cheering for you when you roll that strike, causing Chris to remind me that you’re the opposition} What? It’s in my nature to cheer. Kind of. {offers him a shrug and laughs before turning back to you as you return to the sitting area}

Jaiden:

<And that's how it went. Every few minutes we would take our turns, keeping up with our separate conversations for the most part outside of the occasional trash talk we seemed to throw one another's way. It was all in good fun even as I moved to help you with your next turn. Not really caring to win one way or the other anymore, the more we chatted, my curiosity piqued.> When are you off? Or maybe I should ask when a good time is to take you out on this date of ours? <grins and grabs up another piece of pizza, offering it to you first.>

Camryn:

{mama’s words were playing out in my head again. “Don’t overeat. That’s not lady like either.” Reaching for the piece, I smiled at you} We practice a couple times a week. And, of course, I dance at all the home games. Other than that it’s kind of up in the air with my other projects. {laughs} But if you give me a date, I’ll make it work. {winks at you as I take a bite of that piece of pizza now}

Jaiden:

We will make it work. <I put emphasis on the "we" part and grinned, picking up another slice and digging into it. Thinking over the evening and what you said while I chewed, I waited until I finished my slice to ask my next question.> You think it would be okay if I came and checked out a home game? See you in action. <Grinning wider at the thought, I shrugged a shoulder as I got up to take my last turn, Rainey calling my attention to the scores. Yeah you didn't have the final say on who could attend but we both knew I would be going to see Then maybe I could escort you home. Unless you have other arrangements made? <Glancing your brother's way when I said that last part, I was waiting for my ball to come back to me on the return.> Does that sound like a plan?

Camryn:

{sits up straighter in my chair, the excitement clear on my face at your question as those butterflies filled my stomach. The idea of you watching me while I was out there would make my night. And I was ready to say yes before you jumped up and went to take your turn. You probably knew my answer anyway as I bobble headed along while you talked} I can get you really good seats too! One of the perks. {my smile dropping slightly} Sometimes I don’t get out of there until a little later though. Will that mess with your work? {tilts my head curiously} What do you do anyway?

Jaiden:

I take a couple of courses then I drive the delivery van for Rainey. Wherever she has a catering gig, I normally will hang out but the last one didn't go so well. <It wasn't really my story to tell, it was Rainey's and while I was okay with sharing anything and everything about myself, there were some things still private for her. Offering a small grin, I nodded impressed, the excitement clear as day on your face and I have a seat next to you to start changing back into my shoes so we can turn our bowling ones in.> I think congratulations are in order. You guys won. She's going to have her own commercial kitchen one day. That's her dream.

Camryn:

{I could feel the weight of Chris’ stare as we made our plans. But I ignored him. He was NOT going to have any say in this. I did shoot him a smirk though when you came and sat back down next to me so he couldn’t fully eavesdrop on what it was you did} I’m smile} And that you help support her dream. Maybe I could put a good word in with the team next time we need an event catered.

Jaiden:

You would do that for her? <My brows popped at the gesture, my grin widening further when you nod once again and I couldn't help but chuckle. The offer to put in a good word could do wonders for Rainey's business, really getting it off the ground more. The Lakers were nothing to snub your nose at either and the more I thought about it the more I realized just how life changing that could be for her. For us.> Only if you're sure but you know don't have to. I'm still taking you out regardless. <Winking, I gathered up my bowling shoes when you do, walking with you up to the front slowly on purpose to drag the night out, I didn't want it to end even though I knew it had to. It wasn't until we were all outside though, our siblings walking ahead that I slowed even more, turning to face you.> I'm going to call you tomorrow.

Camryn:

{If you were walking slowly on purpose I couldn’t tell. But I sure was. Thank goodness I let Chris talk me into coming tonight. This was way better than the promised pizza. My last thought causing me to let out a soft laugh at myself that probably confused you} Please do. {steps a little closer, leveling my gaze with yours} And like actually call tomorrow, yeah? None of that macho guy stuff where they make you wait a day to not seem too eager. Trust me, I’ve dated those guys and I’m not interested in more of that.

Jaiden:

<Keeping my gaze locked with yours, I let you finish, thinking there was no possible way I was waiting two days to call. Not after the night we had and as I reached out to stroke your reddened cheek, seeing that smile, I shook my head and leaned in, whispering against your ear when we reached your car, your brother having walked Rainey to ours across the parking lot.> You’ll be lucky if I’m not texting you before then. I’m not like other guys, Cammy. <Leaning up against your car with you now, I can’t help but grin then too, seeing that blush deepen across your face..> You’ll see first hand that I’m not. That’s a promise.

Camryn:

{I know I had just met you. But I already trusted you. I’m sure Chris wouldn’t be happy to hear that. But it was the truth. And I found myself chanting in my head, please don’t be too good to be true. Please don’t be too good to be true} I believe you. {playfully glares at you, the effect being lost as my blush betrays me} Don’t make me regret it. {That crooked grin had those butterflies kicking up again as I let out a shy laugh} And you can text me any time you want. I might even assign you your own special tone.

Jaiden:

No regrets. Not even a single letter. <Laughing, I cracked that joke, hoping like hell you've seen that movie when I stopped short, brows furrowing at first before I gave you that crooked grin again. That shy laugh I was sure was going to be my downfall but I was finding I didn't mind the more we spoke. I thoroughly enjoyed the night out bowling with you and went as far to tell you so before opening your car door and waiting for you to step inside. At that last minute however, I took hold of your hand and brought it to my lips, kissing across each knuckle as words left my lips, that grin still firmly in place.> I really had a great time. Text when you get home? <Even that was a date in itself if we thought about, a date I was looking forward to once I were settled for the night.>

Camryn:

{With that kiss to my hand, I was a goner. However this turned out, good or bad, I was in for the ride. Giving your hand a light squeeze as I finally settled into the seat, I smiled up at you} I will. I’ll pick out your special tone on the ride home. {offers you an exaggerated wink and a laugh}

Rainey:

I’m thinking beginner’s luck maybe? (How is it this easy to joke with you? I had been asking myself that all night and almost let the words slip out once or twice when the ice breaker effectively did its job. We had found ourselves in a rather comfortable position. Some mild jabs when it came to our turns during the game but the night had actually turned pleasant which I was grateful for with the addition of yourself and your sister to our little bowling league mix we had going on.) So no Francesca, huh. How is that possible? (A very bold or forward question coming from me. It was so unlike me to even... Oh. Realization hit like a ton of bricks then. Was it considered flirting? If it was, it was so apparent that I was bad at it and BOOM, hi there anxiety.) I'm glad I... mmmet you tonight. (Oh yeah. Yep. Still horrible at it. In fact, my nerves got the best of me and I had to pause so not to stumble over my words. And only when we reached my van, did I take a chance glance your sister’s way with Jaiden, making sure they were okay before I continued on around to the passenger side of my van with you, feeling completely safe in your presence while out of sight of Jaiden’s. Which was another first for me too.)

Chris:

[I didn’t know where the hell you came from. But I was thanking all the stars and gods that I had the idea to bring Cammy here today. Had I not, I wouldn’t have met you. Which is funny because before tonight, I was completely closed off to the idea of a relationship again after the dumpster fire that was my last. A few minutes with you and I was rethinking the whole thing. You were a total package from what I could tell. Funny, beautiful, a good sport. Hell, you even caused me to lay off of Cammy for the time being while she was clearly getting close to your brother. I couldn’t help the goofy grin that graced my face when you stumbled over your words for a second. Damn if that didn’t just make me like you even more} Honestly? {stops so that I’m standing directly in front of you as you lean back against that van door} I almost had a Francesca. And that was a mess. {rubs the back of my neck before giving a shrug} Kind of turned me off to relationships for a while. {smirks, the fact that I was being so quick to say certain things the exact way I always tell Cammy not to not lost on me as I reach to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear} I’m feeling a little more open to them again now though…

Rainey:

Now? As in right now... (I had zoned in on those eyes of yours first but then that goofy grin was next which only made me smile wider, effectively leaving my gaze to linger on your mouth. You were right there.. That strand of hair you tucked behind my ear fueled my desire to reach out but I stayed right there pressed up against the van. Reminding myself that this wasn't some steamy romance novel. At least not yet.) That's good.. I mean wait no, it's not good. I didn't mean it was good that Francesca hurt you. I would never. (Cue my blush again then, silly me making this more awkward for us both and oh hi anxiety thanks for rearing your ugly head again. Sighing softly, almost embarrassingly so, I give you a kind smile, trying to rein it all in when it felt like you stepped closer. And suddenly it felt really hot..)

Chris:

[Somehow you managed to get more desirable with every minute. And when you made that slip saying you wouldn’t? I grinned probably the most embarrassingly dumb grin I’ve ever grinned in my life. Figuring I might as well go for broke, I stepped a little closer, carefully assessing your face and body language for any resistance as I brought my hand up one more time, this time cupping your cheek as I shook my head} I wouldn’t either. {lets the words hang between us for a few seconds, carefully gauging your reaction for a couple more seconds before whispering] Please don’t slap me. [With that, I took the plunge, leaning in and placing a light kiss to your lips]

Jaiden:

Make it a good one. <That crooked grin wasn't leaving my lips anytime soon. Not when I kept seeing that excited smile grace yours and I reluctantly let your hand slip from my fingers when you finally had a seat in your car. Shutting your door for you, I waited until you rolled your window, giving you a wink first before I dipped my head inside and brushed my lips against your cheek.> Be safe, beautiful. <Righting myself and the world for that matter, I started walking backwards towards the direction of our van, keeping you in my sights for as long I groaned and waited for my sister to get inside. Knowing the drive home was going to met with an awkward as hell conversation.>

Rainey:

(Oh my God.. He was going to do it. One second, I was convincing myself I was never hearing from you again and the next, I was throwing all caution to the wind when your words grand slammed into my brain, finally registering. "Please don't slap me." I melted into a puddle right then and there, legs wobbling, the whole shebang! For that split second in time, I was the heroine of all my books. All those worlds I got lost in and even if it was the smallest of kisses, it meant everything in that moment. Only it wasn't a book I was reading, it was my life. It was ME you were kissing. Very lightly, I returned that kiss, lips slow dancing against yours and I brought my hand up to coax you closer by that soft grasp of your jaw. Completely lost in you until I heard the van door slam and I was catapulted back to my very real reality.) Call me.. (It was a simple request and when you nodded against my lips, ignoring my brother completely, I gave you one last kiss to remember me by.) Night.. (I tried opening my door from behind me, fumbling for the door handle before I finally got it open and I turned to hop inside, coming face to face with my own brother. Mouthing "Not a word!" as he started the van and put it in gear, his groan of disapproval, was laughable and I did just that quietly as we made our way home.) #Kismet #WFW #ForKeeps

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an-everything-blog · 5 years

Text

Milkshakes

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Reader

Warnings: Language

Summary: Billy stands up for you when a jock starts to make fun of you at a party. Friendship ensues. Heavily inspired by Ed Sheeran’s, I Don’t Care

Word Count: 2.9K

Author’s Note: Hello loves! I have been obsessed with Stranger Things and I couldn’t help, but fall for Billy Hargrove and just had to write for him! I was listening this this song on my way to work the other day and this just came to mind as I listened to it! I hope you like it!!

I'm at a party I don't wanna be at And I don't ever wear a suit and tie Wonderin' if I could sneak out the back Nobody's even lookin' me in my eyes

You slowly made your way through Brian Johnson’s house with your head low to avoid all the drunk idiots in the party. When Nancy invited you to the Summer Smash-Out you certainly did not think you’d actually go. Parties are definitely not your look and everyone in Hawkins knew that, but you promised Nancy you would try it at least once. For a moment you considered just turning back and going back home or maybe to the diner a few blocks over to grab a milkshake. It’s not like anyone knew your name or knew who you were.

You sighed and trudged further into the house to find Nancy just so she’d get off your back about it. You’d stay for a little while, then you’d get a milkshake as a reward for torturing yourself like this. You looked around and didn’t see any sign of Nancy, so you opted to stand in a somewhat secluded corner and wait for her to show up. You didn’t really talk to anyone at school preferring to stay to yourself. You and Johnathan were friends which lead you to befriend Nancy as well. You weren’t close friends, but they were kind and didn’t seem too bad.

Don't think I fit in at this party Everyone's got so much to say I always feel like I'm nobody Who wants to fit in anyway?

You looked around at all the teenage girls wearing their short and tight dresses and frowned looking down at your own attire. You were sporting black ripped skinny jeans and an oversized AC/DC band T-shirt you found at a thrift store.

You finally saw Nancy and Johnathan come in through the front door making you sigh in relief. You were starting to get worried and was about to high tail it and run to get your delicious milkshake. You slowly started making your way toward them to prove your being here. You were finally so close to freedom.

As you were making your way around the corner to the front door Tommy Brown the quarterback on Hawkins football team forcefully bumped into you and you could tell before you even turned around that he was heavily intoxicated. He scoffed fixing his eyes down at you.

“What the hell is this ugly fucking loser doing here?” He looked over at his teammate Sam who shrugged uninterested. You furrowed your brows together and stood tall.

“Excuse me?” You questioned incredulous. What the hell is wrong with this guy? You hadn’t done shit to him. You even helped him with his math before and he’s treating you like this?

'Cause I don't care when I'm with my baby, yeah All the bad things disappear And you're making me feel like maybe I am somebody

“Tommy just leave her the fuck alone, alright? She’s not doing nothin to no one by being here.” You heard from behind you. Confused, you quickly turned over your shoulder to see the new king of Hawkins, Billy Hargrove with a cigarette between his lips. He stood tall in his infamous leather jacket with his chest bare and glistening with a pair of tight dark blue jeans. His hair looked curlier than usual and his eye’s shined bright with dominance.

To say that you were unbelievably shocked was an understatement. You did not think in a million years you would see Billy Hargrove stand up for you. Your mouth was agape as he walked past you giving you a quick glance before standing in front of Tommy.

He chuckled and swayed unevenly, “You sticking up for this lame ass fucking nerd?” Tommy laughed loudly gathering even more attention from the crowd than before. Your cheeks burned without your permission as he insulted you. Billy clenched his jaw before exhaling.

“She has a fucking name you dip-shit. (Y/n) will get farther in life than any other person in this low-life shit-hole. Leave her alone before I knock your teeth in.” Billy growled in his face. Tommy’s eyes widened as he stepped back from Billy pulling his hands up in surrender. Then just like nothing happened, Tommy and Sam turned and walked outside to the backyard.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Billy had been in this town for a little while now, but you had no idea that he knew who you were. You remember when he came into your second hour and sat right behind you in the only open seat. He had already been the talk of the morning so all eyes were on him when he made his way to his seat. You were too busy to notice though as you were doodling on your notes. Soon after he tapped on your shoulder and asked for a pencil with that winning smile you would soon learn he gave to all the girls in town. Nothing more happened between you both.

No one really knew who you were so it came as a shock that Billy even knew your name. You never introduced yourself to him or even spoken more than ten words to him. You suddenly heard someone clear their throat and you looked up to see Billy looking down at you. You were at a loss for words as Billy looked hard into your eyes. He could tell that you were close to crying because your eyes were watery. From anyone else’s view it wouldn’t be noticeable, but he was close enough to see through your toughness.

'Cause I don't care, as long as you just hold me near You can take me anywhere And you're making me feel like I'm loved by somebody I can deal with the bad nights When I'm with my baby, yeah

“You alright (Y/n)?” He asked softly, a completely different tone from what you usually hear from Billy Hargrove. You blinked quickly while nodding.

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. You didn’t have to do that.” You said just as soft. He looked down to your lips instinctively, but hastily back to your eyes.

“He was being a dickhead, so…” He mumbled. You nodded agreeing with him. The crowd finally dissipated and you looked around rather timid. You still felt like people were staring even though it looked as if they weren’t. Billy seemed to sense this.

“Hey, you want to get out of here?” He abruptly asked and you looked at him wide eyed. You always told yourself if he tempted you like this you would definitely say no, but right now your anxiety was through the roof and Billy was the only one that was making you feel safe as crazy as it sounded. You nodded rapidly and Billy swiftly threw his arm around your shoulders leading you through the doorway. Your body was burning at how close you were to Billy and the fact that he threw his arm around you so nonchalantly. You caught Nancy’s stare on your way out and she gave you a small worried, but happy smile.

Billy guided you to his blue Camaro and opened the passenger side to let you in. You mumbled a thanks and sat down on the cool leather. Once in the car he turned the key; igniting the car to life and speed off into the night.

“Where to Doll-face?” he smirked looking over your weary, unsure form. You’re not used to doing things unplanned.

“Uhh well before that shit-show happened I was going to go to Matt’s Diner and have a milkshake.” You chuckled slightly embarrassed at your lame plan. Who goes to a diner to drink a milkshake by their-self? He chuckled soon after though before replying.

“Lucky for you, I’m a sucker for their chocolate milkshakes.” He stated confidently before turning down the street of Matt’s Diner.

You both sat quietly with his chocolate milkshake and your plain vanilla both topped with whip cream and a cherry sitting on the table. Billy plucked his cherry into his mouth before sticking the stem of the cherry into his mouth. Only seconds later he pulled the stem out, tied in a tight knot. This made you chuckle while your cheeks burned away.

“How do you know me?” You suddenly asked grabbing Billy’s attention instantly.

“We have second hour together, I sit right behind you remember?” He said casually glancing away showing signs of apprehension. You rolled your eyes a bit playfully.

“I know that Dingus, I mean I’ve never introduced myself to you. It’s just shocking that you even cared to know it.” You ended quietly looking down taking a sip of your milkshake.

“Are you kidding?” He scoffed, “How could I not know the name of the girl that has any sense of taste in music in this god-forsaken town!” Billy exclaimed chuckling forcefully. You grinned looking down at your AC/DC shirt.

“You’re right. I fear that we may be the only ones in this town who knows what good music is.” You tell him as if it’s a secret which has him grinning like a fool. He had never met someone that he was so easily attracted to: physically and surprisingly emotionally as well. Your face was so naturally beautiful him it made him nervous at times. He hadn’t really had feelings like this so he opted to keep his distance for a while to let you know that he didn’t want to cause any trouble with you.

“Thank you, Billy. For tonight. It.. really meant a lot.” You said barely above a whisper after you both quitted for a few minutes. Billy took a few seconds to look up from his milkshake, but once he did he could tell how much it meant to you. You were biting your lip softly and he had to resist the urge to pull it from your teeth. He quickly nodded before looking away.

“It’s not true you know.” Billy said calmly while playing with his straw. You raised your eyebrows in question.

“What’s not true?” You pressed in wonder. He shrugged before responding.

“Tommy saying that shit about you being ugly. It’s not true. You’re sexy and you’re cool and you’re smart on top of that. He’s just being a pussy-whip because you won’t give him a second glance.” He scoffed the last part. Your body was on fire at his compliments. His stare was hard and honest and serious and you couldn’t physically stand to hold his gaze.

“Billy...” You trailed off before he interrupted.

“No I’m serious. You’re the first real person I’ve met in this fake ass town and it’s stunning. Fuck anyone who thinks you should fit in with their lame asses.” Billy leaned back grabbing ahold of his milkshake glass slipping his straw past his lips and slurping the rest of his milkshake. You chuckled softly.

“Yeah well. Unfortunately this town is filled with fake ass people. That’s why I tend to stay by myself.” You say rubbing your arm. He looks at you for a moment before grabbing his keys and standing.

“C’mon, let’s go for a drive.” Billy smirked grabbing your hand. You giggled and followed him out. Thus starting your friendship with the king of Hawkins himself.

We at a party we don't wanna be at Tryna talk, but we can't hear ourselves Read your lips, I'd rather kiss 'em right back With all these people all around I'm crippled with anxiety But I'm told it's where I'm supposed to be

You really didn’t think you’d ever be back at another party but after befriending Billy he thought it’d be better than the last time for both of you to go together. Walking up to Sally’s house you took a deep breath before looking to Billy. He smiled down at you while chewing his gum and pressed you both forward. You both decided to go to the Back to School party to let off some steam before schoolwork really decided to be too much for you.

Opening the door seemed to attract a few glances. As you walked further in more and more people were looking at you both. What really got the whispers going is what you were wearing. You were still sporting your usual skinny jeans and band T-shirt, but what had everyone talking was the black leather jacket that Billy let you have for the night after you complained of being cold. You shook your head and looked down avoiding other peoples gazes as others called out greetings to Billy.

You both were in the living room where the heart of the party was. The music was blasting and you could hardly hear yourself think. Billy suddenly tapped your arm and you looked over to him. His lips were moving but you couldn’t hear what he was saying. You focused on his lips to try to understand him, but instantly started to regret it. His lips looked too soft, you had a sudden urge to kiss them.

You and Billy had been growing your friendship very rapidly over the Summer and while it’s been the most fun you’ve ever had in your life, it’s also been quite the difficult task to not develop deeper feelings. Especially when he’s a touchy person naturally to the people he’s close with. Then he goes around calling you baby and all these other cute names that has your stomach rolling.

Billy beginning to pull you to the dining room had you break from the trance. You shook your head and looked around as you got even more stares and whispers seeing Billy hold your hand and it was getting a little overwhelming hearing some of the whispers.

You know what? It's kinda crazy 'cause I really don't mind And you make it better like that Don't think we fit in at this party Everyone's got so much to say When we walked in, I said I'm sorry But now I think that we should stay

“Hey, you alright?” Billy asked loudly once you got to a relatively quieter place. You were looking around subconsciously making sure no one was watching anymore. Billy’s hand grabbed your chin lightly and brought it slowly in front of his. As soon as your eyes met his, you calmed down immensely.

“You wanna get out of here Baby? It’s not really our crowd anyway.” Billy asked smiling slightly. You chuckled then let out a long breath.

“No, no. Actually I think that we should stay.” You giggled quietly finally realizing that you weren’t alone. Billy was with you and that’s all that really seemed to matter to you right now.

You immediately gasped when ‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC started blasting through the house. You bounced excited and immediately looked to Billy. He was grinning hard as you grabbed his hand and pulled him to the dance space.

I don't like nobody but you It's like you're the only one here I don't like nobody but you Baby, I don't care I don't like nobody but you I hate everyone here I don't like nobody but you Baby, yeah

You were totally lost in the moment of the song while dancing with your best friend Billy at a random party. You were both laughing and dancing closely. Billy loved seeing you like this. So happy and carefree. He couldn’t help but think that you made each other better in the sense of joy.

Billy smirked down at you and gently put his hands on your hips guiding your movements. Your cheeks were warm as you placed your arms loosely around his neck while singing the lyrics of the song. Billy couldn’t take it anymore. His whole body was bursting with this happiness and he needed to express it somehow.

Throwing caution to the wind he smirked as he grabbed your face with both hands and pulled your lips to his. You were shocked to say the least and made a quiet squeak sound as his lips formed with yours. Just as you began to kiss back he pulled away to look into your eyes searching for a reaction. You let out a small quick sigh and began to smile widely. This made Billy smile so hard his eyes became little slits. You pulled him back down for another kiss not giving a shit who saw you both.

“So what was that?” You questioned referring to the kiss as you both exited the party and back to Billy’s car. Billy shrugged with a silly grin.

“Honestly I hate everyone here in this shit town, but you. So.. yeah.” He smirked as you chuckled.

“I feel the same way.” You agree confidently. You felt like you were flying and it was all because of Billy. He made you feel like no one else did and understood you in a way no one else would.

“Ready for milkshakes?” He looked over to you with an eyebrow raised. He convinced you to go to the party by promising you guys could get milkshakes after. You giggled and reached over his console to kiss him again before his car came to life and began on your journey to Matt’s Diner.

'Cause I don't care when I'm with my baby, yeah All the bad things disappear And you're making me feel like maybe I am somebody I can deal with the bad nights When I'm with my baby, yeah 'Cause I don't care as long as you just hold me near You can take me anywhere And you're making me feel like I'm loved by somebody I can deal with the bad nights When I'm with my baby, yeah

FEEDBACK APPRECIATED <3

#billy #billy hargrove #billy hargove x reader #hargrove #stranger things #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfiction #dacre montgomery #dacre imagine #dacre x reader #billy hargrove fluff #stranger things fluff #stranger things x reader #billy x reader #billy stranger things

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houseofvans · 6 years

Photo

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | Interview with SUZY ULTMAN

Growing up doodling, cutting out Peanuts comic strips, and sifting through the fabric from her mom’s sewing room, it is no wonder that artist, illustrator, and designer Suzy Ultman creates super fun, creative, and adorable drawings and patterns. We’re excited to find out more about Suzy and her work–from how one class changed her trajectory to some great tips on those looking to follow in her footsteps!

Photographs courtesy of the artist.

Who are you and what do you do?

Hi! My name is Suzy Ultman -- I'm an artist/illustrator/crafty girl, working, living, and playing in the Midwest. So far in my life, I’ve lived East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, and on 3 continents. My broad travels, love of nature, and soft spot for musicals have influenced my colorful, optimistic style.

How did you first get into drawing and doodling?

I’ve been doodling since I can remember. At about age 10, I started cutting out the Peanuts comic strips from the Sunday newspaper, and taping them into my scrapbook. Then, I’d spend hours upon hours drawing Snoopy. I also loved making doodles of food packages, making collages of magazine bits, creating my own bubbly typefaces, and writing & illustrating little stories & poems.

When did that lead you to creating your own illustrations and works ?

In high school, I discovered a talent for visual problem solving in a senior graphic design class. This led to undergrad and graduate work in graphic design, and a career in the field. Then, about 10 years ago, a close friend encouraged me to join a studio class taught by an agent, Lilla Rogers. I had just moved to Boston and was in temporary housing with 2 small kiddos. I found a sitter and committed to the course. At the end of the 8-week class, Lilla encouraged me to draw, draw, draw. I threw myself into creating my illustration portfolio. I’ve been drawing for a living ever since.

When you’re working on something new, either if it’s a pattern or a pin, what is that process like?

I approach every project the same: (1) Work as a team with the client (2) Find the story in the project (3) Have fun & play (4) Present a clear concept with a Suzy “wink”.

You create some really cute and fun patterns, what’s your interest or relationship with textiles? Have you always had an interest in making your own art into wear?

Growing-up, I loved spending time in my mom’s sewing room, looking through her piles of fabric, and hunting through her notions drawer for buttons. I’d collect bits of treasure, and make dolls & objects from whatever I could get my scrappy hands on.

With my fabric collections, I get to design textiles that will become a palette for making. It’s fun to imagine the endless possibilities that will be created from the fabric.

What’s one of your favorite creations you’ve made and why?

“Mr. Sun & Friends” wooden character set is one of my favorite creations. My client, PSikhouvanjou, urged me to follow my imagination. With that freedom, the characters came to life very organically — that’s always a pleasure! Also, I love telling a story through product design, and thinking about the ways the audience will relate to the object. By designing “Mr. Sun” to be attractive to children & whimsical adults, we created a toy for both play & display. It’s been wonderful to see how people have adopted these friends into their homes. For me, creating a product that brings joy, connects the family, and has a long shelf life in the home is a great feeling.

Do you keep a sketchbook or work your ideas as you go along? What type of things keep you inspired or are inspired by?

I have a sketchbook of drawings & doodles, and lots of little lists.

My studio wall is tacked full of inspiration which I’m constantly revisiting as I rotate through my collections. It’s an eclectic assortment of vintage, Dutch, Scandinavian, and Japanese ephemera, clippings, and fabric. I’m attracted to the clean beauty of Scandinavian design, and the rich storytelling of traditional folk art. I also love the textures and colors used in 1950s/60s cartoon background art.

My collections, along with spending time in nature, my family & friends, and traveling inspire my visual aesthetic.

What are your main art tools? Is there a medium you’re wanting to try but haven’t had the chance too yet?

I’m happiest with a fine pen, a wavy brush pen, markers, and watercolors. I’d love to get my hands on pottery in the near future!

Who are some artists that you’re inspired by and have influenced you throughout the years?

Mary Blair, Charles Shultz, Ed Emberley, Dick Bruna, Fiep Westendorp, Jim Henson, Seymour Chwast, Ben Shahn, Alexander Girard, Jonathan Adler, Yoshitomo Nara

Who are some artists you’d love to see us interview?

Carolyn Suzuki, Seonna Hong, Kelly Thorn

When you’re not working in the studio, what are you doing? What do you enjoy?

When the weather is nice, I have my coffee outside every morning, and watch the birds. On the weekends, you’ll find me whipping up a batch of hummus (extra garlic, please) or searching for the perfect brownie recipe. I enjoy building a fort with my boys, and taking them for a walk in the woods. I love the local book shops, vintage clothing stores, and antique malls. I meditate — often.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist? What career path would you have chosen?

I’d like to help people in vulnerable situations, possibly hospice care or an art therapist for children.

What would you tell someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

Be yourself.

Make plans, but know that some of the best things that happen are completely unplanned.

Don’t take rejection personally. There are a lot of things behind the scenes that are out of your control. Just keep on keeping on.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Create a community/support network.

What are your FAVORITE Vans?

Slip-ons for easy action.

Finally, can you tell us about any exciting things you’ve got coming up?

I can’t talk to you about any upcoming projects, but we are taking our annual family vacation to Canada very soon. I LOVE a roadtrip, so there will be plenty of snacks and books on CD. Yes, CDs — that’s how we roll!

FOLLOW SUZY | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

#Art #Vans #Vans Girls #Vans Art #Sketchy Behaviors #suzy ultman #interview #female artists #pattern #design #creativity #inspiration

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sassyshoulderangel319 · 6 years

Text

@moonlight-lyrics

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7

Chapter 8

I kissed Roman and Logan’s cheeks. “Good luck. We’ll be there a couple days after you get there,” I said. Logan tried to shrink away from my affection but Patton held him in place so Logan had to get a hug from me. “I just need some rest.”

“Now you know where to go?” Virgil asked.

Roman rolled his eyes. “Stop worrying, Angstlerfish,” he retorted. “I know how to find that blasted cave! I always remember the places I’m not supposed to know about!”

“Worrying is kind of my thing. And this is a big deal, Roman.”

“If you see Dad, tell him we’ll be on our way soon,” Patton told Logan.

“Got it, Dad,” Roman teased.

Patton carefully hid his eyeroll from everyone except Lyric and I.

Roman gave me a dramatic bow. “Goodbye, Your Majesty.”

I gave him a less dramatic bow. “Goodbye, Your Highness. We both know you’re the real royalty here. I’m a descendent of a bunch of old mermaids in Greece and can sprout legs on land. That’s the only thing special about me.”

“There is far more special about you than a passed-down magical trait, Nixie,” Roman said. “Do not forget that, you hear?”

“I hear. Now be careful, you two. I want to get back home to you in one piece,” I said. Logan gave me a sarcastic mock salute and Roman another bow. I rolled my eyes as they turned-tail and swam for home. I sighed and wrapped one arm around Lyric’s waist and the other around Virgil’s. “Did we just condemn them to doom?”

“Nope. They’ll be fine,” Lyric insisted. She almost sounded as though she was trying to convince herself more than me.

I “Hmm”ed in response.

“C’mon, Nix. Let’s get you some sleep,” Patton said, tugging me back towards Dan and Phil’s.

I got in my kelp bed and relaxed. I wouldn’t sleep. It was morning, but I was still so tired that I didn’t complain about being useless and appreciated the opportunity to rest. I doodled in the sand for a moment, my hair drifting around my head, getting slightly pulled in what little current there was in the cave.

“Hey,” Virgil said, swimming in with his tail propelling him forward gently. He sat near me. “Sorry about yesterday. Talking about you like you weren’t there. it was rude. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “Thanks. I was too tired to care anyway, but I appreciate the apology.”

Virgil tweaked a smirk. “Thanks. So, I thought of a plan to get back that’s less strenuous.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Instead of swimming straight for Florida and the Gulf, we swim to the New York area first. It’s closer than Florida. We stop in the New York area for a night, maybe two, and then go to the Gulf.”

“Or you can just let me rest for two days max and we head straight for Florida instead of wasting time that our pod may not have,” I pointed out, poking him in the nose as his freckles began to glow faintly in the dim light of the lounge cave. “We don’t know what Deceit’s done while we’ve been gone. We’re safe out here, but is anybody else?”

Virgil looked down, picking sand out from under one of his scales with his fingernail. “Mm,” he said.

“We don’t even know what he wants. Why he came back after all this time... what if we’re already too late?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question for days, Nixie. But I have to keep all of you safe.”

“Why you?”

“Because under my dark outside that I put on, I’m the protective one at heart. More so than either Patton or Roman. All I want is for those closest to me to be safe.”

“They’re going to be alright, right?” Logan asked, somewhat begrudgingly.

“Trust me, dolphin-brain, they’re safer than we are,” Roman replied snarkily. “‘Sides, Virgil’s too much of a scaredy-catfish to let anything bad happen.”

Logan grunted in agreement as they made a left to start heading for Florida, clearing the English Channel and venturing into the rest of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Hey Roman?” Logan asked. “Did Nixie ever tell you where she went right before Deceit attacked?”

“No. No one’s talking about it. Lyric knows but she’s outright refused to share any details. Not her secret to tell, she said,” Roman said. “All I know is Nix was out in the Atlantic on her own.” He shrugged. “But what about her finding Gramma Vivian, huh? Like, I never expected that.”

“Me neither,” Logan said. “It’s weird. If Gramma Vivian could give herself legs, that means we probably could too.”

Roman scoffed. “Yeah, but why would you want to?” he asked. “I mean, life in the ocean is amazing! Humans have such ridiculous and complicated problems. Living in their world sounds exhausting. And cramped. The ocean covers seventy-percent of the planet!”

“I’m aware,” Logan deadpanned.

“I just mean that we have all this space. The merfolk population is tiny compared to the human population and we have all the oceans at our disposal. There’s a reason pods have such massive territories!”

“I’m also aware. Roman, do me a favor and cease your mindless prattle until we reach at least the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.”

“Nixie?” a somewhat unfamiliar voice asked. I opened my eyes to see Dan floating awkwardly at the entrance to the cave where I’d been dozing.

“Yeah. Hi. What’s up?” I replied, rubbing my eyes.

“May I come in?”

“Sure. It’s your place. I’m just mildly napping. Sorry.”

“No, no. It’s fine. If you want, though, you’re welcome to move to the grotto where Logan and Virgil were bunking. It’s darker there. And since Roman and Logan left for Florida Virgil has moved into the same grotto as Patton for a few days.”

I huffed out a sigh, sending a stream of bubbles up to the ceiling. “Yeah Pat never liked sleeping alone,” I muttered.

“So I’ve been informed.”

“What about Lyric? I could bunk with her,” I said.

“You could. But it seems polite to give the girls their own grottos, don’t you think?”

I blinked and paused for a moment. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered and grateful for your consideration or call you a sexist eel,” I said.

As soon as the last word was out of my mouth I regretted opening it at all. Images of Deceit and his unnatural tail and eye and facial scales flashed through my head. My hands clenched into fists in the sand. I heard the youngest Sanders’ menacing laugh and saw his grin full of mania as his henchman threw me out of the sea, fully intending to kill me. The fact that I was a Ravenel made me lucky. The scar on my back pulled on my skin as my muscles went tense.

“Nixie? Are you alright?” Dan asked.

“Sorry,” I gasped out. “Didn’t mean to snap at you. Or call you any names.”

“It’s alright. You’ve had a trying couple days.”

“Doesn’t excuse bad behavior.”

“Nixie, you’re not okay. You just went very pale and started tensing up. What’s wrong?” Dan pressed gently.

“Nothing. Just... bad memories. I’m going to rest now, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Yeah. Would you like me to move you into the other grotto?”

“Uh... sure. Yes please.”

Dan scooped me and my kelp bed up in his arms and swam me out of the larger lounge cave and into a smaller, darker grotto. He readjusted the kelp to help me get comfortable. “Rest well,” he said. “Come to dinner in a while if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Thank you, Dan. We’ll get out of your hair soon, I promise.”

“Honestly, it’s no problem. I’ve liked having the company.” He pushed some of my hair out of my face. “Rest up.”

“I think Dan’s making eyes at you,” Lyric whispered to me at dinner.

“I think your imagination is running wild again,” I replied.

That didn’t stop me from peeking though.

Dan looked away the second I made eye contact and went back to talking to Virgil.

I glanced back at Lyric. She was smirking. I rolled my eyes. “In your dreams, Brightscale,” I hissed.

“Hey. He’s cute. Might as well flirt!”

“You know I’m not much of a siren,” I whispered.

Lyric shrugged. “Don’t need to be a siren, anemone.” She winked. “Just gotta be flirty. ‘Sides, siren power doesn’t work on other merfolk.”

“Shh!” I hissed.

She giggled.

#new mermaid story #my writing #mermaid #I can find Roman insult puns in mermaid situations #that's how dEEP I am in this fandom #Haha #deep #get it?#no?#okay

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chickenfetus · 7 years

Note

ALL MY EGG (and for the four names: jae, killer kang, minhyuk (whichever one), and santa

deadass i did the 100 questions ask meme for this ask and almost posted it rip

🐰 what is one secret that you’ve never told anyone?

theres literally nothing i dont even know what to say ????

💗 if you could hug anyone, who would it be?

not 2 be delusional but i would give up my world to hug changkyun

🐹 what are some of your favourite Pokémon and why?

glaceon is UP THERE idk why honestly but the sinnoh games were my first and i just??? i was really into ice and snow and shit u know so glaceon... thakn u

another pkmn ill always have is lucario ????? its just so cool?????

🌠 if you were in charge of the world, what would the world look like?

hopefully forgiveness and like???? acknowledging mistakes and learning from those u know jst positive stuff and like?? water. god i love water

👀 what was the most recent vivid dream that you had?

hm okay i think this one was from last night or the night b4??? and like???? idk???? i dont even know how 2 start tbh?

so im like hanging over at this two kid’s im a kid 2 i think place and idk we just talk and shit??? idk whomst the boys were tho

and then we get to a scene where its like??? at a train station???? and i go to the washroom to shit or smth idk thankfully i didnt shit myself irl

then i have to get onto the train which isnt even a train its like a carousel with seats??? and its like on a train track boys this is 2 much and i forgot to get ready my train card thing so the guy (who i was p sure was evil) waited for me to remove it so i got onto the transportation device lmao

and then once im seated i remember i forgot my jacket so i make like hand movements 2 the creep and hes runnig 2 me with my jakcet but the ride’s way too fast so i yell and say ill come back for it even tho im p sure i wasnt going 2

after that i wke up wild

☀️ what do you like the most about your best friend?

i dont have a best friend and all of my friends have their own unique qualities if i went into a rant abt them rn this will b so long

😘 talk about your crush or partner

[minhyuk voice] theres none

💁 if someone was rude to you, would you be rude back?

ya bc im petty but it really depends on the person

🌟 what do you like about yourself? (must choose at least 3 things!)

my personality (the good parts)

my values

my taste in friends (my Big Friends are either geminis or scorpios good)

🐾 what are you scared of most? how will you overcome it?

the dark and bitch isnt gonna turn off her night light any time soon

🎁 what never fails to make you happy?

seeing my favourite happy, listening to the music i like

💙 what annoys you about some people?

i jjust went into a full out rant abt this on the other reply so ill be quiet now

😤 do you get angry easily?

yeahhhhh

🐇 what do you always daydream about?

my faves tbh

🌻 if you could change 3 things about the world what would you change?

bad people , gone.

everybody only sends love and happy things on anon

i just want everyone 2 b nice & friendly wars of any sort dont exist and no one wants anybody dead

🍓 send me 4 names: kiss, befriend, kill or marry?

if u sent jae’s name earlier id have trouble so im glad

kiss: tihis is so fucking embarrassing wtf minhyku (mx) but only on the cheek basically everywhere except the lips or anyplace weird

befriend: brian :-0

kill: jae goodbye loser

marry: sanha we can yell every time we gotta turn the lights off

✈️ what is your dream city and why?

tokyo bc its NICE

☕️ talk about your ideal day

cant read

🌸 are you an introvert, ambivert or extrovert?

i suddenly thought of the word ambivore which made me think of the word vore i wanna delete im a both? mayb idk

💧 when was the last time you cried?

nov 3 bc my heart hurts whenever i see ppl being a bad friend

🎵 name 5 songs you love at the moment

oh worm

all alone - day6

with you - astro

dramarama - mx (even though it isnt out yet lmao)

run - bts (the superior bts song)

hellevator - / (i was rly gonna make this mixed languages but rip)

⚡️ if you had any superpower, what would it be and why?

to fly bc im basic

💛 if you could talk to your younger self, what would you say?

dont do that

💚 who are you jealous of and why?

nobody in general?????????

💎 which one would you rather have more of: intelligence, beauty, kindness, wealth or bravery? why?

intelligence i have 2 live somehow what if my money gets stolen

🙊 what are you ashamed of?

my humor

🌺 which languages do you know? which do you want to learn?

i (barely) know chinese despite having 2 take it all my life legends only

i know english but im bad at that 2 and its my first language once again legends only

i wanna learn japanese and korean

🍀 if you could be any fictional character’s best friend/lover, which fictional character would you be?

the cow from voltron

☁️ talk about your dream universe.

weve already discussed this

💜 which acts of kindness are you going to do today?

oh w-0rm ok so im a regular anon on this persons blog and i wanted to send an ask but never got arnd doing it so im gonna send her one. soon/

🐬 if you could transform into any animal/magical creature, what would you be and why?

let me live my life as a furry and cat

🍄 talk about someone/something you really dislike

are u ready 4 me to b the meanest person yet bc i sure am lets fucking go

so theres this girl. and i know her (unfortunately) and ive known her since like 4 years ago and back then she was already pretty shit tbh

she cried bc she had to sit in between the “weird” and “dirty” girls in our class and she headass cried in front of them and everyone just bc she didnt like the arrangement?? shes called the “dirty” girl disgusting before and has made fun of her in front of everybody its just bad :-/

now. fast forward 3 years and in addition to still being disrespectful and rude, she now vocalizes her weird fantasies for her “oppas”??? some examples:

“when i go watch __ perform im gonna climb onto stage and then my mother and my future husband will fight for me” and she calls those kpop idols weird shit and basically sexualizes them/???? she says the weirdest fucking shit on her ig story and tags them???????

another thing. she went to korea nd took a picture of a complete stranger and posted it on her public ig and called him her “oppa” and said that they had a “fun day together” despite the guy not knowing her at all???? she posted the pic of him??? i still dont get it tbh

she wasnt even being ironic at all??? she calls herself & classmates “autistic” whenever she/others do smth dumb or mess up and its just sososososo fucking wrong

being one of the people to see how shes basically grown from bad to worse is something i dont fucking enjoy and i jsut want to leave my class already lmao

ok but there are times where i do appreciate her because sometimes the class will be rly quiet and the teacher is basically talking 2 themselves but she’ll always respond w/o fail so thats great but its only bc she talks so damn much

i just got a flashback to when she “jokingly” said she wanted to be a trainee for the rest of her life how do i just. god

😣 talk about some things that have been making you depressed/angry/anxious lately

we’ve once again already discussed this

🍪 what did you want to be as a kid, and what do you want to be now?

i wanted to be various things honestly?? ranging from an astronaut to a vet to an editor to an animator to other stuff i get influenced pretty easily so if i watch smth and i think its cool ill want 2 be that i guess?? ive been trying 2 get rid of that habit so now i have no clue what i wanna be

🍰 what are some of your favourite sugary foods?

sweets and chocolate cake

🍑 what are you obsessed with?

drinking water and staying hydrated

making my friends laugh is great 2

💘 what happens to you when you’re stressed?

acne LMAO

😪 what are you sick of?

the usual

🙀 are you an adrenaline seeker?

i love scouting on sif and bandori so yeah

💥 what are some unpopular opinions that you have?

lets not

☔️ would you consider yourself a good person?

to a certain extent

😊 what do you like to do as hobbies?

use my phone???? send nice anons and comment on art/fics

🎤 what’s the last song you hummed or sang by yourself?

none

🐝 what’s your worst trait? how are you planning to improve it?

my tolerance for ppl’s shit is so low

🎨 what do you always doodle when you’re bored?

my ocs

🐻 what’s stopping you from chasing your dreams?

i dont have a dream hence myself

🌷 what’s your mbti personality and why do you think it suits you?

infpt i dont rmb shit but yeah

🐶 send me 3 fictional people and I’ll choose my favourite!

falen i dont rmb what u sent

👑 who are your favourite celebrities and why?

i dont follow any :-o zendaya has had my heart ever since shake it off tho

🐴 opinion on day6?

ur rly gonna do this 2m e?

all alone just started playng this is terrible lets get it

so day6. a band i only found out about in late june (thank u boxy) and before this i only ever listened to bts and mx bc my friends stan them so i thought i was gonna expect boys dancing, the usual.

i clicked i smile and i lost my fucking shit as soon as i saw the instruments because prior to day6 i was a big 5sos fan so this was rly resonating to me tbh and i was just !!! so fukcng excited??? i never intended to even get into day6 honestly??? but after witnessing how good they are and watching about all of the available mvs at that point i was completely in awe so i caved a created a stan twitter for them.

now, this isnt even the most of it. after becoming a fan i realized how much more these 5 boys are. they compose (if im not wrong) and brian writes lyrics for the songs each month because of their everyday6 project and again, im wow-ed because??? the amount of dedication???? they went from releasing 2 title tracks in 2 years to releasing 12 title tracks and 12 bside tracks in a single year. they havent released the december song yet but haviing to work on 2 or more songs in 4 weeks is fucking amazing if you ask me.

theyre really talented and theyre just so versatile (am i using that word correctly) and each month their songs sound different. this project has given them the opportunity to try new things and you can hear the steady improvement in each of their vocals (dowoonie not so much since he barely gets lines, but we all know hes working hard) and if you listen to their debut song - kongchu and compare it to the version they released along with sunrise it just???? the drumming has even changed from the original version nd its so noticeable that whenever i hear kongchu from 2015 i know its the old ver

to add to those, they do vlives every week and although those vlives are always scheduled it still makes my day seeing them and watching them do the usual.

one thing im upset about is that how they barely promote themselves, they rarely get on variety shows (the most is individual schedules) and we, as mydays never really get to know the boys so its harder to fall for them as a whole. i dont know if its jyp or day6′s decision but if this is how they want to be known for - their music only, then so be it. we still have jae’s presence on youtube, music access and asc. thats the most we can get and it makes it difficult for us to learn about the rest but thats okay.

another thing. their concerts are something i always look forward to (even though my interest has died down a bit;) their concerts are just so fun to listen to?? there’ll always be mydays who stream the concert so everyone else can listen to them play and they sound so good live it drives me crazy. mydays are always so hyped and whenever mydays sing along it just gives me goosebumps??? bc theyre so???? good?????

tldr; day6 deserve more, following wise and promotions wise because they work so hard and once this project ends i hope they’ll manage to rest but still remain as a presence that will be known instead of returning to jyp’s dungeon.

🍋 do you consider yourself an emotional person?

there are days where i am more emotional than usual

📚 share 3 books that you love and your favourite quote from them.

this is tiring

😔 what do you always do when you feel sad? does it help?

i sleep and boy it really helps

😌 what thoughts keep you going when you’re sad?

rest

🌍 which country do you live in?

singapore

🐧 describe yourself in 3 words

lame funny swag

🐵 which quotes changed you?

“rocky swag” - park minhyuk, 2017

💭 do you keep a diary?

nope

💫 who inspires you?

brian kang

👻 do you believe in ghosts and why?

yes bc i love losing sleep

🎀 what’s your fashion sense like?

terrible

🎬 what are some of your favourite films?

i watched spiderman homecoming and i have no idea why i didnt see the plot twist coming but its GOOD watch it

🍦 what is one treasured childhood memory?

theres none lads

🐼 if you could meet anyone, who would it be and why?

all my internet buddies but sometimes i dont want to bc im kinda....gross

#softshouyous #asks #if anybody actually read all through all of this.... thank u.#FALEN THAKNK U FOR ASKING I LOVE U

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starlit-scifi · 5 years

Text

Chapter 4

First•Previous•Next

Colab isn’t that bad anymore with Lori there to walk you through it. Your study group soon gains another pair: Chemical Engineering major Manda Yu and Astrophysics major Hayleen Danara. They’re the only other female duo in your year, were paired up last term, and are now preparing for their six-week training mission scheduled for the end of this term.

Manda and Lori have been roommates since their first year, and spend most of their time together making snarky comments at each other about whatever ridiculousness goes on with the mils. You and Hayleen quickly lose track of the conversation through all the slang and jargon, and end up trading small talk. She’s also a Tusie, a year older than you, and from the complete opposite end of the habitable zone, but there’s still enough to chat about while you study.

“You really like Lori, huh?” she asks as you doodle in the margin of your notes, lulled by the virtual lecturer's voice. Your hand jerks and the stylus pen draws a broad streak across Diplomatic Practices of the New Space Age, 6th ed., before you lose control of it altogether. You fumble under the desk until you manage to grab it, then sit up with calm and collected poise, you hope. Lorina and Manda have noticed the disturbance, and Lori, apparently amused, gives a totally ladylike snort before she turns back to gossiping with Manda. Hayleen raises her eyebrow at you.

"She's a good partner," you say simply, once you’ve paused the recording.

She smiles. “That’s good to hear.”

“How about Manda?” You ask quickly, because that’s just how normal conversations work, you think.

“She’s wonderful. Best friend I’ve made here so far, honestly.”

“I’m glad.”

She nods. “The whole Colab thing is a lot easier when you’re with someone you like. Granted, a pair isn’t truly tested until they’ve been on the mission, but I can at least be pretty sure Manda won’t murder me in cold blood.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, honey,” Manda teases. “We haven’t even gotten to the stressful part yet. Lori, remember our first year, when our third-years were prepping? Remember Sandro?”

Lori grimaces. “Oh boy, do I remember.”

Manda turns back at you, smiling grimly. “We’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say the way some people behave under pressure while in positions of authority isn’t exactly pleasant.” Lori nods along.

You raise your eyebrows at Hay and she rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard the story. It wasn’t really that bad. She’s just being dramatic, as usual,” she adds, rolling her eyes.

“You know you love it,” Manda teases.

“Oh, you know I do,” Hay returns. And it’s all just good-natured teasing, girls amongst girls. Something your introverted self never had as a kid, never grew into during school.

You fiddle with your stylus as the two of them joke around, suddenly aware that you’re not really part of this bubble of laughter and happiness. And you never have been.

Someone's foot taps you under the table and you look up. Lori smiles at you.

You smile back.

You're partners, after all.

You're not alone.

---

There's a couple of downsides to having Lori as a partner. For one, she holds a few leadership positions that take up quite a bit of her already limited time. This occasionally means she’s suddenly forced to back out on study sessions in order to deal with issues (she uses a few more curse words than you personally would to describe said issues, but you understand).

In addition to being heavily involved with mil stuff, she’s also been romantically involved with more than a few people on either side of Unity. Word gets around pretty quickly that you’re the newest subject of her affections-- which you’re not, of course, you’re project partners and you really wonder how the gossip mill has managed to disregard that glaringly important fact. Still, her admirers and/or exes make their displeasure with your continued existence known. This is mostly by giving you dirty looks, but occasionally they try to start things with you.

You find yourself getting a lot of practice with being diplomatic lately.

One afternoon you’ve decided to study in the library during your free time. You’ve just set down your things when someone sits across from you. She’s a second-year suppie, and you’re pretty sure she’s not in your dorm or any of your classes, so you wonder why she’s here.

“Excuse me,” she says curtly.

“Yes?”

“I just hope you know what you're getting into.” Dark eyes glitter against her olive skin and you feel the dread of yet another unpleasant social interaction settle in the pit of your stomach.

“...Excuse me?”

She sighs loudly. “Look. I know you’re getting all buddy-buddy with Lorina. If you take it any further, it’s not going to go well for you.”

“We're not--” you find yourself struggling for words suddenly, “We're just colab partners-- I don’t even know you.”

Another sigh, more disgusted than the last, and she stretches out a hand. “Tereza Unde, I’m a second-year comm major. We had a composition class together first term last year.”

“Oh. Okay.” You hesitate, but take her hand anyway. “Aurora Delenz, bio and relations double major. Nice to meet you,” you add. It sounds more like a question than it should, but you’re actually kind of unsure whether this interaction is even a good thing.

“Nice to meet you too. I’m just trying to watch out for you,” she adds, and somehow you don’t quite believe her.

“I can handle my personal matters myself,” you say firmly.

“Not with her, you can’t. Trust me. She’ll sweep you off your feet and leave you with nothing. She doesn’t actually care about you as much as you think, ever.” There’s painful resentment in her words. You don’t know anything about the situation, and you’re not sure you want to know-- mostly because you have an assignment due tonight and don't exactly have the time to listen to a complete stranger rant about her ex.

“As long as she cares about me enough to not fail the both of us, I’m happy. We’re just project partners, and that’s not going to change.”

She scoffs, sliding her chair back. “Yeah. Right. Don’t say I didn't warn you, Delenz.”

There’s a good half dozen things you want to say to her as she walks off, but you hold your tongue. No point in starting a fight.

No point in relying on her words alone, either.

---

-Do you have time to meet up right now?

-Yes, I was actually about to ask you.

-I’m in the library, usual spot

-Be there in a bit

A few minutes later she comes in, coffee in hand, glancing around the room. Her eyes light up when she spots you, and you smile.

“Have you started on the assignment yet?” she asks as she sits down.

You sigh. “Not really... I have a quiz tomorrow for another class, so I’m looking through those notes right now.” Or at least, I was trying to...

“That’s fine. I’m sort of putting it off too, this one looks like it’ll be rough.”

“Yeah.”

Silence falls. It’s a cozy silence, filled with the murmur of your fellow students around you and the smell of hot coffee. You breathe it in for a moment.

“So… I met a friend of yours named Tereza earlier,” you mention casually as you flick through your notes.

Lori’s eyebrows go all the way up as she sips her coffee. She clears her throat before she says, “Oh. How is she?”

Your fingers go still. “...to be honest, she seemed… kind of bitter.”

She sighs quietly. “That would be her.” She stares into her cup. “I don’t want to really get into it, but… I did mess up. But I apologized, and I tried to fix it… She’d rather stay bitter.”

“I figured.”

She shrugs. “Dating scene’s rough here anyway.”

You can tell she’s trying to change the subject, and you decide you’d rather just play along. “How else would it be, with a bunch of older teens and twenty-somethings stuck on a ship for ages?”

She shakes her head with a humorless smile. “Half of the issues I deal with involve the fact that most of the people in my unit have slept with each other and it's stupid.” She rips into a packet of crackers. “At least date outside,” she says between bites, “It's not that hard.”

“I guess,” you say with a shrug. She turns the package toward you and you take one, trying to eat at least a little more gracefully.

She looks at you pensively as she chews, then swallows. “You… never have really dated around, have you?”

“No,” you admit. Why do you feel so shy about it? “I never had the time, especially during secondary.” You snap a cracker in half. “Besides, my parents…”

“Oh, I forgot about Tusies and their arranged marriages. Up here, most of them ignore those arrangements; after all, who needs to know, right? We’re all going back eventually anyway, or something.” She looks down at her coffee. “Is he… nice, at least?”

Thinking of him for honestly the first time in months because the boy can’t be bothered to even write you, you can’t help but make a face. “He’s boring. It’s not like he's mean, or even really scummy or anything, but he’s not doing anything with his life, so I’m pretty sure my parents are going to break it off for me next time I go home.”

She snorts. “How convenient.”

“I guess?” You shrug uncomfortably. “It’s not exactly convenient, there’s paperwork and awkward fancy dinners involved. Plus it’ll just be awkward after I graduate since I’ll inevitably run into him everywhere. Ugh.”

She laughs. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how you can get a functioning society out of that mess,” she says, shaking her head.

You mimic a snooty old-fashioned voice as you say, “Genetic compatibility coupled with economic and political advancement…” Lori laughs again, and you shrug. “It was supposed to yield the ideal society back in the Separation Times, but now that the colonies are back in contact and population size has stabilized, it’s mostly done for political reasons.”

“And you…” she frowns. “Damn. I’m sorry your parents put you through that, like…”

“Making me a pawn? It’s not like that. It was more of a genetic match in my case. His family would actually get the better end of the deal, mine just wanted the lowest possible chance of recessive diseases. You know how it is.”

She makes a face. “Mm. Yeah, okay.”

You can tell she doesn’t really accept that, but it’s nothing you can change. She sips her coffee in silence, and you pick at a hangnail on your index finger, wincing at the pop of pain and blood when you pull too hard. You notice her watching as you put your finger in your mouth and you raise an eyebrow at her. She shakes her head at you with a small smile.

A question comes to mind by the time you've stopped bleeding. “Excuse me if it's a rude question, but don’t your people have a polyamorous family arrangement?”

Lori shrugs. “Eh… not… exactly? There’s two genetic parents, obviously, but a marriage is between three people,” she says as she draws a triangle in the air with her finger, lingering at the third vertex. “The third is a caretaker and mediator, and can be a parent outside the relationship, but is a part of both households, so usually extended families just live close together.” She retraces one imaginary line, drawing an adjoining triangle as she goes on. “My mimi-- our family’s third--took my dad as her third, so our immediate family is very small, but I was still never lonely growing up. Cousins, and all that.” She laughs. “So many cousins.”

“Sounds nice…” You look down at the painful mess you’ve made of your cuticles. “My parents were an arranged marriage. They were the children of politicians from formerly competing political factions, different bloodlines, a good match all around.” She nods slowly, but you can sense that it’ll take a while for her to warm up to the idea, if ever. “My mom’s side was mostly Workers, and my dad's was more part of the Old Earth elite, so my parents were sort of the face of this new, centralized vision for humanity. Basically, they traveled a lot trying to promote intercolonial policy, and still do. So…” Your mangled finger throbs, and you bite your lip. “I was almost always alone when I was growing up. Our house was programmed well, though, so I wasn’t raised too badly,” you add, purposely over-cheery.

She laughs and shakes her head. Even though you were trying to make light of it, that kind of hurts.

“What?” You ask, trying not to let it show.

“No, not too bad at all. You're okay.” She smiles fondly at you. “You don’t have to feel lonely anymore.”

“I don’t, not with you,” you say truthfully. Then you realize how that sounds and add hurriedly, “W-with you, and Hay and Manda. It’s nice.”

There’s something strange in her expression now, but you don’t understand it.

“It is,” she says simply.

But why does it all feel so complicated?

Her airscreen goes off and she checks the notification and groans. “I need to go work out. Wanna come?” She asks with a smirk, already knowing your answer.

“Nope,” you say emphatically. “Look, look, I’m injured.” You pout, showing her your finger. She takes your hand and you freeze up, but she’s warm and gentle, even though she’s only doing it to play along.

“That looks serious,” she says gravely, with barely contained mirth in her eyes. “Ice it and go lie down, but that’s no excuse to skip class tomorrow.”

You scoff and withdraw your hand, mock-offended. “Like I ever would.” And honestly, with her sitting beside you every day, you wouldn’t.

First•Previous•Next

#starlitscifi #update #original fiction #wlw

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art3mislance-blog · 7 years

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How Physics Scored Kim a Date

Here’s my entry for Trimberly Week! Also posted on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11643270

Everyone told me not to do it, that there were much easier courses that I could be taking to fulfill my physical science requirement. Take astronomy, geology, even food science. But no, I had to insist on taking the harder course so that she could prove her friends and family wrong. That I wasn’t just a pretty face, that I actually had a brain and not just looks and cheerleading skills. But I never expected it would be this hard.

The course from hell that I was talking about was Physics 151: General Physics I. To the naked eye it seemed like a generic, easy gen-ed. But it was actually a two-faced bastard, made to cause procrastinating students to sign up without further investigation past the name, lulling them into a false sense of safety. That was until they showed up to the first day of class to find that it was not as easy it seemed to be, that this physics was the one for the engineering students, one of their prerequisites. Stupidly I had stayed in the class even after hearing this, I mean if a bunch of engineering freshman were taking the course, then surely I, a superior sophomore, could handle it. Right? God was I wrong.

I got a C- on the first exam. My heart had jumped into my throat when I had seen that score staring back at me from my laptop screen. After that I had really buckled down and made sure that all my homework was done and that I was studying a little bit each day and attending every class. But it still wasn’t enough, I just scraped by with a solid C on the second exam. I still had two more exams in the semester and I needed a B+ on both of them to be able to get a good grade in the class. But at the rate I was going it didn’t seem like that would happen. I couldn’t even hate the teacher because he was really nice and understanding, but I just couldn’t seem to grasp the material.

I groaned and ran my hand through my hair, still surprised a bit when my hand stopped short, unused to the short locks. I shouldered the door open, not even looking up at the old auditorium. It had been jam-packed with around three-hundred students for the first few days, but now only around sixty or so showed up. I bee-lined for my unassigned seat, second row, three in from the left. I shuffled in, slipping my bag off my shoulder, ready to throw it under my chair, only to stop short when a pair of legs come into view. I narrow my eyes and allow my eyes to travel upward. My heart stutters in my chest as I take in the girl who has claimed my seat. Her dark brown hair falls in waves to her shoulders, a yellow beanie covering her head. She’s decked out in a pair of skinny jeans and a yellow, plaid shirt to match her beanie. She’s doodling something in her notebook, lost in her own little world. Before I can even think I blurt out, “You’re in my seat.”

I press my lips together, regretting saying it as soon as the words leave my mouth. The girl’s eyes lazily looks up at me, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“That’s my seat, I sit there every day,” I wave my hand at her, emphasizing the seat she’s in specifically.

A smirk makes its way over her face and she leans forward, looking behind her. She scans the back of the seat for a moment before her eyes turn back to me, eyes sparkling with mirth. “I don’t see your name on it.”

I huff, “I’ve been sitting there every class since the start of the semester.”

She shrugs her shoulders, turning her attention back to her doodles. “Well you should have gotten here sooner, princesa. Besides there’s plenty of other seats open,” her eyes dart along the row, which is completely empty except for her.

I frown, heaving a sigh before dropping my bag and taking the seat next to her. I pull the small desk out before I begin to riffle through my bag for my notebook and pen. When I have them and I’m all settled I look up to find the girl staring at me. “The entire row is empty and you had to take the seat right next to mine?”

“I like the view from my seat and this is the closest thing that I’m going to get to it. If you’re going to steal my seat then you’re going to have to deal with me,” I say stubbornly.

She glares at me for a moment, but I maintain eye contact, though it’s not easy. Her eyes are pools of chocolate and I could feel myself getting drawn into them. I want to allow myself to get lost in them, but at the same time I know I should look away, lest I scare her off. Thankfully she just narrows her eyes at me before dropping her eyes, going back to her doodle once again.

For the next few minutes an awkward silence hangs over the two of us. She scratches away at her paper, doodling random things like lightning bolts to pass the time. Meanwhile I glance around the room, taking in all the bored faces, staring at their phones until the teacher starts the lesson. I soon get tired of this though and turnmy attention back to her, “I’m Kim by the way.”

“Nice to know, princesa,” she mutters, not taking her eyes off of her paper.

“You’re not going to tell me your name?” She glances over at me, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. Unfortunately the teacher takes this moment to start teaching and I have to tear my eyes away from the beautiful stranger, diverting my full attention to the PowerPoint. I sit through the lesson, hastily writing everything I can down, barely understanding anything about it. I know that we’re learning the conservation of momentum, and I get the basic principle of it down. But when it comes to the practice problems he shows I can’t make head or tales of it.

By the end of the lesson my hand was cramped from all the scribbling I had been doing and I tighten it into a first before relaxing it, trying to ease the ache. “You really like physics, huh?” the mystery girl asks, causing me to jump lightly.

A snort breaks past my lips before I can stop it, “Quite the opposite, actually.” She raises an eyebrow at me, “I’m actually doing horribly in the class, I need to pay attention to try and get better than a C on my next exam.”

She furrows her brows, zipping up her bag before standing. I follow suit and we both shuffle out of the row, slowly walking out behind the other students. I figure that is the end of our conversation and that we’ll part ways once outside the building, but she surprises me when she asks, “I could, uh help you sometime if you like.”

I shoot her an incredulous look, “You don’t even like me!”

She frowns at my words, “Why do you say that?”

I roll my eyes, starting to walk in the direction of the dinning common. “You won’t even tell me your name for starters.”

She rolls her eyes at me, checking her watch. “Look I have chem in five minutes, we can talk more during class on Wednesday.” With that she abruptly turns and starts speed walking away.

“I still don’t know your name!” I yell out.

“See you Wednesday, princesa!” she calls over her shoulder.

Giddy excitement rushes through me, I haven’t been this excited to go a physics class since, well, ever. Next to me Jason nudges my shoulder, wiggling his eyebrows at me, “Getting pumped to see your girlfriend?”

I ram my shoulder into him, making him stumble to the side. “She’s not my girlfriend, and can’t I just be excited for physics?”

“No you hate the class,” he deadpans, “Besides, all I’ve heard for the past day and a half is about this sarcastic little shit in your physics class who stole your seat. Going on and on about how beautiful her eyes are, how her raspy voice is just great, and-”

I punch his shoulder, “Shut up, so maybe I have a crush on this mystery girl, but nothing’s going to come of it. I don’t even think she likes me.”

He shoots me a glare as he rubs his shoulder, “Dude she said she’d help you in physics, if she hated you she definitely wouldn’t be signing up to spend more time with you.”

He’s got a point, even though everything else about our interaction makes me believe that I’m just a nuisance to her there’s no denying the fact that she offered to spend more time with me. Clearly she can’t dislike me that much, right? Unless she plans on making fun of me the whole time for being unable to grasp General Physics. I groan, “I’ll see you later, Jace.”

He sends me an encouraging smile before I break away from him to head into Hasbrouck, the building I have come to loathe. When I make my way into the auditorium I find that the mystery girl is in my seat again, glancing up at the door. We make eye contact for a moment before she looks away, a bit of pink tinging her cheeks. My hope rises, maybe I do have a chance after all.

I make my way over to the seat next to her, hesitating for only a moment before sitting down. “Hey there, Sarah.”

She turns to me, confusion plastered all over her face. “Who’s Sarah?”

I shrug, “Not you, I guess. I don’t know your name so I thought I’d give it a go.”

She rolls her eyes at me, “So you’re struggling with physics?”

Deflecting I can deal with that, “Yeah it’s not my strong suit, I took it to get rid of a gen-ed. Obviously it’s not my strong suit, unlike you Carry.”

She sighs in exasperation, “Not my name, princesa. Besides, physics not for everyone, what’s your major?

“Journalism, how about you, Lucy?”

She groans, “Would you quit it with the names?”

“Not until you tell me yours,” I shoot back.

She just shakes her head at me, “I’m a mechanical engineering major,” she mutters, “So what are you struggling with?”

I shrug, “The problems, I guess. I usually can understand the theory behind everything, but when it comes to putting it to action I crash and burn.”

She nods, biting her lip. My breathe catches, oh god was it hot in here or was it me? Actually it’s the mystery girl, she was definitely causing the room to go up a few degrees with her presence. I wet my lips, my mouth suddenly dry as I find myself staring.

“Kim!” she says, snapping her fingers in my face.

I blink, dragging my eyes away from her lips up to her eyes. “I can’t meet with you tonight at 4 if you want? We could go to the library and I can see if I can help you.”

“Really?!?” I ask, excitement evident in my tone. I throw my arms around her without thinking, “You are literally a life saver!” She squirms in my grip and I let her go, unable to stop smiling. “I can pay you if you want? I’d feel bad if you helped me with nothing in return.”

The girl hesitates for a moment, her hands playing with a hairband, showing her nerves. “Well you could buy me dinner, in return.”

Oh my god. Did she mean as in a date? Was I making this up? I didn’t even know this freaking girls name, Christ I had only known her for a few days. But god would I love to take her out on a date. “D-dinner?” I somehow manage to squeak out.

She blushes and turns red, dropping her face down to her notebook. “Forget it, it was a stupid idea.”

“No!” I yell, drawing the attention of a few people in the area, I don’t care though because a pretty girl might have just asked me on a date and I can’t let her think that I don’t want it. “I would love to have dinner with you! Would, uh, would it be a date?” My voice cracks on the word date and I cringe, god I just sounded like a fifteen-year old boy.

She looks at me through her lashes, biting her lip once again. “Yeah, as a date.”

A grin stretches across my face. “Deal, but only if you tell me your name.”

She rolls her eyes at me, but holds out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

“That’s not your name,” I shoot back, even though I’m unlocking my phone and handing it to her anyway. She rolls her eyes at me and takes the phone. She messes around with it for a moment before handing it back to me.

I look down at it to find that she has created a new contact and sent a text to herself with my name. I quickly look at the top of the screen to find the name Trini with a yellow heart next to it. I grin, turning back to her, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Trini.”

#trimberly #Trimberly Week Day 1

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hiamyjade · 7 years

Text

; A SECRET Outside we sat in the freezing cold, a cigarette in his hand and a glass of whisky in the other. Our view was beautiful, we sat upon a wall that overlooked the beautiful loch in front of us, the light from the moon lit it up so gracefully. The trees were perfectly aligned along the edge of the loch and covered in small twinkly lights. My cousin really had chose the nicest venue for her big day. The relationship between my Dad and I had always been strained, so on occasions like this, I liked to soak up every minute I did get with him. We start talking about my life, my music, my plans for the future. He tells me how well I sang for the guests earlier, but I can sense something in his voice, something isn’t right. "It was so good to see that tonight, you looked so happy. I’m sad that it’s going to be the last time I’ll see you play like that.” I turned around, an eyebrow raised as I watched him intently. "What do you mean the last time you’ll see me perform? I want to do this for the rest of my life Dad, ” I say with a concerned smile. I remembered only a few days ago I had got discouraged from writing, maybe he thought I had meant it when I said I never wanted to pick up a pencil again. Surely it was that. Did he know something that I didn’t? Was he ill? Was this his way of telling me? My mind started to search of all the possibilities. "No, Amy.. I won’t get to see you play again. I don’t think your mum would let me.” My mum? What’s him coming to see me play a gig got anything to do with my mum? Their relationship had always been tense, very tense, but for my mum to stop my dad seeing us? I couldn’t imagine it. “Why won’t mum let you come see me play?” I ask innocently, hoping for a joke to come out of his mouth about how Mum hates him and is going to meet a man, move to Spain and take us with her, but instead all I got was truth. "I’m leaving.” his words came out cold and harsh, an unexpected shiver overcame my body and suddenly I forgot how to breath. "I have a house and everything ready, I just have to find the right time just get up and go.” My heart sank, the music from inside the party suddenly became so distant like someone had turned it down for the occasion. I looked at my dad, right in his eyes which I couldn’t do very often but I suppose the swig of red wine before I walked outside helped. "You’re leaving? Like moving out? Divorcing Mum?” My dad nodded as his hand touched my leg, noticing I was getting distressed. I instantly wanted to slap it off and walk away, run from this situation completely. I wanted to do something, I wanted to say something, but I just sat there looking at him, tears welling up in my eyes. Why was I so distraught? I knew this was going to happen, they hardly had a very loving relationship, it was no surprise. Although to find out this way was something I never expected and to be the first person he had told. I had hoped I was long gone out of the house with a family of my own before they decided that their relationship was no longer patchable. I hoped when my brother and I got older, they would realise that their relationship was broken and mutually decide that it was for the best. I hoped I would come to visit them and they would sit me down and explain that they just didn’t love each other anymore and that shit happens and I would understand. I would have enough life experience to know that continuing on an already crumbling marriage was pointless. I always knew we were the reason they were even together in the first place, neither of them wanted to split up a family. We had spoke about it before, all of us, or tried to on multiple occasions. We tried to sit down as a family multiple times and come up with a solution to the constant anger and pain we felt underneath our own roof. I understood that it was for the best, I understood they would be happier apart, I understood both of them just weren’t happy, but I just didn’t understand why suddenly he had such a light in his eyes about it. "I have to leave, it’s time,” he explained, taking another puff of his cigarette as he looked out over the loch. “I’m starting to feel the way I did when I was younger.. I don’t want to feel that way again, that’s why I have to go.” I didn’t really understand what he meant by that at the time, but now looking back I can only assume he was suicidal again. At the age of six he sat me down and explained that Daddy wasn’t going to live at home anymore, he said that he would still see us now and then but if Mum stopped him seeing us, he would kill himself. Being six years old and hearing your Dad talking about suicide is one of the scariest things you could imagine. You don’t understand death at six, all you can comprehend is that your Dad wants to leave you. This left me with such fear surrounding my Dad. He would disappear sometimes, not come home from work and stay out all night. I would convince myself that he had done it each time, that he had just got enough of us and ended it. It was a secret that I kept hidden from people, he had trusted me, even as a child and I couldn't let my Mum know that the "man of the house" wasn't mentally stable. My Mum would wrap blankets around us late at night and put us in the back seat of the car to go look for him, convinced she would find only his body one of these times. I knew aside from that, he didn’t enjoy being with us. He would come in from work and walk right into the bathroom and straight to bed, sometimes without a single word said. We would joke around with him on the rare occasion and he would push us away or get angry at us if we hurt him accidentally. I would always wake with the sound of his 6am work alarm and if he didn’t turn it off within a few minutes, my heart would start to race. I thought I had caused those feelings in him, I thought I was the reason he felt the need to escape and I thought that it was something that I could control. My Dad also had a gambling addiction that was incredibly out of control. He would lie straight to my Mum’s face about not taking any money, about losing bank cards, about misplasing his wallet when he was throwing it all on horses and puggy machines. Christmases were ruined by gambling, by arguments, by holes punches through plasterboard walls and cups smashed onto laminate floors. "You don’t look like your Dad,” children at school would say. I knew they were just being observant but it was pretty obvious I didn’t look like him at all. He was small built but tall, he had dark brown, almost black hair and was covered in freckles but always hid them with a tan from caddying. I was big built, even as a child and had long blonde hair that reached my butt. I was pale as a sheet and aside from the occasional freckle or mole, my skin was clear. I started to wonder if this was why he did the things he did, why he didn’t want to spend much time with me or why he wanted to leave so badly. At the time these feelings were completely justifiable and I blamed myself for his actions. I can’t blame my Dad fully for the start of binge eating at a young age, it was a number of things that started it all off. I was heavily bullied since my first day of school and soon found a comfort in food. Food was constantly on my mind and my weight started to increase, only making the bullying worse. I was only in primary 4 and I was behind in all my classes. “Amy is a bright girl, if she would just pay attention,” teachers would say. They would call me a daydreamer and say I wasn’t learning because I just didn’t care. I was then put in a lot of Special Ed classes which lowered my confidence even more, everyone around me could barely count to 10 and here I was sitting doodling pictures and lyrics into my work book. Deep down I knew this wasn’t where I belong but it didn’t take long for me to start to believe what the teachers and bullies were saying about me. "You can’t tell your Mum or your brother yet though, okay? Don’t tell a single soul until I get it all sorted and I’ll go.” "Are you going to sit them down and talk to them about it before you leave?” I asked, almost begging him. "No, I just have to go.” His voice turned stern as he took another sip of his whisky. "You can’t just go, Dad. 24 years of marriage and you’re going to just walk out without an explanation? You at least owe her that, you owe that to your son, you owe that to your family.” I had to try and stay calm in front of my dad, while a thousand thoughts and fears are spinning around my head. He is trusting me with a huge secret, I have to be mature about this, I’m the only one he has told and I can’t let him down. Deep down I knew it was a horrible secret and one that if caught out, would cause so much damage. I knew that I shouldn’t keep it, but I was longing for his approval so badly that I was willing to keep even the worst of secret. I stand up, brushing off my dress from the mossy wall I was sitting on. I wanted to get back into the party before he started spilling more secrets upon me but instead, he got up with me and leaned in, smelling the strong aroma of whisky on his breath as he whispered, "Don’t tell them, I’ll tell them in my own time. If you tell them, I’m leaving and I’m not coming back." ;A DRINK Oh a bar? At this wedding? Don’t mind if I do. The second I got back into the building I went straight to the only place I could think of that would help me brighten my mood. "Three shots of whisky please,” I ask scrambling for change in my purse. With every whisky shot, the secret seemed to get smaller and smaller. "Whisky is so gross,” I slur to the bar man as I order another two, the half empty glass of wine still in my hand that I was simultaneously gulping between shots. One for me and one for my Dad this time. It’s one of the last times I’ll spend time with him before he moves out, we have to have fun, we have to make memories. What’s the big deal about them divorcing? I get peace from their arguing, I get two rooms, two lots of birthday gifts. Maybe this divorce thing isn’t so bad after all. Oh, there goes another shot. Surely I’ll be able to get my own room in this new place of his, right? Will Rory get one too? Oh that one really caught the back of my throat. Maybe if I ask my dad nicely, he’ll let me have parties at his house and I can invite all my friends. I can spend the weekends with him and we can watch movies and eat pizza. We can finally work on our bond. There goes another. That one really went for my head. “Come dance with me,” my dad says as he drags me onto the dance floor. I stumble off of my bar stool and hold onto his arm for balance. We are both equally as drunk and probably just as numb, that was the sad part. I wanted to dance with him more than anything in that moment, it was one of the first times I had ever really wrapped my arms around him and held him for longer than a few seconds. He grabbed my hand and spun me around like a little girl. “You’ll always be my wee babby,” he said as he held me close, swaying to the music. I remember scanning around the dance floor looking for someone I could tell, it had only been an hour or so since he told me and I already felt the weight of the secret holding me down. I couldn’t tell my cousin, it was her wedding day, I could never ruin it like that. I couldn’t tell my family, they would leave right there. My mouth was completely sealed. I cried a lot that night, more so in the bathroom with a glass of the complimentary free wine they gave you before the wedding party even begins, but from that night on, I was bound by a secret that ate away at me for months. As time went on, the secret grew inside my head. Every discussion my parents would have, I would wait for it to slip. I was afraid of the littlest argument with him in case he would blurt it out. I didn’t want my family to find out like that, I didn’t want it to end with an argument and for him to use it as a weapon, but my dad trusted me. He told me a huge secret and trusted me to keep it, I couldn’t let him down. I wanted so badly to run to my mum crying, telling her to stop trying so hard to make the marriage work, to tell her to stop crying over a relationship that was already dead. I wanted to tell her that he was going to leave without a warning and to prepare her heart, I wanted to shield them both from the explosion that was about to happen. Days passed and eventually weeks did too, I didn’t know when the day was, I kept trying to ask him, beg him, plead to him to warn me beforehand so I could prepare myself. I wasn’t ready for my dad to leave. I didn’t know how to catch spiders by myself, I didn’t know how to fix the squeak in my door, I couldn’t reach high enough to change a light bulb, I couldn’t do it without him. "I don’t want to talk about it right now Amy, just leave it” he would say when I begged him in private to let me know when he was leaving. I used to check his room every morning after he went to work to make sure his clothes were still there. I would call him at lunch time and make sure he was coming home. I waited up some nights just to hear him wake up and go to work to know he didn’t leave through the night. My mind kept going back to that night, the feelings I had when I took those whisky shots. The burning in my throat but ultimately the instant relief of guilt from holding a secret that could break my family apart. I started going out more, my pre-drinks going from a couple of Smirnoff Ice to a full a bottle of wine in the back of a car whilst being driven to a pub, where I would only drink more. When I couldn’t go out, I was drinking with friends, encouraging them to break out the wine or the drinking games and would always drink until I forgot. I wasn’t drinking every day, but when I was it was very excessive, I did it to forget and I did it to numb. I slowly started to become a little worse with my bulimia which I thought was slowly getting under control. There would be days where I couldn’t eat anything, I couldn’t even put a cup of water to my mouth, yet there would be days I would stay up till 5am eating anything I could find and throwing it straight back up. On top of the purging, I also abused laxatives, diet pills and caffeine pills. I even took pills that weren’t prescribed for me. I took anything I could do make me feel less guilt about the food I was eating and the secrets I were keeping. ;A CONFESSION Four months of drinking, A&E visits, bulimia and taking whatever I could to numb myself, the unexpected happened. My mum heard from someone in town that my dad had a place up in Ayr. I thought that his secret was safe, I thought I was the only one in this world he had told but I later found out he had told everyone at work. She was confused at the statement and assumed it was false, until she saw the panic cross my face. She didn’t have to say anything more, my face answered and confirmed any suspicion of it being true. I broke down, I apologised a million times, I had lied to my mum, I had her find out by a stranger on the street. I didn’t want it to happen like this, I wanted it all to be spoken about, I wanted the split to be as peaceful as we could. “I didn’t want to split the family up,” I sobbed in her arms, confessing he had told me everything that night and told me not to tell. After that night, my Dad didn’t come home. He would appear now and then to ask for money from my mum since his wages were still being paid into their shared bank account. He didn’t appear very much but when he did, it was for a few minutes and always ended in money or a favour. I missed him. Weeks had passed and I still hadn’t seen or heard from him. The longer it went, the more it killed me. With each day that passed, I felt like he was taking a part of me. I no longer felt like his daughter, but just someone he once lived with, like an old roommate. “I miss you,” I would say to him on the phone on the rare occasion he would answer. "I miss you too my darlin’,” he would say back, but it was hard to believe and painful to hear. I started to confuse what was love and what wasn’t. I got into some bad situations and ones that I can only label as learning experiences. I got into some great ones, with people who changed my life in so many positive ways, but the negative ones will always be with me. I harbored all of the guilt for that night, for keeping the secret, for telling my mum, for splitting up a family. The feeling of not being good enough stuck, like a chain around my ankle that I dragged everywhere I went, every person I met, every adventure I began. My head started to become more clouded, bad thoughts appeared and I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to cope. I had all this blame, I could have prevented this all, Rory might still have a dad if I didn't admit to Mum it was true, my Dad might still show her cared. My mind was a mess, my thoughts were all one huge big blur and my future became non existent. The girl who was once fueled by compassion and love now wanted to be left alone. I started drinking more. At first it was only a few shots a day to tide me over, to make the pain go away and to forget for a while at work or while I was out with friends. Just a few shots to numb the constant pain and guilt that I felt, but there’s something about the night and it’s ability to make those clouds in my head into even bigger clouds until it was 5am and I was drunk out of my mind. I decided to call my Dad one night when drunk and asked if I could come stay at his house. He took a little convincing but after a while he agreed and I stayed there for a few nights. He had beer in his fridge and whisky in the cabinets, a real bachelors pad if you ask me. "Excuse the mess,” he said as he showed me around his new house. It was a one bedroom, looks like the room I dreamed about wasn’t going to happen. I drank throughout being at my Dads, a beer one after the other, he even gave me a bottle of whisky to go home with. I finished the full whisky bottle within two days of being home. It was the expensive stuff, the stuff old men would be drinking at their book club or chess tournament, so I felt pretty bad sitting in my over-sized shirt and leggings with my hair in a messy bun chugging the bottle in a dark corner of my room. It helped a lot, you have no idea how much it helped. To be free from bulimia’s grips, to be free from the pain of my Dad not wanting me, to be free from the guilt I felt tearing our family apart, to be free from the fear I felt at not being good enough, the fear I felt regarding my friends, my family, my future, my thoughts, my sexuality, my feelings. It all went away with just a few swigs. It started off slowly until it developed into a quarter bottle a day and then into sometimes more than half a bottle a day. At first I would keep a diet coke bottle in my bag with a few shots of vodka mixed into it. It kept the taste out of my mouth, hid the smell a little more and got me drunk gradually. But it wasn’t long until that developed into gulping down straight vodka from a water bottle in the bathroom at work. I would plug my nose and just gulp, my body covered in shivers. I would wipe my mouth with my sleeve and keep my eyes shut until I felt the burning stop. And just like that, I was completely and utterly controlled by a clear substance in a little glass bottle. The only time I now spoke to my Dad was to ask him to buy me drink. I would call him after work and he would pick me up, take my money and go into a corner shop. I’d pour it into a sprite or water bottle and he would get rid of the glass bottle for me. I had gone to the shops too many times on my own and people were surely starting to question. I didn’t want them saying anything to my Mum or Rory, the last thing I wanted was them to be hurt by another secret. Our relationship was now being built and fueled on lies, but I needed him, and for once in my life; he was there. He would watch me empty my half bottle of vodka into a sprite bottle and down a couple of gulps right beside him. He watched as my face screwed up after I took a swig, he watched my body stop trembling from withdrawals, he watched my emotions numbed over, the emotions that he had caused and I somehow became human again. I became a pro at hiding my drinking, I had everyone fooled. Stashing bottles in hard to reach places, brushing my teeth 4 times a day to cover the smell. "You should really tell Mum about all this” he said one day as he got into his van and handed me my bottles in a blue plastic bag. Inside was my usual, a sprite bottle and a quarter bottle of vodka. I opened the car door and started to empty out the contents of the fizzy juice down the drain that we were parked over. He didn’t wait for a response, he started up the engine the second I closed my door and began to drive me home. I’m not sure if the guilt was getting the better of him or if he was only saying this so he didn’t have to go to the trouble of getting it for me. ;A TICKET My Mum and brother soon found out I was drinking and we got into an argument, yet another lie they had found out and our relationship was almost non-existent. I went to stay with my then-Boyfriend's place in Glasgow for the weekend to get a break, from what I don’t really know as the problems only followed. Of course I had to bring a couple of plastic bottles full to do me over the weekend. If I just chewed a lot of chewing gum and brushed my teeth any time I went to the toilet he wouldn’t smell it off my breath, right? I was hoping so as I threw another few squares of chewing gum into my mouth after my last swig while he went to the bathroom. I didn’t even make it till Sunday afternoon before I had finished my last drop of alcohol and had maybe only eaten two bites of the food he made me, but luckily my boyfriend had some drink left over from a party. "That’s out of date, don’t drink that!” he warned, watching me crack open the lid of kopperberg on his radiator, my hands starting to shake a little. “It’ll be fine, alcohol doesn’t go out of date,” I assured him as I took a swig and sat myself upright on his bed. I had to get home today, this would tied me over for a while until I managed to make up a plan. Luckily a commitment came up that I had to get back for on Monday, so I convinced him it would be easier to go home tonight so I didn’t miss it. He didn’t like that idea and at the time I wasn’t sure why, now I realise how obvious it would have been. Oh sure, let a completely drunk girl find her way around central station and manage to get on a train home. But somehow I managed to convince him, I could convince someone anything if it meant I got to drink. Of course the newsagent at central station doesn’t sell alcohol you idiot, why did you think you would be able to just grab a half bottle like you would the paper before getting on a train? My mind raced thinking about how I was going to find drink, if I exited central station I would miss my train, and the trains on Sunday weren’t very regular. I felt my body start to shake as I played with the zipper on my jacket, unsure of where I was going. I felt nauseous, at any moment I felt like I was going to throw up. That would make it viral; girl projectile vomits in central station. I wasn’t even thinking straight, my mind was a jumbled mess and even though I knew the cure for it, I didn’t know how to get it. I could get a ticket home. I could confess to my Mum that I had started drinking heavily and that I wanted help. I could buy a ticket that would let me run right into her arms, or, I could get one to Ayr where my dad lived, use the spare money to buy drink and stay at his house until I had outdrank my welcome. "A single to Ayr,” I muttered to myself as I pressed the button on the ticket machine in front of me. At that moment, there was no first option, there was no hesitation. I had given every once of control I had to the feeling in my head that was telling me I needed it. I needed to drink to be happy, I needed a drink to be confident, I needed a drink to be a daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend, I needed a drink to survive. When I arrived in Ayr I went straight to the newsagents near my dads. By this time I had been without a drink for longer than I was used to. It was the most horrible feeling both physically and emotionally. I bought half bottle of vodka and started making my way down to the beach, the only place I could drink it in peace. Although the walk was only short, my mind was racing. “I’m too logical for this,” I thought to myself as I started to feel the sea breeze hit my face. It was true, I was way too logical to know that I couldn’t keep this up for much longer, yet I was much too damaged to care. I didn’t care that I would be completely hooked on alcohol if I continued, I didn’t care that I was ruining my internal organs, I didn’t care that my Mum didn’t know where I was or if I was okay, I didn’t care if I would get home tonight, I didn’t care about anything else but numbing these feelings and dulling this pain. I had alcohol. I sat myself down onto a bench by the beach, guarded by shrubs and sheltered from the pathway. I wanted to lie on that bench forever, I wanted to drink until I didn’t wake up, until I could no longer breathe, until there was so much alcohol in my system my body shut down but I knew that wouldn’t happen with the half bottle and the coppers still left over in my purse. I unscrewed the top of the bottle, hearing that all too familiar clicking noise took a breath and downed the whole bottle in a few seconds flat. As I lay on the bench waiting for the alcohol to fully enter my system and numb me of everything, something came over me. I wanted my dad. I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts for his number. He didn’t answer the first few times I called, and by the time I went to call a third time, I was seeing double. This was hitting me harder than I expected, maybe it was because I opted for the brand name version instead of the knock-off brand. Treat yourself was clearly not my motto here. I don’t really remember much about that night apart from my Dad calling about an hour later, I must have dozed off as I was startled awake by the ringtone of my phone. I answered it, my worlds sluring together to make a senstance and asked him if I could come over. "I’m not in Ayr, Amy," he replied, his tone almost aggressive. I don’t remember much of the conversation after that, but I remember telling him I wanted him here, that I missed him and that I needed him. I don’t know if he knew I was drunk or not, but surely my 3 slurred answer machine messages proved otherwise. Our call only lasted a few minutes before he had to leave. My Dad wasn’t coming to pick me up, he wasn’t coming to help and I was left alone in the darkness of the beach. I decided to get up, feeling a bit more steady. I stumbled towards a park with some more benches, this one was lit up by street lamps. “I could sleep there for the night, I have my bag for a pillow,” I thought. My brain isn’t even thinking logically, I’m too drunk to even know how to use my initiative and any survival skills I once had were now drowned with vodka. I would be lying if I said the thought of never coming home didn’t crossed my mind. My mind was so tormented and clouded, I somehow felt like I had dug an incrediably deep hole for myself and was falling futher and further into it. I’m not sure if I called my Mum or my Mum called me, but thankfully she got in contact with me and I told her where I was. I felt so hesitant giving her directions, I just wanted to sit here and waste away. She got into the car instantly and broke every speed limit on the way up. When I got in the car I started to cry, I didn’t have to say anything for her to know exactly what I was thinking and feeling. ;A CHANGE Alcohol alone will take it’s tole on your body, so it was no surprise only a few weeks later I ended up in hospital again. I hadn’t been taking care of my body and the effects were obvious. The alcohol combined with my eating disorder and anything else I could throw in to destruct me further was now starting to physically affect me. Although my symptoms were not serious, I know they could have been and could be if I continue to destroy myself like this. The doctors were starting to gain suspicion and "I haven't ate today because i've been really busy" or "I had a few drinks with my friends last night" were too overused. I covered for myself a lot at first, my lies only getting more convincing but there's only so many times you can make up an excuse. I was a master at lying and got so good at it that it scared me at times, but something came over me that day. I told the nurse everything. I told her I was bulimic, I told her I drank and I told her that I was scared. I was open for one of the first times in my life to a professional who could help me. "And would you say you were a binge drinker?” the nurse asked, frowning over her clipboard as she took notes. To her, I was just another number, another patient with more problems than she intended to treat me for. I had never asked myself this question before, so it came as a surpise. I had never even let it cross my mind that I had a problem or that I needed a label for the method of relief I was using. Yet here she was, dressed head to toe in the latest NHS fashion asking me questions I didn’t have an answer to. "I do drink a lot right now,” I confessed, avoiding the question and hoping she would pass it by and ask me something less complicated like what my blood type was or the last time I visited the doctors. She did, luckily, but I knew exactly what she had wrote down and I knew exactly what was coming next. "Will you accept the help I offer you for your bulimia and alcohol problem?” she asked directly, sitting her notes down onto the table beside my bed. "Yes.” Without hesitation, the word shot out of my mouth so fast like a bullet from a gun. It was maybe one of the first times honesty had slipped my lips. It was something I never expected to come out and something that I regret not even a minute later, but I had done it. I entered recovery that day.

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kawaii-music-notes · 8 years

Audio

Yayoi Haru : Maeno Tomoaki

弥生春 : 前野智

[Haru pours a cup of tea and drinks]

Yeah, this wakes me up. Once in a while, it’s good to drink black tea too. *drinks* Hah… It’s getting a lot warmer and the graduation ceremony has ended safely too. But I feel kinda rushed at the last moment though… *chuckles* Even so… it’s already spring.

Well… about that, I think it’s no wonder that I was rushing here and there. After all, I’m entering the entertainment world, plus the dormitory life. *chuckles*

Spring, the season of meeting and parting. When I was a third year high school student, after I’m done with the examination safely and graduated from high school. During this very period, I should have been leisurely doing my preparations for my new life which will start next month, in April.

At leisure. That’s right, doing things leisurely. *drinks* Both my house and my university are in Tokyo. As I was promised that I could only live by myself on my second year, there’s nothing in particular that needed preparation. At the most, I’ve thought of enrolling in a training school. Hmm~ after having thought about it, somehow it seems like these things have happened long time ago.

As for what really happened, I’m not enrolled in a training school, nor am I relaxing. If anything, I’ve been living very busy days. The cause of it, is clear. It’s because, besides entering the university, starting this spring, it’s been decided that I’ll enter the entertainment world.

Because of a curious turn of fate led by the mysterious black rabbit, Kuroda. I enter the entertainment world with my best friend, Hajime. The course of life, one never knows what is going to happen, it’s something like divine revelation isn’t it?

I’ve thought that my mother and the rest are definitely against it, but instead, they were actually more excited than I am. They were surprisingly very hyped about it. Thanks to that, the timing to leave my family home has been advanced. As the result of various things proceeded smoothly, currently, together with 5 other people, we are formed into a group and started living together in an apartment owned by the company which functions as a dorm.

I’m often asked by my friends if I’m having a tough time or not… Surprisingly I’m not. I was cruelly told by Hajime, that it was because I’m ultimately shameless and daring or something like that. Anyway, I’m not particularly appalled by the new environment, and the members, who have strong personalities are all interesting people. Every day has been fun and lively. I think it’s fair to say that I’m living a fulfilling life. Yeah, I don’t dislike this sort of thing.

And today, is the long-awaited, precious off-day. The weather is good too and it’s an unusually peaceful mornin- [someone is running in the hallway] …guess not. *sigh* Oh well.

[The door opens and shuts]

Morning, Koi. You’re energetic this morning…or that’s what I would like to say, but could you please shut the door a little bit more quietly?…

[Koi suddenly runs and hides somewhere near Haru]

Wuooh! That was close. [Haru puts down his tea] Hide? What do you mean “Hide me”? What have you been doing first thing in the morning?

[The door opens and shuts again]

Hm? Aah… morning, Kakeru. Why is it even Kakeru… Pfft! Ka, Kakeru!? W, what’s with those words on your forehead?… *chuckles* Aah, no! *clears throat* What happened?

Yesterday… You had a fight with Koi… Today when you woke up, there’s doodle on your face… *chuckles* No! I’m not laughing! I’m not laughing…sorry *laughs* Well, I’m really sorry! But, what’s with those words? “Lower Middle Class”? I don’t get it… Ah, right *clears throat* Eeh, aah, so… about Koi? You’re asking me whether I’ve seen Koi or not… Aah… today… I haven’t seen him, I guess? For now, go and wash your face, it’ll be bad if the doodle cannot be removed.

[Kakeru walks out]

Well, Koi?

[Koi comes out of hiding]

If you know he’s going to be angry…. you should not be pulling that grade-school level kind of prank from the beginning… *chuckles* Ah, anyway, don’t play a prank. *chuckles* If you feel bad about it, go and apologize to Kakeru.

You guys have said that today, both of you will be going out together after a long time. Both of you even made various plans already, didn’t you? Won’t it be a waste of time if the both of you are fighting like this? Moreover, if you don’t go and apologize now, Kakeru will probably complain to Hajime in tears.

[Koi quickly runs out]

*chuckles* As expected of Hajime. Even here, the effect of his name is amazing. [Haru continues drinking tea] Fuh~ well, it’s peaceful. The duo Arata and Aoi are going out too, guess they’ll have their lunch outside. Everyone is properly enjoying their off-day to their fullest~ *stretch* Indeed, it’s such a nice weather and an off-day. It makes one wants to go out. Should i go out shopping too? I’m fine going out alone but… even though the rest are going out in pairs… If I’m the only one that goes out alone… It’s kinda boring or more like, dull. *sigh* I wonder if Hajime is going to wake up soon? If he’s forcefully woken up, he’ll be in a really bad mood. Well, while it’s interesting to play with that kind of Hajime… at the very least, it seems he won’t be willing to accompany me for shopping… [Kuroda hops by]

Hm? Isn’t it Kuroda? Morning, even for a rabbit like you, it’s already time to get up huh?

Ah! That’s right! [Haru gets up from the chair, walks towards Kuroda]

Hey~ Kuroda. I think it will be fine if it’s you. Look, he may not look like it, but Hajime loves animals and he’s soft towards them. Sometimes, you relax on Hajime’s lap don’t you? I think he dotes on you very much. I guarantee that. That’s why…

[Haru tries to carry Kuroda but Kuroda runs away]

Hey, hey! Why are you running away? It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s not scary. *chuckles* Well then, Kuroda. I’ll give you an important role, which is to wake Hajime up.

[Kuroda tries to run away]

*laughs* It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s not like he’s going to get and eat you, maybe. You just have to do it like the usual. You get on top of Hajime, put a weight on him and makes him have an uneasy sleep. After that… [Kuroda struggles to run away again] it’s all right! If it’s you, he won’t be angry, maybe. *laughs* [Haru opens the door to Hajime’s room and puts Kuroda inside]

#tsukiuta #tsukiuta month 3 #tsukiuta march #yayoi haru #Maeno Tomoaki #弥生春 #前野智 #ツキウタ。3月 #ツキウタ #tsukino park #tsukino talent production #tsukino project

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theedblog · 7 years

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Hey-O! The only thing I love more than the football season is the couple weeks leading up to it. So much hope...so much promise...mmmmm yeah. I’m no Pro Football Focus but I do have doodles to go along with my much less researched opinions so it pretty much evens out. I’ll break my 2017 Preview down by Division, including The Ed’s All-Division teams and Divisional Offensive Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Breakout Player of the Year, and the most important new comer to each division. Just a heads up, I added a FLEX position on offense which is available for any RB, WR, or TE. On Defense I was pretty open ended about Edge, labeling them either LB or DL. This was just so I didn’t leave out any top tier players in a division that happened to be full of good D-Linemen and thin on Linebackers and vice versa.

We’ll start our tour with the NFC West. The division that was seen for a brief moment as the new tough guy division. The Niners/Seahawks rivalry was the new Steelers/Ravens (puh-leeeeez). This was the lunch pale division for the length of a tuna melt sandwich and a cup of joe barely enjoyed with greasy hands on a steel beam sixty stories up. But then Jim Harbaugh left and we all woke up and remembered what this was...a group of goddamn west coast elites (amirite? right?!). Even the Legion of Boom just kinda bitches about stuff now. Let’s take a look at how the ol’ NFC West is gonna shake out.

All NFC West Crew:

QB - Russell Wilson, Seahawks

RB - Dirt Johnson, Cardinals

TE - Jimmy Graham, Seahawks

WR - Doug Baldwin, Seahawks

WR - Larry Fitzgerald, Cardinals

FLEX - John Brown, Cardinals

OL - Jared Veldheer, Cardinals

OL - Mike Iupati, Cardinals

OL - Andrew Whitworth, Rams

OL - Justin Britt, Seahawks

OL - Joe Staley, 49ers

DL - Mike Bennett, Seahawks

DL - Aaron Donald, Rams

DL - Chandler Jones, Cardinals

DL - Markus Golden, Cardinals

LB - Deone Bucannon, Cardinals

LB - K.J. Wright, Seahawks

LB - Bobby Wagner, Seahawks

DB - Richard Sherman, Seahawks

DB - Patrick Peterson, Cardinals

DB - Earl Thomas, Seahawks

DB - Kam Chancellor, Seahawks

Offensive Player of the Year - DangerRuss Wilson, QB - Seahawks

Defensive Player of the Year - Aaron Donald, DL - Rams

Rookie of the Year - Reuben Foster, LB - 49ers

Breakout Player of the Year - Robert Nkemdiche, DL - Cardinals

Comeback Player of the Year - Robert Quinn, DL - Rams

New Comer of the Year - Andrew Whitworth, OL - Rams

This division was actually pretty easy. There weren’t too many tough choices. The offensive Flex position could’ve gone to a couple different guys. I thought about calling a Todd Gurley return which is very likely but that team is going to be shit and they’ll be abandoning the power running attack before half most games. In that Arizona offense John Brown is going to get his deep looks one way or the other. Even if the second best looking and second best quarterback of the Hanson Brothers (not sure if any of them can play or not, I just have a hard time saying Blaine Gabbert is the best quarterback in any group of people) ends up playing, the rock is going deep in the desert. Carlos Hyde was also a thought but he’s starting to feel like the Sam Bradford of running backs. Every year is ‘the year it all comes together’. The only really tough choice was going with both the Arizona edge guys over the other two edge rushers in Seattle or Robert Quinn. But Cliff Avril and Frank Clark are going to be rotational players (very good ones to be fair) and Quinn is coming off a couple down seasons. I gotta give the edge (no pun intended) to the Arizona boys. I wanted to put Navarro Bowman at linebacker over Deone Bucannon but I just can’t believe at this point he will put together a full 16 game season while Bucannon is a dynamic talent with the potential to hit an elite level of play.

As far as rookies in this division go there are a few good ones. Solomon Thomas is my bet to be the best of the bunch but I get a feeling they are really going to stretch his abilities thin in a variety of roles as a rookie. Hasaan Reddick is another one that will be good but he is switching positions and is likely to play behind Karlos Dansby early on. Budda Baker is going to be a fun player to watch and a great compliment to the Honey Badger (the nickname combos should be great) but is a guy Arizona will have to move around to find his best position as a pro. He will also probably start out playing behind a veteran (Antoine Bethea). Gerald Everett will get touches for the Rams but he’ll have to transition from a small school to the NFL at a position that already sees a lot of guys struggle with that jump. Reuben Foster is not only pro-ready but actually going to a more simple defense where he will just be asked to chase and tackle. At the combine he really showed how well suited he was for playing linebacker in the NFL. We didn’t get to see him run a 40 or do reps of 225 because he got kicked out of the combine for going ape shit on some lunch lady asking ‘DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!!’ showing supreme confidence and blind rage.

Former first round O-linemen like Josh Garnett and D.J. Humphries were options as breakout candidates but it’s tough to picture guys like that making as big an impact as stat getters (gatherers?) like pass rushers, running backs, etc.. Maurice Alexander was a thought. He should be really good as a full time starter for L.A. this year in place of departed T.J. McDonald. However, he may end up playing high safety too often to really rack up tackles in the box. Instead, I think Robert Nkemdiche has a Jadeveon Clowney kind of impact this year. He may not be a double digit sack guy yet but like Clowney he should start hitting his stride as a dominant run defender. Give him some time to get them dreads out and he’ll be a damn spitting image of former Cardinals bad ass, Darnell Dockett.

Comeback player in this division wasn’t close in my opinion. Robert Quinn is a former All-Pro pass rusher who is still young enough to bounce back from a couple down seasons. It helps he plays with maybe the best defensive player in the league, Aaron Donald and will fill the rock star position in Wade Phillip’s super aggressive defense. He will have the green light to get down field this season and I suspect he gets back to form.

San Fran has loaded up with new faces but they are mostly all just place holders on a bad team. The Seahawks will win this division regardless so I’m looking to the future when it comes to this division’s best new comer. Less-pretty-and-probably-less-good-at-Quarterback-Ryan Gosling (I find myself having the same problem with Jared Goff as I do Blaine Gabbert) has zero chance of being worth all of those draft picks if they don’t at least give him a chance to throw the ball. So bringing in one of this generation’s best offensive linemen was a smart move for the Rams (awful move for Whitworth however). We should get a better look at Goff as an honest to god QB and not just the face of the organization this year.

Dirt ‘David’ Johnson was the only real contender for the NFC West’s Offensive Player of the Year but as soon as Carson Palmer goes down in week 6 this team will start going to shit real quick. It’s hard to pass over the best QB in the division playing for the best team in the division (Russ Wilson).

There are some truly elite defenders in this division. Maybe more so than any other in football and yet it wasn’t even close. Aaron Donald was the best defensive player in football last year and as long as J.J. Watt is having constant back problems Khalil Mack is the only real contender for that title.

Seahawks win this division. Even with an absolute shit offensive line they should sweep the Rams and 49ers and I’d guess split the Cardinals series. Next up...The AFC West.

#nfl seahawks cardinals 49ers rams football sportsnerd football nerd nfl nerd

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mybffbulimia · 7 years

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;; A SECRET Outside we sat in the freezing cold, a cigarette in his hand and a glass of whisky in the other. Our view was beautiful, we sat upon a wall that overlooked the beautiful loch in front of us, the light from the moon lit it up so gracefully. The trees were perfectly aligned along the edge of the loch and covered in small twinkly lights. My cousin really had chose the nicest venue for her big day. The relationship between my Dad and I had always been strained, so on occasions like this, I liked to soak up every minute I did get with him. We start talking about my life, my music, my plans for the future. He tells me how well I sang for the guests earlier, but I can sense something in his voice, something isn’t right. “It was so good to see that tonight, you looked so happy. I’m sad that it’s going to be the last time I’ll see you play like that.” I turned around, an eyebrow raised as I watched him start to tear up. “What do you mean the last time you’ll see me perform? I want to do this for the rest of my life Dad, ” I say with a concerned smile. I remembered only a few days ago I had got discouraged from writing, maybe he thought I had meant it when I said I never wanted to pick up a pencil again. Surely it was that. Did he know something that I didn’t? Was he ill? Was this his way of telling me? “No, Amy.. I won’t get to see you play again. I don’t think your mum would let me.” My mum? What’s him coming to see me play a gig got anything to do with my mum? Their relationship had always been tense, very tense, but for my mum to stop my dad seeing us? I couldn’t imagine it. “Why won’t mum let you come see me play?” I ask innocently, hoping for a joke to come out of his mouth about how Mum hates him and is going to meet a man, move to Spain and take us with her, but instead all I got was truth. “I’m leaving.” his words came out cold and harsh, an unexpected shiver overcame my body and suddenly I forgot how to breath. “I have a house and everything ready, I just have to find the right time just get up and go.” My heart sank, the music from inside the party suddenly became so distant like someone had turned it down for the occasion. I looked at my dad, right in his eyes which I couldn’t do very often but I suppose the swig of red wine before I walked outside helped. “You’re leaving? Like moving out? Divorcing Mum?” My dad nodded as his hand touched my leg, noticing I was getting distressed. I instantly wanted to slap it off, slap him, walk away. I wanted to do something, I wanted to say something, but I just sat there looking at him, tears welling up in my eyes. Why was I so distraught? I knew this was going to happen, they hardly had a very loving relationship, it was no surprise. Although to find out this way was something I never expected. I had hoped I was long gone out of the house with a family of my own before they decided that their relationship was no longer patchable. I hoped when my brother and I got older, they would realise that their relationship was broken and mutually decide that it was for the best. I hoped I would come to visit them and they would sit me down and explain that they just didn’t love each other anymore and that shit happens and I would understand. I would have enough life experience to know that continuing on an already crumbling marriage was pointless. I always knew we were the reason they were even together in the first place, neither of them wanted to split up a family. We had spoke about it before, all of us, or tried to on multiple occasions. We tried to sit down as a family multiple times and come up with a solution to the constant anger and pain we felt underneath our own roof. I understood that it was for the best, I understood they would be happier apart, I understood both of them just weren’t happy, but I just didn’t understand why suddenly he had such a light in his eyes about it. “I have to leave, it’s time,” he explained, taking another puff of his cigarette as he looked out over the loch. “I’m starting to feel the way I did when I was younger.. I don’t want to feel that way again, that’s why I have to go.” I didn’t really understand what he meant by that at the time, but now looking back I can only assume he was suicidal again. That was the problem with depression, one minute you could be living your life with not a care in the world and the next second you are curled up into a ball on your bathroom floor, broken. I knew that feeling all too well and him saying this wasn’t a surprise. At the age of six he sat me down and explained that Daddy wasn’t going to live at home anymore, he said that he would still see us now and then but if Mum stopped him seeing us, he would kill himself. Being six years old and hearing your Dad talking about suicide is one of the scariest things you could imagine. You don’t understand depression at six, you don’t even understand death. All you can comprehend is that your Dad wants to leave you. This left me with such fear surrounding my Dad. He would disappear sometimes, not come home from work and stay out all night. I would convince myself that he had done it each time, that he had just got enough of us and ended it. My Mum would wrap blankets around us late at night and put us in the back seat of the car to go look for him, convinced she would find only his body one of these times. I knew aside from that, he didn’t enjoy being with us. He would come in from work and walk right into the bathroom and straight to bed, sometimes without a single word said. I would always wake with the sound of his 6am work alarm and if he didn’t turn it off within a few minutes, my heart would start to race. Although now I can understand depression and the feelings of suicide, at that age I took it personally. I thought I had caused those feelings in him and I thought that it was something that I could control. My Dad also had a gambling addiction that was incredibly out of control. He would lie straight to my Mum’s face about not taking any money, about losing bank cards, about misplasing his wallet when he was throwing it all on horses and puggy machines. Christmases were ruined by gambling, by arguments, by holes punches through plasterboard walls and cups smashed onto laminate floors.“You don’t look like your Dad,” children at school would say. I knew they were just being observant but it was pretty obvious I didn’t look like him at all. He was small built but tall, he had dark brown, almost black hair and was covered in freckles but always hid them with a tan from caddying. I was big built, even as a child and had long blonde hair that reached my butt. I was pale as a sheet and aside from the occasional freckle or mole, my skin was clear. I started to wonder if this was why he did the things he did, why he didn’t want to spend much time with me or why he wanted to leave so badly. At the time these feelings were completely justifiable and I blamed myself for his actions. I can’t blame my Dad fully for the start of binge eating at a young age, it was a number of things that started it all off. I was heavily bullied since my first day of school and soon found a comfort in food. Food was constantly on my mind and my weight started to increase, only making the bullying worse. I was only in primary 4 and I was behind in all my classes. “Amy is a bright girl, if she would just pay attention,” teachers would say. They would call me a daydreamer and say I wasn’t learning because I just didn’t care. I was then put in a lot of Special Ed classes which lowered my confidence even more, everyone around me could barely count to 10 and here I was sitting doodling pictures and lyrics into my work book. Deep down I knew this wasn’t where I belong but it didn’t take long for me to start to believe what the teachers and bullies were saying about me. “You can’t tell your Mum or your brother yet though, okay? Don’t tell a single soul until I get it all sorted and I’ll go.” “Are you going to sit them down and talk to them about it before you leave?” I asked, almost begging him. “No, I just have to go.” His voice turned stern as he took another sip of his whisky. “You can’t just go, Dad. 24 years of marriage and you’re going to just walk out without an explanation? You at least owe her that, you owe that to your son, you owe that to your family.” I had to try and stay calm in front of my dad, while a thousand thoughts and fears are spinning around my head. He is trusting me with a huge secret, I have to be mature about this, I’m the only one he has told and I can’t let him down. Deep down I knew it was a horrible secret and one that if caught out, would cause so much damage. I knew that I shouldn’t keep it, but I was longing for his approval so badly that I was willing to keep even the worst of secret. I stand up, brushing off my dress from the mossy wall I was sitting on. I wanted to get back into the party before he started spilling more secrets upon me but instead, he got up with me and leaned in, smelling the strong aroma of whisky on his breath as he whispered, “Don’t tell them, I’ll tell them in my own time. If you tell them, I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.” ;; A DRINKOh a bar you say? At this wedding? Don’t mind if I do. The second I got back into the building I went straight to the only place I could think of that would help. “Three whisky shots please,” I ask scrambling for change in my purse. With every whisky shot, the secret seemed to get smaller and smaller. “Whisky is so gross,” I slur to the bar man as I order another two, the half empty glass of wine still in my hand that I was simultaneously gulping between shots. One for me and one for my Dad this time. It’s one of the last times I’ll spend time with him before he moves out, we have to have fun, we have to make memories. What’s the big deal about them divorcing? I get peace from their arguing, I get two rooms, two lots of birthday gifts. Maybe this divorce thing isn’t so bad after all. Oh, there goes another shot. Surely I’ll be able to get my own room in this new place of his, right? Will Rory get one too? Oh that one really caught the back of my throat. Maybe if I ask my dad nicely, he’ll let me have parties at his house and I can invite all my friends. I can spend the weekends with him and we can watch movies and eat pizza. We can finally work on our bond. There goes another. That one really went for my head. “Come dance with me,” my dad says as he drags me onto the dance floor. I stumble off of my bar stool and hold onto his arm for balance. We are both equally as drunk and probably just as numb, that was the sad part. I wanted to dance with him more than anything in that moment, it was one of the first times I had ever really wrapped my arms around him and held him for longer than a few seconds. He grabbed my hand and spun me around like a little girl. “You’ll always be my wee babby,” he said as he held me close, swaying to the music. I remember scanning around the dance floor looking for someone I could tell, it had only been an hour or so since he told me and I already felt the weight of the secret holding me down. I couldn’t tell my cousin, it was her wedding day, I could never ruin it like that. I couldn’t tell my family, they would leave right there. My mouth was completely sealed. I cried a lot that night, more so in the bathroom with a glass of the complimentary free wine they gave you before the wedding party even begins, but from that night on, I was bound by a secret that ate away at me for months. As time went on, the secret grew inside my head. Every discussion my parents would have, I would wait for it to slip. I was afraid of the littlest argument with him in case he would blurt it out. I didn’t want my family to find out like that, I didn’t want it to end with an argument and for him to use it as a weapon, but my dad trusted me. He told me a huge secret and trusted me to keep it, I couldn’t let him down. I wanted so badly to run to my mum crying, telling her to stop trying so hard to make the marriage work, to tell her to stop crying over a relationship that was already dead. I wanted to tell her that he was going to leave without a warning and to prepare her heart, I wanted to shield them both from the explosion that was about to happen. Days passed and eventually weeks did too, I didn’t know when the day was, I kept trying to ask him, beg him, plead to him to warn me beforehand so I could prepare myself. I wasn’t ready for my dad to leave. I didn’t know how to catch spiders by myself, I didn’t know how to fix the squeak in my door, I couldn’t reach high enough to change a light bulb, I couldn’t do it without him. “I don’t want to talk about it right now Amy, just leave it” he would say when I begged him in private to let me know when he was leaving. I used to check his room every morning after he went to work to make sure his clothes were still there. I would call him at lunch time and make sure he was coming home. I waited up some nights just to hear him wake up and go to work to know he didn’t leave through the night. My mind kept going back to that night, the feelings I had when I took those whisky shots. The burning in my throat but ultimately the instant relief of guilt from holding a secret that could break my family apart. I started going out more, my pre-drinks going from a couple of Smirnoff Ice to a full a bottle of wine in the back of a car whilst being driven to a pub, where I would only drink more. When I couldn’t go out, I was drinking with friends, encouraging them to break out the wine or the drinking games. I wasn’t drinking every day, but when I was it was very excessive, I did it to forget and I did it to numb. I slowly started to become a little worse with my bulimia which I thought was slowly getting under control. There would be days where I couldn’t eat anything, I couldn’t even put a cup of water to my mouth, yet there would be days I would stay up till 5am eating anything I could find and throwing it straight back up. On top of the purging, I also abused laxatives, diet pills and caffeine pills. I even took pills that weren’t prescribed for me. I took anything I could do make me feel less guilt about the food I was eating and the secrets I were keeping. ;;A CONFESSION Around 4 months later, the unexpected happened. My mum heard from someone in town that my dad had a place up in Ayr. I thought that his secret was safe, I thought I was the only one in this world he had told but I later found out he had told everyone at work. She was confused at the statement and assumed it was false, until she saw the panic cross my face. She didn’t have to say anything more, my face answered and confirmed any suspicion of it being true. I broke down, I apologised a million times, I had lied to my mum, I had her find out by a stranger on the street. I didn’t want it to happen like this, I wanted it all to be spoken about, I wanted the split to be as peaceful as we could. “I didn’t want to split the family up,” I sobbed in her arms, confessing he had told me everything that night and told me not to tell. After that night, my Dad didn’t come home. He would appear now and then to ask for money from my mum since his wages were still being paid into their shared bank account. He didn’t appear very much but when he did, it was for a few minutes and always ended in money or a favour. I missed him. Weeks had passed and I still hadn’t seen or heard from him. The longer it went, the more it killed me. With each day that passed, I felt like he was taking a part of me. I no longer felt like his daughter, but just someone he once lived with, like an old roommate. “I miss you,” I would say to him on the phone on the rare occasion he would answer. “I miss you too darlin’,” he would say back, but it was hard to believe and painful to hear. I started to confuse what was love and what wasn’t. I got into some tricky situations and ones that I can only label as learning experiences. I got into some great ones, with people who changed my life in so many positive ways, but the negative ones will always be with me. I harbored all of the guilt for that night, for keeping the secret, for telling my mum, for splitting up a family. The feeling of not being good enough stuck, like a chain around my ankle that I dragged everywhere I went, every person I met, every adventure I began. My head started to become more clouded, bad thoughts appeared and I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to cope. My mind was a mess, my thoughts were all one huge big blur and my future became non existent. The girl who was once fueled by compassion and love now wanted to be left alone. I started drinking more. At first it was only a few shots a day to tide me over, to make the pain go away for a while at work or while I was out with friends. Just a few shots to numb the constant pain and guilt that I felt, but there’s something about the night and it’s ability to make those clouds in my head into even bigger clouds until it was 5am and I was drunk out of my mind. I decided to call my Dad one night when drunk and asked if I could come stay at his house. He took a little convincing but after a while he agreed and I stayed there for a few nights. He had beer in his fridge and whisky in the cabinets, a real bachelors pad if you ask me. “Excuse the mess,” he said as he showed me around his new house. It was a one bedroom, looks like the room I dreamed about wasn’t going to happen. I drank throughout being at my Dads, a beer one after the other, he even gave me a bottle of whisky to go home with. I finished the full whisky bottle within two days of being home. It was the expensive stuff, the stuff old men would be drinking at their book club or chess tournament, so I felt pretty bad sitting in my over-sized shirt and leggings with my hair in a messy bun chugging the bottle in a dark corner of my room. It helped a lot, you have no idea how much it helped. To be free from bulimia’s grips, to be free from the pain of my Dad not wanting me, to be free from the guilt I felt tearing our family apart, to be free from the fear I felt at not being good enough, the fear I felt regarding my friends, my family, my future, my thoughts, my feelings. It all went away with just a few swigs. It started off slowly until it developed into a quarter bottle a day and then into sometimes more than half a bottle a day. At first I would keep a diet coke bottle in my bag with a few shots of vodka mixed into it. It kept the taste out of my mouth, hid the smell a little more and got me drunk gradually. But it wasn’t long until that developed into gulping down straight vodka from a water bottle in the bathroom at work. I would plug my nose and just gulp, my body covered in shivers. I would wipe my mouth with my sleeve and keep my eyes shut until I felt the burning stop. And just like that, I was completely and utterly controlled by a clear substance in a little glass bottle. The only time I now spoke to my Dad was to ask him to buy me drink. I would call him after work and he would pick me up, take my money and go into a corner shop. I’d pour it into a sprite or water bottle and he would get rid of the glass bottle for me. I had gone to the shops too many times on my own and people were surely starting to question. I didn’t want them saying anything to my Mum or Rory, the last thing I wanted was them to be hurt by another secret. Our relationship was now being built and fueled on lies, but I needed him, and for once in my life; he was there. He would watch me empty my half bottle of vodka into a sprite bottle and down a couple of gulps right beside him. He watched as my face screwed up after I took a swig, he watched my body stop trembling from withdrawals, he watched my emotions numbed over, the emotions that he had caused and I somehow became human again. I became a pro at hiding my drinking, I had everyone fooled. Stashing bottles in hard to reach places, brushing my teeth 4 times a day to cover the smell. “You should really tell Mum about all this” he said one day as he got into his van and handed me my bottles in a blue plastic bag. Inside was my usual, a sprite bottle and a quarter bottle of vodka. I opened the car door and started to empty out the contents of the fizzy juice down the drain that we were parked over. He didn’t wait for a response, he started up the engine the second I closed my door and began to drive me home. I’m not sure if the guilt was getting the better of him or if he was only saying this so he didn’t have to go to the trouble of getting it for me. ;;A TICKET My Mum and brother soon found out I was drinking again and we got into an argument. I went to stay with my Boyfriend in Glasgow for the weekend to get a break, from what I don’t really know as the problems only followed. Of course I had to bring a couple of plastic bottles full to do me over the weekend. If I just chewed a lot of chewing gum and brushed my teeth any time I went to the toilet he wouldn’t smell it off my breath, right? I was hoping so as I threw another few squares of chewing gum into my mouth after my last swig while he went to the bathroom. I didn’t even make it till Sunday afternoon before I had finished my last drop of alcohol, luckily my boyfriend had some drink left over from a party. “That’s out of date, don’t drink that!” he warned, watching me crack open the lid of kopperberg on his radiator, my hands starting to shake a little. “It’ll be fine, alcohol doesn’t go out of date,” I assured him as I took a swig and sat myself upright on his bed. I had to get home today, this would tied me over for a while until I managed to make up a plan. Luckily a commitment came up that I had to get back for on Monday, so I convinced him it would be easier to go home tonight so I didn’t miss it. He didn’t like that idea and at the time I wasn’t sure why, now I realise how obvious it would have been. Oh sure, let a completely drunk girl find her way around central station and manage to get on a train home. But somehow I managed to convince him, I could convince someone anything if it meant I got to drink.Of course the newsagent at central station doesn’t sell alcohol you idiot, why did you think you would be able to just grab a half bottle like you would the paper before getting on a train? My mind raced thinking about how I was going to find drink, if I exited central station I would miss my train, and the trains on Sunday weren’t very regular. I felt my body start to shake as I played with the zipper on my jacket, unsure of where I was going. I felt nauseous, at any moment I felt like I was going to throw up. That would make it viral; girl projectile vomits in central station. I wasn’t even thinking straight, my mind was a jumbled mess and even though I knew the cure for it, I didn’t know how to get it. I could get a ticket home. I could confess to my Mum that I had started drinking heavily and that I wanted help. I could buy a ticket that would let me run right into her arms, or, I could get one to Ayr where my dad lived, use the spare money to buy drink and stay at his house until I had outdrank my welcome. “A single to Ayr,” I muttered to myself as I pressed the button on the ticket machine in front of me. At that moment, there was no first option, there was no hesitation. I had given every once of control I had to the feeling in my head that was telling me I needed it. I needed to drink to be happy, I needed a drink to be confident, I needed a drink to be a daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend, I needed a drink to survive. When I arrived in Ayr I went straight to the newsagents near my dads. By this time I had been without a drink for longer than I was used to. It was the most horrible feeling both physically and emotionally. I bought half bottle of vodka and started making my way down to the beach, the only place I could drink it in peace. Although the walk was only short, my mind was racing. “I’m too logical for this,” I thought to myself as I started to feel the sea breeze hit my face. It was true, I was way too logical to know that I couldn’t keep this up for much longer, yet I was much too damaged to care. I didn’t care that I would be completely hooked on alcohol if I continued, I didn’t care that I was ruining my internal organs, I didn’t care that my Mum didn’t know where I was or if I was okay, I didn’t care if I would get home tonight, I didn’t care about anything else but numbing these feelings and dulling this pain. I had alcohol. I sat myself down onto a bench by the beach, guarded by shrubs and sheltered from the pathway. I wanted to lie on that bench forever, I wanted to drink until I didn’t wake up, until I could no longer breathe, until there was so much alcohol in my system my body shut down but I knew that wouldn’t happen with the half bottle and the coppers still left over in my purse. I unscrewed the top of the bottle, hearing that all too familiar clicking noise took a breath and downed the whole bottle in a few seconds flat. As I lay on the bench waiting for the alcohol to fully enter my system and numb me of everything, something came over me. I wanted my dad. I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts for his number. He didn’t answer the first few times I called, and by the time I went to call a third time, I was seeing double. This was hitting me harder than I expected, maybe it was because I opted for the brand name version instead of the knock-off brand. Treat yourself was clearly not my motto here. I don’t really remember much about that night apart from my Dad calling about an hour later, I must have dozed off as I was startled awake by the ringtone of my phone. I answered it, my worlds sluring together to make a senstance and asked him if I could come over. “I’m not in Ayr, Amy,” he replied. I don’t remember much of the conversation after that, but I remember telling him I wanted him here and that I missed him. I don’t know if he knew I was drunk or not, but surely my 3 slurred answer machine messages proved otherwise. Our call only lasted a few minutes before he had to leave. My Dad wasn’t coming to pick me up, he wasn’t coming to help and I was left alone in the darkness of the beach. I decided to get up, feeling a bit more steady. I stumbled towards a park with some more benches, this one was lit up by street lamps. “I could sleep there for the night, I have my bag for a pillow,” I thought. My brain isn’t even thinking logically, I’m too drunk to even know how to use my initiative and any survival skills I once had were now drowned with vodka. I would be lying if I said the thought of never coming home didn’t crossed my mind. My mind was so tormented and clouded, I somehow felt like I had dug an incrediably deep hole for myself and was falling futher and further into it. I’m not sure if I called my Mum or my Mum called me, but thankfully she got in contact with me and I told her where I was. I felt so hesitant giving her directions, I just wanted to sit here and waste away. She got into the car instantly and broke every speed limit on the way up. When I got in the car I started to cry, I didn’t have to say anything for her to know exactly what I was thinking and feeling. ;; A CHANGE Alcohol alone will take it’s tole on your body, so it was no surprise only a few weeks later I ended up in hospital. I hadn’t been taking care of my body and the effects were obvious. The alcohol combined with my eating disorder and anything else I could throw in to destruct me further was now starting to physically affect me. This was when I decided I had to get help, I couldn’t let my mind destroy my body any longer. I wanted them to work together and heal me, help me and create me, not tear me down. Although my symptoms were not serious, I know they could have been and could be if I continue to destroy myself like this. I covered for myself at first, pretending I was at a house party, pretending I hadn’t eaten that day because I was had a bug. I was a master at lying and got so good at it that it scared me at times, but something came over me that day. I told the nurse everything. I told her I was bulimic, I told her I drank and I told her that I was scared. I was open for one of the first times in my life to a professional who could help me. “And would you say you were a binge drinker?” the nurse asked, frowning over her clipboard as she took notes. To her, I was just another number, another patient with more problems than she intended to treat me for. I had never asked myself this question before, so it came as a surpise. I had never even let it cross my mind that I had a problem or that I needed a label for the method of relief I was using. Yet here she was, dressed head to toe in the latest NHS fashion asking me questions I didn’t have an answer to. “I do drink a lot right now,” I confessed, avoiding the question and hoping she would pass it by and ask me something less complicated like what my blood type was or the last time I visited the doctors. She did, luckily, but I knew exactly what she had wrote down and I knew exactly what was coming next. “Are you interested in getting help for your bulimia and alcohol problem?” she asked directly, sitting her notes down onto the table beside my bed. “Yes.” Without hesitation, the word shot out of my mouth so fast like a bullet from a gun. It was maybe one of the first times honesty had slipped my lips. It was something I never expected to come out and something that I regret not even a minute later, but I had done it. I entered recovery that day.

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readbookywooks · 8 years

Text

“Hook Or Me This Time”

Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance, we suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don't know how long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come that night to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the island with one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had seen the crocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it, but by and by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he thought this eerie, but soon concluded rightly that the clock had run down.

Without giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a fellow-creature thus abruptly deprived of its closest companion, Peter began to consider how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use; and he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the crocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one unforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound, and it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what it had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again ticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like slaves to a fixed idea, it was a stupid beast.

Peter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on, his legs encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new element. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human of whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought: "Hook or me this time." He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without knowing that he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for to board the brig by help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had not occurred to him.

On the contrary, he thought he had scaled her side as noiseless as a mouse; and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with Hook in their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile.

The crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the ticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile, and he looked behind him swiftly. They he realised that he was doing it himself, and in a flash he understood the situation. "How clever of me!" he thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into applause.

It was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the forecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by your watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the ill-fated pirate's mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward. Four boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and the carrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence. How long has it taken?

"One!" (Slightly had begun to count.)

None too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the cabin; for more than one pirate was screwing up his courage to look round. They could hear each other's distressed breathing now, which showed them that the more terrible sound had passed.

"It's gone, captain," Smee said, wiping off his spectacles. "All's still again."

Slowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently that he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound, and he drew himself up firmly to his full height.

"Then here's to Johnny Plank!" he cried brazenly, hating the boys more than ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the villainous ditty:

"Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank, You walks along it so, Till it goes down and you goes down To Davy Jones below!"

To terrorize the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of dignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he sang; and when he finished he cried, "Do you want a touch of the cat [`o nine tails] before you walk the plank?"

At that they fell on their knees. "No, no!" they cried so piteously that every pirate smiled.

"Fetch the cat, Jukes," said Hook; "it's in the cabin."

The cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other.

"Ay, ay," said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They followed him with their eyes; they scarce knew that Hook had resumed his song, his dogs joining in with him:

"Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat, Its tails are nine, you know, And when they're writ upon your back -- "

What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the ship, and died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well understood by the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than the screech.

"What was that?" cried Hook.

"Two," said Slightly solemnly.

The Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment and then swung into the cabin. He tottered out, haggard.

"What's the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?" hissed Hook, towering over him.

"The matter wi' him is he's dead, stabbed," replied Cecco in a hollow voice.

"Bill Jukes dead!" cried the startled pirates.

"The cabin's as black as a pit," Cecco said, almost gibbering, "but there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing."

The exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both were seen by Hook.

"Cecco," he said in his most steely voice, "go back and fetch me out that doodle-doo."

Cecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying "No, no"; but Hook was purring to his claw.

"Did you say you would go, Cecco?" he said musingly.

Cecco went, first flinging his arms despairingly. There was no more singing, all listened now; and again came a death-screech and again a crow.

No one spoke except Slightly. "Three," he said.

Hook rallied his dogs with a gesture. "'S'death and odds fish," he thundered, "who is to bring me that doodle-doo?"

"Wait till Cecco comes out," growled Starkey, and the others took up the cry.

"I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey," said Hook, purring again.

"No, by thunder!" Starkey cried.

"My hook thinks you did," said Hook, crossing to him. "I wonder if it would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook?"

"I'll swing before I go in there," replied Starkey doggedly, and again he had the support of the crew.

"Is this mutiny?" asked Hook more pleasantly than ever. "Starkey's ringleader!"

"Captain, mercy!" Starkey whimpered, all of a tremble now.

"Shake hands, Starkey," said Hook, proffering his claw.

Starkey looked round for help, but all deserted him. As he backed up Hook advanced, and now the red spark was in his eye. With a despairing scream the pirate leapt upon Long Tom and precipitated himself into the sea.

"Four," said Slightly.

"And now," Hook said courteously, "did any other gentlemen say mutiny?" Seizing a lantern and raising his claw with a menacing gesture, "I'll bring out that doodle-doo myself," he said, and sped into the cabin.

"Five." How Slightly longed to say it. He wetted his lips to be ready, but Hook came staggering out, without his lantern.

"Something blew out the light," he said a little unsteadily.

"Something!" echoed Mullins.

"What of Cecco?" demanded Noodler.

"He's as dead as Jukes," said Hook shortly.

His reluctance to return to the cabin impressed them all unfavourably, and the mutinous sounds again broke forth. All pirates are superstitious, and Cookson cried, "They do say the surest sign a ship's accurst is when there's one on board more than can be accounted for."

"I've heard," muttered Mullins, "he always boards the pirate craft last. Had he a tail, captain?"

"They say," said another, looking viciously at Hook, "that when he comes it's in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard."

"Had he a hook, captain?" asked Cookson insolently; and one after another took up the cry, "The ship's doomed!" At this the children could not resist raising a cheer. Hook had well-nigh forgotten his prisoners, but as he swung round on them now his face lit up again.

"Lads," he cried to his crew, "now here's a notion. Open the cabin door and drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If they kill him, we're so much the better; if he kills them, we're none the worse."

For the last time his dogs admired Hook, and devotedly they did his bidding. The boys, pretending to struggle, were pushed into the cabin and the door was closed on them.

"Now, listen!" cried Hook, and all listened. But not one dared to face the door. Yes, one, Wendy, who all this time had been bound to the mast. It was for neither a scream nor a crow that she was watching, it was for the reappearance of Peter.

She had not long to wait. In the cabin he had found the thing for which he had gone in search: the key the would free the children of their manacles, and now they all stole forth, armed with such weapons as they could find. First signing them to hide, Peter cut Wendy's bonds, and then nothing could have been easier than for them all to fly off together; but one thing barred the way, an oath, "Hook or me this time." So when he had freed Wendy, he whispered for her to conceal herself with the others, and himself took her place by the mast, her cloak around him so that he should pass for her. Then he took a great breath and crowed.

To the pirates it was a voice crying that all the boys lay slain in the cabin; and they were panic-stricken. Hook tried to hearten them; but like the dogs he had made them they showed him their fangs, and he knew that if he took his eyes off them now they would leap at him.

"Lads," he said, ready to cajole or strike as need be, but never quailing for an instant, "I've thought it out. There's a Jonah aboard."

"Ay," they snarled, "a man wi' a hook."

"No, lads, no, it's the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a woman on board. We'll right the ship when she's gone."

Some of them remembered that this had been a saying of Flint's. "It's worth trying," they said doubtfully.

"Fling the girl overboard," cried Hook; and they made a rush at the figure in the cloak.

"There's none can save you now, missy," Mullins hissed jeeringly.

"There's one," replied the figure.

"Who's that?"

"Peter Pan the avenger!" came the terrible answer; and as he spoke Peter flung off his cloak. Then they all knew who 'twas that had been undoing them in the cabin, and twice Hook essayed to speak and twice he failed. In that frightful moment I think his fierce heart broke.

At last he cried, "Cleave him to the brisket!" but without conviction.

"Down, boys, and at them!" Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came when they were still unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the miscreants leapt into the sea; others hid in dark recesses, where they were found by Slightly, who did not fight, but ran about with a lantern which he flashed in their faces, so that they were half blinded and fell as an easy prey to the reeking swords of the other boys. There was little sound to be heard but the clang of weapons, an occasional screech or splash, and Slightly monotonously counting -- five -- six -- seven -- eight -- nine -- ten -- eleven.

I think all were gone when a group of savage boys surrounded Hook, who seemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in that circle of fire. They had done for his dogs, but this man alone seemed to be a match for them all. Again and again they closed upon him, and again and again he hewed a clear space. He had lifted up one boy with his hook, and was using him as a buckler [shield], when another, who had just passed his sword through Mullins, sprang into the fray.

"Put up your swords, boys," cried the newcomer, "this man is mine."

Thus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others drew back and formed a ring around them.

For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.

"So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing."

"Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing."

"Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom."

"Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee."

Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage to either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling rapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got past his foe's defence, but his shorter reach stood him in ill stead, and he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his inferior in brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by the weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a favourite thrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio; but to his astonishment he found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he sought to close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had been pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely, pierced him in the ribs. At the sight of his own blood, whose peculiar colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook's hand, and he was at Peter's mercy.

"Now!" cried all the boys, but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.

Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker suspicions assailed him now.

"Pan, who and what art thou?" he cried huskily.

"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg."

This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form.

"To't again," he cried despairingly.

He fought now like a human flail, and every sweep of that terrible sword would have severed in twain any man or boy who obstructed it; but Peter fluttered round him as if the very wind it made blew him out of the danger zone. And again and again he darted in and pricked.

Hook was fighting now without hope. That passionate breast no longer asked for life; but for one boon it craved: to see Peter show bad form before it was cold forever.

Abandoning the fight he rushed into the powder magazine and fired it.

"In two minutes," he cried, "the ship will be blown to pieces."

Now, now, he thought, true form will show.

But Peter issued from the powder magazine with the shell in his hands, and calmly flung it overboard.

What sort of form was Hook himself showing? Misguided man though he was, we may be glad, without sympathising with him, that in the end he was true to the traditions of his race. The other boys were flying around him now, flouting, scornful; and he staggered about the deck striking up at them impotently, his mind was no longer with them; it was slouching in the playing fields of long ago, or being sent up [to the headmaster] for good, or watching the wall-game from a famous wall. And his shoes were right, and his waistcoat was right, and his tie was right, and his socks were right.

James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.

For we have come to his last moment.

Seeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger poised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He did not know that the crocodile was waiting for him; for we purposely stopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him: a little mark of respect from us at the end.

He had one last triumph, which I think we need not grudge him. As he stood on the bulwark looking over his shoulder at Peter gliding through the air, he invited him with a gesture to use his foot. It made Peter kick instead of stab.

At last Hook had got the boon for which he craved.

"Bad form," he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile.

Thus perished James Hook.

"Seventeen," Slightly sang out; but he was not quite correct in his figures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had feared.

Wendy, of course, had stood by taking no part in the fight, though watching Peter with glistening eyes; but now that all was over she became prominent again. She praised them equally, and shuddered delightfully when Michael showed her the place where he had killed one; and then she took them into Hook's cabin and pointed to his watch which was hanging on a nail. It said "half- past one!"

The lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She got them to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be sure; all but Peter, who strutted up and down on the deck, until at last he fell asleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his dreams that night, and cried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tightly.

#PeterPan

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