Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Preschool

“I’ll be back soon, okay, Mary?” Marie leaned down and planted a quick kiss on her daughter’s forehead, brushing wild strands of hair out of the way. “Be good. Listen to your teachers. See you later, baby.” She smiled and waved a hand behind her back as she walked out of the preschool center.

“’Bye,” Mary said quietly. She sat on the floor and glanced about the room. Pillows on the ground. Not enough for a pillow fight, she decided, and there weren’t enough kids around, anyway. Several of those big toys with the moving beads, the kind Mary had found in abundance at airports and doctor’s offices. She’d outgrown them months ago; she wasn’t a baby anymore. She was four now. She scanned the room again. Two computers, but some kids had already claimed them and were playing some sort of space game. A corner with dolls and dress up clothes, some fading yellow Tonka trucks, a sandbox, a bag of marbles and one filled with wooden blocks, a small slide…Wasn’t there anything to do here?

Mary had been in preschool for about five minutes, and she decided she didn’t like it. But that was before she met him. He’d crept up on her. That is, she hadn’t seen him until he tapped her shoulder and she spun to face him.

He had a mess of blond curls erupting from underneath a knit gray hat. He had invisible eyebrows, jeans torn and patched at the knees, and a serious, grim sort of set to his mouth. “I’m Francis,” he told her, staring with big blue eyes.

Mary had never seen eyes that were so…blue. They were like the set of water colors she had at home, near the same shade as her paints. Or were they like skies? The bright, sunny-day skies. Yes. Skies. Or maybe the ocean on a perfect day. Or perhaps the rich blue of a bluejay’s feather. Mary had a bluejay’s feather at home. Her mother had found it for her on a hike and given it to her. Whatever they looked like most, they made Mary feel warm, just looking at them. They weren’t like Mary’s eyes. Mary had boring eyes. Boring, brown eyes. 

“I’m Mary.”

He stared. His mouth did not turn up in a smile, but his eyes gripped hers almost hungrily. “Do you want to help build my tower?”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

He nudged a bucket of mini Legos in front of her. Red, blue, black, brown, gray, white, green, yellow…She’d never seen so many different colors of Legos, never seen so many different shapes. She sat on the ground and lifted the bucket, dumping its contents onto the floor.

Francis scowled. “Why did you do that?”

“So we can see the pieces better.”

“That’s not how I do things.”

“So?”

“They’re my Legos.”

“You asked me to help you.”

“Yeah. To help me. They’re still my Legos.”

“Fine,” said Mary, standing. She kicked a particularly bright red piece to the other side of the room.

“Hey!”

“You can pick up the Legos yourself, then. They’re your mess.”

Francis picked up the piece she’d kicked, examining it possessively. “Don’t leave.”

She stopped. “Why not?”

“Because I really want to build my tower.”

“It’ll be our tower,” she warned him, hesitantly returning to her place on the floor. By his side.

He met her eyes reluctantly. “Our tower.” Grudging, but an agreement. She smiled and began separating the Legos into groups based on size.

They worked together, side-by-side, rooting through Legos and building the base of their tower. Even when the teacher called for snack time, they sat, squatting, on the floor, building their tower higher and higher.

“Don’t put that there,” Mary told her co-worker after a solid bit of silent, diligent working.

He froze, Lego in hand, hovering over the place he’d been preparing to build on. He glanced at her, annoyed. “Why not?”

“It’s tan. All the others have been black or gray. It doesn’t match.”

“It doesn’t matter if it matches.”

She glared at him, plucking the offending Lego from his hands. “It does.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes.”

He glared back at her, and his warm blue eyes were darkened by the shadow of his furrowed brow. “No.”

“Fine. It’s your stupid tower, anyway. Ruin it however you want.” She stood, handing back the piece, brushing her legs off.

Francis sat, holding the tan Lego and staring at the tower. He looked up at her. She reinforced her glare with hands on her hips. “Do you really think it’ll ruin the tower?”

“Yes. Look at it. It’ll completely mess up the whole thing.”

He glanced at the Lego. “Okay.” Whispered, almost sulky. The tan Lego was tossed to the floor.

She moved to sit down, and he brushed the Legos from her spot before she sat on them. They resumed their silent process, adding Legos onto the other’s creations, building off each other’s unspoken ideas.

“It’s our tower,” Francis murmured, concentrating on the Lego he was in the middle of adding to the top of the tower.

She looked at him, pausing. “I know. Our tower.”

Was it her, or had he just smiled? She wasn’t sure, because it was gone in a flash. But something had been there, if only for a heartbeat.

“Mary, time to pack up. You too, Francis. It’s almost time to go,” said the teacher.

Francis looked up in annoyance at the woman towering over them. He was brave, Mary decided then. Brave enough to stare down a grown-up. “Just give us some more time.”

The teacher folded her arms and pressed her lips together. After a while, she bent, sitting on her heels, to their level. “What are you making?”

“A tower,” Mary told her proudly. “It’s me and Francis’s tower.”

“I can see that.” Impressed. “Are you done?”

“Yes,” said Mary, exactly at the same time as Francis muttered a harried, “No.” He added a final Lego to the top—something he claimed was a spire, his mother had told him, it was true, just ask her—and sat back. “Okay. Now we are.”

The teacher took out a small camera she’d had in her desk. “Why don’t you guys sit next to it?”

They obliged, the tower rising between them. Mary smiled as the woman got ready to take the picture, and, when she looked over, found that Francis was smiling as well. “Cheese!” the teacher said.

They didn’t say it. Mary didn’t need to. She was beaming.

The pictures were printed off quickly and one given to each of the proud construction workers. Mary and Francis’s tower, Mary scrawled onto the right corner of the picture. Her teacher had written it out on the little whiteboard in the room. When she craned her neck to see what Francis had written, she saw a flash of green marker and Are Towere.

“That’s not how you spell ‘tower,’” she told him helpfully.

He blushed bright red. “My mom’s here. I have to go.” He stood and opened the door. Halfway out, he turned and said, “See you tomorrow, Mary. Maybe we can build something else.”

“Okay,” was all she said in reply.

Mary didn’t go to the same preschool the next day. Her mother had found a cheaper arrangement. And so Mary didn’t see Francis tomorrow like he’d promised, and they didn’t build something else.

But they would have plenty of time later.

Chapter Text

Fifth grade

“Are you ready, Mary?” Kenna asked, grinning as she stretched. Her legs were long, golden-brown, lean. And completely smooth.

Oh, God.

Had Mary shaved her legs?

She frantically checked. There was rough stubble, probably from a few days ago, but nothing visible. She breathed in deeply. Close one. She’d have to remind herself next time.

“Are you ready, Mary?” Kenna’s question had taken on a sharper edge as she asked for the second time.

“What? Oh, yeah. I think.” Mary glanced down at her shorts. “Are we supposed to stretch? Does that actually help, or…?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Do I have to?”

Kenna stared at her incredulously. “Do you want to win?”

“Well, not really…”

Her friend rolled her eyes. “Why’d you even join the team, then?”

“My mom wanted me to be ‘active,’” Mary answered, holding up aggressive air quotes.

“Yeah, I get it. My mom wanted me to be in band, so we compromised on chorus.”

“Chorus is a lot better than track,” Mary grumbled.

Kenna shook her head and dragged her friend along through the growing throng of students in Adidas shorts and jerseys with their school colors on them. “Come with me,” the older girl said as she grabbed Mary’s arm. “I know this kid from one of the other schools. Bash. You’ll like him. He’s funny.”

Mary could tell from her voice that Kenna definitely liked him. In way more than a “he’s funny” sort of way. She wondered if they were dating. Plenty of the sixth grade girls had “boyfriends.” But Kenna would’ve said something about it, if she had a boyfriend. Kenna would’ve said everything about it. And anyway, Kenna wasn’t like the sixth grade girls. Kenna was Kenna.

And so Mary allowed herself to be dragged (honestly, with Kenna, you had two choices: Go willingly along with whatever she had in mind, or be forced—and Mary really meant forced—into going along with whatever she had in mind) through the crowd and toward a small group of lanky boys wearing pinnies of blue and yellow.

Mary suddenly felt shy, meeting new people. Especially boy-people. But Kenna wouldn’t let her hide behind her back, and she pulled her friend in front of her, making introductions. “Bash,” she said very carefully with a tiny, telltale smile on her lips that no one but Mary could see, apparently (God, maybe boys really were as stupid as everyone said), “this is Mary, my friend. She’s in fifth grade.”

The boy that must’ve been Bash smiled at Mary. “Hi,” he said. His voice was surprisingly deep. None of the boys in Mary’s class had voices like that. They also didn’t have legs like Bash. Mary tried not to notice the decidedly lean, sculpted muscles on his calf. She tried not to notice his collarbone or his hard chest beneath the pinny, which, unfortunately, did not aid her in her quest to not notice anything about Bash. “Is this your first meet?”

Mary met his eyes slowly. “Yeah,” she said, her voice so quiet she couldn’t hear it. She cleared her throat. “Yeah.”

“Cool. It’s my brother’s first meet, too. He’s in fifth grade.” Bash gestured to a shorter boy standing just slightly behind him. The boy’s lips curved almost imperceptibly upward, maybe in what he thought was a polite smile. He gave an odd wave of his hand.

“Hi,” Mary said to him. “Um, I’m Mary, I guess?”

The younger brother stepped forward a bit. He was skinny; long, thin white arms and legs of equal proportions. Unlike his brother, he wasn’t obviously muscled in any way. And where Bash was dark with his straight, jaggedly cut brown hair and his tanned skin, this brother was all pale skin, gentle, curving face, a head of curly blond hair. And blue eyes. Mary knew those blue eyes. And the curls…she knew him. Where was he from?

Preschool. Yes. He was her playmate on her first day of preschool. They’d built that tower. She still had the picture. What was his name? Francis. It was Francis.

“Uh,” he said, extending a hand and furrowing an eyebrow (he’d grown eyebrows!). “Francis.”

Mary nodded. She wondered if he was going to mention preschool, the tower, wondered if he was going to say he recognized her. She didn’t have to wait long.

“I know you, don’t I? You look kinda familiar.”

“Yeah, I think we went to preschool together. Like, for one day. You remember? We built that tower together?”

His eyebrows shot up, and he wore a half-smile at the memory. “Yeah, I remember.” He glanced at her and added, almost sheepishly, “I still have the picture. You know, of the tower. And…us.”

She grinned. “Me, too.” She opened her mouth to tell him that it was hung proudly on her bedpost, but stopped. Too weird. She couldn’t share that with him.

“What events are you running?” he asked. At this point, Kenna and Bash and the rest of Bash’s friends had moved on. Mary expected Francis to leave and go after them, but he didn’t.

“Oh, um, 400 meter, I think.”

His face lit up in a smile, and Mary remembered the little boy who barely ever seemed to grin. He’d changed. “I’m running that, too. What heat?”

Mary blushed. “I don’t know. Probably the slowest. I’m not really an athletic person. I’ve never run competitively before.”

“Me neither!” If he could grin any larger, Mary was pretty sure he’d split his face open. “My mom forced me to do a sport.”

“Yeah. Same.”

“Okay, well, I’ll run with you,” he said, the smile still there. His brow furrowed. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, totally, of course. Yeah. That would be…cool.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll see you on the…field? Track? I don’t know what it’s called.”

Mary smiled as he began to walk away from her, moving backwards so that he could keep looking at her. For ease of talking. Not because he liked her face, or anything. God.

“I’ll see you,” he amended finally.

“Runners, take your mark!”

Mary tensed. She heard the bang of the gun and threw her body into action, watching the other runners streak past her. Thirty seconds in and she was already sucking terribly. Her lungs were feeling tight; her throat was thick and her shins were killing her. Even to her own ears, her breathing sounded bad. She slowed. Her mother never said she had to do well in track, just that she had to join.

Blond curls bobbed up next to her, matching her speed. “Hey,” he said through quick puffs of air. He wasn’t doing too great either, Mary noticed. “How’s—” wheeze—“it—” wheeze—“going with—” wheeze—“you?”

She didn’t think she could summon enough breath to match his feeble attempt. She raised her pointer finger in a one minute gesture, though she highly doubted she’d be okay to respond after an hour, let alone one minute.

He nodded in understanding, and maybe a little relief. They jogged in silence. (God, how long was the event?) Mary was pretty sure that, at this point, she’d lost the use of her left lung. Also, her leg was cramping. Her throat was dry and coated in that weird mucus stuff. Basically, she was dying.

She looked over at Francis. She wasn’t sure what was the determining factor. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t completely maroon in the face, maybe it was the fact that he was sucking in breaths like a normal person. But Francis wasn’t quite tired yet. He was jogging, sure, but it was more for her benefit. She felt a flash of warmth (not the sweaty-heat induced kind). She tried to send a grateful smile in his direction. Which turned out to be a bad idea, because he shot her an alarmed look.

Mary slowed down to a glorified walk and felt Francis match her pace. She opened her mouth wide to catch a breath. “You don’t—” puff—“have—” puff-puff—“to—” puff—“lose be—” puff-puff-puff—“because of—” an impressively aggressive puff—“of me.”

He breathed deeply. “I wouldn’t have won anyway.”

“You would—” Goddamn her lungs—“wouldn’t ha—” Seriously. They sucked—“have lost—” a final, desperate breath—“either.”

“We’re almost finished,” he said thickly. “How about we—we just shut up and run.”

She nodded, trying to increase her pace. Francis jogged by her side, ever faithful. She smiled to herself and shook her head.

When they crossed the finish line, he purposely dropped his speed, looking directly at her with twinkling blue eyes. “You first,” he whispered.

She hesitated and ran across the finish line, followed closely by her blond running-mate. As they broke away from each other to find their friends and schoolmates, Francis turned and said, “I’ll see you at the next meet, Mary. Maybe we’ll improve our time.”

Our time, someone noted inside Mary’s head. He said our time.

“Okay,” said the part of Mary that controlled her voice. “Yeah.”

 Mary didn’t go to the next meet. Her mother decided that she didn’t want her daughter doing track. Band and chorus was enough, was the higher power’s resolution. And so Mary didn’t see Francis at the next meet like he’d promised, and although Francis did shave several seconds off his 400 meter (Mary saw when she checked the other schools track records), they didn’t improve their event.

But they would have plenty of time later.

Chapter Text

Eighth grade shadow

“Mary, right?”

She turned to see a plump woman wearing a friendly smile and scarlet glasses on a chain. “Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you.” The woman offered her hand, and Mary couldn’t help but notice that it smelled distinctly of lavender lotion. They shook, and the secretary smiled again. “I think your guide will be here soon. You can have a seat while he gets here.”

So Mary sat in one of the chairs and studied the Bourbon High School decals and hangings on the wall, all done in enthusiastic yellow and blue. The woman had sat down at her desk and was typing at her computer. She hesitated as she glanced at the girl. “So, Mary, what middle school did you go to?”

“Scotch,” she told the woman.

The secretary nodded, keeping her eyes on her keyboard. “We always get some students from Scotch. Mmm…I’m trying to think of a few…I don’t think there have been any recently.” She looked at the clock. “I wonder what’s taking him so long.”

“Who?”

“Your guide. I’ll call his homeroom. Give me a minute.” She picked up a phone with a quick smile flashed in Mary’s direction. “Hi, Susan. Can you send Mr. Valois to the office? He’s got a shadow today. Yeah, that’s fine. No, no—I do too! That’s fine, you’re fine! All right. Bye.” She was still laughing when she turned back to Mary and said, “He’s on his way. You’ll like him; he’s very charming.”

Mary felt herself blush. All she needed was a charming, older boy to embarrass herself in front of. Just one more thing to brighten her day. She tried to mentally compose herself before he arrived, studying the nail on her thumb. She needed to cut her fingernails.

A head poked in between the crack in the door. “Hi?”

“Hi, Francis.” The secretary (whose name, apparently, was Hillary, according to the plate on her desk) stood and led Mary over to her guide. “Mary, this is Francis. He’s going to be a sophomore next year. Francis, Mary. She tells me she went to Scotch Middle School.”

Francis nodded (mostly out of obligation, Mary was pretty sure. No one actually cared) and looked at Mary, his brow knitting together briefly.

And that was when she realized.

It was Francis. Her Francis. The Francis from preschool. The Francis who’d ran with her in their first track meet. The Francis everything seemed to keep coming back to. That Francis. Her Francis.

She smiled as she blushed and glanced back at Hillary. “Yeah, we’ve—we’ve actually already met. A couple times.”

The secretary nodded. “Oh, that’s great. So you alread—”

But Francis shook his head. “Sorry, but how do we know each other? I don’t—you don’t…There’s something, I just can’t…”

Something in Mary wilted. She turned her smile back to him. “Preschool. Remember? And fifth grade. We ran together in our first track meet. You let me beat you. Remember?”

“Oh. Oh, right.” He ran a hand through his blond curls, making them bob and leaving them frustratingly messy. “I remember now. Yeah. Fifth grade.”

And preschool. The tower. Our tower, Mary wanted to say. “Yeah,” was what came out.

He paused. “I’m going to class now.”

“Okay. Do I just…follow? Or…”

“I mean, sure. Yeah. I guess.” He turned and walked out of the office.

“Have a nice time, Mary,” Hillary said as she followed the boy out.

Mary rushed through the crowd to walk at Francis’s shoulder. “What’s your first class?”

“Oh. English.”

“Do I have to do anything?”

“No, just sit there and listen. Or don’t listen. I don’t care.”

I know. “Okay. Um, do I need to bring anything?”

He stopped and moved to the side of the hallway, avoiding the other kids. “You know no one actually cares what shadows do, right? You have a pass to skip school. Just sit somewhere.”

And so Francis had changed yet again. He was no longer a serious, bossy little boy. He was no longer a chivalrous, beaming fifth grader. He was a distant, direct high schooler who clearly did not want an eighth grader tagging along behind him throughout his day. Even if that eighth grader was Mary. Which brought her to another question.

“Wait, weren’t you in my grade?” she asked as he turned to continue walking.

He sighed in annoyance. “Yes. I skipped sixth grade. Come on. I’m going to be late for English.”

I’m. The days of towers and races shared were over, then. She ducked her head down and followed after him, trying not to flat-tire him in the process.

In Francis’s English class, Mary followed his advice. She took a seat next to him (much to his probable annoyance), found a notebook and a pencil in her backpack, and proceeded to pay absolutely no attention to whatever the hell the teacher was trying to get across to his students. Every once in a while, she could sense Francis craning his neck to see what she was doing. She wondered if he could read what she’d written. Lyrics, mostly. Some doodles of flowers and guitars, pencils and cats. Nothing that would interest this Francis.

In the middle of a particularly beautifully (if she did say so herself) done “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” her pencil lead snapped. “Damn it,” she muttered as she stared at the fractured lead and the swirling letters of the lyrics.

Francis glanced over, took her pencil, and sharpened it with a few quick flicks of his handheld sharpener. She smiled as he handed the pencil back, and thought she could hear the chorus of “Yellow Brick Road” being hummed quietly.

“You like Elton?” he asked as they walked out of the classroom.

“My mom does.”

“That’s not what I asked. Do you like Elton?”

She shrugged. “He’s not my favorite,” she said in a way that was obvious she didn’t think he was that good.

“See, I knew—I knew—there was something off-putting about you. I’ve found it,” he scolded, wagging a finger.

“He’s not bad…”

“Not bad? He’s Elton John, for Christ’s sake! The absolute least he can be is slightly less than awe-inspiring.”

“Okay. Fine. Whatever you say.”

“This is going to be the worst shadow I’ve ever had.”

She glanced at him. “You’ve had more than one shadow?”

“Yeah. It’s because I’m technically supposed to be an eighth grader. They think the shadows are more comfortable with me.”

Suddenly it felt less special, having Francis as her guide. He’d probably had a score of shadows in the last year. Francis sensed her silence. “Hey, but, I mean, I’ve never talked about Elton with any of them. I never really talk to them.”

“I guess you can start now,” she told him, smiling. “What class next?”

He looked down at her with something less than a smile, something less than a smile but more than anything else he’d given her so far. “World Civ.”

World Civilizations was similar to English in that Mary plopped herself into a seat and set to work writing lyrics in different styles. But this time, she had a calligraphy partner.

“That’s wrong, right there,” he said, pointing with a pen to the word she’d just sketched. “It’s ‘hunting the horny-backed toad’ not ‘back to the horny-backed toad.’”

She made a face at him and erased her work. “What would I do without you?”

“Sacrilege, obviously. You’d desecrate the holy works of Sir Elton John.”

“Obviously.”

He leaned closer to her desk, and she couldn’t think completely straight for a few heartbeats. He smelled like clean rain and pencil shavings and too much deodorant. When he leaned back into his own desk space, she saw what he’d written.

I hope You don’t mind, I hope You don’t mind

that I put down in words

how wonderful life is

while You’re in the world

She smiled faintly. Good old Elton. “Why’d you capitalize the y?”

He fidgeted. “When it’s not capitalized, it could mean anyone. I meant You.”

She opened her mouth—

“Not—not you, specifically. But a person. The Person. You know? Someday there’ll be someone in my life who makes that song mean something, more than it means now. Someday I’ll hear that song and think of one person. Specifically.”

“Yeah,” she agreed numbly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Lunch was next. And then Bio. And band, to finish off the day. Mary had filled up almost four notebook pages—front and back—with lyrics and doodles, some in her curving hand, some in Francis’s small, straight, neat lettering. Elton John dominated the pages. Francis demanded a single page from the notebook, saying that he had a right to one page, at least. Mary agreed and handed over the second-best page reluctantly. He took it with a boyish, triumphant smile.

“You’re coming to Bourbon next year, right? I’ll see you?”

She thought about it. She hadn’t been sure that morning—hence the shadow. But she knew what she wanted now. “Yeah,” she said confidently, nodding. “Yeah, I think I am. I think I’ll register today.”

His smile grew. “Good. So this won’t be our only doodling session. Maybe we can move on to Billy Joel in the fall.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Maybe we will.”

 Mary didn’t go to Bourbon High School the next year. Her mother decided to move away to pursue her career in marketing. And so Mary didn’t see Francis in the fall like he’d promised, and they didn’t move on to Billy Joel.

But they would have plenty of time later.

Chapter Text

College

“I think that’s the last of them,” Lola said, putting her hands on her hips and smiling proudly at the boxes in the tiny dorm room.

Mary slumped onto the bed. “Finally. God, if I’d known you had so much stuff, I wouldn’t have offered to help you move.”

Lola nudged her friend to make room on the mattress. “There’s a Domino’s down the road,” she said invitingly. “I’ll pay.”

“You damn well better. This is some kind of unpaid labor shit.” Mary stared at the low ceiling, eyeing the mildew stains. The room was small and cramped. The floors creaked and the door jammed easily. So far, not very impressive. “So this is college.”

She shouldn’t have said anything. She really shouldn’t have. That one sentence triggered a put-upon sigh from Lola and a visitation to a topic that Mary was already thoroughly sick of.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go? It’ll be fun. We could room together.”

Mary laughed (snorted, really. It was a snort. A derisive snort. She seemed to be doling out a lot of those recently). “I told you. I want to take a gap year. Then—maybe—college. And anyway, it’s too late to register.”

“Next semester, then. Come on, Mary, please. College would be so much better with you.”

“I know that.”

“Ugh, you’re such an asshole. Get up. We’re not getting pizza until everything’s unpacked.”

Mary groaned and pounded the mattress with a fist, dragging herself off it with some unknown reserve of strength. “I’m doing it for the pizza. Not for you.”

Lola smirked. “You love me. I know you do.”

Mary glared, picking up a box. “Don’t.”

“Unpack faster.”

“I have one fucking speed, Lola. Don’t interrupt the process.”

A few hours later, the majority of Lola’s things unpacked, there was a quick, sharp tap on the dorm room door. Lola and Mary exchanged a look. “Your roommate?” Mary asked.

Lola shrugged and opened the door. “Hi, sorry to bother you,” said a breathless, male voice. “Do you have a fan we could borrow? Our window won’t open and it’s really hot in our room.”

“Um, yeah. You can borrow it.”

Mary smirked when she heard Lola’s subtle emphasis on the word “borrow.” She was possessive of her stuff. Mary sat on the floor and fiddled with the boxes around her.

“Okay, thank you so much. You’ll get it back, I promise. Thanks,” was the rushed, grateful reply.

“Yeah, sure. Do you mind if my friend goes with you? It’s just—it’s a new fan and, you know, college and stuff—”

“You don’t trust me?” Wounded.

“I mean, I just don’t—”

A laugh. “No, yeah, I totally get it. That’s fine. I promise I won’t steal your fan.”

Lola chuckled nervously. Mary wasn’t really sure what was up with her. Sure, it was a new fan. But it sucked. Pretty severely. It’d been about twenty bucks at Target. It wasn’t even worth ten. “Okay. My friend will bring it to your room.”

Mary’s head snapped up from where she sat on the floor, playing with a basket of Lola’s socks. “Dude,” she hissed to her friend’s back. “Dude. I totally did not sign up for this, and I don’t appreciate you volunteering my services. Not cool.”

Lola turned very slightly. “Mary, please get the fan.”

Mary sighed. Mary grumbled. Mary played with a particularly fuzzy sock. Mary got the fan.

She carried it to the door and saw the person who’d asked for it.

“Cool,” she said to no one in particular. “This is cool.”

It really wasn’t. Because standing in the doorway was none other than Francis.

She almost dropped the fan.

He rushed to catch it immediately, grabbing her arms and steadying her (which, unknown to him, did the exact opposite. She was the complete antonym of “steady” at the moment, with his warm hands clutching her arm). “Whoa. You okay? Is it heavy?”

She straightened, adjusting the fan’s position. “No. It’s fine. I’m fine,” she lied.

His brow wrinkled in an incredibly annoying, incredibly attractive way. “Okay. Can you walk up the stairs? My room’s on the fourth floor.”

“Elevator,” she grunted.

“I can take it for you.”

Lola coughed pointedly.

Mary glared at her. “No, it’s fine. I’m stronger than I look. Plus, I’m pretty sure Lola would have a heart attack if she let a stranger touch her fan.”

Francis shrugged and backed into the hall, letting Mary go before him. “So how far, exactly, is your room?” Mary said through gritted teeth. Damn this fucking fan. How could twenty dollars even weigh this much?

He eyed her in concern. “It’s…it’s pretty far. And I think the elevator’s broken.”

“That’s absolutely brilliant. Great. Lovely. This is a happy time.”

“I can take it for you…”

“Lola would be really pissed…”

“She doesn’t have to know…”

“That is the truest thing I have ever heard.” Mary offered the fan to Francis, who took it with a surprised grimace.

“Wow. It’s way heavier than you’d think.” He sucked in a quick breath. “Wow.”

“Okay, so we’re coming to the stairs. I’ll tell you when to step up.”

“This is really not a good plan.”

“Maybe if I take the front end? Here. Let me take it.” She climbed the first step and held the front of the fan. “Better?”

“Sort of.”

“I can’t see where the next step is.”

Francis scrunched down, level with the stairs. “Okay, step up now.”

She did. She didn’t die. Awesome.

“Next step.”

“Got it.”

“Next.”

“Thanks.”

“Next.”

“Yeah.”

“Next.”

Mary stopped on the step, huffing. “Can you think of a synonym, or something? There are like five flights of stairs.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Fine. Now. Is ‘now’ good?”

“Just…change it up.”

“Now.”

“Now, now? Or we were you testing it? Like, is there a step—”

“Now.”

“Yeah, I get it now.”

“Now.”

“Synonym.”

Francis sighed. “Step up.”

“Boring.”

“Up.”

She made a face but complied.

“Next.”

“So we’re going back to next. I get it.”

“No, it’s just hard to think of synonyms.”

She stared at him.

“Oh. Sorry. Step up.”

“Thanks.”

“Next.”

“Got it.”

“Next.”

Approximately ten million steps (and “next”s; Francis stopped searching for synonyms somewhere on the third flight) later, they arrived at a white door that looked exactly like every other white door on the floor.

“This one. Here,” Francis said when they reached it.

They stood there for a few seconds. “Goddamn it, Jesus Christ, open the door, I swear to God I’m going to die if we stand here,” Mary said as she shouldered the fan into an easier position. Francis gave the door a few dull kicks and it opened, revealing a tall guy with dark hair and cheeks dotted in black stubble.

“Thanks,” Francis panted to the man, lugging the fan (and Mary) into the room and setting it on the ground.

“Took you fucking long enough,” said Francis’s friend. Roommate, probably. “I finally got the window open.”

Francis and Mary exchanged a horrified look. “I’m not bringing that thing back downstairs,” Mary said, sitting on the floor.

“Who is this?” This from the door-opener, who cast an incredulous look at a very sweaty, disheveled Mary. She stared back.

Francis glanced at Mary. “Oh, um, this is—Sorry, I never did get your name.”

“Mary,” she said with no small amount of I would really rather be at Domino’s than sitting on your floor, babysitting an overrated fan in her expression.

“Right. Bash, this is Mary. Mary, this is Bash. Oh, and my name’s Francis.”

Déjà vu. This seemed to keep happening. And Mary really wasn’t in the mood, at the moment. “I know,” she muttered tiredly. And…Bash. The name sounded familiar. Right. He was Francis’s older brother; they’d met at her first (and last) track meet.

Someone whistled. (Mary couldn’t see who, exactly, because, as previously mentioned, she was sitting on the floor, and she could only see feet. “Stalker,” Bash whispered, a smirk in his voice. “Welcome to college, Francis.”

“Yeah, um, how do you know my name?”

Mary groaned and put her head in her hands. Ew. Her neck was sweaty. “We’ve met before.”

“Oh. I don’t remember—”

“I know.” She lifted her head. “I might as well help you guys unpack, if I’m going to stay here until you don’t need the fan.”

“Yeah, what’s the deal with the fan?” Bash asked. “Are you its legal guardian, or something?”

Fucking Lola, Mary wanted to say. Fucking Lola and her fucking fan, was the problem. “My friend’s really protective of her stuff,” was what came out instead.

“Oh.”

Francis leaned against the door and studied his shoes. “I still don’t—How do you know me?”

“We’ve met a couple times,” Mary answered, waving a hand vaguely, pretending like it wasn’t a big deal.

“When? How?”

“It was a long time ago, I guess. Preschool, fifth grade, your freshman year of high school…”

“I feel like I’d remember all that.”

“Yeah. I feel the same way.”

Bash had retreated to the corner of the room, opening boxes and glancing at Francis and Mary every once in a while. “Oh my God. You’re Mary from the track meet, aren’t you?”

She looked up. “Yeah.”

He smiled. “Do you still know Kenna?”

“Haven’t talked to her in a while. But yeah.”

“Kenna and me…We had some good times.”

“Did you, now?”

He nodded. “Definitely.”

“The track meet,” Francis was muttering. “The track meet…”

“You ran with me to the finish line,” Mary reminded him.

“Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh! I forgot all about that.”

“Yeah,” she said very quietly.

“And you shadowed me, too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you the one with the Elton John lyrics, or was that someone else?”

“Me. That was definitely me.” Mary thought of the old notebook, its pages filled with the words of Elton John songs, two different styles of handwriting sloping next to each other.

“Wow,” Francis breathed, looking at Mary with a smile. “Wow. We just keep running into each other, don’t we?”

“It’s almost like destiny’s throwing us together,” she said with an almost bitter laugh.

He laughed at that and offered her his hand, pulling her up from the floor when she took it. “You don’t have to help us with unpacking. It’s lunchtime, anyway.” He glanced at Bash. “There’s a Domino’s near the dorms. You wanna go?”

“My friend and I were actually planning on going,” Mary offered.

Francis grinned. “Great, so we can all go together.”

The pizza was good. The company was good. The conversation was good. Mary was feeling sleepy and bloated when Francis leaned over his plate and said, “So, Mary, what are your plans for college? Lola said you’re taking a gap year.”

“Yeah. I am. I want to do some things before college.”

“I took a gap year, too. Drove around the country a bit. Made some money.”

Mary nodded and felt her stomach twinge as Bash lifted what had to be his tenth piece of pizza to his mouth.

“Do you know what you want to study?”

“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “Hence the gap year.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “Yeah.”

A silence followed, Lola studiously sipping her Coke, Bash chewing slowly. Francis’s eyes (Mary had forgotten how blue they were) darting from the table to Mary. Table, Mary. Table, Mary. Clock, Mary. Table, Mary. Pizza, Mary. Mary, Mary. Table.

“Are you going to stay in the area?” he finally asked.

“Yeah. I think so. To keep an eye on this one,” she said, jabbing her thumb in Lola’s direction.

“You could keep a much better eye on me if you went to college…” Lola muttered.

Mary rolled her eyes. “Don’t even start.”

Bash had finished his pizza. He stood up, took a final swig from his soda, and said, “I’m ready to go home.”

“Oh, okay,” Francis said, sliding out of the booth. He waited as the two girls followed them out of the restaurant. They walked very slowly back to the dorms, stopping to look at stupid things like trees and broken fountains that might’ve been cool if they’d actually worked. 

As they made their way up the stairs of the dorm room, Lola stopped at the second flight. “I’m going back to my room. Mary?”

“You go ahead. I’ll bring the fan back down.”

Lola smiled. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I was just—”

“I want to worry about it,” Mary hissed.

“Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah, so I’ll come back with the fan.”

“Okay,” Lola said, opening her room’s door.

Francis shot Mary a weird look as they mounted the stairs. She ignored it, talking and laughing with Bash until Francis gave up and joined them. They were so engrossed with their conversation, they went up one flight too many and had to retrace their steps to Francis and Bash’s room, laughing even harder. Bash’s hands were shaking from all the giggling as he tried to open the door.

“I think I ate too much pizza,” he groaned, laying on his bed.

Francis glanced at the fan sitting innocently on the floor. “You don’t have to carry it down,” he told Mary.

“I know.”

He studied her face and sighed. “I’ll help you.”

“No, screw that. Just wait until the elevator gets fixed. Then I’ll come back and bring it to Lola.”

“So I guess you came up here for nothing.”

“No.”

He shrugged.

“No, I didn’t come up for nothing.” She dug in her purse. “Do you have a pen?”

“A pen? I think so.” Francis unzipped a backpack, rifling through it until he found a black gel pen. He offered it to her.

She wrinkled her nose. “A gel pen? That’s so first grade. Do you have any ballpoints?”

“Hey, I like gel pens. The color’s deeper,” he protested.

“Fine.” She took the pen and scrawled hastily on a Domino’s napkin. She handed the napkin to him. He took it and glanced at it. “I’ll be in the area, remember?”

He grinned. “Yeah.” He ripped the other half of the napkin, grabbed the pen, and gave it to her when he was finished writing. “Just…if you ever feel like, you know…”

She stared at the napkin, studying the small, neat handwriting. It was stocky and easy to read, even with the gel pen ink smearing. His number was printed plainly on the white paper beneath his name. Francis Valois. “Yeah. I know.”

He cleared his throat, glancing at the napkin she’d given him. Mary wondered if her handwriting looked familiar, if he saw it and saw the notebook from that day, the notebook filled with Elton John.

She turned. “I should go back to Lola; she’ll be wondering where I am.”

Lie. Lola would know why. She would understand if Mary was gone the rest of the day. Lie. Francis knew it. He accepted it with a slight nod and opened the door for her, watching her back into the hallway.

“Hey,” he said as she turned to start walking down the stairs. She paused. “I’ll call you.”

She didn’t face him. “Not if I call you first.”

She could hear the pleased grin in his voice as he spoke. “I’ll see you soon. Maybe we can go to Domino’s. Maybe you can come to college next year, right?”

“Yeah.”

Mary didn’t go to his college the next year. She moved to a different state, much to Lola’s distress. And so Francis didn’t call like he’d promised, and they never went to Domino’s, and Mary didn’t see Francis soon.

But they would have plenty of time later.

Chapter Text

Olive Garden, aged 31

Greg wasn’t coming.

Mary took a sip of water and checked her phone again. No texts, no missed calls. He wasn’t coming.

The absolute bastard.

She’d really thought they’d hit it off. He was funny, smart, a bit shy, and more than a bit attractive, with dark, heavy eyebrows, short, curly hair, two eternal spots of reddish pink dotting his cheeks. Striking. And friendly in an adorably self-deprecating way.

But here she was, sitting alone on one side of the table, looking at the empty chair before her.

The absolute bastard.

She checked her phone again.

The waitress came back to Mary’s table, eyeing her with a conflicting mix of knowing pity and irritation that a customer was taking up a table without actually paying any money. “Are you ready to start ordering?”

Mary directed her hard glare from her phone to the undeserving woman. “No, Charlene, I am not.”

The waitress sighed faintly and backed away from the table. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

“Yup,” said Mary in a very condescending voice that even annoyed her. “I will.”

She returned to her obsessive checking of her phone, switching between playing Angry Birds and checking her messages, calls, email. Anything.

But Greg wasn’t coming.

She knew that. She checked her phone again.

She decided to call him. Yeah, it was pathetic, but it couldn’t be worse than sitting in an Olive Garden for an hour, waiting for her date to finally drag his ass through the door and explain why he was so late. She was starting to get stares from the other customers.

She scrolled through her contacts, searching for the Vs. “Greg, Greg, Greg,” she whispered as she went. Valley, Valley…where was he?

Found it. Greg Valley. She smirked in a sort of vicious satisfaction. Her finger hovered over his name. What could she say when she called him? “Hey, I just wanted to know if you stood me up”? Pathetic.

She called his number. And got his voicemail. “Hi, this is, um, Greg Valley. I guess I’m not available right now. If you could call me later or leave a message when the thing beeps, that would be gr—” Beep.

She rolled her eyes at Greg and ended the call. She wouldn’t leave a message. She couldn’t. As she returned to her contacts, a name caught her eye. Just below Greg Valley.

Francis Valois.

Something gripped her body—fear, shock, apprehension. She didn’t know. But her stomach twisted nervously and her palms began sweating. That name. The face it called up. The memories.

She tried to concentrate on Angry Birds. (Which, ultimately, resulted in her miserably failing at the level she was on). Her stomach was still clenched tight, and her head was throbbing, her heart thumping in her chest all because of some pixels on her phone’s screen. She couldn’t think of anything, and yet, she seemed to be thinking of everything.

Even worse, whoever had chosen the music to be played in the restaurant that day had decided to play an Elton John song. But not any Elton John song. No. Mary thought she would’ve been okay if “Rocket Man” had played. “Bennie and the Jets,” “Levon,” almost any song but…

I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind

That I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.

She capitalized the Y in her head. But she didn’t need to, really. Because she knew who she was picturing. She knew who the song was about now. If she hadn’t ever known.

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do

You see I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue

Anyway, the thing is what I really mean

Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen.

Tears stung her eyes, and she rubbed them away angrily. She hadn’t forgotten about him. Hadn’t forgotten what color his eyes were. Blue. They were blue, a brilliant, sparkling blue. Warm and friendly and hopeful. A sunny day sky. She wondered if he’d forgotten about her, or if he remembered what color her eyes were. He’d probably forgotten her long ago. She’d never made the impression he’d made on her, the impression that followed her fucking everywhere.

Fuck fate and fuck destiny and fuck every other fucking thing about love.

Somehow, she’d managed to follow him. And every time he turned around and saw her, he never remembered. And she always would.

How could she love a person she’d met four times?

But she did. She loved the way his forehead curved, the way his hair parted, his beautiful blue eyes, the way he laughed, the lines on his face when he smiled.

And what if he loved someone else? Had always loved someone else? Most of Mary’s friends had kids; two or three. Did he have kids? He’d always seemed like the type of man who wanted to be a father. She could picture him standing behind two little children, grinning up at her from a Christmas card. And who was the mother? All of Mary’s friends were married, some for multiple years. He’d probably met a girl in college and fallen in love, married her when they graduated, earned a secure job with steady pay, bought a small, cozy house together where they could raise their children and let their medium-sized family dogs run.

And here Mary was, being stood up on one of her million dates, obsessing over a man who barely knew her. She thought she knew him pretty well. 

He’d always been in the back of her mind, she realized. When she saw a flash of blond curls, heard a laugh like his, smelled rain and pencil shavings, she would stop and look around and feel relief and crashing, crashing disappointment that he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there.

He’d never been there.

He wasn’t coming.

He was gone before he ever could’ve been hers.

She scrolled through her contacts and stared at his name and number. And then she pressed it.

It rang once. She was insane. It rang twice. She was a dumbfuck romantic. It rang three times. Her heart started to pick up speed. It rang four times. She stopped breathing. It clicked as someone picked up.

“Hello?” Patchy through the cell phone, but familiar. “Who is this?”

“Hhhh,” she breathed out, trying to form a word.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Who is this?”

“Mary.”

“Who?”

“It’s me. Mary.”

Silence.

“I’m calling you first,” she said.