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Chapter Text

"I persist and resist the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?"

Marjorie once had a love for a different man than who she had now. She had recently pondered one constant thought: did she really love him at all? One morning in April upon receiving her mail through the little slot in the front door she uncovered an envelope on which the sender's name had been the name of her previous partner, James Monroe, whom she spent a long relationship with in her high school years until finding a new love with another man who she had attended school with as well. She examined the letter that contained writings from James that showed his thought of her after the three years without seeing each other, the three years since the breakup. The next day she decided she would write back, but towards the end of her letter, she had second thoughts about sending it to him—what if she were to keep the letter for herself while it was already sealed in the envelope, addressed back to James and signed with her name?

To James:

I have been doing well in recent days. I've entered a new chapter of my life and last week said yes when my fiancé proposed to me. That day was the day I received your letter and the same night while he and I were out it was odd to me that I thought I saw you with another person at the bus stop near the park. Upon taking another glimpse I realized it hadn't been you, unfortunately. The following Sunday we visited the theater for a matinée showing of a popular stage play that later became a film that hadn't sparked my interest and throughout the entire performance my mind wandered with thoughts of things that could have made perfect plays or films...but some things are never adapted. Those films were great films.

I've thought about us recently and how this failed. I knew I loved you, James, but it appeared to me you didn't show it much during our time. We were something, don't you think so? Tragic how this love fell between us when it once had been so beautiful and alive like that of the world from the previous century with the extravagant culture that expressed incredible forms of art, but that love suddenly had an end much like that wonderful decade, I thought. The park I mentioned earlier had a stunning fountain in the center and when we approached it it appeared to be popular for the public to use for their wishes and was sprinkled with pennies. The idea of that to me felt alike our loss of each other and my heartbreak following the end. I strongly felt it could have been you. I'm not sure what happened to those happy days but if we were still together I feel that things would have been continuously fun.

How have you been in your days? You were always so warm and very gentleman-like with lots of respect for others. You charmed others easily, much like the way you did me. I would imagine everything is well, you're enjoying yourself but there's things I am unaware of. Have you been seeing anybody recently? She would be a lucky one to have an experience with a selfless man like you. You and I did so much that was meaningful to us and strayed far from those typical activities that people might find in couples, but in the midst of it all it was like I could begin to feel that everything was less stable unlike our first days...but it seemed we didn't pay it any mind, did we? We continued until the final touch was made like I had done from a paint-by-numbers piece that I purchased from an art store, and the result was very much appealing to the eye. I was able to complete it with patience and kept the colors from leaving their respective numbers and at 400, it was said and done. A love painted like a daydream, a love that we had together felt full of trust and greatness until it unfortunately met its end, much like other great loves the world once saw until there was a factor that caused it to be over.

Over the course of multiple days there were times when I had thoughts of visiting or calling because my last question had never gotten an answer, but I continued to resist the constant temptation I had of just asking you. I want to know from you, James, what went wrong? I feel we had our chances to discuss the issue and find a way around it to make it different, and if we did, would things have been different today?

We may not have the bond we once did but I am truly curious and would love to hear how you've been. It's very possible now you have found someone to be your chosen family but I often still feel the heartache from what had occurred between us and despite my engagement I still sometimes think that if nothing went wrong then it would be highly possible that we may see each other as our chosen families. Your letter was not the first time I found myself digging up the grave and searched beyond for what my memories hold and the feelings they brought back like a reincarnation that had once seen a historical time now projected into their memory that was opened as one would for a hidden time capsule uncovered from beneath the earth's rich soil. Your letter has gotten me quite intrigued, if I'm being honest.

Yours truly,

Marjorie

Marjorie ended the letter and without thinking about it, she continued to fold it in half and place it in the envelope, closing it with an azure wax seal stamp and addressing James's name and address on the back, with her name and address as well showing she was the sender. She came back to the sight of the envelope on her vanity that evening, where it was hidden behind the little black bag that contained makeup brushes to keep it out of her fiancé's sight. He wasn't in the room at the time when she was looking at it again, and on the same night when he had gone to bed, Marjorie took a moment to place the envelope inside of her jewelry box that was also on her vanity. Days would have passed since she wrote and signed the letter, and James would never receive it.

Her question could have been answered, though: what went wrong? James, in fact, had found love with another woman he met online and were in close range of each other, and she eventually moved in with him when they became closer. Marjorie chose to not send the letter the way she refrained from asking him the question in person or over the phone, but if she sent the letter back respectively, would she be upset to learn he entered a new relationship? He sent a letter to her first, though—but the idea that he was in love occurred to Marjorie—so with that, she sealed the envelope shut and kept it hidden, because maybe some things are best left forgotten.

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"'Cause I knew you, stepping on the last train marked me like a blood stain, I knew you tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy, I knew you, leaving like a father, running like water, and when you are young they assume you know nothing"

I had been only seventeen when my supposed high school sweetheart, James, had suddenly vanished from my life when one night following a school event he seemed to have disappeared from the scene. He wasn't one for crowds and went off by himself, only for me to find out I hadn't been the only girl he was chasing at the time, and that spring night was the last time I had been with him. The way he left me seemed so unlike him, he was never one to do this but James himself had been a gentleman long before he disappeared from the school. He could charm women easily and had lots of respect for them and when I had been in an anxious state whilst with him he was always there. A fond memory of mine had been a night on a weekend when he and I had been working together for a school project in a class we share. We would talk between the project and each other when I mentioned my previous lover who had left me for another girl and it brought back that anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. James made an interesting analogy between myself and a white cable-knit sweater I owned that had some blue-grey stripes on it and three stars on each arm with three buttons in the front. I wore it often, especially when it had been cold like it was at the time. I told James that I almost felt like I wasn't good enough. If a boy left me because he loved another girl, then what was there about me that wasn't interesting to him anymore? James had eyed the cardigan as it would lie folded up on my bed before looking me in the eyes, telling me I was a sight for sore eyes in that cardigan. It was my favorite to wear in cold weather, and he stated that the item of clothing was perfectly crafted like myself and my personality. He could have put the cardigan on himself and even call it his "favorite."

Sometimes I wonder what had gone wrong that led him to leaving that night, to me it almost was like an odd game of hide-and-seek when he would turn away when I came into his sight in the school halls. He was intentionally trying to keep himself away from me even when I wanted to see him. It was unlike him, I knew something wasn't right, but my chances of confronting him were slim because he didn't want to see me. But the first weekend after this happened, he showed up. He appeared on my porch and the sight of him standing there had been so nice that the thought of his strange behavior had left my mind and neither of us ever brought it up. The following week at school, he did it again. That weekend, he was in my house again. The day after he left me to be alone in the crowd inside the school's gym, I couldn't bring myself to keep it in and explained to my mother that something was off and I couldn't provide an explanation for the reason it happened. What she had told me seemed unbelievable after knowing my relationship with James had been going on for sometime and it seemed like we were perfect for each other; she told me that some people fall in love at quite a young age and think they have got it all, but when you're young you can underestimate things often, such as love. She didn't think I knew what the hell I was doing in my relationship despite the first meeting with James to have gone beyond my expectations and finally earning respect from my father. On that evening when he returned from work, we talked at dinner and my father asked me to explain what had happened the night before and he explained that in his years, he had met another girl who he thought was the one. Then there was another girl, and chased the two of them before he formed a great relationship with the second girl, who turned out to be his wife and my mother. He thought I still had more to learn about love before I could settle on someone who I knew would be mine.

On that night I explored my memory bank because I needed to know the reason I found myself alone in the gym while others surrounded me in a happy state. It didn't seem like there were any signs until he began ignoring me for five days every week, and the conversations I could recall between us had never explained the issue. Long before he began avoiding me in school our relationship was well-bonded and we could spend hours together everyday, visiting the cinema and the park together and frequently would share a kiss in his car whilst we had been stopped underneath the tall streetlights waiting for pedestrians to walk past. James's gentle presence had such a way of making me forget about the scars that my past relationship left and the pain it left behind made it worth it because after what I had been through, I managed to find someone better—or that is what I had thought.

The feeling of James leaving felt unexpected, but I realized I should have seen it coming. He intentionally avoided me in the school halls, but despite his dislike for crowds, what was his intention for leaving that spring dance? The way he left felt like he was in a situation he simply couldn't stand to be in, and that night he chose to step on the last train that was leaving the station before the station closed, as his way of exiting from our scene completely. James treated it like a fantasy in a classic piece of literature; together we found our own wonderland, but our young romance we shared together, that we cherished together, had been left behind because James chose to leave it behind. I felt like a wreck following that unfortunate ending and didn't want to see him the way he didn't want to see me, but the lingering feeling like kisses we often shared still had me feeling the wondrous emotions, so much it made a mark on me like a golden tattoo, golden like daylight.

James may have disappeared from my life that night but he was still around. I believe he had left to be with another woman who he believed had been more worthy of his love and respect, and throughout the following months I would find myself briefly distracted when I would think I had seen him in the same places as I had been and I felt like I was chasing his shadow. The end of spring came, and the lonely summer followed, but as August was coming to an end, one day I came to my door after a short series of knocks on it to find someone standing there underneath the porch light. 

I knew he would probably come back to me, because I had been his favorite cardigan he had just re-discovered.

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"Fifty years is a long time, Holiday House sat quietly on that beach, free of women with madness, their men and bad habits, and then it was bought by me."

On a summer vacation away from their hometown of Westport, Colorado, Marjorie and her fiancé had been visiting the town of Westerly in Rhode Island, a town that lied beside the shore found in the southwestern area of the state. In the town had been the coastal village of Watch Hill which they were unable to visit but it had a point of interest to Marjorie. It had a gorgeous home that was once the home of a philanthropist named Rebekah Harkness, and the home itself had the title "Holiday House." Marjorie's fiancé, Alan, didn't seem curious about the home or Harkness herself, but Marjorie had quite some knowledge about the history of Holiday House and the owner it once had. Together they were staying inside a small beach house and in the evening were sharing wine when Alan had suddenly mentioned the house.

"What is it about that woman that interests you, Marjorie?" he asked.

"So now you’re interested?" she replied, surprised by his question. "What is there that isn't interesting about her? I could tell you everything, Alan."

"Go on," he said.

"Rebekah was from St. Louis," she began. "Ever thought a group of friends would call themselves a name like 'Bitch Pack'?"

Marjorie didn't want to explain every detail of Rebekah's life and just broke down the basic history of her that led her to becoming so well-known in her time. She described that Rebekah leaving her hometown was like she lived "in a saltbox house on the coast" where she had left to as a way of forgetting about the start of her life in St. Louis, constantly being raised by a nanny due to the lack of presence from her parents. Marjorie once again mentioned the "Bitch Pack" that Rebekah had formed with her friends and did rather interesting things that the public would have despised. Rebekah had married a man named William, or "Bill" for short, who had been the heir to the Standard Oil name. She had been a divorcée for less than ten years, and was quickly growing to be wealthy. She and Bill purchased an outstanding house that Marjorie mentioned to Alan before, Holiday House, where they often held large, extravagant parties that made Rebekah well known in the neighborhood. Only after living in the house for seven years, Bill passed away after his heart gave out. Following his death the society surrounding Rebekah had begun making claims that made it seem like she could be blamed for her husband's passing, and saying that "the last great American dynasty" had been over due to the problems they claimed she caused. They long wondered that if Rebekah were to have never married Bill and lived inside the house in Rhode Island, then what would have things been like? Since he had been the heir to Standard Oil, his death led her to inheriting a large sum of money and she indeed became one of the wealthiest women in the country. Still, Holiday House's neighbors felt unsure about Rebekah's presence there, noticing that she often did things that were particularly strange to them, especially on a day when she had filled her pool with champagne as a cleaning method.

"Odd woman, wasn't she?" Marjorie said to Alan.

"I can see where your interest in her comes into place," he said.

"Well, that wasn't quite the end, Alan," she said.

Marjorie continued with Rebekah's history by talking about the new money she inherited as a result of her husband passing while he was an heir. She blew through the money on ballet when she often sponsored a ballet company before she eventually chose to start her own with all her interest in the activity. Marjorie nor her husband had heard of him, but she mentioned that Rebekah had been great friends with a Spanish artist who in the end had created the very urn that her ashes would be placed inside after she died. Long before she did die though, she had been unwed and on occasion the neighbors of Holiday House would see her near the beach, pacing the rocks and sometimes staring out at the sea on the dark nights. They had been aware of a time where Rebekah once got into a feud with her neighbor which had ended in her stealing their cat and dying it key lime green. Marjorie mentioned that it seemed Rebekah had quite a marvelous time in her life like the neighbors had thought.

She finished the somewhat brief life story of Rebekah with her death that had occurred in New York, but less than ten years before that she had sold the home. A long forty years passed where Holiday House sat quietly on that beach in Rhode Island, where for the entire duration of being empty it had been free of the women with madness, it never saw any more men with their bad drinking or smoking habits, until the fortieth year where someone new claimed the house as their own.

"Someone actually owns the house now?" Alan asked her when she finished speaking.

"Another woman bought it, if I'm not mistaken," she said. "I'm not too sure who she is, honestly."

Marjorie and her fiancé finished their wine before consummating their recent engagement that night, and she almost felt similar to Rebekah herself as Alan had come from decent wealth and she was soon going to marry into it, thinking about the comparison as she lied bare beside him, feeling pleased from their romance and that she finally was able to talk about Rebekah Harkness with him.

And still, Holiday House remains in possession of the woman whose identity Marjorie hadn't been aware of. Just like Rebekah's neighbors, she had wondered if the new owner didn't show up and purchase the house, what things could have been like if it didn't see a similar life to the original owner's. What had been, though, is that both Rebekah and Holiday House's new owner both shared something similar: they both had times in their life that to them felt marvelous, and spent them pleasantly ruining everything.

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"So step right out, there is no amount of crying I can do for you, all this time, we always walked a very thin line, you didn't even hear me out, you never gave a warning sign, all this time, I never learned to read your mind, I couldn't turn things around, 'cause you never gave a warning sign"

Marjorie and James were once lovers during their sophomore and junior years in high school. When he was sixteen and she had still been fifteen, they entered their relationship in the 10th grade following their realizations of the feelings that they had for each other. They had somewhat been friends since their first meeting in freshman year, but her friendship with him had been nothing compared to her friendship with her best friend who had come from Europe. They broke up shortly after the start of the senior year, but was it really the end for Marjorie?

James

It had only been eight months since the break-up, but only one month after it, it seemed Marjorie found love with another man. I could see her often standing in the halls, with his arms around her like they had quickly become close. She appeared to be without worry, and was pleasantly laughing beside him like they had some kind of inside joke together. She wanted to end the relationship, but it had been so quick that she suddenly entered a new relationship like she had decided to pack up everything in five minutes and leave me with the love I kept for her. It confused me as to how she had recovered from the break-up in a short time and moved on, while to me she still felt as if she was my homeland that I had defended for over the course of one year but no longer could; it was like I was in exile and had been barred from returning to Marjorie, like I had still wanted but someone else was beginning to defend her.

*****

Marjorie

The month after I chose to leave James, I had found myself in love with somebody else that I had been eyeing before. The week after I began my relationship with Alan we had been together in the school hall between classes when I briefly noticed James in the distance, staring because he had noticed I was with a man that hadn't been him. The moment I saw him it felt as if time froze for a few seconds and he had seen Alan like an understudy in theatre, which James had been familiar with in middle and high school. I knew he still felt that our relationship was working and seemed jealous to see Alan and I unexpectedly, and the two weren't good friends but knew of each other but it was strange to me that James's mixed emotions could lead him to perform an action very unlike him and attack Alan just because he still wanted to be with me. I knew that our relationship had been coming to an end, but it still had been working well, and I gave it multiple chances to heal but it couldn't because we were still balancing on breaking branches that were becoming more weak by the day. It could have been like some kind of popular film that people would often see, that James and I had seen. The break-up could have been as if we had just been viewing the film but I decided to not stay for the ending and stood up from my seat to leave through the side door. If the relationship kept going any longer then things would have progressed to becoming worse, but I knew it already wasn't working anymore.

Just hours later at the end of the school day I had been waiting for Alan outside as he would have driven the two of us home. James arrived, and before he would leave in his car he had approached me slowly but didn't come too close because he knew Alan was coming.

"Meet someone new, Marjorie?" He said.

"I know you were looking at us in the hall, James," I said. "Yes, I did."

"I suppose we were walking a thin line, weren't we?" He said. "I don't recall you hearing me out, Mar. It's only been one month and I cannot find the conclusion for what was going wrong."

"I gave you so many signs, trust me," I said. "It didn't seem you were turning things around, anyway."

"Well I never saw any signs, and it's not like I'm telepathic, am I?" He asked.

"Seems to me you're in exile, James," I said, before I soon noticed Alan through my peripherals. "Alan's coming. I'll be seeing you now."

I stepped down the three stairs of the school's façade to move away from James, when Alan stepped out and didn't pay him any mind. He put his arm around me as we walked to his car, and I took a look at James as I sat down in the passenger seat. He stood there for a short time before he eventually left to walk to his car. I told him what was true. In the days leading up to the break-up, I knew I was giving warning signs to him that we weren't working anymore and I thought he may have been trying to acknowledge it. Overtime I had realized that he wasn't, and if he was, he would have found a way to turn things around, but he failed. 

*****

James

When I saw Marjorie leaving with Alan in his car, I was thinking about the short conversation we just had with each other. I tried to think back to the month before, and wondered, had she been leaving the warning signs she said she was? She never did hear me out, but she had been right about one thing. I felt that I had been in exile.

Chapter Text

"You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same, cursing my name, wishing I stayed, you turned into your worst fears, and you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain, crossing out the good years, and you're cursing my name, wishing I stayed, look at how my tears ricochet"

It was a gloomy Friday evening when a small crowd gathered at a chapel for a quiet viewing of the body of Clara Hayes, the younger and only sister of Marjorie Hayes, who had passed away after an unfortunate accident while she had been out with a friend. The people had lined up at the aisle to see her, and when her friend had come to her body the sunlight had slowly begun peeking through the tall stained-glass windows to the left. This would be the last time anybody would see Clara in-person, and in the days following her death her family had been stuck between two decisions: would Clara traditionally rest in a coffin, or be cremated with her ashes placed into an urn? Marjorie agreed with her mother that Clara should lie peacefully in the Earth; even though she had been deceased, Sheila Hayes couldn't bear to have her daughter be burned as if she didn't make it out of a house fire.

In the chapel among the mourners had been Clara's last boyfriend who she had ended her relationship with just two weeks before she was struck. Their relationship had become quite dramatic when she discovered he had been cheating on her because of the lack of time they had spent together recently, but he still loved Clara and couldn't convince her that he did. She had been upset by the breakup and he gave multiple attempts to talk to her into making things work but even on her worst days, she knew that what had happened felt like hell to her and she knew she didn't deserve it. She didn't want to hear his constant explanations and finally told him that she swore she loved him. After he finally became distant from her, she knew how much she loved him the way he still loved her; she still had love for him until her dying day. When he realized how upset Clara had been he almost felt upset too, like he had done nothing wrong. He cheated, not Clara, and there wasn't a reason for him to become angered but felt like she had lost someone who was worthy of his love—he eventually knew that she wanted him to stay away, so he did.

Following the breakup Clara spent hours crying and trying to heal from the loss of her relationship that seemed perfect to her. She didn't have the power in herself to entirely leave the scene with grace. She had long been appalled to have the knowledge that he had been so torn by being away from her that he chose to meet another girl instead of talking things out. She knew about the affair, but couldn't bring herself to accept it. In the present at the viewing, Marjorie, her mother, and Clara's friend saw him in the far back of the chapel like an outsider. He felt like an outsider to them. They chose to not communicate or make eye contact with him or come close to him, but they knew it was strange; he had a reason to be there, he wanted to be there. If Clara had been dead to him, why did he attend the wake? She had still been an important being to him even though she was now gone. He had to attend the wake because learning of her death brought him suffering when it seemed like the tears Clara had shed from the breakup and her intense injuries were now beginning to ricochet and when her suffering stopped, her former lover began to feel it and knew there were already consequences that would come from his actions. Not only he but also Marjorie, Sheila, and Clara's friend had known that the cause of the breakup led Clara to gathering stones along the following days and she never knew when the time would come when she finally felt like she could throw some of them, but the emotional pain she felt long before the physical pain made her think it would be long before she could choose to throw them or make some of them into a diamond ring as if she could accept the final outcome and create something far beautiful beyond it that would shimmer like her future would have. Because of the sudden accident she never found her chance to get rid of the stones in either way she could have, it was now like Clara had no choice other than to return from the other side to haunt her ex for his mistake and someday would begin to set the ghostly scene for this haunting that he wouldn't know whether to expect or not, despite knowing what he had done was wrong and was strongly hit with his regret.

A week later was the official funeral and burial of Clara Alice Hayes. Just like the wake, he had been there, distant from Marjorie's family and the family of Clara's best friend, and hid within the others that he had not been familiar with. They knew he was there but never acknowledged his presence—until everyone was departing. Marjorie stayed behind whilst her mother sat inside their car and she slowly approached her sister's ex.

"Here too, Mark?" she said to him, as the sunlight had been in her brown eyes before being blocked by a cloud and a sudden gentle breeze swept through her hair, dark like her clothing. "What you did was wrong, but being here was right. She mentioned she still loved you, and if she were to visit anyone, it would be you."

Mark wanted to speak to Marjorie, but he couldn't find his words to do so; he was speaking to her grieving older sister. He watched as she looked down at the site where her sister had now been and the stone plate that was engraved with Clara's day of birth and death had been the outcome of the stones Clara gathered for herself when she left Mark, but this hadn't been her intention; never would she have used the stones in such a sorrowful way. In the same manner it had been like Mark gathered some stones for himself before he cheated; he missed being with Clara and spending time with her like they always did, so much as to aim for her heart and put an ache into her, brought by the ache in him.

That night Mark had returned home, the sound of raindrops suddenly tapping on the roof in the night. He had struggled to sleep long following the news of his ex-girlfriend's death, overcome with intense guilt due to her obvious heartbreak he caused. The lack of sound besides the rain had made the room feel more dark and quiet, it had managed to put him to sleep. Clara's specter had appeared in his sleep and he could vision himself, distant from her as her sadness made her seem like she was screaming at the sky. He didn't wake but she had been there, and he wouldn't wake until he could hear the realistic sound of sobbing that broke his sleep, making him pan his eyes across the room. Empty. He knew he heard her, but was it for real? Not a sight of an apparition, but the sound of her cries could have vibrated the walls. The sound could have killed him the same way that her emotion killed her, experiencing a powerful hangover following the nights they both collected their stones. He would never forgive himself for deciding to meet with another girl. He would curse her name after she found out what he had done, but his feelings towards her had never changed, because in the end he still wished she had stayed with him.

Mark had been awake for what seemed like hours before he entered another deep sleep, where a surreal drop of rain would knock on his head like a visitor's fist on a door. She would visit him, if anyone, like Marjorie said. A gentle and faint tear would only exit its body of origin that could have been struck by an arrow just to ricochet itself to the enemy, like a second arrow.

The atmosphere of the room had been it; it was the perfect place for her ghostly scene.

Chapter Text

"I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me, and I'm still a believer, but I don't know why, I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try, I'm still on that trapeze, I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me"

Marjorie was fifteen when she was in her sophomore year of high school when she had first noticed James Monroe, a sixteen-year-old in his junior year. He had always been attending Westport High School, but for the longest time she never showed strong interest in men and only cared about her friendship with her friend Amelie Moreau, who moved to the United States from Nice, France, at a young age and she and Marjorie had been the best of friends for nearly eleven years. Marjorie approached her one day following a class, telling her about James and how much she quickly became interested in him. But when Marjorie began to learn about him, she thought that if things should work for them, then she would have to change some things about herself first.

Amelie had invited me to her home one day after school, the same day I told her about James, the attractive junior from school. She wanted him to be interested in me, referring to me as a "mirrorball" in the ways that I was very stunning, like I would shimmer beautifully and capture the attention of others easily, but I was also delicate and could easily shatter into millions of pieces if something were to go wrong. I learned from her and others that James was almost like a jock but was a gentleman and charmed other women, but nobody ever mentioned if he was with a woman. I never saw him with a woman, either, which made me strongly assume he was free.

Days followed and he unexpectedly approached me in the halls rather than me approaching him. I could have spoken to him like I knew him well. That entire day we talked as often as possible and the thought of Amelie calling me a mirrorball was in my head, making me feel as if I showed James every version of himself that day—I learned of some of his likes and dislikes—he liked theater, but hated musicals, but would participate in them because he liked theater that much. We both had been so distant from everybody that day that it seemed quiet, like we were alone, and I had been there, shining just for him. It wasn't long until I became more interested in him but I felt like we didn't have as much in common as I hoped, but I knew I could easily change things about me in order to fit in—to fit in with his personality. I attempted to do so, and days later I mentioned to him a child-friendly stage play I once saw as in my youth about criminals disguised as a masquerade who created elaborate schemes for their crimes that always failed and were meant to make children laugh.

James and I suddenly grew closer together, it almost seemed like Amelie and I were becoming distant friends. On a Friday afternoon, I had went to his house with him and together we would work on our studies in separate classes, before finishing and learning more about each other. It almost felt intimate the way we spent the afternoon together at his house while his parents had been gone, but he was just as responsible as I had been and neither of us wanted it to seem that intimate.

"Are you really interested in theater, Marjorie?" he asked.

"I would suppose I'm interested," I replied. "But I wouldn't say I have as much interest as you. And when I think about it, I do recall you being in some of the school plays, even the musicals. You must have quite a bit of passion for it, I'll say."

"And you may too," he said. "You would be great in theater. You're pretty as well, on stage you would be like a mirrorball up there."

I "would be like a mirrorball up there" is what he said to me, referring to me as the object like Amelie did. The way he made the same analogy made my body illuminate with a feeling of happiness like a mirrorball reflecting light at a dance. On that afternoon I was still there, standing on my tallest tiptoes, shining because of him. All this time I enjoyed with James felt like a disco but soon it was all burned down when he suddenly refrained from seeing or speaking to me; I heard he had been with another girl for a few days. That was when I felt like I was struck and now shattered onto the ground, my edges glistening while everybody just watched. It had been an entire week that we didn't talk, and I thought that had been the end of it and he suddenly had lost interest. Still I had seen him very often in school, he would see me but never approach me. I wanted him to see me.

That week had felt incredibly long to me, which the majority of it I had spent with Amelie who did everything in her power to keep me from thinking of him. Those five days of school passed, every one of them beginning with my same thought that possibly, he would talk to me. But he didn't. All that time I had still been a believer, and I truly didn't know or understand why. It had been like I was in the air on a trapeze, trying everything to keep him looking at me. Then the next week after that, he did.

I didn't understand what changed for that one week, but it didn't matter to me. But it took me back to that day with Amelie and that day with him. It was because I was a mirrorball.

Chapter Text

"Sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart, won't tell no other, and though I can't recall your face, I still got love for you, your braids like a pattern, love you to the moon and to Saturn, passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long"

My closest friend, Emma, and I had been at a creek near my house, which had a white wooden swing that hung from the tall, thin trees and it was quite close to the water. She and I had always switched between using the swing and the two of us would quickly hit a high peak that placed us directly above the creek. Emma once dared me to jump in before hitting the highest peak with the swing, but I couldn't; I was too scared to jump in from there. We could have been there for hours before she had to return home, which had always frightened her, because of what had come from the previous four years of her life when her father suddenly changed and one day, she mentioned to me he had begun using rude words when speaking to her, and sometimes, used his hands instead of his words. She said he wasn't like that everyday, but it still had been so often that it seemed like everyday to her. Her mother knew he was different, but couldn't completely believe her yet. We both were highly appalled with that knowledge.

I could still recall last summer when she had come along on my family's vacation in Venice when we were staying in a beautiful beach house and one of the bedrooms had a twin bed at each corner of the room; she and I spent most evenings there together where I had mentioned my so-called "big secret" to her and asked her to cross her heart to tell no other despite my family and plenty of others knowing. On one evening we had been up there the entire evening following dinner where we could sit out on the private balcony together or lie in our beds whilst watching some musical about people in Greece. That evening she and I were sitting on the rug with a film playing while I had begun braiding her hair into a fishtail pattern and in the moment it had seemed so calming, more calming than ever.

"I thought you should know something, Emma,” I had told her while my hands were in her hair, “I love you from the moon and to Saturn.” When I said that I could notice that she seemed flattered by me when she briefly tried to turn her head, her cheeks rosy and a small smile on her face.

Long before she explained her father's sudden change of behavior I had noticed the change myself, but I couldn't quite explain it. We once had been in my bedroom together doing our schoolwork and frequently conversing when she mentioned him; I had to talk to her about it. I needed some kind of answer.

"You know, Emma, I've been thinking about why your dad seems so mad all the time," I said. "Is your house haunted? Surely something in there has got to be causing some kind of trouble that's enough to stir him up a lot."

"I'm afraid that isn't the case," she said. "I would believe the truth is more fearful and haunting than a wandering spirit." It was after that when the moment came when she finally told me and left me speechless.

"Do you need anything, Emma?" I asked her. "You should just come live with me, honest. Wouldn't it be great? We could do many fun things together, like be those hot female pirates, which surely would hold your tears back."

"I wouldn't have to hide in the closet so much, either," she said.

"Must be terrifying," I said.

"It absolutely is, Florence," she said. "But there's something else. I've felt so much while feeling alone. I think I like girls a lot. Like those female pirates you mentioned."

"You think?" I asked. "I'm right here, do you need anything that would help you be sure of that?"

"Just you," she said, before a long few seconds occurred that suddenly had us share a short kiss before looking at each other, when she now appeared shy and began to blush. "Cross your heart?"

"Cross my heart, won't tell no other," I replied.

Long following that, I kept my heart crossed, and it would lead to the moment Emma's mother witnessed the horror of her husband's abuse towards their daughter, and even that little verbal abuse he gave her drew the line. They became divorced, he would move out of California, and neither of them wanted to see him again. Emma came out to her mother and received the overwhelming support that she feared she wouldn't get over the course of an entire year since she told me. When we were both eighteen, our relationship first began, before ending just after months to focus on our studies, but that was when I had moved out of the state as well. My family moved to Colorado where I had met a French girl named Amelie Moreau, also eighteen and a lesbian. I found my relationship with her before we realized it hadn't worked like we thought it potentially could. It wasn't until three years later when I returned to California on my own, and Emma and I resumed our relationship before the next three years passed, when we were both twenty-four and wed, and on our wedding night, Saturn had apparently been somewhat visible in the night sky, but still too far to see with the human eye.

Love you to the moon and to Saturn is what she said to me on that night, like I had said to her years before, whilst we had observed the night sky despite not having the ability to see Saturn so well. The friendship we beared contained so much that it could have been passed down to our children like folk songs; if those songs could continue to pass down to other generations, then a long-lasting love could, as well.

Chapter Text

"But I can see us lost in the memory, August slipped away in a moment of time, 'cause it was never mine, and I can see us twisted in bedsheets, August sipped away like a bottle of wine, 'cause you were never mine"

The entire month of August prior to our senior year had been a simple summer love that was James and I, before the month would suddenly slip away into a moment of time. The best time had been just the beginning but also the end of it, when we first visited a coastal town together and were met with the salt air which overtime had caused a small build-up of rust on his respective door of his car. The summer romance to me felt like I had been gaining a strong addiction and in the long moments it felt I had never needed anything more. I could recall one of those nights, hearing James's voice as he nervously whispered "Are you sure?" to me whilst we had been alone in a room together, to which I replied with a simple and calm "Yes" before then telling him "Never have I ever before.” That night had been when I knew—but didn't know the truth behind it all.

That summer was filled with days in the sun as James's back would be beneath it, bright and bare, the thought would have me reminisce about the days and nights I felt had been gone as if I woke up to find them gone, much like that August had been gone. The end of that summer brought back the school days, wondering if he would still call despite the sudden rise of busy times that were ahead. Those August days often had me thinking that I had him, like he would have soon become mine, thinking that I wished I could have written my name upon his back with such insecurity that our summer romance was meeting its end only after its thirty days, I hadn't been sure of it, but understood there was a chance he never would have been mine.

When we were then not seeing one another, still he was frequently in my thoughts, missing the previous days and nights we had already shared but currently all that we had together had been so much for me, it was enough, but there was still so much I was wanting. Everyday would pass with the thought that I possibly would cancel my plans just if there was ever a chance James would suddenly call like I had always been hoping for, anticipating the moment I would hear his voice on the opposite end of the call, asking me to meet him some place, such as behind the mall. The day never arrived when he would call, and the love I cherished between us suddenly slipped away, giving me mixed feelings of everything we had previously experienced together. So much for summer love, I had thought to myself, still remembering that he would use the word "Us" to refer to the two of us and not separate from each other. 

That first day back at school we had briefly seen each other but he appeared like he didn't want to entirely acknowledge my presence in the short period we made eye contact. I wondered if he remembered the day I pulled up beside him, asking him to get in the car so we could drive together after the time I still wanted but we had never gotten far; it had already been lost like we had been in his memory of wandering the coastal town together at the peak of our love. One of those days of not speaking to each other I felt confident enough to decide to cancel my plans and waited minutes upon hours just in case he would call, in that short time when I was still living for the hope of it all. Eventually one of those days I had the courage to calmly approach him, because I wanted to know, and I needed to know.

"James?" I had said, easily receiving his attention, he almost seemed worried to see me in his presence with the knowledge that he had never called.

"Augustine?" he said, his tone making him sound like he didn't have any worry. "Bit surprised to see you, this close, you know what I mean?"

"Remember the time I pulled up and told you to get in my car?" I asked. "What happened there, James? Quite the shame. You're the first man I sleep with and he decides to leave like a father. I was going to cancel some of my plans for you because I expected at least one fucking call. Would you mind not speaking to me until you get your shit together?"

That short conversation had been the last time I spoke to him in person for some time, grieving the loss of our summer love that I felt could have become so much more than what it already had been. I knew he had already been with another girl before. There was a reason he left her for me, and a reason he left me unexpectedly. It all happened for one reason. But in the end of it was when I realized that those moments had occurred just to lead up to an ending almost like a cliffhanger, because at the beginning of it I knew about the other girl; I knew James wasn't mine to lose.

Chapter Text

"They told me all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential, and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad, I have a lot of regrets about that”

I had been only twenty-two when my current relationship had been with Amelie Moreau of Nice, France, whom had also been twenty-two and a lesbian much like myself. At the moment our relationship had been keeping us apart and distant from each other, which as for me had been difficult and I quickly began having a hard time adjusting to not seeing her often, our relationship feeling as if it was becoming tarnished more and more quick as the days passed like something had once been shining but was beginning to rust. We hadn't separated entirely but I could see that we were on the verge of it, and I wanted to prevent it, and I couldn't make another choice rather than to return to her before hell would break loose, but how easy would it be? We hadn't spoken often, and at my lowest point of this I hadn't been sure if Amelie would care if I suddenly came back. I would soon regret it following an afternoon I spent at a lookout. I had taken myself for a drive with nothing but myself, the radio quietly playing last year's chart-toppers, and the peaceful sounds of nature. That was when I pulled off the road to stop at the lookout of a mountain hundreds of miles away with a river at the bottom of it. I could have stared at the view whilst standing near the fence for minutes without stopping, before I broke my gaze and returned to my car, where I decided I would leave the lookout and drive the route I came, not the route that the lookout followed. I could have continued going to the end but the path returning home had been the only path I could actually want to follow. It was nearest Amelie, and it was where I could go to try to make things better for us.

During the near-hour drive back from the lookout I was recalling the times I had been without her, trying to realize what I did and what I misunderstood that led to the current situation. I felt like a gold cage had been holding my feelings hostage and I could comprehend what felt like a break-up, like a rope was losing its strength and beginning to tear across its center. It wasn't long after we agreed to spend time apart when I began drinking more often and eventually experienced a hangover before I realized how sober I wanted to be when I could begin to drink legally, and following that experience came me feeling ashamed that I had been in such a moment that felt so adult-like, that I had been too young to experience. Soon I arrived at her apartment, briefly waiting in my car in a state of worry before exiting to nervously approach the front door with my mind puzzled as I couldn't find the words for what I would say to her. I knew if she agreed to invite me inside then things could take a turn if one of us became highly upset, especially myself, knowing that when I become intensely bothered my words could highlight what I had been feeling, like my words could shoot to kill if I became mad.

"Florence?" she said, surprisingly opening her door to find me there. "I wouldn't have expected you."

"It's time we talk," I told her. "We're not divorced straights in their fifties, we're young lesbians. And if two lesbians are in a relationship but don't want to talk to each other, then you should admit there's an issue. You would remember you suggested we don't break up, but rather we just stay apart for awhile, wouldn't you?"

"I would remember that, but would you remember you started this?" she said.

"I'm aware of it," I said, almost stuttering. "I'm just fucking trying, Amelie. I want to keep a healthy relationship with you, and you preferred we don't speak rather than converse and make things better?" Amelie didn't speak after that. I could feel that I was becoming frustrated, clearly struggling to find the solution to our problem but failing to do so when she didn't want to cooperate, that had been unusual of her, and I knew her feelings were caged much like mine had been. "I still have the right words to say to you, but until you want us to talk about it, we can stay apart."

I didn't hesitate to leave her apartment following the failure of us talking it out, and that evening chose to visit a bar where I sat speaking to another woman there, slightly older than I was, just pouring my heart out to her as she carefully listened while slowly finishing her drink, which I had not bought one, still refraining from drinking in order to keep myself as desired despite choosing to visit a bar. I had been speaking to her for nearly an hour before I felt I had given her enough of my shit when I decided I would leave, unexpectedly meeting Amelie's friend Marjorie there, accompanied by her husband. The sight of her had been so similar to Amelie with her dark hair and light skin that I couldn't bear to speak to her, but rather quickly and nervously waved before quickly leaving to return home. The day felt like another low point for me, struggling to visit places with other people around when I just constantly felt like an open wound, only thinking of Amelie everyday and what I could have done to cause us to become distant; I only wanted us to be together again, I wanted to be by her side. 

Another week would pass before I visited her again, where she greeted me calmly and the energy she gave felt positive and this could have been the chance. We finally spoke thoroughly, when I admitted to her I misunderstood how she had returned to France for one week while I had been alone, making me feel she had been having a long-distance affair with another woman even while I knew her well, but her visits to her hometown had always been for family and family alone. I only became convinced that hadn't been the case because still, I wanted to maintain a healthy relationship with her and she wanted to do the same. She was in disbelief that I thought she could have been cheating when it would have been so unlike her, it had upset her, and she thought it was best we didn't speak as to keep herself from staying mad; the idea to me was odd but I knew she would come to her senses. On that night we had slept together for the first time in weeks, feeling like much needed relief from the intensifying separation between us when I myself had been the one to blame, just to see that both of us had been trying what we could just to keep our relationship from dismantling.

Chapter Text

"That's the thing about illicit affairs and clandestine meetings and stolen stares, they show their truth one single time, but they lie, and they lie, and they lie, a million little times"

Alan and I had been out of high school for four years when we had begun living in a new apartment together. Agreeing to move in with him in the first place had felt like a mistake to me, when overtime I had begun to realize I was falling out of love with him and imagined we had no future together, like I had been becoming bored of him, and began remembering my past relationship with James and how lively it had been, and the jealousy that grew in him when he often saw Alan and I together always caught my eye, and still the thought of it caught me after all those years. One day I encountered him while I was out, Alan gone for his work shift. James and I could have spent hours speaking when we briefly shared a kiss, and it would be the moment I knew, and the moment something would change.

The first time I started seeing him, I had sent a message to Alan telling him I was going out on a walk in the early summer evening, mentioning I could be gone if he returned. Make sure nobody sees you leave, I had thought to myself, knowing I could see anybody I knew. I managed to visit James for some time and experience intimacy with him before I would return home to see Alan had still been out. My cheeks were quite flushed when I returned, the color slowly disappearing overtime but not as much when Alan did come back.

"Long stroll, Marjorie?" he asked me, making me feel nervous before kissing me on my cheek. "That's quite the flush in your cheeks."

"Great stroll, I think," I said to him, and he had never suspected something was going on.

The next evening had been the same, where I first chose to take a road where it seemed less people would travel by. We had met each other in an empty parking lot near his apartment building where we would spend our moments in his car, my cheeks less full of the rose blush I experienced before. Only after the two times we saw each other I could feel the change in my life coming, where I started feeling confused about the love I shared for the two men I had ever loved but something felt more right with James. I wanted to continue seeing him and experience the illicit affair we had that I hadn't realized was going to start from that one single glance we had back in high school when I noticed the way he would find me in another man's arms, before that glance would suddenly die just for it to almost resurrect like it somehow would return.

One of those days had brought utter excellence when Alan would be visiting his parents for a week and I had several hours upon days to spend with James. The evening before, though, I had pondered appearing neat when I would meet him, but quickly noticed it could spark an argument between Alan and I. I had thought about wearing a perfume I initially picked out for Alan before placing it back on the shelf in my vanity as to not leave a trace of it behind in our bedroom where he would quickly notice the scent of it. But then when Alan was gone, I could wear it all I wanted, knowing the elegant scent would no longer be lingering in the air, and my long clandestine meeting with James would begin. It physically had been pleasant as well as the nights when we frequently slept together, but not yet had I slept with James more than Alan.

When Alan returned that week later, I decided to nervously confess to him about how much I had seen James rather than taking walks through the neighborhood. He hadn't seemed disappointed at all, to my surprise, when he then confessed to me he had been having his own illicit affair with another woman whom we had attended high school with—she became a colleague of his.

"You won't have to call me 'kid' or 'baby' anymore, Alan," I told him. "Not that I ever enjoyed it like you assumed I did."

"I loved you, Marjorie," He said. "Until last week, at least. But I think I'll miss you."

He kissed me for the last time before the following days he would pack up his life to be with the other woman he now loved. The two of us became some kind of godforsaken mess after realizing we had a false love for each other. The affairs we separately had just brought the realization of seeing the more stunning colors in life that the two of us failed to see with each other, like the love language we thought we had was broken and could only be understood with the ones we did love. In the end we knew damn well that the two of us had only chosen to ruin ourselves for each other in those two weeks of secretly being apart, lying to each other and letting our relationship begin to die over the course of a million little times.

Chapter Text

"Time, curious time, gave me no compasses, gave me no signs, were there clues I didn't see? And isn't it just so pretty to think, all along there was some invisible string, tying you to me?"

Twenty-four was the age I had been when I was in the midst of my current romance with the girl from France, Amelie Moreau, after the nineteen years I had known her when she had just been shy of the English language. The lack of loss of emotions had felt like it had been my final relationship where I found the one after all the men I previously shared time with. I could still remember those moments when frequently in high school I enjoyed reading books on a bench in Bates Park, the center of gay pride in Westport. So many times had I seen men and women of my age that gave me that panic feeling, but not once did I encounter anyone or anyone encounter me, not even Amelie, despite being with other women including a non-binary lesbian her age in high school. Everything led up to my newfound love with James Monroe, who had French roots in him and to me could have been like Amelie's male counterpart.

The more time she and I spent time together meant we learned more about each other often, and to my surprise she could still recall her first trip to Westport as a five-year-old with the top songs in the country playing on the radio in the cab, being highly unfamiliar to her with the English sounding like a young child attempting to speak. The memories were faint in her mind but she understood they had sat down at a restaurant for dinner, a spot still existing in Westport that had been my favorite for years. One day we had visited Nice alone on our two-year anniversary trip where she took me to her favorite place for dinner along the Promenade des Anglais where many people soon noticed I had been a foreigner, especially the waiter inside the restaurant who had done his best to mention to me I appeared American and much different from Amelie, him almost seeming delighted to see an American in his presence and surprised by my minor knowledge of the language.

The long years we already spent together felt like I had been pulled towards Amelie like a single thread of gold that tied us together, taking me out of the arms of the others I had been with to find her in her youthful form when we met each other in elementary school the first time. She had been there since I could even begin to comprehend my surroundings and others around me, before those high school years filled with hours I spent with the two boys I shared my love with until the last time James and I slept together during his visit to Westport before returning to the capital where he had been attending college, just to meet another girl there; and then there was Alan, who had been the one to break my heart when he began seeing another woman. I would no longer see him in-person, but rarely kept contact with James who had married his girlfriend and was having a child with her, when the news gave me no feelings besides happiness and I chose to send their baby a present before their birth like an honorable aunt. In the meantime my relationship with Amelie felt like it had been blooming, much like they had been in reality when I showed Amelie around Bates Park one June where all things had been bright and beautiful, later that day we would find the purple-pink skies in the evening.

The idea that Amelie had been here all those years almost seemed coincidental to me, that my first relationship had been with a guy of French descent and shared similarities with her, like his striking blue eyes and his height that could have been like her in stilettos; his hair not dark like hers, but had a wide appreciation of having ancestors coming from Paris. There then had been her first visit to America where she would dine at a restaurant that I later found to be my favorite long before she mentioned it to me. It felt so pretty to think, though, that all along it was like there was an invisible string that tied me to her despite being close friends for nearly twenty years. It hit me that overtime there seemed to be clues I didn't see subtly given away by all the time that passed, until it came to my attention that our relationship hadn't been like the others, but still occurred for the pure reason that the one had always been connected to me with a strong thread, before being pulled together from the opposite sides of the world.

Chapter Text

"And there’s nothing like a mad woman, what a shame she went mad, no one likes a mad woman, you made her like that, and you’ll poke that bear ‘til her claws come out and you find something to wrap your noose around, and there’s nothing like a mad woman”

Only two days had passed since I discovered that my so-called husband Alan had been having an affair with another woman, proving myself correct about it after all the time I had been believing so, and Alan's reaction to my anger being like he was surprised I had been intensely disappointed; what in the hell did he think I would say to that? If a scorpion stings you when fighting back, then it definitely meant his wife was furious and could almost strike to kill like the creature could. I hadn't even hesitated to kick his ass out of my home so he could be with his new woman and soon all I had ever hoped for him was whenever he would be out that he could falsely see my face just for her to mouth "Fuck you forever" to him.

The potential idea of him cheating had seemed so subtle yet so obvious, the infidelity felt like it could have been radiating off of him, literally almost in a toxic manner. Right from the start when I had been suspicious of his change in behavior I had tried to confront him regarding my thoughts just for him to say it seemed crazy of me to think so, but the days following would just cause more worry and supposed 'craziness' because overtime he intentionally was poking the bear to see when she would finally become so irritated by it that she would bare her claws because he knew everything had changed and only wanted to tease me about it just to convince me the thought of it would be so unlikely, and the day I had seen him with the woman had truthfully showed what I had been anticipating to know and the powerful anger could either bring him fear or some ridiculous pride that he found somebody else that made him feel different.

Then came the week after I learned of it, when I had been out with my best friend Amelie as a way to take my mind off the illicit affair he began when the day had only brought such another sight to me that had been Alan with his mistress, coincidentally in the same location I had been. Neither she nor him had noticed Amelie or I there but the way they had acted together there had somewhat seemed like he knew I was there. He and her would hold onto each other's hands, kiss and constantly speak to each other and I could only imagine he was storytelling things of an enraged woman who apparently had no purpose in his life, the look on his face making him appear to be smug like he had been filled with joy of what he accomplished in life, so much as to he could have been pictured with her on a yacht together on the ocean. There was nothing I felt that was right in the moment besides doing anything I could to ruin his entire fucking day, because just that distant sight of them had given me the pure feeling that I was going to fail to move on from such a disastrous day in my adult life, like both Amelie and my mother had briefly explained to me that I "shouldn't worry, because I would move on" from it soon which to me it was clear it hadn't been true. As Amelie and I would slowly pass them from the opposite side of the street they still hadn't seen the two of us there, them still conversing normally and the happiness they both had could have just proved it that they were brought together by both wanting me dead and asking for more time together to drink and have sex like they had been when I found myself to not be crazy that he began seeing another woman. 

About everyday I could recall the events that happened day after day, such as the first time I realized something had been off when Alan had been lacking to display feelings to me in a way that I would positively receive them, when it only took two seconds of my life to tell him that I loved him and he had done nothing besides slightly grin—not too worrying to me in the moment, or so I had thought to myself, until the following morning when I had awoken to find that him and I became distant from each other in a way that was unusual, me waking up out of the gentle grasp of his arms, completely facing opposite from me, which to me I had taken as another sign—unless he was possibly right just one time about me thinking too much that something was wrong? It was just as I thought, when on that night I chose I would dress my best in an attempt to seduce him only for it to be an utter failure and I felt that all the excitement that already built up in my body had gone to waste—another unusual thing because if I had been in that mood, then it was very likely he would have been as well. Then one of the following days had me in stronger disbelief when I thought I was possibly pregnant without the evidence of a positive pregnancy test, but still telling Alan about it and to my disappointment he didn't seem pleased that we could have had a child together, but in the end I surprisingly was glad to not be pregnant at all, as to me it easily felt that it would have been such a shame that my child's father would be entirely absent from its life; I didn't think he would have deserved to have a child with me.

Finally, when I had least expected it, the thoughts of it were slowing down, they were beginning to stop. The third week since I found them was on the rise, and suddenly I had realized I was taking my time after that night when Alan had taken everything from me all in a matter of time just for a side fling with another woman from our high school, who I felt she should have been scathing like me because who likes a cheating man? She had for sure, because it was very clear that neither of them liked a mad woman. It had been a shame such a thing happened, but nothing for me to take the blame. Only he himself had made me like that.

Chapter Text

"Only twenty minutes to sleep, but you dream of some epiphany, just one single glimpse of relief, to make some sense of what you've seen"

Sheila Hayes was the forty-seven-year-old mother of Marjorie and Clara Hayes, and had been a full-time nurse at the Westport Hospital for nearly eighteen years, beginning just a year after the birth of Clara. Any day in her career had never been something out of the ordinary for her, until the course of forty-eight hours that had brought more, things she knew she would ever expect following her experience in medical school—especially the color-coordinated codes revolving around different emergencies or threats, one of which she was more familiar with than the others: it had been code blue, meaning a patient had entered cardiac or respiratory arrest and their life was on the line. 

During her regular shift she had been passing by the room of a patient who had been elderly and contracted a highly-contagious sickness and had been kept behind a plastic barrier for the safety of the workers. She had not been in there often, but when she did she had to greatly suit herself up to protect herself, and often had the patient's son or daughter visit them from the opposite side of the plastic, Sheila recalling one of those days when their son had visited and could only hold his hand through the plastic when greeting his poorly mother. The woman had been there for over one week with her illness that could have the potential to take her life. The two weeks after that brought the hospital its first code blue of the year, which Sheila had to report to—could it have been the old woman? She and others had to take the stairs to the next floor where the room was located, indeed it had been her in the sudden midst of respiratory arrest, only one nurse in the room at the moment before they would arrive. Sheila entered with the others to see the patient now in such danger, now fearing for her life and the nurse who was already present there had quickly stated "I think she's crashing out," believing the woman was about to succumb to her sickness, and together they all put their work into it and kept the woman breathing in an out. The adrenaline that was always brought to the doctors and nurses, especially Sheila, always kept them on edge like an intense scene out of a film before their bodies could calm themselves after the relief of keeping their patients alive, and at the end of that day believed the old woman wouldn't lose her life and someday would hug her family members without the necessity of a plastic vicinity.

One of those other days in the hospital had been similar, but not exactly like it; a patient rather young entered the hospital, already struggling to breathe. He had been thirteen years younger than Sheila, and had just experienced a car wreck that made him unconscious and had stopped breathing directly upon arriving at the hospital, where Sheila began to attend to his needs. They managed to quickly care for the majority of his injuries and allow him to properly breathe, all besides a surgery he would require on his leg. He had been in a full coma and always received his best care from the essential workers of which Sheila was included. Nothing had currently seemed wrong until another code blue had been announced, nothing too unusual to the hospital. One of the patients had entered cardiac arrest—their heart began to refrain from pumping effectively and while he was already not conscious, he once again began to fail to keep his natural breathing steady. Sheila would not be there to care for him while she had been with another patient, and very unfortunately the man had failed to rebirth from the event and died at thirty-four. Sheila felt upset by it, understanding that he was only slightly over one decade younger than her, but she had cared for him so well overtime that the loss was more upsetting to her, also knowing she only had two children, neither of them a son; not a fact she had been upset about, but almost had one—a miscarriage she had when Marjorie was seven, Clara two. She and her husband had known it was a male just shy of her loss and ultimately decided afterwards she had finished having children.

Occasionally during her shifts she would have those frequent times where she would have a break from her duties to take time for both eating and sleeping, trying to rest often being such a difficult thing to complete with what was like a brief twenty-minutes for it, dreaming of some epiphany where she felt at peace and could take time for herself to have a glimpse of relief from the busy hours and make some sense of all that she could ever see over the eighteen years she was at the hospital. It was about every shift she had that chance—finding herself that epiphany, an epiphany where everything was right, but what already had happened she wouldn't be speaking about.

Chapter Text

"But if I just showed up at your party, would you have me? Would you want me? Would you tell me to go fuck myself, or lead me to the garden? In the garden, would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing? I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything, but I know I miss you”

The new school year had just begun when it didn't take long for me to notice that Betty, the girl I previously had been with had seemed to switch her homeroom which the two of us had been in together and it was the first official day I found she hadn't been there. I wasn't going to make any assumptions why she had done it but the fact that she had done it this year when the chance for her to do it was always available had led me to realize she found her reason to do it—I thought it had been because of me, because of what I had done in the summer. The week before that first day back in the school was the last days we had of the summer, one of them when I had spent an afternoon riding my skateboard and before I knew it or realized it I had just passed Betty's house, knowing what I had done that affected her so quickly because she had well understood I was gone due to my poor decisions; passing by there had caught me feeling like I was unable to breathe.

Not long into the start of the school year came typical rumors that were found in every school—one of them had come from one of our peers named Inez, who heard from others about that "rumor" and it spread like wildfire in a moment of time then hit the most when she walked up to Betty, telling her the rumor.

"Betty!" Inez exclaimed her name as she was approaching her, appearing excited. "Have you heard the rumors?"

"Don't call me 'Betty', Inez," She said. "Only James could do that. Also, rumors? Rumors already?"

"James is exactly who I'm talking about," Inez said. "Heard James had a little summer fling with one of the others. Some say they know who but then some refuse to say who."

"Did—has somebody told you who?" Betty asked, strongly hoping Inez had known.

"Not exactly, unfortunately," said Inez. "I've heard Willow, I've heard Augustine, then in the bathroom heard it could have been Dorothea—"

"Augustine?" Betty said, confused as to her being someone name-dropped in the rumors. "Have you seen Augustine at all today?"

"Sure," Inez said, "I share homeroom with her. By the library."

Betty couldn't believe the rumors she had heard, most times she refuses to believe anything Inez says, but this time hadn't been sure of it. I myself didn't want to prove the rumors to be correct, at least not in the moment—not dramatically in the middle of the school like in a TV show. She hadn't known it just yet, but the worst thing I had ever done was exactly what I stupidly chose to do to her.

When the school day had just ended Betty had gone searching for Augustine after learning from Inez of their homeroom location, finding her outside the library's side door before she could have the chance to leave.

"Augustine!" Betty said just before passing through the door. "Excuse me, bitch, would you care to explain the rumors?"

"What do you mean, babe?" She said, wanting to seem innocent.

"You can tell me, Augustine," Betty said with confidence. "Was James having an affair?"

"I assumed so, yes," She said. "It's been a year since we were together, Betty. Then it was you and James, something changed, then it was him and I."

"You willingly got into your own relationship with him despite knowing damn well he was with me?" Betty asked, disappointed. "Explain."

Augustine took Betty to her house for the discussion while they hadn't yet been busy enough with their studies, but rather sat in her second-story bedroom together where they overlooked the garden.

"So we can both agree James has been a dick for leaving the two of us?" Betty asked.

"I thought I had him, but sure," Augustine said. "He never called me, anyway."

"He can go fuck himself, for all I care," Betty said.

They continued to carry their conversation without mentioning James, but had talked about their relationship from one year before that had been short much like Betty's following relationship she found with James. She had been in Augustine's room for nearly an hour when the two of them kissed for the first time since being in their relationship.

"Should we be doing this?" Betty asked. "Is it even okay for us to do this?"

"Remember, my parents are home," Augustine said, "They wouldn't enter but they'll know. Could we...?"

"I'm sorry, Augustine," Betty calmly said. "I better go. Will you be there on Saturday?"

"I promise I will, Betty," She said.

And then Betty was gone.

While I had not seen Betty that entire first day back, the thought of us possibly crossing paths throughout the school gave me that feeling that made me like I couldn't breathe, knowing if she were to have seen me she would have been furious. I could still recall where it all went wrong on that night in April, at the annual school dance that typically happened near the end of the spring semester. About every student had attended, including Betty and I, and when she had noticed her favorite song playing she had seemed so distracted by it that it entered the moment where I found myself ditching her to allow her to enjoy the night alone with the addition of my dislike for the crowds—something Betty was aware of. Then the end of that school year came, and soon I found my summer without her in my sight but it ultimately led to my biggest mistake come August.

The end of August had a similar time where I had currently been walking home with the broken cobblestones beneath my footsteps, thinking of Betty after all the time that had passed without her, until I overheard the sound of a car—that had been Augustine pulling up like a figment of my worst intentions. She had said to me, "James, get in, let's drive" that would be the true end of that summer. The start of August was where it began when I was spending days with Augustine that turned into nights, very often sleeping next to her, but nothing could have made up for what I had done, being in her presence for the month but still only dreaming of Betty all summer long.

Then senior year started, and just before the first weekend I had only seen Betty from distances but to my surprise had been approached by Augustine, immediately feeling worry knowing what we had been through weeks before.

"James?" She said, capturing my attention—I felt she needed it.

"Augustine?" I said, trying to keep myself calm in front of her. "Bit surprised to see you, this close, you know what I mean?"

"Remember the time I pulled up and told you to get in my car?" Augustine asked me. "What happened there, James? Quite the shame. You're the first man I sleep with and he leaves like a father. I was going to cancel some of my plans for you because I expected at least one fucking call. Would you mind not speaking to me until you get your shit together?"

And when the weekend came, that Saturday had been what I decided was the right day to make it up to Betty while it had been the only thing I wanted to ever do. I heard she was having a party beginning in the early afternoon, so there I had gone to her doorstep after the weeks I had been planning for this moment where now it had been finally sinking in. The time I was waiting there for her felt like time froze, when it had just been the last time I could think about what could happen when she would see my face again—how would she react? It felt there could be any outcome from this, understanding she could want me or be upset to see me there under her porch light and only telling me I should go fuck myself. If she didn't, though, she wouldn't have much of a choice than to let me inside. If she were to, I had wondered if she would trust me if I told her that my romance with Augustine was just a summer thing. Finally, the time came, and Betty had opened the door with her friends among her, including Augustine.

"James?" Betty said, much like Augustine had when I saw her.

"She wants you to go fuck yourself, James!" Her friend, Dorothea, had shouted.

To my surprise, Betty didn't speak another word but rather kissed me on the porch in front of all her friends, before taking me by the arm to let me in, where she led me to the garden privately. Only I knew that when she kissed me, it almost was just like I dreamed it.

"Are you going to forgive me, Betty?" I asked her. "What Augustine and I had was just a summer thing, for real. She's pissed, I know she is."

"And you slept with her, anyway?" She asked.

"We're seventeen, Betty," I said. "I know, I should have known better at the time. But I knew I missed you."

"I know, I know," She said. "I trust you. And Augustine should, too."

She and I walked back into her house together where I could meet Augustine to apologize to her, finally relieved that Betty's broken wings were now patched, but would Augustine's be? She was rather upset that I decided it would be on the day of Betty's party to talk to her, but still accepted my apology. Things then felt right and the love I had with Betty was going to return to normal.

Our activities together were regular, spending hours of time together that reminded me of long before that April dance, when I mentioned to Betty the analogy I made between her and a sweater of hers, me standing there in her cardigan when she would place it on me. Then when our relationship would resume we would finally find ourselves kissing in my car again while stopped at a streetlight. At the end of the night she would lastly say to me that she knew I missed her.

Chapter Text

"But I'm a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm, if your cascade ocean wave blues come, all these people think love's for show, but I would die for you in secret, the devil's in the details but you got a friend in me, would it be enough if I could never give you peace?"

It would be the year 2016 that had given a new love to American singer Taylor Swift, during her coming-of-age when she encountered British actor Joe Alwyn, and before she would know, the next four years of her life would be gone in an instant, when she had recently turned thirty. Some short months of isolation brought a new, unfamiliar summer that had been so clear of a single Lover Fest show, and only the remembrance of the previous three years; it would be a common familiarity to those with a high status that she was included in, to be seen by the press just for a single shot of her every move, with or without the presence of Joe beside her. She felt like it had been living in her, and would there ever be a time where she and Joe would have a moment of peace?

The Sagittarius singer and Pisces actor would cherish their love for the years to come following a time where she hadn't been physically seen for a year until the next year that brought out the truth behind her big reputation and the public learned of her newfound relationship of which some people would think it was just for show, but Taylor knew would die for him in secret. She knew within all of her relationships, even more now with Joe, that the devil had been well within the details and venturing out with him would already become difficult for the two of them; she could not want to be seen at all and dislike leaving any place just to be stormed with cameras from a distance. Then entering the long period where time had felt empty to the world only find an activity that would be painting such a dreamscape that could have been like an escape from reality where she could have no worries and only find her own ways of talking shit with her friends and sat out in a cabin in a forest with the warm light from a fireplace in just the most comfortable setting.

Joe's presence to her and the millions in the world felt so different, like he had not been like the others—his gorgeous appearance had long overtime gave Taylor that feeling that she knew she would want to swing with him for the fences and wanted to make a full commitment to her relationship and could give him everything she wanted to, like her wildest dreams she always had of giving someone a child when she would find the one, next to her found family that she so easily chose when she began to see Joe's brother, Patrick, now like he was her brother, still she could take herself back to the time they painted his wall a fine blue color. Their relationship together felt like Taylor had brought her own source of sunshine with such love that continued to build up through four summers and nothing could change that intense feeling until the rain would come in only the worst of times, in forms of still lacking such peace and comfort if they would be out together.

It then had come whilst she once fully painted that dreamscape—almost in a mysterious, but unfamiliar way, with "not a lot going on at the moment" being the words she used. She had done such a productive act when she spent the wondrous time using her mind to turn both fictional and real lives into folklore from the beginning, simply pouring all of her whims, dreams, fears, and musings into it for its surprise release only hours after announcing it. Even so much for it had been made possible just from one person that had been the new name of William Bowery, who was he, and who had such a name? He was none other than Joe himself, the one who just began belting the chorus of the fourteenth track entirely thought up in his own mind, not even being in the same room as his girlfriend. Joe plays piano beautifully, something Taylor thought and mentioned, when he had begun singing the first verse of the fourth track on his own.

But then for herself, she drew up the fifteenth track from her personal life, even more so now that she was always beside Joe—being in a full relationship with real commitment, a relationship grown over the course of four years, understanding that they could never achieve the one thing always had by such others. She and him would never have real peace, and she felt she could never give him peace.

Chapter Text

"My only one, my kingdom come undone, my broken drum, you have beaten my heart, don't want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do"

The recent days had brought such a melancholy life within my lasting relationship with Alan, not like it had been a feeling of toxicity but as the time passed I could easily notice that we began to grow apart so much like a rare eclipse as if I had been providing the sunshine in our relationship just to be cast into a shadow by him and now seeing a form of darkness. I could only find myself breaking down over the person who I thought was my only one, and it turned into nights when there was a real lack of properly sleeping in the same bed together with such little touch and not the daily awakening that came from a gentle kiss upon the forehead or a cheek. Those nights to me were so sleepless, trying to remain as close to him as possible while I could understand that something was soon about to change. But I still wanted to refuse that was true.

Only time would tell when everything would completely unfold and we would refrain from being with each other. Everyday could have been like Alan was standing on a cliffside, just waiting for the break-up to happen, only screaming "Give me a reason" to me; he knew I didn't want it all to be over. The love he had for me had become so faithless of which it seemed so much like a hoax but still I was believing in it so much and thought there had been something about me that he didn't want to leave me for. Then as for the love I had for him, I felt there was nothing and nobody else I could compare him to even after all the years we had been together, I didn't want to be with anybody else but him, but the sudden sleight of hand that Alan had he quickly used to deceive me of the love I knew we once had and everything was now false and felt like some convincing disguise that would in reality never lead to what could have been some barren land of a new life that would have been blooming with what I was expecting from us, that being marriage or children and not yet had we ever seen our engagement—it wouldn't happen yet, not now, not ever.

A point had come where I was suddenly anticipating the end but never knowing when it would happen, and then one day, I could almost sense that it had just been beginning, like once again he was at the edge, but this time, with me there. I didn't want to be standing there with him just trying to find a way to heal such a broken world with him. I would unbelievably choose to end it all to start our new lives separate from each other, only leaving a part of me back in the apartment we shared but I myself would walk out the door with such a scar of distraught because in our final days I felt I could have just been pulled apart by my only sadness in the world, bringing expected emotional pain within it. Never had I ever before been in a relationship where the two of us would have never thought to see darkness and things only became harder when it became my decision—the love life I knew I sought would only deteriorate and being a half of it who would have seen such an unworthy end to a film but we still both knew what the end would bring to us.

He had been the one or so I imagined until he started to beat my heart without a single form besides that what was always contained in a relationship had all been lost; at some point in time it had been there until it would be long gone. All of it to me I could well see it would only find its form as being a hoax.

Chapter Text

"I want auroras and sad prose, I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet, ‘cause I haven’t moved in years, and I want you right here, a red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground, with no one around to tweet it, while I bathe in cliffside pools with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief"

Some hoax I once believed in that came from the faithless love of my previous partner Alan had been in fact unreal, and entered the day where we would become separate and begin new lives away from each other. That time I began to spend without him always there would almost have myself writing something that felt so much like it could become a kind of elegy, like the memories of him and I were being printed onto paper but would always be so private like it had been a diary entry. Everyday following the break-up I would speak with my closest friend Amelie, who would do everything in her power to take the thoughts off of my mind and at the start of the next week, she would find a way to be successful in that.

She would choose to take me to the eastside of Westport, where it had contained a stunning series of lakes with the most blue waters, and out of the three lakes we would visit the second, titled Merrell Lake. They had been among the top vacationing spots in the entire city, but never had I ever visited any of them until Amelie and I would. The scenery made it almost feel mystical and secluded, it felt that the two of us didn't belong there like somehow we were out of place. Knowing I had been there for a reason would slowly return the thoughts of the love I recently lost, gazing up into the sky like I wanted to direct my tears back into their ducts before they could even exit, and upon looking up I had seen the tall mountains and hills that were surrounding the lake. Those peaks had captivated me as they stood tall over the water, casting a reflection onto the surface with the greenery on the land, and made me feel I could completely escape from things within my surroundings and found the perfect place where I could cry.

We would spend days there just for an entire chapter of escapism together, especially myself, but Amelie's presence there kept me intact and I well understood that a new and better life with somebody would come at another point. With her there I managed to find myself often free from the unworthy distractions, but when I didn't it would be then when the thoughts would be there and the knowledge of my former relationship being over still would burrow itself under my skin in constant waves of hurt but I knew I could still convince myself that Alan was forever out of my life and I wouldn't be returning to him when Amelie and I would depart from Merrell Lake. She and I both knew that I already had come so far in such little time that I wasn't going to be beside some sleaze who would only beg for me to give him a reason why things between us could be patched.

On one of those nights when everything had felt alright Amelie and I would share champagne before she would pour her heart out to me about her relationship she once lost with somebody from California and had well been over it but was still searching for her new life with another. She and I had been the best of friends for nearly twenty years and not until recently had I understood those other feelings I noticed in my past relationships with James and Alan, and as we sat there together in the lake house I had wondered, was there another reason for this? We both finished our glasses of champagne before she would mention she was going for a night swim in the lake underneath the clear sky with nothing but the millions of stars and the crescent moon. I could see her from the window and the second-story balcony, and she hadn't been out there for long when I decided to change out of my clothes and would approach her in the water.

"Amelie?" I quietly said to her, knowing others in the area could have been at rest. "I need to talk to you."

"Everything's alright, Mar," she said, pulling her dark hair over her shoulder. "Alan's fucked without someone like you."

"Why else are we here?" I asked her. "It's sweet of you but it's only us, two women waiting for their next relationship. Is it us?"

"This was just an escape, Marjorie," she said while blushing. "It's nothing more."

Despite her saying that I still came closer to her to find that connection I thought was hidden as we had been there. Where we stood in the shallow patch of the lake had been the place where I had gently held onto her to kiss her for a brief moment, and then it would happen again. She and I were there almost bathing in that lake as it lied beneath the hills, feeling like my frozen ground began to thaw after a red rose suddenly grew up out of it. The two of us were there for minutes with just the new love we began to find between us while I could soon distance myself even further from that insurmountable grief I had so much that spawned the getaway—it would be there just for the end to seek out the best place for not only me but more importantly both of us—and I would learn everything I would begin to experience I would have somebody there, somebody who had been different. I wouldn't want to have something that would set me off again, unless Amelie would be there. Not without her.

Chapter Text

One day something had suddenly changed in Betty, the girl I had been widely keeping my eye on throughout the seasons for the duration of our high school years, but then the summer following our sophomore year would be where I would notice things first begin. Long before, though, overtime I would form a neat friendship with her but continuously would I procrastinate the day where I would ask Betty if the two of us could possibly visit the cinema together, visit a lookout, whatever it may be that I thought could bring us closer, because I knew her. She had been well interested in women and even once mentioned she wanted to have a girlfriend more than girls would complain about lacking a boyfriend, but still Betty would even welcome a man into her arms if she were to find one.

The time came—the day I would anticipate for weeks in late May when things in school began to slow down just shy of summer's arrival—when I found it to be a perfect opportunity to ask Betty if she felt welcome to come to the cinema with me to see a film I knew she waited months for, I just had to keep calm when I would ask her.

"Hey, Betty!" I said to her when I saw her from a distance outside the school, quickly approaching her. "Could I ask you a question?"

"It's Elizabeth, Augustine, you know that," she corrected me. "What is it?"

"I've been thinking, maybe together we could see that new film you've been waiting for?" I asked her. "The one you mentioned, with the sexy female lead."

"I'm flattered, honest," she said. "James asked me to go with him. I'm sorry, Augustine. We can still go together another time if you would like, alright?"

That so-called "another time" wouldn't arrive much to my disappointment and surprise, knowing Betty typically wasn't one to lie or suddenly change herself, but it only wouldn't happen because of James. I would not see Betty since school's end for the upcoming summer, and without her there things would often seem quiet. Without her it would only be our other friends Inez, Dorothea, Willow, and Olivia, all of whom had been just as curious about Betty's absence and why it seemed more important that she spends time with James and that alone, not finding extra time to be with friends. For the start of that summer it had just been us, very frequently discussing summer plans and of course, the strong lack of Betty's presence.

"When we see Elizabeth again, we should have words with her, agreed?" Dorothea said. "She's begged herself to find a woman but when a man shows up, she takes him?"

"Plot twist, James is a woman," Inez said, "And all along this already has been an actual sapphic romance."

"Don't try to make rumors, Inez," I said. "But if she wanted to find a girlfriend, she could've just asked me. The same way I tried to ask her."

"You tried to ask her out?" Willow asked.

"And she chose James over me," I said. "I asked her to come to the cinema with me, and she said James already asked her. Everything is because of fucking James."

"It's fine if you date a woman, Augustine," Dorothea said. "But if I'm honest, you might have zero chance with her. Hell, you'd probably have a better chance with James if he was free."

"She won't last long with him," I said, jokingly giving them both of my middle fingers. "Mark my words, bitches."

The weeks would continue to pass following that day with our friends, and still not once would we see Betty nor each other as we would begin our own family's summer plans. Dorothea would be going to her family's lake house; Inez and her family would be visiting a coastal town in Rhode Island; Willow's family would visit New York; Olivia and her family would be leaving the country entirely for one week, and myself with my family would visit Orlando for one week as well. I would return from my vacation to find out that when Inez returned, she had encountered Betty unexpectedly but would fail to properly talk with her about her whereabouts, and I had only hoped Inez didn't mention to Betty that I wanted to be with her. I wanted to talk to Betty myself, which I would soon manage to do when I saw her for the first time since that last day in school, and she and I would find our own rendezvous, and finally it would be without James there to somehow wreck my plans. Betty and I would meet privately at her house while her parents were out for their own vacation to celebrate their anniversary. She and I had been in the garden together still secluded behind the tall white fence, and since the start of it I could feel the anticipation in me and I wanted to cut through it like a knife.

"It's been a long time, Augustine," Betty first said to me. "I'm sorry about the whole cinema thing, James and I got carried away with each other."

"It's alright, Elizabeth, I swear," I told her. "I'm just glad you're actually here."

"No, I want to make it up to you," she said. "Tomorrow it can be just us again, the cinema too. James agreed it's all right with him."

"Are you and James that serious?" I asked her. "What the hell happened?"

"We just went to the cinema, simple," she said. "And afterwards we kissed in his car. That was my first kiss, Augustine."

Learning that they had kissed immediately after their first date had put an ache in me in some way, I couldn't mention it to her but hearing about their relationship had increased that ache. As she continued talking while we were sitting together on the garden bench I didn't wait any longer to cup her face to turn her towards me so I could kiss her. I had wondered, could I kiss like James would kiss her? It was very short but seeing each other after it had left the both of us without words, Betty blushing and becoming shy, trying to speak but her words stuttering.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth," I said. "Should I go?"

"Stay, Augustine," she calmly said, gently grasping my arm when I stood up, about to leave through the fence gate. She then would stand to kiss me, still holding onto my arm. "And you can call me Betty. We've got an empty house for ourselves, and we should use that as an advantage while we can."

On that night I would sleep next to Betty, and the following morning I awoke, almost forgetting I had been there. Still I had been bare from the night before as well as her, and found the repetitive messages on my phone from my mother, asking where I had been to which I would reply I had "stayed with Betty for the night and would be home later." After placing my phone down I found that she was now awake, us quickly sharing a kiss.

"I suppose I should talk to James, shouldn't I?" Betty said, her voice raspy from sleep. I was pleased to know she was going to break-up with James and the two of us knowing she had just cheated on him, exactly as I had desired since the start. She would agree with me that our relationship be kept secret, and I wanted our friends to find out in a different way. What it meant for us though is that in their presence we would refrain from kissing or holding onto each other's hands, something we almost found difficult, and Betty would then have to learn to pretend James was still in her life despite their recent break-up.

In the following months come September after the summer slipped away, Betty would be holding a party at her house before we would return to school. I had expected many people we knew to be there, possibly even James, but overall I didn't know what to expect. Still our friends were highly unaware she and him were long separated and found love with me, and the party to me felt it could have been the right opportunity at the right time for them to learn of it. The day of the party I would spend minutes preparing myself now that I had been with someone and when I would leave in my car, I would see somebody I never would have expected—it would be none other than James. I pulled up beside him, causing him to notice me.

"Going to Betty's party, James?" I asked.

"Didn't she tell you, Augustine?" he said. "Betty wanted us to break up."

"Why the hell for?" I asked him, clearly trying to make myself seem interested and unaware of it.

"She said she was losing interest," he said, not sounding upset by it. "It's been nearly three months. And who willingly invites their ex to their own parties?"

"She never seemed upset by it when I asked her, James," I told him truthfully. "Get in, let's drive."

James and I would drive to Betty's house, his presence reminding me of them still being together and I could remember those days and nights I missed her and would dream of her all summer long. When we arrived at her house I asked him to not yet leave the car, but I just knew Betty would likely notice him, but I had hoped she wouldn't get the wrong idea why he was there. I would step up onto her porch underneath the light, knocking at the door and waited for her response, and when she would answer I would notice who had already shown up. They noticed me there in the doorway, but before I could enter Betty slightly moved closer to me, making me step back small inches. We would glance at each other for a short time and I could see that she was admiring me, as well as I admired her, and suddenly we had been kissing on the porch in front of all our stupid friends who were once judging me for having the idea of dating Betty. I could feel that they were looking at us, seeing the party's host had been kissing somebody who hadn't been James.

"Did Betty just willingly kiss Augustine?" I heard Olivia say. 

"I told you so, didn't I?" I said to her with a smug look on my face.

"Augustine?" Betty said, "Why is James here, and why is he in your car?"

"I only saw him, babe," I explained. "You didn't invite him or not invite him, but he's a man. One of the girls can have their own fling with him." When Betty noticed him, James exited the car to come to the porch.

"You can be here but then be gone, James," Betty said to him. "When today is over you can go fuck yourself, or do whatever boys do." James would only shrug when she said that, and sure enough our friends would find him charming since he had been free, finding himself most compatible with Dorothea.

My relationship with Betty would proceed to live longer than her relationship she once had with James, and she and I would find ourselves doing things she had previously done with him—she and I would have our own dates at the cinema like her first one with him; she and I would find ourselves often kissing in my car whenever we would go places, much like her first kiss with James. All the long time of just missing Betty would only successfully pull her towards me.