für elise

carolina ysobel collado mijares /ka-ro-LEE-na/ /EES-oh-bel/ /co-YA-do/ /mi-HAR-es/

[today-icons]

[fyp-science]

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star then your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics; you are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all things that matter for evolution at the start of life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars are kind enough to explode…. The stars exploded so that you could be here today.

Lawrence Krauss  

[nathan-stahl]

reception || lina & nate

[carolinacollado]

nathanstahl:

Sociability had gone up, a little. That’s how the good doc would put it: and how has your social life been this week? from his chair, where Nate could see his socks that never matched quite right. He was trying harder to take some time outside. And, okay, maybe some days that just meant sitting a little closer to the windows, but some days it meant getting the groceries, standing in the sand, taking a cigarette on his deck at night so the smoke obscured the sky. Small-talk with strangers he never initiated. Mikhail’s face at 4pm, pale from the laptop glow. 

These were conversations that didn’t require too much processing speed, even the daily check-ins; his Russian was near-flawless (couldn’t call it fluent) but Mikhail was muted now, like Nate was, so they mostly just sat. He was getting used to quiet. He was getting to prefer the sound of his breath over speech. 

Carolina, the receptionist and appointment coordinator, was too many words between blinks. Torrential. He tried to follow it with his eyes, brows up, leaning a little farther over the hands clasped between knees. You would’ve thought – you would’ve thought, from the classical music and the phone call formalities – you would’ve thought she was muted, too. 

Nate hadn’t really thought about her. Before.

“Lina,” he repeated. Sounded different in his voice, stripped of something, and he swallowed around the self-conscious urge to stop talking. There was a water cooler next to him, nearly full. He looked from his hands to her to it, and all the waxy dixie cups they’d stacked upside down on the table. He tried to focus on the way her words sputtered like a stubborn engine, ‘cause at least his were coming through clear. What few there were. “I’m fine. Really. I… kind of like waiting.” Was that weird? It was definitely weird. It wasn’t – it wasn’t the waiting so much as it was the quiet. It wasn’t the quiet so much as it was the suspension, knowing he was on time for something, living with the pause button pressed on. There are some places that just feel like when you’re in them you don’t exist the way you do everywhere else, and Nate knew that didn’t make any sense, but waiting rooms and parking garages and other people’s driveways were like pockets where everything else stopped. 

Talk about stuff you probably shouldn’t mention in therapy, Jesus. “I get to listen to the music,” he added, pointing vaguely over her shoulder at wherever the orchestra was coming from. “And I get to catch up on whatever… Jennifer Aniston is up to.” Seriously, the Us Weeklys were well-stocked. “I only get that when I go grocery shopping.” In the quiet after the joke, a movement ended. Another started. He covered one of his elbows with a palm. “Nate. Nathan. Nathan Robert Stahl” – eye roll at himself, so she’d know he wasn’t making fun of her, just poking fun – “but just Nate, most of the time. The rest’s a mouthful.”

Was everything like riding a bike? Muscle memory, maybe. Steer straight and pedal. Train your entire life, maybe, before the middle passes and makes it a memory in the first place. Do you ever really forget? Fingers on a fret board, moving across strings, forming shapes and creating sound between breaths. Simultaneously reading the subtitles while watching the images span across the tv, or the laptop screen propped by pillows. Driving, like riding a bike-- steering wheel, rearview mirror, windshield wipers. Maybe muscle memory only meant multi-tasking. Funny, how it worked.

It’s all she thought about, leaning forward against her desk. Like she’d lost all sense of posture, all she’d trained for in elementary school playing the violin. Multi-tasking: thinking, thinking, looking-- talking. Nate. 

She’d trained for this, right? How do you ever forget?

It was foreign, the way he said her name. Lina forgot what that sounded like -- her name on another man’s tongue. Tried to forget it, too, and the way her words bubbled over and out around them. Nate liked waiting. When he talked, it felt heavy-- weighed her shoulders down, made her shift forward to get closer. A desk and a countertop between them. Heavy, ‘cause it was slower. Visible breaths, y’know? Heavy, because his voice was deep. Too deep, like it matched the dip between his eyebrows, but not the rest of his face. Nate liked waiting, and Lina couldn’t even hold the words in. 

“Are you sure?” But he was eyeing the water cooler, now, and he wouldn’t look at her. Some things were answered without an answer. Forget it. Lina was the kid that shook every present wrapped underneath the Christmas tree-- guessed and guessed what it was until her mother relented. A tip: always hide the torn gift boxes at the back. Never try to one-up your abuela, a worker at a wrapping factory. Patience was near impossible when all Lina wanted was to learn, or to give, or to smile. She tried the hardest stuff first-- Paganini’s Caprice No. 4 in C minor eight months into training. “I bet you’re used to waiting, though, right? Being an astronaut and all?” When exactly did she cross this line of unprofessionalism? The first time she opened his file, and tried to make out every word-- or now, making small (it wasn’t small) talk? Nathan Stahl knew a lot-- knew so much, Lina knew -- and it must’ve been perfect to practice patience when you were only surrounded by the stars.

He sure knew something, ‘cause he liked the music. This is when Lina remembered: practically perked up, with her spine straightened against the desk chair. “It’s good, right?”  The CDs were on the counter. She had to loop her fingers around a stray elastic band and pull, pull, to keep from waving a copy in his direction. 

Forget composure when a sad boy makes you laugh. Wide mouth, neck stretched. Loud laughter that blocked out anything beautiful. It was good, but this was even better. “If you look hard enough, I’m pretty sure there’s a 1996 copy with Jen on the cover.” Lina peeked over the counter, hiding a smile with a pen between her teeth. “You could hawk that for some serious cash-- but, let me guess, here--” like she forgot why Nate was even here in the first place. “You like Friends, but He’s Just Not That Into You is your favourite movie.” The official introduction (”Nate. Nathan. Nathan Robert Stahl”) was like an inside joke shared between people that weren’t strangers. Confidential, almost, even though Lina had already broken that trust. He wasn’t a stranger, with the way he rolled his eyes. The way Lina thumbed through his file every other Wednesday afternoon. You don’t care this much about strangers.

“Just Nate,” she tried to breathe it out slow. Really slow. “I like that.” Maybe her reminders weren’t meant to be formal phone calls-- maybe this was it. This was it: just Nate, and Lina multi-tasking. 

[daisyridley]

[carolinacollado]

ella-dormaine:

Ella was almost certain that Kiernan was trying to kill her. He was trying to slowly suffocate her, sap all of her life until she was just a shell. And he was doing it by leaving her in a tiny, cold hotel room with an air conditioner that apparently didn’t turn off and only decaffeinated coffee. She could give up just about anything. She could give up different foods, she didn’t even like drinking, she could pass on all of that no problem. But coffee? She was going to murder someone, and it was probably going to be him. 

As it was, she found herself blinking in the sunlight as she came out, like a bat leaving her cave of darkness and solitude. She grabbed the arm of a passerby. “Please dear god, just point me in the direction of the nearest coffee shop before I rip someone’s head off.”

It happened a lot, y’know? Summertime-- with all the tourists. Lina’d only been back home for a couple months, now, but it’s like everybody knew. Pick a person out of a crowd, any person-- take your pickings, take your chance. This was her hometown, and so she knew things and the people and the places-- and it’s like people knew. As September was fast approaching, the crowd was starting to thin out. Pick a person out of a crowd, now, and it was more than most likely going to be a local. But why Lina? Why today?

She was a small girl. They were both small. But her grip was tight-- tight enough to get Lina to stop on the sidewalk; stop her heart a little in her chest. “I’m sorry?” Lina tried to shrug her way out of the stranger’s grasp. “This isn’t Stars Hollow-- you can’t just--” a pained look on her face. A breath. Stop. “There’s a café a couple blocks down-- Serenity Café. Good coffee, good food. They don’t ever burn their milk.” She thumbed the spot on her shoulder.

[carolinacollado]

kiernanobrien:

Kiernan smelled like smoke. Then again, he always smelled like smoke. Especially when he’d just gotten off a twelve hour shift involving two kitchen fires and a kid who wanted to be cool and prove it by lighting a dumpster on fire. He was ready to go home and take a very hot shower, then go to bed forever.

But Angel had insisted getting breakfast when he picked her up, and there honestly was very little that the little girl couldn’t get him to do when it came down to it. Which was why he was sitting in McDonald’s, smelling like smoke, with more than a little bit of ash smeared across his shirt. If he’d been a bit more awake, he might have been able to stop Angel’s drink before it spilled. But he didn’t, and now there was a sticky mess all over the table, and he only had one napkin. He twisted around in his seat to address the person behind them. “Hey, do you have any napkins?”

The only good thing about McDonald’s breakfast was the hotcakes. Maybe the coffee, too.

It was mornings like this -- days off from work, where her mother urged her to leave the house and do something (she was almost thirty years old, for Christ sakes) -- that Lina allowed herself to slip up. Anything to get out of the house, y’know? Hotcakes in a meal, with an extra hash brown (more bang for your buck) and a large vanilla latte (full cream milk) (remember to be specific. What type of coffee? What size was it?). Did you want your hotcakes with sausage? Lina loved trying new things -- learning and living and-- and sausage and pancakes? Almost thirty years old, for Christ sakes, and this was one of the things she couldn’t seem to swallow -- couldn’t digest it. 

When she sat down she couldn’t seem to figure it out: whether it was cooking oil or smoke that she could smell. Both were prevalent in and around the establishment: the cigarette butts that lingered on the curb and the crosswalk, and the smell of fried food that she always had to scrub out of her hair later -- even through drive-thru, even through a quick five minute pick-up. Sitting down and enjoying her meal wasn’t going to stop a thing. Only less shampoo in the bottle later, right? Orange juice had a smell, too. Like she sniffed it out before it spilled across their table -- and Lina was turning, and so was Kiernan, and she wondered how she’d missed it. The smell of smoke. The little girl’s voice.

Lina, chinking plastic cutlery together, moved about her table to grab some napkins. “Hey guys,” she dabbed the paper onto the spill. No use crying, right? And Lina was always happy to see one of her violin students -- Angel, with no OJ left in her cup -- and her father, an Eastcliff native. Only a couple grades difference in high school. A firefighter, too, with the ash smeared straight across his chin. “Rough morning?” 

[daisyridley]

[carolinacollado]

daisyridley:

Hard work and dedication and perseverance and being good to people does win. It does matter. Cream does rise to the top.

[carolinacollado]

kxrabkr:

There had always been one thing Kira had always promised herself she would never allow herself to go through, and that was the torture of having to go on a blind date. Why had she agreed to do such an idiotic thing, soon she remembered why. One of the nurses had been very persistent telling her about this amazing lawyer who she had to meet and sure to love. Did she not know the brunette at all? It’s been a mere hour since the date had begun and Kira had already felt the need to pull her hair out. All night the two had spoken about one topic, himself. Though she wouldn’t exactly call it a conversation seeing as he did most of the talking while she simply stared and nodded taking a few drinks here and there of her wine. Kira wasn’t even half done with her meal but she knew she couldn’t stick around a moment longer. At this point she feared for her sanity if she dared stay through the whole thing.“That is a great story how about we pause it while I go to the bathroom really quickly?” The polite thing would have been to wait for a reply but the moment her excuse to leave the table left her lips she was standing and heading towards the direction of the exit. At this point she didn’t even care if he saw her leaving, all she wanted was to be out and back home. Making quick movements towards the exit, without looking she had headed out not noticing the person making their way towards her, colliding the door against them. “Oh my god—I am so sorry.” Just when she thought the night couldn’t get any worse.

Serenity Café was oddly busy for lunch. Lina saw people coming and going out the door, making her way, slow, down the sidewalk. Her phone was glued to her hands. A glance up and through the shop window and she could see it all -- almost every table filled. Summer was winding down, and it made sense -- the tourists were starting to leave. One last taste of Eastcliff. The baristas working behind the coffee counter, sweating and moving, with servers dolling out plates of seafood and sandwiches to tables of happily chatting customers. Lina came for a latte -- a quick stop and wake-up before she met her mother at a pottery class. 

She shot off a quick text message (on my way, xoxo.) before pushing open the café door with her backside. Fingers on the button, y’know? That was the thing about busy towns -- and the reason why she never liked living in the city. Not enough space. She collided with the door, and her cellphone slipped out of her hands, audibly smashing against the concrete. Wasn’t too long till she was sliding down the wall to join it on the ground. The apology wasn’t important -- Lina tried to clear the sounds out of her head to hear it, and nod, and say it was fine. But she must’ve hit her head against the brick, or the glass, ‘cause she could taste the blood on her mouth. Was it from her head? A cut in her lip? “It’s cool.” She managed to get out, squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe if she squeezed a little harder, and grit her teeth some more, the pain -- the stinging -- would subside. 

[haleyjamesarchive]

[fygina]

[lesbiangabriellle]

[carolinacollado]

violacostello:

Her home by the beach was relaxing enough and Viola was nosy so the two went hand in hand when she could literally look out her window to see who was sitting in the sand today. A couple of grandmas, some people with dogs, and the occasional hot bod emerging from the water. God, they didn’t look that when I was in high school. 

Her German shepherd, Rocko, was practically scratching through the door and Viola gave in, opening one of the French doors that led to a footpath, her own mini-private walkway to the beach. Before leaving, the brunette grabbed her keys, sunglasses, and a couple toys for the dogs as well shoving her phone into her back pocket before padding her way down to the sand, barefoot.

The sun was beating down, the Massachusetts summer weather was something she never particularly was a fan of. Her tank top was already clinging to her skin and so were her shorts but that was the norm. Unfortunately, the sun seemed to ignite a wild side in Rocko and she could see him circling someone up ahead. With a resigned sigh, Viola half-jogged up to the poor person to try and wiggle her dog away from them. “Rocko! Sorry, it’s the sun. He’s been in the house all day and once he gets outside, he gets a little wild.”

Senior year of high school had her family constantly driving down to Boston, checking out colleges. Long drives– the types where looking anywhere but out the window meant trouble. She never used to get carsick as a kid, but maybe that was the point. College. Applications sitting on her knees, neat and untouched. Headphones in, world in. My Family Car stickers weren’t a thing, no Baby on Board as a cautionary sign– and still, Lina wondered. When they stopped at a red light, middle lane, and she watched from the backseat. Families and people and life. She was reminded of that now -- sitting on North Beach, watching the activity with toes wriggling in the sand. 

Lina didn’t live particularly far from the beach -- but in the heat, with the summer tourists, it was hard to walk from home. The A/C was broken on the bus, and her father had her car for the day, but there was a slight breeze by the time her feet hit the sand -- it made it worth it. And the people watching. Why were they here at the beach? Why today? Why this town? 

She could’ve thought about it more -- questioned the entire existence of the world (that’s how it normally happened. This person’s soul-- what happened when it was gone? If they were all gone? No more universe? Did it keep going? So many questions.) before a German Shepherd dog trotted down by her side, tongue lolling out the side of his (his?) mouth. “Hey there,” she greeted, hands buried in its fur. “Who do you belong to?” She was answered with a kiss -- the dog’s tongue licking a spot on her forearm. Lina giggled. 

Totally worth the trip. The dog’s owner (presumably) jogged up to retrieve him. “Oh no, it’s no problem.” Lina politely smiled. It made it worth it. “I think the sun makes us all a little crazy. Especially on a day like today--” a glance around. “But maybe that’s just the crowd. Lots of people here. Plenty of tourists.” She didn’t mean to ramble. It was the heat. “Does he have a name? He’s beautiful.” She couldn’t tear herself away. “Sorry-- that’s a little rude. Do you have a name?” She squinted through the sun. “I’m Lina.”

[carolinacollado]

dexlacroix:

     Dexter was on the floor tonight at The Coral Casino, and his plan for the night was just to circle, show face, and ensure everyone was doing their job. Being suited up was probably his favorite, so Dexter walked around with his head held high, making sure the night ran smoothly. A few hours into the evening, he noticed this woman in the crowd, dressed to the nine’s in a red cocktail dress, so short she was having trouble moving without giving everyone a show. He’d seen her once before in his casino, and the last time, she was kicked out immediately. Baffled how she’d managed her way inside once more, Dexter was determined to take a different route this time, not really enjoying that an escort got past security again. 

     Approaching the first customer he saw in his casino, he leaned in to them, politely introducing himself without much room for being interrupted. “Good evening, I’m Dexter Lacroix, the owner of Coral Casino,” he paused to smile, his French-Canadian accent whipped up thick in his words. “How would you like to make a quick $50?” 

She never understood the appeal of a casino.

She definitely never understood the appeal of one in Eastcliff.

Sure, it made sense economically. Tourist season. The best of both worlds: the beach, the bars. People wanted to have a good time 24/7. Maybe it was the fact that Lina didn’t understand gambling, or addiction. But it was a curiosity -- everything was. She wanted to know, she wanted to understand. Molly’s pre-bachelorette night (Friday. Saturday night was the clubs out of town, where they’d sorted out the male strippers. Wedding next Sunday.) seemed to lead the group of them here -- Coral Casino. Lina tried her hand at a few slot machines, watched from afar at the Blackjack table. Cheered her friends on as they lost and won plays. Money was an issue -- especially as of late, so she gave herself a limit. Fifty dollars and she was done for the night. Most of this, she decided, was alcohol money.

Lina had been watching a table when a man encroached her space, claiming to be the owner of the casino. “Good evening,” she replied, courteous, before trying to hide her confusion. Caution. Why was he offering her money? Was this a ploy so she’d spend more? She wasn’t sure. “Uh, yeah. That’d be-- that’d be nice. But I don’t... I don’t understand?”

[carolinacollado]

diemmarshall:

Diem had been walking down the street in an attempt to get herself sorted out before her date tonight. It had been a little while since her last and there was some definite grooming that needed to be done. Even though she never went .. that far with her clients, she knew that she could ask for the money that she spent today on getting ready and there would be no objection from the man. She might as well treat herself. Her head dipped to both hide herself from the sun and in an attempt to read the latest text message she’d received. Brows furrowed as she felt some sort of leafs stick to her ankles. Her leg went out to send a quick, but another came glued itself to her and another. 

“What the fuc—-” Her attention stolen from the girl that rushed down the road and the various flyers that swam around her. She was half tempted to simply brush past and go on. Frankly, it’s what she should have done given the time of day and how close it was to her waxing appointment. Instead, she want the kind route and captured a handful of flyers in her hand. At least she had a few, she thought to herself. “What in the hell happened?” Her brows furrowed as she piled the crumpled papers before she glanced down to read them. 

At least she was happy to know that she wasn’t the only one that was broke. When the pile was placed on the ground beneath her purse to ensure it wouldn’t go anywhere, she continued to help out. “Violin lessons, huh?” She said plainly in an attempt to start some kind of conversation. “Do people even want to learn how to play the violin anymore? I thought it was all about those other fancy instruments on the piano and guitar.” Her shoulders shrugged before she handed off some more. “Listen, I think the rest are a lost cause. You’ll never get them all back.”

A pair of legs: long and sun-tanned. It wasn’t an unusual site for Eastcliff, especially during tourist season. The flyers stuck to her skin -- the blonde, with her eyes on the phone in her hands. Lina had abandoned her sandals by the lamppost in an attempt to run faster -- trying to catch the flyers in the air, or the ones that glued to the pavement. The sidewalk was scorching her toes, but she was quick on her feet when she needed to be (calculations in her head over each lost, stacking up the cash each time she reached up on her toes.) Lina had short legs: a little stumpy, with her mother’s skin tone. It was still in her head (”I can do better.”) and looking up at the blonde, slightly familiar, Lina could see what he was saying. This, her, was what better looked like.

The blonde compiled the papers she’d caught. Furrowed eyes reading the flyers. Lina stopped before her, keeled over -- hands on her knees, trying to breathe. “The wind--” she explained through wheezes. She wiped the sweat from her lip, the remaining flyers gripped in hand. She wasn’t letting go of that. The stranger bent down to straighten the flyers on the pavement, her purse a paperweight. Lina wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful or annoyed. The ground? The sidewalk? I can do better. She found herself getting down on her hands and knees to collect more flyers. Dignity didn’t exist -- not now.

“What’s wrong with the violin?” Lina huffed, still trying to catch her breath. “Have you ever tried it before?” The blonde handed her over some more papers. Lina glanced up at her from the ground. Maybe she could get a new customer out of this, huh? She breathed through a smile. “Thanks.” She shuffled the flyers, straightening out some bubbles in the lamination. The edges that were ripped or scuffed. “People want to learn guitar or piano because it’s easier. Learning how to read music isn’t a necessity with those, y’know? I mean, don’t get me wrong, piano and guitar are beautiful instruments, but--” quick words, cut off by a broken voice. She pulled up on her knees, flyers close to her chest. Back on her feet, she watched as the remaining flyers blew off into the distance -- far enough away, now, down the sidewalk, or up in the sky, that she had to squint to spot them. “What a waste.” Her chest felt heavy. “I’m sorry. I’m... Thank you. I guess... I guess all’s not completely lost, right?”

[carolinacollado]

piperamelia:

7 MONTHS AGO

     To say she was relieved when someone actually answered her call was an understatement. Even if sober Piper was just as outgoing as drunk Piper was, neither of them particularly enjoyed being rejected, so the brunette joining her on stage made her feel better about kicking Kung Fu Karaoke off stage. She didn’t have terrible taste in karaoke choices either, Piper decided, approving of the girl’s song choices immediately. Tipping her glass towards her in a bit of a sloppy ‘cheers’ to let her know she was a fan, Piper clicked to the very front of the stage, squatting to perch her half-empty glass on the far edge, only after taking a big ‘good luck’ swig first. A little bit of liquid courage to get her though, it seemed.

      There was no way Piper knew how to communicate which choice to the DJ, so she just kind of made eye contact with him and did a little head-nod, hoping the message would come across that he could pick whatever song he wanted and she’d rock it. In hopes he was paying attention to the other woman’s suggestions, Piper was happy to hear ‘So What’ begin to blare over the speakers in the bar. That familiar intro tune was all Piper needed to get into character, easily accepting this stranger into her new power karaoke girl band.

           “Na na na na na na.”

     Following those effortlessly, Piper began rocking her body back and forth, the alcohol warming her body and activating the good dancer deep down in her somewhere. Since there were two microphones, she fell into one, hands gripping the top (in an attempt to be sexy) as she sang the first verse. Her favorite part was the chorus, that was where she really shined. 

           “I wanna start a fight!” She cheered, unhooking the microphone from its stand so she could sing and jump up and down at the same time. This started a little fight between her drunken Bambi legs and her heels, but it was totally fine. She could handle a little weebling and wobbling, and you wanna know why? She was no longer Piper. Piper has left the building. She…she was P!nk now. That was a thing.

     Or at least, she thought she was. “So, so what? I’m still a rock star! I got my rock moves!” Piper shouted (no one would call it singing), one of her hands waving around in the air like the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, or something. The alcohol was definitely hitting her, and in her mind, she was killing it. Her and this girl, the other half of her girl band, they were rocking it, she thought. In reality, they weren’t doing half-bad, not nearly as terrible as Kung Fu Karaoke, and there were even some cheers from the audience. She’d consider that a win.

No Kelly Clarkson, but a cheers -- a hard clink of glasses, before they were set aside at the foot of the stage. A swig for good luck. Lina would’ve been hard-set on keeping hers in hand, sipped it down between the choruses, but she followed suit. Thumbed the wine from her lips and gripped the microphone stand. 2008 all over again when the music started up, and they started to harmonise (could you call it that? Sloppy.) to So What by P!nk. The blonde took to the stage with hips swinging -- the volume of her voice increased by the alcohol in her system. Shouting and singing, and for the first half of the song Lina found herself slowly dancing along to music pulsing, eyes closed, mouth to the microphone.

Her karaoke companion was jumping. Up, down, up, down. Stumbled a couple of times. Took the mic off its stand and got comfortable on the stage. Lina was trying to blink through the stage lights, search through the crowd for a face, for Biff’s face -- so she could tell him. So she could shout it into a microphone; show him exactly what he was missing. She pointed into the crowd, and found herself jumping a little to the beat like the person she shared the stage with. No falls -- surprising for the both of them, with heels clicking on wooden floorboards out of time to the music.

Lina turned to to the blonde, sung at her for a little while, with a smile and small eyes.

I’ve got my rock moves and I don’t need you

The song started to wind down. Lina pumped out the air drums, and a pout, before the applause broke out. Cheers-- or maybe, maybe just her ears ringing. Head spinning. Warmth in her cheeks from the singing and the adrenaline and the alcohol. Nausea she clamped down at the back of her throat to curtsey. She moved across the stage to embrace her duet partner, ignoring the feedback from the microphone. “That was amazing!” Lina whisper-shouted, leaning her weight on the girl for support. She turned back to the bar patrons. “Thank you,” she drawled, lips wrapped around the mic. “I’m Lina-- and I’m newly single and--” a chuckle, “this is my gorgeous bandmate--” 

[carolinacollado]

40% off ALL lamination services. In-store only. It’d been telling her to print off the coupon-- but how could she print off the coupon when she didn’t have a printer? Why’d they think she was making the forty-five minute trip to Office Depot in the next town over? Gas mileage? 59 cents for flyers was all good and fine-- did the math in her head. A grunt, when she remembered the extra $2.49 for lamination (without the discount) (without the god damn coupon) per print. She wasn’t driving all that way without an insurance policy -- August meant it was close to Fall, and beaches weren’t all sunshines and rainbows -- rain, rain, rain. And when it rained on Lina, it poured. So they had to be laminated, and she had to spend two week’s pay on gas and paper and printing and laminating and -- and oh Christ, (forgive me Abuela) while she was at Office Depot she grabbed a new printer. Wireless. Something that wasn’t made in 1998-- for crying out loud. An extra week’s pay gone.

Three different piles of three different types of flyers. 1) Violin lessons. Cheap. Thirty bucks and hour. 2) CD promotion. Only one copy sold at Dr. Norman’s office-- and producing those hadn’t been cheap. 3) Wedding gigs. Only one on her resumé, but that type of pay was good.  And maybe it was greedy, with her mind on the money instead of the music, but her thirtieth birthday was in a couple months, and she was back living at home -- single and ashamed and broke and maybe Biff had been a-- maybe he wasn’t the right person for her, but he’d had money. It’d never been a thing she had to worry about.

Lina felt a little sick, then. Stopped tacking the assortment of flyers up on a lamp post to scrunch up her face. Reflect. That wasn’t-- that wasn’t who she was. Selfish and greedy. The wind, a little harsh (but hey, maybe she felt cold for different reasons), was pushing the hair over her eyes. Palm over her eyes, she let herself feel it -- a little bit of brokenness. Remember what he said when he asked for the ring back? “I can do better.” Lina knew she could’ve done better, too-- but this didn’t feel like better; sleeping in the same sheets she did as a kid, having her mother make her breakfast every morning before work. Lina didn’t cry when he’d said that-- and she wasn’t about to now, either, but-- but she had to breathe. Okay? Smell the salt. Think about the ashtray her Abuelo hid in the backyard garden.

Never been good with concentration. The flyers were slipping out of her fingers and carrying through the wind before she could blink. Sprawled across the footpath, flying toward the beach. “No!” Lina yelled, flailing her arms about to catch them. “No no no no no no no no,” she whispered-yelled, heart racing, feet pounding against the pavement as she ran, trying to scoop up the papers and cradle them in her arms. “Oh my God, please no! No no no no no,” like she’d gone into shock, cheeks flushed but blood cold, tearing down the sidewalk in an attempt to retrieve the flyers that had now spread out across sand and sky.

[fygina]