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Mar 11, 2018

Afterimage || One-Shot

Summary: Andrina dreams a photoshopped version of her life-- one where her mother never died. Set during the night of Feb. 18

“Andy, Mum’s leaving.”

Andy hears Attina’s muffled murmur through her headphones. She’s belly-down on her mattress, legs in the air, eyes on her laptop while the rest of Family ala Triton, she presumes, gathers near the stairs. She doesn’t have to go downstairs to know what the scene looks like: Ariel gripping Mum’s skirt, Lana on the other leg, the twins sitting on the bottom-most stair, Aqua all bored, hip-out, waiting for the good-byes to be over-- Tina prepping by the door to lead the parade down the steps to wave their mother off.

Andrina’s done it before, whenever someone goes to the coast. She does it for Daddy, she does it for her aunts when they visit and then leave again, she does it for Mum. She usually makes faces at the car as it pulls away, sticking out her tongue, wiggling her ears, crossing her eyes. She does it so her sisters will laugh instead of cry.

So she doesn’t have to go now, shouldn’t have to go ever again-- if there’s a quota on good-byes, at 15, she has met them. Sides, if she makes faces at her mum, they won’t be jokes. Not this time.

Andy doesn’t even look up from her laptop, just pops her bubblegum and wiggles her feet in the air. “Andy,” she hears Attina say louder. “Andy, c’mon. You and Mum always fight, this is stupid.”

Stupid thy name is Andrina. Ask Mum, she thinks. Andy scrolls and scrolls down the webpage though, letting the snark circle inside her brain. “Oi, two for one deal on bras, Tiny, you wanna snag the other and we’ll go halfsies?” she mouths off, still not looking up from the page.

She hears Attina make some kind of general noise of disapproval and exasperation-- and she thinks ever so fondly of their mother. That’s when Andrina looks. And there’s Attina: her face pink and puffed-up and her arms crossed. Just like Mum. Andrina pops her bubblegum and leers right back at her.

Attina spins on her heel and goes out the door-- SLAM! She’s gone.

Andy bumps her music louder, so she won’t hear anything downstairs-- not her sisters hugging her mother, not the door opening, not the car outside the house starting with a chugger and a roar. It’s so stupid, she thinks. Mum’ll be back in a week.

She clicks the mousepad over and over, buying so many bras! All the bras!

Clickcliclickclickclickclick

Click—a week later, someone answers a phone.

Click-- someone hangs up the phone.

Click-- it’s the sound of Andrina’s door opening, her shell-shocked father on the other side, weighed down by news he will never learn how to carry, and Andy’s life turning over.

But maybe not this time.

Click.

“Andy,” coo-coos her mother as she opens the door. “Andy, I’m back! Time to get up and give your mum a biiiiiiiiiiiig huuuuuuuug--”

Andrina groans, tossing the covers over her head. Her mother chuckles. “Andrinaaa,” she sings as she crosses the room. The bed creaks and bends as her mother’s weight settles on the end of it. The familiar shape of her mum’s hand falls on top of her foot over the covers.

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?” Mum says. “Don’t make me tickle your feet.”

Whoosh—Andy pulls the covers down, exposing her face, and she squints at her mother. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.” “Yes.”

“Nooooo--AH!” Andrina jerks her feet away with a bright laugh as her mum slips her hands under the covers. She squeals and twists and rolls, too tangled in the covers to escape. Her mother grabs her legs and pulls them on top of her own lap and Andy wiggles and flops like a fish, but her Mum’s got her--

“Hooked!” teases Mum and she scrunches her nose. Andy scrunches her nose back. “C’mon, you know the rules, I won fair and square.”

“Fiiiine, you win. Truce, truce.” A pause. “If we go get brunch.”

“Will you bring your flashcards?” her mother raises her eyebrows.

Her smile falls off and she groans, “Muuuuuuuum--”

“You said truce.”

Andy sighs-- and then lets the fight go with it, all her pent-up words released like a great wave receding into the ocean. She doesn’t even remember the specifics, y’know, of the last fight anyway, so sure, whatever, she will bring her flashcards, she will perform like a circus seal, she will make her mother happy, and she will also get pancakes--

“-- with extra chocolate chips at Hatter’s,” she negotiates. “Oh and—a mocha. Large. With whipped cream.”

“A lot of sugar before 10 in the morning, my love,” says her mother. “But agreed. See? Compromise!”

“I know, I’m so mature, it’s amazing!” exclaims Andy, lifting a hand to the sky. This makes her mother laugh, a laugh that makes Andy laugh too. And she remembers now-- yes, she has missed her mother after all.

Mum pats her on the legs again, then lifts them off her lap so she can stand. “Get dressed, Iron Lady,” she says to her.

“Oi, that’s my insult for you!”

“Get dressed!” Mum sing-songs back at her as she leaves.

“You’re stealing my intellectual property!” Andy calls after her. Then falls, flopping back onto the cover, and curls her toes into the sheets.

The dream crops out the grief.

The dream crops out the locked doors that turn into walls between sisters. The dream crops out the father’s muffled sobbing into a blanket that smells like his lost wife. It crops out the tomatoes rotting in the refrigerator, because no one in the house is cooking. It crops out the arguments. It crops out the silence. It crops out the empty chair at the table. It crops out the mother’s clothes folded gently and carried up into the attic.

Snip, snip, snip. Memory after memory, the dream erases.

Click-- the camera flashes and Andy cheeses for it, squishing Tina closer to her as the sisters squeeze tighttighttight around her to fit into the too-small frame of the camera. Their mum beams over the lens anyway and then comes around to give Tina another hug and a big kiss on the cheek. Daddy reaches across the table to put his hand on top of Tina’s too.

“We’re so proud of you, guppy!” Mum coos. “All those A-levels! Unis will be fighting over you. Everyone, get whatever you want tonight, we’re celebrating!”

“What about-- chocolate milk?” says Andy.

“Do they even serve chocolate milk at Remy’s,” deadpans Aqua.

“What about-- milkshakes?” says Andy, gasping dramatically as she looks at Rista, Dell, Lan, and Ariel. She gets a couple of squeals (mostly from Ariel) and the chorus rises up around milkshakes! milkshakes! milkshakes!

“Anything!” declares Mum.

Cue more squealing, and the conversation erupts around the table in true Triton fashion: everyone talking at once. Andy presses her lips together in a thin smile, looking Attina’s way. Her sister is pink and dimpling, smiling as wide as their mother. Andy bet Attina goes to-- Australia. She’ll dive deep into the Great Barrier Reef where Andy bets she finds the cure for coral bleaching while she’s at it. She bets Tina discovers ten new species and one of them is named after her, and the rest she names after Mum, Dad, and the rest of them. She bets her big sister changes the world.

As she imagines, Andy’s heart swells big and burns bright, like a grenade has gone off, leaving her in pieces. There, a piece that is happy, there, a piece that is proud, there, a piece that is jealous and nasty and wants to scream. She’s smiling and smiling and joking and joking because no one has mentioned Andy’s GSCE scores so far and no one will if Andy can help it. If she is quick with her jokes and talks the whole night through, then no one will mention them. And then Andy won’t cry, because if Andy cries then Tina will feel bad--

Halfway through dinner, Mum leans Andy’s way, a hand her back. “Don’t worry, honey, you’ve got a whole year before your A-levels,” she whispers to her. Their little secret. Mum then pats her twice, like she’s a puppy dog.

Andy smiles back at her mum. Her chest burns. She nods, but she knows. There will be no Australia for Andy. There will be no celebratory dinner. Not now, not a year from now, not for her.

Zoom in on all the new. Here is what’s left.

There are morning rushes, the mother packing her daughters’ lunches. There are bedtime stories and family movie nights and trips to the coast and visits to Tina-in-Uni and saxophone recitals for Arista. There are parent-teacher conferences, where Mum frowns the whole time. There are talks in the hallway, in the family’s volkswagon, in Daddy’s office. There are punishments. There are tears. There are the same questions, repeated over and over: why, Andrina? What are we doing wrong? What can we do better? How can we help you? How can we motivate you? Tell us, Andrina. Make us understand.

Zoom in closer on those imperfect things, the blemishes you want to clear out: Mum’s worry lines, the whispers between her and Daddy that are about you, Daddy’s confused, but disappointed frown.

Zoom closer and closer. Zoom in as close as you can, until those memories are pixelated and everything, the good and the bad, looks the same.

Click—it is a year later. Andrina locks her door.

“Andrina Triton!” her mum’s voice snaps from the other side of it. Andy, who is 18, who has told her mother she does not want to go to uni, glares at the wood, glares through it where she imagines her mother’s eyes would be. The door is her wall, her room is her fortress. This is the one place her mother will not reach her. This is not the kitchen table. This is her territory, and she is the queen. She won’t have to fight in here-- in here, she has won.

“Andrina! Andrina—please, I’m just trying to help you, I’m not trying to argue!”

Andy breathes in sharply, the tears stinging her eyes. She crosses her arms, she clenches her jaw. Don’t engage, don’t speak, don’t give her mother the chance--

“You will regret it if you don’t go to uni. I know it’s hard--” the door jangles. Mum breathes out loudly. “You don’t have to go to a school like Tina, but you do need to go to school! You can study anything you want! You can take your time. Your life will be so much better though, if you just-- put in the effort and get a degree, any degree. I promise yo--”

The grenade goes off.

“Stop promising me things I don’t WANT!” Andy screeches the last word and slams her fist against the door like she could punch all the way through.

BANG.

Then silence.

Silence. Silence. Silence. Her—her hand hurts. Her heart races, her cheeks flush hot and hotter. All that anger curdles inside her, all that rage gone in a second. She wants to cry and open the door, she wants to cry and open the door, she wants to cry and open the door, but she can’t because that’s giving in. Something inside her that doesn’t have a name keeps stopping her. And so she wants her mother to go away, she wants her mother to go away….

Andrina’s breath leaves her in one long shaky exhale as her mother sighs. She hears her mother’s footsteps recede. Going, going, gone.

But later that night, Andy cries against her pillow, her mother stroking her hair, having found her way in anyway. She says soft, kind things. She tells Andy her grades are just one part of her application. She tells her that she knows Andy will find the right choice for her, that she will go on to do great, wonderful, magical things-- she tells Andy that she and her daddy will be there every step at the way. It’s okay that Andrina’s grades aren’t perfect, Mum just wants her to try. Won’t she at least try?

Andrina shrivels at every compliment. They make her feel so small.

But she agrees. Andrina always, eventually, no matter how tired she gets, agrees.

Click.

Her magenta-pink lighter flutters to life, its flame kissing the top of her bowl as first-year Pride U student Andrina Triton (student ID #774743) puff-puffs and laughs off her deadlines for the week ahead, passing the bowl onto her Boy of the Week…

Click.

Tuesday night before midterms, Andy channel surfs on her tv, her hand pressed over her heart, she feels so anxious she wants to throw up and so she needs to just forget…

Click.

It’s test day and she smashes her thumb over and over onto the top of her pen, her eyes staring at the blank spots on the page, and time, time tick-ticks away. She clicks the pen again and again…

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick

In the end, she has failed.

“You can always reapply,” says Mum, rubbing soothing circles into Andy’s back. “Maybe a year off will be good for you.” She says it like it was her idea all along, but Andy doesn’t care—finally, she can breathe.

Click, click click—Andy types in the amount on the cash register, jabbing the numbers with her index finger.

The customer taps her manicured nails on the counter as she waits.

Click, click, click. Tap, tap, tap.

Andrina is 26.

“Annnd, your total is £37,” reads off Andy. She looks up, flashing a quick smile. The lady digs into her purse and starts pulling out the notes, one after the other.

Behind her, the bell to Whosits and Whatsits jingles, welcoming another lost-and-lonely soul into the treasure cove. Or, y’know, just a curious tourist or something. Andy glances up and sees it’s neither of these things: it’s her mother. She beams at Andy, giving a wiggle of her fingers.

Great.

Andy looks quickly back to her customer, giving her smile to the lady instead, just as the lady hands off the money. “You want help carrying any of that stuff?” Andrina nods toward the random collection of newly purchased items: big ol’ lamp, two picture frames, a cardboard box of a nearly-but-not-quite-complete-set-of-porcelain-dinner-plates.

Is Andy looking for an escape? Possibly. Or maybe she’s just Whosits and Whatsits Employee of the Month, 36 months running. If asked, this is Andrina’s go-to answer.

The woman clicks her tongue. “Hmmm, maybe—yeah, that might be nice!” she laughs. “No worries, I got a car out front, we can just haul it into the trunk.”

“How about Rob helps you with that?” her mother pops up at the counter like a goddamn garden gnome. She wears that pleasant smile of hers. “Looks heavy,” she comments.

It takes most of Andrina’s self-restraint not to roll her eyes. She knows what this is. This is Athena Triton’s weekly ambush, because Andrina has not been paying attention to her texts or her Facebook messages or the emails that her mother forwards, with subject lines like “5 Steps to Organizing Your Life and Doing Great Things This Year” and “How Meditation Leads To A Productive, Healthy Mind.” Usually Andrina is diligent about acknowledging these messages, as much as each one is a subtle dig at All of Andrina’s Life Choices. She has a few canned responses by now, from the “Wow, looks interesting 😊” to the “That’s cool, Mum!”

But some weeks, those growing notifications, one then two then three then four, feel like one tsunami wave after another rolling over her. The red number is a red flag. It pops up on her Facebook and Andrina flips over to another tab fast, diving into another world far away from her real life responsibilities. Netflix. Wikipedia. The deep scary trenches of Reddit, where her mother will never find her. Andrina ducks and covers.

But Mum’s found her now, hasn’t she?

“Mm—” Andy mms. “Yeah, sure I’ll go fetch him. He’s in the back. Juuuust a second.” Andrina ducks out, letting out a breath as she passes through the curtain and sees Robin “inventorying” items.

He’s on his phone.

“Oi, help this lady outside with her lamp and stuff,” orders Andy. “But talk to me first because my mum’s here.”

Rob snorts through his nostrils. “She tryin’ to pitch Mr. Dashing at you again?”

“His name’s Henry Charming, but close.”

“And my name’s Robin Hood, folk hero of Nottingham and livin’ legend.” He says, leaning against a wall, crossing his arms.

“And my name’s Andrina Triton, Assistant Manager of Whosits and Whatits, and also your boss,” says Andy with a smile, leaning against the wall, crossing her arms.

Robin wrinkles his nose and she mimics that too, then adjusts against the wall and says, “Right, go help that lady—oh, and give my mum some kinda excuse, like, I dunno, you don’t know how to use Excel and so I must brave your mess of fucked-up data and it will take me all mornin’ to fix, so she has to come back later. Oh, OR a whole bunch of boxes just fell on me and I’m concussed and so I ran to the hospital. OR I’m having sex with my very obedient and well-behaved co-worker so I can’t come to the phone right now. OR—I finally managed to travel to Narnia via the magical wardrobe hidden in Whosits and backroom. And I am busy being Queen,” Andy says. “Yeah, say that last one—and then respond to me in Words with Friends. Those are your marching orders, Robin Hood.”

“Robin Hood answers to no man.”

“I am no man,” says Andrina with a lift in her chin.

He smiles, rolls his eyes, and pushes off the wall. He pauses by the backdoor and glances at her over his shoulder. “Y’know, I like your mum.”

“Oh shut up, kiss-ass,” she gripes him out the door, hearing him snicker as he goes.

She has bought herself maybe two minutes. Andrina’s eyes flutter closed, the smile dropping off her face. Part of her feels a panicked, fucked-up version of déjà vu and she wonders if she has forgotten something again, if it’s not just the notifications marked “seen” but not answered, or the emails she ignored… but an appointment on her calendar that flew out of her mind as fast as she had made it. A due date for something, a bill overdue, her credit card limit reached-- she scrounges through her mental junkyard like a dumpster diver looking for treasure, finding only trash.

This is not a new feeling. Her fucked-up version of déjà vu is more like a Pavlovian response to her mother’s face.

Andy opens her eyes, swallows, goes to her phone, flips through all her messages. Nothing.

“Andrina—” her mum sticks her head in the backroom, making Andy jump. “Everything alright? Rob said you were checking voicemail…?”

“Uh, yeah. Done though,” says Andy and she sticks her phone into her back jean pocket. She turns up her smile to ALL the watts, going ear-to-ear. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing really, just—been a while since I’ve seen you, Space Girl,” her mum teases, using Andy’s oldest nickname, from way way back when her daydreaming was cute. There goes Andrina, off to the moon again! Mum would sing-song.

Mum enters the back room and comes over to give Andy a big hug, which Andy reciprocates. Mum pulls away but squeezes her shoulders with her hands. “How are you? Do you think you can grab lunch? We can just pop over to Hatter’s, my treat.”

Andy would be the worst daughter in the world if she says no. Andy is already the worst daughter-- but she likes to think she puts in minimal effort not to be.

“Ah—yeah! Yeah, definitely. Rob’ll…hold down the fort,” Andy says. She swings an arm in front of her, bounces a little on the balls of her feet. “Er, just once he gets back—”

“I’m back!” chirps Rob, coming right in.

“Amazing timing,” deadpans Andy.

“Brilliant!” Mum claps her hands together once, then reaches back out for Andy. Her familiar hand falls on Andrina’s back. She applies the gentlest pressure, just enough that Andrina, well-trained Pavlovian dog mer-sonified, knows this means go.

Her mother is the master in the art of gentle pressure.

“I’ll be back—twenty minutes, tops,” says Andrina.

“Aw, make it thirty,” says Rob, who is asking for a demotion with that cheesy grin of his. He waves ‘em off, ignoring Andrina’s Death Glare she sends behind her shoulder. “You birds have a good time!”

Andrina orders her favourite: chocolate chip pancakes, and one large mocha with whipped cream. Her order makes her mother smile and give Andrina a secret little grin, as though they are sharing an inside joke. Maybe they are and Andrina smiles back too, rollin’ her eyes just a little. She knows her mum is thinking of Saturday morning brunches, probably, with the whole family crowded round two tables pushed together. Those brunches don’t happen as much these days. How can they? Everyone is almost all grown up now. Not everyone lives in little Swynlake anymore.

Andrina still does, though. And maybe, she thinks, she’s like an anchor for her mother, and maybe this time her mum doesn’t want to ask her about her “plan” but just wants to play at childhood again. Like, the next thirty minutes could be ten years ago and Andrina will be 15, braces off, gushing about her first ever boyfriend. And Mum will just sit and gush with her and then they’ll go get their nails done and feel free and pretty and young.

No deadlines. No due dates.

The waiter leaves to go put their order in the kitchen and her mum leans a little forward. “So, did you see my email?”

Or—not. Or they could do this.

Andrina blinks. “Oh uh, um, what email? I mean, which email? My er, inbox is kinda cluttered right now.” More like always.

“The new cert they’re offering at Pride U!” Mum smiles at her, nice and bright. “I saw it and thought immediately of you. You’ve got so much experience now, helping Scuttle with the business, I’m sure you could ace the whole thing.”

Andrina blinks again. She blinks and tries to turn the pages of her brain back to her inbox, to this unread email. She can’t see it in her mind but then again she doesn’t try to hold much in her brain these days, not when it comes to – that.

“Is it…what, a business cert? Mum, I don’t want—I don’t need a business certification or anything like that.” She says it as calmly, as matter-of-factly, as she can. “That kinda stuff, it’s all about experience anyway—”

“Which you have! This can just give you a leg-up. A tail-up, even,” she says a bit quieter, quirking her eyebrows.

Andrina appreciates her mum is being cute. But she’s pretty sure her mum learned that from her.

“Yeah, I…guess, but Mum, I don’t really—you know I don’t wanna be a manger of, like, anything. Assistant Manager is perfect. I am completely and totally one hundred percent happy with where I am.” Andrina says it as clearly as she can, forcing a smile on her lips.

Mum’s smile fades. Andrina knows exactly what is about to happen. She watches. Step one: Mum frowns. Step Two: Mum sits back. Step Three: Mum gets the line between her eyebrows, and then she pities Andrina.

Andrina swallows. Step four is the worst. Step four, Mum tells her she is worried.

“Andy,” Mum says softly. “I’m just worried about you.”

Now she will remind Andrina about her potential.

“It’s been three years at Whosits and—you’re capable of so much more. I know how much potential you have. When we talked about you taking a year off, that’s what I meant. One year. Now you’re 26 and you’re not anywhere closer to getting a degree—and I’m—”

Not trying to pressure you

“—not trying to pressure you, but wouldn’t this business course be a good compromise? You can’t stay at Whosits and be an assistant manager forever. You might be happy now, but what about later? I’m—”

Just trying to look out for you.

“—just trying to look out for you.”

Andrina breathes in as deep as she can, drawing in the air through her nostrils. Her lungs inflate and she closes her eyes and she hears her mother heave a sigh because c’mon, this ol’ script, she must be tired of it by now too—

“Andrina, please don’t say the same old thing.”

Andrina lets out the breath in one short huff, her eyes snapping open. “Me? Mum, you just gave me the same speech you’ve been giving me since I was—”

“Twenty-three, believe me, I know.” Mum’s voice cuts over her, suddenly curt. “Which is exactly the point. You’re not a child anymore. You need to pick a direction and stick with it. You need to go back to school—”

“What if I am happy with being an assistant manager forever?’ Andrina snatches the conversation, her voice pitching. “Huh? It’s not like Arista is going to be a rocket scientist, so why can’t I be an assistant manager—”

“Rista got a degree—”

“And Dell’s going back to school again, she changed her mind—”

“Dell got a degree too, stop comparing yourself to your si—”

“I have to compare myself because YOU compare me to them first!” Andy’s voice raises again.

“I do not. Andrina, calm down,” her mother says. The ooey-gooeyness is gone. She sighs, her hand fluttering up to brush at her long red hair. She looks old to Andrina, like she’s made out of wrinkled tissue paper. Wrinkled, too tired, lonely, old—

Andrina did that to her, probably. Andrina probably keeps her mum tossing and turning at night. How do you solve a problem like Andrina?

But it just makes her furious. She wants to smash her mother’s fragile face into a million little shards for once again ambushing her, for making Andrina feel—well, like exactly what she is. A failure.

Mum’s hand falls back to the table. And then she reaches out for Andy’s hand. Andrina wants to snatch it away but she just keeps it limp as her mother grasps it. Andrina’s eyes fall to their two hands. She swallows, but her throat feels thick with the anger she has never known how to get rid of.

And here is the final step, when Mum says her favourite catchphrase.

“I’m not trying to argue,” Mum says, squeezing her hand. “I just—”

Want you to be happy.

“—want you to be happy. That’s all I want. And, guppy, I know you, I know you don’t want to be an assistant manager at Whosits and Whatits forever. When you were a little girl, you—remember, you said you were going to be the first mermaid to go to space!” she whispers it but she’s grinning brightly, at once ten years younger. She squeezes Andy’s hand again, her thumb brushing over her knuckles. “Or a doctor. Or a—what was it? A singing trapeze artist, which was a double entrendre because you’d actually paint—”

“—abstract art while trapezing, yeah, I know,” says Andrina, rolling her eyes again, but that’s because her eyes feel wet, tears on the brim, and she can’t let her Mum see her cry.

“Yes!” says Mum and sighs like a romantic girl swooning. “You dreamed so big and so—so brightly, and I’m just scared you’ve forgotten that because of what test scores are telling you. Which is why I’m telling you that you can do it. I know you’re scared, and it’s hard to start after so much time off, but this could be a toe in the water…”

“Okay, Mum. Okay,” Andrina slips her hand away, hiding it below in her lap. Her fingernail presses into the napkin. “I’ll…think about it, or something.”

“Good, that’s all I wanted.” Mum pulls her hand away and beams. “And you know, it doesn’t have to be the cert, you could just try one other class, if another one interests you…”

Andrina smiles with her lips pressed together, nodding. Her nail punctures the napkin and goes into her leg. “Right, yeah. There could be something, I guess.”

“And you don’t have to quit Whosits, I’m not saying that.”

“I know, Mum, I—can we just change the subject?” Andrina puts on the smile again. “I’ll get back to you on all that, let’s just—uh, yeah, just, talk about something else.”

“Of course,” says Mum, sitting up even straighter. Though that falls apart the next moment, a spark in her Mum’s light green eyes as she leans forward again. “Teeny’s home tomorrow, isn’t that exciting! I was thinking we could go to the next town over, all of us, and do some shopping.”

“Yeah—yeah, that sounds good. I’ll ah, get someone to cover for me,” says Andy with a nod.

“Brilliant! It’ll be just us girls, your father can join us later…” her mother’s attention wanders as the waiter appears with their plates, lunch smelling fresh and hot.

Enter pancakes. Enter Andy’s mocha, and the whipped cream dissolving quick on her tongue, like all that sweet could chase away the bitter. It doesn’t though. Her bitterness lingers for the next twenty minutes. It lingers as they pay and Mum’s hand falls once again on Andy’s shoulder. It follows her all the way back to her little treasure cove, where she fixes her ‘assistant manager’ pin back to her shirt, something she actually is proud of, and she hears her mum’s voice in her head going Not good enough.

The voice will fade eventually, given enough time away from Mum, when Andrina can build up her world of wonders far, far, far away from reality.

Right now though, her mum’s voice is like a ripple in a pond. It grows and it grows. You can’t stay at Whosits and be an assistant manager forever.

That night, she will find the email about the business certification, hidden under a mound of seventeen other unread emails, some spam, some from her mum. And she will delete it with one final—

Click.

The dream filters everything, like it is the lens of a camera that is looking back through an album of a life that is and isn’t your own. It is quiet outside. It is the gray light of morning. Pick a filter. Make the dream brighter, so bright it blinds you. Make the dream sharper, so sharp, it cuts you. Wash out the colors. Turn yourself inside out. Replace your life with a negative image, everything inversed but still the same. Your light is now your dark.

Wake up.

Andrina opens her eyes. She blinks, staring up at the ceiling. The covers tangle her legs and at first she cannot feel her own body in time and space. At first, she just…floats.

And then the grief returns for it never really left…Andrina sees her mother’s face, at first out of focus, but then clearer and brighter and larger than she ever was in life. And the image burns itself into her mind’s eye-- so every time she blinks, her mother returns to her, only a little farther than she was before.

#story #one shot #i did IT i did it thank god lmao #ft athena

andrina-the-amazingsupergenius