#itsotm

[thedauntlessdeclan]

cleopatra coleman as rya (in the shadow of the moon)

[gebo4482]

In the Shadow of the Moon | Official Trailer | Netflix

[jkriting]

In the Spirit of the Moment: Pt 6

We walk to the library – no point in waiting for the bus if the rain stopped. 

The library is far livelier than the law office, despite being even quieter. Rebel leads me to the reference section in the back, where Nawae is shelving books. As she returns to her cart, she pulls out a pad of paper and a pen and hands them to me. The pad of paper looks brand mew. The pages have faint grey lines on them, inside a round-cornered box. Nawae continues to shelf books. I write ‘Search’ at the top of the page and bite my lower lip. There’s a little section that has ‘Key Words’ in the same grey as the lines. I’m not sure if that was there before. I add “help” and “location” And then I scribble in a “from” next to “help”, just to be sure. Underneath that is “Search by:” with a blank space. I write in “name”, and on the next lines I write “Intellect,” “Wisdom”, and “Cunning”. I tap the pen on the paper thinking. If there’s anyone who can help me, these three are my best shot. If there’s anyone else, one of them can point me in the right direction later. I click the pen and hand the pad of paper back to Nawae. She pockets the pen and looks over the paper before tearing it off and motioning for us to follow. She begins to weave her way through the bookshelves, and back to the front desk, where she proceeds to pull out a phone book from under the counter, and reverently place it in front of me. She smiles, slides the book forward, and returns to the reference section.

Rebel is trying not to laugh.

I sigh and flip through the phonebook to the letter “I”. The rest of the entries are nothing but garbdlygook, so I only have to look for the ones I can read.

“She’s in one of the lecture halls here.” I whisper.

“Well, find the other two so we don’t have to come back.” Rebel replies. I can just barely reach around the counter to grab a pen from a soup can on the desk. I write the locations of the other two on my forearm and tuck the pen into the sleeve. Rebel and I start off across the library, but I stop and grab her by the elbow.

“Since when does this library have lecture halls?” I ask.

[jkriting]

In the Spirit of the Moment: Pt 5

Surprisingly the third floor actually shows signs of life. There are workers in the hallways, office doors are propped open, and from the sound of it, the conference room is in use. So in general, there are plenty of chances for us to be seen. A couple of teenagers trying to use the fire escape, that’s perfectly normal, no one will care, why am I worrying? But Rebel seems entirely unconcerned with this. The grin on her face hasn’t even changed. If anything, it might have gotten bigger when she peered around the corner of the open stairwell into the hallway. She was about to stride straight down it when I grabbed her by the jacket collar and yanked her back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss. “They’ll all see you!” She smacks my hand away.

“Confidence, Danny-boy. Confidence.” She tries again.

           The entire experience is nerve-wracking, to watch her strut down that hall. An intern almost bowled her over, but swerved at the last second, his nose buried in a file. My heart nearly stopped when a group of lawyers taking up the entirety of the hallway actually parted to let her through, their conversation not even pausing. There is a lady staring out the window at the far end of the hall, but she doesn’t even twitch when Rebel stands not a foot from her, waving at me.

Okay. ‘Confidence’.

I start down the hallway with the most purposeful stride I can muster, trying to remember how I did it in the soup kitchen.

This is more of a shark tank, than a soup kitchen. My knees are shaking and I’m counting heartbeats with my tongue, but I manage to keep walking in a straight line. …Was this hallway getting longer, or was that just me?

           The loitering group in the middle of the hallway doesn’t let me pass as graciously as Rebel did. One of them just scoots over and I have to sort of sidle around them, against the wall. The one who moved actually moves back when I’m directly behind him and slams my face into the wall, but he doesn’t even fully turn around when he says a quick ‘sorry’ and keeps talking to his co-workers. I arrive next to Rebel with my hair in my face and an angry blush on my cheeks.

“What now.” And Rebel just grins.

“Allyoop.” She sings. She then shoves open the window and gestures for me to climb through first. The woman standing there nearly drops her coffee when she turned from day dreaming. Rebel blows her a kiss.

           I was already halfway down the ladder by the time she clambered through the window, so I wait at the bottom.

She jumps. From the third story landing.

“What’re you staring at, fish-face? Close your mouth and let’s go!” Without waiting, she takes off running.

           I think I manage to keep up with her for about four blocks before I have to slow down. Rebel could run for miles on full speed if she wanted to, I bet. The Rebellion moves as it will, after all. I lean forward to rest my hands on my knees and breathe. Rebel is suddenly at my side, mimicking my posture.

“You okay?” The tone of her voice is not really out of concern; more of curiosity. Am I okay?

My mouth has been dry since I stepped into Auggie’s office, and the running hasn’t helped. My knees are still shaking, my head is pounding, and I can’t think straight.

But am I okay?

Auggie’s words drift back to the forefront of my mind, and I realize that the wetness of my face is not due to the weather. It had stopped raining. My next inward breath sounds suspiciously like a sob, so I bite my tongue and breath through my nose.

I am definitely not okay.

           The first thing I’m able to say is “What the HELL was THAT?”

“What, Auggie? Aidan, Honor is dead, remember? You can’t expect him to be sweet and reasonable anymore. I mean, not that he wasn’t a sleazy bastard before anyway… Jesus, you’re lucky I dropped in when I did.”

“NO. No, don’t you fucking bring “luck” into this! It has nothing to do with “luck”, okay? The only fucking reason that I’m in this mess is because you wanted me to go to that fucking funeral! Christ, why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?!” Rebel crosses her arms and leans back on one heel.

“Leave you alone? A seventeen year old loner with a father who doesn’t understand him and a looming greater authority that he hates? Boy, I couldn’t leave you alone if I tried.”

“Fuck. Off. I am not in the mood for any of your “greater-power” BULLSHIT!”

“Well then what d’you wanna do, Aidan?”

“I don’t- I don’t fucking know, okay! I just… I need some time to think…”

“D’you want me to call Lacey?”

“No, I do not want you to call Lacey.” Rebel throws her arms up and lets them flap against her sides.

“Well d’you want any help, or not?” I take a deep breath. There’s still a fire in my chest, but the smoke’s not in my head anymore.

“…Do you know where Nawea is?”

[jkriting]

In the Spirit of the Moment: Pt 4

A book shoots off the shelf of its own accord, and flies straight to Auggies’ hand. He opens it with a flick of his wrist.

“The Walker Family Agreement. Passed down to you from your mother, from her father, and as of yet, unfulfilled.” He pauses to look up at me, those pale eyes shining in the suddenly darker office. He began to pace, reading from the open book; his long strides devouring the floor so that he seemed to glide. “In exchange for a year and a day with the spirit of his choice, your grandfather offered up from his own family line a life… and a child.” Before this point, I had never been surprised by anything enough to give me more than a tingle up my spine (having been “seeing things” since the age of three tends to do that). But had my legs not been so frozen from the shock, I’m sure they would have buckled. In fact, I’m not even sure how I’m keeping my balance. I reach out and grab the edge of a bookshelf. The physical contact kicks my world back to reality, and I stumble backward.

My grandfather – my loveably eccentric, doting old grandfather – sold me?

Auggie continues.

“Unfortunately, he did not say what was meant to be done with the child, but he also did not agree to anything, so I suppose that speaks for both his cleverness and ineptitude. Your mother has of course fulfilled half of the payment. So that leaves you.” I manage to cough up some words.

“There is no way…” He stops pacing to tower over me.

““No way” what? No way your grandfather would sell something that wasn’t his to give? No way that the reason your mother is dead is a petty debt owed to her existence? Oh, that’s right Aidan, your mother died to pay off her own birth.”

“Are- are you saying that my grandfather and a spirit…?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You are a descendent of one of us.” He grabs my chin and turns my face from side to side. “Luck, from the looks of it. Hah. How interesting… Aidan is an Irish name, isn’t it?” He asks, the smirk growing. I understand the joke he’s getting at.

It’s not that funny. He laughs to himself anyway.

“Anyway, the agreed payment was one full adult life, and a child. While you have been bound as that payment, it is up to you how to pay it.”

“What, do I need a bank slip from the soul depository?”

“Aidan, my boy, no. I’m not after your “soul”. I’m only looking for fulfillment of one of my contracts. It states a child. Nothing more, nothing less. You are your own person, so I can’t actually take your payment unless you give it willingly, but you are bound into giving something. Though… if you can’t think of anything…” There was a beep on his intercom, accompanied by a gentle voice.

“Mr. Schmidt? I have a Susanne Rohrmann in the lobby with a message for you; she says the deal is off, but thank you.” The book in Auggie’s hand is snapped shut and I watch the hairs on the back of his neck rise in fury. He glares at his desk before looking back to me. Clear sharp eyes, like polished steel, narrow down to slits. He finally makes a guttural grown in the back of his throat and lunges at his desk.

“Keep her there!” He shouts. “I’ll be down in a second.” Then he whirls back to me. “And you…” He stalks forward, planting one hand on either side of me. “If I don’t hear back from you by the eve of your next birthday, I will come calling myself.” And he is through the door, slamming it behind him before I can even blink. Left alone in the office, I slump to the floor to think.

My next birthday? Oh, that’s right; I’m turning eighteen. I’d be legally considered an adult.

Oh my God, that’s only six weeks away.

I stand up and grab for the doorknob. As- hah- as luck would have it, it’s locked. From the outside. My head thumps against the soothingly cool glass as I try to calm down and plan what to do. Auggie really knows how to indirectly control a business situation, I’ll give him that.

“Life’s a bitch, huh?” My neck cracks, I turn around so fast, a stupid grin plastered on my face.

“Rebel!” I have never been legitimately glad to see her. “Can you get me out of here?” I ask desperately. She saunters forward, pulling a bobby pin from her hair.

“What, d’you think I don’t know how to pick a lock? Aidan, please."

The door swung open, and Rebel straightened up, polishing her knuckles on her leather jacket. Before she can brag, I start moving.

“Come on, let’s go.” I say, grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her out behind me. I head straight for the stairwell, trying to be as light on my feet as I can. The carpet may not be trodden down, but it was never thick to begin with. I stop us between the second and third landings. Auggie’s voice is just on the edge of my hearing.

“We can’t go down there yet, I say. “We need to wait until he’s back on the elevator.

“Hell no, man. He might not have been counting on you walking away, but I’d bet you that he doesn’t plan on leaving the lobby open for you.” Rebel whispers over my back. I twist around to face her.

“Yeah, What would you know about that?” I ask, annoyed.

“He’s fucking smart! You can’t tell me that you expect the Spirit of Agreement to subscribe to the Bond villain school of planning, do you?”

…Would I lose respect if I said that I had hoped?

“Alright then, Bond, what’s your master escape plan?”

“Fire escape, third floor.”

“Are you nuts, everyone in the building would notice!” Rebel grins.

“Just trust me,” she says. I don’t like where this is going. But I follow her back upstairs.

[jkriting]

In the Spirit of the Moment: Pt 3

Inside the office lobby, it is dead quiet. The floor is dry, as if nobody had come in since this morning before the rain. The secretary doesn’t even look up from her typing when I come through the door. Confidence in a crowd is one thing, but one-on-one in a silent room? Not even Lacey can help me through that. I spy a directory mounted on the wall by the staircase, and hurry over to it as un-awkwardly as I can (which is nigh impossible, me being a teen in a law office on a Saturday. What are they even doing open?) Auggie is on the fifth floor. I turn to check on the secretary again. She has her back to me, sorting through papers on the opposite end of her desk. At this point, I’m sure she didn’t even notice that I came in. I take a couple of steps. Not even the noise catches her attention. Rebel would be jealous.

           The staircase seems barely used. The carpet is flat, but not trampled, and the handrails still have a perfect new shine. I assume that lawyers would rather take an elevator, unless otherwise unavoidable. I mean hell, if I had a nice suit that I wore every day, I’d never want to climb five flights of stairs every morning to get to work. The offices upstairs are no busier than the lobby. There’s a muffled dotting of voices bleeding out from under doors and the shuffling of papers cuts through the air. Auggie was straight down the center hall. The man was perched regally at his wide desk, writing out a memo.

I knocked. The thick wood eats up the noise. I try rapping on the glass. In a wonderful random happenstance, someone runs down the hall behind me, their footsteps perfectly timed with each tap on the door’s window. Auggie scarcely blinked, and did not look up.

Fuck it, I decide. And before any other coincidences can butt in, I open the door. Well-oiled hinges and a clear door well ensure that I made no noise, but no sooner than I could see a crack between the door and the frame, than I hear “Come in.” So much for a lack of coincidences. I slip inside. The door makes much more noise closing than it did opening. Now in this enclosed space, there are no sounds beyond the scratching of Auggie’s pen. Beyond the paper beneath his hand, the desktop was clear and orderly, as if everything had been tacked down on a grid. The walls of the office were entirely lined with bookshelves, which were packed tightly with jacketless volumes, their titles lost to all but those who would attempt to remove them from the consolidated mass.

“I take it you’re here looking for the terms of your agreement?” The man says without looking at me.

“The… my what?”

“I would assume so, anyway. Your mother said you would be along eventually. Far too long for my tastes. It’s almost as if you had been….avoiding me.” Fierce pale eyes flicked upward off the paper, catching in their wake. I froze. They flicked downward again, and the feeling passed. “But it can’t be helped now.” Auggie finished the last few words with a flourish and dotted the paper with a finality so heavy it made me flinch. Auggie laced his fingers and rested his chin upon them.

“So. What can I do for you?” The inflection in his voice reminds me of a dangerously suave late-night commercial salesman. Any deal I take in the next fifteen minutes can be mine for only three easy payments of my soul. I choose my next words carefully.

“I…wanted…to ask you…about Honor.” I say slowly. A glint in his eyes seems to snuff out as I speak. His hands collapse into his lap as he leans back in his chair

“Oh. Yes. That. But what made you come to me?” He stands up and begins examining a bookshelf.

“…Curiosity.” I shrug. “I just sort of figured that maybe… what with him dead and all… that you might be in a bit of trouble. Y’know, if people were to stop honoring their agreements?” I see something in his back twitch as he stops halfway through reaching for a book. I take that to mean my hunch was right. But I’ll be damned if the Spirit of Agreement ever admits that something is wrong.

“How intuitive of you.” He says dryly, finally grasping the spine of a book. “I appreciate your concern,” he wrenches the book free in a white-knuckle grip, “but it is unnecessary.” But not unfounded, I note. Auggie flips open the book and starts paging through it.

“Will that be all then?” I didn’t get anything I wanted, I’m not leaving yet. I shrug again.

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m not sure yet.” His shoulders tense up.

“Then what more do you want from me?”

“Nothing… I’m just talking.” I’m getting better at walking through his word traps. So long as I don’t actually ask anything of him, I should be able to needle some answers free. This is really a race against his patience, where I try to get as far as I can before he throws me out of his office.

“So…were you two…close?”

“Something like that.” I’ll take that as a “yes”.

“Did you go to the funeral today?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I can’t actually remember if he was there or not. Damn.

“Do you know how he died?” He pauses turning a page and glances up at me.

“Couldn’t tell you.” Bam. There it is. I lean back on my heels, trying to be casual.

“Faith said it “just happened”. Sort of weird, don’t you think…?” He closes the book.

“The world is full of the strange. Take you, for example.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snap indignantly.

“Your agreement.” He says simply, replacing the book. I respond before I can think about stopping myself.

“WHAT is my “AGREEMENT””? He looks over his shoulder at me. A smirk snakes its way into the corners of his mouth. I hear the door’s lock click.

This doesn’t bode well.

[jkriting]

In the Spirit of the Moment: Pt 2

I’m waiting for a bus, out in the continuing rain. Lacey had loaned me her jacket, telling me to give it to Rebel the next time we met, and it’d find its way back to her. Though protection from the weather was nice, that wasn’t what was keeping me warm. Out of all the ones that I’ve met, I’m pretty sure that Lacey is my favorite. At least, I like talking with her the most. I don’t actually know her that well. I don’t know any of them really. I’m not sure if that’s because I never tried or because there’s not much to get to know. Conceptual embodiments are pretty straight forward. You know how people say if you look up a word in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of someone or something next to it? That’s actually a thing. Those people exist. Kind of.

They’re not… I don’t want to say they’re not people because they are. They’re not human. They can appear to be, but they are definitely not your old mortal, flesh and blood construct. They are their word: the meaning, the connotations, the implications. They are all the unspoken evocations of that thing, and they bring it with them wherever they go. Honor is dead. That’s a problem. Not just on a symbolic level that affects society at large, but the embodiment of Honor was dead. And that’s not supposed to happen. They can fade and age and change, but they don’t die. Sometimes they get passed on to a different concept or a new one is created, but they do not physically die. Something was up. And as I stepped up onto the bus, I finally accepted the possibility that I was a part of it. I decided that a good place to start would be with Faith. She and Honor were close. I’d call her his ‘wife’, but I don’t think they were actually married. Faith is the belief in something regardless of having a basis to do so or not. Faith can be placed in a lot of things, but there is something to be said about a faith strong enough to be consistently placed, unyielding, in something known to be under constant attack and opposition, as opposed to putting it in the unknown and the improvable. Where was I off to find Faith? The nearest charity, of course. (I bet you thought I was going to say a church, didn’t you.) So I stop in at first soup kitchen I see, and my faith is rewarded as I see her working tirelessly behind the counter. Rebel told me once that if you act like you’re supposed to be there, no one will question you; it’s the best way to get away with anything (and I supposed that she would know). I muster up what confidence I have from Lacey and stride through the doors to the kitchen and around the back. As luck would have it, Faith is just coming into the kitchen as well. We lock eyes. All the spirits know me on sight. I’m not sure how, no one’s never explained it to me. Her absolutely unshakable demeanor drops for a split second, and I can tell she is relieved to see me. I am immediately ushered away to a closed pantry. I take it on faith that she Knows no one will be opening that door. “I knew you’d come.” She says, clasping our hands together. That’s a lie; she didn’t actually know that I would show up. But who am I to doubt Faith? I smile weakly. “Yeah, Rebel had said something abo-“ “Oh, Rebel, bless her heart. She’s capable of great things, I know she is. She really does have good intentions under all those spikes…” I cut her off. I know perfectly well what the Spirit of Rebellion is like, thank you. Does being a teenager count for nothing these days? “I wanted to talk to you about… well, about him.” She sighs and sits on the edge of an empty shelf. “It is a deep and abiding shame, losing him. He will be missed by everyone, dearly. But -I’m not sure how- I know you’ll get through it. There is a way.” Me? Why is she worried about me? Oh, wait, no, she means a collective ‘you’, duh. …I think. “It is a terrible thing for him to go but I know that there is a reason behind it. There always is.” I am going to get so sick of talking to her, I can already tell. “Do you know how he died?” It struck me as odd that no one had brought this up. “He just….passed. Couldn’t tell you how. When it happened, I just knew.” Something’s wrong here. Rebel said Faith was hit the hardest by Honor’s death, but she’s coping with it like it’s already ancient history. Either she got over it quickly, or Rebel was lying (and honestly, I wouldn’t put it past Rebel to lie about a lot of things). “Just like that?” She gives me a tired smile and nods slowly. “Just like that.” I’m done here. None of the workers question me storming out of a panty after being in there with a woman nearly twice my age, and I supposed that for that I’m thankful. The rain has barely let up as I get back outside, and I shrink into Lacey’s jacket as I look around, pondering my next move. Playing private detective for a bunch of metaphysical beings…what a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I start making a list in my head of all the things Honor could be connected to as I walk toward the bus stop. Family, idols, the law, artists, history… those were all too solid, too human, too defined. Tradition? I don’t even know if there is a Spirit of Tradition, let alone where I could find him. The nearest anthropological museum is like three hours away, in the opposite direction of my house. If I didn’t head back now, I wouldn’t be home in time for dinner. Dad hates it when I call on the spot to say I won’t be home. The bus drives pass a law office on my way back, and I explode off it at the nearest stop. Auggie will know something about what’s going on. He has to.

[jkriting]

In the Spirit of the Moment: Pt 1

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not I’m crazy. There are things that are obvious, like completely misinterpreting modern art in class so that I sound like a sadistic sociopath (and then needing it explained to me that yes, that is indeed what I sounded like), but then are things like this. Standing in the rain at the funeral of a man I never met, in a crowd of faces that I know I’ve seen before. This was actually happening.

It all started with three words.

           “Honor is dead.” She is leaning against my bathroom wall.

“And what does that have to do with me?” I ask, tilting my head forward to style my hair.

“You should be there.”

“Why?” I may sound snooty, but I’m legitimately confused. A voice filters in through the door.

“Son? You ready yet?”

“Almost, Dad!” I yell back.

“Did you remember to take your meds?” I sigh and snatch up the pill bottle, tapping one out in my hand.

“Yes, Dad.” I call, as I drop the pill in the toilet. I turn back to her. “What –” I suddenly have to choke back the iron of what I’m about to say. “What does Honor got to do with me?” She lists to one side giving me an incredulous sneer.

“Your mom would’ve gone.” Then she turned and stomped out through the door. I groan and flush the toilet. In the kitchen my dad is standing over the sink, finishing a cup of coffee.

“Ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” I drone.

           She came up to me again at lunch. She’s standing in the way of my sun, so I can’t ignore her. I close the book and glare up at her, waiting for her to speak.

“It’ll be at 3:30 tomorrow. You don’t even need to go to the wake.”

“Is that all.” I ask, attempting to turn up the intensity of my Glare Beam.

“Everyone will be there. Even Faith, and she’s the one that was hit the hardest.”

“Maybe that’s WHY she’s going!” I say angrily, collecting my things and standing up.

“It doesn’t work like that!” She snaps. “You don’t understand how hard it is for her. For all of us! She needs you.” I am already walking away.

“We need you.” She adds quietly. I stop. Sure, pile on the guilt, why don’t you.

“Okay, I’ll be there.” I glance over my shoulder. She’s got her thumbs tucked in her pockets, grinning like a diabolical five year old. I worry about what I’ve just agreed to. Nothing good ever comes to me when Rebel grins.

           I read about the news in the paper when I get home. Dad always leaves the obituaries in the bag. At least she wasn’t lying. (This would be a stupid thing to lie about anyway. Not even Rebel is that much of a bitch.) I throw my backpack under the kitchen table, and go to rummage through my closet. I only have one dress shirt. I guess it’ll have to do.

           I was honestly surprised that Ed wasn’t there. I would have thought that this was right up his alley, but no. It was a regular funeral service, with a regular minister reading a regular passage from the regular Bible. Like I said, sometimes I’m not sure I’m crazy. Someone draped their arms around my shoulders and squeezes me for a hug. I recognize the soft perfume.

“Hi Lacey.” I say quietly, my eyes not leaving the coffin.

“Hello sweetie.” She says, kissing the top of my head. “Are you okay?”

Of course I’m okay, she’s here. But she wouldn’t have kissed me if she didn’t think something was wrong.

“I dunno…” I grumble, diverting my eyes to the ground. She squeezes my shoulders again.

“Come on,” she says, steering me away from the crowd. “We’ll talk.”

             We end up at the edge of town in the homiest little café that I never knew existed. Of course Lacey is a regular. She gets us a booth hidden away in the corner and orders us hot chocolate.

“So what’s wrong, sweetie?” She starts. I just sort of shrug and twiddle my thumbs.

“I’m not really sure.”

“Take your time, dear. Say anything you like.” I try and pull at the knotted ball of feelings in my chest, but no ends come loose. I pound my fists in my lap.

“Look, you already know, can’t you just tell me?” She smiles gently.

“It’s more important for you to figure it out.” I throw my hands up in frustration.

“I don’t even know why I’m here in the first place! Jesus, the only reason I came to this stupid thing was because Rebel goaded me into it!”

“Goaded you?”

“Yeah! The smug bitch is just hanging out in my fucking bathroom yesterday morning, telling me that I ‘need’ to be here and that ‘my mother would have gone’ and that ‘she understood’ and that ‘I just don’t get it’. ‘I don’t know how hard it is’? Christ I know perfectly well how fucking hard it is, everyone thinks I’m fucking MENTAL because of you people!” I guess that would be the loose thread. Lacey takes a sip of her hot chocolate. I had been too engrossed in my ranting to notice that they had been delivered (That poor waitress).

“Rebel’s always been like that.... It’s who she is. She doesn’t always know how to properly express herself so that everyone can understand. It’s her actions that matter more than her words.”

“Yeah, I’ll say. She wasn’t even here today…” I growl.

“Yes she was.” Lacy says as-a-matter-of-factly. “She was curled up under the oak tree at the bottom of the hill, crying.” A wave of guilt extinguishes my anger. Lacey reaches over and touches my arm.

“It’s okay you didn’t notice; she didn’t want anyone to see her.” I look up at her and force a tiny grateful smile.

“Look, Aidan, it’s okay to be frustrated. Things weren’t supposed to happen this way. It’s giving everyone a rough time, especially you. And with this sudden…” She paused, choosing her words, “tragedy, things are only going to get more complicated. But I want you to remember that it will all work out, okay? Everything will be fine.” She leans across the table and kisses my forehead. I chew my lower lip for a bit and spin my mug around in my hands.

“…you wanna talk about your mom?” She asks gently. I nod and blink away some tears.

“Okay,” she says, taking a hold of one of my hands. “Then let’s talk.” 2JN