#river: interaction

[go-foxes]

Location: Football Stadium Date: Friday, September 10th Time: Mid-Game (open​)

Back in Indiana, River wouldn't have said they had anything against football: in a town where everything revolved around football and Exy games, it gave them a reason to be out of the double wide that was less likely than anything else to get them in trouble. They took advantage of that, because they had no reason not to. River was a jock in Indiana—at least they were for most of the time they lived there, before they had enough self-awareness to realize all the ways that they were different. The ways they didn't fit.

It feels different here, though. Here, the football team is beloved in a way that Foxes aren't. They have the whole University behind them, they draw crowds that are actually cheering for them, rather than just waiting to see how they're going to fuck up next.

River's been a Fox for long enough, now, to have a chip on their shoulder about it. To not like the way the Foxes are being trotted out for Palmetto Athletics solidarity now that they've won something, in a way they hadn't been last year. They're being put up on the video screen today to wave at the crowd, but they know that if the Foxes don't keep it up, they'll be right back where they started, with the University threatening to cut the team entirely.

At least there's a flask going around. If they're going to have to spend their Friday night here, instead of out in Columbia or in the Vixen Den, then there better be. They haven't really been following the score, but they do look up at the videoscreen for long enough to make sure it's focused on the action on the field below. Once they know they're not about to be broadcast drinking underage to a whole stadium of people, they turn themself away to take a few furtive swallows, grimacing slightly as the liquor burns its way down their throat.

"Looks like the coast is still clear," they say, wiping the back of their hand across their path and passing it on. "You want some?"

[go-foxes]

Location: Graduation Cookout Date: Saturday, June 5th Time: Afternoon (open​)  

There’s a duffle bag half packed in their dorm room. They’d started taking down posters, folding clothes—and then gotten distracted by the party in the Vixen’s Den, by graduation this morning, by the fact that they have more stuff now than they did at the start of the year, and how are they supposed to pack it all, fit it in Dana’s living room?

After this weekend they’ll be on a bus. Leaving Palmetto the way they came to it, even if it’s only for the summer. When they’re used to always moving forward, to leaving people and places behind, it could feel almost like a regression, like moving backwards.

But they know it’s not. They’ll go back to that futon for the summer, but Dana will never again be their legal guardian signing their permission slips in high school. Things are different now. And, in some ways, that’s frightening: they and Dana had learned to be siblings in that cramped apartment in high school, and now everything’s changed. They spent this year trying to learn how to be siblings on the other end of a phone call, and they didn’t always get it right. 

But River knows they’re trying. Trying to be better to each other than they’ve been in the past. And River’s trying to be someone that can belong in both New York and Palmetto, who can be both a sibling to Dana and a Fox.

They’ll miss Palmetto. They’ll miss Exy and they’ll miss their teammates. But there’s a lot to look forward to about a summer in a big city. Especially when they’re not a high schooler—a little kid—anymore.

For now, the sun is shining in Abby’s backyard on their last day all together, and River grins. “So, if graduation means that Grayson isn’t a fifth year anymore, does that officially mean I’m not a freshman anymore?”

[go-foxes]

Location: Foxhole Court Lounge Friday: Friday, April 23rd Time: Evening, Post Lions-Jackals Game (open​)  

The further they get into the Championships, the more playing feels like a distant memory. Was it really only a few months ago that it was the Foxes facing off against the Ravens, the Jackals, the Terrapins? But now it’s April, almost May, and three teams from the Southeastern District are heading to the final death matches, while River and the rest of the Foxes are sitting on the couch.

Watching it now, it feels about as far away as it did when River was sitting on a different couch, the one that served as their bed in Dana’s apartment in New York. All season, the Foxes played losing games. When they played at home, they could never fill up the stands—unless their opponents filled them with their own fans. It wasn’t anything like this.

They want it, just like they wanted the Foxes when they were in High School in New York. They want to be in goal when the pressure’s high, when the season’s on the line. They want to win, to know that they helped win it for their team by standing tall and strong in goal. After the way their season went, they know they have a long way to go—but if they yearned for the Foxes and got themself onto the team, why can’t they yearn for the Championships and make that come true for them, too?

“It’s a little weird, don’t you think? To lose and still move on?” The Jackals were the losers tonight, but on the screen both teams are celebrating. They both got enough points; they’re both moving on. The UNLV Rebels were eliminated from the Championships when they weren’t even on the court. That’s gotta sting. But, well, at least they got to play in the Championships. At least they made it far. River can’t feel too much sympathy. “Who do you think is gonna take the rematch?”

[go-foxes]

Location: Vixen Den Date: Valentine’s Day Weekend Time: Party Time (open​)

It’s amazing to them, how the time flies by. Their first season as a Fox is over, and now it’s already February, well into another semester. 

Once, it felt like time could never pass quickly enough. They were waiting: waiting to turn eighteen, waiting to be on their own, waiting for their real life to start. To be free, to be able to be who they wanted to be. Now, though, it feels like the time is running through their hands like sand. Like they don’t have enough of it to do all the things they want to do, now that they can do them.

Case in point: it’s Valentine’s Day. They came to Palmetto to play Exy, but they can’t say that’s all they’ve ever been interested in. Away from the small town they were born in, when they were afraid of what people would say about them in the locker room if they knew that they could be looking; away from New York, too, when they were just Dana’s little sibling trying to clumsily flirt with her older, cooler friends, who saw them as cute in a childish way, but nothing else. 

They’re in college now, more than ready for all those college experiences, but they haven’t gotten very far yet. Maybe that’s their own fault: they can be stubborn, single-minded, and so far it’s been nothing but Exy, getting their feet under them in the goal so they didn’t make a fool of themself on TV.  

But the season’s over, and it’s Valentine’s Day, and they don’t have much to show for it. At least they’re not the only Fox who doesn’t: "A pretty poor showing, isn’t it?” They say, gesturing with their cup in a way that clearly encompasses themself. “A room full of people who are single on Valentine’s Day.” 

[go-foxes]

Location: Fox Tower Date: Sunday, January 3rd Time: Afternoon (open​)

Maybe it’s not the best use of their stipend, but making the journey between Palmetto and New York is so much better by plane than by bus. 

Going back to New York, over Thanksgiving, they’d felt almost nervous: they’d learned to live with Dana in high school, but this year was something new. River coming and going, River in college, something they knew Dana was jealous of even if she tried so hard to never show it. And they’d fought, during the semester. Didn’t quite know how to talk to each other with all the new distance between them. 

But Thanksgiving had been good, Christmas had been good. And now, with the holiday season over, they have to say goodbye to Dana and New York for awhile, head back to Palmetto. 

Touching down in Upstate Regional, they feel glad to be back. Dana was kind enough to let River into her home, to let them tag along with her friends, borrow her life—but Palmetto is theirs. They wanted it, and they made it happen. 

They fit here, and they also mean that in a very literal sense: with River in college, their living room-slash-bedroom has gone back to being more of a living room. They have more space in their dorm room than they ever did on Dana’s futon. 

They take the stairs, stretching their legs after a day of flying, up to the Foxes’ floor, where there are still some Christmas decorations hanging on—decorations that hadn’t been there when River had left. “Hey,” they say. “It’s late, but—Happy New Year.” 

[go-foxes]

Location: Fox Tower Date: Sunday, November 29th Time: Afternoon (open)

River knows firsthand how long it takes to travel from New York City to Palmetto by bus. The first time they did it, they were still in high school, clutching a flash drive with a video they’d made themself of their best highlights, not knowing if anything would come of it. Years before that, they’d traveled from Indiana to New York by bus on a stolen credit card. Half of this season has been spent on buses, from Palmetto to West Virginia, from Palmetto to Florida, and then back again. 

With all that under their belt, it felt beyond decadent to fly home and back for break, splitting the costs with Dana. Just another indication, maybe, of how their fortunes have changed.

Being back in New York was different, too. The living room that was River’s bedroom had reverted back to a living room since they’d been gone—not that they could begrudge that, it’s not like Dana had enough space to just not use what little she did. They had a lot to catch Dana up on, things that they hadn’t said over the phone, not sure that she wanted to hear them. It was easier when they could see her face, when they could see that she was listening. When they could tell, they thought, that she missed them, too. 

Getting stories out of Dana was harder. They tried, but it still sometimes feels like Palmetto—or just Exy—is a wall between them. River gets all this, and Dana doesn’t. River doesn’t always want to talk, because they don’t want to rub it in; Dana doesn’t always want to talk, because she doesn’t think she has anything as exciting to say. 

Winter break is close, even though they still have more games to play, another banquet to go to. River will be back in New York soon enough, this time for longer. Not that they weren’t looking forward to it before, but it feels easier to look forward to it now, now that they made it through Thanksgiving without fighting, without things being too different. 

But now they’re back in Palmetto. For the last two games of their freshman season, the last few weeks of their first semester. Back with their teammates, whether they left like River or stayed in Palmetto. It’s good to be back, it’s good to have two places they feel like they belong, where they feel like they’re welcome. For so long, they didn’t even have one. 

“Hey,” they say, peeking their head into the lounge from the hallway, smiling wide—wider than they have been, because a week’s break has a way of taking them away from the pressures of the season. “What’d I miss? How was your break?” 

[go-foxes]

Location: Vixen Den Date: Saturday, September 12 Time: Vixen Party (open)

They’d almost come without a costume. At home, they’d been so focused on blending in, so used to hiding—and, it turned out, with good reason. They’d been quiet, and bland, and unoffensive, and every time they stepped outside of that box, they were punished. And it wasn’t just by their father, the person they had known to be afraid of, it was by their peers, too. By their friends. By their team. 

They’d gone out in New York: high school parties with their new, better team; underage and flying under the radar with Dana and her friends when she let them come to bars with her. They’d gotten dressed up even, sometimes, let someone else help dress them up. But it’d never really stopped feeling like, well, just that: dressing up, a little bit unnatural, a little bit ridiculous, like they were trying to be someone that they weren’t. Like they were trying too hard. 

But the point of this party is to be ridiculous. And the point of River leaving home, coming to College, joining the Foxes, is for them to stop letting fear keep them small. To come into their own, even if it’s uncomfortable at first. Even if it feels like they’re doing too much, or trying too hard. 

So they decided, at the last minute, to commit. The result isn’t much, both in terms of creativity and coverage, just a quasi-shorts-like contraption of tinfoil reinforced with duct tape. A little bit of silver glitter on their black-painted nails to match, a little bit more expertly applied. Maybe they shouldn’t have: they thought that they’d feel more secure if they tried to make it more like shorts, wrapped the foil and the duct tape securely around their legs instead of risking it riding up—but instead, now they’re worried every time they take a step that it’ll split right down the middle. 

“You’d tell me if my ass was just—hanging out, right?” They say, craning their neck around to try and get a good look. So far, so good. And at least it’s dark in here. At least they’re already one-and-a-half drinks in. “If I make it out of here without a wardrobe malfunction, it’ll be a miracle.”

[go-foxes]

Location: Fox Tower, Stairwell to Roof Date: Tues, August 18 Time: Evening (open)

They heard it from one of the upperclassmen, they can’t remember which: You know you can get on the roof of Fox Tower, right? And so here they are, giving it a try. 

They were so focused on coming to Palmetto, playing for the Foxes, that they didn’t really stop to think about missing New York. In some way, it never really felt like their home. It felt like Dana’s, and they were just visiting. Or, in the moments where they felt the lowest, or the two of them were fighting, like they were invading. 

But they miss the skyline; and they miss Dana too, unsure of how to reach out. Are they the kind of siblings that talk on the phone, now? How much do they text? Is Dana back in Brooklyn, wondering how River is doing in Palmetto? Does she want to hear about the Foxes, or would it just be River rubbing it in? Or has her life gone back to normal without them there? Does she like the peace and quiet? 

The view from Fox Tower might not be much, but it’d be something. Fresh air, a little perspective. If only they could get the damn door open. The lighting in the stairwell is dim, and their phone isn’t doing much to help as they push at the door, trying to replicate the series of jiggles they were told would pop it open. 

It isn’t working. 

“If someone was fucking with me....” they say, trailing off as they give it one last forceful push. It still doesn’t open.