Dying to Live
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7818
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
Failing out of school and getting her shit batted around is crazy work
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16791
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Louisiana Dirt
New Rising Sun Baptist Church looked exactly how it had the day they buried Rome—hot paint clinging to the trim, a busted AC unit humming louder than the organ, and the scent of lilies thick enough to choke a throat.
Same church. Different casket.
Royce pulled into the parking lot near the back, the white Corvette gliding to a stop like it belonged nowhere near here. He stepped out in a deep navy suit, cut clean, watch glinting faintly in the sunlight. He wasn’t hiding. But he wasn’t inviting anything either.
Inside, the sanctuary was already full of murmurs. Most of the seats were taken. Church folks. Some of Reg’s old friends. More than a few faces Royce hadn’t seen since childhood, or since the last time someone got locked up or laid to rest.
He entered with a nod and a look that kept people from saying too much.
Roni was the first to spot him. She elbowed her way past a cluster of cousins and wrapped her arms around his waist without hesitation.
“You wore that suit to make the rest of us look bad,” she mumbled against his chest.
Royce cracked half a grin. “Nah, you just need a tailor.”
He kissed the top of her head before letting her go. Her eyes were damp, but her smile held.
Rana came next, holding Julian on one hip. She looked tired—not the surface kind, but the kind that came from holding grief and responsibility at once.
“You made it,” she said, pulling him into a hug that didn’t linger too long.
“I said I would.”
Julian babbled something unintelligible and reached out to smack Royce on the cheek.
“I deserved that,” Royce said.
Tyrell came up beside her and gave Royce a firm handshake, pulling him in with a half-hug. “Appreciate you showing up strong,” he said. “We all tired.”
Royce just nodded. “Been tired.”
Toni was quiet but steady when she greeted him. No long looks, no awkwardness—just a quick squeeze of his hand, her other arm wrapped around her own waist like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it.
Arianna stepped in behind her, eyes scanning him up and down.
“You clean,” she said. “Could’ve warned us.”
“You saw me two days ago.”
“Still.”
They didn’t hug. They didn’t need to.
Mike leaned against the wall near the usher table, arms crossed, suit slightly oversized but buttoned proper. Royce dapped him up and pulled him in with a thump on the back.
“You alright?” Royce asked under his breath.
Mike shrugged. “I guess. You?”
Royce didn’t answer. Just held his gaze a second, then looked away.
The room buzzed. Old women fanned themselves. Somebody sniffled. The choir softly rehearsed a hymn in the background.
Then Rashida appeared.
Her heels clicked sharply as she made her way toward him. Her dress was plain black, pearls tight at her throat. The look on her face was unreadable, but her jaw worked like she was chewing something she didn’t want to swallow.
“You show up to your brother’s funeral in a flashy car and thousand-dollar suit,” she said, low and sharp. “What you trying to prove?”
Royce didn’t flinch.
“I ain’t hiding what I’ve made of myself. Reg ain’t never had that, and that ain’t my fault.”
Her mouth twitched—just slightly. A flash of something moved through her: regret, resentment, maybe even pride. But it passed too quickly to name.
“You always think you the one with the answers.”
“I don’t,” Royce said, voice flat. “I just know when not to lie.”
She looked at him then—really looked at him—and whatever she saw, it wasn’t what she wanted.
But she didn’t say anything else.
Didn’t hug him. Didn’t walk away.
She just turned, stiff and slow, and went to sit with the rest of the family.
…
The second hymn was already halfway through when Roni leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, face in her hands, shoulders hunched. Her shoes tapped restlessly against the floor, the scuffed toes brushing the edge of the pew in front of her.
Arianna sat beside her, hands clasped in her lap, eyes unfocused on the pulpit. She wasn’t really listening to the choir. The voices blended into a hum, part harmony, part heat, part grief.
The fan above them clicked every time it turned.
They dressed the casket like they were trying to rewrite who he was. But no gloss could cover up the kind of life Reg lived. The man who used to sleep through Sunday school and bum cigarettes from older cousins, the man who smiled too big but never smiled long. The casket didn’t look like Reg. Like people wanted to bury the version of him they could forgive.
That was the part that stung most.
Roni turned slightly, voice hushed, barely more than a breath: “Do funerals always feel this wrong?”
Arianna looked at her.
Not just looked—saw her. Roni’s face was flushed in patches, her mascara already faint under her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. Not anymore. She’d cried early, when they first walked in, and when Rana squeezed her hand during prayer. But now?
Now she looked lost.
Arianna leaned closer, her shoulder brushing Roni’s, voice low.
“They do,” she said. “When you ain’t just mourning who someone was… you mourning what they never got to be.”
Roni swallowed. Her jaw twitched.
A beat passed. Then she nodded, sharp and silent, as if that sentence unlocked something she hadn’t had the words for.
The preacher began to speak, voice rhythmic, pulling words from scripture that sounded heavy with practiced sorrow. Something about rest. Something about redemption.
But all Arianna could hear was the air between phrases. The weight behind what wasn’t being said.
She didn’t know Reg like Royce had. Didn’t carry the same bruises or memories. But she’d seen enough. Seen the days he didn’t show up. The looks exchanged between Royce and Rana. The way Roni used to go quiet anytime someone mentioned the word rehab.
So she sat still, present, and let Roni lean just slightly against her shoulder.
It was quiet, but not empty. Like they were holding something heavy between them neither could name.
Just weight shared.
And Arianna knew better than most—that kind of stillness could hold more pain than any scream.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Toni seated two rows back, back straight, jaw set. Her hand rested on her thigh, fingers twitching with tension she wasn’t even trying to hide. That tension had been there since the morning. Since the ride. Since Baton Rouge, really.
Arianna exhaled softly, turning her focus back to the girl beside her.
Roni wiped at her cheek, even though no tears were falling.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Arianna didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
The choir began another verse, the melody slow and reverent. Outside the stained glass, sunlight bent at awkward angles, painting fragments of red and gold across the aisle.
Roni straightened her back, just a little.
And Arianna reached over, without saying a word, and took her hand.
…
The graveyard didn’t hum with grief. It sat with it. Still. Swollen with it. The earth, soggy from the last rain, pulled at dress shoes and heels like it had a right to claim whoever walked across it.
The heat was indifferent, pressing on them like it didn’t know they were grieving. There was no breeze. Just the quiet shuffle of feet and the occasional whisper from someone too weary to pretend they had more to say.
Reg’s casket hung above the open grave, the weight of it balanced across faded green straps and rusted steel braces. It looked like a lie. All satin trim and polished wood, like a man could be made clean in death just because the world didn’t want to remember the mess.
Royce stood near the head of it, hands flexing slowly at his sides.
He hadn’t gone up at the church. Hadn’t looked in. Couldn’t. The last memory he had of Reg already didn’t belong in a suit. He wasn’t going to replace it with some hollow, powdered version of his brother.
Mike stepped beside him, not speaking, just adjusting his grip as the funeral director gestured to the handles. Their cousins—Sheldon, known since middle school as “Doodoo,” and Mitchell—flanked the other side, neither dressed for cameras or scrutiny. Two more stepped forward, Reg’s people, the kind of men whose eyes didn’t stop moving, whose bodies twitched every so often like they were still listening for the next hit. One’s hands trembled the entire walk to the burial plot.
No one said anything when they hoisted the casket.
Just lift, step, lower.
Six men carrying memory, regret, and obligation to a hole dug too shallow for all it represented.
When they set the casket on the supports above the grave, the preacher’s voice rose over the crowd again—measured, solemn, filtered through heat and habit.
“We commit this body to the ground—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to—”
A sharp sound broke the rhythm.
Thud.
Royce had already stepped forward, crouched, and picked up a clump of sun-dried dirt. He tossed it into the grave with no fanfare, no hesitation. The preacher paused, only briefly, before continuing.
The dirt hit the casket with a soft, hollow impact.
One sound. One moment. Then silence again.
Royce didn’t linger. He dusted his palm on the side of his trousers and turned from the hole like he’d just checked something off a list. Like it was a job. Like you showed up, did the work, and left before anyone saw the cracks.
But instead of heading straight for the car, he veered left.
Toward the far row of graves. The one shaded by the single crooked oak. The grass was patchier here, the soil sunken in spots. But he found the one he needed without looking too hard.
Rome.
Still marked with flowers so old they’d dried and curled into themselves. A Saints pendant hung off the edge of the headstone. Royce crouched down, his knees cracking slightly, and tapped the top of the stone with his fingers—twice.
He didn’t say anything.
What was there to say? Everything worth saying was buried already.
Last time I was here, I couldn’t even walk. They rolled me in like I was already halfway in the fucking ground myself.
The bullet wounds still ached sometimes. Not sharp. Just enough to remind him. Especially on days like this.
He exhaled once, stood back up, and looked out across the cemetery.
The sounds behind him—people crying softly, folding chairs scraping against grass, babies fussing in the heat—blurred into a low hum.
He didn’t look back at Reg’s grave.
He just walked.
Down the sloping hill, past the old fence line, across gravel that crunched beneath every step. His suit still sharp, hands dusty, jaw tight.
He reached the car, popped the door, and slid inside.
For a moment, he just sat there. Hands on the wheel. Engine off.
Then he started it.
And left the graveyard in his rearview mirror, like he always knew he would.
…
The cemetery was just behind the church, where the ground softened with water beneath the grass and the wind carried the smell of cypress and motor oil. There was no real shade. It was the kind of heat that made sorrow feel physical—like it was sitting on your chest, and the preacher’s voice strained against the wind like it was fighting to stay in the air.
Toni stood next to Arianna near the second row, just behind the folding chairs reserved for immediate family. Her arms hung loose at her sides, but her spine stayed straight. Her heels sank a little into the earth, but she didn’t move. She didn’t sway. Just held the space like someone bracing for impact.
The casket was suspended above the open grave. The straps holding it looked too thin. Too fragile for what they carried.
The preacher read scripture in a steady cadence, but it sounded far away to Toni. Like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Arianna sniffled softly beside her, wiping under her eyes with the back of her hand. She hadn’t cried much during the service—not out loud—but her silence had deepened, stretched thin in a way that made Toni want to reach out.
So she stood there. Close enough to be leaned on, if needed.
But not pressing.
Because she knew sometimes comfort meant saying nothing. Just being there when the floor drops out.
Toni’s eyes drifted to the casket again. The top was closed. She hadn’t looked inside when they’d offered the chance at the church. She stayed back. Closed caskets felt more honest than ones dressed in disguise.
The preacher shifted into the closing prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven…
Toni didn’t close her eyes.
But her lips moved.
Softly, slowly.
Hallowed be thy name…
She hadn’t said the Lord’s Prayer in years—not since before her aunt died, when her grandmother still made them go to service every other Sunday. But the words hadn’t left her. They floated up now like old bones, familiar and unwelcome.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…
The wind picked up, stirring the trees in the distance. Someone coughed behind her. Somewhere to the left, a baby let out a small cry that was quickly hushed.
Toni didn’t turn.
She just mouthed the words, eyes steady on the casket as it was slowly, gently lowered down.
…on earth as it is in heaven.
Arianna’s hand found hers halfway through the prayer, a quiet slip of fingers against palm. No squeeze. No pull.
Just a tether.
Toni didn’t look at her. She just held on.
The preacher’s voice fell quiet. The breeze returned. The straps slackened as the casket came to rest.
There was no dramatic sobbing. No final speeches. Just the hush of family looking down into a space none of them could fill.
One by one, people dropped flowers into the grave. A white rose. A crumpled note. A photo.
Toni didn’t bring anything.
She stood there with empty hands and a heart full of contradictions, feeling the weight of mourning someone she never really knew—just knew of. Knew around. And knew what he left behind.
When it was done, she and Arianna didn’t speak.
They just turned, shoulders brushing, and walked back toward the car. Quiet.
Together.
~~~~~~~~~~
Back in the yard where the repast had taken shape, even with the sun gone, the air clung like guilt—thick, sour, and unshakable. It hung in the air like something sour, turning sweat sticky and clothes uncomfortable. Kids darted between folding chairs, the sounds of fried food and slow music mixing with murmured condolences and paper plates scraping clean.
The repast was quieter than most. Not silent—just… subdued. Like no one knew how loud they were supposed to be when the man they’d buried had burned through his life and left nothing in his wake but tension and a half-dozen unspoken apologies.
Royce sat on the porch steps, a foam plate resting on his knee, barely touched. The black slacks of his suit were creased now, sweat clinging beneath the collar of his shirt. He leaned forward, elbows on thighs, watching the cars lining the narrow driveway.
Beside him, Arianna picked through her food without eating it, fork clinking gently against Styrofoam. Toni sat on the other side, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded, sunglasses still on even though the sun had nearly set. Mike leaned against the porch column behind them, nursing a beer he’d barely sipped.
They weren’t talking. They didn’t need to.
Royce’s eyes narrowed.
Across the yard, near his Corvette, three of Reg’s old friends huddled around the passenger side. One had a hand on the roof. Another kept glancing through the tinted window like he was casing a place, even here, even now. The third was leaning too close, cigarette ash dangling from his lip.
“Man, come on,” Royce muttered, setting the plate down with a sharp plastic clatter.
Arianna looked up. “What—?”
But he was already off the porch.
Mike straightened, setting his beer on the rail. Toni’s arms uncrossed slowly. Arianna stood halfway, eyes following Royce across the yard.
He walked fast, hands already balled into fists.
“Yo!” Royce barked.
The men turned, half-surprised, half-faded. One of them smirked like he didn’t realize yet how bad this was about to go.
Royce didn’t stop to negotiate.
He grabbed the nearest man by the collar—thin, sweaty, and slurring something about just admiring the rims—and threw him down hard enough to make gravel skitter in all directions.
The other two backed up quick.
“Get y’all crackhead asses away from my car before I bury one of y’all next to him.”
The words sliced the air clean in half. Loud enough for the music to pause. Loud enough for people inside to turn and peer through the screen door.
The man on the ground scrabbled backward, hands up, face stunned and dusty. One of the others muttered something about not meaning no harm.
“I don’t give a fuck what you meant,” Royce spat. “Fuck from round my shit.”
They did.
Without another word, Royce turned on his heel and walked back toward the porch, shoulders heaving slightly. His hands flexed like they were still trying to calm down.
He climbed the steps, dropped back onto the wooden slat, and picked up his plate again.
Didn’t say anything.
Just started eating, stabbing a fork into a cold piece of fried chicken like nothing had happened.
The silence wrapped around them again, heavier now.
…
Arianna stood with her arms drawn tight, like bracing against a storm she’d already weathered too many times. Her eyes never left Royce as he stormed across the yard. The stomp of his dress shoes, the way his hand closed around that man’s collar, the fury in his voice—it wasn’t new to her.
It was too familiar.
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Just watched.
Like she’d done before, back when they were kids and Royce would square up with whoever talked sideways to Rome in the lunchroom. Or when he punched a hole in the drywall at Ma Beulah’s because Reg stole cash from Roni’s backpack. That same storm. That same heat behind the eyes. The kind that left nothing in its wake but silence and a tight throat.
Toni stood beside her, one step behind. Her arms stayed folded, but her hands kept moving—small restless twitches, like her body remembered something she didn’t want to name. Her jaw was tight, but it wasn’t Royce she flinched from—it was recognition. Because she’d seen the same kind of fuse in Deshawn. The same sharpness in the way Royce moved. The same crack in the air when someone who already carries too much finally drops what little they have left.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t shift. Just stayed there, back straight, breath steady, fingers digging slightly into her own sides until Royce walked back and sat down.
Even then, she didn’t speak.
Because what was there to say?
The music had picked back up, quietly now. A cousin cracked open a beer with a loud hiss. Somewhere in the back someone laughed too hard, trying to cut the tension with noise.
But Mike was nowhere near the noise.
He sat on the hood of a faded silver Crown Vic at the edge of the driveway, legs dangling over the side, paper cup untouched in his hands. His suit jacket was off, dress shirt wrinkled at the sleeves. His eyes didn’t follow Royce’s blow-up. They stayed fixed on the people—Reg’s old friends slinking away, the way heads turned, how everyone just went back to eating like violence was a side dish.
His jaw was set. Hard.
Like if he unclenched it, something would spill out.
Later, Arianna walked across the yard and climbed up beside him without saying a word. She sat on the hood next to him, careful not to knock his elbow. The cicadas had started humming again. The sky was fading from gold to something bruised.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
Mike didn’t look at her.
He blinked, slowly. Then shook his head once.
“I’ve carried too many of these damn coffins, Ari.”
His voice wasn’t angry. It was tired. Frayed.
“First Rome. Now Reg.” He let the silence stretch before finishing. “I keep seeing them in each other’s place.”
Arianna’s shoulders slumped slightly.
Mike stared at the yard, eyes far away. “Some nights… I still hear the shots,” he said. “I wake up thinking I’m back there. That it’s happening all over again. Then I blink, and it’s just the fan clicking in my room.”
Arianna nodded, her own eyes damp now. “You ever talk to anybody about it?”
“Only ghosts,” he muttered.
Neither spoke. But the silence between them was loud, stretched tight with everything they didn’t want to say.
The repast carried on behind them. But the weight of it all had already settled here, on the hood of an old car, with the boy who kept losing pieces of his world and the girl who knew how to stay.
New Rising Sun Baptist Church looked exactly how it had the day they buried Rome—hot paint clinging to the trim, a busted AC unit humming louder than the organ, and the scent of lilies thick enough to choke a throat.
Same church. Different casket.
Royce pulled into the parking lot near the back, the white Corvette gliding to a stop like it belonged nowhere near here. He stepped out in a deep navy suit, cut clean, watch glinting faintly in the sunlight. He wasn’t hiding. But he wasn’t inviting anything either.
Inside, the sanctuary was already full of murmurs. Most of the seats were taken. Church folks. Some of Reg’s old friends. More than a few faces Royce hadn’t seen since childhood, or since the last time someone got locked up or laid to rest.
He entered with a nod and a look that kept people from saying too much.
Roni was the first to spot him. She elbowed her way past a cluster of cousins and wrapped her arms around his waist without hesitation.
“You wore that suit to make the rest of us look bad,” she mumbled against his chest.
Royce cracked half a grin. “Nah, you just need a tailor.”
He kissed the top of her head before letting her go. Her eyes were damp, but her smile held.
Rana came next, holding Julian on one hip. She looked tired—not the surface kind, but the kind that came from holding grief and responsibility at once.
“You made it,” she said, pulling him into a hug that didn’t linger too long.
“I said I would.”
Julian babbled something unintelligible and reached out to smack Royce on the cheek.
“I deserved that,” Royce said.
Tyrell came up beside her and gave Royce a firm handshake, pulling him in with a half-hug. “Appreciate you showing up strong,” he said. “We all tired.”
Royce just nodded. “Been tired.”
Toni was quiet but steady when she greeted him. No long looks, no awkwardness—just a quick squeeze of his hand, her other arm wrapped around her own waist like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it.
Arianna stepped in behind her, eyes scanning him up and down.
“You clean,” she said. “Could’ve warned us.”
“You saw me two days ago.”
“Still.”
They didn’t hug. They didn’t need to.
Mike leaned against the wall near the usher table, arms crossed, suit slightly oversized but buttoned proper. Royce dapped him up and pulled him in with a thump on the back.
“You alright?” Royce asked under his breath.
Mike shrugged. “I guess. You?”
Royce didn’t answer. Just held his gaze a second, then looked away.
The room buzzed. Old women fanned themselves. Somebody sniffled. The choir softly rehearsed a hymn in the background.
Then Rashida appeared.
Her heels clicked sharply as she made her way toward him. Her dress was plain black, pearls tight at her throat. The look on her face was unreadable, but her jaw worked like she was chewing something she didn’t want to swallow.
“You show up to your brother’s funeral in a flashy car and thousand-dollar suit,” she said, low and sharp. “What you trying to prove?”
Royce didn’t flinch.
“I ain’t hiding what I’ve made of myself. Reg ain’t never had that, and that ain’t my fault.”
Her mouth twitched—just slightly. A flash of something moved through her: regret, resentment, maybe even pride. But it passed too quickly to name.
“You always think you the one with the answers.”
“I don’t,” Royce said, voice flat. “I just know when not to lie.”
She looked at him then—really looked at him—and whatever she saw, it wasn’t what she wanted.
But she didn’t say anything else.
Didn’t hug him. Didn’t walk away.
She just turned, stiff and slow, and went to sit with the rest of the family.
…
The second hymn was already halfway through when Roni leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, face in her hands, shoulders hunched. Her shoes tapped restlessly against the floor, the scuffed toes brushing the edge of the pew in front of her.
Arianna sat beside her, hands clasped in her lap, eyes unfocused on the pulpit. She wasn’t really listening to the choir. The voices blended into a hum, part harmony, part heat, part grief.
The fan above them clicked every time it turned.
They dressed the casket like they were trying to rewrite who he was. But no gloss could cover up the kind of life Reg lived. The man who used to sleep through Sunday school and bum cigarettes from older cousins, the man who smiled too big but never smiled long. The casket didn’t look like Reg. Like people wanted to bury the version of him they could forgive.
That was the part that stung most.
Roni turned slightly, voice hushed, barely more than a breath: “Do funerals always feel this wrong?”
Arianna looked at her.
Not just looked—saw her. Roni’s face was flushed in patches, her mascara already faint under her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. Not anymore. She’d cried early, when they first walked in, and when Rana squeezed her hand during prayer. But now?
Now she looked lost.
Arianna leaned closer, her shoulder brushing Roni’s, voice low.
“They do,” she said. “When you ain’t just mourning who someone was… you mourning what they never got to be.”
Roni swallowed. Her jaw twitched.
A beat passed. Then she nodded, sharp and silent, as if that sentence unlocked something she hadn’t had the words for.
The preacher began to speak, voice rhythmic, pulling words from scripture that sounded heavy with practiced sorrow. Something about rest. Something about redemption.
But all Arianna could hear was the air between phrases. The weight behind what wasn’t being said.
She didn’t know Reg like Royce had. Didn’t carry the same bruises or memories. But she’d seen enough. Seen the days he didn’t show up. The looks exchanged between Royce and Rana. The way Roni used to go quiet anytime someone mentioned the word rehab.
So she sat still, present, and let Roni lean just slightly against her shoulder.
It was quiet, but not empty. Like they were holding something heavy between them neither could name.
Just weight shared.
And Arianna knew better than most—that kind of stillness could hold more pain than any scream.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Toni seated two rows back, back straight, jaw set. Her hand rested on her thigh, fingers twitching with tension she wasn’t even trying to hide. That tension had been there since the morning. Since the ride. Since Baton Rouge, really.
Arianna exhaled softly, turning her focus back to the girl beside her.
Roni wiped at her cheek, even though no tears were falling.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Arianna didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
The choir began another verse, the melody slow and reverent. Outside the stained glass, sunlight bent at awkward angles, painting fragments of red and gold across the aisle.
Roni straightened her back, just a little.
And Arianna reached over, without saying a word, and took her hand.
…
The graveyard didn’t hum with grief. It sat with it. Still. Swollen with it. The earth, soggy from the last rain, pulled at dress shoes and heels like it had a right to claim whoever walked across it.
The heat was indifferent, pressing on them like it didn’t know they were grieving. There was no breeze. Just the quiet shuffle of feet and the occasional whisper from someone too weary to pretend they had more to say.
Reg’s casket hung above the open grave, the weight of it balanced across faded green straps and rusted steel braces. It looked like a lie. All satin trim and polished wood, like a man could be made clean in death just because the world didn’t want to remember the mess.
Royce stood near the head of it, hands flexing slowly at his sides.
He hadn’t gone up at the church. Hadn’t looked in. Couldn’t. The last memory he had of Reg already didn’t belong in a suit. He wasn’t going to replace it with some hollow, powdered version of his brother.
Mike stepped beside him, not speaking, just adjusting his grip as the funeral director gestured to the handles. Their cousins—Sheldon, known since middle school as “Doodoo,” and Mitchell—flanked the other side, neither dressed for cameras or scrutiny. Two more stepped forward, Reg’s people, the kind of men whose eyes didn’t stop moving, whose bodies twitched every so often like they were still listening for the next hit. One’s hands trembled the entire walk to the burial plot.
No one said anything when they hoisted the casket.
Just lift, step, lower.
Six men carrying memory, regret, and obligation to a hole dug too shallow for all it represented.
When they set the casket on the supports above the grave, the preacher’s voice rose over the crowd again—measured, solemn, filtered through heat and habit.
“We commit this body to the ground—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to—”
A sharp sound broke the rhythm.
Thud.
Royce had already stepped forward, crouched, and picked up a clump of sun-dried dirt. He tossed it into the grave with no fanfare, no hesitation. The preacher paused, only briefly, before continuing.
The dirt hit the casket with a soft, hollow impact.
One sound. One moment. Then silence again.
Royce didn’t linger. He dusted his palm on the side of his trousers and turned from the hole like he’d just checked something off a list. Like it was a job. Like you showed up, did the work, and left before anyone saw the cracks.
But instead of heading straight for the car, he veered left.
Toward the far row of graves. The one shaded by the single crooked oak. The grass was patchier here, the soil sunken in spots. But he found the one he needed without looking too hard.
Rome.
Still marked with flowers so old they’d dried and curled into themselves. A Saints pendant hung off the edge of the headstone. Royce crouched down, his knees cracking slightly, and tapped the top of the stone with his fingers—twice.
He didn’t say anything.
What was there to say? Everything worth saying was buried already.
Last time I was here, I couldn’t even walk. They rolled me in like I was already halfway in the fucking ground myself.
The bullet wounds still ached sometimes. Not sharp. Just enough to remind him. Especially on days like this.
He exhaled once, stood back up, and looked out across the cemetery.
The sounds behind him—people crying softly, folding chairs scraping against grass, babies fussing in the heat—blurred into a low hum.
He didn’t look back at Reg’s grave.
He just walked.
Down the sloping hill, past the old fence line, across gravel that crunched beneath every step. His suit still sharp, hands dusty, jaw tight.
He reached the car, popped the door, and slid inside.
For a moment, he just sat there. Hands on the wheel. Engine off.
Then he started it.
And left the graveyard in his rearview mirror, like he always knew he would.
…
The cemetery was just behind the church, where the ground softened with water beneath the grass and the wind carried the smell of cypress and motor oil. There was no real shade. It was the kind of heat that made sorrow feel physical—like it was sitting on your chest, and the preacher’s voice strained against the wind like it was fighting to stay in the air.
Toni stood next to Arianna near the second row, just behind the folding chairs reserved for immediate family. Her arms hung loose at her sides, but her spine stayed straight. Her heels sank a little into the earth, but she didn’t move. She didn’t sway. Just held the space like someone bracing for impact.
The casket was suspended above the open grave. The straps holding it looked too thin. Too fragile for what they carried.
The preacher read scripture in a steady cadence, but it sounded far away to Toni. Like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Arianna sniffled softly beside her, wiping under her eyes with the back of her hand. She hadn’t cried much during the service—not out loud—but her silence had deepened, stretched thin in a way that made Toni want to reach out.
So she stood there. Close enough to be leaned on, if needed.
But not pressing.
Because she knew sometimes comfort meant saying nothing. Just being there when the floor drops out.
Toni’s eyes drifted to the casket again. The top was closed. She hadn’t looked inside when they’d offered the chance at the church. She stayed back. Closed caskets felt more honest than ones dressed in disguise.
The preacher shifted into the closing prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven…
Toni didn’t close her eyes.
But her lips moved.
Softly, slowly.
Hallowed be thy name…
She hadn’t said the Lord’s Prayer in years—not since before her aunt died, when her grandmother still made them go to service every other Sunday. But the words hadn’t left her. They floated up now like old bones, familiar and unwelcome.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…
The wind picked up, stirring the trees in the distance. Someone coughed behind her. Somewhere to the left, a baby let out a small cry that was quickly hushed.
Toni didn’t turn.
She just mouthed the words, eyes steady on the casket as it was slowly, gently lowered down.
…on earth as it is in heaven.
Arianna’s hand found hers halfway through the prayer, a quiet slip of fingers against palm. No squeeze. No pull.
Just a tether.
Toni didn’t look at her. She just held on.
The preacher’s voice fell quiet. The breeze returned. The straps slackened as the casket came to rest.
There was no dramatic sobbing. No final speeches. Just the hush of family looking down into a space none of them could fill.
One by one, people dropped flowers into the grave. A white rose. A crumpled note. A photo.
Toni didn’t bring anything.
She stood there with empty hands and a heart full of contradictions, feeling the weight of mourning someone she never really knew—just knew of. Knew around. And knew what he left behind.
When it was done, she and Arianna didn’t speak.
They just turned, shoulders brushing, and walked back toward the car. Quiet.
Together.
~~~~~~~~~~
Back in the yard where the repast had taken shape, even with the sun gone, the air clung like guilt—thick, sour, and unshakable. It hung in the air like something sour, turning sweat sticky and clothes uncomfortable. Kids darted between folding chairs, the sounds of fried food and slow music mixing with murmured condolences and paper plates scraping clean.
The repast was quieter than most. Not silent—just… subdued. Like no one knew how loud they were supposed to be when the man they’d buried had burned through his life and left nothing in his wake but tension and a half-dozen unspoken apologies.
Royce sat on the porch steps, a foam plate resting on his knee, barely touched. The black slacks of his suit were creased now, sweat clinging beneath the collar of his shirt. He leaned forward, elbows on thighs, watching the cars lining the narrow driveway.
Beside him, Arianna picked through her food without eating it, fork clinking gently against Styrofoam. Toni sat on the other side, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded, sunglasses still on even though the sun had nearly set. Mike leaned against the porch column behind them, nursing a beer he’d barely sipped.
They weren’t talking. They didn’t need to.
Royce’s eyes narrowed.
Across the yard, near his Corvette, three of Reg’s old friends huddled around the passenger side. One had a hand on the roof. Another kept glancing through the tinted window like he was casing a place, even here, even now. The third was leaning too close, cigarette ash dangling from his lip.
“Man, come on,” Royce muttered, setting the plate down with a sharp plastic clatter.
Arianna looked up. “What—?”
But he was already off the porch.
Mike straightened, setting his beer on the rail. Toni’s arms uncrossed slowly. Arianna stood halfway, eyes following Royce across the yard.
He walked fast, hands already balled into fists.
“Yo!” Royce barked.
The men turned, half-surprised, half-faded. One of them smirked like he didn’t realize yet how bad this was about to go.
Royce didn’t stop to negotiate.
He grabbed the nearest man by the collar—thin, sweaty, and slurring something about just admiring the rims—and threw him down hard enough to make gravel skitter in all directions.
The other two backed up quick.
“Get y’all crackhead asses away from my car before I bury one of y’all next to him.”
The words sliced the air clean in half. Loud enough for the music to pause. Loud enough for people inside to turn and peer through the screen door.
The man on the ground scrabbled backward, hands up, face stunned and dusty. One of the others muttered something about not meaning no harm.
“I don’t give a fuck what you meant,” Royce spat. “Fuck from round my shit.”
They did.
Without another word, Royce turned on his heel and walked back toward the porch, shoulders heaving slightly. His hands flexed like they were still trying to calm down.
He climbed the steps, dropped back onto the wooden slat, and picked up his plate again.
Didn’t say anything.
Just started eating, stabbing a fork into a cold piece of fried chicken like nothing had happened.
The silence wrapped around them again, heavier now.
…
Arianna stood with her arms drawn tight, like bracing against a storm she’d already weathered too many times. Her eyes never left Royce as he stormed across the yard. The stomp of his dress shoes, the way his hand closed around that man’s collar, the fury in his voice—it wasn’t new to her.
It was too familiar.
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Just watched.
Like she’d done before, back when they were kids and Royce would square up with whoever talked sideways to Rome in the lunchroom. Or when he punched a hole in the drywall at Ma Beulah’s because Reg stole cash from Roni’s backpack. That same storm. That same heat behind the eyes. The kind that left nothing in its wake but silence and a tight throat.
Toni stood beside her, one step behind. Her arms stayed folded, but her hands kept moving—small restless twitches, like her body remembered something she didn’t want to name. Her jaw was tight, but it wasn’t Royce she flinched from—it was recognition. Because she’d seen the same kind of fuse in Deshawn. The same sharpness in the way Royce moved. The same crack in the air when someone who already carries too much finally drops what little they have left.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t shift. Just stayed there, back straight, breath steady, fingers digging slightly into her own sides until Royce walked back and sat down.
Even then, she didn’t speak.
Because what was there to say?
The music had picked back up, quietly now. A cousin cracked open a beer with a loud hiss. Somewhere in the back someone laughed too hard, trying to cut the tension with noise.
But Mike was nowhere near the noise.
He sat on the hood of a faded silver Crown Vic at the edge of the driveway, legs dangling over the side, paper cup untouched in his hands. His suit jacket was off, dress shirt wrinkled at the sleeves. His eyes didn’t follow Royce’s blow-up. They stayed fixed on the people—Reg’s old friends slinking away, the way heads turned, how everyone just went back to eating like violence was a side dish.
His jaw was set. Hard.
Like if he unclenched it, something would spill out.
Later, Arianna walked across the yard and climbed up beside him without saying a word. She sat on the hood next to him, careful not to knock his elbow. The cicadas had started humming again. The sky was fading from gold to something bruised.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
Mike didn’t look at her.
He blinked, slowly. Then shook his head once.
“I’ve carried too many of these damn coffins, Ari.”
His voice wasn’t angry. It was tired. Frayed.
“First Rome. Now Reg.” He let the silence stretch before finishing. “I keep seeing them in each other’s place.”
Arianna’s shoulders slumped slightly.
Mike stared at the yard, eyes far away. “Some nights… I still hear the shots,” he said. “I wake up thinking I’m back there. That it’s happening all over again. Then I blink, and it’s just the fan clicking in my room.”
Arianna nodded, her own eyes damp now. “You ever talk to anybody about it?”
“Only ghosts,” he muttered.
Neither spoke. But the silence between them was loud, stretched tight with everything they didn’t want to say.
The repast carried on behind them. But the weight of it all had already settled here, on the hood of an old car, with the boy who kept losing pieces of his world and the girl who knew how to stay.
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 7818
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
One of the best updates in a while (no shade). That was heat.
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16791
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Some updates are the bricks, others are the house. No shade takenCaptain Canada wrote: ↑02 Jun 2025, 22:52One of the best updates in a while (no shade). That was heat.
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16791
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Borrowed Time
The girl’s name was… Cassie. Or maybe Cara. Something with a C.
Royce couldn’t remember.
He knew her handle—@claire_justice—but not the name she’d said when they met outside the smoothie shop off Government Street that morning. She was white, with straight blonde hair pulled into a low braid and little gold hoops in her ears. Soft-spoken but quick with a joke. Pre-law, she’d told him. Wanted to be the kind of lawyer that actually helped kids, not just put them in front of judges.
He liked that.
Or maybe he just liked the way she talked about it—confident, like she already believed in a better world.
“So wait,” she asked, legs crossed in the passenger seat of his Corvette as he merged onto I-10, “you really don’t remember my name?”
Royce grinned, eyes on the road. “Of course I do, Callie.”
She laughed. “Wow.”
He glanced over. “What?”
“It’s Claire.”
He snapped his fingers. “I knew it started with a C.”
“You said Courtney when we were in line at the register.”
“I was close.”
She shook her head but didn’t seem mad. Just amused. She looked out the window and said, “I should be offended.”
“You should,” he agreed. “But you’re not.”
Claire smirked. “I’m trying to decide if that’s because I like you or because I’m bored.”
Royce laughed, but it didn’t carry far. Not past the windshield. Not past the ache in his chest that still hadn’t gone away.
They ended up walking the levee downtown, where the sun hit the Mississippi hard and bright. She asked about his major. He lied and said sociology. She told him about a class she was taking on juvenile justice and how she didn’t think the system was broken—it was working exactly how it was designed to.
He nodded, letting her talk.
She didn’t ask about football. Didn’t bring up the draft, or why he’d missed practice yesterday. She just matched his pace and asked what he thought the graffiti on the flood wall meant.
He made something up about rebirth and resilience.
“That’s bullshit,” she said, grinning. And he smiled too, because it was.
They got lunch at a spot near LSU’s north gates. She knew the girl at the counter and got them a discount. He called her Casey this time. She didn’t correct him until they were walking back to the car.
“It’s Claire,” she said again. Softer this time.
“Right,” he said. “My bad.”
“It’s okay.”
She said it like she meant it. Then added, “Most people only learn your name when they plan to remember you.”
He didn’t respond.
They drove around after that. Through Spanish Town. Past shotgun houses with chipped paint and Halloween decorations still clinging to the eaves. At one point, she kicked off her sandals and tucked her legs beneath her, humming along to a playlist he hadn’t touched since the summer.
“Do you ever let yourself just… stop?” she asked, staring out the window.
He shrugged. “Don’t really have time to.”
“But today you did.”
He didn’t say anything.
They parked near the LSU lakes just before sunset. Sat on the hood of the car with slushie cups sweating beside them and the scent of swamp water clinging to the air.
“I used to come here when I needed to cry,” she said, watching the water ripple.
Royce raised an eyebrow. “You planning on doing that now?”
“No.” A pause. “You might, though.”
He scoffed, but it was quieter than it should’ve been.
Claire didn’t push. Just kept her eyes on the lake. “Whoever he was,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
Royce didn’t answer.
She didn’t ask again.
They sat there through dusk. Through silence. Through all the things he wasn’t ready to talk about.
He dropped her off a little after eight. She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked over at him.
“You gonna text me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, Carlie.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He smirked. “Kidding. Claire.”
She smiled, for real this time.
He didn’t watch her walk inside.
Just waited until the door shut behind her. Then leaned back in the seat, one hand on the wheel, and let the quiet settle.
Not heavy. Not peaceful.
Just quiet.
~~~~~~~~~~
The projector clicked. A low mechanical sound that filled the stillness of the room as Effie’s collage settled onto the screen.
Abandoned buildings. Rusting jungle gyms. A pink tricycle on its side in a patch of dead grass, its plastic sun-faded and one handlebar missing. An old storefront with plywood windows and a sign that read CLOSED FOR GOOD in red spray paint. A baby doll, headless, sitting upright against a chain-link fence.
Ten photographs in all. Baton Rouge corners that most people didn’t notice unless they had to.
She didn’t speak as they came into focus.
The seminar room stayed quiet longer than usual. Then came the first voice—Dr. Mattix, her photo professor, leaning back with one ankle propped on his knee.
“It’s... evocative,” he said, tapping a pen against his chin. “But it feels more like sociology than art. Documentary in spirit. Less… interpretive. Was that intentional?”
Effie blinked once. “I don’t know if I believe in the line between the two.”
A few students chuckled lightly. Someone muttered “touché.”
Mattix smiled without smiling. “Interesting.”
Then from across the table, a girl named Maya—long braids, graphic tee, the kind of person always ready with a hot take—tilted her head and said, “All your stuff looks like grief.”
Effie didn’t flinch.
She looked at the projection, then at Maya, and said softly: “That’s what I thought it looked like too.”
Silence again.
No one argued.
They moved on to the next critique, and Effie didn’t speak for the rest of class. She just watched as someone else’s photographs filled the screen—cool-toned stills of a boyfriend’s bedroom, sunlight across linen sheets—and she let her mind float.
Not away. Just beneath.
After class, she packed slowly. Most people were already gone, their voices echoing down the hallway. She was sliding her camera into its case when she felt someone stop beside her.
It was a boy—quiet, usually sat two seats to her left, always wore hoodies no matter how hot it got. His name might’ve been Marcus. Or Mario. She wasn’t sure.
He cleared his throat once, then said: “Your stuff… it stuck with me. The photo with the shoe in the street. That one especially.”
She looked up at him. He didn’t meet her eyes, just watched her hands packing her gear.
“Thanks,” she said, voice low but steady.
He nodded and walked off without waiting for anything else.
She watched him go, then zipped the case closed and headed out into the humidity.
…
That night, the apartment was quiet except for the occasional creak of pipes and the hum of the fridge. Effie sat cross-legged on her bed, thumbnails of her photos open on her laptop. She didn’t touch the keyboard. Just stared.
Kelsey knocked lightly on her door and leaned in with a glass of wine.
“Hey,” she said. “Couple girls I know are throwing a party Friday. They said to bring people.”
Effie looked up. She was still in a T-shirt from class, oversized and stretched at the collar. Her hair was pulled into a loose puff, her eyes rimmed faintly with the kind of tired that doesn’t come from lack of sleep.
“A party?”
“Yeah. Rooftop. Vibe-y. You wanna come?”
Effie’s fingers curled slightly over the edge of the laptop. She felt something tighten in her chest—just a flicker—and then she smoothed it out with a practiced breath.
“Nah,” she said with a half-smile. “Thanks though.”
Kelsey looked at her for a second too long, like she saw something she wasn’t supposed to. Then she smiled and backed out of the doorway. “Next time, then.”
Effie nodded. “Next time.”
She waited until the door clicked shut before turning her eyes back to the screen.
The baby doll was still staring.
Or maybe just the space where its head used to be.
~~~~~~~~~~
The echo of the ball hitting hardwood was the only sound in the gym.
Not the main court—the side one, tucked near the exit, where nobody went unless they were trying not to be seen. Royce liked it for that reason. No teammates, no trainers, no strength coaches pacing behind him with whistles and clipboards. Just the echo, the weight of the ball in his palms, and the rim giving him something to aim at.
He wasn’t even keeping score. Just rebound, reset, release.
The ball rattled out.
He jogged after it and snatched it one-handed as it rolled toward the wall.
Then came a voice behind him—low, steady, familiar.
“I figured you’d be here.”
Royce turned, ball tucked under his arm. “Didn’t realize you tracked gym habits.”
Chance Delpit stood near the bleachers, black quarter-zip and slacks, hands in his pockets like he had all the time in the world.
“I track people I invest in,” Delpit said. “You’re not hard to find when you stop pretending you’re fine.”
Royce dribbled once. “You hear something?”
Delpit took a slow step forward. “I heard about your brother.”
The words landed soft, but they didn’t miss. Royce let the ball bounce, once, then again.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You got a clipping. Some keyword alert.”
Delpit nodded. “Exactly that.”
Royce caught the ball again and walked to the top of the key. He set his feet, rose, and shot. Rimmed out. Didn’t matter.
“I ain’t a damn charity case,” Royce said. “So if this is the part where you give me the tragic-figure talk, save it.”
Delpit didn’t flinch. “I’m not here to lecture you.”
“Then what you here for?”
Delpit’s eyes were steady. “You’re running around like you’re chasing ghosts.”
Royce caught the ball on the bounce and held it. “And?”
“That ain’t grief,” Delpit said. “That’s guilt.”
Royce turned the ball over in his hands. “Ain’t much difference.”
“There is,” Delpit said, quieter now. “One hurts. The other follows you home.”
That sat between them, untouched.
Royce turned and took another shot. Swished this time. No celebration. No shift in expression.
He walked past Delpit on his way to retrieve it.
“Then maybe I got both,” he muttered.
Delpit looked at him, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said.
Royce didn’t stop. Just kept shooting. Kept moving.
Because standing still felt worse than anything else.
~~~~~~~~~~
Alix was halfway through organizing brand assets for the Doucet campaign when her phone buzzed twice, then again—short, clipped vibrations on the desk. She glanced over but didn’t reach for it. The number wasn’t saved, and she was already behind on edits.
Then it buzzed a fourth time.
With a sigh, she finally picked it up.
Hey. I don’t know if you’ll want to respond. But it’s Arianna.
Alix blinked.
It took a second for the name to settle into place. She hadn’t seen it in her messages in… years.
Another message appeared.
I know it’s random. Just… can you call me for a second?
Alix stared at the screen.
Then she stood up, slid her phone into her palm, and slipped quietly out the glass doors of the agency. Outside, the heat hit her in waves, sticky and pulsing, the sidewalk too bright.
She hit “Call.”
Two rings.
“Hey,” Arianna said. Her voice was calm, low. Not warm, not cold—just intentional.
Alix didn’t bother easing into it. “I don’t know if you know, but… Royce and I broke up. Last year.”
“I know,” Arianna said. “Jonah told me.”
Alix nodded, more to herself than anything else. “Okay. Just… I didn’t want this to be awkward.”
“It’s not,” Arianna said. “I’m not calling about you and him.”
A beat passed. A breeze stirred the trees across the street. Alix waited.
“It’s his brother,” Arianna said. “Reg. He died.”
Alix’s mouth parted slightly. “Oh.”
She paused, brow furrowing. “I didn’t know him.”
“I know,” Arianna replied. “Most people didn’t. But Royce did. And it’s… it’s hitting him.”
Alix exhaled through her nose. She leaned against the brick wall beside the door. “Is he okay?”
“No,” Arianna said. “But he’s acting like he is. And I get it—you’re not together. You don’t owe him anything. But y’all were close. For a long time. I thought maybe—”
Alix cut her off. Not unkindly. Just tired. “I don’t think I’m the person he wants to hear from right now.”
“Maybe not,” Arianna said. “But you might be the one he needs to.”
Alix looked out at the street. Someone honked in the distance. A bus groaned around a corner. It was strange, how fast the world moved, even when something heavy dropped into it.
She rubbed a hand across her temple.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “But no promises.”
“That’s fair.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
“Thanks for picking up,” Arianna said.
Alix hesitated. “Thanks for… saying something.”
They hung up, and Alix stood in the shade for another minute, arms crossed over her chest, the phone still in her hand. She didn’t move, didn’t speak—just stared at the sidewalk like it might tell her what to do next.
It didn’t.
So she turned and walked back inside.
The girl’s name was… Cassie. Or maybe Cara. Something with a C.
Royce couldn’t remember.
He knew her handle—@claire_justice—but not the name she’d said when they met outside the smoothie shop off Government Street that morning. She was white, with straight blonde hair pulled into a low braid and little gold hoops in her ears. Soft-spoken but quick with a joke. Pre-law, she’d told him. Wanted to be the kind of lawyer that actually helped kids, not just put them in front of judges.
He liked that.
Or maybe he just liked the way she talked about it—confident, like she already believed in a better world.
“So wait,” she asked, legs crossed in the passenger seat of his Corvette as he merged onto I-10, “you really don’t remember my name?”
Royce grinned, eyes on the road. “Of course I do, Callie.”
She laughed. “Wow.”
He glanced over. “What?”
“It’s Claire.”
He snapped his fingers. “I knew it started with a C.”
“You said Courtney when we were in line at the register.”
“I was close.”
She shook her head but didn’t seem mad. Just amused. She looked out the window and said, “I should be offended.”
“You should,” he agreed. “But you’re not.”
Claire smirked. “I’m trying to decide if that’s because I like you or because I’m bored.”
Royce laughed, but it didn’t carry far. Not past the windshield. Not past the ache in his chest that still hadn’t gone away.
They ended up walking the levee downtown, where the sun hit the Mississippi hard and bright. She asked about his major. He lied and said sociology. She told him about a class she was taking on juvenile justice and how she didn’t think the system was broken—it was working exactly how it was designed to.
He nodded, letting her talk.
She didn’t ask about football. Didn’t bring up the draft, or why he’d missed practice yesterday. She just matched his pace and asked what he thought the graffiti on the flood wall meant.
He made something up about rebirth and resilience.
“That’s bullshit,” she said, grinning. And he smiled too, because it was.
They got lunch at a spot near LSU’s north gates. She knew the girl at the counter and got them a discount. He called her Casey this time. She didn’t correct him until they were walking back to the car.
“It’s Claire,” she said again. Softer this time.
“Right,” he said. “My bad.”
“It’s okay.”
She said it like she meant it. Then added, “Most people only learn your name when they plan to remember you.”
He didn’t respond.
They drove around after that. Through Spanish Town. Past shotgun houses with chipped paint and Halloween decorations still clinging to the eaves. At one point, she kicked off her sandals and tucked her legs beneath her, humming along to a playlist he hadn’t touched since the summer.
“Do you ever let yourself just… stop?” she asked, staring out the window.
He shrugged. “Don’t really have time to.”
“But today you did.”
He didn’t say anything.
They parked near the LSU lakes just before sunset. Sat on the hood of the car with slushie cups sweating beside them and the scent of swamp water clinging to the air.
“I used to come here when I needed to cry,” she said, watching the water ripple.
Royce raised an eyebrow. “You planning on doing that now?”
“No.” A pause. “You might, though.”
He scoffed, but it was quieter than it should’ve been.
Claire didn’t push. Just kept her eyes on the lake. “Whoever he was,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
Royce didn’t answer.
She didn’t ask again.
They sat there through dusk. Through silence. Through all the things he wasn’t ready to talk about.
He dropped her off a little after eight. She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked over at him.
“You gonna text me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, Carlie.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He smirked. “Kidding. Claire.”
She smiled, for real this time.
He didn’t watch her walk inside.
Just waited until the door shut behind her. Then leaned back in the seat, one hand on the wheel, and let the quiet settle.
Not heavy. Not peaceful.
Just quiet.
~~~~~~~~~~
The projector clicked. A low mechanical sound that filled the stillness of the room as Effie’s collage settled onto the screen.
Abandoned buildings. Rusting jungle gyms. A pink tricycle on its side in a patch of dead grass, its plastic sun-faded and one handlebar missing. An old storefront with plywood windows and a sign that read CLOSED FOR GOOD in red spray paint. A baby doll, headless, sitting upright against a chain-link fence.
Ten photographs in all. Baton Rouge corners that most people didn’t notice unless they had to.
She didn’t speak as they came into focus.
The seminar room stayed quiet longer than usual. Then came the first voice—Dr. Mattix, her photo professor, leaning back with one ankle propped on his knee.
“It’s... evocative,” he said, tapping a pen against his chin. “But it feels more like sociology than art. Documentary in spirit. Less… interpretive. Was that intentional?”
Effie blinked once. “I don’t know if I believe in the line between the two.”
A few students chuckled lightly. Someone muttered “touché.”
Mattix smiled without smiling. “Interesting.”
Then from across the table, a girl named Maya—long braids, graphic tee, the kind of person always ready with a hot take—tilted her head and said, “All your stuff looks like grief.”
Effie didn’t flinch.
She looked at the projection, then at Maya, and said softly: “That’s what I thought it looked like too.”
Silence again.
No one argued.
They moved on to the next critique, and Effie didn’t speak for the rest of class. She just watched as someone else’s photographs filled the screen—cool-toned stills of a boyfriend’s bedroom, sunlight across linen sheets—and she let her mind float.
Not away. Just beneath.
After class, she packed slowly. Most people were already gone, their voices echoing down the hallway. She was sliding her camera into its case when she felt someone stop beside her.
It was a boy—quiet, usually sat two seats to her left, always wore hoodies no matter how hot it got. His name might’ve been Marcus. Or Mario. She wasn’t sure.
He cleared his throat once, then said: “Your stuff… it stuck with me. The photo with the shoe in the street. That one especially.”
She looked up at him. He didn’t meet her eyes, just watched her hands packing her gear.
“Thanks,” she said, voice low but steady.
He nodded and walked off without waiting for anything else.
She watched him go, then zipped the case closed and headed out into the humidity.
…
That night, the apartment was quiet except for the occasional creak of pipes and the hum of the fridge. Effie sat cross-legged on her bed, thumbnails of her photos open on her laptop. She didn’t touch the keyboard. Just stared.
Kelsey knocked lightly on her door and leaned in with a glass of wine.
“Hey,” she said. “Couple girls I know are throwing a party Friday. They said to bring people.”
Effie looked up. She was still in a T-shirt from class, oversized and stretched at the collar. Her hair was pulled into a loose puff, her eyes rimmed faintly with the kind of tired that doesn’t come from lack of sleep.
“A party?”
“Yeah. Rooftop. Vibe-y. You wanna come?”
Effie’s fingers curled slightly over the edge of the laptop. She felt something tighten in her chest—just a flicker—and then she smoothed it out with a practiced breath.
“Nah,” she said with a half-smile. “Thanks though.”
Kelsey looked at her for a second too long, like she saw something she wasn’t supposed to. Then she smiled and backed out of the doorway. “Next time, then.”
Effie nodded. “Next time.”
She waited until the door clicked shut before turning her eyes back to the screen.
The baby doll was still staring.
Or maybe just the space where its head used to be.
~~~~~~~~~~
The echo of the ball hitting hardwood was the only sound in the gym.
Not the main court—the side one, tucked near the exit, where nobody went unless they were trying not to be seen. Royce liked it for that reason. No teammates, no trainers, no strength coaches pacing behind him with whistles and clipboards. Just the echo, the weight of the ball in his palms, and the rim giving him something to aim at.
He wasn’t even keeping score. Just rebound, reset, release.
The ball rattled out.
He jogged after it and snatched it one-handed as it rolled toward the wall.
Then came a voice behind him—low, steady, familiar.
“I figured you’d be here.”
Royce turned, ball tucked under his arm. “Didn’t realize you tracked gym habits.”
Chance Delpit stood near the bleachers, black quarter-zip and slacks, hands in his pockets like he had all the time in the world.
“I track people I invest in,” Delpit said. “You’re not hard to find when you stop pretending you’re fine.”
Royce dribbled once. “You hear something?”
Delpit took a slow step forward. “I heard about your brother.”
The words landed soft, but they didn’t miss. Royce let the ball bounce, once, then again.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You got a clipping. Some keyword alert.”
Delpit nodded. “Exactly that.”
Royce caught the ball again and walked to the top of the key. He set his feet, rose, and shot. Rimmed out. Didn’t matter.
“I ain’t a damn charity case,” Royce said. “So if this is the part where you give me the tragic-figure talk, save it.”
Delpit didn’t flinch. “I’m not here to lecture you.”
“Then what you here for?”
Delpit’s eyes were steady. “You’re running around like you’re chasing ghosts.”
Royce caught the ball on the bounce and held it. “And?”
“That ain’t grief,” Delpit said. “That’s guilt.”
Royce turned the ball over in his hands. “Ain’t much difference.”
“There is,” Delpit said, quieter now. “One hurts. The other follows you home.”
That sat between them, untouched.
Royce turned and took another shot. Swished this time. No celebration. No shift in expression.
He walked past Delpit on his way to retrieve it.
“Then maybe I got both,” he muttered.
Delpit looked at him, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said.
Royce didn’t stop. Just kept shooting. Kept moving.
Because standing still felt worse than anything else.
~~~~~~~~~~
Alix was halfway through organizing brand assets for the Doucet campaign when her phone buzzed twice, then again—short, clipped vibrations on the desk. She glanced over but didn’t reach for it. The number wasn’t saved, and she was already behind on edits.
Then it buzzed a fourth time.
With a sigh, she finally picked it up.
Hey. I don’t know if you’ll want to respond. But it’s Arianna.
Alix blinked.
It took a second for the name to settle into place. She hadn’t seen it in her messages in… years.
Another message appeared.
I know it’s random. Just… can you call me for a second?
Alix stared at the screen.
Then she stood up, slid her phone into her palm, and slipped quietly out the glass doors of the agency. Outside, the heat hit her in waves, sticky and pulsing, the sidewalk too bright.
She hit “Call.”
Two rings.
“Hey,” Arianna said. Her voice was calm, low. Not warm, not cold—just intentional.
Alix didn’t bother easing into it. “I don’t know if you know, but… Royce and I broke up. Last year.”
“I know,” Arianna said. “Jonah told me.”
Alix nodded, more to herself than anything else. “Okay. Just… I didn’t want this to be awkward.”
“It’s not,” Arianna said. “I’m not calling about you and him.”
A beat passed. A breeze stirred the trees across the street. Alix waited.
“It’s his brother,” Arianna said. “Reg. He died.”
Alix’s mouth parted slightly. “Oh.”
She paused, brow furrowing. “I didn’t know him.”
“I know,” Arianna replied. “Most people didn’t. But Royce did. And it’s… it’s hitting him.”
Alix exhaled through her nose. She leaned against the brick wall beside the door. “Is he okay?”
“No,” Arianna said. “But he’s acting like he is. And I get it—you’re not together. You don’t owe him anything. But y’all were close. For a long time. I thought maybe—”
Alix cut her off. Not unkindly. Just tired. “I don’t think I’m the person he wants to hear from right now.”
“Maybe not,” Arianna said. “But you might be the one he needs to.”
Alix looked out at the street. Someone honked in the distance. A bus groaned around a corner. It was strange, how fast the world moved, even when something heavy dropped into it.
She rubbed a hand across her temple.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “But no promises.”
“That’s fair.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
“Thanks for picking up,” Arianna said.
Alix hesitated. “Thanks for… saying something.”
They hung up, and Alix stood in the shade for another minute, arms crossed over her chest, the phone still in her hand. She didn’t move, didn’t speak—just stared at the sidewalk like it might tell her what to do next.
It didn’t.
So she turned and walked back inside.
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 7818
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
He needs a therapist. not his ex-girlfriend. #FreeAlix
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16791
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Someone gotta be able to tell him that. Someone he gonna listen to
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16791
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Smoke and Mirrors
It was a leftover kind of lunch—kale salad in one bowl, reheated pasta in the other, both girls sitting cross-legged on the couch in their shared apartment, legs tangled around throw pillows and a shared blanket neither of them folded anymore.
Madi had just gotten back from class and dropped her bag near the door like always, half-zipped and trailing notes. Her hair was in a frizzy ponytail, hoodie oversized, face bare.
Alix was already home—laptop closed but nearby, her planner open on the coffee table beside a half-finished LaCroix.
“I swear,” she said, picking at her salad, “if one more client emails me with the words circle back in it, I might actually lose it.”
Madi looked up from her bowl. “Didn’t you just finish two campaigns this week?”
“Yeah,” Alix said. “And now they’ve all decided they want revisions—which really means ‘change everything but don’t change anything.’”
“Oof.”
“It’s like this constant low-level whiplash. Every time I wrap up one ask, two more land in my inbox. I can’t tell where the finish line is anymore.”
Madi stabbed her fork into the pasta and grinned. “You’re not allowed to be overwhelmed—you’re the one with her shit together.”
Alix scoffed and set her bowl down. “You say that like it’s a real thing.”
“It’s your brand, babe. Efficient. Organized. One of those people who keeps a color-coded calendar and drinks water before coffee.”
“I do drink water before coffee.”
“Exactly.”
Alix laughed and leaned back, her head falling against the couch cushion. “It’s all smoke and mirrors. I’ve just mastered the art of mid-functioning panic.”
Madi offered her a lazy toast with her fork. “To high-functioning imposters.”
“Cheers.”
They clinked utensils and finished their lunch without rushing. The apartment buzzed with the distant hum of traffic, the clink of a neighbor’s windchime outside the window. Madi eventually wandered back to her room, and Alix lingered in the living room for a moment longer—bare feet tucked beneath her, bowl resting empty beside her laptop.
…
That night, in her room, Alix sat curled up in bed beneath her linen blanket, an old journal balanced against her knees. The lamp beside her glowed warm and soft, the rest of the apartment dim and still.
She uncapped her pen.
She didn’t write much—never more than a few lines at a time. Just enough to mark the moment, like drawing breath on a page.
I don’t think strength always feels like confidence. Sometimes it just feels like not quitting.
She paused, looked at the sentence.
Then underlined not quitting once. Lightly.
She closed the journal and set it beside her pillow. Somewhere out in the kitchen, the fridge hummed to life. She closed her eyes.
It wasn’t peace exactly. But it was enough.
~~~~~~~~~~
The apartment was quiet. Not the comfortable kind, not the restful kind—but the heavy, breath-holding sort. Arianna sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop open in front of her, its glow spilling across her legs. The Word doc had been sitting idle for twenty minutes. The title: No One Teaches You Silence.
Below it, just a few lines.
He said it wasn’t a problem if it helped him sleep.
The bottle rattled louder than his voice.
I asked what he was dreaming of.
He said: quieter rooms.
Her fingers hovered over the keys.
She didn’t write the next line.
Instead, she reached for her phone.
The texts with Reg were still there. She’d never deleted them. Some were months apart, others clustered within a single hour. Most didn’t make sense—misspelled, missing punctuation, whole thoughts bent sideways. Some were voice notes, warbled and full of static. Some just said yo. One of them asked if she could “front him till Friday.” Friday never came.
She scrolled.
Found one that made her stop.
u kno u was the only one who laughed at my jokes even when they wasn’t funny
Another one, sent at 2:47 a.m. a few months later:
this world don't want ppl like me to rest
but you be safe tho
Arianna sat back, thumb pressed against the edge of the phone. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. She’d done enough of that already—at the service, at the grave, on the ride home with Toni beside her, saying nothing but breathing like she knew.
She copied one line from one of the earlier messages. Not his words. Hers.
“He used to tell jokes before he learned to lie.”
She pasted it into a blank message and stared at it for a beat.
Then sent it.
First to herself. A digital post-it. Proof of the thing she didn’t want to forget.
Then she forwarded it to Jonah.
Remind me to make this a piece.
She didn’t add anything else. Didn’t explain. He’d understand. Or he wouldn’t. That part didn’t matter right now.
She locked her phone and closed the laptop without saving.
The room was still quiet. Still holding its breath.
Arianna lay back on the bed, eyes on the ceiling, the line looping in her head like a whisper from a place she didn’t want to go back to.
He used to tell jokes before he learned to lie.
She let it echo until the silence took it back.
~~~~~~~~~~
Toni didn’t mean to slow down.
She was walking across campus between classes, head down, hoodie up, earbuds in with no music playing—just a layer of insulation between her and the rest of the world. But when she turned the corner by the health center, her pace faltered.
There it was.
Counseling Services.
A white door with a narrow glass window. Flyers taped crookedly to the inside. One about managing academic burnout. Another with a picture of a cracked phone and the tagline: It’s okay to feel like this sometimes.
Toni stopped in front of it.
No one else was in the hallway.
She stepped closer and read the office hours posted on a sheet of printer paper:
Mon–Fri | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Walk-ins welcome. Appointments preferred.
Her fingers hovered near the door handle for a second. Just enough to feel the weight of the decision. Then she pulled her phone from her pocket instead and snapped a photo of the paper.
Quick. Quiet. Just in case.
Then she walked off.
Fast enough to pretend she hadn't stopped at all.
…
Deshawn was still at practice by the time she got back to the apartment. His cleats were by the door, his duffle slouched against the wall where he always tossed it. The living room was quiet—just the low hum of the fridge and the faint rattle of the air unit kicking in.
Toni kicked off her slides and dropped onto the couch, pulling her laptop to her chest like it was armor. She didn’t open schoolwork. She didn’t even check email.
She opened Zillow.
At first, it was innocent curiosity—just something to do.
Then she searched: Houston apartments under $1,200.
Then: Studio apartments in San Marcos.
Then: One-bedroom, no cosigner required.
Places with laminate floors and beige walls. Places with free parking and laundry on-site. Places with too-high rent and nothing but a balcony facing the back of another building.
She clicked through photos: dusty blinds, secondhand cabinets, a bedroom window overlooking a gas station.
She wasn’t moving. Not really.
But it felt good to pretend.
Good to think about mornings that started somewhere else. About a version of herself who didn’t jump when the front door slammed too hard. Who didn’t spend afternoons explaining missed classes to professors who’d stopped asking why.
She found one unit with a long hallway and brick painted white, string lights looped around a window frame. Probably staged. Probably gone already.
Still—she saved it.
Not because she could afford it.
But because she needed to believe she might.
She shut the laptop and sat back on the couch, the cushions swallowing her for a moment. Her phone buzzed with a practice schedule reminder Deshawn had sent earlier. She didn’t open it.
Instead, she scrolled back through her photos and stopped on the one from earlier.
The taped-up office hours. The door she didn’t walk through.
She stared at it for a long moment.
Didn’t delete it.
Didn’t zoom in.
Just let it sit there on her screen, quiet and waiting.
Like maybe next time, she’d go in.
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
But for now, at least, she had the hours.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was Tuesday afternoon when Mike knocked twice on Laila’s dorm room door and pushed it open before she could answer. The hinges groaned the same way they always did. Inside, the room was warm with the smell of lavender lotion and the faint trace of whatever candle she wasn’t supposed to be burning but always did when her RA wasn’t around.
Laila looked up from her desk, her eyes softening the moment she saw him.
“I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”
Mike closed the door behind him and dropped his duffle near the foot of her bed. “Left earlier than I thought. Traffic wasn’t bad.”
“You eat?” she asked, already standing.
“Not really.”
Laila gave him a knowing look, then walked over as he crouched beside the bag and unzipped it. He rummaged inside for a second before pulling out a small brown paper bag folded twice at the top.
He handed it to her.
“Stopped by Trosclair’s before I left,” he said. “Figured you’d want some before your daddy ate ‘em all.”
Laila’s face lit up, just a little. She opened the bag, the buttery sweetness of the pralines drifting up instantly.
“Man… you better be glad I like you,” she said, grinning as she plucked one out. “Because I was about to go a whole week pretending you didn’t exist for forgetting these.”
Mike smiled, but it was faint. Tired around the edges.
Laila’s grin faded as she chewed. She watched him quietly as he sat back against the wall, not bothering to kick off his shoes, just resting his head against the cinderblock like he needed it to keep him upright.
“You been quiet,” she said softly.
He didn’t answer at first.
She crossed the room and sat beside him, legs stretched out beside his, the bag of pralines between them.
When she reached for a hug, it was instinct. But when he pulled her in, it wasn’t casual. It wasn’t automatic.
It was long. Intentional. Still.
She leaned back just enough to see his face. “Mike?”
He exhaled once through his nose, voice low and hoarse. “I watched Reg get lowered into the ground… and all I could think about was Rome. And how close Ro came to being next.”
He didn’t look at her. Just past her, like he was seeing something that hadn’t happened yet but already haunted him.
“I feel like the people I love keep disappearing on me.”
Laila didn’t reach for a response. She didn’t tell him it was going to be okay. She didn’t try to flip the energy or lighten the moment. She just leaned in until their foreheads touched, skin to skin.
“You’re still here,” she whispered.
Mike nodded, barely.
“For now,” he said.
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
~~~~~~~~~~
The sun had barely dipped when Royce got the text. He was stretched out on his couch, the TV playing something he wasn’t watching, the remote resting untouched on his chest.
Dorian.
Yo. How you holding up?
Royce stared at the screen for a few seconds before responding.
I’m good.
Not a lie. Not exactly the truth either.
The reply came fast.
We hitting the club later. You in?
Royce let that sit. He could already picture it—loud music, fake smiles, a drink in one hand, someone he didn’t know grinding on him like they cared.
He typed:
I’mma sit this one out.
He tossed the phone onto the cushion beside him and exhaled through his nose.
A few seconds passed.
Then he picked it back up.
You tryna come through?
He didn’t have to say who he meant.
Effie replied within the minute.
Yeah. Be there soon.
…
She showed up in a cropped zip hoodie, her hair pulled back into a loose knot, and that same canvas bag she always carried like it weighed more than it did. Royce opened the door for her and stepped aside, a bottle of dark liquor already open on the kitchen counter.
“Hey,” she said, shrugging out of her jacket.
“Hey,” he replied. “Want a drink?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What kind?”
“Whatever helps me forget what day it is.”
She smirked but shook her head. “I don’t drink.”
Royce blinked, then laughed. “You serious? You go to LSU and don’t drink?”
She shrugged, wandering toward the couch. “I smoke. Weed’s never made anyone do something crazy.”
He grinned and leaned against the counter. “Fair point. You got any?”
Without missing a beat, Effie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a tightly wrapped blunt, held it up between two fingers like it was nothing.
Royce broke into a grin. “Yo. That look like some shit from back on the block. I wasn’t expecting that from you.”
She dropped onto the couch and crossed her legs. “What you expect? Me to carry a fucking bong in my tote?”
That made him laugh—really laugh—and it felt like the first time in a minute. He grabbed a lighter from a drawer and joined her on the couch, sinking into the cushion beside her.
They passed the blunt back and forth in silence at first, smoke curling between them, softening the sharp edges of the room.
After a while, Royce tilted his head toward her.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but… why you so weird?”
Effie arched an eyebrow. “I’m not weird. I’m introspective.”
“Same shit.”
She shrugged. “Therapy’ll do that to you.”
“Therapy?”
She nodded, watching the blunt burn down between her fingers. “A lot of it. Since I was like… twelve. I take anti-depressants too. Zoloft. Keeps the fog from turning into a full-on storm.”
Royce let that sit. “I heard that shit kill your sex drive.”
Effie smirked, slow and unbothered. “They say that.”
He looked at her. “So… it kill yours?”
She turned toward him fully, eyes just a little glassy from the smoke, but sharp all the same.
“I’m sure you would want to know,” she said.
They held each other’s gaze, the quiet between them stretching, warm and dense and unspoken.
The kind of silence you don’t break.
Not yet.
It was a leftover kind of lunch—kale salad in one bowl, reheated pasta in the other, both girls sitting cross-legged on the couch in their shared apartment, legs tangled around throw pillows and a shared blanket neither of them folded anymore.
Madi had just gotten back from class and dropped her bag near the door like always, half-zipped and trailing notes. Her hair was in a frizzy ponytail, hoodie oversized, face bare.
Alix was already home—laptop closed but nearby, her planner open on the coffee table beside a half-finished LaCroix.
“I swear,” she said, picking at her salad, “if one more client emails me with the words circle back in it, I might actually lose it.”
Madi looked up from her bowl. “Didn’t you just finish two campaigns this week?”
“Yeah,” Alix said. “And now they’ve all decided they want revisions—which really means ‘change everything but don’t change anything.’”
“Oof.”
“It’s like this constant low-level whiplash. Every time I wrap up one ask, two more land in my inbox. I can’t tell where the finish line is anymore.”
Madi stabbed her fork into the pasta and grinned. “You’re not allowed to be overwhelmed—you’re the one with her shit together.”
Alix scoffed and set her bowl down. “You say that like it’s a real thing.”
“It’s your brand, babe. Efficient. Organized. One of those people who keeps a color-coded calendar and drinks water before coffee.”
“I do drink water before coffee.”
“Exactly.”
Alix laughed and leaned back, her head falling against the couch cushion. “It’s all smoke and mirrors. I’ve just mastered the art of mid-functioning panic.”
Madi offered her a lazy toast with her fork. “To high-functioning imposters.”
“Cheers.”
They clinked utensils and finished their lunch without rushing. The apartment buzzed with the distant hum of traffic, the clink of a neighbor’s windchime outside the window. Madi eventually wandered back to her room, and Alix lingered in the living room for a moment longer—bare feet tucked beneath her, bowl resting empty beside her laptop.
…
That night, in her room, Alix sat curled up in bed beneath her linen blanket, an old journal balanced against her knees. The lamp beside her glowed warm and soft, the rest of the apartment dim and still.
She uncapped her pen.
She didn’t write much—never more than a few lines at a time. Just enough to mark the moment, like drawing breath on a page.
I don’t think strength always feels like confidence. Sometimes it just feels like not quitting.
She paused, looked at the sentence.
Then underlined not quitting once. Lightly.
She closed the journal and set it beside her pillow. Somewhere out in the kitchen, the fridge hummed to life. She closed her eyes.
It wasn’t peace exactly. But it was enough.
~~~~~~~~~~
The apartment was quiet. Not the comfortable kind, not the restful kind—but the heavy, breath-holding sort. Arianna sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop open in front of her, its glow spilling across her legs. The Word doc had been sitting idle for twenty minutes. The title: No One Teaches You Silence.
Below it, just a few lines.
He said it wasn’t a problem if it helped him sleep.
The bottle rattled louder than his voice.
I asked what he was dreaming of.
He said: quieter rooms.
Her fingers hovered over the keys.
She didn’t write the next line.
Instead, she reached for her phone.
The texts with Reg were still there. She’d never deleted them. Some were months apart, others clustered within a single hour. Most didn’t make sense—misspelled, missing punctuation, whole thoughts bent sideways. Some were voice notes, warbled and full of static. Some just said yo. One of them asked if she could “front him till Friday.” Friday never came.
She scrolled.
Found one that made her stop.
u kno u was the only one who laughed at my jokes even when they wasn’t funny
Another one, sent at 2:47 a.m. a few months later:
this world don't want ppl like me to rest
but you be safe tho
Arianna sat back, thumb pressed against the edge of the phone. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. She’d done enough of that already—at the service, at the grave, on the ride home with Toni beside her, saying nothing but breathing like she knew.
She copied one line from one of the earlier messages. Not his words. Hers.
“He used to tell jokes before he learned to lie.”
She pasted it into a blank message and stared at it for a beat.
Then sent it.
First to herself. A digital post-it. Proof of the thing she didn’t want to forget.
Then she forwarded it to Jonah.
Remind me to make this a piece.
She didn’t add anything else. Didn’t explain. He’d understand. Or he wouldn’t. That part didn’t matter right now.
She locked her phone and closed the laptop without saving.
The room was still quiet. Still holding its breath.
Arianna lay back on the bed, eyes on the ceiling, the line looping in her head like a whisper from a place she didn’t want to go back to.
He used to tell jokes before he learned to lie.
She let it echo until the silence took it back.
~~~~~~~~~~
Toni didn’t mean to slow down.
She was walking across campus between classes, head down, hoodie up, earbuds in with no music playing—just a layer of insulation between her and the rest of the world. But when she turned the corner by the health center, her pace faltered.
There it was.
Counseling Services.
A white door with a narrow glass window. Flyers taped crookedly to the inside. One about managing academic burnout. Another with a picture of a cracked phone and the tagline: It’s okay to feel like this sometimes.
Toni stopped in front of it.
No one else was in the hallway.
She stepped closer and read the office hours posted on a sheet of printer paper:
Mon–Fri | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Walk-ins welcome. Appointments preferred.
Her fingers hovered near the door handle for a second. Just enough to feel the weight of the decision. Then she pulled her phone from her pocket instead and snapped a photo of the paper.
Quick. Quiet. Just in case.
Then she walked off.
Fast enough to pretend she hadn't stopped at all.
…
Deshawn was still at practice by the time she got back to the apartment. His cleats were by the door, his duffle slouched against the wall where he always tossed it. The living room was quiet—just the low hum of the fridge and the faint rattle of the air unit kicking in.
Toni kicked off her slides and dropped onto the couch, pulling her laptop to her chest like it was armor. She didn’t open schoolwork. She didn’t even check email.
She opened Zillow.
At first, it was innocent curiosity—just something to do.
Then she searched: Houston apartments under $1,200.
Then: Studio apartments in San Marcos.
Then: One-bedroom, no cosigner required.
Places with laminate floors and beige walls. Places with free parking and laundry on-site. Places with too-high rent and nothing but a balcony facing the back of another building.
She clicked through photos: dusty blinds, secondhand cabinets, a bedroom window overlooking a gas station.
She wasn’t moving. Not really.
But it felt good to pretend.
Good to think about mornings that started somewhere else. About a version of herself who didn’t jump when the front door slammed too hard. Who didn’t spend afternoons explaining missed classes to professors who’d stopped asking why.
She found one unit with a long hallway and brick painted white, string lights looped around a window frame. Probably staged. Probably gone already.
Still—she saved it.
Not because she could afford it.
But because she needed to believe she might.
She shut the laptop and sat back on the couch, the cushions swallowing her for a moment. Her phone buzzed with a practice schedule reminder Deshawn had sent earlier. She didn’t open it.
Instead, she scrolled back through her photos and stopped on the one from earlier.
The taped-up office hours. The door she didn’t walk through.
She stared at it for a long moment.
Didn’t delete it.
Didn’t zoom in.
Just let it sit there on her screen, quiet and waiting.
Like maybe next time, she’d go in.
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
But for now, at least, she had the hours.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was Tuesday afternoon when Mike knocked twice on Laila’s dorm room door and pushed it open before she could answer. The hinges groaned the same way they always did. Inside, the room was warm with the smell of lavender lotion and the faint trace of whatever candle she wasn’t supposed to be burning but always did when her RA wasn’t around.
Laila looked up from her desk, her eyes softening the moment she saw him.
“I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”
Mike closed the door behind him and dropped his duffle near the foot of her bed. “Left earlier than I thought. Traffic wasn’t bad.”
“You eat?” she asked, already standing.
“Not really.”
Laila gave him a knowing look, then walked over as he crouched beside the bag and unzipped it. He rummaged inside for a second before pulling out a small brown paper bag folded twice at the top.
He handed it to her.
“Stopped by Trosclair’s before I left,” he said. “Figured you’d want some before your daddy ate ‘em all.”
Laila’s face lit up, just a little. She opened the bag, the buttery sweetness of the pralines drifting up instantly.
“Man… you better be glad I like you,” she said, grinning as she plucked one out. “Because I was about to go a whole week pretending you didn’t exist for forgetting these.”
Mike smiled, but it was faint. Tired around the edges.
Laila’s grin faded as she chewed. She watched him quietly as he sat back against the wall, not bothering to kick off his shoes, just resting his head against the cinderblock like he needed it to keep him upright.
“You been quiet,” she said softly.
He didn’t answer at first.
She crossed the room and sat beside him, legs stretched out beside his, the bag of pralines between them.
When she reached for a hug, it was instinct. But when he pulled her in, it wasn’t casual. It wasn’t automatic.
It was long. Intentional. Still.
She leaned back just enough to see his face. “Mike?”
He exhaled once through his nose, voice low and hoarse. “I watched Reg get lowered into the ground… and all I could think about was Rome. And how close Ro came to being next.”
He didn’t look at her. Just past her, like he was seeing something that hadn’t happened yet but already haunted him.
“I feel like the people I love keep disappearing on me.”
Laila didn’t reach for a response. She didn’t tell him it was going to be okay. She didn’t try to flip the energy or lighten the moment. She just leaned in until their foreheads touched, skin to skin.
“You’re still here,” she whispered.
Mike nodded, barely.
“For now,” he said.
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
~~~~~~~~~~
The sun had barely dipped when Royce got the text. He was stretched out on his couch, the TV playing something he wasn’t watching, the remote resting untouched on his chest.
Dorian.
Yo. How you holding up?
Royce stared at the screen for a few seconds before responding.
I’m good.
Not a lie. Not exactly the truth either.
The reply came fast.
We hitting the club later. You in?
Royce let that sit. He could already picture it—loud music, fake smiles, a drink in one hand, someone he didn’t know grinding on him like they cared.
He typed:
I’mma sit this one out.
He tossed the phone onto the cushion beside him and exhaled through his nose.
A few seconds passed.
Then he picked it back up.
You tryna come through?
He didn’t have to say who he meant.
Effie replied within the minute.
Yeah. Be there soon.
…
She showed up in a cropped zip hoodie, her hair pulled back into a loose knot, and that same canvas bag she always carried like it weighed more than it did. Royce opened the door for her and stepped aside, a bottle of dark liquor already open on the kitchen counter.
“Hey,” she said, shrugging out of her jacket.
“Hey,” he replied. “Want a drink?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What kind?”
“Whatever helps me forget what day it is.”
She smirked but shook her head. “I don’t drink.”
Royce blinked, then laughed. “You serious? You go to LSU and don’t drink?”
She shrugged, wandering toward the couch. “I smoke. Weed’s never made anyone do something crazy.”
He grinned and leaned against the counter. “Fair point. You got any?”
Without missing a beat, Effie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a tightly wrapped blunt, held it up between two fingers like it was nothing.
Royce broke into a grin. “Yo. That look like some shit from back on the block. I wasn’t expecting that from you.”
She dropped onto the couch and crossed her legs. “What you expect? Me to carry a fucking bong in my tote?”
That made him laugh—really laugh—and it felt like the first time in a minute. He grabbed a lighter from a drawer and joined her on the couch, sinking into the cushion beside her.
They passed the blunt back and forth in silence at first, smoke curling between them, softening the sharp edges of the room.
After a while, Royce tilted his head toward her.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but… why you so weird?”
Effie arched an eyebrow. “I’m not weird. I’m introspective.”
“Same shit.”
She shrugged. “Therapy’ll do that to you.”
“Therapy?”
She nodded, watching the blunt burn down between her fingers. “A lot of it. Since I was like… twelve. I take anti-depressants too. Zoloft. Keeps the fog from turning into a full-on storm.”
Royce let that sit. “I heard that shit kill your sex drive.”
Effie smirked, slow and unbothered. “They say that.”
He looked at her. “So… it kill yours?”
She turned toward him fully, eyes just a little glassy from the smoke, but sharp all the same.
“I’m sure you would want to know,” she said.
They held each other’s gaze, the quiet between them stretching, warm and dense and unspoken.
The kind of silence you don’t break.
Not yet.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16791
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Once More, With Feeling
The email came just after noon, while Royce was still in bed.
He’d woken up late, the room too quiet, his phone face-down on the nightstand and the curtains still drawn. He hadn’t gone to class. Didn’t plan to. His stomach felt sour from a mix of leftover liquor and the blunt he and Effie had passed around the night before.
The subject line was short: DRAFT – Players’ Tribune (for review)
The attachment: Born in Dirt, Built for Greatness – Royce Lafitte
He read it once on his phone. Then again, slower.
It was well-written. Clean. The kind of piece that made him sound polished but real, like a kid who climbed out of something hard and made it look easy. It hit all the beats: the mud back home, the hunger, the switch that flipped after the shooting, the rise on the field.
Then came the turn.
Two paragraphs toward the end, framed like a soft echo:
…but success doesn’t keep death from calling the people closest to you. I’ve lost two brothers now. One to the streets, one to the slow kind of dying addiction brings.
Royce locked the screen.
Then unlocked it.
Then opened the message app.
Take Reg out of it.
He didn’t wait long for a reply.
The phone rang before he could even close the thread.
Delpit.
Royce didn’t want to answer. He did anyway.
“Say what you gotta say,” he muttered into the receiver.
Delpit’s voice was calm, firm. “You’re tied to him whether you like it or not. That’s your brother.”
“I didn’t ask for him to be my story.”
“I’m not writing your story. You are,” Delpit said. “I’m trying to frame it so you control the narrative—like with Romeo and the shooting. Because if you don’t, somebody else will. And they won’t get it right.”
Royce sat up in bed, one hand gripping the edge of the mattress. “It’s different.”
“How?”
“Rome wasn’t using. He wasn’t disappearing on me for years at a time. People loved Rome. Reg—he’s just… another dead junkie to the world.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I do,” Royce said, voice tight. “And even if I didn’t, it don’t matter. He made his choices.”
Silence stretched over the line.
“You can hate what he became,” Delpit said quietly, “and still admit he was yours.”
Royce didn’t respond.
Didn’t argue.
He just exhaled slowly through his nose and pressed the red button.
Call ended.
The op-ed stayed in his inbox.
Unread again.
Unapproved.
Unclaimed.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was one of those rare afternoons in Lafayette where the air didn’t press down on you like a weight. The sun ducked behind a bank of thin clouds, and the humidity, for once, didn’t feel like something to fight through. Arianna stepped out of Dupré Library, her fingers curled around an iced tea she hadn’t touched yet, earbuds tangled in her hoodie pocket.
She spotted Toni leaning against the low brick wall near the bike rack.
Her arms were crossed. Phone in hand. But she wasn’t texting. Just holding it. Like maybe if she stared long enough, it’d tell her something she didn’t already know.
Arianna slowed, almost kept walking.
But Toni looked up—and gave a small nod.
Arianna walked over.
“Hey,” she said, quietly.
Toni gave her a faint one-shoulder shrug. “Hey.”
The silence stretched a second longer than it needed to. Then Arianna nodded toward the Union.
“You walking that way?”
Toni didn’t say yes, but she fell in beside her.
The concrete paths were dotted with students heading in all directions—some laughing, some dragging feet, some riding longboards with backpacks sliding off their shoulders. Arianna and Toni moved through the noise like it wasn’t meant for them.
“I still haven’t cried,” Toni said after a while.
Arianna glanced over.
“About Reg,” Toni added. “Not even at the funeral. Not when Royce snapped. Not later, when we drove home.”
Arianna took a sip from her tea, the straw clicking against ice. “I cried.”
Toni looked at her, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. “For him?”
Arianna shook her head. “No. For everyone else. For what he made them carry.”
Toni’s lips pressed together. She didn’t say anything for a few steps. The breeze shifted, carrying the faint smell of fried food from the Union grill ahead.
“I keep thinking it’s gonna hit me outta nowhere,” Toni said. “Like mid-shower or driving or something. But it just… doesn’t.”
“Numb and empty ain’t the same thing,” Arianna said.
They reached the steps of the Union. Slowed.
Toni looked ahead, but her voice dropped a little when she spoke again.
“Deshawn’s been real quiet.”
Arianna didn’t answer right away. Her hand tightened around her drink.
“That might be the loudest thing of all.”
That made Toni stop. Just a step or two before the doors.
She looked at Arianna—not hard, not defensive. Just looked, like maybe she wasn’t used to being understood that easily anymore.
And Arianna met her there. Quiet. Present.
It was the first time in a long time that the space between them didn’t feel tense or thick with old fights. Just honest.
Toni exhaled through her nose. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what scares me.”
Arianna didn’t offer comfort. She just walked forward, nudging the door open.
Toni followed her inside. The AC hit hard and cold, and the buzz of students and vending machines and cafeteria chatter picked up around them.
But the quiet between the two of them?
It stayed soft.
Like something that didn’t need to be explained. Only shared.
~~~~~~~~~~
The apartment was still when Effie got home. Still in that way that made her take a breath as soon as she walked through the door—like she could finally drop the posture she carried around the rest of the day.
She kicked off her shoes and tossed her hoodie over the back of her desk chair. Her clothes smelled faintly of smoke and cheap cologne—Royce’s cologne, probably. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from tonight, but it hadn’t been that kind of softness. The way he laughed. The way the air didn’t rush to fill the space between them when it got quiet.
She didn’t know what it meant. But something about it had followed her home.
Her desk drawer groaned when she opened it. She reached under the mess of pens and gum wrappers and pulled out a single, folded sheet of paper—creased, worn, with her name written at the top in her mother’s looping, impersonal script.
Effie unfolded it slowly. She already knew every word.
I hope you’re not wasting this opportunity, Effie. Full scholarships don’t come easy—especially not for grief projects and snapshots of rusted-out playgrounds. You’re too smart for art that only speaks to pain.
I’m not saying this to be harsh. I’m saying it because someone has to be honest with you. One day, you’ll understand.
Let me know if you’re coming back for break. I’ll need to put fresh sheets on the guest bed.
The phrase still snagged in her chest every time.
Not your room.
The guest bed.
Effie read the letter all the way through once more, her eyes not blinking. Then, without folding it back up, she reached for a pushpin and stood.
She tacked it to the corkboard above her desk—centered, not hidden.
Then she reached into the old photo sleeve tucked behind her notebooks and pulled out a single Polaroid.
She and Paz.
Denver.
Snow still packed in the corners of the frame, their breath visible in the air. They were both bundled in oversized coats, cheeks red, arms slung around each other. Paz’s mouth was open mid-laugh, her eyes squinting into the camera like she couldn’t imagine ever not being alive.
Effie had taken the photo herself. Set it on the timer, balanced it on a trash can outside the rec center they used to cut school to hang out behind. It was from the winter before everything spiraled. Before Paz’s skin went gray. Before the too-late ambulance and the too-early funeral and the echo of a friendship that still woke her up some nights.
She pinned the photo next to the letter.
Side by side.
What was lost and what kept trying to take more.
Effie sat down in her desk chair, pulling her knees up to her chest, arms around them. The corkboard stared back.
The letter.
The girl who knew her best.
And the reminder that both were gone, in different ways.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t text anyone. Didn’t write it down.
She just watched the two pieces of her life share a wall.
And let them speak for her.
~~~~~~~~~~
Alix stood outside the apartment door longer than she meant to. The hallway light above her buzzed faintly, casting soft shadows on the tiled floor. Her fingers itched to text Arianna and say she’d changed her mind. Or to turn and walk away like nothing had happened—like she hadn’t spent the whole ride over rehearsing what to say.
She reached into her bag, pulled out her compact mirror, and checked her reflection. Lipstick smudged, barely. She dabbed it once. Smoothed a flyaway. Then exhaled slowly and knocked.
Three soft raps. No turning back.
It took a few seconds, but then the door opened.
Royce stood there in a sleeveless shirt and mesh shorts, towel draped over one shoulder. He looked like someone who hadn’t slept right in days. His eyes were clear but too still.
He didn’t say anything—just stepped aside.
Alix walked in.
The apartment smelled faintly of fabric softener and something else—body wash, maybe, or whatever cologne still lingered on Royce’s skin. He led her into the kitchen and sat at the island without a word. She stood across from him, hands folded loosely over the back of a chair, not quite sitting.
“Thanks for letting me come by,” she said after a beat.
He nodded but didn’t look up.
“I wasn’t sure you’d—”
“You look good,” he cut in quietly, finally raising his gaze to hers.
Alix hesitated, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be. “Thanks.”
He nodded toward her blouse, his tone gentle. “Roux?”
She shook her head. “It’s not an internship anymore. It’s my job now.”
Royce let out a faint breath—maybe approval, maybe something like mourning. “Congratulations.”
Alix smiled, faintly. “You don’t have to say that if you don’t mean it.”
“I do,” he said. “You were always gonna land something like that.”
She looked at him—really looked. His posture sagged slightly, like he’d been holding something up too long and didn’t know how to let it down without shattering.
“You been eating?” she asked, keeping her voice light.
He gave her a half-smile. “Does vodka and weed count?”
She didn’t laugh. Just stepped a little closer. “How are you really doing?”
Royce rubbed a hand over his face. “I feel like I got the weight of the world on my back. Like no matter what I do, I can’t stand up straight.”
She didn’t interrupt.
“I keep thinking about Rome. About Reg. About how fast people go. I feel like I’m next.” His voice dipped. “Like I’ve been dodging it too long for it not to catch me eventually.”
Alix’s chest ached. “You’re not next, Royce.”
“You can’t promise that.”
She came around the island slowly, as if crossing into something sacred. She stood beside him now, not touching him yet.
Royce glanced at her. “Everybody keeps telling me I’m strong. That I got a purpose. That I’m built for this. But I don’t think any of them have any idea how it feels to wake up and feel like it’s already over.”
His voice cracked just slightly at the end.
Alix reached out, finally placing her hand on his shoulder. His muscles didn’t tense. He just leaned into it, his head lowering until it rested gently against her side.
“I used to think you were unbreakable,” she said quietly.
“I did too.”
The room held a thick stillness. Not tense—just heavy. Familiar.
“When I first met you,” she said, “you didn’t say much. But when you did… it always meant something.”
Royce looked up at her. “That why you kept coming around?”
Alix smiled sadly. “That, and the smile.”
He chuckled—just once. Then looked at her differently.
“Why’d you stop?”
The question hung.
Alix’s throat tightened. “Because you stopped choosing me.”
He nodded slowly, accepting it. Not agreeing—but understanding.
Silence again.
Then, quietly: “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
She blinked. “I am too.”
He stood then, slowly. Faced her. The space between them had shrunk into nothing now.
“Feels like I ain’t got nobody left who really knows me,” he said. “Even when I’m in a room full of people.”
“You’re not alone, Royce.”
He leaned down slightly, just enough that his forehead rested gently against hers.
“I know you’re not staying,” he whispered.
“I’m not.”
He nodded, then tilted his head until their mouths brushed—tentative. She didn’t pull away. Not at first. Not at all.
Their kiss deepened with something lived-in, something broken and beautiful and flawed. A kind of closeness born not from romance, but from recognition—two people who’d loved, and hurt, and known the weight of loss from the inside out.
What followed wasn’t rushed.
It wasn’t for forgetting.
It was for remembering what it felt like to be seen.
…
Later, Alix sat on the edge of the bed, pulling her blouse slowly back over her arms. Royce remained lying down, one arm flung across his forehead, his chest rising with the kind of steady exhaustion that only came after vulnerability.
She tied her hair back loosely.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” she said.
He didn’t move. “Yeah. I figured.”
She paused at the edge of the bed, looking back at him. “This… tonight… it doesn’t mean I’m confused. It doesn’t mean I’m coming back.”
“I know.”
“This is goodbye.”
Royce sat up finally, looking at her—not with bitterness, not even with sadness, but something gentler.
Acceptance.
“You were always going to do great shit, Alix,” he said.
Her lips parted, just slightly.
“Maybe I’ll see you at the Rouse one day,” he added, almost grinning.
Alix smiled. This time it reached her eyes. “I’ll be the one judging your grocery cart.”
Royce chuckled. “Mine got better since you left.”
She gave him one last look, something quiet and full of memory, then stood and walked toward the door.
She didn’t look back.
And neither of them had to.
Because what they’d shared that night wasn’t about returning to each other.
It was about saying goodbye in the only way they knew how.
The email came just after noon, while Royce was still in bed.
He’d woken up late, the room too quiet, his phone face-down on the nightstand and the curtains still drawn. He hadn’t gone to class. Didn’t plan to. His stomach felt sour from a mix of leftover liquor and the blunt he and Effie had passed around the night before.
The subject line was short: DRAFT – Players’ Tribune (for review)
The attachment: Born in Dirt, Built for Greatness – Royce Lafitte
He read it once on his phone. Then again, slower.
It was well-written. Clean. The kind of piece that made him sound polished but real, like a kid who climbed out of something hard and made it look easy. It hit all the beats: the mud back home, the hunger, the switch that flipped after the shooting, the rise on the field.
Then came the turn.
Two paragraphs toward the end, framed like a soft echo:
…but success doesn’t keep death from calling the people closest to you. I’ve lost two brothers now. One to the streets, one to the slow kind of dying addiction brings.
Royce locked the screen.
Then unlocked it.
Then opened the message app.
Take Reg out of it.
He didn’t wait long for a reply.
The phone rang before he could even close the thread.
Delpit.
Royce didn’t want to answer. He did anyway.
“Say what you gotta say,” he muttered into the receiver.
Delpit’s voice was calm, firm. “You’re tied to him whether you like it or not. That’s your brother.”
“I didn’t ask for him to be my story.”
“I’m not writing your story. You are,” Delpit said. “I’m trying to frame it so you control the narrative—like with Romeo and the shooting. Because if you don’t, somebody else will. And they won’t get it right.”
Royce sat up in bed, one hand gripping the edge of the mattress. “It’s different.”
“How?”
“Rome wasn’t using. He wasn’t disappearing on me for years at a time. People loved Rome. Reg—he’s just… another dead junkie to the world.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I do,” Royce said, voice tight. “And even if I didn’t, it don’t matter. He made his choices.”
Silence stretched over the line.
“You can hate what he became,” Delpit said quietly, “and still admit he was yours.”
Royce didn’t respond.
Didn’t argue.
He just exhaled slowly through his nose and pressed the red button.
Call ended.
The op-ed stayed in his inbox.
Unread again.
Unapproved.
Unclaimed.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was one of those rare afternoons in Lafayette where the air didn’t press down on you like a weight. The sun ducked behind a bank of thin clouds, and the humidity, for once, didn’t feel like something to fight through. Arianna stepped out of Dupré Library, her fingers curled around an iced tea she hadn’t touched yet, earbuds tangled in her hoodie pocket.
She spotted Toni leaning against the low brick wall near the bike rack.
Her arms were crossed. Phone in hand. But she wasn’t texting. Just holding it. Like maybe if she stared long enough, it’d tell her something she didn’t already know.
Arianna slowed, almost kept walking.
But Toni looked up—and gave a small nod.
Arianna walked over.
“Hey,” she said, quietly.
Toni gave her a faint one-shoulder shrug. “Hey.”
The silence stretched a second longer than it needed to. Then Arianna nodded toward the Union.
“You walking that way?”
Toni didn’t say yes, but she fell in beside her.
The concrete paths were dotted with students heading in all directions—some laughing, some dragging feet, some riding longboards with backpacks sliding off their shoulders. Arianna and Toni moved through the noise like it wasn’t meant for them.
“I still haven’t cried,” Toni said after a while.
Arianna glanced over.
“About Reg,” Toni added. “Not even at the funeral. Not when Royce snapped. Not later, when we drove home.”
Arianna took a sip from her tea, the straw clicking against ice. “I cried.”
Toni looked at her, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. “For him?”
Arianna shook her head. “No. For everyone else. For what he made them carry.”
Toni’s lips pressed together. She didn’t say anything for a few steps. The breeze shifted, carrying the faint smell of fried food from the Union grill ahead.
“I keep thinking it’s gonna hit me outta nowhere,” Toni said. “Like mid-shower or driving or something. But it just… doesn’t.”
“Numb and empty ain’t the same thing,” Arianna said.
They reached the steps of the Union. Slowed.
Toni looked ahead, but her voice dropped a little when she spoke again.
“Deshawn’s been real quiet.”
Arianna didn’t answer right away. Her hand tightened around her drink.
“That might be the loudest thing of all.”
That made Toni stop. Just a step or two before the doors.
She looked at Arianna—not hard, not defensive. Just looked, like maybe she wasn’t used to being understood that easily anymore.
And Arianna met her there. Quiet. Present.
It was the first time in a long time that the space between them didn’t feel tense or thick with old fights. Just honest.
Toni exhaled through her nose. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what scares me.”
Arianna didn’t offer comfort. She just walked forward, nudging the door open.
Toni followed her inside. The AC hit hard and cold, and the buzz of students and vending machines and cafeteria chatter picked up around them.
But the quiet between the two of them?
It stayed soft.
Like something that didn’t need to be explained. Only shared.
~~~~~~~~~~
The apartment was still when Effie got home. Still in that way that made her take a breath as soon as she walked through the door—like she could finally drop the posture she carried around the rest of the day.
She kicked off her shoes and tossed her hoodie over the back of her desk chair. Her clothes smelled faintly of smoke and cheap cologne—Royce’s cologne, probably. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from tonight, but it hadn’t been that kind of softness. The way he laughed. The way the air didn’t rush to fill the space between them when it got quiet.
She didn’t know what it meant. But something about it had followed her home.
Her desk drawer groaned when she opened it. She reached under the mess of pens and gum wrappers and pulled out a single, folded sheet of paper—creased, worn, with her name written at the top in her mother’s looping, impersonal script.
Effie unfolded it slowly. She already knew every word.
I hope you’re not wasting this opportunity, Effie. Full scholarships don’t come easy—especially not for grief projects and snapshots of rusted-out playgrounds. You’re too smart for art that only speaks to pain.
I’m not saying this to be harsh. I’m saying it because someone has to be honest with you. One day, you’ll understand.
Let me know if you’re coming back for break. I’ll need to put fresh sheets on the guest bed.
The phrase still snagged in her chest every time.
Not your room.
The guest bed.
Effie read the letter all the way through once more, her eyes not blinking. Then, without folding it back up, she reached for a pushpin and stood.
She tacked it to the corkboard above her desk—centered, not hidden.
Then she reached into the old photo sleeve tucked behind her notebooks and pulled out a single Polaroid.
She and Paz.
Denver.
Snow still packed in the corners of the frame, their breath visible in the air. They were both bundled in oversized coats, cheeks red, arms slung around each other. Paz’s mouth was open mid-laugh, her eyes squinting into the camera like she couldn’t imagine ever not being alive.
Effie had taken the photo herself. Set it on the timer, balanced it on a trash can outside the rec center they used to cut school to hang out behind. It was from the winter before everything spiraled. Before Paz’s skin went gray. Before the too-late ambulance and the too-early funeral and the echo of a friendship that still woke her up some nights.
She pinned the photo next to the letter.
Side by side.
What was lost and what kept trying to take more.
Effie sat down in her desk chair, pulling her knees up to her chest, arms around them. The corkboard stared back.
The letter.
The girl who knew her best.
And the reminder that both were gone, in different ways.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t text anyone. Didn’t write it down.
She just watched the two pieces of her life share a wall.
And let them speak for her.
~~~~~~~~~~
Alix stood outside the apartment door longer than she meant to. The hallway light above her buzzed faintly, casting soft shadows on the tiled floor. Her fingers itched to text Arianna and say she’d changed her mind. Or to turn and walk away like nothing had happened—like she hadn’t spent the whole ride over rehearsing what to say.
She reached into her bag, pulled out her compact mirror, and checked her reflection. Lipstick smudged, barely. She dabbed it once. Smoothed a flyaway. Then exhaled slowly and knocked.
Three soft raps. No turning back.
It took a few seconds, but then the door opened.
Royce stood there in a sleeveless shirt and mesh shorts, towel draped over one shoulder. He looked like someone who hadn’t slept right in days. His eyes were clear but too still.
He didn’t say anything—just stepped aside.
Alix walked in.
The apartment smelled faintly of fabric softener and something else—body wash, maybe, or whatever cologne still lingered on Royce’s skin. He led her into the kitchen and sat at the island without a word. She stood across from him, hands folded loosely over the back of a chair, not quite sitting.
“Thanks for letting me come by,” she said after a beat.
He nodded but didn’t look up.
“I wasn’t sure you’d—”
“You look good,” he cut in quietly, finally raising his gaze to hers.
Alix hesitated, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be. “Thanks.”
He nodded toward her blouse, his tone gentle. “Roux?”
She shook her head. “It’s not an internship anymore. It’s my job now.”
Royce let out a faint breath—maybe approval, maybe something like mourning. “Congratulations.”
Alix smiled, faintly. “You don’t have to say that if you don’t mean it.”
“I do,” he said. “You were always gonna land something like that.”
She looked at him—really looked. His posture sagged slightly, like he’d been holding something up too long and didn’t know how to let it down without shattering.
“You been eating?” she asked, keeping her voice light.
He gave her a half-smile. “Does vodka and weed count?”
She didn’t laugh. Just stepped a little closer. “How are you really doing?”
Royce rubbed a hand over his face. “I feel like I got the weight of the world on my back. Like no matter what I do, I can’t stand up straight.”
She didn’t interrupt.
“I keep thinking about Rome. About Reg. About how fast people go. I feel like I’m next.” His voice dipped. “Like I’ve been dodging it too long for it not to catch me eventually.”
Alix’s chest ached. “You’re not next, Royce.”
“You can’t promise that.”
She came around the island slowly, as if crossing into something sacred. She stood beside him now, not touching him yet.
Royce glanced at her. “Everybody keeps telling me I’m strong. That I got a purpose. That I’m built for this. But I don’t think any of them have any idea how it feels to wake up and feel like it’s already over.”
His voice cracked just slightly at the end.
Alix reached out, finally placing her hand on his shoulder. His muscles didn’t tense. He just leaned into it, his head lowering until it rested gently against her side.
“I used to think you were unbreakable,” she said quietly.
“I did too.”
The room held a thick stillness. Not tense—just heavy. Familiar.
“When I first met you,” she said, “you didn’t say much. But when you did… it always meant something.”
Royce looked up at her. “That why you kept coming around?”
Alix smiled sadly. “That, and the smile.”
He chuckled—just once. Then looked at her differently.
“Why’d you stop?”
The question hung.
Alix’s throat tightened. “Because you stopped choosing me.”
He nodded slowly, accepting it. Not agreeing—but understanding.
Silence again.
Then, quietly: “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
She blinked. “I am too.”
He stood then, slowly. Faced her. The space between them had shrunk into nothing now.
“Feels like I ain’t got nobody left who really knows me,” he said. “Even when I’m in a room full of people.”
“You’re not alone, Royce.”
He leaned down slightly, just enough that his forehead rested gently against hers.
“I know you’re not staying,” he whispered.
“I’m not.”
He nodded, then tilted his head until their mouths brushed—tentative. She didn’t pull away. Not at first. Not at all.
Their kiss deepened with something lived-in, something broken and beautiful and flawed. A kind of closeness born not from romance, but from recognition—two people who’d loved, and hurt, and known the weight of loss from the inside out.
What followed wasn’t rushed.
It wasn’t for forgetting.
It was for remembering what it felt like to be seen.
…
Later, Alix sat on the edge of the bed, pulling her blouse slowly back over her arms. Royce remained lying down, one arm flung across his forehead, his chest rising with the kind of steady exhaustion that only came after vulnerability.
She tied her hair back loosely.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” she said.
He didn’t move. “Yeah. I figured.”
She paused at the edge of the bed, looking back at him. “This… tonight… it doesn’t mean I’m confused. It doesn’t mean I’m coming back.”
“I know.”
“This is goodbye.”
Royce sat up finally, looking at her—not with bitterness, not even with sadness, but something gentler.
Acceptance.
“You were always going to do great shit, Alix,” he said.
Her lips parted, just slightly.
“Maybe I’ll see you at the Rouse one day,” he added, almost grinning.
Alix smiled. This time it reached her eyes. “I’ll be the one judging your grocery cart.”
Royce chuckled. “Mine got better since you left.”
She gave him one last look, something quiet and full of memory, then stood and walked toward the door.
She didn’t look back.
And neither of them had to.
Because what they’d shared that night wasn’t about returning to each other.
It was about saying goodbye in the only way they knew how.
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7818
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
Got her ass again 