Dying to Live
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16777
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16777
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Only Brother
Royce parked out front the way he always did—driver’s side facing the sidewalk, tires turned slightly like he might not be staying long. The street in front of Rana’s house in Houma hadn’t changed much. Same cracked curb. Same pale chalk lines faded in the driveway from some neighborhood kid weeks back.
He hadn’t planned on coming today. But Rana had texted earlier:
Got a box of stuff from y’all’s old room. Thought you might want to come get it.
No smiley face. No “hope you’re good.” Just the facts. But facts could still carry feeling, and Royce knew when to show up.
Rana met him at the door, her hair tied up, sleeves pushed to her elbows like she’d been cleaning all afternoon. She didn’t hug him. Just stepped aside to let him in.
“Box is in the living room,” she said.
He followed the sound of her bare feet on the hardwood, familiar enough to know which spots creaked.
The box sat at the edge of the coffee table. A plain cardboard thing marked “Ro/Rome—Closet.”
Rana stood off to the side, arms folded, watching him as he knelt down and lifted the lid.
Inside were scraps of forgotten life.
A cracked iPod Touch with a Saints sticker on the back. A few CDs—Boot Camp Click, Lil Boosie, a burned disc labeled Summer Shit. A half-deflated football with a faded sharpie scrawl: “Pick six or don’t come home.” Royce remembered writing that, half-joking, before some JV game they barely won.
There was a photo tucked in the corner—him and Rome in front of the backyard grill, shirts off, holding water guns like they were something tougher.
He hadn’t seen that picture in years. It caught him off guard.
He didn’t say anything. Just rested his hand on the edge of the box.
“You been alright?” Rana asked gently.
He shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“I never liked Reg,” she said suddenly. Not mean. Just honest. “Never really tried to. But I didn’t want him to die like that.”
Royce didn’t look up. “He died how he did because he chose it.”
“That don’t make it better,” she said.
“Didn’t say it did.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, broken only by the low hum of the air conditioning and the occasional creak of wood as the house settled.
Eventually, he closed the box and stood.
“You sure you don’t want any of this?” he asked, not expecting a yes.
Rana shook her head. “That’s y’all’s stuff. Yours now.”
He nodded once. Picked up the box. Turned toward the door.
He was almost to the porch when the screen creaked open behind him.
“Ro?”
He turned. Roni was walking up the front path, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, her hair still damp from a post-practice rinse. She wore her volleyball team hoodie, sleeves pulled over her hands, and sneakers scuffed from gym floors.
“Look at you,” Royce said, managing a smile. “Since when you start hanging with people who got a license?”
She rolled her eyes and pushed past him into the house. “You drove in high school too.”
He huffed a laugh. “You right.”
Roni dropped her bag by the door and turned to face him. “Can I ask something?”
“Of course.”
She fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve. “Is it bad that I’m not really sad Reg’s gone? Not like… not like I was with Rome. And I was way younger then.”
Royce leaned against the porch rail, box tucked under one arm. He looked at her closely—same eyes as Rana, same cautious heart as Rome if you knew where to look.
“You didn’t really know Reg,” he said. “And what you did know… wasn’t good.”
Roni nodded slowly, gaze fixed on the wood floor beneath her feet. “Yeah.”
That one word carried more weight than anything else she could’ve said.
Royce stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. She came to him quickly, arms tight, her head pressed against his chest.
They stayed like that a second longer than necessary.
When they pulled apart, Royce stepped back toward the stairs.
“I’ll see you,” he said.
Roni nodded. “Yeah. See you.”
He walked down the steps, the box tucked close like it might fall apart if held any other way.
It was light.
But it carried the weight of things he couldn’t keep and still didn’t want to leave behind.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Roux conference room smelled faintly of cedar polish and overbrewed coffee. Alix stood at the head of the table, palms flat against the edge, her notes fanned out but untouched. She wasn’t reading. She didn’t need to. She knew this pitch like she’d lived it.
Across from her sat the client—a middle-aged man with the kind of trim beard that suggested money and a meticulously curated Instagram, flanked by his silent business partner and their head of operations, a sharp-eyed woman with a steel watch and a constant click of her pen.
Behind Alix, her project team watched with the taut silence of people who knew how much this mattered.
“So,” Alix said, her voice steady but warm, “what we’re proposing isn’t just a space that looks the part. It’s a place that feels like your story—before people even realize they’re hearing it.”
She clicked the remote. The concept boards shifted. Rich desert tones. Textures of raw wood, sun-bleached linen, and matte iron. It was a departure from their standard glossy luxe—but it was intentional. Honest. Lived-in.
She watched the client lean forward, chin perched on one knuckle.
“We’re not aiming for trendy,” she continued. “We’re aiming for timeless. Something that nods to the past but isn’t afraid to exist in the now. Something that lives where you do.”
When she finished, there was no applause. There never was. Just that telling quiet—the kind that hung when people were recalibrating what they thought was possible.
The client sat back and exhaled like he’d been holding his breath.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Yeah. Let’s keep talking.”
And that was it. The meeting moved on. Questions. Budget talk. Timelines. But Alix felt it: that subtle shift when doubt recedes and vision takes its place.
When the room emptied, she stayed back to gather her things. Her hands didn’t shake, but something inside her buzzed—like the echo of adrenaline, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She turned to Marisol, one of the new senior designers who’d been sitting quietly at the far end of the table.
“Was it too much?” Alix asked, her voice lower now, guarded. “I wasn’t sure if it landed. Felt a little bold.”
Marisol, mid-fifties, lipstick always perfect, lifted her gaze with the calm of someone who’d seen too many rooms to be easily impressed—and still was.
“It was bold,” she said. “But it was right. That’s what they hired you for.”
Alix blinked once, the tension at her shoulders softening. “Thank you.”
Marisol nodded. “Own it.”
…
Later, sitting in her parked car in the garage beneath the building, Alix stared at the text box for a long moment before finally typing:
Felt like I belonged today.
She hit send before she could overthink it.
Co replied a few minutes later with a string of raised hands and a “Knew you would.”
The praise should’ve sat better. It did. Kind of.
But as Alix leaned her head against the steering wheel, she couldn’t stop the other memory pressing in—Royce’s head against her side, the familiar weight of his breath. How easy it had been to fall back into that space, even knowing it wasn’t hers anymore. Even knowing she didn’t want it to be.
She closed her eyes.
For the first time in a long time, she felt like she was building something real—for herself, by herself.
But guilt lived in the seams.
She put her phone face-down in the passenger seat, turned the key, and pulled out of the garage.
Tomorrow could be hers. But tonight was still catching up.
~~~~~~~~~~
Effie didn’t check her email right away when she got back from class. She’d dropped her bag by the door, peeled off her sneakers, and collapsed onto the couch with a blanket and the half-empty LaCroix she’d left on the windowsill that morning.
She wasn’t waiting for anything. Not exactly.
The light from outside was soft and slanting—the kind of early evening haze that made everything feel paused. She scrolled absentmindedly on her phone, rereading texts she didn’t feel like answering, posts she didn’t remember liking. Her mind felt full but also floating—like nothing would settle.
It wasn’t until her laptop buzzed from the charger in the corner that she remembered. The gallery notifications were supposed to go out today.
She padded over barefoot, opened the lid, and logged in.
Subject: Congratulations – Your Submission “Misread” Selected for Fall Student Gallery
She read it once. Then again.
There wasn’t a rush of emotion. No sudden grin or gasp.
She just… exhaled.
Long. Quiet. The kind of breath that let you know you’d been holding one without realizing it.
Her eyes scanned the email again. Details about the opening reception. A note about framing costs. A gentle reminder to provide a bio by the end of the week. It was professional. Polite. Normal.
Effie stared at the words: “We’re pleased to include your piece ‘Misread’ as part of this semester’s student gallery.”
She didn’t smile.
But she felt something shift. Small. Subtle.
She clicked forward.
To: Aunt Nita
Subject: Re: gallery
Thought you’d want to know.
She didn’t add anything else.
Didn’t explain that “Misread” was a triptych of cropped photographs—doorways without doors, a child’s rainboot beside a storm drain, a rusted-out swingset with police tape curled around its frame. Didn’t explain how the title came from something Paz once said—“People look at you and think you’re one thing. They always misread the whole story.” Didn’t say how long she’d waited to feel ready to share it.
Just: Thought you’d want to know.
She closed the laptop. Went to the kitchen. Poured a glass of water.
An hour passed. Then two.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, editing another set of photos—this one from a parking lot behind an abandoned gas station—when her phone buzzed with the reply.
From: Aunt Nita
Subject: Re: gallery
She’d be proud.
So am I.
Effie read the message and let the screen dim in her hand.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t rush to respond.
But her chest felt heavier in a way that wasn’t bad. Just full.
She set the phone down beside her camera and sat still for a long time, breathing in the quiet. Letting the weight settle. Letting the words hold.
~~~~~~~~~~
The room smelled like burnt coffee and old upholstery. A bookshelf in the corner leaned to one side, jammed with poetry chapbooks and MFA program flyers. Plastic chairs were pulled into a half-circle, most of them occupied, but everyone faced the makeshift stage—a single mic stand under a dim spotlight, framed by walls painted brick red and a chalkboard that hadn’t been erased all the way.
It was the kind of space that made you whisper without realizing it. The kind of space where stories hung heavy in the air before they were even spoken.
Arianna sat in the front row, her pages folded once down the middle and clutched in her lap. Her name had already been called.
She took the stage without ceremony.
She didn’t clear her throat or ask if the mic was on. She didn’t explain the piece or give disclaimers.
She just began.
Some things you get handed without asking.
A jawline. A last name. A silence that stretches through generations like bad plumbing.
My cousin used to steal lighters and never return phone calls.
He had this laugh like he knew something we didn’t, which—
He did.
He knew what it was like to be empty and make it look like performance.
To stand in a kitchen full of family and still feel like a ghost.
They say addiction runs in families.
So does pretending.
When he died, I didn’t cry at first.
I googled the symptoms of an overdose like maybe the screen would tell me something the obituary didn’t.
I told myself I forgave him.
That’s what good people do, right?
But I kept finding reasons to stay mad—
like the way his text messages always came after midnight,
or the time he borrowed my dad’s car and left it smelling like fire.
I don’t know if I miss him.
But I miss the chance to.
Some grief is just unfinished love.
Some forgiveness is a wound you agree to carry.
And some things you inherit aren’t things at all—
just echoes,
and questions,
and the ache of trying to clean up someone else’s spill with your bare hands.
When she finished, there was a beat of silence—not from confusion, but because no one wanted to be the first to break it.
Then soft applause. Not loud. Not polite. Just... understanding.
Arianna gave a small nod, stepped down from the stage, and returned to her seat. Her fingers trembled as they folded the paper again. Not because she was nervous. Because some words cost more when you finally say them aloud.
She didn’t stay for the whole session.
After the next reader finished, she stepped outside into the humid Lafayette night. The air smelled like river water and fried food from the bodega around the corner. Her heart was still catching up to her body.
She was halfway down the block when someone called out, “Hey—wait.”
A girl from the audience jogged to catch up. Maybe a freshman, maybe sophomore. She wore a denim jacket despite the heat, and her eyeliner had smudged just slightly.
“That piece,” she said. “The one you read?”
Arianna nodded, wary but open.
“That felt like my uncle,” the girl said, a little breathless. “He was in and out of rehab most of my life. When he passed, I didn’t know what to feel either.”
Arianna managed a soft smile. “Thank you.”
The girl smiled back, awkward and sincere, then turned and walked off toward the dorms.
Arianna stood there a second longer.
Then, barely loud enough for anyone to hear, she muttered:
“That was about mine.”
And then she kept walking. The air still thick, her palms still sweating. But her chest just a little lighter.
Royce parked out front the way he always did—driver’s side facing the sidewalk, tires turned slightly like he might not be staying long. The street in front of Rana’s house in Houma hadn’t changed much. Same cracked curb. Same pale chalk lines faded in the driveway from some neighborhood kid weeks back.
He hadn’t planned on coming today. But Rana had texted earlier:
Got a box of stuff from y’all’s old room. Thought you might want to come get it.
No smiley face. No “hope you’re good.” Just the facts. But facts could still carry feeling, and Royce knew when to show up.
Rana met him at the door, her hair tied up, sleeves pushed to her elbows like she’d been cleaning all afternoon. She didn’t hug him. Just stepped aside to let him in.
“Box is in the living room,” she said.
He followed the sound of her bare feet on the hardwood, familiar enough to know which spots creaked.
The box sat at the edge of the coffee table. A plain cardboard thing marked “Ro/Rome—Closet.”
Rana stood off to the side, arms folded, watching him as he knelt down and lifted the lid.
Inside were scraps of forgotten life.
A cracked iPod Touch with a Saints sticker on the back. A few CDs—Boot Camp Click, Lil Boosie, a burned disc labeled Summer Shit. A half-deflated football with a faded sharpie scrawl: “Pick six or don’t come home.” Royce remembered writing that, half-joking, before some JV game they barely won.
There was a photo tucked in the corner—him and Rome in front of the backyard grill, shirts off, holding water guns like they were something tougher.
He hadn’t seen that picture in years. It caught him off guard.
He didn’t say anything. Just rested his hand on the edge of the box.
“You been alright?” Rana asked gently.
He shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“I never liked Reg,” she said suddenly. Not mean. Just honest. “Never really tried to. But I didn’t want him to die like that.”
Royce didn’t look up. “He died how he did because he chose it.”
“That don’t make it better,” she said.
“Didn’t say it did.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, broken only by the low hum of the air conditioning and the occasional creak of wood as the house settled.
Eventually, he closed the box and stood.
“You sure you don’t want any of this?” he asked, not expecting a yes.
Rana shook her head. “That’s y’all’s stuff. Yours now.”
He nodded once. Picked up the box. Turned toward the door.
He was almost to the porch when the screen creaked open behind him.
“Ro?”
He turned. Roni was walking up the front path, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, her hair still damp from a post-practice rinse. She wore her volleyball team hoodie, sleeves pulled over her hands, and sneakers scuffed from gym floors.
“Look at you,” Royce said, managing a smile. “Since when you start hanging with people who got a license?”
She rolled her eyes and pushed past him into the house. “You drove in high school too.”
He huffed a laugh. “You right.”
Roni dropped her bag by the door and turned to face him. “Can I ask something?”
“Of course.”
She fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve. “Is it bad that I’m not really sad Reg’s gone? Not like… not like I was with Rome. And I was way younger then.”
Royce leaned against the porch rail, box tucked under one arm. He looked at her closely—same eyes as Rana, same cautious heart as Rome if you knew where to look.
“You didn’t really know Reg,” he said. “And what you did know… wasn’t good.”
Roni nodded slowly, gaze fixed on the wood floor beneath her feet. “Yeah.”
That one word carried more weight than anything else she could’ve said.
Royce stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. She came to him quickly, arms tight, her head pressed against his chest.
They stayed like that a second longer than necessary.
When they pulled apart, Royce stepped back toward the stairs.
“I’ll see you,” he said.
Roni nodded. “Yeah. See you.”
He walked down the steps, the box tucked close like it might fall apart if held any other way.
It was light.
But it carried the weight of things he couldn’t keep and still didn’t want to leave behind.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Roux conference room smelled faintly of cedar polish and overbrewed coffee. Alix stood at the head of the table, palms flat against the edge, her notes fanned out but untouched. She wasn’t reading. She didn’t need to. She knew this pitch like she’d lived it.
Across from her sat the client—a middle-aged man with the kind of trim beard that suggested money and a meticulously curated Instagram, flanked by his silent business partner and their head of operations, a sharp-eyed woman with a steel watch and a constant click of her pen.
Behind Alix, her project team watched with the taut silence of people who knew how much this mattered.
“So,” Alix said, her voice steady but warm, “what we’re proposing isn’t just a space that looks the part. It’s a place that feels like your story—before people even realize they’re hearing it.”
She clicked the remote. The concept boards shifted. Rich desert tones. Textures of raw wood, sun-bleached linen, and matte iron. It was a departure from their standard glossy luxe—but it was intentional. Honest. Lived-in.
She watched the client lean forward, chin perched on one knuckle.
“We’re not aiming for trendy,” she continued. “We’re aiming for timeless. Something that nods to the past but isn’t afraid to exist in the now. Something that lives where you do.”
When she finished, there was no applause. There never was. Just that telling quiet—the kind that hung when people were recalibrating what they thought was possible.
The client sat back and exhaled like he’d been holding his breath.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Yeah. Let’s keep talking.”
And that was it. The meeting moved on. Questions. Budget talk. Timelines. But Alix felt it: that subtle shift when doubt recedes and vision takes its place.
When the room emptied, she stayed back to gather her things. Her hands didn’t shake, but something inside her buzzed—like the echo of adrenaline, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She turned to Marisol, one of the new senior designers who’d been sitting quietly at the far end of the table.
“Was it too much?” Alix asked, her voice lower now, guarded. “I wasn’t sure if it landed. Felt a little bold.”
Marisol, mid-fifties, lipstick always perfect, lifted her gaze with the calm of someone who’d seen too many rooms to be easily impressed—and still was.
“It was bold,” she said. “But it was right. That’s what they hired you for.”
Alix blinked once, the tension at her shoulders softening. “Thank you.”
Marisol nodded. “Own it.”
…
Later, sitting in her parked car in the garage beneath the building, Alix stared at the text box for a long moment before finally typing:
Felt like I belonged today.
She hit send before she could overthink it.
Co replied a few minutes later with a string of raised hands and a “Knew you would.”
The praise should’ve sat better. It did. Kind of.
But as Alix leaned her head against the steering wheel, she couldn’t stop the other memory pressing in—Royce’s head against her side, the familiar weight of his breath. How easy it had been to fall back into that space, even knowing it wasn’t hers anymore. Even knowing she didn’t want it to be.
She closed her eyes.
For the first time in a long time, she felt like she was building something real—for herself, by herself.
But guilt lived in the seams.
She put her phone face-down in the passenger seat, turned the key, and pulled out of the garage.
Tomorrow could be hers. But tonight was still catching up.
~~~~~~~~~~
Effie didn’t check her email right away when she got back from class. She’d dropped her bag by the door, peeled off her sneakers, and collapsed onto the couch with a blanket and the half-empty LaCroix she’d left on the windowsill that morning.
She wasn’t waiting for anything. Not exactly.
The light from outside was soft and slanting—the kind of early evening haze that made everything feel paused. She scrolled absentmindedly on her phone, rereading texts she didn’t feel like answering, posts she didn’t remember liking. Her mind felt full but also floating—like nothing would settle.
It wasn’t until her laptop buzzed from the charger in the corner that she remembered. The gallery notifications were supposed to go out today.
She padded over barefoot, opened the lid, and logged in.
Subject: Congratulations – Your Submission “Misread” Selected for Fall Student Gallery
She read it once. Then again.
There wasn’t a rush of emotion. No sudden grin or gasp.
She just… exhaled.
Long. Quiet. The kind of breath that let you know you’d been holding one without realizing it.
Her eyes scanned the email again. Details about the opening reception. A note about framing costs. A gentle reminder to provide a bio by the end of the week. It was professional. Polite. Normal.
Effie stared at the words: “We’re pleased to include your piece ‘Misread’ as part of this semester’s student gallery.”
She didn’t smile.
But she felt something shift. Small. Subtle.
She clicked forward.
To: Aunt Nita
Subject: Re: gallery
Thought you’d want to know.
She didn’t add anything else.
Didn’t explain that “Misread” was a triptych of cropped photographs—doorways without doors, a child’s rainboot beside a storm drain, a rusted-out swingset with police tape curled around its frame. Didn’t explain how the title came from something Paz once said—“People look at you and think you’re one thing. They always misread the whole story.” Didn’t say how long she’d waited to feel ready to share it.
Just: Thought you’d want to know.
She closed the laptop. Went to the kitchen. Poured a glass of water.
An hour passed. Then two.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, editing another set of photos—this one from a parking lot behind an abandoned gas station—when her phone buzzed with the reply.
From: Aunt Nita
Subject: Re: gallery
She’d be proud.
So am I.
Effie read the message and let the screen dim in her hand.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t rush to respond.
But her chest felt heavier in a way that wasn’t bad. Just full.
She set the phone down beside her camera and sat still for a long time, breathing in the quiet. Letting the weight settle. Letting the words hold.
~~~~~~~~~~
The room smelled like burnt coffee and old upholstery. A bookshelf in the corner leaned to one side, jammed with poetry chapbooks and MFA program flyers. Plastic chairs were pulled into a half-circle, most of them occupied, but everyone faced the makeshift stage—a single mic stand under a dim spotlight, framed by walls painted brick red and a chalkboard that hadn’t been erased all the way.
It was the kind of space that made you whisper without realizing it. The kind of space where stories hung heavy in the air before they were even spoken.
Arianna sat in the front row, her pages folded once down the middle and clutched in her lap. Her name had already been called.
She took the stage without ceremony.
She didn’t clear her throat or ask if the mic was on. She didn’t explain the piece or give disclaimers.
She just began.
Some things you get handed without asking.
A jawline. A last name. A silence that stretches through generations like bad plumbing.
My cousin used to steal lighters and never return phone calls.
He had this laugh like he knew something we didn’t, which—
He did.
He knew what it was like to be empty and make it look like performance.
To stand in a kitchen full of family and still feel like a ghost.
They say addiction runs in families.
So does pretending.
When he died, I didn’t cry at first.
I googled the symptoms of an overdose like maybe the screen would tell me something the obituary didn’t.
I told myself I forgave him.
That’s what good people do, right?
But I kept finding reasons to stay mad—
like the way his text messages always came after midnight,
or the time he borrowed my dad’s car and left it smelling like fire.
I don’t know if I miss him.
But I miss the chance to.
Some grief is just unfinished love.
Some forgiveness is a wound you agree to carry.
And some things you inherit aren’t things at all—
just echoes,
and questions,
and the ache of trying to clean up someone else’s spill with your bare hands.
When she finished, there was a beat of silence—not from confusion, but because no one wanted to be the first to break it.
Then soft applause. Not loud. Not polite. Just... understanding.
Arianna gave a small nod, stepped down from the stage, and returned to her seat. Her fingers trembled as they folded the paper again. Not because she was nervous. Because some words cost more when you finally say them aloud.
She didn’t stay for the whole session.
After the next reader finished, she stepped outside into the humid Lafayette night. The air smelled like river water and fried food from the bodega around the corner. Her heart was still catching up to her body.
She was halfway down the block when someone called out, “Hey—wait.”
A girl from the audience jogged to catch up. Maybe a freshman, maybe sophomore. She wore a denim jacket despite the heat, and her eyeliner had smudged just slightly.
“That piece,” she said. “The one you read?”
Arianna nodded, wary but open.
“That felt like my uncle,” the girl said, a little breathless. “He was in and out of rehab most of my life. When he passed, I didn’t know what to feel either.”
Arianna managed a soft smile. “Thank you.”
The girl smiled back, awkward and sincere, then turned and walked off toward the dorms.
Arianna stood there a second longer.
Then, barely loud enough for anyone to hear, she muttered:
“That was about mine.”
And then she kept walking. The air still thick, her palms still sweating. But her chest just a little lighter.
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 7811
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
I feel like I missed something crucial at the end there
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16777
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Six Feet Above
The smell of bleach and old sweat hit Royce the second he stepped into the visitation room at Dixon Correctional. The air buzzed with fluorescent hum, and the clock on the wall ticked a little too loudly, like it was daring anyone to forget where they were.
A CO led him in without ceremony, pointing to one of the hard plastic chairs at the middle table.
Kevon was already sitting there, posture stiff, hands clasped like he’d been waiting longer than he had. His khakis were creased. His face—lined and leaner than Royce remembered—tightened when their eyes met.
He didn’t stand.
Neither did Royce.
They just looked at each other for a beat too long before Royce sat down.
Kevon’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something closer to irritation.
“Well,” he said, his voice gravel and smoke, “I see all that fame and flash didn’t teach you how to be on time.”
Royce didn’t answer. He folded his arms and leaned back in the chair.
Kevon clicked his tongue, disappointment thick in his breath. “You always think being silent makes you look strong.”
Royce met his stare without flinching. “Sometimes it just means I ain’t got shit to say.”
Kevon’s jaw tensed. “You always were the stubborn one. Just like your mama.”
Royce narrowed his eyes. “That supposed to be a dig?”
Kevon leaned forward now, his voice low but cutting. “You disappoint me, boy. All these years, all I ever tried to teach you was that nothing—nothing—is more important than family. And you still ain’t learned it.”
Royce barked a laugh. Dry. Cold.
“You wanna talk to me about family?” he said, shaking his head. “I been putting family before everything since I was old enough to know what the word meant.”
He sat forward now, voice rising just enough to sting.
“I made sure Rome had lunch money when you left us with nothing but lights that flickered and a half-empty fridge. I’m the one who picked Reg up from Ashland when he couldn’t even remember what charge got him booked. I was the one looking out for people when I couldn’t even see over the damn counter at the waterworks building, trying to pay bills I ain’t make.”
Kevon stared at him, face blank.
“You want to talk about loyalty?” Royce continued, teeth clenched now. “I gave my childhood up for this family. I got memories of stealing groceries and praying the EBT card worked. So stall me out if I don’t fall apart over someone who chose to bang dope in his veins instead of show up.”
The silence that followed stretched like wire.
Kevon’s lips parted, slow. “You gon’ get old one day, Royce. Just like me. And you gon’ look back and realize you handled this all shit wrong.”
Royce sat still for a long moment, then gave a slow nod—like he’d heard it before, like it didn’t quite touch him anymore.
“That’s a gamble I’m willing to take.”
Kevon’s face cracked, just slightly. Not quite anger. Not quite pain. Just the realization that nothing he said was going to change the man sitting across from him.
Royce stood.
“I ain’t come for advice,” he said. “I came to make sure you heard it from me before somebody else spun it wrong.”
He turned before Kevon could answer, walking back toward the exit, the echo of his footsteps sharp against the concrete floor.
No hug. No goodbye.
Just the distance between two men who once shared a name, now divided by choices neither could take back.
~~~~~~~~~~
Royce parked two blocks down from the office, same as he always did when coming here. Chance Delpit didn’t advertise. His office had no sign, no receptionist today, just a keypad entry, smoked glass, and a line of gold fleur-de-lis decals above the door that said everything without saying a thing.
Royce buzzed himself in and stepped into cool, still silence.
The air inside smelled like cedar and cologne, faintly sharp and masculine, like the kind of place you didn’t speak unless you had something to say. He knew better than to sit in the waiting area. He kept walking, past the abstract art and the locked door that led to whatever files Delpit never talked about, until he reached the small conference room at the back.
Delpit was already there.
He didn’t rise when Royce entered. Just gestured to the chair across the glass table.
Royce sat. Neither of them said anything.
For a long minute, the room held only quiet.
Then Delpit leaned forward, clasping his hands together like he was about to deliver a verdict. “It’s crunch time, son.”
Royce didn’t blink.
“You know what they’re expecting from you,” Delpit continued. “They’re expecting you to crash out. Flame out. Be another could’ve-been story people bring up in barbershop conversations and cautionary tales.”
His voice didn’t rise. He didn’t need to.
“You can go either way,” Delpit said. “That’s up to you.”
Royce rested back in the chair, the leather creaking beneath his weight. His jaw tightened. “It’s been a long-ass month.”
Delpit didn’t speak.
Royce added, “I ain’t got it in me to crash out. I’m tired.”
Delpit studied him for a beat, then stood. He moved to a small console and clicked the projector to life. The screen on the wall blinked and filled with an ESPN draft graphic.
Royce Lafitte – Linebacker, LSU.
Projected Top 20 Pick.
Below it, a clip rolled of Royce bursting through a gap on a delayed blitz, flattening a quarterback and standing over him like a monument to everything earned.
“You know better than most,” Delpit said, “that it doesn’t end on Sundays. That’s not the top of the mountain—it’s the first step.”
Royce didn’t look at the highlight reel. He stared past it, jaw still locked.
Delpit circled back to the table. “But what you’re on the cusp of? That’s different. That’s real money. Real reach. The kind of leverage that can fix things. Not just patch them.”
Royce finally turned toward the screen, then gestured loosely with his hand. “What you want me to do with that? Frame it? Retweet it? Tell my cousins in Houma I made it?”
Delpit shook his head slowly. “I want you to stop running from who you are. And what you can be.”
Royce’s mouth twitched—humorless. “What if I don’t know who that is?”
“You do,” Delpit said, firm. “You just tired of carrying the cost.”
Royce stared at the glowing wall a moment longer. His own face, frozen mid-play. Helmet crooked. Eyes furious. Like he was chasing something bigger than the ball.
Maybe he was.
“My dad said I’d regret how I’m handling this,” Royce muttered.
Delpit gave a single nod. “He might be right.”
Royce stood. “He might be wrong.”
Delpit didn’t stop him as he turned for the door.
“Think about what comes after,” Delpit said, just before Royce stepped out. “And think about who gets to write that version if you don’t.”
Royce didn’t answer.
He walked out without a word, but his pulse was thudding like a war drum, and his footsteps hit harder than before.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was still warm out, even with the sun on its way down. The kind of southern Louisiana heat that didn't crack—just eased up enough to pretend it had. Toni and Arianna walked the path from their off-campus apartment to the student union in Lafayette, sneakers scuffing against the uneven sidewalk, the cicadas humming like they always had something urgent to say.
Neither of them talked at first. They didn’t have to. The silence wasn’t awkward, just dense. Like walking through fog together.
Toni had her hands shoved in the pockets of her windbreaker, her hood up despite the weather. Arianna let hers fall back, curls pulled into a low puff at the nape of her neck. They moved in rhythm, steps light but aimless.
“I been scared to cry,” Toni said quietly.
Arianna didn’t look over. She kept walking, her voice calm, steady. “You already did.”
Toni blinked, like she hadn’t expected that.
Arianna added, “Just not in tears.”
They kept walking.
Toni’s throat bobbed. Her grip tightened inside the pocket. “I don’t know… everything’s just felt heavy. Since—everything.”
Arianna didn’t nod. Didn’t make some dramatic show of understanding. She just stayed close.
A few steps passed.
Toni’s voice dropped even lower. “He been different.”
She meant Deshawn. She didn’t say his name. She didn’t have to.
Arianna glanced over, briefly, then looked forward again. Her mouth stayed shut. She didn’t ask the questions she wanted to. Didn’t say what do you mean or are you okay or what kind of different.
That silence—that restraint—was its own kind of care.
Toni exhaled. “He ain’t hit me lately or nothing.”
Still, Arianna didn’t speak.
Toni laughed once, hollow. “Not like that’s the only thing that counts.”
They reached the union. People sat on benches outside, sipping frozen coffee and scrolling their phones. A couple walked by with fingers interlocked, laughing about something they’d seen on TikTok.
Toni stopped near the steps.
Arianna slowed beside her.
“Thanks,” Toni said, eyes fixed ahead.
“For what?”
“For not making me say more than I wanted.”
Arianna shrugged. “You’ll say it when you’re ready.”
Toni nodded once, a tight bob of her head like she was afraid it might come undone if she moved too much.
Then they walked inside.
Side by side. Still quiet.
But not alone.
The smell of bleach and old sweat hit Royce the second he stepped into the visitation room at Dixon Correctional. The air buzzed with fluorescent hum, and the clock on the wall ticked a little too loudly, like it was daring anyone to forget where they were.
A CO led him in without ceremony, pointing to one of the hard plastic chairs at the middle table.
Kevon was already sitting there, posture stiff, hands clasped like he’d been waiting longer than he had. His khakis were creased. His face—lined and leaner than Royce remembered—tightened when their eyes met.
He didn’t stand.
Neither did Royce.
They just looked at each other for a beat too long before Royce sat down.
Kevon’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something closer to irritation.
“Well,” he said, his voice gravel and smoke, “I see all that fame and flash didn’t teach you how to be on time.”
Royce didn’t answer. He folded his arms and leaned back in the chair.
Kevon clicked his tongue, disappointment thick in his breath. “You always think being silent makes you look strong.”
Royce met his stare without flinching. “Sometimes it just means I ain’t got shit to say.”
Kevon’s jaw tensed. “You always were the stubborn one. Just like your mama.”
Royce narrowed his eyes. “That supposed to be a dig?”
Kevon leaned forward now, his voice low but cutting. “You disappoint me, boy. All these years, all I ever tried to teach you was that nothing—nothing—is more important than family. And you still ain’t learned it.”
Royce barked a laugh. Dry. Cold.
“You wanna talk to me about family?” he said, shaking his head. “I been putting family before everything since I was old enough to know what the word meant.”
He sat forward now, voice rising just enough to sting.
“I made sure Rome had lunch money when you left us with nothing but lights that flickered and a half-empty fridge. I’m the one who picked Reg up from Ashland when he couldn’t even remember what charge got him booked. I was the one looking out for people when I couldn’t even see over the damn counter at the waterworks building, trying to pay bills I ain’t make.”
Kevon stared at him, face blank.
“You want to talk about loyalty?” Royce continued, teeth clenched now. “I gave my childhood up for this family. I got memories of stealing groceries and praying the EBT card worked. So stall me out if I don’t fall apart over someone who chose to bang dope in his veins instead of show up.”
The silence that followed stretched like wire.
Kevon’s lips parted, slow. “You gon’ get old one day, Royce. Just like me. And you gon’ look back and realize you handled this all shit wrong.”
Royce sat still for a long moment, then gave a slow nod—like he’d heard it before, like it didn’t quite touch him anymore.
“That’s a gamble I’m willing to take.”
Kevon’s face cracked, just slightly. Not quite anger. Not quite pain. Just the realization that nothing he said was going to change the man sitting across from him.
Royce stood.
“I ain’t come for advice,” he said. “I came to make sure you heard it from me before somebody else spun it wrong.”
He turned before Kevon could answer, walking back toward the exit, the echo of his footsteps sharp against the concrete floor.
No hug. No goodbye.
Just the distance between two men who once shared a name, now divided by choices neither could take back.
~~~~~~~~~~
Royce parked two blocks down from the office, same as he always did when coming here. Chance Delpit didn’t advertise. His office had no sign, no receptionist today, just a keypad entry, smoked glass, and a line of gold fleur-de-lis decals above the door that said everything without saying a thing.
Royce buzzed himself in and stepped into cool, still silence.
The air inside smelled like cedar and cologne, faintly sharp and masculine, like the kind of place you didn’t speak unless you had something to say. He knew better than to sit in the waiting area. He kept walking, past the abstract art and the locked door that led to whatever files Delpit never talked about, until he reached the small conference room at the back.
Delpit was already there.
He didn’t rise when Royce entered. Just gestured to the chair across the glass table.
Royce sat. Neither of them said anything.
For a long minute, the room held only quiet.
Then Delpit leaned forward, clasping his hands together like he was about to deliver a verdict. “It’s crunch time, son.”
Royce didn’t blink.
“You know what they’re expecting from you,” Delpit continued. “They’re expecting you to crash out. Flame out. Be another could’ve-been story people bring up in barbershop conversations and cautionary tales.”
His voice didn’t rise. He didn’t need to.
“You can go either way,” Delpit said. “That’s up to you.”
Royce rested back in the chair, the leather creaking beneath his weight. His jaw tightened. “It’s been a long-ass month.”
Delpit didn’t speak.
Royce added, “I ain’t got it in me to crash out. I’m tired.”
Delpit studied him for a beat, then stood. He moved to a small console and clicked the projector to life. The screen on the wall blinked and filled with an ESPN draft graphic.
Royce Lafitte – Linebacker, LSU.
Projected Top 20 Pick.
Below it, a clip rolled of Royce bursting through a gap on a delayed blitz, flattening a quarterback and standing over him like a monument to everything earned.
“You know better than most,” Delpit said, “that it doesn’t end on Sundays. That’s not the top of the mountain—it’s the first step.”
Royce didn’t look at the highlight reel. He stared past it, jaw still locked.
Delpit circled back to the table. “But what you’re on the cusp of? That’s different. That’s real money. Real reach. The kind of leverage that can fix things. Not just patch them.”
Royce finally turned toward the screen, then gestured loosely with his hand. “What you want me to do with that? Frame it? Retweet it? Tell my cousins in Houma I made it?”
Delpit shook his head slowly. “I want you to stop running from who you are. And what you can be.”
Royce’s mouth twitched—humorless. “What if I don’t know who that is?”
“You do,” Delpit said, firm. “You just tired of carrying the cost.”
Royce stared at the glowing wall a moment longer. His own face, frozen mid-play. Helmet crooked. Eyes furious. Like he was chasing something bigger than the ball.
Maybe he was.
“My dad said I’d regret how I’m handling this,” Royce muttered.
Delpit gave a single nod. “He might be right.”
Royce stood. “He might be wrong.”
Delpit didn’t stop him as he turned for the door.
“Think about what comes after,” Delpit said, just before Royce stepped out. “And think about who gets to write that version if you don’t.”
Royce didn’t answer.
He walked out without a word, but his pulse was thudding like a war drum, and his footsteps hit harder than before.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was still warm out, even with the sun on its way down. The kind of southern Louisiana heat that didn't crack—just eased up enough to pretend it had. Toni and Arianna walked the path from their off-campus apartment to the student union in Lafayette, sneakers scuffing against the uneven sidewalk, the cicadas humming like they always had something urgent to say.
Neither of them talked at first. They didn’t have to. The silence wasn’t awkward, just dense. Like walking through fog together.
Toni had her hands shoved in the pockets of her windbreaker, her hood up despite the weather. Arianna let hers fall back, curls pulled into a low puff at the nape of her neck. They moved in rhythm, steps light but aimless.
“I been scared to cry,” Toni said quietly.
Arianna didn’t look over. She kept walking, her voice calm, steady. “You already did.”
Toni blinked, like she hadn’t expected that.
Arianna added, “Just not in tears.”
They kept walking.
Toni’s throat bobbed. Her grip tightened inside the pocket. “I don’t know… everything’s just felt heavy. Since—everything.”
Arianna didn’t nod. Didn’t make some dramatic show of understanding. She just stayed close.
A few steps passed.
Toni’s voice dropped even lower. “He been different.”
She meant Deshawn. She didn’t say his name. She didn’t have to.
Arianna glanced over, briefly, then looked forward again. Her mouth stayed shut. She didn’t ask the questions she wanted to. Didn’t say what do you mean or are you okay or what kind of different.
That silence—that restraint—was its own kind of care.
Toni exhaled. “He ain’t hit me lately or nothing.”
Still, Arianna didn’t speak.
Toni laughed once, hollow. “Not like that’s the only thing that counts.”
They reached the union. People sat on benches outside, sipping frozen coffee and scrolling their phones. A couple walked by with fingers interlocked, laughing about something they’d seen on TikTok.
Toni stopped near the steps.
Arianna slowed beside her.
“Thanks,” Toni said, eyes fixed ahead.
“For what?”
“For not making me say more than I wanted.”
Arianna shrugged. “You’ll say it when you’re ready.”
Toni nodded once, a tight bob of her head like she was afraid it might come undone if she moved too much.
Then they walked inside.
Side by side. Still quiet.
But not alone.
-
djp73
- Posts: 13172
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 13:42
Dying to Live
think i did too?
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16777
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Saying It Out Loud
The knock came just as Alix was pulling her hair into a bun. She paused, hands still caught in the elastic, and exhaled through her nose. She hadn’t been expecting him—not this early, not with food in hand. Through the peephole: Co, in scrubs, his hoodie zipped halfway and a brown paper bag from the Lebanese spot in his grip.
She opened the door.
“Didn’t know what you ate for breakfast, so I just guessed,” he said.
“I’m not really a breakfast person.”
“Then I’m early for lunch.”
She gave a tired smile and stepped aside to let him in. The apartment still carried the smell of lemon cleaner and eucalyptus from the candle she’d burned the night before. Co placed the bag on the counter and leaned back against the island, casual but perceptive.
Alix moved slowly, like her bones weren’t ready for this yet. Like her guilt lived in her joints.
“Co,” she said, the name landing heavy. “Can we talk?”
He looked at her, quiet. Not bracing—just waiting.
“I, um...” She folded her arms, then dropped them. Tried again. “Something happened last week. With Royce.”
Co didn’t say anything.
She filled the silence. “I saw him after the funeral. We talked. It… spiraled.”
The words were heavier than she wanted. She hated how small her voice sounded.
He stood still, watching her without flinching.
“I’m not gonna lie and pretend it didn’t happen,” she continued. “I just thought… you should know. Even if it ruins whatever this is.”
Another beat passed. Co exhaled slowly, then rubbed the back of his neck.
“We never defined it,” he said, finally. “So I don’t think you cheated on me.”
Alix nodded. “I know.”
“But still,” he added. “Thanks for saying it. For not lying.”
Her throat caught around the edges of that sentence. He wasn’t mad—not in the way she expected. There was something steadier in him. Something she didn’t know how to answer with anything but honesty.
“I don’t plan on going back to him,” she said.
Co looked at her then, really looked. “Then it doesn’t matter to me.”
She blinked. “Just like that?”
“I said it doesn’t matter to me,” he repeated. “Didn’t say it didn’t matter to you.”
Alix bit the inside of her cheek.
Co nodded toward the bag. “Food’s still warm. I gotta head in. But I’ll see you in the morning, if you’re up.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’ll be here.”
He gave a brief smile—faint and unreadable—and left without looking back.
Alix spent the rest of the day with no music, no podcasts, no distractions. Just her own thoughts and the slow rhythm of her boots against pavement as she wandered through the Mid City art market.
The stalls were full of color. Clay earrings, abstract canvases, framed linework. Baton Rouge had a way of wearing its emotion in public—loud, splattered, sometimes messy. It suited her mood.
She stopped at a booth tucked at the end of the row. An older Black woman, dreadlocks tied back, stood behind a table filled with canvases in deep reds and sunburnt yellows. One painting in particular caught her eye.
It was simple—a figure, barely sketched, standing at the center of a forked road. The paths split in every direction, some thin and winding, some bold and jagged. The figure had no face. Just posture: unsure, maybe a little tired.
Alix stared at it.
“You like it?” the artist asked.
She nodded. “It feels… honest.”
The woman smiled. “That one’s called ‘Every Choice Is a Door.’”
Alix bought it.
At home, she changed into sweatpants, pulled her hair up again, and stood in front of the empty space above her bed.
She hung the piece gently, measuring the distance with her eyes, then stepped back to look.
There it was. A quiet thing. A reminder. A forked road, and the girl still standing.
Alix sat down on the edge of the mattress, looked up at the canvas, and whispered—not to anyone in particular—“Maybe next time I’ll choose faster.”
She turned off the light.
But she didn’t close the door.
~~~~~~~~~~
Arianna pressed her laptop shut with a sigh that scraped the back of her throat. The document she’d been staring at for nearly an hour sat unfinished—cursor blinking in time with her pulse, daring her to write something she didn’t know how to say yet.
It wasn’t the words that scared her.
It was what they meant.
She picked up her phone and tapped Mike’s name. The FaceTime call connected after a few rings, and his face filled the screen—lit by the soft orange glow of a desk lamp, his hair still slightly damp from a shower. He looked like he hadn’t slept much, but more than that, he looked like he hadn’t stopped thinking.
“Yo,” he said.
“Hey,” Arianna replied.
He gave her a small nod, then leaned back against the headboard of his dorm bed. A muted Saints flag hung behind him, and Arianna could just make out one of his textbooks on the nightstand. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.
Then she broke it.
“I can’t stop thinking about what Rana said. And how Royce looked. And how quiet everything was after.”
Mike tilted his head, listening.
“It feels like we’re the older generation now,” she said. “And I’m not ready for that.”
Mike didn’t flinch. Didn’t tell her she was being dramatic. He just looked at her for a beat, then said, “Ready or not, we the ones showing up.”
His voice was even, low—not trying to reassure, just stating what they both already knew.
Arianna blinked, swallowing. “When did that happen? When did we become the ones who have to hold it together?”
He gave a faint smile, tired around the edges. “I think it was somewhere between Rome’s funeral and Reg’s.”
Her breath caught. The names hung in the air like smoke.
“You doing okay?” she asked, voice soft.
Mike shrugged, but his eyes flickered. “Still hearing the shots some nights.”
Arianna nodded. “Yeah.”
“Still think about how close Ro came to being next. How close we all came, really.”
They were quiet again. The kind of quiet you only shared with someone who knew your past without needing it explained.
Arianna glanced at the bottom of the screen where her laptop sat, still open. “I’ve been working on something.”
Mike lifted an eyebrow.
“Title’s ‘Legacy is Just a Long Goodbye.’ I don’t know. It’s messy.”
“You always say that when it’s about to be good,” he said.
She smiled. “You think?”
“I know,” he said. “And besides, you writing it means you’re showing up. That’s half the work.”
Arianna looked at him then, her little brother who’d grown into someone she leaned on more than she ever expected. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He hadn’t been for a long time.
“Thanks, Mike-Mike.”
He nodded. “You’ll finish it. I know you will.”
She ended the call not because she wanted the conversation to be over—but because it had done what it needed to.
Then she turned back to her laptop.
She reread the title again—Legacy is Just a Long Goodbye—and this time, it didn’t feel so impossible to write.
She started typing. Not fast. Not perfect.
But with purpose.
Because ready or not, they were showing up.
~~~~~~~~~~
The sky was bruising to dusk when Deshawn pulled up to the curb outside the main lot at UL Lafayette. His music thumped low from the speakers, something bass-heavy and lazy, leaking into the warm air like smoke. Toni stood beneath the glow of a streetlamp, arms crossed, her hair pulled back in a low puff, backpack slung over one shoulder.
She was flipping through her notebook.
She didn’t hear him at first. Didn’t even look up until he honked, a short, sharp burst.
Toni blinked, startled, then tucked her pen between the pages and closed the book gently. She walked to the passenger side, pulled the door open, and slid inside.
Deshawn looked over as she settled. “You still on that journaling shit?”
He said it with a smirk, like it was cute. Like it was harmless to mock something he didn’t understand.
Toni didn’t respond. She just folded the notebook once, then again, and slid it carefully into the depths of her bag.
Not like she was hiding it.
Like she was protecting it.
Like she was protecting herself.
Deshawn snorted and put the car in drive. “I’m just saying. That’s for people who got time to cry over shit that happened ten years ago.”
She didn’t look at him.
Her silence wasn’t soft. It wasn’t surrender. It was sharp and sure, like a shield she’d learned to hold steady. She stared out the window, watching campus blur into streets and parking lots. The notebook thudded gently in her bag with every turn of the wheels, a quiet reminder that her story still existed—no matter who scoffed at it.
Deshawn turned the volume up.
Toni didn’t ask him to turn it down.
But she did press her hand against the notebook, just for a second, like she was reminding herself that the words were still there. That her thoughts mattered even when she didn’t speak them aloud.
That not everything had to be said to be known.
~~~~~~~~~~
Royce walked slowly out of the locker room. His body ached in that low, satisfied way it always did after a hard Tuesday practice—helmets clanging, pads thudding, coaches barking with urgency that tasted like pressure and playoff dreams.
Effie: what you up to
He paused on the stairs outside the locker room, duffel bag hanging from his fingertips.
bout to grab food or something. Why
come thru instead
She dropped a pin. He stared at it for a second, then pocketed his phone without responding. A breeze cut through the evening air, not cool, just dry enough to make him realize he hadn’t drank enough water.
By the time he pulled up to her place, the sky was leaking orange into violet. The complex was tucked off a side street lined with willow trees, the kind of place that didn’t try too hard to impress you. Her unit was upstairs, third one on the left. He knocked once before she opened it.
She was barefoot, wearing a loose LSU tee and bike shorts, her curls pulled up high. “That was fast,” she said, stepping back to let him in.
“You caught me hungry,” he replied.
But he wasn’t thinking about food anymore.
Inside, her place felt different. Not like the other girls he’d visited in Baton Rouge. No LED strips or cluttered makeup counters. No gaudy canvas prints of Marilyn Monroe or Beyoncé. Her walls were hung with photographs—mostly black and white—of buildings and people, but all in a way that made you want to look twice. A shelf held books he didn’t recognize, and tiny plants curled toward the sunlight leaking through the blinds. There were earthy tones everywhere—terracotta, olive, clay.
“Yo,” he said, toeing off his sneakers. “This you?”
Effie arched a brow. “Why? You expected a tapestry and a bottle of Cîroc on the dresser?”
Royce laughed under his breath. “Something like that.”
They ended up in her bedroom, where she lit a blunt with the window cracked and the fan humming. She offered it to him with a casual hand.
He shook his head. “Game Thursday.”
“Ah,” she said, taking a long pull. “Discipline. I respect it.”
Royce sat down on the edge of the bed, forearms on his knees. “I told my ex I think I’m gonna die young.”
Effie stopped mid-inhale. “Damn. You just say that like a greeting now?”
“I ain’t mean it dramatic,” he said, eyes tracking the smoke curling near the ceiling. “Just been feeling like… shit’s catching up. I don’t know. Like I’m next.”
She leaned back against the headboard, exhaling slow. “What’d she say when you told her that?”
“We fucked.”
Effie laughed, full and unfiltered. “Yeah, I’m sure that solved everything.”
Royce’s mouth tugged into a smirk. “Didn’t even help me sleep.”
Royce leaned back against the headboard, arms crossed over his chest. His voice dropped, low and raw.
“You said once… you could relate to me.”
Effie didn’t respond right away.
“I wasn’t just talking about grief,” he continued. “I meant the part where it’s your fault.”
His eyes met hers now. Not sharp. Not accusing. Just trying to name something that had been gnawing at his ribs since the day they’d lowered Romeo into the ground.
“I started that fight,” he said. “The one that got my brother shot. Got me shot too. I was mad, couldn’t let shit go, had something to prove. So yeah—he died, and I lived, and I been trying to figure out what the hell to do with that ever since.”
Effie’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind her eyes. She reached for the mason jar, not to smoke again, just to have something to hold.
She whispered, “I took my sister to a party. Said it’d be chill. Said we deserved a night.”
Royce didn’t interrupt.
“I wasn’t even watching her. Got distracted. Drinking, dancing. Next thing I knew, she’d taken something. Something she thought was safe. It wasn’t.”
…
March 2023
The party pulsed with bass that made the floor feel soft beneath Effie’s sneakers. Her cup was cold in her hand, condensation bleeding through the plastic. The house was packed—living room crammed, kitchen louder than it should’ve been, every wall lined with people trying too hard to look like they weren’t trying at all.
It was supposed to be a night out. A break. A distraction from the heaviness that had started creeping into their house like mold. Paz had been dragging herself through the last few weeks, skipping meals, sleeping too much. Effie—two years older, with a driver's license and a fake ID—had pulled her out of bed that afternoon and said, “Come with me tonight. Just us.”
And at first, it was just them.
Paz clung to her side as they moved through the crowd, wide-eyed but smiling. She looked younger than she was—short curls tucked behind her ears, sweatshirt tied around her waist, the blue polish on her nails already chipped. She laughed at all the wrong parts of Effie’s stories and pointed out boys with too much cologne. They drank from the same cranberry-and-something and danced shoulder to shoulder under the cheap lights someone had strung along the ceiling.
At one point, Paz leaned in close and said, “Bathroom.”
Effie nodded without looking, distracted by someone trying to pass behind her.
Paz disappeared into the crowd.
Effie kept dancing.
She talked to a boy from English comp. Took a picture with some girls she didn’t really like. Refilled her drink with whatever was on the counter. The music blurred into one long note. Minutes passed, or maybe more.
She didn’t notice.
Not until someone screamed.
The sound cut through the music, high and sharp like glass breaking. A ripple moved through the living room—bodies parting, faces twisting. The crowd shifted and reshaped and then there it was—
A girl on the floor.
Convulsing. Mouth foaming. Arms jerking like puppet strings gone wrong.
And Effie—frozen.
Her cup dropped. Plastic clattered against wood. She couldn’t move.
Someone shouted to call 911. Someone else knelt, trying to turn the girl on her side. The room tilted. People panicked. Others watched. No one said her name out loud.
Not until Effie stumbled forward, knees locking and throat tight, and saw the chipped blue polish.
It was Paz.
The scene blurred. Someone grabbed Effie’s shoulders and pulled her back. She heard herself saying her sister’s name, over and over, but it didn’t sound like her voice.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Paz wasn’t shaking anymore.
She wasn’t doing anything.
Effie rode in the front of the ambulance, fingers clenched so tight around her phone that later, when she opened her hand, the case was cracked.
The hospital lights were too bright. The hallway too long. The nurse too quiet when she stepped into the waiting room and asked if someone could sit with her.
Effie didn’t cry until they handed her Paz’s hoodie in a clear plastic bag.
Didn’t speak until her mom showed up and looked at her like the wrong daughter had come home.
She never went to a party again. Never touched vodka again. Couldn’t listen to that one stupid Ty Dolla $ign song again without seeing flashing blue lights and foamed lips.
And the world never bent back the way it was before.
…
Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “I still see her. Not how she was. How she looked on the hospital bed. Every time I close my eyes too long.”
Royce’s jaw clenched.
“I was seventeen. She was fifteen. She was beautiful. Perfect,” Effie said. “I never told my mom exactly how it went down. But she knew. She looked at me different from that day on. Like I was some cracked reflection of the daughter she wanted to keep.”
Royce nodded slowly, eyes locked on the frayed edge of her comforter. “My mama don’t look at me the same no more either.”
“I get It,” she said, eyes staring off into a corner as if reliving that night. “Living when they didn’t. Feeling like you handed death the map.”
“Yeah,” was all he said.
She passed the blunt back to herself, took one last pull, and stashed the rest in a mason jar beside the lamp.
They didn’t talk for a while after that.
But neither of them moved.
Just sat in the dim, earthy stillness of a room that didn’t ask for anything loud—and shared the kind of grief that didn’t always cry. Sometimes it just showed up. Smelled like smoke. Sat next to you. Waited to be named.
The knock came just as Alix was pulling her hair into a bun. She paused, hands still caught in the elastic, and exhaled through her nose. She hadn’t been expecting him—not this early, not with food in hand. Through the peephole: Co, in scrubs, his hoodie zipped halfway and a brown paper bag from the Lebanese spot in his grip.
She opened the door.
“Didn’t know what you ate for breakfast, so I just guessed,” he said.
“I’m not really a breakfast person.”
“Then I’m early for lunch.”
She gave a tired smile and stepped aside to let him in. The apartment still carried the smell of lemon cleaner and eucalyptus from the candle she’d burned the night before. Co placed the bag on the counter and leaned back against the island, casual but perceptive.
Alix moved slowly, like her bones weren’t ready for this yet. Like her guilt lived in her joints.
“Co,” she said, the name landing heavy. “Can we talk?”
He looked at her, quiet. Not bracing—just waiting.
“I, um...” She folded her arms, then dropped them. Tried again. “Something happened last week. With Royce.”
Co didn’t say anything.
She filled the silence. “I saw him after the funeral. We talked. It… spiraled.”
The words were heavier than she wanted. She hated how small her voice sounded.
He stood still, watching her without flinching.
“I’m not gonna lie and pretend it didn’t happen,” she continued. “I just thought… you should know. Even if it ruins whatever this is.”
Another beat passed. Co exhaled slowly, then rubbed the back of his neck.
“We never defined it,” he said, finally. “So I don’t think you cheated on me.”
Alix nodded. “I know.”
“But still,” he added. “Thanks for saying it. For not lying.”
Her throat caught around the edges of that sentence. He wasn’t mad—not in the way she expected. There was something steadier in him. Something she didn’t know how to answer with anything but honesty.
“I don’t plan on going back to him,” she said.
Co looked at her then, really looked. “Then it doesn’t matter to me.”
She blinked. “Just like that?”
“I said it doesn’t matter to me,” he repeated. “Didn’t say it didn’t matter to you.”
Alix bit the inside of her cheek.
Co nodded toward the bag. “Food’s still warm. I gotta head in. But I’ll see you in the morning, if you’re up.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’ll be here.”
He gave a brief smile—faint and unreadable—and left without looking back.
Alix spent the rest of the day with no music, no podcasts, no distractions. Just her own thoughts and the slow rhythm of her boots against pavement as she wandered through the Mid City art market.
The stalls were full of color. Clay earrings, abstract canvases, framed linework. Baton Rouge had a way of wearing its emotion in public—loud, splattered, sometimes messy. It suited her mood.
She stopped at a booth tucked at the end of the row. An older Black woman, dreadlocks tied back, stood behind a table filled with canvases in deep reds and sunburnt yellows. One painting in particular caught her eye.
It was simple—a figure, barely sketched, standing at the center of a forked road. The paths split in every direction, some thin and winding, some bold and jagged. The figure had no face. Just posture: unsure, maybe a little tired.
Alix stared at it.
“You like it?” the artist asked.
She nodded. “It feels… honest.”
The woman smiled. “That one’s called ‘Every Choice Is a Door.’”
Alix bought it.
At home, she changed into sweatpants, pulled her hair up again, and stood in front of the empty space above her bed.
She hung the piece gently, measuring the distance with her eyes, then stepped back to look.
There it was. A quiet thing. A reminder. A forked road, and the girl still standing.
Alix sat down on the edge of the mattress, looked up at the canvas, and whispered—not to anyone in particular—“Maybe next time I’ll choose faster.”
She turned off the light.
But she didn’t close the door.
~~~~~~~~~~
Arianna pressed her laptop shut with a sigh that scraped the back of her throat. The document she’d been staring at for nearly an hour sat unfinished—cursor blinking in time with her pulse, daring her to write something she didn’t know how to say yet.
It wasn’t the words that scared her.
It was what they meant.
She picked up her phone and tapped Mike’s name. The FaceTime call connected after a few rings, and his face filled the screen—lit by the soft orange glow of a desk lamp, his hair still slightly damp from a shower. He looked like he hadn’t slept much, but more than that, he looked like he hadn’t stopped thinking.
“Yo,” he said.
“Hey,” Arianna replied.
He gave her a small nod, then leaned back against the headboard of his dorm bed. A muted Saints flag hung behind him, and Arianna could just make out one of his textbooks on the nightstand. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.
Then she broke it.
“I can’t stop thinking about what Rana said. And how Royce looked. And how quiet everything was after.”
Mike tilted his head, listening.
“It feels like we’re the older generation now,” she said. “And I’m not ready for that.”
Mike didn’t flinch. Didn’t tell her she was being dramatic. He just looked at her for a beat, then said, “Ready or not, we the ones showing up.”
His voice was even, low—not trying to reassure, just stating what they both already knew.
Arianna blinked, swallowing. “When did that happen? When did we become the ones who have to hold it together?”
He gave a faint smile, tired around the edges. “I think it was somewhere between Rome’s funeral and Reg’s.”
Her breath caught. The names hung in the air like smoke.
“You doing okay?” she asked, voice soft.
Mike shrugged, but his eyes flickered. “Still hearing the shots some nights.”
Arianna nodded. “Yeah.”
“Still think about how close Ro came to being next. How close we all came, really.”
They were quiet again. The kind of quiet you only shared with someone who knew your past without needing it explained.
Arianna glanced at the bottom of the screen where her laptop sat, still open. “I’ve been working on something.”
Mike lifted an eyebrow.
“Title’s ‘Legacy is Just a Long Goodbye.’ I don’t know. It’s messy.”
“You always say that when it’s about to be good,” he said.
She smiled. “You think?”
“I know,” he said. “And besides, you writing it means you’re showing up. That’s half the work.”
Arianna looked at him then, her little brother who’d grown into someone she leaned on more than she ever expected. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He hadn’t been for a long time.
“Thanks, Mike-Mike.”
He nodded. “You’ll finish it. I know you will.”
She ended the call not because she wanted the conversation to be over—but because it had done what it needed to.
Then she turned back to her laptop.
She reread the title again—Legacy is Just a Long Goodbye—and this time, it didn’t feel so impossible to write.
She started typing. Not fast. Not perfect.
But with purpose.
Because ready or not, they were showing up.
~~~~~~~~~~
The sky was bruising to dusk when Deshawn pulled up to the curb outside the main lot at UL Lafayette. His music thumped low from the speakers, something bass-heavy and lazy, leaking into the warm air like smoke. Toni stood beneath the glow of a streetlamp, arms crossed, her hair pulled back in a low puff, backpack slung over one shoulder.
She was flipping through her notebook.
She didn’t hear him at first. Didn’t even look up until he honked, a short, sharp burst.
Toni blinked, startled, then tucked her pen between the pages and closed the book gently. She walked to the passenger side, pulled the door open, and slid inside.
Deshawn looked over as she settled. “You still on that journaling shit?”
He said it with a smirk, like it was cute. Like it was harmless to mock something he didn’t understand.
Toni didn’t respond. She just folded the notebook once, then again, and slid it carefully into the depths of her bag.
Not like she was hiding it.
Like she was protecting it.
Like she was protecting herself.
Deshawn snorted and put the car in drive. “I’m just saying. That’s for people who got time to cry over shit that happened ten years ago.”
She didn’t look at him.
Her silence wasn’t soft. It wasn’t surrender. It was sharp and sure, like a shield she’d learned to hold steady. She stared out the window, watching campus blur into streets and parking lots. The notebook thudded gently in her bag with every turn of the wheels, a quiet reminder that her story still existed—no matter who scoffed at it.
Deshawn turned the volume up.
Toni didn’t ask him to turn it down.
But she did press her hand against the notebook, just for a second, like she was reminding herself that the words were still there. That her thoughts mattered even when she didn’t speak them aloud.
That not everything had to be said to be known.
~~~~~~~~~~
Royce walked slowly out of the locker room. His body ached in that low, satisfied way it always did after a hard Tuesday practice—helmets clanging, pads thudding, coaches barking with urgency that tasted like pressure and playoff dreams.
Effie: what you up to
He paused on the stairs outside the locker room, duffel bag hanging from his fingertips.
bout to grab food or something. Why
come thru instead
She dropped a pin. He stared at it for a second, then pocketed his phone without responding. A breeze cut through the evening air, not cool, just dry enough to make him realize he hadn’t drank enough water.
By the time he pulled up to her place, the sky was leaking orange into violet. The complex was tucked off a side street lined with willow trees, the kind of place that didn’t try too hard to impress you. Her unit was upstairs, third one on the left. He knocked once before she opened it.
She was barefoot, wearing a loose LSU tee and bike shorts, her curls pulled up high. “That was fast,” she said, stepping back to let him in.
“You caught me hungry,” he replied.
But he wasn’t thinking about food anymore.
Inside, her place felt different. Not like the other girls he’d visited in Baton Rouge. No LED strips or cluttered makeup counters. No gaudy canvas prints of Marilyn Monroe or Beyoncé. Her walls were hung with photographs—mostly black and white—of buildings and people, but all in a way that made you want to look twice. A shelf held books he didn’t recognize, and tiny plants curled toward the sunlight leaking through the blinds. There were earthy tones everywhere—terracotta, olive, clay.
“Yo,” he said, toeing off his sneakers. “This you?”
Effie arched a brow. “Why? You expected a tapestry and a bottle of Cîroc on the dresser?”
Royce laughed under his breath. “Something like that.”
They ended up in her bedroom, where she lit a blunt with the window cracked and the fan humming. She offered it to him with a casual hand.
He shook his head. “Game Thursday.”
“Ah,” she said, taking a long pull. “Discipline. I respect it.”
Royce sat down on the edge of the bed, forearms on his knees. “I told my ex I think I’m gonna die young.”
Effie stopped mid-inhale. “Damn. You just say that like a greeting now?”
“I ain’t mean it dramatic,” he said, eyes tracking the smoke curling near the ceiling. “Just been feeling like… shit’s catching up. I don’t know. Like I’m next.”
She leaned back against the headboard, exhaling slow. “What’d she say when you told her that?”
“We fucked.”
Effie laughed, full and unfiltered. “Yeah, I’m sure that solved everything.”
Royce’s mouth tugged into a smirk. “Didn’t even help me sleep.”
Royce leaned back against the headboard, arms crossed over his chest. His voice dropped, low and raw.
“You said once… you could relate to me.”
Effie didn’t respond right away.
“I wasn’t just talking about grief,” he continued. “I meant the part where it’s your fault.”
His eyes met hers now. Not sharp. Not accusing. Just trying to name something that had been gnawing at his ribs since the day they’d lowered Romeo into the ground.
“I started that fight,” he said. “The one that got my brother shot. Got me shot too. I was mad, couldn’t let shit go, had something to prove. So yeah—he died, and I lived, and I been trying to figure out what the hell to do with that ever since.”
Effie’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind her eyes. She reached for the mason jar, not to smoke again, just to have something to hold.
She whispered, “I took my sister to a party. Said it’d be chill. Said we deserved a night.”
Royce didn’t interrupt.
“I wasn’t even watching her. Got distracted. Drinking, dancing. Next thing I knew, she’d taken something. Something she thought was safe. It wasn’t.”
…
March 2023
The party pulsed with bass that made the floor feel soft beneath Effie’s sneakers. Her cup was cold in her hand, condensation bleeding through the plastic. The house was packed—living room crammed, kitchen louder than it should’ve been, every wall lined with people trying too hard to look like they weren’t trying at all.
It was supposed to be a night out. A break. A distraction from the heaviness that had started creeping into their house like mold. Paz had been dragging herself through the last few weeks, skipping meals, sleeping too much. Effie—two years older, with a driver's license and a fake ID—had pulled her out of bed that afternoon and said, “Come with me tonight. Just us.”
And at first, it was just them.
Paz clung to her side as they moved through the crowd, wide-eyed but smiling. She looked younger than she was—short curls tucked behind her ears, sweatshirt tied around her waist, the blue polish on her nails already chipped. She laughed at all the wrong parts of Effie’s stories and pointed out boys with too much cologne. They drank from the same cranberry-and-something and danced shoulder to shoulder under the cheap lights someone had strung along the ceiling.
At one point, Paz leaned in close and said, “Bathroom.”
Effie nodded without looking, distracted by someone trying to pass behind her.
Paz disappeared into the crowd.
Effie kept dancing.
She talked to a boy from English comp. Took a picture with some girls she didn’t really like. Refilled her drink with whatever was on the counter. The music blurred into one long note. Minutes passed, or maybe more.
She didn’t notice.
Not until someone screamed.
The sound cut through the music, high and sharp like glass breaking. A ripple moved through the living room—bodies parting, faces twisting. The crowd shifted and reshaped and then there it was—
A girl on the floor.
Convulsing. Mouth foaming. Arms jerking like puppet strings gone wrong.
And Effie—frozen.
Her cup dropped. Plastic clattered against wood. She couldn’t move.
Someone shouted to call 911. Someone else knelt, trying to turn the girl on her side. The room tilted. People panicked. Others watched. No one said her name out loud.
Not until Effie stumbled forward, knees locking and throat tight, and saw the chipped blue polish.
It was Paz.
The scene blurred. Someone grabbed Effie’s shoulders and pulled her back. She heard herself saying her sister’s name, over and over, but it didn’t sound like her voice.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Paz wasn’t shaking anymore.
She wasn’t doing anything.
Effie rode in the front of the ambulance, fingers clenched so tight around her phone that later, when she opened her hand, the case was cracked.
The hospital lights were too bright. The hallway too long. The nurse too quiet when she stepped into the waiting room and asked if someone could sit with her.
Effie didn’t cry until they handed her Paz’s hoodie in a clear plastic bag.
Didn’t speak until her mom showed up and looked at her like the wrong daughter had come home.
She never went to a party again. Never touched vodka again. Couldn’t listen to that one stupid Ty Dolla $ign song again without seeing flashing blue lights and foamed lips.
And the world never bent back the way it was before.
…
Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “I still see her. Not how she was. How she looked on the hospital bed. Every time I close my eyes too long.”
Royce’s jaw clenched.
“I was seventeen. She was fifteen. She was beautiful. Perfect,” Effie said. “I never told my mom exactly how it went down. But she knew. She looked at me different from that day on. Like I was some cracked reflection of the daughter she wanted to keep.”
Royce nodded slowly, eyes locked on the frayed edge of her comforter. “My mama don’t look at me the same no more either.”
“I get It,” she said, eyes staring off into a corner as if reliving that night. “Living when they didn’t. Feeling like you handed death the map.”
“Yeah,” was all he said.
She passed the blunt back to herself, took one last pull, and stashed the rest in a mason jar beside the lamp.
They didn’t talk for a while after that.
But neither of them moved.
Just sat in the dim, earthy stillness of a room that didn’t ask for anything loud—and shared the kind of grief that didn’t always cry. Sometimes it just showed up. Smelled like smoke. Sat next to you. Waited to be named.
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 7811
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
So, what? She took something in the bathroom and died? I figured it was something like that that happened to Paz. Rip shordy.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16777
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
Mi hermano en Christo. Por favor. It was right before the flashbackCaptain Canada wrote: ↑04 Jun 2025, 16:59So, what? She took something in the bathroom and died? I figured it was something like that that happened to Paz. Rip shordy.
But one would hope this lessens your disdain of Josefina.
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7811
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Dying to Live
Shordy sister just walking about taking pills? That’s crazy work to just drop her like that.Caesar wrote: ↑04 Jun 2025, 17:07Mi hermano en Christo. Por favor. It was right before the flashbackCaptain Canada wrote: ↑04 Jun 2025, 16:59So, what? She took something in the bathroom and died? I figured it was something like that that happened to Paz. Rip shordy.
But one would hope this lessens your disdain of Josefina.
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16777
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Dying to Live
People do that very thing erryday, bruddaCaptain Canada wrote: ↑04 Jun 2025, 18:35Shordy sister just walking about taking pills? That’s crazy work to just drop her like that.Caesar wrote: ↑04 Jun 2025, 17:07Mi hermano en Christo. Por favor. It was right before the flashbackCaptain Canada wrote: ↑04 Jun 2025, 16:59So, what? She took something in the bathroom and died? I figured it was something like that that happened to Paz. Rip shordy.
But one would hope this lessens your disdain of Josefina.