The Wedding (Groom)

His heart is pounding a million miles an hour and his bow tie seems a little too tight. He keeps casting nervous glances over his shoulder where his friends are gathered in a line behind him giving him subtle thumbs up to steady his wary nerves. This is the biggest day of his life; why is he so worried? The music begins to play and his eyes widen.
Avery he muses as this is her cue to appear.
Double doors open slowly and his jaw drops as a pretty young girl with wide eyes, a petite frame, and a head full of curls steps forward escorted by her father. Everything hits him at once and the nerves are gone, replaced by a sense of fulfillment and - to be cliche - love. So much love. She advances down the long aisle of rose petals as she casts nervous glances his way. So shy. Even without words he knows she's asking if she looks okay. If she's enough. He just answers with a gentle nod.
Her father is crying (heck, he's crying what's the difference) as he hands her off to him and her fingers feel light and dainty in between his. They exchange vows - ones they'd written - and end it off with rings and a kiss that tastes like salt and strawberry lipstick. Leave it to Avery to wear flavored chapstick on her wedding day.
Arm in arm they walk out, beaming like they're the most important people in the world. Well in that moment...they were.

The Wedding

Oh the white and black and red splendor that bursts forth and drips from every crevice in the church. From the bright red roses and bowties to the tender white fabric of her dress, every thing about the day is perfect. Music begins to play softly announcing her arrival like a princess and she steps up to large wooden doors behind which she hears the sound of people rising from their seats just to get a look at her. Her best friends are already waiting for her down the isle in their ruby red dresses and her future husband stands - no doubt nervous - by his best man. She glances over at her father who gives her a teary-eyed smile and she returns it with childish fervor as if to assure him she'll always be his baby girl.

The doors open and she steps out to meet the gazes of over two hundred people with cameras and wide, gawking eyes and lips. Her own mouth curls up into a smile and she self-consciously moves a perfectly manicured hand up to tuck a brown curl up behind her ear.

There he is. In a black tailcoat with a red bowtie and blinding smile he's her everything. Her love, her truth, her future.

Such an emotional man; already she can see tears reflecting at the corners of his endless blue eyes. She can't blame him, even she - a normally steely woman - can feel the strain of happiness about to overflow.

She shifts the bouquet in her hand (roses - seven of them - one for each year she's known him) to hold out to her best friend and maid of honor and they exchange careful smiles.

The ceremony is beautiful - not a dry eye by the end of it - and everything she ever dreamt of as a child. From her dress to the brand new red converse on her feet to her smiling new husband - her everything - it's perfect.

He's perfect.

So I do things now.

Yeah so i do the tshirt making thing now it's pretty cool. I'm on redbubble (fantastic website) and its where you can design things and put them online for people to buy and you get 20% of the profits. of course i havent sold anything because i'm a loser but it's the novelty of the situation that makes it fun! Lets see....i have a supernatural one, an achievement hunter one, and a star trek one. I also got this really cool font that's like minecraft font to make a Mogar shirt... I actually have no earthly idea why i even try but hey. whatever. it's really exciting to make up a new idea. it would help if i had a real editing software like Photoshop or whatever...but i work with the free stuff i have it's cool i shan't complain. also would be helpful if i were a bit more creative....or could actually accomplish the ideas in my head because there's some really cool stuff up here it's just stuck up there forever with my inability to art. i dunno i really want to make a homestuck Mayor shirt with his little badge thing or a really cool Doctor Who shirt....

So this Weekend....

Yeah i'm swimming this weekend at Virginia Tech and i'm really nervous because i haven't been breathing well because we discovered my asthma acting up again and ahhh i'm so nervous. It's a prelims-finals meet which means everything i swim at 6 in the morning...i have to swim all over again but faster that night. aka my 8 event meet turns into 16 events. it's gross. well i'm going to drown because i put myself in the 400 IM (100 fly, 100 back, 100 breast, 100 free) thinking "oh hey that'll be the one thing i'll final in that day because i'm not that fast" and my coach said okay he'd put me in it. but then later he tells me top 30 final as opposed to the usual top 16....which means i gave myself an extra event to drown in...and a long one at that. needless to say i'm not very excited about this meet. quite frankly i just want to curl up under a blanket and sleep but that wont happen because i have to be up at 5 every day this weekend...so yeah. missing school friday is great, but don't worry i'll be getting up earlier than usual and going to bed later. i may cry while i drown...no i'll just drown in my own tears. yeah. that works pretty well....

Time pt 3

Riegion and I, however, see things differently. I keep this antique clock, not for sentimental reasons, but for the sole fact it’s one of the only things left in the city that doesn’t run off the generators. That’s why I always have to wind it, because I never took it end to sync up with the generators lest I too fall into the haze everyone else has over them. Riegion has a different story. He tinkers and has even snuck down to mess with the generators once or twice before. He knows things even the Mayor doesn’t know, but nobody ever listens to the blond long enough to figure this out.

                “We have to go.” Riegion says suddenly, his blue eyes cloudy silver as they fix above the crowd in an unseeing manner.

                “No Riegion. You of all people should know not to ditch classes.” No matter how much I love Marci, she can be a real idiot most of the time.

                Riegion’s also special. Ever since he was little he’s had the Sight – the ability to see things we can’t see, like pending dangers that are inevitable now that the generators are down. No one knows this but me, not even Marci. Well, she knows but she chooses to ignore it.

                “Come on Marce. Let’s get somewhere quieter. Look, here come the teachers to break this all up.”

time pt 2

“Ave! Avery!” My best friend races down the hall towards me, bobbing in and out of the small groups of people.

                “Marci? What’s up?”

                “You’re gonna want to see this” Is the only answer she offers up as she grabs my hand, her blonde braid swaying back and forth against her back as she weaves us down the stairs.

                Myron is known as the Clockwork City because everything is run off clockwork generators beneath the city which run off Time itself. Here, trains are neither early nor late and the gates open and close at the same exact time every day since before anyone can remember. No one knows what would happen should Time run out.

                A vast majority of the sophomore class, paired up with all the freshmen and a few lingering juniors and seniors who don’t think themselves too ‘cool’ to be on time to class pool outside the large metal doors that block us from the main building and all our lockers. Just like everything else in the city, our doors don’t open except for five minute windows between classes to let us in and out.

                “Weird isn’t it?” Marci stands on her tip-toes, trying her best to see above the din. “It’s like they’re ignoring the 11:35 bell or something. Is that even possible?”

                “Maybe they’re ignoring it because it never rang.” Riegion Vassel appears beside us, giving his twin quite a fright.

                “What are you going on about, Riege? Of course they rang.” Marci has a strict belief in the generators, one of the many who live in a fog that deters them from doubting the structure of our city.

Time

Prologue

August 23, 2057. The day Time stopped his slow progression. The day He returned to reclaim his land. The day the world as we know it ended.

Chapter 1:

That which is given can be taken back.

                Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The faint ticking of the clock around my neck steadies me as I wrap a sweaty palm around the rusty bronze timepiece and stare down at the insufferable math test in front of me.

                “Five more minutes” My teacher calls, her voice loud above the eerie quiet of the room where everyone’s head is bent over their desks in concentration.

                Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Click. My watch stops its faithful ticking, something I never allow to happen. It’s an antique, one you still have to wind on a daily basis to make it work. Never have I forgotten my morning duty, nor did I forget my natural routine today. Only the end time itself could stop this clock from working.

                Puzzled, I look down and click it open, studying the smooth glass covering the little watch face with intense curiosity. Soft murmurs pass around the room and my head shoots up in sheer confusion. Someone’s eyes are always on the room’s clock at any given time, and when I glance at it myself, that clock has stopped as well.

                “Ladies and gentlemen please. This is a test. If I catch you talking I will take your paper and you’ll get a zero.”

                “It’s just a clock, what’s so special?” Sarah Pippin, your everyday typical teacher’s pet, pipes up, her tight ponytail bouncing on her head with each word.

                “You have…” Mrs. Thompson looks down at her watch and her face keys me into what everyone wants to know. “…two minutes.” Her watch has stopped too.

the things i find

i was looking around under my couch side table today and i saw this strange journal. well, i'm a big lover of anything to write in so i picked it up excited to have something new. When i opened it up i saw a strangely familiar scrawl inside, and the further i went the handwriting changed to...my own. When my grandma was fighting cancer she wanted to write down her story so my mom and i would always have it. So she kept a journal and when she was too tired to write she'd narrate the story for me to write down. It kind of hurt a little to read because i miss her so much so often, but i am glad that she left the notebook. Then again she never got to finish because i wasnt a big fan of writing back then and she got so tired and slipped away so quickly that she never got past telling the story of my moms childhood. I guess i'm getting a bit sentimental now but what can i say? She was one of the best people to walk the earth and this is some part of her. Though i found out through Ma that some people take the ashes of their loved ones and these jewelers can turn the ashes into diamonds and the diamond is blue....that's a pretty unique way of keeping your loved ones close if you ask me. But then again people tell me i'm a little messed up in the head...c'est la vie.

Attack

In. Out. In. Out. One more breath. Again.

My head bursts from the water and I draw another long shaky breath before diving down again. Butterfly is probably my least favorite stroke but I have to make this a good 100 if I want any hope of doing well in the 400 on Friday.

Can’t breathe.

One more lap, that’s easy, right? My head feels heavy and I can’t seem to pick it up over the water anymore. My arms are burning – that’s not unusual – and my legs drag like lead.

12 ½ yards. Halfway back. Can’t die.

Still can’t breathe!

My hands pound into the wall and I gasp an unsatisfying breath that’s followed by a long stream of coughs that make it even more impossible to breathe the longer it happens. The next heat dives in and I pull myself out of the water on hands and knees and people gather around me to ask if I’m okay. Of course I am, this isn’t anything new.

100 free. I have to swim the 100 free.

“Move”. They won’t get away. I have to swim (I have to breathe).

Why won’t the doctor help? I’ve been three times and I still can’t breathe. Aren’t they supposed to fix it by now? Asthma they say. Well. I can’t breathe. Thanks. 

The Art of Dying

Okay I have to give a speech or teach a lesson or whatever fourth period which is RIGHT AFTER my Spanish test (that chances are, I’m going to fail but who cares at this point I already have a B)  and then there’s the choir party during which I wont get to DO ANY STUDYING (I love caps) aka I’m freaking out just a little bit because I have to talk for 10 minutes on sociopaths and psychopaths which, of course, is pretty easy but there’s so much I want to say but can’t because I’m not sure I’m allowed to be detailed and then there’s that little issue where I absolutely HATE talking in front of people like, where everyone else gets dry mouth I become like a fountain and just trip over every other word and stutter until I’m like “Uh…psychopaths…they do the thing…ya know? Yeah…” and then I fail because this school forces us to do oratory projects and I’ll sit here and talk all day on this computer but stick me in front of a class (no matter how much you tell me they don’t care) and I’ll be like a deer in headlights no matter how cool I try to act. So yeah. I may cry a little but that’s okay. And then there’s Squiggs over here who won’t stop complaining about it so what little bit of confidence I built up is now gone. Wonderful. 

Fangirl Life Tip #10

#10 - handling the feels

No doubt by now you’ve felt that crushing, burning sensation in your heart that makes you just want to crawl in a hole and sob and never come out again. Feels. They’re terrible. It’s okay to cry, though. Happens to the best of us. There’s always that one character you love who never seems to be happy or they die and it just rips your heart out.

Take Sherlock’s death. Especially for all the Johnlock shippers, that was a particularly brutal time. I mean, that was two years ago and here we have our beloved Sherlock on a building telling John that he’s a fake (when we know it’s a lie) and reaching out for him and saying goodbye and falling to his death. If that doesn’t hurt just a little bit then you aren’t human.

Or maybe like the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration when you know he had to leave Rose and TenToo behind in the alternate universe and he saved the world and lived but lost his life to protect one man – Wilf. And then he got to go back in time and went and saw Rose in 2005 (the year she met Nine) and yes his last words: “I don’t want to go”. Fantastic.

Needless to say there’s no easy way to deal with feels besides finding a good friend to talk to or maybe curling up in a blanket with a bowl of ice cream and sobbing silently alone into the darkness. Feels will come. They’ll hit you hard. “Normal” people won’t understand. It’s a cycle.

Foreverandalways

Ave

Postcards, Lullabies, and Eternal Sleep

When I was a little girl, my dad used to sing me a lullaby.
hush baby girl
my sweet princess delight
daddy is here
daddy, your knight

never gonna leave you
never gonna go
and if i disappear
i'll always come back home

For years he'd tuck me in, sing the eight lines, kiss me on the forehead, and close the door after him to let me sleep, and even after I grew out of needing him to put me to bed I'd still sometimes catch him humming the tune around me or whispering it in my ear when I bent to kiss him goodnight. It' comforted me and, even as a rebellious teenager I lived in a world where nothing could take my father away.
What a stupid child.
That's when the war came and he established his duty to the "American Cause" as he would say by joining the Army. In full military drab with his freshly shaved head tucked under a tight cap he stood in our driveway hugging my sobbing mom and kissing my forehead and, just before he left, he handed me a postcard to "hang in my bedroom somewhere I'd see it daily until he came back".
The front of the postcard was a place I knew well: the waves crashing down on the sandy shore, but the words on the back made me choke up. In his fine print he'd written that lullaby. It was his way of promising me that he'd be back. He'd always come back.
At least once every month - if not weekly sometimes - mother and I would each receive postcards or folded letters or even just squares of papers. Mom would get some long love note and would go and lock herself in her bedroom leaving me outside to dwaddle about out in the living room to listen to muffled sobs through the wall.
Of course mine would always be the same. The genuine "I miss you baby girl" with some other cheesy dad remarks about boys and how if I had a boyfriend he'd kick his ass, etc etc. But at the end of every note he wrote out his musical promise and i went on trusting his word.
Then the letters became more and more infrequent and were shorter and shorter with hastily written apologies about not writing, short handed 'I love you's' and my comforting lullaby disappeared slowly line by line until it was only  i'll always come back home. Sure I still believed him even with that.
Stupid stupid girl.
A year passed and the letters stopped completely. Naturally we kept high hopes and each morning I would begin my day by staring at the first postcard of the waves he'd given me on the day he left. He'd be back. He always came back.
Then the man knocked on the door with a crisp white envelope that obviously hadn't seen any days of fighting. Maybe it was him writing to tell us he was home? But why would he write? The man introduced himself as a Colonel, saluted us with tears in his eyes, and walked away with a bit of a limp to one side. Battle wound.
Mother read the note first and I knew the contents of it by the way the color drained from her face and her whole body locked up and began shaking uncontrollably like she was in shock. Carefully I helped her sit down and took the papers from her hand. A letter written by my father's C.O. apologizing to us, a compensation letter from the government, and a death certificate. My father's death certificate. In his C.O.'s note, he said that my father died a hero saving children from a bombing. Unfortunately after helping the last ones out he failed to escape himself and no body could be found.
Something clings around in the envelope still and I pulled out a set of dog tags dirty and worn down with age. This was all they'd recovered.
When my dad said he'd return I never thought he meant he'd return in the form of an envelope and some metal. Even to this day there's only one thought that comforts me. Even as I packed away every last letter he wrote me into a box and put it under my bed. Even after the funeral and when I grew up and got married without him to walk me down the aisle. Even after a whole life missing him. Ever since that day I dreamed of angels singing over him. Singing him that lullaby he used to sing to me. Singing and lulling him into an eternal sleep.

prom dress shopping with Avery

so i'm going to jr/sr this year, right? (not with a date because i'm a loser but with my friend) and i didn't know what i should wear because it's going to be a subtle fandom kind of thing. Well Squiggles told me to look up Loki prom dresses and i'm like hmmmm. but that ended up looking at the funny prom dresses because they're fantastic....

yes, gorgeous, look how beautiful

mmhm pooh. who doesn't love pooh.

okay so most of the ones like this are pretty cool but this one?...

spikes. just....spikes. like. perfection. love the color though.

i know what i'm wearing to prom. and there's so many more i may have just wasted a lot of this time just staring at the pictures... but yeah.
also. i'm a loser so there's like a 95% chance that all this me going to jr/sr is just wishful thinking because my old date's boyfriend asked to come to our school and i'm very not happy about that so i may be going with my other friend (yes i have those) and we'll be wallflowers together. it''ll be fantastic man.

Christmas

Annnnnd it's almost Christmas. That's slightly the most exciting thing...ever.

Christmas is my favourite time of the year and i am about to cry because i just want to give everyone their presents and stuff because they're so cool and i'm so excited to see their faces (squiggles just yelled at my run-on sentence but i don't caare) because yes. I  braved Black Friday this year and got most of the shopping done for my Ma which is a first cause usually i'm still shopping for her on like, Christmas eve and that's a tad stressful. I ordered Squiggal'ses last night (she's gonna love it >.<) and i need to shop for my father because he's like the hardest person in this world to shop for because he says he doesn't want anything from me but i'm his kid and i love buying things for people....
I'm even better off on the shopping than my ma. though i made her buy me avengers wrapping paper so now i have Thor and Cap'n America and all them under my tree....(which is the coolest tree ever btw) which has lights all over it, right? Well that's not it. It changes from colored to white and shifts back and forth and it is fantastic. i looked at it, looked at ma, and told her that the tree was my spirit animal and bam it's in our house now. i also decorated my TARDIS with lights, garland, and a bow on top. yaaaay.

Fangirl Life Tip #9

#9-Fanfiction

I guess i should be pretty on the spot with this topic as i am a  lover of all things fanfiction along with a fanfiction author myself. There's this wonderful website called www.fanfiction.net where all of us angsty  young writers bring our stories about our angsty fictional loves and give fandoms what they want: stories. There are three subcategories to fanfiction

• What we want to be canon
• What is canon but we don't get enough of
• What is canon, we get plenty of, but want different scenarios of it

The first point is about all those 'crack ships' who don't even talk to each other but we ship together, or couples who aren't really together but should be and that's where fanfiction comes it. People write stories about the characters we love and the fandoms devour it.

Then there's those couples that truly are together but there's no development of their relationship in the canon show or movie or book and you as a consumer require more insight to them to survive and bam. Merry Christmas. Pick a story any story fanfiction has you covered.

Finally there's those fanfictions for all the greedy little jerks in the world (which i am one of ). You have something and it's completely canon and has pretty intense depth and fulfills any desires one might have for said thing, but you still want more. That's where AU's - or, Alternate Universe's (or the atomic symbol for gold for all the chemistry nerds) - come in.

                   Example time: Say you love Star Trek and everyone knows the basic plot for that is set in stone but you don't want the space family to go gallivanting across the galaxies, you want them working in a restaurant as waiters. Bam. Restaurant AU.

Now there's absolutely now way to delve into all the realms of fanfiction but i can tell you certain key things to remember

• RATING - check the rating before you read. it's like a movie. you don't want to open something thinking it's going to be a cute little fluffy thing and read all about the brutal murder of your favourite character (been there done that it's pretty not okay)
• K - eh you get like, conversation
• K+ - oo maybe a few bad words? not sure
• T - maybe some kissing between characters or language or some violence
• M - (aka 18+) blood, gore, language, hardcore...ya know, you name it. 
• AU's = Alternate Universe = not the real canon storyline
• Canon = true, the author / director / writer of the actual work validated it
• www.fanfiction.net = a great site to go to to fulfill any kind of need.

A Time of Healing

“Take your mark,” Silence filters through the deck like a giant pause in time. “Go!”

Eight bodies fly off their respective blocks and burst out from under the surface of the water in a flurry of white water and limbs. People yell and cheer and clap from the stands and coaches jump and whistle furiously as their swimmers face off in a 100 free. Everyone seems so excited save for one lone girl. Avery Mason balances beside her coach on a set of crutches with a frown on her face. In her mind she’s replaying a conversation between the two of them over and over again.

“It’s a slow meet, you’ll final easily”

“Are you sure?”

“Unless you lose a limb you should place top 8 in a majority of things.”

Lose a limb. Funny. She should’ve knocked on wood or something. A week later the usual dull, manageable pain in her right knee flared into an inferno of white-hot torture that put her mostly out of commission. Typical injury.

“Maria!” Her coach claps his hands together as her friend and usual cohort Maria Benson walks up panting and dripping.

Avery shifts on her crutches as the two start to converse and she looks up in time to see the A final of the 200 backstroke walking out. That should be her up there.

“Ave!” Maria comes over and puts a hand on her friend’s back with a smile as her other hand moves up to her head to pull off her cap and goggles in one fell swoop.

“Hi Maria.” Avery responds in a melancholy manner. She still can’t get over the intense mixture of feelings coursing through her at the moment.

“How are you feeling?”

Avery just shrugs and bites her bottom lip wishing the other would leave her alone to her sulking. She shouldn’t have come here, it’s done nothing but make her feel worse.

“Come on let’s go sit.”

Still shaky with the crutches under her arms and with the deck being so full and slick it takes Avery a moment to make it back to their little team’s seats, and by then she’s immensely more flustered then before. Everything seems to be mounting into one grossly huge finale.

“Ave, what are you doing after the meet?” That’s Pat, one of her guy friends.

Avery just holds up one of her crutches in response “obviously not very much.”

“Well…” He looks at Maria who nods at their other friend Robert and they all smile back at Avery.

“We felt bad about you having to come all the way out here and not swim, so, you want to go out to dinner or something?’

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, it’ll be a nice change from you sulking around the deck.” Pat’s comment makes Avery blush, she didn’t think she’d been that obvious with her foul mood.

“Sure I guess, I mean I don’t have any money since ma just dropped me off here to watch.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll pay.”

For the past three days of the meet Avery has been wallowing in misery and self-pity thinking her friends didn’t notice their pain. Turns out they aren’t quite as blind to her as she originally thought.

The Darkness Before the Dawn

The air is cool on her face as it flits about her like a friend, nudging her as if to keep her company. Vrina’s toes flirt with the edge of a sharp drop off and she thrusts her arms out to either side much like a one-man version of Titanic. Something about dancing with danger and teasing it makes her feel so much better when the fighting starts so this cliff on the edge of her property has been her go-to spot for years.

Always the fighting.

Her mother and father have never exactly been close but they refuse to separate on account of being so deeply in love. According to them, love is where you fight a lot and scream but overcome it and stay together. Vrina never wants to love if that’s all there is to it.

Her hair picks up and dances about her face and she heaves a heavy sigh to revel in the burn of the cold air in her nostrils. Peace. Silence. Out here in the darkness there’s no yelling, no objects launched across the room. Out here she’s alone.

Vrina’s eyes flash open for a moment and she settles down on the ground with her knees hugged to her chest. Her long white nightgown rides up around her legs and flutters around her legs but there’s nobody out here to see anything so she ignores it.

She’s pledged never to love. But that leaves her alone.

Alone is so dark.

A light sparks in the distance on the horizon and she knows that her dad will be out in a little to apologize and coax her back to the house and there’d be love and kindness around the breakfast table until sometime about midday when it would start all over again. It’s like a cycle. Even with all the lights on, that house is so dark. So dreadful. So empty.

A hand slips onto her shoulder and something shifts beside her as another presence appears.

“Dad,” she starts, expecting the fingers to be the calloused digits of her father, “I just need a few minutes.”

“Good. I was hoping you’d stay out here a little longer with me.”

Vrina nearly jumps out of her skin as her head whips around to face a smiling boy with short blond hair and wide brown eyes that sparkle in the mix of dying starlight and growing sunrise.

Trane.

The boy who’s a mystery to their small town.

The boy she swore she’d never hurt with her love.

The boy she loves regardless.

“Trane” She murmurs under her breath as a light blush spreads across her face.

He knows the situation in her house and knows better than to muddy the air with words so he falls silent and keeps his hand pressed against her arm until she slips her own fingers between his.

The air was so dark before, but with this new form by her side they sky bursts into light like nature’s cliché way of sending sparks flying between the two.

He stays there till her father appears and calls her to breakfast and he tags along to sit at their table and keep the unspoken peace that has to occur when one has a guest. Vrina tries to get him to leave when her father starts yelling at her mother but still he stays to wrap his arms around her and hold her as it starts to get bad. And he’s still there when she runs back to her cliff to stare over the edge in solemn silence just to get away from her house.

“Trane, go home. It’s late.”

“Do you love me, Vrina?”

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

“No. We never fight so I guess I don’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, Pa said that love is fighting and being strong enough to overcome it. That’s why he loves Mama so much.”

“Vrina.” He turns her to look at him and creases his brows in confusion “that isn’t love, that’s some sort of weird obsession. Like they hate each other but don’t want to let the other go. I love you. I’d never hurt you like that.”

“Trane…”

Vrina never thought she’d get the fairy tale ending her father had read to her about when she was little. Then again, after a month running around with Trane she didn’t. Her father was as obsessed with keeping Vrina around as he was her mother and when Trane asked permission to date Vrina, her dad put a round in his chest and threw him to the birds.

In a town like theirs nobody asks questions. Especially not about a boy with no apparent family.

And nobody asks questions about the poor little schizophrenic girl on the hill. The one whose father went crazy and killed her mom and himself when she was three and was left to raise herself under the strange fantasy that her parents were still there taking care of her. The girl who shot her lover.