Maddie was waiting outside the gates of the school, across the street, near a tree, trying to stay out of sight of any adults. She was pacing back and forth anxiously, until she heard the sound of shoes running across the street breaking through her thoughts, and she glanced up, spotting Lux coming across to her. Lux stopped in front of Maddie and tugged the strap of her bookbag over her shoulder.

"I've never once skipped school," Maddie said, and Lux nodded as they both turned and began to walk.

"Neither have I," she replied, "but I think this is important."

"...I'm really sorry," Maddie said, "if it makes you feel any better, it wasn't...he shouldn't have...it was meant for my father. My mom was trying to kill my dad, and it just happened to get mixed in with everything else and your brother ate it. He shouldn't have died."

"I don't know what's worse, it being accidental, or him just being a victim of a crime meant for someone else," Lux said, sighing, tossing her hair from her face, "but I guess I appreciate the apology. Though, you don't have to apologize."

"Cause it wasn't my fault?" Maddie asked.

"No, cause it just isn't necessary," Lux said, and this confused Maddie, but she didn't push it.

                                                                            ***

Alexis was in Geena's car, in the passenger seat, eating the remainder of a meatball sub they'd gotten for lunch before heading out while Geena drove. Alexis was trying not to think about things, about the day ahead of her. She was already nervous enough without it. Geena turned the radio down - she only ever played an old jazz station in her car - and sighed as Alexis took another large bite into her sandwich.

"You know," Geena said, "this is just as uncomfortable for me as it is for you."

"Is that so?" Alexis asked.

"You think I wanna go do this?" Geena asked, "I don't, I really, really don't. But I also wanna prove them wrong. I wanna rub it in their smug, self-absorbed faces that their interaction, or really rather lack thereof, didn't have a negative impact on us and instead we've flourished in spite of it."

"But it did have a negative impact," Alexis said, chewing.

"Yeah but they don't need to know that," Geena replied, making Alexis laugh; Geena continued, "they don't have to know the history or anything. All they really need to know is that we're okay now. We're both okay. You're sober, on your way to being stable, and I'm happier than I've ever been."

"People who feel the need to exclaim they're happier than they've ever been often actually aren't and are instead simply trying to convince those around them they are," Alexis said, shrugging, "just an observation."

While Geena had had some interaction with their family over the years, Alexis had, more or less, gone completely cold turkey, opting instead to cut their folks out of her life entirely instead of attempting to placate them. And, for what it was worth, it'd been the right choice for her. Geena, on the other hand, had such a necessity within her to prove they had failed her and she was better than them that she'd kept the lines of communication open, albeit somewhat barely. A holiday card here and there, a long winded e-mail sometimes, the occasional phone call. Anything she could do to just drop the not so subtlelest of hints that she'd walked away from the terrible adolescence they'd thrust upon her to be a wonderful adult.

"...you think Ellen is gonna be there?" Alexis asked, and Genna shrugged, shaking her head.

"No idea, but I figure she would be," Geena said, "I think, honestly, she has the most communication with them out of the three of us."

Alexis nodded, thinking about that. She hadn't seen or spoken to Ellen in years, and she wondered what that might be like, what she might be like. As they came to a stop sign, reaching their neighborhood, only a few blocks from the house they grew up in, both women felt a sense of dread and unease in their gut. Geena tapped on the steering wheel with her fingers as she waited to continue, while Alexis kept thinking back to when they were children, and how each of them had been, amongst their folks and between eachother. Ellen had always been the one she couldn't place a finger on. Geena was the overachiever, Alexis herself the underachiever, but where did that leave Ellen?

Maybe, god forbid, she was just normal.

One could hope.

                                                                             ***

Lux and Maddie had set their respective bags down on the ground in the wood chips, leaning against the metal of the swingset they'd seated themselves upon. As they each pushed back and forth of their own momentum, Maddie couldn't help but feel how nice it was to have a friend her own age. She loved Lilian, Miranda, Alexis, everyone she knew, but they were adults. She spent all her waking time with adults. It was nice to actually be around her peers, or one of them anyway.

"How has it been for your parents?" Maddie asked, and Lux shrugged, or shrugged best one could while on a swing.

"They're definitely sad, but it's gotten less sad over time. Maybe having lots of time between then and now makes it easier? Mom used to be really upset," Lux said, "and dad used to be really quiet about it, but now they both talk about stuff in a calm voice so I guess it's getting easier to deal with?"

"Better than how my parents reacted to everything," Maddie said, making Lux grimace.

"Yeah...sorry your family fell apart," Lux remarked, "nobody's mom should be trying to kill their dads. I just remember, more than anything else, that first night it happened, my mom was laying on her bed crying and asking 'why' repeatedly. She sounded so sad and confused, like she really wanted to know the answer to something that had no answer."

"And now?" Maddie asked.

"Now she doesn't ask why," Lux said, "now she doesn't say much of anything about him."

A pause, as Maddie chewed her lipped and mulled her options.

"Does she say anything about you?" she asked, and Lux shook her head slowly, her eyes fixated on the wood chips below them. This was what Maddie was afraid of. That her brother had died, and her parents, so distraught by this horrific turn of events, then decided to neglect their other child indefinitely. Lux didn't look neglected. She had nice clothes, her hair was clean and shiny, she wasn't malnourished, but that's the thing about neglect that Maddie had learned...it doesn't have to create a physical form that others can witness. Neglect can be emotional, psychological. It doesn't have to take the shape of abuse that can be visible. It can just be being ignored.

"I'm sorry," Maddie finally said, and Lux nodded again in silence.

It wasn't her fault. But she sure fucking felt like it was.

                                                                             ***

Lilian and Rina had decided to have lunch this day, by Rina's request, so they were currently sitting in a BBQ joint each eating their respective meals. Rina had been working for the company for a while now, but she hadn't really been interacting with the group as a whole, and Lilian was somewhat concerned by this. She wanted Rina to integrate, much as she understood being introverted. Rina bit into her spare ribs while Lilian stabbed at the steak on her plate and started cutting.

"Are you happy with your costume? Sometimes I feel the need to fix mine up, add something new," Lilian said as she lifted a bite of steak to her lips and chewed.

"Everything's fine except that kids seem to be scared of a witch more often than they are excited to see me," Rina replied, shrugging, "so it is what it is. I just hope I get hired by the weird, spooky kids who like that kind of stuff and not the snobby uppity kids who would prefer something boring and traditional like a pri-"

Rina stopped herself mid chew and looked up at Lilian, who had one eyebrow raised.

"...like a principal of a school," Rina finished slowly, making Lilian smirk and nod.

"Nice save," she said, "no, I get what you mean, and yeah, I'm traditional and it is boring, you're not wrong. It's just that this character is safe for me, it's a comfort place, you know? In a way, being a princess willingly is sort a swift kick in the nads to having to forcefully be pretty all the time when I was doing beauty pageants growing up. Now I'm choosing to be beautiful and elegant."

"I understand, and I respect that," Rina said, leaning back in her chair as she let the clean bone drop from her hands back onto the silver plate in front of her on the table, adding, as she picked her teeth, "I guess I just maybe should've thought more about being a witch before deciding it was the character I actively would like to portray. Like, I'm almost certain I'll be busiest at Halloween if nothing else."

Lilian and Rina laughed. It was nice to catch up, get Rina's views on her time spent working. Lilian herself, actually had been talking with her therapist a lot lately about the necessity to continue to portray beauty, elegance and grace when she generally felt none of those things herself most of the time. Should she change characters, pick something that made more sense to her actual personality? Nah. It was fun playing pretend. Adulthood was so boring, but make believe and escapism were a treat. She didn't really like herself, so not being herself for a bit of time was a nice reprieve.

"I guess, more than anything," Rina said, "I should just count my lucky stars to even be able to have a job like this. To know the kinds of people who could allow me the chance to do this kind of work. I can't stand office jobs, I hate the service industry, like food prep, and I really don't like answering to others. Not everyone gets so lucky as to wind up with something this independent."

Lilian nodded, smiling. Rina was right. They all should be grateful for the opportunity this job had afforded them. Honestly, if she didn't have this job, she didn't even know what else she might do. Course, she was branching out into the beauty pageant judge world, but that was more a hobby than a career to her. Lilian shut her eyes, exhaled and grinned.

"Well," she said, "here's to getting the chance to just be ourselves, and not letting the world define us."

                                                                             ***

Geena parked in the driveway and exited the car, Alexis doing the same. Geena waited for Alexis to be by her side, and then together they headed up to the front door. The house didn't look like it'd changed much, honestly. It was still in various states of run down, the paint peeling, the shutters falling off one by one, the house weather worn and exhausted looking. Alexis looked it up and down while Geena knocked on the door and patiently waited.

"Why was I so scared of this place as a kid?" Alexis asked, causing Geena to glance at her; Alexis went on, "you stand back, look at it now as an adult...what was I so afraid of? It's just a house. The people, not the place, are what's actually scary. I guess one could claim that the place is an extension of the person, but...you never know I guess. I just don't know why I let fear rule me for so long."

"That's deep," Geena said, "very insightful, and not inaccurate."

The door opened and standing there, half hidden by the door, was a meek looking woman with shoulder length curly black hair and big chestnut colored eyes. She was wearing a white v-neck with a faded pink windbreaker pulled over it, her jeans tight but clearly worn. Ellen. Jesus. She looked terrible.

"Can we come in? We're not selling anything," Alexis said, and Ellen nodded, not saying a word, stepping aside to allow them to enter. Alexis and Geena walked into the house, as Ellen shut the door behind them. The house was completely dark, the lights all out. As Geena headed towards the living room, looking for their folks, Alexis stayed in the foyer hall while Ellen stopped beside her, folding her arms and looking at her shoes.

"Did they not pay the electricity bill?" Alexis asked.

"They like it dark," Ellen said quietly, her voice a wavery feminine whisper.

"Are you okay?" Alexis asked, sounding genuine.

Ellen didn't answer, and instead headed into the kitchen, Alexis following closely behind. They could hear the quiet rumblings of muffled conversation between Geena and their parents in the living room, the sunds wafting through the paper thin walls. Ellen sat down at the table while Alexis went to the cabinet to get a glass for some tap water. After she got it into the glass and stood there, drinking, she couldn't help but notice Ellen was simply sitting at the table and eating slices of bread straight from the packaging. Alexis, having been to rehab and witnessing many different kinds of people, recognized trauma when she saw it. She cautiously approached the table and sat down as well.

"Ellen?" Alexis asked, but again to no response; Alexis sighed and sipped her water, then added, "I went to rehab."

"You did?" Ellen asked, still not looking up at her.

"Yeah, I needed to, I kinda didn't have a choice," Alexis said, "but it was good for me. I really needed it. I haven't drank or taken any kind of drug since then. It's been really good for me. It's helped me."

Alexis then felt Ellen's other hand grabbing hers and squeezing tight, her eyes still cast down at the bread on the table as she whispered, "help me." Alexis didn't know how to respond. She leaned in, setting her water down and lowering her voice.

"Are you okay?" Alexis asked. Now Ellen looked at her, tears running down her face as she collapsed into Alexis, crying as quietly as she could. Alexis, rarely ever the consoler, didn't know how to respond, but she did her best. She held her little sister and patted her on the back, telling her it would all be okay now. She hated platitudes like that, with no proof to back her words up, but sometimes that's just what someone needs to hear in the moment. So she held her sister and let her cry. So many had helped her.

Now was her chance to help someone she loved.

                                                                             ***

Maddie and Lux were walking back towards the school, Lux gently stepping on fallen leaves, crunching them satisfyingly underfoot, while Maddie skipped, almost playing hopscotch with general sidewalk squares. Lux had to get back to school for her parents to come get her, and Maddie had to do the same, otherwise Lilian would get suspicious. They'd only snuck out for lunch period anyway.

"If you ever wanna come over," Maddie said, "you can. If you don't wanna be at your home. I know how uncomfortable it can be to be around parents who don't really want you there."

"Thanks," Lux said, "that's nice of you. Honestly though, being home isn't so bad now. I mean, it's sad that my parents are so quiet and sad all the time, but it's better now that he's gone."

Maddie stopped in her tracks, confused. Lux stopped a bit in front of her, and sighed.

"...what do you mean? How is it better?" Maddie asked, and Lux sniffled, looking around at the changing trees overhead.

"It's better because he can't hurt me anymore," Lux said, "he was the one our parents loved, so they never thought he did anything wrong, and they never believed me if I told on him about anything. So of course I didn't say anything when he started touching me in ways I didn't like or want. You're kind of my hero, Maddie. You helped make my life safer."

Maddie couldn't believe what she was hearing, her jaw slightly ajar. Lux smiled and looked at the ground, kicking some leaves, chuckling.

"I'm so glad he's dead," she said softly.

Lilian panted heavily, laying on top of Miranda in bed, still grinding herself against Miranda's thigh as Miranda's fingertips gently slid up and down her spine. After a few minutes of coming down from the sensation of her orgasm, Lilian stopped moving and just lay there, exhaling, her breathing softening now. She thought about the day ahead of her, and bit her lip, grinning.

"This is a good way to start a Valentine's Day, don't you think?" Lilian asked, and Miranda giggled, nodding in response; Lilian continued, kissing Miranda's neck softly between certain words, "we could do something tonight too, when I'm back from the job, if you're interested. God you're so pretty."

"What would you want to do?" Miranda asked, blushing.

"No idea, I'm just throwing the option out there," Lilian said, pulling up and grabbing Miranda's face in her hands and kissing her on the lips longingly, whispering, "but whatever we do will be fine, because we'll do it together. That's all I want to do, is do things with you."

Miranda blushed deep red. Her whole life all she'd wanted was exactly what she had right now, right here. This...this was heaven for her. Not many people get to have their dreams come true. Lilian rolled off Miranda and lay beside her, still breathing hard, her hair a tussled mess. As she stared at the ceiling, despite the fantastic sex she'd just had with the woman she loved more than anything else in this world, all she could think of was Alexis. This would be Alexis's first time back at work in months, and she was worried she wouldn't be able to handle it. She'd stayed sober, sure, but what would happen when she was at parties again, specifically adult parties where booze was often a heavy feature? Lilian chewed her lip nervously, until Miranda leaned over her and kissed her, surprising her, making her laugh.

"What was that for?" Lilian asked.

"I need a reason now?" Miranda asked, continuing the kiss.

It was only 9am. They had time.

                                                                               ***

"Who has a Valentine's Day party?" Alexis asked as she and Tyler stood at a nearby table in a dorm room; her eyes scanned the room at all the people her age or younger engaging in socially acceptable levels of public copulation, making out and necking, as the kids say. Alexis fidgeted nervously and touched the cigarette in her coat pocket to calm her down as she asked, "and why would they want themed characters for it?"

"Well," Tyler said, "pirates are known for being lushes, and the west was known for having saloons. I can kind of see where they're coming from. Plus, with everyone our age eternally stuck in a perpetual state of arrested development, it makes sense to have fun parties with costumed characters."

"Yeah, but, like...why not get drunk with Batman? I'm just sayin'," Alexis said, making Tyler laugh as they turned to face the nearby table and look at the various snack spread laid out; Alexis continued, "after all, it isn't like I'm going to be participating."

"So you're stone cold Steve Austin sober then?" Tyler asked, making Alexis chuckle.

"I can't be trusted with alcohol, because I know that if I give into one vice, and it doesn't go poorly, it'll make me believe I can successfully navigate all the others without issue, and I know that isn't the case. I'm not going to go back down that road cause everyone hated me while I was on it, so better to avoid the detour altogether."

Tyler frowned a little. He hated how Alexis thought everyone else thought of her, but after the way Vera had treated her because of her habits, how could she see it any other way, really? Still, he wished she knew just how much the group, as a whole, liked her. The two stepped aside as some of the college kids walked to the table for drinks and snacks. Alexis bit into one of the heart shaped frosted sugar cookies she'd snatched from the table and chewed, watching. The guy this girl was with...he looked so much like Rick. She couldn't get him out of her head, and she hated it. She'd never been like this with someone before, and she wanted to go back to being that detached.

"What's everyone elses assignments today?" Alexis asked, and Tyler cleared his throat, sipping on his drink.

"Well," he said, leaning against the wall, one hand on his belt, "Lily's going to an elementary school, and I think she's stowing Maddie away with her for help. Vera's trying to come up with a character and a costume, and John....I couldn't tell ya. I think he took the day off."

Alexis nodded. She didn't pry about John's motives, because she didn't have to. Sure, she didn't have certainty, but she figured she knew why he'd take the day off, and as it turned out, she was half right.

                                                                              ***

"Didn't realize schools made such a big deal out of Valentine's Day," Lilian said as she and Maddie walked down the hall together, both in matching princess costumes, each one holding a basket filled with candy and cards to be passed out amongst various kids. This was Maddie's first time doing the job at a school, a neighboring school but a school nonetheless, and thankfully with Lilian by her side she didn't feel any fear or doubt, even when kids snickered at her costume. As they walked down the hall, though, Maddie - despite loving working with Lilian - couldn't help but feel a smidge jealous at not simply being a student receiving Valentine's cards and gifts.

"You know it's just a corporate holiday, right?" Lilian asked as they stopped at a bench in the hall so Lilian could adjust the straps on her heels; Maddie looked at her confused and she smiled, continuing as she put her foot up on the bench, "any day is a good day to tell someone you love them. You don't need a federally mandated holiday to do that. If anything, it cheapens it, because your partner will simply think 'oh, they had to be REMINDED to do this for me' instead of it being a naturally occurring thing as it should be."

"I know, but..." Maddie said, sitting on the bench now, plopping the basket in her lap, "but it still seems like something I should participate in. I feel like I'm missing out on all the things adults called cherished childhood memories."

That broke Lilian's heart. She did her best to give Maddie a normal childhood, but, truthfully, her childhood had been anything but normal thusfar. After all, her mother had tried to kill her father, killed a child instead, then tried to kill him again. Maddie didn't exactly live the ideal adolescent life, even if the life she currently had was better than before.

"I'm sorry," Lilian said, sitting beside her, "...you can open one of these if you want."

"You don't have to be sorry, you're amazing, you and Miranda are the best moms," Maddie said, warming Lilian's heart; she added, "it's just...I feel like everyone got to be a kid except me. And now I'm scared that because I didn't get to be a kid, I won't know how to be an adult. Would you still love me if I was an adult who couldn't do anything?"

Lilian felt her eyes tear up and she reached over, rubbing Maddie's back.

"You can be as messy an adult as you want. Alexis was an outright trainwreck, and she's my best friend, so yeah, I'll always love you. Far as I'm concerned, even if not biologically, you're the closest thing I may ever have to a daughter, and you never turn your back on your children, no matter what your family might have taught you."

Maddie smiled and hugged Lilian and, for a brief moment, the snickering and pointing from the other kids didn't matter anymore. She had something far better than their acceptance. She had stability. And that was more than most kids had.

                                                                             ***

Helen was eating cereal on her couch when someone knocked at her door. She groaned, stood up and went to answer it, only to find Vera there standing on her porch. The two women looked at one another for a minute before Helen stepped inside reluctantly and allowed Vera entrance.

"What are you doing at my home?" Helena asked.

"I can't do this," Vera said, "I...I can't..I just...I can't come up with a character design."

"It's a costume for chldrens parties, Vera, not a big budget fantasy film," Helena replied, spooning more cereal in her mouth, "anything from any kind of costume shop will suffice."

Helena headed into her kitchen, Vera hot on her heels. Helen put her empty cereal bowl on the counter and started up her coffee maker, as Vera took in the sight of her new boss in her black silk pajamas with white trim and her suspiciously perfect hair in the morning. Helena came off so...well put together. Even at this time of day. It just didn't seem normal. Then again, who was she to question what was normal? Nothing about her life had been normal for so long now.

"A birthday is supposed to be a childs happiest day of the year," Vera said, sitting at the kitchen counter, "sure, they have other days; Halloween is fun, or whatever winter holiday they celebrate is always nice, but a birthday is the one day, the one singular day, that is ALL about them. I want to be a part of what makes that special, but I can't do that unless I really have this character down pat."

A moment passed, and Helena sighed. She turned to face Vera, leaning against her fancy moss green kitchen tiled counter and crossing her arms.

"When I was a little girl," Helena said, "I loved fairy tales. I used to have this big book of fairy tales that my dad would read to me every single night. The creatures, the monsters, the brave knights and the magic and the fantastical world...I loved all of it, but my very favorite part was the fairies. I loved the fairies. These small, ethereal little things that could be just as strong as anyone else. I identified with that greatly."

Vera looked at Helena, confused as to where this was going, but she didn't interrupt, she just let her keep talking.

"...but eventually you learn that no matter how strong you are, there is a greater evil out there that will vanquish your seemingly resiliant spirit. Eventually you get worn down by the awfulness of the world. Because real life isn't a fairy tale, and more often than not, the monsters win. You picked a fairy as a costume, Vera, for your own personal reasons that I do respect and agree with, but that means you need to imbue it with a sense of identity, not just for yourself, but for the other little black girls you'll be presenting for. The little girls who can still believe in magic."

Vera nodded slowly as Helena turned back to her coffee machine to adjust a setting and add something. Vera looked down at the floor, then back up towards Helena.

"What happened to your book?" Vera asked.

"The same thing that eventually happens to everything you love," Helena said, "it went away."

                                                                               ***

Star was sitting on the floor of her room when John entered. They smiled at one another and, as was routine, she leapt up quickly and rushed to hug him. John hugged his daughter back, and then the two of them seated themselves on the floor once more. Star went back to doing her large piece puzzle as John watched happily. They didn't need conversation, simply being together was good enough, primarly because each one didn't think they would ever again the night of the accident, so it was a little quiet miracle they shared. After a bit, John handed Star a gift, wrapped up, and she happily took it, excitedly opening it to reveal a series of her favorite story books.

After they completed the puzzle, they cuddled up on the bed and he read to her until she fell asleep in his arms. John stayed there and held her, still flipping through the books, taking in the pictures. He'd never openly admit this, because it sounded kind of selfish and weird, but...he was kind of happy to have things the way they were with Star. First off, he was just thrilled she was alive. But secondly, he liked having her always mentally be a child, because, in a way, it was as though they were stuck in time forever the way they were when the accident happened, when John was at his happiest. When she was at her happiest. He loved what they had now.

Sure, it was sad not getting to see her grow up, become an adult, do something with her life, but if John had learned anything over the course of his own, it was that doing something with ones life was vastly overrated and there was nothing wrong with simply existing. Societal expectation and pressures to conform and be successful were bullshit. He was glad she'd never have to endure those hardships. But this whole thing came with an unspoken fear...the fact that, inevitably, he would die long before she did, and what would happen to her then? He hated this, and he didn't like thinking about it. So he didn't, and instead he kissed the top of her head and held her close.

John always brought her gifts. She was his little girl, after all. But today was different. Today was the anniversary of the accident. And he figured what better way to escape that reality than to participate in a world of fantasy literature. She didn't understand it. She didn't know it was today. And he was happy for that.

At least, since he had no romance in his life, Valentine's Day had some kind of meaning, and he got to spend it with the person that he loved most.

                                                                             ***

Tyler didn't know where Alexis had gotten off to, and that worried him.

While he'd been talking to some guys about their college baseball team, she had seemingly slunk off to parts unknown, and he'd spent the last fifteen minutes trying to find her. He stopped and asked various girls and guys if they'd seen a girl dressed as a pirate, but to no avail. Tyler, now growing increasingly frustrated and worried, a concerning mixture of emotions to say the least, didn't know what to do. He then heard a soft banging against a nearby door that immediately caught his attention, so he headed on over towards it and pulled it open, only to find Alex on the opposite side, inside a bathroom, with a beer bottle in her hands and trying to uncap it against the doorknob. Tyler entered and shut the door behind him before looking at her.

"Say it," she said, "go ahead, call me a disappointment."

"Where did you ever get the idea I'd do that?" he asked, confused.

"I know how everyone thinks of me. They aren't happy I'm sober for my benefit, they're happy because it means they don't have to worry anymore. I'm no longer a 'problem' to them. That's what it's really about. So don't pretend like you actually care about my sobriety for the benefit of my wellbeing so much as you care for it for the benefit of your comfort level."

Tyler stood and stared, uncertain how to react. Alexis finally stopped trying to open the bottle, and Tyler look it from her, got the cap off against the edge of the sink and then handed it back to her. Alexis, her eyebrows raised in surprise, took it back from him and looked at it, before setting it down on the floor beside her as she sat on the toilet.

"It's about choice," Tyler said, "it's a choice you have to make every day. That's why I opened it and gave it back to you. Because see, you don't really wanna go back there. But I was willing to let you, if you wanted. You're not getting sober out of guilt. You're getting sober for you."

Alexis started fingering the silver necklace with the emerald broach around her neck, chewing on her lip as she did. Tyler sat on the side of the tub beside her and waited.

"I met this guy in rehab," Alexis said, her voice shaky and quivering, "and he was...he was amazing. He was so funny, and so talented. He painted a picture of me. He gave me this necklace. And he liked me. Genuinely liked me. But by the end of it all, I had to end things, not because I was leaving but because he wasn't ready to get sober and...and I knew myself well enough to know that if he didn't, and we did try, that I'd be pulled right back in with him. I put myself first. I've never done that. I've always been a people pleaser."

"Well you should feel proud of that then," Tyler said, smiling.

"I don't," Alexis whispered, about to cry, "I mean...it was the right choice, yeah, but...as nice as having sobriety is...I think I'd rather have him."

And she started to cry. Tyler stood up and pulled her head against him, hugging her as she sobbed. Tyler didn't know what to say or do, so instead he simply was there for her. And Alexis wept loudly, not caring who heard. Even now, all these months later, she missed Rick so bad. She would lay in bed at night and think about how it'd be to have him there with her, to hold her, to fuck her, to keep her safe. Sure, her sobriety was nice, but it came at the price of loneliness from the only man who ever genuinely loved her, and that hurt.

"If he really cared the way you say he did," Tyler said softly, "then there's a good chance that one day, if you two meet up again, he'll still care. Until then, we're here for you. I'm here for you."

Alexis smiled weakly and nodded. She'd incorporated the necklace as part of her costume, despite really just wearing it because she missed him, because what kind of pirate doesn't show off their treasure?

                                                                              ***

Maddie was sitting outside under a large tree during lunch while Lilian continued to pass things out to the nearby kids. Maddie was eating lunch - Lilian had run downtown and gotten them something while the kids were in class earlier - and couldn't help but feel bad for not helping, but Lilian had insisted. She was still a kid, after all, and eating was important. Maddie looked down at the sandwich in her lap as she sipped her soda, and then felt the bench creak. When she looked to her right, she expected to find Lilian, but instead found a girl her age. A girl in a white collar, long sleeved button down shirt and a black skirt, with a black blazer, the school uniform. She had very long, very light blonde hair and she was clutching her backpack to her chest tightly.

"Um...hello?" Maddie asked.

"...you don't know me, do you?" the girl asked, and Maddie shook her head; the girl reached into her pocket and took out a piece of candy that Maddie had given out today, then said, "you gave this to me in the hall earlier."

"...do you not like nouget?" Maddie asked, making her laugh a little.

"No, no, um...my brother...he died a while back," the girl said, "and...and it was because of this. This candy. He had an allergic reaction to it, and he died. He was my twin, so I shouldn't have it either."

"Do you want a replacement? I'm sorry," Maddie said, feeling bad.

"No, I don't," the girl, Lux said, "because..."

The girl looked at Maddie and they locked eyes, and that's when she realized. She gasped and the girl nodded.

"He died at your party," she said.

"Weren't even gonna tell me you were leaving, eh?" Rick asked, causing Alexis to look behind her.

She'd been packed and standing outside under the porch of the hospital, waiting for Lilian to arrive and pick her up when Rick showed up. She wouldn't admit it, but she had been avoiding him. She fiddled with the tassles on her sweatshirt and sighed.

"I didn't wanna make it harder than it already is," she said quietly, "it hurts too much as it stands, I didn't wanna drag that pain out."

"Wouldn't have to be a forever goodbye," Rick said.

"It does if you're not gonna get clean too," Alexis said, chewing her lip, trying not to cry. She had never felt this strongly for another person before, and it hurt so much inside to say goodbye at all, especially to someone who theoretically could change for the better but was actively choosing not to. Not even for her, but just for himself. She felt bad for him. Rick walked towards her and stood by her, both of them looking out at the cobblestone driveway, watching as the rain poured. Rick lit a cigarette and took a puff, then gave it to her, and she took a few herself.

"I don't blame you, you know, I'm not angry at you at all. I admire you for setting limits, boundaries, it's responsible, it's what I wish I could be," Rick said, looking down at his shoes, adding, "you got clean, and you're determined to stay that way, and you have every right to not want someone in your life who isn't going to abide by those same wishes."

"I do want you in my life, that's the fucked up part," Alex said, her voice shaky like she was about to cry; she continued, "I want you in my life so badly, but not at the expense of my health. I've already damaged myself enough, hurt those around just by accident of what I do, and I can't go back there. I will never judge you for what you choose to do, we all do what works for us, but I also can't have it around me anymore."

Rick nodded, smirking.

"I love you," Rick said, wiping his arms on his sleeve, and Alexis wanted to bawl; Rick exhaled and went on, "I...I really do love you. I hope you know that and remember it when you're gone and feel lonely, and not in any way that makes you feel guilty for your decisions, but just in a way that gives you comfort of knowing that someone does love you, even if it's someone you can't be with."

Alexis turned and looked at him, as Rick turned to face her too. She reached out and put a hand on his face, stroking gently, before leaning on her tip toes and kissing him. As the kiss ended, Lilian pulled up and honked the horn. Alexis looked at the car, then back at Rick, and handed him back his cigarette, but he politely declined.

"Keep it," he said, laughing, "that way I'll always kinda be with you."

"I'm so sorry," Alexis whispered.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Rick said, "just stay better than me, please."

Alexis nodded as he kissed her forehead, then exstinguished the cigarette and tucked it into her sweatshirt pocket and picked up her bags. She walked to the car as Lilian opened the trunk from the inside, and tossed her bags within it before climbing into the passenger seat. As they pulled away, Alexis looked back at Rick, standing there on the porch, watching her go, and she could feel her heart actively breaking. Once out of view, Alexis pulled the cigarette from her sweatshirt and tucked it behind her ear.

"You okay, babe?" Lilian asked, and Alexis nodded slowly.

"I think I will be, yeah," Alexis said, and for the first time in her life...she felt like she meant it.

                                                                              ***

Vera had called everyone the night before and established that she wanted to throw a little get together at a small local restaurant. She invited John, Miranda, Tyler, Rina, Lilian, Maddie and Alexis. She knew Alexis was getting out today, so that made it a double celebration of sorts. But her real motives, of course, far more cloudy. Tyler was already there, but nobody else had shown up just yet. They'd already ordered enough food for everyone, and had set aside a small space in the back of the restaurant for their party, but Vera was pacing, nervous as always.

What if nobody else showed up? Her leadership hadn't been exactly the best. She wouldn't be at all surprised if nobody else came because they hated how she ran things, how she'd acted towards Alexis, and she had absolutely no reasoning to explain it other than "yeah, I messed up", which is something but often not enough. She groaned and sat down at the table, pushing her face in her hands. Tyler sat down across from her a few seconds later, and she looked up at him.

"You seem...what's the word...scared shitless," Tyler said, making her smirk.

"I'm just nervous," Vera replied, "I hope I didn't scare everyone away, I hope I made the right decisions, I hope...I just hope I'm not an outsider now. This company has been my life, and...and it's been nice, but...I kind of want a different life. But that doesn't mean I want different friends. You guys are the best friends I've ever had."

Tyler smiled and reached out, taking Vera's hand in his and kissing it gently.

"It'll be fine, you need to just learn not to expect the worst," Tyler said.

But that, as they all knew, had become so hard. The worst had been happening so regularly that it felt like to not expect it was idiotic at this point. Vera sighed and nodded, taking in his advice, but still retaining her cautiousness. A few seconds later, John came in through the backdoor and approached the table.

"What's with all the extra security?" he asked, "It isn't like we're guarding the president."

Vera smiled and laughed. Maybe Tyler was right. Maybe she did worry too much. Shortly behind him was Miranda and Maddie, both of whom hugged Vera the moment they saw her. John excused himself to go speak with Tyler, as the girls caught up. Vera couldn't help but notice that Lilian and Alexis weren't here yet, nor was Rina. But she tried to have hope. As she concentrated on those who had arrived, she tried to be hopeful that those she wanted most would also soon grace them with their presence. And they would...Lilian and Alexis would show up.

Lilian just had one thing to do first.

                                                                               ***

"This is your mom's house?" Alexis asked as they sat in the parked car in the driveway. Lilian nodded. It had been a while since she and Maddie had come to see her mother, and in all honesty, she was feeling somewhat nervous about this, but she felt like it was time. Time to finally face down her fears, in regards to her parental upbringing. Alexis put some nicotine gum in her mouth and chewed as she asked, "what're we doing here?"

"I need to speak to her for a minute," Lilian said, "sorry to kidnap you for this but, ya know, you were on the way here and then after this we're going to the thing Vera set up, so it was just...it was easier to do it all in one straight line, you know?"

Lilian opened her car door and stepped out into the soft drizzle of the rain, Alexis doing the same.

"You don't have to come in with me, you can stay in the car," Lilian said.

"What am I, your dog?" Alexis replied.

Together the two walked up the driveway and towards the porch. As they stopped before the front door, Alexis looked at Lilian, who then reached out and knocked gently. A moment of silence as they waited for the door to be answered. Alexis popped more gum in her mouth then stuffed the packet back into her sweatshirt pocket.

"I had a boyfriend in rehab," Alexis said.

"That sounds like the name of a tell-all biography," Lilian remarked, the both of them chuckling; Lilian then added, "...you don't anymore?"

"He wasn't ready to be sober," Alexis whispered, "and it...it kinda hurt, cause for the first time I actually really liked somebody, but...but I didn't wanna be the one to push him to do something he wasn't ready to do, regardless of if it could help him or not, and so I ended things. But fuck man, it hurt. It hurt more than anything has hurt in a long, long time. But that pain...that pain also made me realize how real it is, and how dulled my sense were when I was on drugs. I could never feel that level of sadness then. Now I can, and...and I'm kinda happy about it, even if it's because of something so sad."

Lilian smiled and put her hand on Alexis's shoulder.

"I'm so proud of you," Lilian said softly, "I would be your friend regardless, I defended you to Vera time and time again, but I'm proud to see you do what you wanna do in order to be healthier. That's really great. I won't ever say it's inspiring, because that's insulting to the way you lived before, which also worked for you then. But I will say it's nice to watch you grow and change. Makes me wanna try and do better too."

Alexis turned and hugged Lilian, who happily patted her on the back. She'd never openly admit it, but she'd missed Lilian the most of everyone while she was in the hospice. As the hug broke and they pulled away, the front door opened and there stood Lilian's mother, Jane. At first she looked surprised, but that quickly changed to looking happy, as she stepped aside and invited the girls indoors. Once in the living room, Lilian turned to look at her mother.

"I didn't even get a call, you don't usually just drop by," Jane said, laughing.

"...I came here cause I needed to say something," Lilian said, "...I forgive you."

                                                                            ***

"So what's this whole thing about anyway?" John asked, standing near the bar with Vera as she drank and he watched, a little jealous, wanting to participate but knowing his boundaries. Vera exhaled and shook her head.

"I sold the company," Vera said, very matter of factly, "and the woman who bought it is...she's great. We're really in great hands. I have absolutely no doubts."

"Wow, that's big news," John said, "...you gonna join the ranks then? Pick a character? Go to parties?"

"I think so, yeah. I wanna be in on the fun," Vera said, "I've spent so much of my adult life behind a desk, and I enjoyed it up to a certain point, but now I feel like I want to finally participate in the action for a change. I wanna have some goddamned fun for a change and not be seen as the mean lady in charge."

John smirked, nodding. He could understand that, and she was right. She'd led the company through some troubled times and it was about time she was allowed to have some fun of her own for a change. He contemplated momentarily asking her what character she would pick, but he didn't want to pry or put any pressure on her, so he let it go. Then, something hit him in the face that nobody had considered.

"What about Maddie?" he asked, "...no actual boss is going to allow a kid to work for us. That's child labor. She's going to be devestated."

Vera stared at the floor. That hadn't even occurred to her. She'd spent so much time insisting that Alexis get to keep her job, that nothing be changed, that Maddie her totally slipped her mind. Vera groaned and ran her free hand over her face. Fuck. Now what would she tell them? She knew being a part of this was very important to Maddie, and she didn't want to crush her spirits. She'd already lost so much lately. Vera looked towards John, who just grimaced and shrugged, devoid of any suggestions himself.

"I'm so fucked," Vera muttered.

"You so are," John replied.

                                                                                ***

"You...forgive me?" Jane asked, half laughing, half confused, "Forgive me for what, exactly?"

"For pushing me to do beauty pageants," Lilian said, "...I...I know you don't need my forgiveness, but-"

"Actually, I do, you're very wrong," Jane said, surprising Lilian; Jane shook her head, sighing, as she continued, "I am so angry with myself for what I did to your childhood. I made you do what I wanted, made you believe it mattered, because it was something my mother instilled into me, made me believe was important. I'm so sorry Lily. I know I wasn't abusive and I did my best to take care of you, but I still screwed up and I've always wanted to be forgiven for that."

"Mom, it's okay," Lilian said, approaching Jane and holding her hands, smiling warmly, "because...because honestly, as terrible as it was, it made me who I am today, and you know what? I LIKE who I am. In fact, I LOVE who I am. Now that's not an acknowledgement that you have to endure awful things to have growth, or to...to appreciate ones self, or become who you should be, but...I am who I am because of you and the choices you made, and even if they hurt, I'm me because of them, so you didn't do all wrong. But I do forgive you for what you did. This last year or so, being with Maddie and watching her family literally eat itself to death...it's made me realize how important it is to me that you're in my life in a positive capacity."

Jane wanted to cry. She knew she didn't deserve her daughters forgiveness, nor did her daughter have to forgive her, but she was choosing to, and Jane was so grateful for that. Watching from the safety of the couch, however, Alexis couldn't help but feel jealous and angry. She was happy for Lilian, sure, but why couldn't she ever have that sort of connection? With her parents, with anyone? She had John, she guessed, and Geena, but...she felt her fingertips touch the tip of the cigarette in her shirt pocket and wanted to cry. She wanted that with Rick.

"I'm sorry I put you in danger," Jane said, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve, "those creeps at the show. No child deserves to be around anyone like that. I'm just glad I was so overprotective that nothing ever really came of it."

"Yeah, I guess I was one of the luckier ones," Lilian replied, "but I think about all those other girls who weren't. The ones he did take advantage of, and..."

Lilian glanced at Alexis, who knew full well what the situation was like, having been there that day when Lilian went to volunteer as a judge. Lilian exhaled and looked back from Alexis to her mother.

"...I think I'm gonna talk to someone about it, someone official, someone who can do something about it," Lilian said, "after all, as a princess, it's my duty to ensure the safety of others. End the blight that threatens the land, and men like that are nothing short of a blight."

"Are you sure you wanna do that?" Alexis asked, and Lilian nodded.

"Yes. I know it'll be scary, but...fuck...someone has to do it."

                                                                             ***

Vera was sitting on the outdoor patio area, drinking by herself, when she heard someone join her, and much to her surprise, it wasn't someone she expected, but was Helena instead. Helena lit a cigar and took a puff before offering it to Vera, who politely declined, chuckling.

"Just a custom," Helena said, "in business, you celebrate with cigars. How you holding up? It must be a weird feeling."

"It is," Vera said, "yeah, uh, it's very weird. I've been in control for so long, it's weird not to be. It's weird to not have to worry about anything anymore. I mean, I will, I do, because they're my friends, but you get what I mean. I can finally kind of focus on myself."

Helena smiled, nodding.

"Yeah," she said, "that's one of those things you lose sight of when you're involved in this kind of business, overseeing others. You stop caring about yourself because your focus and attention is pulled to so many other places. At least, if you're not a disgusting money hungry garbage person, which you clearly aren't. So it's good. Take some time, sort yourself out, take care of some stuff."

"I think," Vera said, "...I think I wanna be fairy."

"What?" Helena asked, half laughing, half confused.

"For my costume, for parties," Vera said, "I want to be a fairy. Black people, we're always supposed to be seen as these ethereal perfect creatures, never making a mistake, but still unattached from the rest of humanity, never being recognized as living creatures. I think I wanna be a fairy."

Helena nodded, putting a hand on Vera's shoulder.

"Then you'll be a fairy," Helena said, and Vera blushed.

She was happy with her choice, she had to admit. She'd sold the company to the right person, and she was proud of herself for that. He intuition about others had finally paid off in spades. Vera then exhaled, and took the cigar, taking a long puff before handing it back to Helena, who laughed at her. They both started laughing, and continuing to drink. Suddenly the door opened again, and they turned to see Lilian and Maddie standing there.

"fuck," Vera whispered.

"Fuck is right," Lilian said sternly.

"I'm sorry," Vera said, "I...I didn't think about it, and-"

"Of course you didn't. Nobody ever thinks about me," Maddie said, near tears, "...I thought you were different, but I guess not."

Maddie turned and walked back inside. Vera sighed as she turned and looked back out over the patio railing, as Helena headed inside to comfort Maddie. Lilian approached the railing and leaned on it beside Vera.

"Long day?" Lilian asked.

"Long life."

"Well, at least you're not alone," Lilian said, smiling, a hand on Vera's back, "don't worry about Maddie. She's upset, but we'll find a way to work around this."

A moment passed as they watched cars drive by under the cool warmth of the streetlights.

"Thanks for being here," Vera said.

"The hell else am I gonna be?" Lilian said, "this is my home."

The phrase "we need to talk" had never meant anything good, so understandably, when Miranda said this to Lilian that morning, it made her anxious. Now, sitting in the living room together after having dropped Maddie off at school, Lilian still couldn't get over her nerves. Miranda was sitting on the coffee table in front of Lilian, seated on the couch, and digging her nails into the knees of her pants. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Miranda exhaled and spoke.

"I've made a decision," she said, "and...and it might make life weird and difficult for a little bit."

"...does it have to do with me? Us?" Lilian asked.

"Kinda, yeah," Miranda said, tossing her hair back behind her, "I...I think I'm ready to go in for evaluations in regards to getting sex reassignment surgery."

Lilian had to admit, that hadn't been what she was expecting. If anything, this was a relief. She started laughing, then apologized for laughing as she explained her nervousness. After a few minutes of solid, anxious relief laughter, Lilian leaned forward and put her hands on Miranda's legs.

"If that's all this is about, then, hey, that's fine," Lilian said, "I was scared you were gonna leave me or something. But if you think you're ready, then-"

"I didn't wanna be a cliche," Miranda said, interrupting her, "that's why I waited so long. It always feels like 'the surgery' is the biggest aspect, but I wanted to just...live for a little bit, you know? And even then, it won't be an immediate thing. I'll have to go through various medical checkups, some light therapy, it won't be walking in and getting it done that day. I just wanted you to know where my head was at because you're my partner and...and it's important that you know what I'm doing or planning to do."

Lilian smiled and planted her lips on Miranda's forehead.

"I'm behind you all the way, a hundred percent, you know that," Lilian said, "and whether you do go through with it or not, I'll love you and the way I see you will never change."

Miranda wanted to cry. This was something that, for some reason, she was scared of telling Lilian about. She figured it would go this way, but a lifetime of doubt cast around her identity had always made her expect the worst. Miranda climbed onto the couch where Lilian was and snuggled up to her, laying her head on Lilian's chest. Lilian laughed lightly and ran her fingers through Miranda's hair. Neither had ever had a real relationship before, and yet it all came so surprisingly easily to them. Maybe that's what happens when you try your hardest not to become your parents.

                                                                             ***

"Everything here looks in order," Helena said, sipping her latte as she shifted through the papers on the table.

She and Vera had agreed to meet at a small cafe downtown, somewhere Vera was not used to holding business meetings, but Helena had agreed to pay for everything, and considering she was buying the company, how could Vera object to her meeting space of choice? Vera picked up her scone and bit into it cautiously, having rarely eaten scones before.

"Can I ask you a question?" Helena asked, and Vera nodded.

"Of course," she said, mouthful of pastry.

"You say your best employee is also the one you've had the most trouble with. Now I've read through her file, and I do see she's in rehab, but why would you keep on someone who was so clearly a detriment? Who could so easily derail what you're doing and the overall rating your company had, via word of mouth, by disgruntled parents or clients or whomever? It just...it doesn't really make sense. I'm not judging your business decisions, by the way, I'm just curious."

Vera chewed her scone for a bit, then set it down and sighed.

"Uh," Vera said, "...I don't really have a reason. Alexis has been with the company longer than I have. In fact, she's one of the original employees left over from the people we worked for before I took over. I guess a sense of obligation, she'd put in so much time and effort, and in her defense she NEVER went to work high or drunk. It was all recreational. She and I have...had our differences, but...but she's good at what she does, and kids love her, and...and I would be a bad person to take away her income just because of something she does off company hours. If she isn't endangering anyone, then what's the harm, right? It took me a long, long time to come to accept this, by the way. I used to be pretty against her. But I guess I also see her abilities, and...and see her value, and what she brings to the company, brings to others via her participation in their events, and I know she has the potential, she's shown it. She doesn't deserve to lose her job because of a few mistakes she makes in her personal life."

Vera surprised even herself with this acknowledgement. If Tyler had been present, he'd likely have kissed her for her change in heart towards Alexis. Vera sighed and shook her head, her braids swaying side to side.

"Listen," Vera said, "I mean, she's in rehab, she's doing great, but the thing I've come to learn is that she doesn't deserve my respect just because she got sober. She deserved it the entire time, even at her lowest points, because she's a person, and a friend, and a good employee. I was...I was very out of line with how I acted, and the moment I finally get to see her again, I'm gonna tell her that. So I keep her on because I know what she's capable of what worth she brings, not just to us but to herself and others. She's good. So, if you're interested in buying the company...the one stipulation is that you cannot fire Alexis. Otherwise I'll start looking for another buyer."

Helena leaned back in her chair, sipping her coffee and smirking.

"I have to admit," she said, "you really stick up for people. That's nice to see in this line of work. Often bosses see their employees as being underneath them, below them, and would gladly throw any of them to the wolves for a chance at a better life or pay. It's nice to see the opposite. Fine. Stipulation granted. Alexis will stay on. I never had any intention of removing her anyway, I was just curious is all."

Helena picked up a pen and signed a paper, then scooted the paper across the table towards Vera and handed her the pen.

"You do the honors and we'll be all done here," she said.

                                                                             ***

Alexis wasn't having a great day.

Sitting in Star's room while John went out to get them all lunch, her thoughts kept turning back to what had happened that morning before she'd left the hospice, and back to the discussion she and Rick had had. For all the hope she'd invested in the two of them being an item after they were released, it now seemed so fragile, after what he'd admitted to her. Alexis picked up a yellow crayon and started coloring on the page, continuing her handiwork while Star did her own page.

"Would you forgive someone if they did something that might hurt you?" Alexis asked, looking up at Star.

"Hurt me how?" she asked.

"Like...like say they were going to do something that you could get hurt by, even if they didn't mean to hurt you, would you forgive them?" Alexis asked, and Star thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"No," she said, "people shouldn't hurt eachother, even if on accident."

Alexis sighed, nodding. She agreed, and Star was right. Alexis had put in the time and effort to get sober, working hard on herself and her mindset at the hospice, and she wasn't about to throw that away for the hope of a relationship just because Rick didn't want to do the same.

"What about your mom?" Alexis asked, "would you ever forgive her?"

Star stopped coloring and looked up. She was sitting cross legged on the floor, her hair in pigtails. She stuck the crayon between her teeth and thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"No," she said, "she's my mommy, but...she did a bad bad thing, and it hurt me, and I can't do lots of things now cause of it. Nobody should have that power."

Alexis wanted to cry. How did this woman, with the mentality of a 7 year old, understand the way people connect to eachother better than the full ass adults she was in constant contact with on a daily basis? The door to the room opened up again, and John entered, smiling, holding their lunches. Alexis knew what she had to do. She'd eat lunch, finish this coloring session, and then go back to the hospital. If she wanted her sobriety, she couldn't put it at risk for the sake of love. She'd worked too hard for that.

                                                                             ***

Lying in bed, Miranda's head on Lilian's chest as she ran her fingers through Miranda's hair, it seemed like things were perfect. Neither one had anything to say, because to speak would spoil the moment. Miranda shut her eyes and exhaled, hugging Lilian around the waist tighter, making her chuckle.

"This was all I ever wanted," Miranda said quietly, "this exact thing. I mean, sex is fine and all, but this. This level of intimacy. Just lying in bed as a woman, with a woman, a woman who loves me. Who knows me and understands me and respects me and accepts me. This is all I ever dreamed about."

"...it's funny," Lilian said, "about a year ago, my mom asked me if I was a lesbian, and I said no, and now here I am. But the thing is...I liked you regardless of your identity. You just happen to be a girl. Identity is complicated, now I know how you've felt your whole life."

Miranda laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, shit is kinda wild," she said in agreement.

"You know you don't have to do it just to be whole, right? I'm gonna see you as you are no matter what you do, and societys opinion doesn't matter. I hope you're doing it for you, and not anyone else, because, frankly, you're already who you need to be. Who you should be," Lilian said, running her hand onto Miranda's cheek and massaging gently.

"I am," Miranda said, "I am doing it for me. I can remember my little sister being very young, maybe 3 or 4, and I was...so jealous that I didn't have what she had. Growing up further, being in high school for instance, it just...it never felt right to be the way I was. I didn't really relate to any of the people around me, and never felt comfortable physically, especially doing things like PE where I had to change around guys. I can remember going to a party once and all these guys were bragging about their sexual conquests, about hot girls they'd nailed and then never called again. And the entire time I'm listening to this, all I can think is 'you're an asshole', but I'm not thinking that way from the mans point of view. I'm thinking that way in defense of the girls they left. It felt personal, almost. And whenever I thought about being with a woman, I always thought of it being more romantic, more sensual, more....real."

Lilian looked down at Miranda, laying her cheek on the top of her head, still petting her, her fingertips trailing down her bare spine.

"It never once," Miranda continued, "occured to me that other guys didn't think the same way. I know some men can be romantic, not as alpha brained, animalistic, but the majority of them...ugh. And it wasn't just that. It was being jealous of what girls got to wear, how long their hair got to be. Beauty seemed effortless to them. I realize now that it isn't entirely, but it still kinda is, just because they're women. I think the one thing being a woman has taught me above all else is that...every single woman, regardless of their genitalia or sexual preference or whatever, isn't the same. Every single woman is different. You don't really get that from a male perspective, you kind of lump them all into the same category that are then sub categorized by cliques. Types. But two women who are very much the same, say they're extremely feminine, can still be entirely different. That's what I've really learned, and it's nice to embrace that."

Lilian nodded, listening. She sighed.

"When I used to do beauty pageants," Lilian said, "All I saw were women who valued their appearance above all else. But in hindsight, they were often not the ones valuing it. They were playing into others views of self worth related to it. They used peoples attraction as an advantage, and that's kind of powerful. To use what you're given naturally to overtake those who would only respect you for your looks, the very thing you're using against them. That isn't to say that industry isn't still shallow and weird, but we have more power than we've been led to believe. That's what I'm trying to teach Maddie. Her gender doesn't define her, and she's capable of more than the expectations people have of her because of it."

Miranda rolled over on top of Lilian and, taking her face in her hands, kissed her hard.

"It's been nice, playing home with you," Miranda said, "having a kid around, getting to co-parent."

"It's been an interesting experience, that's for sure," Lilian remarked, laughing.

"I wanna do that with you forever," Miranda whispered, "...if you want. If you're interested."

"Oh, I'm very interested," Lilian said, the both of them giggling as she leaned up and kissed Miranda back.

Miranda had made many big decisions throughout her life, up to and including the one today, but the biggest and bravest decision? Loving someone during all of that, even when it meant they might not love you back. Thankfully she'd gotten lucky, and despite Lilian's character at the company, a lot of times, Miranda was the one who often felt like a princess.

                                                                             ***

Alexis entered her room, only to find Rick sitting at her desk. She shut the door behind her as he turned and held up a sketchpad with a badly drawn architectural design on it. She stopped and stared it for a moment, trying to make sense of what it was she was looking at exactly.

"Uh..." she said.

"Renovation plans," Rick said, "for my sisters bakery. I'm gonna go back to work there once I'm outta here, gonna keep my usage on the downlow, not let it overtake me this time."

"That's actually something we need to talk about," Alexis said, sitting on her bed, her hands in her lap; Rick turned in the chair towards her as she sniffled and continued, "um...fuck...uh...I don't think we can see eachother if you're not going to be sober too. It...it isn't a judgement against you, for what it's worth, it's myself. I don't think I could stay sober around someone who isn't. I don't trust my convictions that much yet."

"...are you breaking up with me?" Rick asked, "...huh...I wasn't even aware we were technically dating. Why am I always the last to know about things that directly involve me?"

Alexis couldn't help but laugh a little at this response.

"I just...I like you so very much, but I don't think you're ready to be sober yet and-"

"Hey, I can be sober to be with you."

"No, then you're doing it for me, and you should do it for yourself," Alexis said, starting to cry, "I...I don't wanna be the reason you give up on something that you still want to do, regardless of if it's good or bad for you. I don't exactly know your entire history with drugs, I don't know exactly how they interact with you, but...if you're not ready, then don't do it for my sake. That's just gonna breed resentment and contempt down the line, and that isn't fair to either of us."

A silence filled the room, and Rick stood up, nodding. He headed for the door, then stopped. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out, then handed it to Alexis.

"I, uh...I thought you might like this," he said, "my sister helped me get it."

And then, with that, Rick turned and left the room. Alexis sat on the bed, crying, as she slowly opened the small container, revealing its contents. A silver necklace with an emerald broach in the middle, something resembling the kind of thing one might find in a treasure chest. Alexis held the jewelry in her hand and cried more. Rick had truly been the only person to ever get to know her, her interests and likes, her hobbies and personality. To take her to heart and remember the things she thought were good. He'd also been the only person to ever buy her jewelry. She laid down on her side, clutching the necklace to her chest, and cried. She knew it was for the best. For the both of them.

But if it was the right thing to do...why did it make her feel so bad?

"Gotta say, not a big fan of being blindfolded outside of the bedroom," Alexis said as she sat in John's car while he drove to the predetermined destination; he smirked as she continued, adding, "usually it leads to a surprise birthday party or something of similar yet disgusting nature. It's never for anything fun, that's for sure."

"First of all, you telling me you like to be blindfolded in bed? Not necessary for me to know. You can keep some stuff to yourself," John said, "Secondly, I'm in agreement with you. I'm not a fan of it myself. Nor am I a fan of birthday parties."

"Which is weird cause you're a clown."

"Well, my own anyway," John said, "don't like my own birthday. Don't mind celebrating others. Anyway I promise that where we're going is definitely worth the trip and the time spent being unable to see. Besides, you're a pirate, right? You already spend a good amount of time with one eye covered. What's the difference really in losing sight in both?"

Alexis laughed as John came to another turn and entered over a bump that led into a parking lot. Alexis sighed and turned her head to look out the window, only to be reminded she couldn't see anything.

"You know, they say when you lose one of your senses, the others often end up working better, but I'm finding this not to be true," Alexis said.

"Well, you're also not actually blind," John said, "just keep that in mind."

After another few minutes, they finally parked and John climbed out of the car, went around to the passenger side and opened Alexis's door, helping her out. His hands on her arms, he guided her from behind down towards something. She could hear what sounded like water, and she tensed up, feeling uneasy. After a few minutes of walking, they finally came to a stop, and John pulled the blindfold off her face. Her eyes took a minute to adjust to the sights, but when they finally did, they were standing on a pier.

"...are you...am I about to sleep with the fishes?" Alexis asked, "is this a mob hit?"

Suddenly, a large boat pulled up beside them, and Alexis couldn't believe her eyes. Standing on the main deck was, of all people, her sister Geena. She couldn't decide what was worse, to be honest. To be near a large body of water, or her actual family. Each one had managed to do rather significant damage. The boat stopped alongside the pier, and Geena came down the ramp, approaching them.

"I'm sorry for all the secrecy," Geena said, putting her hands on her sisters shoulders, "but...I really really wanted it to be a surprise. What do you think?"

Alexis looked past her sister at the boat and sighed.

"I think I'd rather go to a birthday party," she said flatly.

                                                                                ***

Miranda and Lilian, in Lilian's car as she drove, hadn't said a word since leaving the apartment that morning.

They weren't fighting, of course, just...each was lost in thought about what the day was going to be like. This was the first time Lilian would be meeting Miranda's family, and the first time Miranda would be seeing them again as herself, fully. Truth be told, she was nervous as hell, something Lilian could sense given that she was constantly clawing at her stockings. Thankfully, they'd been able to drop Maddie off with Vera again, so they had to whole day and night to themselves for this event.

"You're gonna be fine, you know that, right? I'm gonna be there, and everything's gonna be okay," Lilian said as they pulled up to a stoplight and she rested her hand on Miranda's thigh. This worked a little, making Miranda smile.

"The thing is, nobody could make me uncertain of who I am, I know who I am," Miranda said, "nobody can ever make me doubt that. It's more that...people in my community...we often don't have great relationships with our families. Mine was already kind of fraught, between my father and I anyway, and I just...I worry about that more than anything else. I worry about not having a family at all."

"Well, you'll always have family in some form, through me and Maddie," Lilian said, patting Miranda on the thigh. Miranda smiled, albeit weakly. She appreciated what Lilian was doing, what she was trying to say, but deep down, she knew it would never be the same. Of course she'd always have them as her family of sorts, but that wasn't the same thing as having blood family. She went back to looking out the window as the light finally turned green and Lilian continued driving. Miranda didn't know how today was going to shake out...but it couldn't be worse than Alexis's day.

                                                                              ***

"What in the name of God's green Earth would make you think I'd ever want to get on a boat, let alone get anywhere close to a large body of water again?" Alexis asked, standing on the dock. Geena looked embarrassed, and John was getting, quite frankly, fed up with Alexis's attitude.

"She's trying to show you that you can overcome things!" John said, "that's what rehab is all about, right? Overcoming your adversities. Proving you're stronger than the things that weigh you down. So the water almost killed you? Get on this boat and make the water your bitch."

Alexis looked past him at Geena, who was sitting on the edge of the dock. Alexis walked past John, and seated herself next to her sister.

"I appreciate the gesture, for what it's worth," Alexis said.

"Do you?" Geena asked.

"I do!" Alexis replied, "I really, genuinely do. It's...it's nice to know that someone from my family, my sister of all people, has my best interests at heart, but-"

"I came to the hospital," Geena said, interrupting, "back when you OD'd. But seeing you lying in that bed, so close to the edge...it was like seeing you lying on the beach again. I know we have our differences, but we also have our similarities, such as hating the people we grew up with. I managed to at least get myself on track, and it's nice to see you doing the same. Nobody else is, you know? Nobody else from the family is doing well at all. I just wanna help you more."

Alexis sighed and, against her usual judgement, reached out and took Geena's hand in her own, squeezing it.

"The thing is, I have help," Alexis said, "I've got John, and I've got all the people I work with, and this guy at the facility that I really like. But I guess you're right in the sense that it's not the same. I have friends. Cohorts. A potential romantic interest. But I don't have a sister at the moment, and that could be kinda cool."

Geena smiled, wiping the tears from her eyes with her other hand.

"Alright, dammit," Alexis muttered, "let's get on your damn stupid boat."

                                                                           ***

Standing on the large covered front porch of Miranda's childhood home, waiting for her to ring the doorbell, Lilian couldn't help but feel a little jealous of her youth. Miranda had grown up in an affluent neighborhood, in a really nice home, compared to the small apartment Lilian herself had grown up in with her mother. Miranda exhaled, then reached out and pressed her finger to the doorbell, then straightened her standing, feeling Lilian take her hand and squeeze gently.

"This place used to feel so..." Miranda started, looking around, before adding, "...full."

"Full?" Lilian asked.

"Yeah. Now everything feels so empty, and not just here, but everywhere in life, except with you," Miranda said, pulling Lilian's hand to her lips and kissing it, adding, "that's the one thing that's always fully."

"You might have depression," Lilian said, "you should see my therapist. He's helped me through a lot, and he has a daughter like you. He'd be nothing but understanding."

"You don't think that'd get messy, sharing a therapist?" Miranda asked, making Lilian laugh.

"Well, not like we'd be seeing him together," she replied.

Suddenly the front door swung open, and standing there was Miranda's mother, Ann, who lunged forward and immediately hugged Miranda without any hesitation. Miranda, not expecting this kind of hello despite having a good relationship with her mother, started to cry as she hugged her mother back. Her mother squeezed her tighter, and pressed her lips to her ear, whispering.

"I missed you so much," she said, "my little girl is home."

That, more than anything else, broke Miranda, who started crying even harder. Lilian just stepped aside, smiling brightly as she watched this heartwarming moment unfurl before her. As Ann pulled away from Miranda, her hands on her arms, looking at her, she then turned her attention to Lilian and smiled at her as well.

"Hello," Ann said.

"Mom, this is my girlfriend, Lilian," Miranda said.

"It's very nice to meet-" Lilian began, holding out her hand before Ann suddenly hugged her too, taking both Lilian and Miranda by surprise. After that hug ended, Ann did the same thing; she stood in front of Lilian, staring at her, while Miranda slinked by her mother and headed into the house. Once out of earshot, Ann, her face wet with tears, cleared her throat.

"Thank you so much," she said, "thank you for letting her be herself. Nobody could ever get her to do it. I accepted her, she had friends who accepted her, but none of it ever was enough to push her to do it. Whatever you did, it must've been something spectacular, because to finally see her as herself, happy, makes my heart swell."

"All I did was love her," Lilian said, chuckling nervously, shrugging, "nothing too hard."

"Please, come inside," Ann said.

With that, she and Lilian headed inside after Miranda. Once inside, Lilian couldn't help but be jealous of the interior of the house as well. Wasn't anything amazing, just a very well kept upper suburban home, but it once again made Lilian a bit jealous for Miranda's upbringing. Ann followed Miranda past the foyer and into the living room, while Lilian stopped in the hall and looked at photos on the wall, photos on a nearby table, taking it all in. In the photos Miranda looked happy, but she could see the pain behind her eyes, especially in photos that featured her sister. Lilian picked up one photo, then heard someone come in behind her. She turned, a little surprised, to see a woman a little younger than Miranda standing there in the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen chewing on a celery stick with peanut butter on it.

"I'm...I'm sorry, I hope it's okay to look at these," Lilian said, and the woman shrugged.

"I don't care," she said. She had short brown hair and was wearing ripped jeans and a v-neck t-shirt with an oversized flannel overshirt.

"I just...it's nice to see her as a kid," Lilian said, as the woman stopped beside her and looked at the photos as well.

"Yeah, well, at least one of us wound up a happy adult," the woman said, before heading upstairs, and only then did it dawn on Lilian that that was Miranda's sister. But before she could really process this interaction she was called into the living room by Miranda, and she happily kept to the plan.

                                                                              ***

Alexis and Geena were standing at the rail of the boat, as it sailed out onto open waters. Geena was holding Alexis's hand to keep her from getting scared, as the sound of the water lapping up against the metal of the boat certainly made Alexis jump a little each time. After a little bit, Alexis edged herself away from the siderail and back into the center of the deck, Geena following suit.

"Are you doing alright?" Geena asked, and Alexis exhaled, then shook her head.

"Not really, no, I'm extremely anxious, I can feel my heart racing," she said, "it's wild that one little thing can have such a negative effect on you for the rest of your life."

"One little thing? You nearly drowned, Alex," Geana said, laughing.

"Nearly being the operative word there," Alexis replied, "they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but I find the opposite to be true. If anything, it's just weakened me further. I have a hard time even being around pools sometimes. Water just makes me so uncomfortable."

Geena picked out a root beer from a cooler on the boat and popped the top, taking a long sip. She looked around the boat, spotting John off to the side, fishing of all things, and laughed quietly to herself. She then sighed and looked back towards Alexis.

"Are you mad you survived?" Geena asked.

"I mean, I was a kid, so-"

"No no," Geena said, waving her hand, "not survived that. Survived your OD. Are you mad that you survived that?"

Alexis thought for a moment, folding her arms, chewing her lip.

"...it's complicated. At first yeah, kinda. Like, I was aware I was now going to be held responsible for my actions, albeit my actions that weren't intentional, and that I'd have to answer for what happened. I was mad about dealing with the consequences of an even accidental overdose. That being said, it starts to dwindle the longer I've been back in the world of the living. I don't feel as mad now. There's twinges, moments where I wish I had just died, hadn't been found, because it feels as though death would be easier and more preferable to anything else, and that getting sober is hard and dealing with life is impossible, but on the whole, not really. Not now."

"That's good to hear," Geena replied, smiling, handing Alexis her root beer, which she graciously accepted and took a long drink from as Geena continued, "I should've done more, like, to prevent you from even going down that road."

"Don't say that," Alexis said, "First of all, I'm responsible for my own decisions, okay. Secondly, drugs helped me more often than they hurt me. One bad incident doesn't erase all the good they did for me. People act like drug users are terrible people without recognizing that everyone takes something for something, regardless of legality. These helped me deal with my loneliness, my depression, my anxiety. In all honesty, taking drugs probably kept me from killing myself for so long, which in turn only makes the accidental OD all that more ironic when you think about it. And third, I'm your sister, not your child. I appreciate that you care, but-"

"The first two, sure, but the third one," Geena said, sniffling, "I should've been there more. I could see where you were headed, and I should've done more to try and prevent it at least. Even if you hadn't listened, I would've at least had tried, you know? You're my sister, not my kid, yeah, but that doesn't make you any less important to me, and I'm so sorry that we weren't closer after everything that happened at home."

A long pause as the boat drifted gently on the waters, and they could hear some seagulls overhead.

"I'm sorry I did stop him from hurting you," Geena said.

"He was gonna hit me no matter what you did," Alexis remarked, "nobody could've stopped him."

"I was their favorite, they might've listened to me, but I was so afraid of losing that favoritism that I didn't do anything. They played us against one another because they our strength in numbers could do damage. That doesn't excuse my actions, but it does, if nothing else, contextualizes them, and that helps me at least. I'm sorry about mom and dad."

"They need to apologize, you don't need to apologize on their behalf," Alexis said sternly, "stop letting them use you for their dirty work."

Geena smiled weakly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Alexis handed her back her root beer, as John approached them from behind, holding up a fish on the end of his line.

"You actually caught something?" Geena asked.

"What can I say," John started, "I'm a-"

"If you make a master baiter joke right now I'm gonna push you off this boat and not rescue you," Alexis said, interrupting, the three of them cackling.

                                                                           ***

The living room was what one might expect from a household such as this.

Nice couches covered in decorative throw pillows and quilts slung over the backs, bookshelves filled with hardbacks and the usual entertainment center setup complete with flatscreen TV and the accompanying devices that it warranted; DVR, DVD player, a game system of one kind or another. Lilian didn't know much about games, so. Ann had gotten them all glasses of iced tea and some snack crackers to share, complete with cheese and meat slices adorning the tops, and the three of them sat there, anxiously nibbling on their food, sipping their drinks, unsure of how to approach the topic of conversation.

"You have a beautiful home," Lilian finally said, "I grew up in a shoddy apartment, so this is...it's nice. I'm jealous. I mean, growing up in an apartment complex comes with its charms too. You really get to know your neighbors, for one. But I would've much preferred something akin to this, obviously."

"Yeah, you can see how well suburban families work out, just as Maddie," Miranda said, making Lilian grimace, before Miranda touched her leg and added, "sorry, that wasn't cool. I'm sorry."

"Well, it's not without its faults," Ann said, chiming in, rattling the ice against the glass, "Lots of upkeep. In an apartment, there's at least a handyman on pay. Here we have to do everything ourselves if we don't wanna pay out of pocket. Home insurance covers some things, but not everything, certainly not rennovation. Do you get along with your mother, Lilian?"

"That's a loaded question," Lilian said, chuckling anxiously, "I mean, yes and no. We're doing better, though."

The front door opened and they heard someone enter the foyer. Nobody spoke. Finally, a tall, rather thin man stopped in the doorway to the living room, briefcase still in hand, and looked at everyone. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and squinted, staring at Miranda.

"...oh," he said, before turning and exiting the room. They waited, heard him head down the hallway, enter another room and lock the door behind him.

"That was a better reaction than I expected," Miranda said.

"Well," Ann replied, "between you and your sister, he didn't really get the family he expected or hoped to have."

Lilian and Miranda exchanged a look before Miranda asked, "...what about Kate?"

"She's still living here, for one thing, we're paying for her therapy for her eating disorder. Anorexia is a bitch. But she's doing better, and we're proud of her. But between that and her acknowledgement of her attraction to women, can't really say Chuck is pleased as punch. It was one thing to lose what he thought was a son, but then to lose his other daughter to homosexuality? He's slowly realizing he's not going to get the life he wanted, and frankly, he deserves it. None of us got the life we wanted either, so why should he."

Lilian laughed at this, which made Ann smile. Miranda stood up, excusing herself. She headed back into the foyer, stopped and looked down the hall to her fathers office, then headed up the stairs. As she approached her sisters bedroom, she knocked on the door, and when it finally opened a sliver, Kate sighed and opened the door the whole way, allowing Miranda entrance.

"Wow," Miranda said, "your room looks almost the same."

"Only cause I'm shit at decorating," Kate said.

"I could help with that, if you wanna do something to it," Miranda said, sitting on the bed as Kate plopped herself back down in her spinning desk chair. Miranda sighed, looked down at her hands in her lap and said, "...I'm sorry. I wasn't the best sibling. I know that. I'm also sorry about what you're dealing with, your eating and stuff. You look like you're doing better though. Regardless, I should've been here to help."

"Why would you, nobody else did," Kate replied.

"Mom sounds proud of you, mom seems like she cares," Miranda said.

"I guess," Kate said, shrugging, "...dad hates me."

"It's okay, dad hates everyone," Miranda said, the both of them smirking.

"For what it's worth," Kate said, "I always thought you'd make a good sister."

Miranda felt herself wanting to cry, as Kate rolled over to the bed on her chair and leaned forward, hugging her. Miranda put her arms around her little sister, hugging her back. Maybe their father would come around at some point, maybe he wouldn't, didn't matter. Having her mom and sister on her side was far more preferable anyway. After all, women need to stick together.

                                                                              ***

Alexis opened the door to her hospice room, only to find Rick sitting on her bed. She jumped, a bit startled, then laughed nervously as she shut the door behind her. Rick smiled, standing up.

"Where you been?" he asked.

"I saw my sister. We went for a boat ride," Alexis said, "sorry, I would've told you but it was kind of sudden and-"

Rick didn't wait to hear more. He took Alex's face in his hands and kissed her. She happily kissed him back.

"You smell like fish," Rick said.

"Like you don't love it," Alexis replied playfully, making him laugh.

"It's true, nothing like the smell of trout to get me going," he said, kissing her again. All in all, for everyone involved, things went much better than expected. Alexis hadn't conquered her fear of the water, but like getting sober, she'd taken the first step towards doing so, and Miranda knew now for certain that she'd always her mom and sister by her side to watch her back. While Alexis regaled Rick with her tales of her day on the ocean, Lilian and Miranda were driving home. Miranda was asleep in the passenger seat, and Lilian glanced over at her, smiling to herself. She thought back to her own mother, and how hard she had tried, and how much they were trying to be friends now. She promised she was going to do whatever it took to keep her safe.

Lying on Alex's bed after the discussion of the day was through, holding hands, Alex rolled onto her side and rested her head on Rick's chest. He reached up with his free hand and gently stroked her hair. She shut her eyes and exhaled, allowing herself to relax.

"I want to meet your sister sometime," Alexis said, and Rick nodded.

"Never had a girlfriend before who actually wanted to meet my family," he said, laughing a little.

But Alexis didn't respond. She'd drifted off to sleep. There'd be more time to talk tomorrow. Right now, she was dreaming, dreaming of that day on the beach, the day she almost drowned. As she walked closer to the water, preparing to be swallowed up by it yet again, she could feel Geena's hand grab her wrist and pull her away from it. Seemed like people had been pulling Alexis away from danger her whole life, and maybe, finally, she was ready to accept that others did in fact care about her well being. She used to have drugs, and that worked well for her for a while.

But maybe, now, it was time to have more.

"I wish we were meeting under better circumstances," Principal Greensburg said, pushing some of her somewhat frizzy black hair from her face; she had only been principal for a brief time, but she was the youngest the school had ever had, not to mention the first African American principal, and Lilian, on the rare occasions she had to interact with her, had found her nothing if not charming and delightful to be around. Today, however...

"I can't say what the circumstances are until I'm told what happened," Lilian replied.

Both women then turned their gaze to Maddie, who had pulled her backpack closer to her chest, hugging it tightly, keeping her eyes glued to the ground. Something had clearly happened, and it had been so bad that Lilian, stated as Maddie's parental figure on her schoolwork, had to be called in, but Lilian was willing to give Maddie the benefit of the doubt.

"Well," Principal Greensburg continued, "the last week or so we've been having some issues with Maddison and her attitude towards another student, a girl named Ashley Banks. Typically these sorts of issues would be kept to school grounds, dealt with internally, but it's reached the point where we feel outside interaction is required, especially after what happened today."

"And what happened today?" Lilian asked, starting to feel nervous.

"Do you want to tell her?" Principal Greensburg asked, looking at Maddie, and Maddie shook her head, so the principal sighed, then added, "she beat Ashley up. And not...not in the kind of way that girls typically beat one another up, with some scratches and hair pulling. I mean she literally beat her up. Ashley had to go home she was suffering so much."

Lilian rubbed her forehead and slumped in her chair. This was the LAST thing she needed right now.

                                                                             ***

Vera was sitting behind her desk at the company office, her first time actually being in the office in what felt like months. Lately, if she could find a way to do her work from home, she took it, and thankfully since it was mostly payroll and paperwork, she could. But today she couldn't do her work from home. Today she had a meeting. She'd even gotten to the office earlier than usual, much earlier in fact, to clean it head to toe and make it as presentable as possible for her guest. She wanted them to be impressed. She needed them to be impressed. As she finished dusting off the fake plant in the corner by her desk, she heard the door open and she quickly rushed to her chair, trying to look as casual as possible, something Vera was not typically good at. The door swung fully open, and in walked her guest, Mrs. Helena Langdon.

Mrs. Langdon looked like someone straight out of a successful business magazine. She had the suit, the gait, the overall attitude. Hell, she even had the expensive atache case. She approached the desk and sat down, crossing her legs immediately and setting the case down by the feet of her chair. She reached up, undid her hair that was pulled back tightly and let it fall around her shoulders, something Vera had not been expecting.

"I...I have to say you're both exactly who I envisioned and not at all who I envisioned," Vera said, breaking the silence.

"I could say the same for you," Mrs. Langdon replied, "after all, why did you rent out an entire building for a business that only has maybe 6 employees?"

"I'm a bit of a traditionalist," Vera remarked, shrugging, laughing nervously, "I always liked the idea of being the one in charge of a big company. Plus, it was either this, or meet at one anothers apartments for things and that...that's not exactly a great idea."

"There's a third option, one you're overlooking," Mrs. Langdon said sternly, "you're in the 21st century. You have the internet. You can run an entire business like this purely online, via app based communication. All you need to do is get someone to create the app for you, and then you can communicate with your employees on a one to one basis, while also letting people hire you all through it for whatever they need."

"That just feels so...impersonal."

"You're a business," Mrs. Langdon said, "it's supposed to be impersonal."

Vera shrugged. She'd always thought that the thing people liked about their company was the fact that they didn't really behave like a company. There was no stoicism to them at all, like they acted as if they didn't care about their customers. If anything, the number one compliment they usually got was just how much those hired cared and did their best to make the party a success, and many times, even offering to stay after and help clean up. Vera didn't want to lose that goodwill.

"Listen," Mrs. Langdon said, "you called me, okay? I'm just here to offer suggestions and perhaps buy your company at above market value."

"Above market?"

"I see the potential in what you all do," Mrs. Langdon continued, "there's a necessity for it. You're niche, but you're not so niche that you can't be financially viable. Everyone has parties. Everyone's got a birthday, got a graduation, you name it. So there's always a need for what you do. There's a market here for sure. Tell me, who is your most successful employee by ranking?"

"Well," Vera said, sighing, "surprisingly, it's the one we've had the most trouble with internally."

                                                                               ***

"Where are we going?" Alexis asked as she looked out the passenger side window of John's car.

"I'm taking you to meet someone," John said flatly, "so just sit back and enjoy the ride."

Alexis sighed and did as she was told, just watching the streets go by. Truthfully, she hadn't had the best week. She hadn't been doing so great in therapy, unable to work through certain issues, and Rick had been avoiding her a bit for some reason - he claimed he was doing certain activities at the hospital and she didn't want to call him a liar but she had her doubts, thanks to how everyone had treated her - so she wasn't really in the greatest mood. When John showed up for his usual lunch date, he could see she was pained, so he decided to take her somewhere, whether she wanted to or not.

The thing was, and she wouldn't tell him this, Alexis had begun to have doubts about her life after the hospital. Did she really want to return to the company? Did she really want to work for Vera again? And what about Rick? Rick had been the best thing in her life in many years, maybe even ever aside from John, and she didn't know how to handle the fact that she might be released before him and they might not be able to be as together as they were able to right now. This worried her deeply. She really liked Rick, and she didn't want to lose that.

"I saw your sister recently," John said, surprising her, finally getting Alexis to look at him.

"...what? Why?"

"Well, to be fair, she showed up at my trailer park unannounced, it wasn't like we were having secret meetings behind your back," John said, "I would've been rude if I'd just turned her away, so. Anyway, she told me a bit about your parents and stuff, about the drowning incident. I'm sorry your folks sucked so much."

"Eh, what's it matter? I'm an adult now, I shouldn't care," Alexis muttered.

"Yeah, but you do. Because that's the thing, you don't stop wanting stuff you never got. You just want it harder, if anything. But there's also nothing wrong with that, and really I feel like that's a natural reaction to have. To double down on the want that you so required to begin with," John said as they pulled into the parking lot of the hospice. Alexis's eyes wandered around the outdoor facilities and then she turned to look John in the eyes.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"There's someone I want you to meet," John said, unstrapping his seatbelt. Together, he and Alexis climbed out of the car and headed towards the entrance. Upon entering, he was greeted with kindness and enthusiasm, as was Alexis simply for being his guest. They continued further in, down the hall and into an elevator, where he pressed the corresponding floor keys.

"You took me from one hospital to go to another hospital?" Alex asked, "that sounds kinda counterproductive, don't you think?"

John laughed and shook his head. The elevator reached its floor, and they exited, Alexis still following John down the hall until he reached the room. He put his hand on the doorknob, then stopped and looked at Alexis. Neither one said anything, and John pulled his hand slowly off the doorknob, and instead put his hands on her shoulders.

"If you think that you're in the wrong for wanting a life you can't have because your parents fucked you over," he said, "then maybe this will help you understand just how okay it is to want that."

And with that, he turned back to the door and opened it, revealing Stars living quarters. She was seated cross legged on her bed in her shirt and shorts, doing a small puzzle on a TV tray, and smiled so brightly the second she saw her father in the doorway. She leapt up from the bed and ran across the room, throwing herself against him. He just laughed and hugged her back, and Alexis...Alexis just stood dumbfounded. She still didn't understand what John was trying to show her, but come the end of the day, she would. And she'd feel all the better for it.

                                                                                ***

Lilian wasn't having a good afternoon.

Sitting in the principals office, waiting for her to return - she'd been temporarily called out to a classroom for something - she wanted to ask Maddie why this was happening. What this girl, Ashley, could've done or said that was so wrong that warranted an out and out beating. In Maddie's defense, she had a lot to be angry about, and at this point any reason to snap was likely somewhat justified, but still. Lilian sighed and ran her hands down her face.

"...what was it?" she finally asked, looking at Maddison, adding, "what was so henious that you had to send a girl home?"

"....it...it doesn't matter," Maddie whispered.

"No, but it does, Maddie, it does matter. I know you're going through a lot, okay? Your father's recovery, your mothers justified incarceration, getting your first period, like...hell, kid. You've got reasons to be angry at the world. But there's healthy and there's unhealthy ways to cycle through that anger, and literally beating the hell out of someone is one of the unhealthiest you can indulge in this side of self destructive behavior."

Maddie sunk lower in her chair and let her hair cover her eyes. Lilian sighed again, reaching out and putting a hand on her knee.

"I'm sorry," Lilian said quietly, "I'm getting too 'mom' like, and...and it must be uncomfortable and-"

"No, I...I like it," Maddie said, "it's...nice to have a mom. I don't think my mom ever really acted like a mom the way you do, so it's nice to have that for once. It's nice to feel like someone gives a crap about me."

"Kiddo, if I didn't give a crap about you, you wouldn't be living with me," Lilian said, chuckling.

Lilian and Maddie both had had somewhat disconnected mothers, but the difference was that, even in spite of her aloofness, Lilian's mother never had any negative intentions for her daughter. The same could obviously not be said for Maddie's mother. Perhaps that was why Lilian was so capable of being what Maddie needed, and she was happy she was succeeding. Every kid deserves a supportive adult in their life, even if only just one. The door to the office opened and the principal came back in, seating herself again.

"Sorry for the delay," she said, "anyway, I wanted to discuss what we think would be appropriate disciplinary action."

"Frankly," Lilian said, "...I'd like to discuss why you feel the need to discipline someone defending themselves."

This response caught both Maddie and the principal off guard, and Maddie had to hide her sudden smile.

                                                                                  ***

Vera was anxious. She was tapping her pen against her desk while Helena Langdon looked through her atache case for some papers. Vera had never thought about selling the company back to, well, a company. She didn't want it in the hands of a traditional company that cared about profits over employees. She much preferred to leave it in the hands of someone who was more familiar with running a business that didn't run its workers into the ground for monetary net worth. After a moment, Vera realized she was chewing on the pen, and then set it down nervously, feeling embarrassed, but when she looked up, she noticed Helena smirking.

"You don't have to feel shy about your nervous tics," she said, "I used to do the same thing. When I was still in business school, I'd get so anxious about having interviews, even the fake ones for classes, that I'd chew my nails down so much to the point where I was often mistaken for a lesbian just becase of how short they were."

"That's stereotyping," Vera chuckled, "did you manage to quit doing it?"

"Eventually, but it took a lot of force of will," Helena said, finally placing some papers onto Vera's desk and adding, "the real trick, I discovered, was to redirect that anxiety elsewhere, to another outlet. In my case, that turned out to be chewing gum. Now I just keep a pack of gum on my person at all times, and so instead of chewing my nails, I just chew gum. It's a much better solution that most people come up with; others attempt to substitute with smoking, sexual activities, but I find that that just creates more problems. Chewing gum never caused anyone any issues."

"Unless it gets in your hair," Vera remarked, making Helena laugh.

"Right, well, there's downsides to everything I suppose," she said, "now, if you want to get this deal going, these are the first papers you'll need to read through, sign and get back to me. And please don't hesitate to ask about any changes to anything you see in there that you feel isn't right for you, or the company. I'm a business woman, but unlike the others in my field, I'm not trying to screw over those I intend to help. It's a partnership, plain and simple, like any other transactional relationship in life. It needs to be equal, fifty fifty."

Vera smiled big. She hadn't expected to get so lucky in finding someone so good to run the company, and she was more than pleased at the person she'd managed to unearth. If nothing else, at the end of it all, Vera could step down as owner and be confident that everything and everyone would be in good hands. For the first time in a handful of years...Vera felt hopeful for the future, especially her own.

                                                                            ***

John and Alexis were sitting in Star's room as she napped on her bed, hugging her favorite seahorse plush to her chest. John was eating out of a bag of sunflower seeds, which he shared with Alexis, who happily took a handful. After a few moments of quiet chewing, Alexis finally spoke.

"I don't get it," she said, "why did you bring me here?"

"Because like you, Alexis, my daughter was screwed over by her parents, most specifically my wife. She took away the chance she could've had at a 'normal' life, and as such, took away what she and I could've had had she not become this. Don't let that confuse you, I'm not at all disappointed with how she is now. I'm so happy she's here, and I love her to death. But the fact is she didn't get what she needed, which was parental stability, same as you. I'm doing my best to give you both that, but I also want you to know that it's okay to be angry about it. Star is sometimes. Every now and then she'll tell me she wished she could go to school, or have friends, and just be 'normal', and I have to remind her that she is normal, this is her normal. Everyones lived reality is their normal. And you're normal too, Alex."

Alexis wanted to cry. She had seen John as a father figure, but she didn't know he was an actual father, and now it all made sense why he was so good at it, because he was actually a dad to a daughter. Alexis looked back towards Star's bed and watched her shift in her sleep. John was right, she knew. Who she was, drug problems and all, were just who she was. And even though she had no intention to go back to that person, and instead wanted to stick the course on her rehab, she realized it was time to stop feeling bad about it. To stop feeling about wanting a regular adolescence with good parents.

"...I'd like to legally adopt you," John said, "if you'd still want that."

"I would," Alexis said, sniffling, trying to hold back tears.

"Then we'll get started on that asap," John said, "every adulthood deserves a childhood, even if it's a little late."

It was funny, Alexis thought, for someone who played a clown, John made her cry far more often than he made her laugh.

                                                                               ***

"I'm sorry, what do you mean?" Principal Greensburg asked.

"I mean here's a girl whose mother MURDERED a child at her birthday party, then attempted to kill her father after he has a heart attack, and you expect her to behave socially acceptably? I mean, I get it, school has rules and yes, violence is often not justified, but there are extenuating circumstances in certain situations. Let me guess, Ashley gets go home to a house with two supportive, loving parents and never wonder why her mother didn't want her, right? You're the principal, you've met these people, tell me."

Principal Greensburg cleared her throat, clearly feeling nervous now and cupped her hands on her desk again.

"Y-yes, she does, yes, her parents are both successful people in their careers, and often go the extra mile for her. They donate to the school, they chaperone, they do what they can," Principal Greensburg said, "but just because one student has it better than others doesn't entitle the lesser lucky student to behave this way."

"I'm not saying it entitles them to, no; it's contextual, not actionable. Explanation doesn't equate justification," Lilian said, "and yes, by the rules set by the district, Maddie should face some kind of disciplinary charges, but you need to also recognize that these are unusual circumstances that not every student is dealing with. I just think it isn't fair to say she's the only bad one in this situation."

"It wasn't even about me," Maddie said, finally speaking, causing both Lilian and Principal Greensburg to look towards her as she added, "...it was about you."

"...me?" Lilian asked, "What do you mean?"

"She said I was going to become a queer like you," Maddie said, "but in...not so nice terms."

"Oh, I see," Lilian said, "and that upset you?"

"Of course it did, because first of all that isn't a problem, you're the coolest person I've ever known, and secondly, who you love isn't a problem, because unlike my mom you don't try to kill your partner. If anything, you and Miranda probably have the healthiest relationship I've ever seen, and if I do turn out like that, then that's great, cause while Ashley will be miserable married to some guy who gives her 3 children then starts to hate her when she isn't pretty anymore, I'll be happy with whoever it is I wind up being with because I had a good role model. Nobody gets to talk that way about me, or about you."

Lilian wanted to cry. She wanted to grab Maddie and squeeze her so tight and just cry for joy. After all the effort she'd put into helping this little girl, Maddie was finally repaying the favor, and although Lilian always knew she and Maddie were friends, were close, this was the defining moment that she realized just how much of a parent to her she'd really become. Maddie was willing to throw down to protect her honor. Lilian really felt like a princess.

"So rampant and open homophobia is perfectly okay at your school?" Lilian asked, finally looking back at Principal Greensburg, "because that's what it's starting to sound like. Like because little miss perfects parents donate and help out, she gets a free pass to be vile and spread her vitriol anywhere she wants. Is that what's going on here? Because if so, let me know, so I can start looking for another school."

"Obviously that isn't the case, and had I known what Ashley had said, I would've spoken to her parents about her choices in dialogue," Principal Greensburg, "I assure you were are a very open and inclusive school-"

"Because you believe in it, or because you're legally forced to be?" Lilian asked, interrupting her, "because there is a difference."

"Miss Phillips, I don't think we-"

"No, I don't think we need to sit here and listen to anymore of this. Somebody isn't going to take blame for defending themselves, defending those they love, while some brat gets to walk free with, at best, a scraped knee or a broken nose and continue to be openly hateful towards those she finds below her," Lilian said, standing up and taking Maddie by the hand, "because you might be a school, but it seems to me the only thing you're teaching is that it's okay to be cruel to others, and frankly, that just isn't the kind of environment I want for my kid."

With that, Lilian turned and left the room, tugging Maddie behind her. Once outside the office, Lilian leaned against the wall and sighed, running her hands down her face, wanting to scream. Suddenly, she felt Maddie hug her around the waist, and she smiled, reached down and stroked her hair.

"Come on," Lilian said, "let's go get ice cream. This day calls for ice cream."

"I'm gonna get rainbow sprinkles in solidarity," Maddie said, smirking.

"Alright, now you're just makin fun of me," Lilian remarked, the both of them chuckling.

Sometimes the best mothers and the best daughters aren't related at all.

Here's the thing about Jane Phillips...she never really intended to be a mom.

That wasn't to say that, when the time came she didn't fully embrace and appreciate it, she did the absolute best she could, but it had never exactly been a goal for her. Jane had never been exactly...steady....mentally enough to have a child, but once Lilian arrived, she didn't try and weasel out of the responsibility. If anything, she did the opposite. She enrolled Lilian - with the financial help of her own parents - into the best preschool they had around, and then to a private elementary school. She made sure Lilian knew how to read, teaching her herself, getting books from the library out together and reading them in bed at night. She never scolded, she never threatened, she never talked down to. Sure, sometimes they had arguments, but she never said anything hateful or hurtful or damaging. Standing in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of juice and waiting for her pancakes to bubble, she saw the car pull up out front and quickly abandoned all other things to attend to the fact that her daughter had just pulled up to her house.

Here's the thing about Jane Phillips...she never really intended to be a mom. But once she was, she made sure to try and be the best damn mom she could.

                                                                              ***

"That's heavy, man," Alexis said, and Maddie nodded.

Alex, Lilian, Rina and Maddie were seated in the diner, in a booth, having breakfast. Lilian had just gone to pick Maddie up from her fathers, and after Maddie told her what her mother had told her father, and what her father had, in turn, told her, Lilian knew she needed other people to hear it. Alexis picked up her toast and took a bite out of it. This was one of her free days - she got a few every month to try to acclimate herself back into society - so she was able to get out of the hospital that morning when Lilian came to pick her up as well. Rina just stared dead eyed at Maddie while mindlessly sipping her coffee.

"She never came off as right in the head," Rina said, "no offense."

"Please, I have no interest in defending her," Maddie replied.

"So all those hunches, about your father being poisoned, I mean obviously we knew it was true but now it's like undeniable, right?" Alexis asked, "cause she just flat out admitted to attempted murder of her own spouse."

"Are there any adults you can trust?" Maddie asked glumly.

"You trust us, right?" Alexis asked, "well, the others. I'm not so much an adult, but you know what I mean."

This made Maddie laugh a little, and that felt good. She hadn't laughed in what felt like ages. Lilian stood up, excusing herself from the table before heading to the hall where the bathrooms were. She stopped in the hallway and pulled some change from her pocket, pumping coins into the payphone and making a call. A call she didn't really want to make. A call to her mother. The phone rang a few times, and finally Jane answered, sounding out of breath.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Mom? Are you okay?" Lilian asked.

"I was in the garage and came running when the phone rang, I'm just out of breath...and also out of shape," Jane said, making Lilian smile.

"Mom, I have a favor to ask..." she said.

Meanwhile, back at the table, Alexis finished her toast and sipped her coffee, sighing as she set the mug back down.

"Look, my parents were awful, ARE awful," Alex said, "like...they didn't give a shit whether me or my siblings lived or died, except maybe my sister Geena. But they certainly didn't give a flat fart about me, that's for damn sure. I once almost drowned at the beach and they just went along with their day, business as usual. Parents are a crapshoot, often because birth is like the genetic lottery. You just are brought into this world, against your will, and then whoever it turns out you're assigned to can range from amazing to outright shitbag. You're lucky in that at least your father is pretty good. You could've had it worse. You could've had my parents. Granted they never tried to kill eachother, but still. Purposeful negligence is almost as bad as malicious intent."

Maddie nodded, listening, but not looking up from the table. Alexis had a point, she couldn't deny it. She had always thought that she had a good family, maybe not a great family exactly, but a decent enough one. But now she could see it for what it was, an out and out lie. Just a performance. But she did have her father, and he clearly loved her to death. He was trying so hard to be the best dad he could be for her. Just then Lilian came back to the table, grabbed her coat and took Maddie by the wrist, tugging her from the booth.

"We have to go do something," Lilian said, "See y'all later."

As they exited hastily, Alexis looked at Rina, who raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Did she just say 'y'all'?" Rina asked.

"She's been spending too much time around Tyler," Alex replied.

                                                                          ***

"Wow, that's...that's a lot," Jane said softly.

She was seated on the end of her bed as Lilian paced in front of her, Maddie waiting in the living room.

"I just...I thought maybe she would feel better to talk to a mom who...who...didn't try to kill her family members," Lilian said, "I don't exactly know what to say or do to help her, and you're the only person I could think of that might. She needs an adult, a real honest to god adult, not just someone like me or my friends who are still on the cusp of burdgeoning responsibility. She needs someone with life experience. She needs....you, mom. We need you."

"Well, you know I've always offered to help if I can," Jane said, "let's go out there, sit with her, chat and see what we can come away with, alright? The worst that can come from it is that she doesn't feel better, but she could never feel worse, so that's good."

With that, Jane stood up, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and, with Lilian, headed out of the bedroom, down the hall and to the living room where they found Maddie sitting on the couch, looking at a book she'd pulled off a nearby shelf. As they entered, she turned her head and glanced at them.

"You sure have a lot of books about the arts," Maddie said, "especially ballet."

"I love dance," Jane replied, "I wanted to be a dancer when I was a little girl, but my parents wouldn't spring for lessons. They thought the arts were frivilous indulgements, but that didn't kill my interest. I read all I could, practiced when I had the chance. Never got to actually get around to doing anything with it, but it's still a passion of mine. Do you have anything in particular that you believe in, love to do, more than anything else in the world?"

Maddie thought about this for a few moments, then shook her head.

"I don't...I don't think I ever really...got the chance to find anything," she said quietly, "my whole life was just school and being at home with my parents. I used to be in girl scouts, but that didn't last, and I never really had any friends, but not because nobody wanted to be but because I thought my parents were enough for me. Then I met Lily, and...I guess I realized that you don't have friends just because you want them, but you become friends with the people that really understand and accept you. Which, until then, was nobody."

Jane glanced at Lilian, who was seated in a chair across from the couch, and smiled at her. Lilian just shrugged.

"I like what we do together, the whole party thing," Maddie said, "but I can't say it's exactly what I wanna do my whole life, no offense."

"None taken, I'm with you on that," Lilian said.

"But, I'm still not sure what I would do if I had a choice," Maddie said, "I feel like I don't really know who I am. I think I spent so much time just seeing myself as my parents kid, that I never thought to, you know...be a person. Is that weird?"

"Not at all," Jane said, putting a hand on Maddie's shoulder, "and we'll gladly help you."

Lilian smiled warmly. She had had her doubts, as her relationship with her mother had always been somewhat rocky and shifting, but she knew that deep down she did care about others, and Lilian. That she really did like to help when and if she could. It was nice to see her try and do the right thing, even if she felt a bit jealous that she hadn't listened to Lilian herself this way when she had been a child.

                                                                             ***

Alexis was walking down the hall of the hospital, heading to her room, when she heard shoes coming up behind her and was happy to see Rick walking alongside her now. She smiled and handed the open container from the diner to him. He gladly accepted, taking half of the sandwich she had in there and biting into it as they kept walking.

"Where you been?" Rick asked.

"I had a free day, so I went out with a friend for breakfast," Alexis said, "why, you miss me?"

"God, am I that transparent?" Rick asked, making her blush; he continued eating the sandwich as she looked at her shoes while they went down the hall together.

"Next time I have a free day, or you do, or whatever, maybe..." Alexis said, trailing off. She'd never once in her life struggled to talk to someone like this, and she wasn't used to it, nor did she like it, but finally she managed to continue, "...maybe we could go do something together. Kind of, like...a date, I guess. I mean, if you wanna do that, date me, or, fuck. I don't even know what it is I'm saying. I've never dealt with these kinds of feelings before."

"I wanna show you something," Rick said, taking her by the wrist and leading her to his room. Once inside he locked the door, then instructed her to sit down in a chair, which she did. He then approached a covered up easel, and, grabbing at the end of the sheet over it, tugged it off and revealed a painting. A painting of her. A painting that looked like it'd been done by a professional with years of experience.

"Did...did you pay someone to do this?" Alexis asked.

"No! I did this!" Rick said, laughing, "when my sister and I were growing up, our folks threw a lot of money at us, hobby wise, so we both got really into painting, sculpting, whatever. That's part of why she's a baker now. Cause that was one of the ones that clicked for her most. I always liked painting though. Did it for years. I always...I always found it was a good alternative to keep myself off drugs. Even though I, ya know, always wound up back on drugs."

"It's beautiful," Alexis whispered.

"Well, that's cause you're beautiful," Rick said, approaching her, kneeling in front of the chair and taking her hands in his own, adding, "I would absolutely love to go out with you the next time we both have a free day, yes. I'll ask my sister for some money, so I can take you somewhere nice and-"

"We don't need to go anywhere nice, I'm a pretty easy going lady," Alexis said, snickering, "believe me, I won't say no to fast food."

"Yeah, sure, neither would I, but I feel like you've never been treated to something, and you deserve to be," Rick said, surprising her; he finally looked up from their hands at her face and smiled, "you really deserve to be. I wanna do that for you, please."

Alexis nodded, then looked over her shoulder at the door.

"That locked well?" she asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Cause I wanna make out, and I don't wanna be interrupted," she said, making Rick laugh.

                                                                                ***

"The kid'll be okay," Jane said.

She and Lilian were standing in the kitchen, washing a few dishes while Maddie sat outside on a tree swing. Lilian wiped off a mug and handed it to her mother, clearing her throat as she gripped yet another mug and started the cycle over again.

"How come you never did that for me?" Lilian asked, "talked that openly, encouraged me to do pursue my own interests?"

"I did the best I could, Lily," Jane said, turning to face her, "I...I didn't expect to be a mom. It wasn't on my itinerary, believe me. And my own folks were...well, let's just say I didn't have much experience to pull from, example wise. I screwed up, I know that, but I tried. I tried so hard. I hope you believe me. All I wanted was for you to feel special, like you were the best, and for everyone else to see it too."

Lilian handed her mom this new mug and she put it aside with the other clean dishes. Lilian then sighed, set her washclothe down on the countertop and turned to look at her mother, who turned back to look at her. Neither woman said anything, but Lilian wanted to. She had so many things she wanted to say.

"I'm an adult and I don't know what I want to do," Lilian said, on the verge of tears, "I...I like what I do, but it isn't something I wanna do forever. But I also don't know what else I want to do. Like Maddie, I don't really know who I am or what I'm really interested in. It's like I grew up into a blank template of a person. Like I'm an uncolored page from a coloring book. All the pieces are there, but nothing is filled in. It...it's hard to know what...who...I am."

"You're my daughter," Jane said, "but that's an identifier, not an identity. It's just a place to start, to grow from. You might be my child, but you're your own adult. Start with that."

Jane put her hand son Lilian's arms, then pulled her in for a hug.

"I really did try my best," she whispered.

"I know mom," Lilian replied, "we all did."

By the time Lilian and Maddie were leaving, it had started raining lightly. Jane sent them home with some food, and even gave Maddie a few books of her choosing on subjects she was possibly interested in. As Lilian drove, she couldn't help but think that this was the single most productive instance of interacting with her mother in maybe her entire life, and it all came thanks to Maddie. She pulled up to a red light and stopped the car, the windshield wipers squeaking gently. She glanced over at Maddie, looking out the window.

"You okay?" Lilian asked.

"She killed a child. A child my age. She meant to kill my father. She might've even tried to kill me if she'd succeeded. She told me she never really wanted to have me. My mother kills people. But, if today taught me anything, it's that I might not know what I wanna be, but I do know what I don't wanna be," Maddie said.

"And what's that?"

"My mother."

"Well," Lilian said, "that's certainly a start."Here's the thing about Jane Phillips...she never really intended to be a mom.

That wasn't to say that, when the time came she didn't fully embrace and appreciate it, she did the absolute best she could, but it had never exactly been a goal for her. Jane had never been exactly...steady....mentally enough to have a child, but once Lilian arrived, she didn't try and weasel out of the responsibility. If anything, she did the opposite. She enrolled Lilian - with the financial help of her own parents - into the best preschool they had around, and then to a private elementary school. She made sure Lilian knew how to read, teaching her herself, getting books from the library out together and reading them in bed at night. She never scolded, she never threatened, she never talked down to. Sure, sometimes they had arguments, but she never said anything hateful or hurtful or damaging. Standing in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of juice and waiting for her pancakes to bubble, she saw the car pull up out front and quickly abandoned all other things to attend to the fact that her daughter had just pulled up to her house.

Here's the thing about Jane Phillips...she never really intended to be a mom. But once she was, she made sure to try and be the best damn mom she could.

                                                                                ***

"That's heavy, man," Alexis said, and Maddie nodded.

Alex, Lilian, Rina and Maddie were seated in the diner, in a booth, having breakfast. Lilian had just gone to pick Maddie up from her fathers, and after Maddie told her what her mother had told her father, and what her father had, in turn, told her, Lilian knew she needed other people to hear it. Alexis picked up her toast and took a bite out of it. This was one of her free days - she got a few every month to try to acclimate herself back into society - so she was able to get out of the hospital that morning when Lilian came to pick her up as well. Rina just stared dead eyed at Maddie while mindlessly sipping her coffee.

"She never came off as right in the head," Rina said, "no offense."

"Please, I have no interest in defending her," Maddie replied.

"So all those hunches, about your father being poisoned, I mean obviously we knew it was true but now it's like undeniable, right?" Alexis asked, "cause she just flat out admitted to attempted murder of her own spouse."

"Are there any adults you can trust?" Maddie asked glumly.

"You trust us, right?" Alexis asked, "well, the others. I'm not so much an adult, but you know what I mean."

This made Maddie laugh a little, and that felt good. She hadn't laughed in what felt like ages. Lilian stood up, excusing herself from the table before heading to the hall where the bathrooms were. She stopped in the hallway and pulled some change from her pocket, pumping coins into the payphone and making a call. A call she didn't really want to make. A call to her mother. The phone rang a few times, and finally Jane answered, sounding out of breath.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Mom? Are you okay?" Lilian asked.

"I was in the garage and came running when the phone rang, I'm just out of breath...and also out of shape," Jane said, making Lilian smile.

"Mom, I have a favor to ask..." she said.

Meanwhile, back at the table, Alexis finished her toast and sipped her coffee, sighing as she set the mug back down.

"Look, my parents were awful, ARE awful," Alex said, "like...they didn't give a shit whether me or my siblings lived or died, except maybe my sister Geena. But they certainly didn't give a flat fart about me, that's for damn sure. I once almost drowned at the beach and they just went along with their day, business as usual. Parents are a crapshoot, often because birth is like the genetic lottery. You just are brought into this world, against your will, and then whoever it turns out you're assigned to can range from amazing to outright shitbag. You're lucky in that at least your father is pretty good. You could've had it worse. You could've had my parents. Granted they never tried to kill eachother, but still. Purposeful negligence is almost as bad as malicious intent."

Maddie nodded, listening, but not looking up from the table. Alexis had a point, she couldn't deny it. She had always thought that she had a good family, maybe not a great family exactly, but a decent enough one. But now she could see it for what it was, an out and out lie. Just a performance. But she did have her father, and he clearly loved her to death. He was trying so hard to be the best dad he could be for her. Just then Lilian came back to the table, grabbed her coat and took Maddie by the wrist, tugging her from the booth.

"We have to go do something," Lilian said, "See y'all later."

As they exited hastily, Alexis looked at Rina, who raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Did she just say 'y'all'?" Rina asked.

"She's been spending too much time around Tyler," Alex replied.

                                                                            ***

"Wow, that's...that's a lot," Jane said softly.

She was seated on the end of her bed as Lilian paced in front of her, Maddie waiting in the living room.

"I just...I thought maybe she would feel better to talk to a mom who...who...didn't try to kill her family members," Lilian said, "I don't exactly know what to say or do to help her, and you're the only person I could think of that might. She needs an adult, a real honest to god adult, not just someone like me or my friends who are still on the cusp of burdgeoning responsibility. She needs someone with life experience. She needs....you, mom. We need you."

"Well, you know I've always offered to help if I can," Jane said, "let's go out there, sit with her, chat and see what we can come away with, alright? The worst that can come from it is that she doesn't feel better, but she could never feel worse, so that's good."

With that, Jane stood up, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and, with Lilian, headed out of the bedroom, down the hall and to the living room where they found Maddie sitting on the couch, looking at a book she'd pulled off a nearby shelf. As they entered, she turned her head and glanced at them.

"You sure have a lot of books about the arts," Maddie said, "especially ballet."

"I love dance," Jane replied, "I wanted to be a dancer when I was a little girl, but my parents wouldn't spring for lessons. They thought the arts were frivilous indulgements, but that didn't kill my interest. I read all I could, practiced when I had the chance. Never got to actually get around to doing anything with it, but it's still a passion of mine. Do you have anything in particular that you believe in, love to do, more than anything else in the world?"

Maddie thought about this for a few moments, then shook her head.

"I don't...I don't think I ever really...got the chance to find anything," she said quietly, "my whole life was just school and being at home with my parents. I used to be in girl scouts, but that didn't last, and I never really had any friends, but not because nobody wanted to be but because I thought my parents were enough for me. Then I met Lily, and...I guess I realized that you don't have friends just because you want them, but you become friends with the people that really understand and accept you. Which, until then, was nobody."

Jane glanced at Lilian, who was seated in a chair across from the couch, and smiled at her. Lilian just shrugged.

"I like what we do together, the whole party thing," Maddie said, "but I can't say it's exactly what I wanna do my whole life, no offense."

"None taken, I'm with you on that," Lilian said.

"But, I'm still not sure what I would do if I had a choice," Maddie said, "I feel like I don't really know who I am. I think I spent so much time just seeing myself as my parents kid, that I never thought to, you know...be a person. Is that weird?"

"Not at all," Jane said, putting a hand on Maddie's shoulder, "and we'll gladly help you."

Lilian smiled warmly. She had had her doubts, as her relationship with her mother had always been somewhat rocky and shifting, but she knew that deep down she did care about others, and Lilian. That she really did like to help when and if she could. It was nice to see her try and do the right thing, even if she felt a bit jealous that she hadn't listened to Lilian herself this way when she had been a child.

                                                                                ***

Alexis was walking down the hall of the hospital, heading to her room, when she heard shoes coming up behind her and was happy to see Rick walking alongside her now. She smiled and handed the open container from the diner to him. He gladly accepted, taking half of the sandwich she had in there and biting into it as they kept walking.

"Where you been?" Rick asked.

"I had a free day, so I went out with a friend for breakfast," Alexis said, "why, you miss me?"

"God, am I that transparent?" Rick asked, making her blush; he continued eating the sandwich as she looked at her shoes while they went down the hall together.

"Next time I have a free day, or you do, or whatever, maybe..." Alexis said, trailing off. She'd never once in her life struggled to talk to someone like this, and she wasn't used to it, nor did she like it, but finally she managed to continue, "...maybe we could go do something together. Kind of, like...a date, I guess. I mean, if you wanna do that, date me, or, fuck. I don't even know what it is I'm saying. I've never dealt with these kinds of feelings before."

"I wanna show you something," Rick said, taking her by the wrist and leading her to his room. Once inside he locked the door, then instructed her to sit down in a chair, which she did. He then approached a covered up easel, and, grabbing at the end of the sheet over it, tugged it off and revealed a painting. A painting of her. A painting that looked like it'd been done by a professional with years of experience.

"Did...did you pay someone to do this?" Alexis asked.

"No! I did this!" Rick said, laughing, "when my sister and I were growing up, our folks threw a lot of money at us, hobby wise, so we both got really into painting, sculpting, whatever. That's part of why she's a baker now. Cause that was one of the ones that clicked for her most. I always liked painting though. Did it for years. I always...I always found it was a good alternative to keep myself off drugs. Even though I, ya know, always wound up back on drugs."

"It's beautiful," Alexis whispered.

"Well, that's cause you're beautiful," Rick said, approaching her, kneeling in front of the chair and taking her hands in his own, adding, "I would absolutely love to go out with you the next time we both have a free day, yes. I'll ask my sister for some money, so I can take you somewhere nice and-"

"We don't need to go anywhere nice, I'm a pretty easy going lady," Alexis said, snickering, "believe me, I won't say no to fast food."

"Yeah, sure, neither would I, but I feel like you've never been treated to something, and you deserve to be," Rick said, surprising her; he finally looked up from their hands at her face and smiled, "you really deserve to be. I wanna do that for you, please."

Alexis nodded, then looked over her shoulder at the door.

"That locked well?" she asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Cause I wanna make out, and I don't wanna be interrupted," she said, making Rick laugh.

                                                                               ***

"The kid'll be okay," Jane said.

She and Lilian were standing in the kitchen, washing a few dishes while Maddie sat outside on a tree swing. Lilian wiped off a mug and handed it to her mother, clearing her throat as she gripped yet another mug and started the cycle over again.

"How come you never did that for me?" Lilian asked, "talked that openly, encouraged me to do pursue my own interests?"

"I did the best I could, Lily," Jane said, turning to face her, "I...I didn't expect to be a mom. It wasn't on my itinerary, believe me. And my own folks were...well, let's just say I didn't have much experience to pull from, example wise. I screwed up, I know that, but I tried. I tried so hard. I hope you believe me. All I wanted was for you to feel special, like you were the best, and for everyone else to see it too."

Lilian handed her mom this new mug and she put it aside with the other clean dishes. Lilian then sighed, set her washclothe down on the countertop and turned to look at her mother, who turned back to look at her. Neither woman said anything, but Lilian wanted to. She had so many things she wanted to say.

"I'm an adult and I don't know what I want to do," Lilian said, on the verge of tears, "I...I like what I do, but it isn't something I wanna do forever. But I also don't know what else I want to do. Like Maddie, I don't really know who I am or what I'm really interested in. It's like I grew up into a blank template of a person. Like I'm an uncolored page from a coloring book. All the pieces are there, but nothing is filled in. It...it's hard to know what...who...I am."

"You're my daughter," Jane said, "but that's an identifier, not an identity. It's just a place to start, to grow from. You might be my child, but you're your own adult. Start with that."

Jane put her hand son Lilian's arms, then pulled her in for a hug.

"I really did try my best," she whispered.

"I know mom," Lilian replied, "we all did."

By the time Lilian and Maddie were leaving, it had started raining lightly. Jane sent them home with some food, and even gave Maddie a few books of her choosing on subjects she was possibly interested in. As Lilian drove, she couldn't help but think that this was the single most productive instance of interacting with her mother in maybe her entire life, and it all came thanks to Maddie. She pulled up to a red light and stopped the car, the windshield wipers squeaking gently. She glanced over at Maddie, looking out the window.

"You okay?" Lilian asked.

"She killed a child. A child my age. She meant to kill my father. She might've even tried to kill me if she'd succeeded. She told me she never really wanted to have me. My mother kills people. But, if today taught me anything, it's that I might not know what I wanna be, but I do know what I don't wanna be," Maddie said.

"And what's that?"

"My mother."

"Well," Lilian said, "that's certainly a start."

Brian had to almost wonder if he'd just hallucinated what he'd heard. His eyes wide, his mouth slackjawed, he couldn't even fathom what his soon to be ex-wife Jessie had said. He just stared dead ahead at her, unsure of how to even parse the information. After a few minutes, he started looking absentmindedly around at everything alse nearby and then finally his eyesight landed back on hers, and she just looked away.

"Come again?" he finally asked.

"I said it was meant for you," Jessie said quietly.

"That's what I thought you said," Brian said.

An impasse. How does one even go forward from an admission of that caliber? He shook his head slowly, running his hands through his hair as Jessie crossed her legs. Brian finally looked back at her, chewing on his nails anxiously. He couldn't believe it. After all the years they'd been together, having a child together, a seemingly okay marriage, and now this? He didn't even know how to respond or react. Part of him wanted to storm out. Part of him wanted to shriek and scream. Part of him wanted to just simply break down and cry uncontrollably, because...because how does one react when they learn their spouse had tried to kill them?

No, not the poisoning. He'd suspected that. But this was an admission of attempted murder long before that. Back during Maddie's birthday party. He finally looked back at her, and still couldn't find the words. Would he ever? That would remain to be seen, but he'd try. After all, he only had so much time for visitation.

                                                                                ***

"Okay, now you go," Rick said, handing Alexis his glass soda bottle. She took a long swig, wiped her mouth on her arm and then nodded, watching and waiting.

"I spy, with my little eye, someone with a very clear meth addiction," Alexis said, and Rick cackled as he started to scope out the potential candidate. Alexis had to admit, ever since meeting Rick, her enjoyment in rehab had certainly improved threefold. At first she felt so alone, so ignored or misunderstood, but now she had someone on her side - other than John, of course - and that helped so much.

"That lady right there," Rick said, pointing towards a young woman pulling her hair ends into her mouth and chewing on them. Alex nodded, and they both started laughing. She handed him back his soda and he took a long drink, then burped, which made Alex laugh more.

Was it morally correct to make fun of others here, who maybe weren't doing as well as they seemed to be? No, not really, but they didn't care. Whatever helped them get through the day. Besides, it wasn't like they weren't self degrading enough as it was to make up the difference.

"So, you got any plans for when you get out?" Rick asked, and Alexis laughed.

"I don't know, man, the world might've changed so much during my time on the inside, I might not manage to get accustomed to it," she remarked, making him cackle again; she loved making him laugh, but she did answer his question, saying, "Actually, I'll probably just go back to work, honestly. I love my coworkers and what I do."

"And what is it you do?" Rick asked.

"I dress up as a pirate for themed parties," Alexis said, "it's a pretty good job, honestly."

"You've got total pirate vibes, I could see it," Rick said, making Alexis blush as she looked down at her shoes. Rick put his hand on hers on the cement ledge of the flower planter they were sitting on, and she blushed even harder. Part of her hated herself, she had never let a guy get to her like this before, but Rick was not the ordinary guy she ran into. Not some creep or weirdo. He was...just a mess like her, and not shy about it. And he was here, clearly trying to get better. She admired that. With her free hand, she pushed her hair back behind her ear and looked over at him, noticing he was looking at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, "nothing just...sitting here in front of the flowers, it doesn't seem very fair, you know? Forcing them to compete with you."

Alexis giggled like an idiot and looked away again, which made him grin. He then squeezed her hand and she squeezed back happily. Turned out rehab had become the best thing to happen to her, and not even for the reasons one would expect.

                                                                                 ***

"How about this?" Rina asked, holding up a long, sleek black dress with wispy tears at the bottom and at the ends of the sleeves. Lilian chewed on her lip, admiring it for a moment, before shaking her head. Rina looked at it and then looked back at Lilian and asked, "why not? What's wrong with it?"

"It's too....college girl trying to be a slutty witch for Halloween sort of thing. Which, I mean, good for her, she should own her sexuality, but it wouldn't fit for what you're trying to do," Lilian said, "we're doing parties for kids mostly, not trying to get laid at a mixer like Janet."

"Janet?"

"She's the slutty witch at college," Lilian said.

"Do you just always make up people for your explanations?" Rina asked, chuckling as she slid the dress back on a hanger and placed it back on the rack, searching for another.

"Sad thing is," Lilian said, "she's not even the biggest problem in their house. I mean, don't get me wrong, her parents are exactly comfortable with her flaunting her newfound sexual freedom or anything, but it's the 21st century. They're used to liberated, independent women. They're far more concerned with her little brother, who's a cheerleader with murderous interests."

"What is wrong with you?" Rina asked, the both of them cracking up; she then made a squealing noise as she yanked another dress from the rack and showing it to Lilian. This was was a little more shapeless, but still hugged the hips to keep it on her, and had a v-neck but wasn't a plunging neckline. Rina shook her head, almost in a "do you accept it?" sort of manner.

"That's...not bad, actually," Lilian said, "But we need to find a hat to go with it. Let's go see if we could find a hat."

Together, Lilian and Rina headed off to the hat department of the costume shop, dress hung over Rina's arm as they walked.

"How did you find your costume?" Rina asked, and Lilian sighed.

"Actually," she said, "my main one, my favorite one, was hand stitched by my grandmother for my mothers high school prom. But she made it too elegant, too much like a princess dress, and my mother refused to wear it. When I told my grandma about what I wanted to do for work, she dug it out of the attic and gave it to me, happy to see it being useful after all."

"That's a nice story," Rina said, smiling, reaching out and grabbing a witch hat, plopping it on her head and asking, "What about this?"

"That's the kind of hat Janet would wear, come on," Lilian said.

"I think Janet has good taste then!" Rina remarked, the both of them cracking up.

Lilian had always liked Rina, and likewise the other way around, but aside from their tenuous attachement to Maddie at best, they'd never really had a reason to hang out. Rina was honestly, frustrating as it might be, happy about her money troubles if only because it meant now she got the chance to really get to know Lilian as a friend, and that's something she'd always really wanted. Lilian had just accepted Rina at face value, and not based on her parents wealth, or her race, or anything else. She just took her as she was, and that was something Rina wasn't often given, so when she was, she was appreciative of it. And she also liked how well Lilian treated Maddie, and now, seeing them live together the way they were, she really was happy their paths had all crossed the way they had.

"Well, I think I need a broom," Rina said, "It'll help actually cause it won't be just a prop but after the party I can help clean up and maybe get a bigger tip."

"That's...not a bad idea, actually," Lilian said, "Let's go find a broom. Just...try not to be all Janet about it."

"Is Janet based on a real person?" Rina asked, "because this all oddly extremely specific."

                                                                                   ***

"It wasn't meant to get mixed in," Jessie said, sitting in the awkward, uncomfortable silence of their conjugal meeting room; she wiped at her red eyes and continued, her voice shaky, "uh...that was an accident. I kept it separate because I wanted to give it to you specifically, a sort of 'hey, I know you like these' kind of thing, but then one of the other women at the house that day thought it had just been left behind so she put it into the pinata."

"Why didn't the coroner notice it was poisoned?" Brian asked, "I mean, wouldn't that have shown up on bloodwork results during an autosopy?"

"I was as surprised as you are about that, actually, but I think because the kid had a peanut allergy, and it did happen to have peanuts in it, they took that as fact," Jessie said, "Honestly, I was shocked. I was sure they would find that. But I guess it was just overlooked."

Brian sighed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.

"Why would you wanna kill me, Jess? What did I do to you?"

"It isn't...it isn't about what you did to me," Jessie replied, "um...I just didn't see another way out. A divorce would be a longed, dragged out process that would scar Maddie for life-"

"And her father dying wouldn't?" he asked snappily.

"-and you made more money than me, let's be honest, and I wouldn't have been given custody, not that I would've wanted it anyway," Jess said, "I didn't want a child. You did. I only gave into it because...because I thought if I didn't, you wouldn't want to stay married to me. But then she comes along, and you give her all your spare attention, and...I don't know. Maybe I'm just really sick in the head."

"That's a factor, certainly," Brian said, "but it's just that, a factor, not a full on explanation. You don't get to get off that easily after doing something so monstrous. You say you didn't wanna scar Maddison, then you, inadvertantly, kill a kid at her birthday party and then poison her father after he has a heart attack. I mean, if you didn't want her, what would you have done once I was gone? Dumped her on a relative or something?"

Jessie shrugged and looked away again. She couldn't look Brian in the eye.

"...you could've just wanted to leave," Brian continued, "I would've let you. If you were that unhappy, I would've given you a substantial amount to survive on til you got on your feet, you wouldn't have had to take Maddie with you, none of this would've happened. You could've just left, Jess. But I'm glad you didn't."

"You are?"

"Yeah, I'm glad you did what you did, cause now the whole fuckin' world knows what kind of desperate person you are, and the lengths you'll go to get what you want. You're self obsessed, and nobody with that amount of ego should be able to walk freely among others. You're a risk to the public. I don't know what happened to the woman I met, the woman I loved, but you aren't her."

A long pause, and Jessie sighed, nodding.

"You're right, I'm not," she said.

And that was the moment they acknowledge their marriage was truly over.

                                                                           ***

Alexis and Rick were still outside, now sitting on a bench. Well, Rick was sitting on the bench, Alex was laying on it with her head in his lap. The sun was starting to go down, and they'd have to head back inside anytime now, but for the moment, this was a small creature comfort they could enjoy together.

"...I hate sunsets," Alexis said, making Rick almost spit out his drink in laughter.

"God, you're like an anti romantic!" he said, making her chuckle.

"I just...I don't like knowing that another day is coming, you know? When you live with depression, especially depression as serious as I have, it's hard to wanna continue to see another day. You fight just to get through every 24 hour period as it is, and...and when you finally get through it, you're like, well, here comes another one, oh boy. Don't get me wrong, they're beautiful, but they're representative of the future. A future that, frankly, I'm not sure that I want."

"What kind of future do you want?" Rick asked, "like, if you could do anything after you get out of here, I mean I know you said you love your job and all but, what kind of future would you like to have?"

Alexis thought about this for a moment as she continued to pull the petals off a flower in her hands.

"I don't know. Something where I get to go home at the end of the day and...and I feel safe and seen and understood. Where I'm not judged for my actions, but accepted in spite of them. Something where I look forward to the sun rising, not feel sad because it's setting," Alexis said, "I want to want to live."

Rick nodded, listening. He looked down at her, and she looked up at him, her hands, flower between them, resting on her chest. A few people walked by, and he slowly leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. She was expecting it, yet still surprised somehow. She let go of the flower and took his face between her hands, kissing him back. After their lips parted, their foreheads still together, he smirked at her, and she blushed.

"That does sound like a nice future," he said, "I want you to want to live too."

Alexis had never had much experience, and even less success, in the romance department. For a long time, she questioned what she even preferred, because she'd never really been with anyone in any kind of way that was meaningful. But here, now, being kissed during a sunset while holding a flower, she realized what she was was actually a hopeless romantic, and she knew now that the thing she wanted more than getting sober, was the hope of having someone be sober with her.

"I'm gonna kiss you again," Rick whispered.

"You damn well better," she replied softly, the both of them laughing lightly as he did.

                                                                             ***

Lilian and Rina, having found the right costume for her witch persona, were now sitting at a noodle shop, eating two different kinds of soups. Seated in the booth as it had started to rain a little outside, neither one said a word, and it was a comfortable kind of silence they both appreciated being able to have between them. Lilian always felt like she had to fill every moment with someone else with dialogue of some sort, but with Rina, she could just exist, and that was nice.

"Did you bring me here just cause I'm Chinese?" Rina asked, and Lilian laughed.

"Look, if you were Mexican I still would've come here, it's cheap and it's nearby," Lilian said, "I swear I'm not a racist on purpose."

Rina laughed as she lifted her bowl to her lips and drank some of the broth. After she finished she set the bowl back down and sighed, looking around at the other people in the restaurant. She then turned her gaze back on Lilian, who was slurping a few thick noodles and a piece of beef in between her teeth.

"How is Maddie doing?" Rina asked.

"She's...having a bit of a hard time right now," Lilian said, "she started her period, so that was fun, and then she went to have a visit with her mother. Been a rough few weeks. But she's doing as well as one could expect a kid her age to be doing. Little fucker's resiliant."

"Indeed she is!" Rina agreed, laughing, "that's good though, I'm glad she feels comfortable with you guys. I'm glad she had somewhere safe to go. If given the option, I wouldn't have been able to house her, just because I'm still in school and stuff and live with my folks. So I'm glad she had somewhere, someone, to turn to in her time of need. Believe me, if things were different and I was capable of doing so, I would've in a heartbeat. Love that kid."

"She's lucky," Lilian said, setting her spoon in her bowl and wiping her mouth on her napkin, "like...when we were kids, granted there's a bit of an age difference between you and I but not much, we didn't have a whole support system, you know? We had our parents, and maybe a cool aunt or uncle, but on the whole, we didn't have an entire village helping to raise us. Maddie has so many adults who care about her, and that's...that's really cool. I'm happy to be a part of that."

"I think people realized at a certain point that a child shouldn't be solely dependent on their parents, you know, especially for emotional needs," Rina said, "parents can suck."

"Indeed," Lilian said, nodding in agreement, thinking of her own mother, "but sometimes they try, they just don't know how to do it very well, and that's worth recognizing too. Her father is like that. He can't be worse than her mom, after all."

                                                                            ***

Maddie, much like her father, didn't know how to react or respond to the information she'd just had laid bare before her.

Maddie was spending the night with her father and his home nurse, and after Brian had come home, and told her exactly what her mother had told him, her whole worldview changed within a minute. She just couldn't fathom that someone who claimed they loved someone, had married them as a way to express that love, had a child with them as a way to further that proof of love...would want to then kill said person. It just didn't compute for her.

Maddie was now lying in her old bedroom on the floor, staring at the ceiling and her glow in the dark stars, and she wanted to just scream and swear, denounce her mother, but she'd already said what she needed to to her, nothing more really had to be done or could be done that would further prove her disinterest in their dissolved parent/child relationship. All she could think of was her classmates face during those final moments, and how it had been meant for her father.

And if her mother was capable of doing that to him...to someone that she she had once loved...

...what might she have done to Maddie if given the chance? To someone she'd openly admitted to never having wanted?

Lilian was seated at the breakfast table, waiting for Miranda to finish cooking. She sipped from her coffee mug - Maddie was still asleep, but only because she had a full day ahead - until Miranda came and stopped at the table, putting a plate of bacon down before picking one up and biting into it herself. Lilian smiled, took a piece for herself and together they stayed there in silence, eating their respective bacon. Miranda ran her fingers through Lilian's hair and Lilian shut her eyes, enjoying the sensation. These early mornings where they got time to be alone were so special to her, and she wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. Miranda sat down while the pancakes behind her bubbled.

"I think the thing I like the most about being in a relationship," Miranda said, "is that it allows me to cook for others more often than I normally would."

"That's certainly a good reason," Lilian replied, nodding.

"That and I've doubled my wardrobe considering we're about the same size," Miranda added, smirking.

"You steal so much of my clothes," Lilian remarked, laughing.

As Miranda and Lillian kissed a little and continued to eat, a knock came at the front door, and both looked in the direction of the door, then at one another. Lilian got up and headed to the door, wiping her hands on her pajama pants. Pulling the door open, however, left her surprised even more, because not only was it unusual to get a visitor at this time in the morning, but that visitor happened to be, of all people, Rina.

"Oh!" Lilian said, happy to see her, "Hey! It's been a while."

"Can I come in?...do I smell breakfast?" Rina asked.

"Well, it is breakfast time," Lilian replied, "but sure, come on in. Is everything okay? Are you here to see Maddie?"

"Actually no, I'm here to see you," Rina said, "...I need a job."

                                                                               ***

Alexis had never gone to a "meeting" before. Least, not for anything outside of work. But especially not one meant to help her with her issues. Standing in the room in the hospital, eating cookies from the snack table, she scanned the room, watching for anything or anyone interesting and, much to her disappointment but not surprisingly, she saw nothing that piqued her interest. It was another hour until they had their lunch break and John would be here with their subs, but until then she would just suck it up. Course, she probably shouldn't fill up on cookies if she was planning on having lunch.

"You like 'em?" a voice standing beside her suddenly asked, spooking her.

"Jesus, don't sneak up on people like that," Alexis said, turning her head to see a man about her age with scruffy brown hair and wearing jeans and a long sleeved baseball tee standing beside her.

"Sorry, didn't mean to give you a heart attack. Just was curious if you liked the cookies. My sister made 'em for me, but I figured I'd share with the group," he said.

"How very kind of you," Alexis said, "yeah, they're good, peanut butter is the best cookie. Tell your sister she's good at baking."

"Oh she knows, she owns a bakery," the man said.

Alexis smirked as she picked up another cookie and bit into it.

"I'm Rick," the man said, "what are you in for?"

"Alexis," Alex replied, "I almost OD'd, but...not on purpose."

"Fair enough," Rick said, "I did the same."

"Yeah?" Alexis asked, now having her attention caught, seeing as this was someone who potentially actually understood her ordeals.

"Yeah," Rick said, "yeah, uh, I was using and I...I just was sloppy. My sister found me using and having a seizure, and took me to the hospital and then said if she paid for it, I could come here to try and get better, so here I am. Been here...oof...6 months now? 7? It's hard. Especially because, personally, I don't have any interest in being sober."

"Why's that?" Alex asked.

"Cause why should I? The world is shit enough without having to be sober in it," Rick said, shrugging and Alex nodded. She understood that...and that scared her. She didn't want to let John down, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss the feeling. Miss the idea of just letting herself go and forget about all her problems for a little bit. Now, instead, she lived with her issues every single day and that was far more painful.

"Well," Alexis said, "at least we have cookies."

"Yeah, I'll tell my sister we'll just OD on cookies now," Rick said, the both of them chuckling. For the first time since being in the hospital, Alexis was finally starting to feel like maybe it wasn't so hopeless and empty after all. Maybe there was something special to be found here.

                                                                                ***

"You scared?" Miranda asked as she parked the car and Maddie exhaled, nodding a little; Miranda smiled softly and kissed the side of Maddie's head, adding, "hey, if it gets to be too much, you can just come right back out here and we'll go get something for lunch, okay? You don't have to stay here. You're doing her a favor, don't forget that, you're the one with power in this situation, alright?"

"Thanks," Maddie said, also smiling now, appreciative of Miranda's comfort and advice. She opened the door and climbed out of the car, heading towards the prison. Miranda watched as she approached the doors, spoke with a guard, only to be turned away. Maddie came back to the car, as Miranda rolled down her window and Maddie said, "they won't let me in without an adult."

"Well we should probably go find one then," Miranda said, the both of them laughing as she climbed out of the car and took Maddie's hand, the both of them heading back to the prison doors, only to be let in this time. Once inside, they immediately felt uncomfortable. It was a perfect temperature inside the building, and the facility was clean as clean could be, but just knowing people were living their entire lives here...it unnerved them both. Miranda had only been to a prison once, to see an uncle for Christmas one year, and after that she refused to ever go back. But she couldn't let Maddie go through with this alone.

After a bit of walk, they finally reached the visitation spaces. Miranda seated herself on a small couch a ways away to give Maddie privacy, and Maddie sat down on one side of the glass that separated herself from her mother. Jessie smiled seeing her daughter, but Maddie didn't smile back.

"You look good," Jessie said, "I'm so glad we finally get to see eachother."

"...I only came cause I wanted to tell you something I didn't get to the night they arrested you," Maddie said, and Jessie's eyebrows raised and in suspense. Maddie cleared her throat and exhaled, as she added, "you deserved this. You're a bad person."

"There's a lot you don't know about," Jessie said, "about marriage in particular, and...and how difficult it is to get out of marriage in a way that benefits you. Men have all the power, I would've lost-"

"Shut up mom," Maddie said, surprising not only herself but also Miranda and Jessie as she continued with, "nothing is worth killing someone for, unless maybe they're trying to kill you first. You hurt dad so bad he's still trying to recover. You ruined my whole childhood. I am so mad at myself that I believed you for so long and let you continue to hurt dad and-"

"I actually needed to speak to you because I need you to ask your father to come see me," Jessie said, interrupting, "there's things he and I have to discuss, and I know he won't come if I just ask, but he will if you do."

"So even now you're just using me? You didn't care to see me at all?" Maddie asked, on the verge of tears, "...you're a bad mom."

Jessie sighed and nodded. She knew she was a bad mom. Truth be told, she'd never wanted to be a mom in the first place, but she'd never tell Maddie that at least. She looked down at her hands before looking back up at Maddie and their eyes locked.

"I'm sorry," Jessie whispered and Maddie shook her head in disgust.

"I'll ask dad to come," she said, "but I never want to speak to you again. This is where you belong. Where you can't hurt anyone else while pretending to love them."

With that, Maddie pulled away from the glass pane and stood back up, heading back to Miranda. Jessie watched as this unknown woman took her daughter by the hand and walked out of the prison with her. And the worst part was...she couldn't even defend or justify her actions reliably, nor defend the truths her own daughter has just dropped on her. She was, in fact, a bad mom. A bad person. She did deserve to be in here. But if only Maddie knew. If only Maddie knew the truth. Would it help? Probably not. But context is important.

                                                                             ***

Lilian and Rina were seated in the living room, eating from a big bowl of chips as Lilian, pad in hand, asked Rina questions. Rina posted her legs up on the coffee table and sighed, shrugging as Lilian asked again.

"You really don't have any affinity towards any particular caricature?" she asked, and Rina shook her head.

"Not really," she said, "I mean, what've you got already? A clown, a princess, a pirate, a mermaid and a cowboy? What mythological figure is left?"

"Okay first of all, cowboys aren't mythological figures," Lilian said, the both of them laughing as she continued, saying, "and second, more importantly, it doesn't have to be something amazing or unique. Hell, I'm a princess. I'm the most cliche choice imaginable! You never had a, like, fairytale character that you identified with?"

Rina thought, chewing on her lip. When she was a little girl, she had read a TON, and a lot of those stories were, admittedly, fantasy based. Yet, she felt weird choosing something like an elf, that just seemed so boring and ordinary and overdone. Then, Rina sat upright and grinned wide as she looked at Lilian, who cocked her head in suspense, waiting to see what Rina had thought of.

"A witch," Rina said, and Lilian raised an eyebrow.

"Really?" she asked, "a witch? Well, that's definitely not one we have yet, that's for sure. We actually don't have any kind of horror based characters, so you're in uncharted territory with this one. That's pretty cool."

"You don't think it'd scare kids?" Rina asked.

"Nah, adults forget that, as kids, we loved being scared. Spooky shit was taboo and a lot of fun," Lilian said, "obviously I can't speak for all kids, some are just out and out scaredy cats, but whatever. You'll find an audience. Now, you'll need a costume, so we can go to the nice costume place downtown in the next few days and I'll call Vera about getting you on payroll."

Lilian finally put the pad and pen down and looked at Rina.

"What made you wanna do this?" Lilian asked, "I'm just curious."

"...well...it all comes down to the fact that I need extra money, and I already know you guys. But...I don't know, I've just been trying desperately, and failing, at finding something to do that isn't just babysitting. This seems like a cooler form of babysitting. Plus you all seem like really good friends, and...I could use some friends, frankly," Rina said, looking down at her hands in her lap, admiring her nails.

"Hey, whatever the reason is, we can make it work," Lilian replied, "everyone is welcome here. That's obvious."

Rina and Lilian looked at one another and smiled. They'd only met a handful of times, admittedly, but they'd always gotten along, and it seemed now like Rina was reaching out for companionship, and Lilian was more than in a stable place to provide it for her. Hell, Maddie was already entrenched in her life, why not her former babysitter as well? For the next little bit, Rina and Lilian went over potential costume ideas, ranging from classic Halloween art witches to gothic witches to stereotypical green witches to anything and everything they could think of, all the while laughing and having a good time.

The irony of Rina's choice couldn't be dismissed, however.

In far too many fairytales that Lilian had read growing up, witches were the ones more often than not to curse princesses in one form or another. So the fact that a witch and a princess would be willingly working together, being close friends, it was sort of beautiful to break that preconceived notion of what two fictional archetypes might usually be like when paired up. And if Lilian was all about anything these days, it was about breaking through societies perceived barriers of identity.

                                                                            ***

Alexis and Rick were walking through the garden, heading to the cafeteria after the meeting. Alexis hated how much she already enjoyed his company, because she hated admitting to herself that she enjoyed anyones company outside of Lilian and John, but Rick had a self assured sense of sureness about himself that she couldn't help but find admirable, especially because she herself felt so uncertain about who she was most of the time.

"I worked with her for a little while, at the bakery," Rick said, "but eventually the load became too much to handle and, if we're being honest, I'm not a baker by any means. I can't do math to save my life, and baking is all about measurements."

"Then what do you do if you don't bake for a living?" Alex asked.

"I'm a magician," Rick said, "for parties and stuff, nothing serious. But it's enjoyable, and I'm good at it and I make good money."

"That's so cool," Alex replied, "I always liked magic."

As she looked away momentarily, thinking she'd spotted John, Rick pulled a handful of flowers off a nearby bush and presented them to her, which made her laugh.

"You didn't make those spontaneously appear," she said, "you just stole them."

"And you say that like crime isn't magical," Rick replied, the both of them laughing as he handed them to her, and she graciously accepted, smelling them. That was the moment it hit her. She'd never once smelt a flower, let alone a flower given to her by someone...let alone been given flowers by someone. No, she knew what this feeling was, and that scared her. But she'd always had a type, and Rick definitely fit that. She blushed a little and looked away, which made him laugh all the more.

"Are you just gonna go back to magic once you're out of here?" Alexis asked as they continued walking and he shrugged.

"Eh, probably, but like I said, it's not really my lifelong career. Not sure what it is I'd like to really do, but magic ain't it," Rick said, "though it does make me pretty popular with the ladies."

"Wow, a magician who knows women? You're a real rarity in your field," Alexis remarked, making him smirk.

"Well, I know you don't I? And look at how well we've gotten along just in the short time we've been talking. You could almost say I've made your insecurities..." Rick said, waving his hands in front of her, "...disappear."

"Wow, you're a DORK," Alexis said, the both of them cackling. Rick's watched suddenly beeped, and he sighed.

"I gotta go, I have a one on one therapy appointment, but if you're not busy later, and let's face it who in rehab is, come seek me out, I'll teach you some card tricks," Rick said, and Alexis nodded meekly. As she watched him walk off, she hated herself for acting so stereotypically girly. She'd never been like this before, not even with other guys she'd liked, but here she was, playing the role of the weak willed femme easily wiled by a handsome mans hand tricks. She heard footsteps approach and the sound of a paper bag rustling, and turned to see John coming up to her.

"Where'd you get flowers from?" John asked.

"From over there," she said, pointing back to where Rick had taken them.

"I brought lunch," John said, holding up the bag.

"Thank god, all I've eaten were cookies," Alex said as they started to head in the direction of the cafeteria again.

"God, you're like a child," John replied.

                                                                              ***

Maddie's father Brian was laying in his bed, reading a book. His home hospice nurse opened the door, came in, set down a tray with some snacks and water and then left as the phone began to ring. He picked up the glass and took a long sip before noticing she was returning, handing the phone to him. He furrowed his brow, confused as to who would be calling him. It wasn't like his married life had allowed him any friends. He took the phone and put it to his face, speaking weakly.

"Hello?"

"Daddy, it's me," Maddie said, and his face lit up.

"Hi sweetheart! How are you?" he asked.

"I'm...okay," Maddie said, "um...mommy wants you to meet with her."

And whatever joy he'd just been given he lost just as quickly.

Miranda and Lilian hadn't had a proper date night in ages, it felt like, and she was excited to do just that. Standing in front of the vanity mirror of their bedroom, Miranda finished applying her eye makeup before turning her attention to her lipstick, and then began brushing her hair. Lilian got out from the bathroom in the hall and entered the bedroom, leaning down behind Miranda and pressing her lips against her neck and making her blush and laugh. Lilian then went to get dressed herself, as Miranda finished up. They had called Vera and asked if she wouldn't mind babysitting, and she said she'd be more than happy to, so Maddie was packing an overnight bag in her bedroom as the girls prepared for their night out.

Before they knew it, they were already at Vera's. Miranda waited in the car, while Lilian took Maddie inside and up to Vera's comfortable loft apartment. However, when the door was opened, she was surprised to, instead of Vera, find Tyler there. He smiled at them and invited them in, which they graciously accepted.

"Didn't know you were gonna be here," Lilian said.

"Almost always am these days. Getting to the point where I'm wondering why I'm even renting my own place anymore," Tyler said, heading back into the kitchen as Vera came out from the hallway and smiled.

"Hi guys!" she said cheerfully.

This was the happiest Lilian had seen Vera in....months? Years? Hell, it was hard to know. Ever since taking over the company it seemed like Vera's attitude had taken a perpetual plunge into uncertainty most days. But regardless, it was nice seeing her smiling again. Maddie approached Vera, putting her overnight bag down and hugging her, Vera patting her back.

"Thanks so much for doing this," Lilian said.

"John not available?" Vera asked.

"Actually he was who I called first," Lilian said, "but no, he said he already had plans. Anyway we both really appreciate it. I'll be by sometime in the early afternoon to pick her up."

"Take your time," Vera said, as Maddie headed into the kitchen to see what Tyler was doing; Vera approached Lilian and lowered her voice, taking Lilian a bit away from the living room area and said, "actually, I'm glad we were the ones able to do this, because...well..."

Vera glanced back at Tyler and sighed.

"...we've talked about having a family," Vera said.

"You're not even married," Lilian replied.

"Gee, look at Miss Tradition over here," Vera remarked, making Lilian laugh as she continued, adding, "no, we know that and we don't have real interest in getting married honestly. It's just...it's not for us. But we have talked at length about having a family, and this will be a good instance for us to see how we'd handle that sort of lifestyle."

"Well then, I'm glad to be of service," Lilian said, before giving Vera a little hug and saying goodbye to all three before heading back to the car. As she climbed in and shut the door, she suddenly felt Miranda grabbing her and turning her to face her, pressing her lips against Lilians, making Lilian laugh as they kissed. This was going to be a good night for a change, which was something they all really needed.

                                                                           ***

John, as it turned out, actually did had plans. That wasn't just an excuse.

A few times a month, he was able to take Star to his place for a few days for some private bonding time, and the date that night just so happened to coincide with that current visit. At that moment, John was preparing dinner as Star sat on the floor, cross legged, watching a TV show clearly aimed at preschoolers. As he heard her laugh joyfully, he looked up and smiled. He was just happy to have her in his presence, even if she wasn't on the same intellectual level as he was. He didn't care. Star was his daughter, and he loved her to hell and back. A knock came at the door, and for a brief moment, he considered the fact that it might be someone from the trailer park looking to converse, but upon pulling the door open, instead he was greeted by another face on the opposite side of the screen. Geena, Alexis's sister.

"Oh," he said, "hey, hi, uh...do you...do you wanna come in, or?"

"No, that's okay, if you have company," Geena said, waving her hand.

"It's just my daughter, please, come in, she's watching TV, she won't bother us," John said, stepping aside as Geena pulled the screen door towards her, smiling and heading into the trailer. She saw immediately the grown woman John had referred to as his daughter, and got curious, but figured she'd better save her inquisition for later on. She followed him back to the kitchen area.

"What are you making?"

"I am cooking steaks," John said, "what are you even doin' here? How'd you even find me?"

"Yeah, no, that's a fair question," Geena said, chuckling, "um, it's because the hospital has you listed as Alexis's primary caregiver. That includes your address."

"And they just give that information out to people?" John asked, sounding incredulous, "that's absurd."

"Well, you know, I'm actually her sister, so," Geena replied, "anyway I'm not mad, I just wanted to talk to you about her."

"Is everything okay?" John asked as he flipped the steaks over in the pan and looked at Geena.

"Well, I just...I guess I don't understand, and I'd like to understand," Geena said, "and please don't take this as me not being appreciative of what you've done, and been doing, because I really genuinely am, as I'm sure she is as well, but I guess I just need clarification and context and...some other synonym that starts with a C. Because, near as I can figure, you're taking care of her for the sake of taking care of her and that...that's just....decency I'm unfamiliar with."

At this John finally cracked up, which made Geena feel embarrassed. He put his utensils on the counter and approached her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't mean to, uh, make fun of you or anything, that really isn't my intent," he said, "please um, you're just so forward. No, you're not wrong, I am just doing it because it's the right thing to do. My family was torn apart by addiction, and so I...I know what it's like to come out the other side of that. After hearing about her own adolescence, I guess it's just hard for me to reconcile with the fact that your parents just don't give a shit about her."

"To be fair, they don't really give a shit about anybody," Geena said, "they're pretty self absorbed."

"Right," John replied, nodding, leaning on the countertop across from Geena, scratching the back of his head and adding, "and I don't think that's okay. I think...I think everyone needs a parental figure in their life, of one variety or another. Found family, blood family, whatever it is...you need that. Mentor. Etc. The world shouldn't feel so small and scary to people trying to navigate it for the first time, regardless of age. So I took it upon myself to be that for your sister, partially because I've been where she's been on both ends. I had addictions, and I lost people to addictions. It's...it's just the right thing to do. Do you want a steak?"

Geena smiled, and nodded slowly. Why not have a little dinner? She'd made the trip here.

                                                                          ***

Bernard's, a lovely bistro in the heart of downtown, was where Lilian had set her eyes for their date that night, and it was easy for Miranda to understand why once they were there. The place was quiet, with dim lighting and soft music. The exact kind of place one would expect a romantic evening to unfurl. Sitting at their table, looking around at the paintings and photos on the surrounding walls, Miranda couldn't help but feel like a very lucky lady.

"It's weird when they name a restaurant after a person," Lilian finally said, interrupting Miranda's thought process, and making her chuckle as well.

"It is, I agree," Miranda replied, "like, is Bernard cooking the food, or are we eating Bernard? Which one is it?"

"I bet Bernard is chewy," Lilian said, "though, perhaps dinner isn't the best place to discuss the ins and outs of a topic such as cannibalism."

"When would be?" Miranda remarked, the both of them laughing.

"You look beautiful," Lilian said, taking Miranda by surprise, making her blush; Lilian continued, "like, I don't think I compliment you often enough, and I feel like I should do it more, because you really do look beautiful. I know it's a lot of effort, moreso in your case obviously, but...it's paid off. You've changed so much since we met, and...and I just...you're beautiful."

Miranda blushed deeper, averting her eyes, feeling like she was going to start crying if she continued to look at Lilian's face. Lilian reached across the table and touched her face gently with her knuckles, making Miranda sniffle.

"This used to be my fantasy, you know?" Miranda said quietly, almost a whisper, "like...how boring, right? Just being a girl, being out with a girl, being in love with said girl as a girl. It's...sad, really. To have such mundane fantasies. But I used to just lay in bed after lights out as a kid and think about this sort of thing. I didn't even want the exciting romantic stuff, like, where you come to terms with your feelings for one another or maybe a love triangle, no I just...I just wanted the already committed relationship."

"Well then," Lilian said, "I'm glad I can give that to you. Everyone deserves to have at least one dream come true."

Lilian then leaned forward and pressed her lips against Miranda's, and after the kiss ended, both felt giddy. Each, for whatever varying reasons, had never really had much lucky with romance, so it was nice to find that comfort with one another. They just needed to make sure they had more regularly scheduled date nights from now on. Much as each enjoyed playing parenthood, it was important for them to have nights to themselves as well.

Which was funny, because that was the exact opposite thing Vera was discovering that night.

                                                                               ***

Vera and Maddie were seated at the kitchen table, as Tyler finished cooking and set their plates in front of them before going back for his own. Maddie picked up her fork and dug in, as Vera started pouring herself a glass of wine. As she did, she watched Maddie, looking to see if she could spot any kind of uncomfort or anything in her. After a few minutes, Tyler finally returned to the table and sat down as well.

"Do you think you could teach me how to cook?" Maddie asked, looking at Tyler.

"Yeah! For sure," Tyler replied, "absolutely, if you wanna come on over like once a week for lessons, I'd be more than happy to help you with that!"

"Does Lilian not cook?" Vera asked, taking a sip from her wine glass.

"Eh, Miranda does, but I don't think she's as good at it as you are," Maddie said, and Tyler laughed.

"Well thank you, I appreciate that," Tyler said, "and my mother told me home ec wasn't for boys, take that mom."

All three of them laughed, as they continued to eat in silence. It was weird, for as much as Maddie loved Lilian and Miranda, and wouldn't change anything about her life right now, this was the sort of thing they didn't do. Dinner was often a solitary experience in that household, and she missed having dinner with people. Then again, it wasn't like her own parents had ever done it either, not in this sense. They'd done it, but it was always awkward and stiff and uncomfortable. This...this felt natural. This was the sort of family dinner Maddie had always wished she could have.

And Vera? Vera was so happy. All she wanted anymore was a family. She was so sick of leading the company, and the bullshit that that entailed, and all she really wanted was to raise a family and be with Tyler. So cliche, she knew. She felt kind of like a sellout of her gender for her generation, wanting something so traditional, but Tyler had reassured her numerous times that it was okay that she wanted that. She wasn't by any means expected to live by the same morals or ethics others her age demanded she live by. She wanted to be a mom, and she was sick of hiding that and feeling ashamed of it. And all Tyler really wanted was much the same, but to see Vera be happy in the process.

While Vera and Tyler discussed things regarding the company, and then a bit about the apartment - whether Tyler should move in or they should get a new place all their own - Maddie just ate in silence and watched, listening, smiling. It was nice to be around adults for a change and not be expected to be one as well. Bit by bit, she was eeking back her adolescence.

                                                                            ***

"Oh, thank you," Geena said as John handed her a drink as they sat outside in lawn chairs, watching Star catch fireflies in the early evening sunset.

"You told me Alexis almost drowned when you were kids, you remember that? Told me that that day in the hospital when we met," John said, sitting down and sipping his own drink before adding, "you told me that you watched a teenage lifeguard give her mouth to mouth, bring her in from the waves and save her life."

"Mhm," Geena replied, nodding as she sipped her own drink, "yep, and that was a very formative thing for both of us."

"So why do you care about her when it seems the rest of your family doesn't? Trying to earn some brownie points with the big man upstairs or just trying to make yourself look better or trying to maybe gain a sense of moral superiority or what? None of these are what I think of you, for the record, they're just reasons people do these kinds of things more often than not. I'm just curious where your thoughts lie."

Geena smirked. She liked John's sense of earnest bluntness.

"Well," she said, clearing her throat and stirring her drink with a straw, "it's a double edged sword, really, isn't it? Cause you live in a world of what if's, you know? What would it have been like had she died, would our parents have cared? They didn't seem all that plussed that she was still around after the fact, to be honest. I think it fucked her up though, more than she's willing to admit. I care because..."

A pause, as John watched her, sipping from his straw, an eyebrow raised.

"Fuck," she whispered, "someone has to, right?"

Now THAT was an answer John wasn't expecting.

"I mean, that's kind of my viewpoint, yeah," John said, as they both turned their gaze towards Star, "the world is full of people who don't care. About themselves, about one another, about anything. Even the ones who swear up and dow have only so much to give in the end, and don't care as much as they thought they did. People will abandon you in a heartbeat, use you for validation, hurt you without thinking twice. I guess I just prefer to be the exception rather than the rule."

Geena smiled again, nodding slowly. She could see why Alexis had attached so hard to John, and their relationship as a whole was starting to make sense again now. Geena stirred her drink with her straw again and exhaled.

"I bought a boat," she said.

"Yeah?" John asked, sounding surprised, looking back at her, "you lose a bet or something?"

"No," Geena replied, chuckling, "no, I...I..."

Geena and John locked eyes and she sighed again.

"I wanna take her out on a boat, and I need your help," she said.

                                                                        b     ***

Miranda was lying on the couch back at the apartment, Lilian atop her, kissing up and down her neck, making her squirm. Miranda smiled and blushed, feeling Lilian kiss down her tummy and stop at her thighs, pushing her dress up. Miranda giggled.

"I have to say," Miranda said quietly, "and this isn't saying women can't be the dominant one but...my whole life, being in bed with someone, I always felt so performative and hated being expected to be the one to make any moves. I always wanted it to be the other way around. So having you here, on top of me, doing all the work....selfish, maybe, but I like it."

Lilian laughed and kissed back up, putting her hands on Miranda's shoulders and mounting her.

"You have the right to be selfish after what you've lived through," Lilian said, "you've earned it, and I'm more than happy to be in charge. Honestly, I'm the opposite. The men I used to hook up with at parties while in costume always wanted me to be sweet and submissive, so actually being with not just a woman but a woman who doesn't mind if I take the lead...yeah...it's kind of perfect."

Miranda held onto Lilian's hips as she started to grind on her, both girls panting, breathing hard.

"I think I fell in love with you the minute you walked into my hospital room." Miranda said.

"Yeah?" Lilian asked.

"Yeah," Miranda replied, "I...I just saw you, and it was like I could instantly see the future. I'd always had trouble seeing a future of any kind for myself until that point. Part of that could be attributed to not having lived authentically until now but...but with you, it was all so clear."

"That's, like, the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me," Lilian said, the both of them laughing as she leaned down and kissed Miranda, breathing into her mouth.

"Do you wanna be my wife?" Miranda asked, and Lilian opened her eyes, staring at her.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, shit, that...that was way too forward and way too soon and I..."

"...why don't we talk about it more, tomorrow, and tonight we just...enjoy what we have," Lilian said, making Miranda blush as she added, softly, "now turn off that lamp."

Miranda reached behind her, to the lamp on the table by the couch, and did as she was told. She could wait a while for an answer. After all, she'd already waited her whole life to be herself.

Miranda had gotten really good at waiting.