Natasha Simple was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling overhead, her thoughts going every which way. Things had changed like crazy since her livestream event, and, in some ways, not necessarily for the better. Jay was snoring, asleep in bed beside her, and she couldn't help but feel like she should maybe get out of bed and do her thinking elsewhere. His snoring had always broken her concentration. Then again, maybe she was just looking for reasons to pull even further away from those she loved. God knows things between her and her daughter hadn't exactly been great either, even with the livestream fixing a lot of the damage that had been done. And Violet, like her mother, was also laying in bed staring at the ceiling overhead, but her mind was in a completely different sort of place. Natasha was overthinking her career and her public perception. Violet, for the first time in her life...was thinking about love.

Violet had never been struck with this issue before.

For the longest time, friendship alone, completely platonic, wasn't even something Violet really thought about or craved or was remotely interested by. This didn't mean she wasn't lonely at times, but it certainly meant that she was, ultimately, perfectly fine either being by herself or with her mother. And then, Violet met Courtney, and a lot of her walls came crumbling down in regards to how she related to others, especially her peers, or at least the ones willing to give her a chance. Courtney accepted Violet wholesale, no question, no judgement. But the other thing that Violet liked about their connection was their similarities in regards to the way they were treated by the public. She didn't like how they were treated by the public, especially for Courtney's sake, but she appreciated that, for the first time ever, someone else could understand how alone and rejected she felt. Violet had a somewhat severe developmental delay, while Courtney happened to be transgender.

Together, they both knew what it was like to be ostracized by society, and they found solace in one another as a result.

After a little bit, Violet's door opened and her mother was standing there. Violet sat up a bit and looked at her mom, and her mom smiled at her.

"You interested in breakfast? I was thinking you and me could go get breakfast alone, like old times," Nat said, and Violet smiled back and nodded. Soon enough Nat and Violet were dressed and out the door for a mother/daughter breakfast date. They picked their old favorite spot, a little diner cuddled between an antique bookshop and a pet store, and sat in their old booth, but Violet was barely there, cognitively speaking. Her mind was always elsewhere these days it seemed. Nat was mulling over the menu while Violet tapped her fork against her spoon absentmindedly.

"I don't like that everyone stares at me," Violet finally said, "ever since that livestream, all the other kids, and all these moms out with their daughters, they all stare at me."

"In hindsight perhaps I shouldn't have focused on you," Nat replied, lowering the menu a bit, "but I just...I wanted you to know how I felt. That was my primary goal. It was for you, not for them. I am sorry it's had unintended side effects though. No teenager should ever go viral."

Violet nodded, accepting her mothers apology, before her thoughts turned back to Courtney. Her mother was nothing if not understanding, open minded, accepting...and yet that fear, that crippling, ever present fear that always came with loving someone overtook her and kept her mouth shut. She wanted to ask her mom how she'd feel about it all, but instead, when she opened her lips, all that came out was

"Can I get extra bacon?"

                                                                                                        ***

Corrine held herself up over Ashley on the bed, kissing down her neck, kissing her collarbones, burying her face between her breasts before coming back up. Their eyes locked and Ashley smiled up at her, reaching up and digging her fingers into the bushy head of hair Corrine had. Corrine shut her eyes and tried to breath normally, rather than like an animal in heat.

"It's been 4 months," Corrine said, "I know you're not...you're not supposed to celebrate the small anniversaries, that that's, like...I don't know...something teenagers do cause they have no concept of the passage of time, but...it's been 4 months and I got you something."

Ashley grinned, biting her lip, as Corrine climbed off of her and quickly walked to the little table across the room, opening a drawer and retrieving a small velvet box. She returned, sitting on the side of the bed in the studio office, and handed it to Ashley, who happily took it. Ashley opened it and blushed, as she pulled out the necklace with a little jade centerpiece stone.

"This is absolutely beautiful," she whispered.

"I know jewelry is a total cliche," Corrine said, "if you don't like it, I can-"

"I like it," Ashley said.

"I'm just saying, if you don't-"

"Corrine," Ashley said, sitting upright now, scooting beside her to the edge of the bed, kissing her cheek, whispering, "I like it. I love it, in fact. You should put it on me."

Corrine nodded, scooted back behind Ashley and sat cross legged on the bed. She took the necklace between her fingers and started putting it around Ashley's neck. Once it was on, Ashley turned back around to face her, and Corrine lifted her eyes from the stone to Ashley's face. Ashley was smiling so wide, and immediately pushed Corrine onto her back and kissed her some more, making Corrine laugh.

"It's wonderful, just like you," Ashley said, "I don't deserve you."

"Please, I'm the one who doesn't deserve someone, especially someone like you," Corrine replied, "I'm an absolute wreck and yet here you are, loving me as if I were the most perfect woman on earth."

"Well you know what they say, one mans trash is another mans treasure," Ashley whispered, biting Corrine's ear.

"Did you just call me trash?" Corrine asked, the both of them laughing.

                                                                                                         ***

"Are you serious?" Nat asked, completely unable to believe what she was hearing.

"I am," Jay said.

After breakfast, Nat and Violet had come back home and Violet had retreated back to her room, while Natasha sat in the kitchen with Jay leaning against the counter sipping his coffee.

"They called while you were out," he continued, "some kind of publishing situation. That woman who wrote that article about you being a role model? She pulled all the strings to make it happen, she just wants you to meet with this ghostwriter, that's all. You don't even have to accept it, but you should at least meet with them for the sake of niceness."

Natasha leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, shaking her head in somewhat disbelief.

"Who would wanna write a book about me?" she asked, "you write a book about the pope, or about, like, JFK, not a public access weirdo who's only further complicated her image and perception. I'm just not the kind of person who gets books written about them."

"Well I guess now you are, welcome to the big leagues," Jay said, smirking as he took another sip.

Natasha had always been afraid that, as she got more popular, something like this would happen. Yet another small chunk of her already seemingly nonexistent privacy chipped away even further by someone else in the arts. She just couldn't even fathom it. Frankly, she always felt there should be an unspoken bond amongst those in the arts that none of them should ever attempt to promote the other in ways that were unnecessary, and Natasha couldn't think of a more unnecessary means of promotion than that of the biography.

"At least they don't want you to write it yourself," Jay said, gathering his toast and spreading butter on it.

"God, right, I can't imagine a more narcissistic endeavor. To have such an ego that you think your life story is interesting enough to grab the attention of millions," Nat said, "I suppose I'll call them. You're right. It's the polite thing to do. I just...I don't know if I wanna invite even more fame into this home. Violet is already struggling from being treated different, and-"

"Natty, she was being treated different before your livestream went viral," Jay interrupted, taking a bite of his toast, "now at least she's being treated different for a better reason."

This wasn't a point of view that Natasha had considered, but Jay actually had a point. For as long as Violet had been alive, she'd been tormented, bullied, looked down upon, all for things she had no control over. And now, suddenly, she was being seen as, like her mother, a role model of sorts. A young girl who stood up for the right to be respected by her parents, and as someone of the intellectually disabled women who proved that they were, in fact, capable of rational thought and didn't just sit around drooling all day like the media loved to portray them as doing. So sure, this brought Natasha some comfort, but Violet wasn't getting much in the way of comfort out of it.

There was only one thing right now that could comfort her.

                                                                                                        ***

Courtney was sitting at her desk doing homework when her bedroom opened and Violet walked in. Courtney turned in her chair and smiled upon seeing her best friend. Violet tossed her backpack down to the floor and sat on Courtney's bed, but didn't say anything. After a minute or two of silence, Courtney snapped her fingers, and Violets head snapped to attention, looking directly at her.

"Hey," she said, "are you okay?"

"...when I was walking over here," Violet replied, "this woman who was out in her yard gardening got up to talk to me and told me that because of me and my mom, her daughter finally feels like she's understood by others her age. I guess...I guess her daughter is even more mentally disabled than I am, and...and all the kids at her school now get it and are nicer to her."

"Well that's a good outcome," Courtney said, tossing her braided blonde hair back behind her, "even if, you know, this woman didn't understand the concept of boundaries with a stranger."

"I hate this," Violet said, "I didn't think I could hate things more but I hate this. I don't wanna be noticed. I don't wanna an example. I, uh...I just...I wanna, um, ya know, exist."

"I feel that," Courtney said solemnly, and Violet knew she was being honest; Courtney sighed and added, "well listen, I won't tell you it could be worse, because for you this is as bad as it gets, but I will say that at least you're famous for a good thing instead of a bad one. That has to count for something."

Violet flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Courtney rose from her desk chair and did the same right beside her. Neither girl spoke, and instead just took comfort in knowing the other understood them. Violet wanted to talk about what was actually bothering her, but...much like with her mother, she just didn't want to run the risk. She rolled her head over to look at Courtney, whose eyes were now shut as she gently breathed, and she wanted to hit herself. How could she possibly be her mothers daughter if she couldn't be even remotely as open, honest and truthful about herself as her mother seemingly had no problem being?

Violet cozied on up to Courtney, resting her head on her shoulder, as Courtney smiled and reached up, petting her hair. If there was one consolation, it was that teenage girls often were physical with their friends, cuddling and the like, so even if this could never be what Violet wanted it to, she at least had this right now, and that was a nice compromise. Violet shut her eyes too and wondered. Wondered what it would be like if she enjoyed the fame, if she was brave like her mom, but in the end, she knew she wouldn't even be herself then. The person she was was because of the things she believed and how she felt about them. And that was the only real silver lining here, was that at least Violet had started to feel confident in who she was. She longer felt shame, and instead that had been replaced with gentle acceptance that had slowly grown over time.

"Maybe one day you'll enjoy that people like you," Courtney said, shrugging, "you never know."

"I don't need other people," Violet remarked, "as long as you like me."

Courtney laughed, nodding, continuing to pet her friend.

"Well you have nothing to worry about there!" she exclaimed brightly.

It started to rain outside, and to the sound of the water hitting the windows, the girls took a nap, and it was the most comfortable Violet had felt in weeks.

                                                                                                              ***

Ashley was getting dressed while Corrine sat under a sheet and watched. Ashley pulled her jeans up over her hips, tugged her v-neck over her head and then pulled on her little jacket before turning and looking at Corrine. Corrine glanced away almost immediately, as if shy or embarrassed about getting caught watching her. Ashley walked back to the bed and sat back down, reaching out, touching Corrine's face.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"...it's been 4 months," Corrine reiterated, "...is this something real, or are you just not going to leave what you have?"

"I am," Ashley said, "I'm going to, I'm figuring out in my head how to word the whole thing cause it's...well, it's a lot, as you know. But I figure if my sister can be honest about herself, her relationship with others, then I sure as hell can too. It's just scary, Corrine, but you are worth it. Just please don't think of my lack of decision making thusfar as a sign of something personal against you. I've just...I've been through a lot in the last few years, and it's made life a lot more difficult to navigate at times."

"I understand," Corrine said, "I guess I just struggle to believe that I'm ever worth anything cause nobody ever made me feel like I was worth anything and now I have to have constant reassurance in order to just feel remotely worthwhile, and like people aren't lying to me or taking advantage of me and oh my god I need to stop talking before you hate me."

Ashley laughed and leaned in, kissing her again.

"I could never hate you," she whispered, "my sister? Yeah, still got some stuff to work through there, but her colleagues? I'll tell ya one thing, she hires great help."

Corrine giggled as Ashley climbed fully back onto the bed, continuing to kiss her.

"Ya know what," Ashley said, "I can be a little late getting home."

Meanwhile Natasha was sitting in her home office thinking about the ghostwriter. Thinking about picking up the phone and taking the appointment. But what story did she have to tell that she hadn't already shared? How much more in depth could she really go? How much more could she bare to expose of herself to the general public always eager for the next best thing? Most importantly...was she someone to be admired, or was she simply a morality tale? A cautionary story about what happens to women when they think for themselves, when they want more than they've gotten, and when they finally do reach for their goals? How it can all go so horribly wrong. She'd already sort of screwed up, bringing even more fame to herself and her daughter than she'd ever intended, was this really the right path to go down?

"goddammit," she whispered, picking up her landline.

"Where to even begin," Natasha said, pacing back and forth, chewing on her lip, "I guess...I guess the beginning, right? All stories start with a beginning, and life is no different. I don't mean my beginning, either, I mean the beginning of this show. Back when I was originally on public access, I had no idea what it was I was doing. I just knew I wanted to help people have the confidence to make decisions themselves without second guessing, doubting or questioning it. Unfortunately, far too many people listened to me, instead of listening to themselves, and unfortunately the person I should've been paying attention to most, my daughter, was the person who got pushed to the sidelines."

She sighed and leaned against the wall, running a hand through her hair.

"I guess I just thought she was strong enough to be okay without me all the time," Nat continued, "I guess I just sort of thought that, yeah, she's got developmental delays, but she's better than me in every way so if I can make it, why can't she? It never once occurred to me that she might've needed me in a bigger capacity than I expected, and I was so caught up in my career - especially post marriage - to even think to ask her. But I also never ask myself what it was I really wanted out of all this."

She pulled the magazine from the table and looked at it before holding it up in front of her phones camera.

"They called me role model of the year," Nat said, tapping the front cover which bore her picture, "...me, a role model, someone who can't even keep her own family, much less herself, together. Doesn't exactly sound like a person one should be emulating or admiring. And role model to who, exactly? The public? Okay. But not to the person who needed me to be a role model. My daughter. I don't think I deserve this. I mean, awards are hacky as it is, but this one really irked me."

Nat pulled a package of cigarettes from her coat pocket, lit one up and took a long drag before looking back at the camera and scoffing.

"And don't act like you don't have a vice, it's hard to quit the one thing that gives you relief in times of duress," she said, "We all have it, whether we openly acknowledge it or not. I'm just saying, don't shame me for smoking...it's the least worst thing I've done this summer."

                                                                                         ***

"You're seeing this, right?" Jay asked, sitting at home on his laptop, his phone to his ear.

"I am definitely seeing it," Corrine replied, sitting beside Ashley on the couch as they watched, dumbfounded.

"Do you recognize where that is?" he asked, "Cause I can't for the life of me place it."

"Dude, I know her even less than you do, so," Corrine said, "maybe we should just let her get it out of her system. Maybe once she's done she'll come back and everything will be okay. It hasn't exactly been the best summer for anyone."

"And what if she doesn't come back," Jay asked, leaning back in his chair, "What if she specifically went somewhere no one could find her, so that we wouldn't be able to stop her if she wanted to do something to herself?"

No answer. After a long moment, Jay sighed and shook his head. He knew Nat would probably never hurt herself, but he couldn't be sure. Still, all he could do right now was what they were doing. Watch the feed. The comments were beginning to pour into the livestream chat, and after all was said and done, damage control would be easier than trying to find her outright.

                                                                                               ***

"We never realize who the most important people to us are until it's too late," Natasha said, "Until, you know, they're either gone or about to be gone. In fact, shit, they don't even have to be the most important people to us. They can be ANY people to us. We always just assume we'll have just one more day, just one more chance to talk to them, just one more year to fix ourselves, but truth is we're not guaranteed anything. We weren't even guaranteed existence. Our births are outright accidents. I don't mean that in the sense that your parents didn't want you, I mean it in the sense that who you are could've been an entirely different person. You might not've been the sperm that made it, if you know what I mean. So the mere fact that we're even here is an act of rebellion in and of itself, because that wasn't even guaranteed."

Natasha dragged over a small, old semi broken table and sat on it, crossing her legs as she did, pulling her hair back into a messy ponytail.

"...I wanted to have a kid. I really did. I wanted to have a child. I made that decision long before I was even an adult. I knew that I always wanted to have a kid. But when you're given a child like mine..." she took a long sigh and scratched her forehead, as if she was trying to find a way to say this nicely, "...you are given a whole other set of issues that come along with the standard set of child rearing. That isn't to say I'm unhappy. I cannot imagine my life without my daughter, and the fact that I fell apart once she moved out proves that I don't see a life without her. But it's easy to take someones presence for granted when they're always there. I'm not saying dealing with the school system has been great, because it hasn't, quite frankly, but I wouldn't change a thing about her. Hell, she's braver than I'll ever be, and no matter what a doctor might say about her, she's smarter than I'll ever be too."

Nat wiped her eyes on her sleeve and shivered a little as she took another drag off her cigarette and tapped the ash onto the floor below on the side of the table.

"...I'm what broke up my marriage." Natasha finally said after a pause, and to hear the words come out of her mouth, it made her sick; she went on, "for a long time I wanted to blame my husband, but it wasn't his fault. I mean, okay, it's partially his fault, but no failure is entirely on one person, especially when it comes to something like this. Some relationships do fail entirely because one person is putting in all the effort and the other isn't, sure, but not every relationship is like that. It's a very 50/5o situation. I focused on my career, on helping people who weren't the people in my family, in my life, that I should've been more dedicated towards, and as a result he felt ignored, and I was so involved with myself, my ego, that I couldn't even bother to ask if he was happy. I can't blame my sister, either, she thought she was going to die. She didn't know she'd survive and unwittingly helped along the further dissolvement an already dissolving family unit. It was me. It was mostly me, and I've been trying to ignore that fact for so long, and I did a pretty good job until this summer when my daughter left too, and suddenly I was facing down the stark realization that maybe I AM the problem."

She took a long breath, then wiped her eyes again and took another long drag off her cigarette before putting it out entirely.

"...and I'm so sorry, Violet. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I wasn't a role model. I'm sorry for everything. I get now how alone you felt, because I feel it myself. You had to leave to make me understand. For any parents watching this, hug your children, if they want it, and ask them how they're doing, don't just assume you know. Assumptions lead to broken bonds."

Nat stood up and walked up to the phone, reaching out and biting her lip again, as if she was waiting to say one last thing. She had no way of knowing that everyone she knew - Jay, Corrine, Ashley, Noreen, Violet, Sharla - and of course the people on the site as well who were just her fans, were waiting with baited breath to hear how she finished.

"...i'm a bad mother," she finally said softly, "but you're a great daughter. Ask your father where we lived. He'll know where to go."

And the livestream died.

                                                                                          ***

Violet and her father sat in his car on the way out to Natasha, with no radio, no air conditioning, just total and complete silence. After a bit, Violet finally cleared her throat and glanced at her father, who carefully glanced back.

"...i didn't mean to hurt her," she said.

"Sometimes your mother has to be hurt to realize the damage she's done," Stephen replied, "what I mean by that, and please let me explain because it sounds bad on the surface, is that your mother is the kind of person who intends well, but doesn't recognize she's doing something wrong until it's too late. Sometimes she has to be put in her place for that perspective to shift. I didn't mean to hurt her either. These things just happen."

"...i think i wanna go home," Violet whispered, and Stephen smiled as he reached over and touched his daughters hand gently.

"You can go home, nobody's keeping you from being with her," he said softly, "believe me, I think you got your point across."

Violet laughed a little. Surprise surprise, she thought, all these years her mother had tried to teach others something, and in the end it wound up being her own daughter who taught her the most important lesson of all. Natasha was seated on the porch outside when they pulled up and parked. Violet flung the door open and ran up to her mom, throwing her arms around her and squeezing tight. Natasha was full on crying, she couldn't help it. She squeezed Violet against her body and whispered in her ear.

"I'm so sorry, it'll be different from now on," she said quietly.

"I missed you, mom," Violet replied.

"I missed you too, pumpkin," Nat said, kissing her on the forehead, "oh my god my life was not a life without you."

Stephen approached the house, hands in his coat pockets as he looked up at the place and grimaced.

"Boy, this place has seen better days," he said.

"Where IS this?" Violet asked.

"This was the very first place we lived before we got the place in town," Nat said, turning around and facing the building again, "it belonged to your fathers uncle. He left it to us when he died of cancer, and it was alright for a well but eventually we felt like you should be raised closed to the city and we didn't like all the upkeep that came along with it."

"Tried to sell it, but never had any buyers," Stephen said, "a shame, could've been great property."

"I like it," Violet said, "but I like it like it is now. Broken, but still here. Like us."

Nat laughed and hugged her again, kissing the side of her head.

"Let's go home, please, I'm starving," Nat said.

"You guys wanna get pizza? I'm buying," Stephen said, and the girls took that offer.

Each entered their respective vehicles, Stephen in his and Violet with her mother in hers, and pulled away from the house. As they headed back to the city, Natasha was so happy to have her daughter back she couldn't even begin to comprehend the messages the website was becoming inundated with. E-mails from mothers and daughters alike, from families broken apart or still together, from parents with dead children and children with dead parents, all commending Natasha for her bravery, and Violet for being just as brave if not braver than her mother for putting herself first for once and demanding change. She'd deal with it in a few days, when the dust had settled, and for the moment is was Jay's problem. She didn't know this livestream would change her career, she just knew that she had Violet back in her arms, and that was all that really mattered.

Her family was broken. But it was her family. And she loved it just as much.

                                                                                             ***

                                                                            14 YEARS EARLIER

"I wanna be on TV," Nat said, sitting outside with Stephen, smoking a joint between them; "Something where I can help people, like a sexier Mr. Rogers," she added.

"Please, there's no one sexier than Mr. Rogers," Stephen remarked, making her snort.

"You're right, it's true! That modesty, such a turn on," she said, making him laugh as well. She took another hit than handed the joint back to him as she sipped her drink and looked up at the stars. They were sitting on a friends apartment roof during a party, escaping the noise and the crowd for a moment.

"Besides, Mr. Rogers wasn't on cable, and that's where the big bucks are," Stephen said, taking a long drag.

"It's not about money, man, it's about, like, making sure others are okay too, you know?" Nat asked, "that's why you go to public access, because that's where the people who are most vulnerable can find you. The ones who need the most help."

"You sure you want people to have access to you, publicly?" Stephen asked, and Nat thought for a moment.

"...yeah," she said, nodding, "Yeah I do. At least for a while. We'll see how I feel in twenty years."

"Remind me to ask you how you feel in twenty years then, Stephen asked, leaning in and kissing her, as she kissed him back, the fireworks exploding overhead, celebrating the new year that'd just arrived. She'd tell him she was pregnant tomorrow. Start the new year out right. Til then, the cells in her stomach would be her little secret. She knew he'd be delighted. She just figured tonight should be memorable as their last night as young, hip people instead of upcoming parents and all that that responsibility brings with it.

"For what it's worth," Stephen said, "I'd sleep with Mr. Rogers."

"Well I can't blame you, so would I," Nat replied, the both of them chuckling, "that'd be a very fine day in the neighborhood indeed."

Nat's bed hadn't been slept in. Her car wasn't at her house. She wasn't answering her phone. All of these things were compounding to make Jay begin to worry, and worst of all, he didn't know who to turn to for help. When he tried to talk to Sharla about it, Sharla told him she was likely taking some time to herself and to just let her cool off, and when he called Corrine, he couldn't even get her to stay on the phone for more than a minute because she was "busy" with a project, that project - unbeknownst to him - was Ashley. Sitting in Nat's house, on the couch, staring ahead at the blank television screen, all Jay could ask himself was...

...where the hell was Natasha Simple?

                                                                                            ***

"What else can I get you?" the waitress asked, as Natasha put her menu down.

"I want some more coffee, and, uh, a piece of pie I guess," Nat replied, "Thanks."

The waitress took the order, smiled, then turned on her heel and headed back to the kitchen. Nat slumped in her booth seat and sighed. She pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket and looked at it. 28 new messages. She sighed again and rubbed her eyes, stuffing the phone back in her pocket.

"Running away from something?" a voice asked, and she looked over the booth seat behind her to see a young woman sitting there, looking at her.

"...kinda, yeah."

"Well the pie and the coffee is a good start," the woman said, "but you know what would really piss whoever's trying to find you off? Throwing your phone into a body of water. They do it in all the movies, so it has to work."

Nat smirked. She appreciated this strange girls candor.

"What are you doing?" Nat asked as the waitress brought her coffee and she started to pour some sweetener in it and stir.

"I'm on my way back to college, was only in town for a bit this summer to see my folks," the woman said, "and I like eating in diners. It's like, one of the last places around where you can feel like you're just like everyone else, no better, no worse. You're all here for the same thing, you know? To just...relax and have a meal. It's nice."

Nat nodded. She understood exactly what this girl meant. The waitress returned a moment later with Nat's pie, setting it down before leaving once again. Nat picked up her fork and started cutting into the pie and scooping it in her mouth.

"Do you have kids?" the woman asked, and Nat stopped cold in her tracks.

"...yeah, I do," she replied quietly.

                                                                                                ***

"Well where the fuck is she then?" Jay asked, and Corrine shrugged as she sat on the couch with Ashley while Jay paced around Nat's living room, frustrated and flummoxed; he turned and looked at them, furrowed his brow and asked, "...and why did you come together?"

"We're redecorating her office," Ashley said, nodding at Corrine, "so we were doing that when you called originally. We've been meeting for about a week now."

"Oh, well, that's cool," Jay said, scratching the back of his head and adding, "jesus, this isn't like her. She isn't the type of person to just take off like this."

"If you think that then you really don't know her," Ashley said, surprising Jay, who turned to face her, confused; she continued, "take it from someone who grew up with Natty, she's...flighty, I'll say it. She's not a bad person by any means, don't take me the wrong way, I'm just saying that she can be kinda tough to keep in one place. She likes to be alone. Much as she loves her daughter, and her friends, she also struggles with being with others."

Jay finally plopped himself down in a recliner and folded his arms, exhaling slowly.

"Alright, so...where do we start? What do we do? Do we just wait for her to come back? Do we report as missing? That usually takes 72 hours or some shit. What's our inroad here into how to handle this situation? Not only because we have a show to begin producing again soon, but also because I'm genuinely worried about her."

"I get that, and that's sweet, but take it from me, you'll be better off in the end just letting Nat do whatever it is she needs to do," Ashley said.

Jay nodded, taking that into consideration, even if he didn't fully believe it.

                                                                                               ***

Nat was sitting outside the diner now, sharing a joint with the college student. As they leaned on the planter boxes, passing the smoke back and forth, Nat couldn't really believe what she was doing and where she was. The college girl tossed her hair out of her face and pulled her beanie further down onto her head.

"My mom died when I was really young, so it's my stepmom and my dad now," she said, "but things are weird. I don't really get along with her the way he'd like, and then there's tension cause of how my mom died so things are awkward between he and I, so. The whole situation's messed up. I only really come back during the holidays to see my friends, honestly, but I feel like I'd get bitched at if I didn't stop at home."

"I get that," Nat said, taking the joint from her and taking a long puff before waiting then handing it back and exhaling into the sweet summer air, "my home life is fucked. My husband left me for my sister, my daughter left me because I didn't pay enough attention. Everything is just...a mess, and it's really kinda all my fault. I put my career before my family. I wanted to help others learn to help themselves. Learned helplessness is something nobody ever talks about, but it's so common, and I wanted to help people unlearn that."

"That's a noble cause, I can get behind that," the college girl said, "...but are you sure your daughter is mad at you, specifically?"

That got Nat's attention, and she looked at the girl.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, like, maybe she's not mad at you specifically, as a person, but at the persona you have in the public," the girl said, "Like she knows you as a totally different, totally real person, and I'm not saying you're not actually that helpful kind person in reality, you certainly seem like one, but I'm just saying that maybe she's annoyed at how fake everything is. You were on TV, right? That's what you said? Television, even stuff on public broadcast, isn't as real as you'd like it to be. But now you're online, ya know? And that can also have a veil of unreality to it - more often than not it does I'd argue - but you can choose whether to be real or not because you're not hiding behind some corporate mandated policy. You work for yourself. You decide the reality. Maybe she wants to see you be you, and not the persona."

Nat was shocked. Not only had she never considered this, but she was completely taken aback by the fact that this was being brought up to her by a goddamned college kid. The girl shrugged and pressed the joint end shut to save it for later before sticking it in her shirt pocket.

"But I don't know, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, I mean, after all I'm not famous, I'm not an influencer or whatever, so-"

"...she wanted me to be me, not the person they thought I was," Nat said softly, "but I got so wrapped up in my business that the persona became who I am. She got sick of the facade. There was no telling the difference between me and 'me', right? The curtain never closed. I was always in performance mode. And you're saying she got, understandably, tired of it."

"Yeah, basically."

"That's...really insightful, actually," Nat said, "...but I know she's also annoyed that I helped others instead of focusing on her, and she has every right to be annoyed at that."

"So help others together or something," the girl said, shrugging again, "there's plenty of online teams who do good work for others together. Just...get her involved."

Nat leaned against the planter box and sighed, shaking her head. The college girl checked her watch and knew she had to get back on the road. She pulled the joint back out and handed it to Nat, smiling.

"You can keep it, I got plenty more," she said, "I need to get back to driving if I'm gonna make it back on time."

"I'm sorry your mother died," Nat said, "but I'm sure she'd be proud of how intelligent and kind you are."

The girl was not expecting this level of bluntness, and she blushed.

"Thanks," she said, "I hope things work out for you. You seem like a great mom, for the record."

Nat watched the girl walk to her car and get in. She started it, waved through the windshield, then backed out of the parking lot and headed off down the road. As she watched the car disappear over the horizon, Nat thought about what the girl had said. About getting Violet involved. Violet was far more inspiring than Natasha could ever hope to be. She could be a true role model for people like her, people with mental disabilities, people who could see her and think, 'hey, I can be okay! society is wrong!'. She pushed the joint into her coat pocket and then headed to her own car. There was one last place she had to go.

                                                                                        ***

Corrine was sitting in Ashley's living room while Ashley put music on on her stereo. Once it was playing, she turned and looked at Corrine, smiling, but Corrine wasn't smiling. Ashley didn't want to waste this afternoon. Stephen was away on business, and she had the place to herself for a few days. She wanted to spend that time with Corrine, preferably in a good mood.

"Worried about my sister?" Ashley asked.

"Kinda, but I'm also worried about me," Corrine said.

"And how's that?" Ashley asked.

"Cause, like...if she can break, any of us can break," Corrine said, "She always seemed so sturdy, so unbending; she survived so much like her husband leaving and her show getting pulled and all these sorts of things, and the thing that actually manages to take her down is a magazine that calls her a role model? I know Violet leaving had a lot to do with it too, but still, the magazine's where she really seemed to crumble."

Ashley pulled her hair back into a ponytail and sat on Corrine's lap, looking in her eyes. Corrine looked back, blushing hard, still not used to have a beautiful woman be interested in her again.

"It's sweet that you worry about her," Ashley said, "it really is. You're a really good, true friend, and that's really attractive. But I'm telling you, as someone who grew up with her, she'll be okay. She's always okay. She'll take some time alone, take stock of some things in her life and come back with a better attitude. This is just what she does."

Ashley leaned in and kissed Corrine's neck, making her blush even harder.

"Now," Ashley whispered, "We can worry about my sister until the cows come home - and no I'm not calling my sister a cow - or, we can try and live in the moment and enjoy ourselves. Aren't you tired of focusing on everyone else for a change? What about what you want?"

"...I know what I want," Corrine said, grinning and kissing Ashley, making Ashley laugh. She was right, Corrine knew. Worrying would do nothing. They couldn't find her. She had left no paper trail, and she clearly didn't want to be around anyone. All anybody could do was simply wait for her to come back. To come home. To their surprised, she was on her way home.

Just not the home they knew.

                                                                                                ***

Natasha opened the car door and stepped out onto the dirt. She looked up at the small house, and she smiled. She started walking up the walkway and approached, noticing the lights inside were off, and it was still essentially abandoned. She fidgeted with the door and opened it, heading inside. The house was on a small piece of land, a bit aways from the nearest town, and there was nobody else around for miles. As she entered through the door and further into the domicile, all the memories came rushing back.

The laughter, the smells, the music, the love. This was a place built on memories, a place she had tried so hard to forget because of how much the loss had hurt. Natasha walked into the kitchen and for a brief moment she swore she could still smell her grandmothers cooking. She walked further in and ran her hand across the countertops, dusty and dirty, but still beautiful, still worthwhile, just like her. She leaned against the counter and looked around the kitchen. All the great meals her grandmother had cooked in here, all the little parties they had thrown. Where did the time go?

She sighed and pulled her phone from her coat pocket, and finally opened the screen to a flurry of messages, all of which she ignored. She found a live streaming app, headed into her account, then walked into the living room and set the phone on the fireplace mantel before hitting "stream" and walking back into the center of the room.

"...hello, my name is Natasha Simple," she said, her voice shaky as she continued, "...you might know me from my public access show of many years, or my current endeavor, my website and webseries where I try and help others get their lives under control and back on track. I love helping people. But now I'm asking for help. I need someone, anyone, to listen to me, please. Because I'm about to tell you a story. It's about me, and how I failed everyone around me, and how I don't deserve their forgiveness."

She hesitated, wiping her eyes on her coat sleeve before chuckling and looking back at the screen and exhaling.

"Don't forget to subscribe while you're here," she said, "cause this may take a while."

"She's still here," Sharla said, entering the editing bay with Jay as they looked at Natasha, lying facedown on the couch, clutching a magazine in one hand. Jay sighed and headed further into the room, kneeling beside the couch and touching her head.

"You okay?" he asked, before glancing back at Sharla, "is she okay?"

"They called me a role model," Nat murmured, getting Jay to turn his attention back to her as she continued, now flapping the magazine in her hand at him, "they had the gall, the sheer audacity, the nerve even, to call me this years local role model. I'm not a role model. I can't even be a good mom. Where'd they come to this conclusion?"

"These things usually mean nothing," Sharla said, "often what they do is put a poll online on a social media page and then ask users to vote for someone in said poll. Ordinary everyday people have no idea what's going on in your life, man. They can't...they can't know what you're going through. They aren't privy to your problems at home."

"Listen to her, she's right," Jay said, making Nat finally look up at him, her eyes red like she'd been crying all morning; he felt bad, he thought this sort of thing would normally make her feel better, but not this summer. Not after what had happened. He sighed and added, "look, it's just some random poll, it doesn't mean anything."

"Yes it is," Nat whispered, pushing her face back into the couch, refusing to elaborate on her reasoning.

Jay sighed and stood up, looking around the room before looking back at Sharla.

"Where's Corrine?" he asked.

                                                                                           ***

"You have fantastic hips," Corrine said, watching as Ashley sat upright on the bed and lit a cigarette; she continued, "I wish I had hips half as nice as yours."

"Well, you're welcome to borrow mine anytime you'd like," Ashley said, leading to an awkward silence before she added, "...sorry, that...that was meant to be romantic, but instead it felt creepy. I haven't flirted in a long time, and definitely never with a woman, so."

"Amazing how one can be so bad at flirting but so good in bed," Corrine said, making Ashley laugh loudly.

"Do you wanna go get lunch somewhere?" Ashley asked, "It's almost 1pm. We could go get something to eat. Strenuous physical activity like this always makes me hungry afterwards."

"I suppose. I don't have anything to be working on, so it should be okay," Corrine said.

The two women got dressed, then headed to Ashley's car. They got in and she pulled out of the driveway, heading down the road somewhere. She'd figure it out along the way. That was kind of how she rolled these days, it seemed. As she drove, she reached over and held Corrine's hand, one hand still on the steering wheel. Corrine blushed at this show of genuine affection, and glanced out the window. The last thing she expected this summer was to meet someone else...especially the sister of the woman she worked for.

They eventually settled on a little hole in the wall sushi place, and parked and headed inside. Sitting at the counter, taking small plates with sushi off the little boats that swam past them, Corrine couldn't help but feel paranoid that everyone here somehow not only knew who they were, but also what they were doing. She had been having regularly paranoid episodes ever since her breakup, and she hated it.

"...how's Violet doing?" Corrine asked, unsure of what else to talk about.

"She keeps to herself," Ashley said, "I try and be a good host, you know? I am her aunt after all. But...it's weird. She's very closed off. I think she doesn't really know how to feel about everything. I think she's, like, waiting for someone to tell her it's okay to be angry or something."

"When I was a kid," Corrine said, popping another sushi roll in her mouth, "I didn't understand how to feel things, so my teacher made me go to a special class where a woman showed me a chart with various faces on it, and asked me what I thought 'sad' felt like depending on the face. It was...weird. I'm better with feelings now, but I imagine that must sort of be like what Violet deals with."

"No, not really," Ashley said, wiping her mouth with her napkin and sipping her soda, "I mean, she knows how she feels. She's upset. She has every right to be upset. But she's mad that she's upset, and worse than that, she's mad that her mom isn't more upset than she is. She's all jumbled up and confused. Teenagers are like that."

"...maybe I could talk to her?" Corrine asked.

"Actually, she's seeing Noreen today," Ashley said, patting Corrine on the thigh, "besides, I wouldn't wanna lose any time with you."

Corrine blushed and looked away. She may have used to have problems with feelings, but she sure knew how she felt right now.

                                                                                           ***

Noreen and Violet were sitting in Noreen's bedroom. Violet hadn't said a word in over an hour, instead just looking through a photo album while Noreen made a beaded necklace on the bed. Finally, Violet put the album down and looked across to Noreen, who smiled at her as she looked up, her hands still working on threading beads.

"I feel like you're the only one who really understands me," Violet said, "and it isn't fair that you weren't in our lives until recently, because, ya know, I could've, uh, used you before."

"Well I'm here now, that counts for something, right?" Noreen asked.

"I just want my mom to, uh, to...to see me as, like, I don't know...worth her time? She says she does all this for me, she says I'm why she works so hard, but it always seems like everyone else comes before me and she doesn't really know how to be a mom proper. She has the idea of what a mom should be, but doesn't know how to do it?"

Noreen sighed and set down her beads and looked at Violet seriously.

"...I think it's because women of our generation didn't exactly know that we wanted to be moms, but it was still expected of us, socially, to do so. So a lot of us had children without the ability to know how to properly raise them. A lot of these moms see themselves as friends, not parents, and you can be a friend to your child, but you also need to be a parent," she said, "your mom is trying, sweetheart, she really is. She just...doesn't know how."

Violet sighed and looked back down at the photo album, seeing an image of Noreen and her parents on a camping trip, and she smiled. Noreen had gotten the childhood Violet wanted for herself, and she was simultaneously jealous and grateful that at least one of them had had it.

                                                                                              ***

"I don't get what the big deal is, frankly," Sharla said, sitting on her workout ball and sipping from her stainless steel water bottle; "if someone called me a role model, I'd be flattered. It's what I try to be. A good example of how to live. I eat well, I exercise. I am trying to be a role model."

"...yeah, well...that's the irony isn't it. I'm not," Nat said, sitting upright on the couch now, "you don't get it, you guys...any other year this would've made me happy, but this year..."

She looked down at the magazine again and sighed, shaking her head as Jay and Sharla waited and listened.

"...if Violet sees this, it'll simply reinforce her idea that I'm only here for others, and not for her. That her own mother is inaccessible to her. I wanna help people, sure, I wanna be a role model. But not right now. This is not the best time. I couldn't even be a mom, how the hell could I be a role model to strangers? Do you see my dilemma now?"

Sharla nodded and continued sipping as Jay unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck it in his mouth.

"I do, but you're thinking about this all wrong," he said, "you need to look at it from a different point of view. Maybe she sees it and she sees all the good you really do, and it makes her reconsider how-"

"No, see, that's the problem, Jay, right there, doing mental gymnastics to make sense of my daughters disappointment with me," Natasha said, "she shouldn't have to accept these things, how she feels is completely understandable and valid. She shouldn't have to go through hoops psychologically to like her mother."

"She has a point," Sharla said, as Jay shot her a nasty glare and she shrugged, taking another sip, whispering, "what...she does."

Nat looked back at the magazine and sighed again. She should just go talk to Violet, but she didn't want to intrude on her daughters personal space. After all, she'd moved out of the house for a reason, and the last thing Nat wanted to do was violate that decision in some way. She tossed the magazine on the couch and buried her face in her hands.

"I'm just saying that she's not wrong. Violet should be able to feel and think the way she does without trying to be convinced otherwise that she's somehow the one misunderstanding the situation. She's already mentally challenged. To gaslight a mentally challenged person is a whole other level of abuse, quite frankly."

"I'm not saying she needs to be gaslit, jesus, but just that maybe she's capable of seeing it from another way," Jay said, "there's no reason for..."

They'd heard the door shut, but neither one had seen Nat get up and leave. Jay sighed and shook his head. He wanted to get up and follow her, but he was beginning to ask whether she was worth the effort. She clearly wanted to be alone. Violet clearly wanted to be alone. Like mother like daughter.

                                                                                              ***

"Don't you feel guilty, even just a little bit?" Corrine asked as she sat on Ashley's lap in the front seat of the car after lunch, making out.

"No, do you?" Ashley asked, making Corrine shrug.

"...not particularly, but I wanted to make sure we were on the same page," she replied, making them both chuckle; she leaned in and kissed Ashley again, then added, "I just meant to ask, you know, cause of Stephen and everything, like, maybe you-"

"I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel something remorseful about it, but I learned a while ago life is too short to worry about that sort of thing. I'll end things with him, I will, I just feel awkward about it because he was there for me and stuff, you know? It's all super complicated."

"...you're sure you want this, right?" Corrine asked, "I'm sorry, I just...I have trouble believing anyone could ever remotely like me. When Nat and Jay first approached me to work with them, I was like 'is this some sort of extreme practical joke?' and now you liking me just makes me wonder the same thing. I've never really been able to believe that I'm worth the time or effort people give me."

Ashley smiled and ran her hand through Corrine's dark brown hair.

"Your uncertainty about yourself is one of your most admirable traits, I like a girl with no self esteem," she said.

"Hey!"

"but yes, I'm sure. I thought I was gonna die, remember? I spent a good portion of a while thinking I was on my way out, and then evaluating all the things I'd never get to do as a result of that."

"Things like that?"

"Things like hot women with no self esteem," Ashley replied.

"Okay, you need to stop saying I have no self esteem. It's ironically ruining my self esteem," Corrine said, making Ashley throw her head back and cackle, which made Corrine blush and go back to kissing her. Who was she to question what life choices Ashley was to make? It's not like she herself had made the right ones. Hell, even Natasha hadn't. Perhaps, she thought, that's what truly binded them all together, was not being good at making decisions, so perhaps if they made decisions with eachother, they'd at least get one right once in a while.

                                                                                             ***

Stacy Keach was sitting at her desk when her office door opened, and Natasha walked inside. Stacy looked up, genuinely surprised to see her. Natasha stopped in front of the desk and sighed, then put the magazine down on the desktop. Stacy looked at the magazine, then looked up at Natasha.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"You wrote this, right?" Nat asked.

"I did."

"Was it a poll? Did you put a poll online and ask random people to decide?" Nat asked, "Why was I the role model you picked? Why would you choose me? Don't you have any idea how bad things have been for me lately? Now you're out here telling people that I'm someone they should look up to, to strive to be, when my entire career has been based around telling people to be themselves and not be me?"

Stacy listened, then leaned back in her chair and nodded.

"I went to your live show," she said, "the one you did last year? It took me by surprise just how adamant you were that people not listen to you, but instead listen to themselves. That's generally not something a self help person says to their followers. In fact, the entire concept of the modern day self help guru is to keep people invested in constantly thinking there's something about them that needs to be fixed so they keep giving you money to help them fix it."

Nat exhaled, furrowing her brow, confused at where this was going.

"but that's not what you did. Instead, you told people that they should be the best them they could be, no try and be the best imitation of you they could be. And you're right. You're a mess, it's clear to anyone that you're a mess and nobody should be trying to imitate you. That's just going to make them a mess too. Your entire business plan is built on the idea that you genuinely want people to better themselves, not stay just broken enough so they need you to get better."

Stacy pulled the magazine towards her and tapped on it with her perfectly manicured nails, smiling warmly.

"...that's why I picked you. And it was me, personally. Not a poll. Not an online question. Nothing from social media. Me, specifically. I picked you. Because I was so genuinely impressed not only by your absolute desire to not be famous but also your absolute desire to ensure others choose themselves over you. That's just not a level of honesty one often sees in the media, especially not from people in your line of work. I guess more than anything you're the local role model of the year because you helped inspire me to stop thinking I needed others to get better, when really I just needed to listen to myself."

Nat slumped a bit, the anger now gone, replaced with cautious gratefulness. Her eyes were watery, and she wiped them on her arm.

"...thank you," she whispered, without looking at Stacy, "thank you. I...I needed to hear that."

"I do wanna ask you thought," Stacy said, "...why don't you ever listen to yourself? I mean, you make such a big deal about people knowing their own needs, but why don't you do that very thing too? Do you ever listen to your own needs? Or do you just...ignore how you feel and instead be what everyone thinks you are?"

Nat felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. In 2 minutes flat she'd had herself explained to her by someone she'd never met, and it blew her away. Stacy had a point. She'd been ignoring how she felt. She'd spent this entire summer worrying about everyone else, specifically about her daughter, that she'd never once taken into consideration just how burnt out and worn down she felt herself. When Sharla tried to cheer her up, she took her up on the offer, because it's what she assumed she was supposed to do. When Ashley wanted to meet with her, she did it because she assumed it was her duty to repair their damaged sisterhood. She'd never once, not one single time, stopped and wondered...

...is this what I wanna do? What do I wanna do?

Natasha stood back up straight and turned, heading towards the door.

"Miss Simple?" Stacy asked, "Where are you going?"

"...I don't know," she said, "anywhere else."

And she exited.

"Okay," Sharla said, entering the bedroom, "this is sad. This can't go on. There's headcases and then there's you, and I'm sorry but I refuse to have someone as unglued as you be my friend as it reflects poorly on me so someone needs to bring you back up and I guess that's up to me."

"Wow," Nat said, lying in bed in shorts and a tank top, "You should be a motivational speaker. I feel so much better now."

"Get up," Sharla said, walking further in and gathering clothes from the floor, loading them into a nearby hamper, then opening the closet and digging through things, "We're going out. We're going to get you an outfit, and Jay and I are gonna take you out to get your mind off things. It's been weeks since Violet moved out, and I know it hurts, but this cannot go on."

"Why can't it?"

"Because you're depressing everyone."

"Oh, okay," Nat said, "I get it now."

"Get in the shower, do your hair, your makeup, I'll find you a-"

"I'm not showering, I'm not dirty, I'm just lazy and unkempt," Natasha replied, "and I don't need makeup and my hair is fine. And if you're gonna drag me out of the house against my will, then I'm wearing whatever I want so I want sweatpants and a lose t-shirt with a horrible logo on it."

"Sweetheart, no," Sharla said, looking back at her from the closet over her shoulder, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you go out like that. If you were terminally ill and really had nothing to live for anymore, that'd be one thing, but no. This is just a bump in the ride. You'll get past this."

Nat had trouble hiding her appreciation for Sharla's dry wit, but she tried her best as she climbed off the bed and headed into the bathroom. If nothing else, she'd wash her face, comb her hair and put on some eyeliner. She had always liked the way eyeliner looked on her. As she stared at herself in the mirror, she could swear she saw her mothers face staring back at her for a moment, and it terrified her. She wasn't that old. Not that getting old bothered her in the slightest, but if there was one person she never wanted to resemble, it was her own mom.

Especially not this young in life.

                                                                                              ***

"Nice space," Ashley said as she entered Corrine's workshop at the studio, "It's lovely, and open, yeah, you can do a lot with this. Or rather I can do a lot with this."

She entered further and tossed her purse down on the couch, then walked around the room, looking at it. Corrine stood nervously by her editing equipment, trying not to watch, but enamored all the same. Ashley stopped, hands on her hips, nodding at what she saw.

"This has potential," she said, "We could make this a pseudo live in studio. That way you won't have to stay at home all the time. We could put a little homey nook in here with a little basic frame bed and all sorts of stuff. That way you can stay and work but also live comfortably. Do you feel like you're taking advantage of my sister, staying with her? Is that why you asked for my help?"

"I...I don't know, I feel weird I guess, sure," Corrine said, "Like...I've never lived with someone and had it be a positive experience, you know? So for her to treat me well, yeah, it does feel odd. But also I like being alone, and I like working, so I'd prefer to stay here sometimes. Especially with the way she's been lately since Violet let...oof."

Ashley nodded, pursing her lips. She walked back to Corrine and, pushing some of her bangs from her eyes, looked at her dead on.

"Violet misses her mom, like, a hell of a lot," Ashley said softly, "she won't openly admit it, exactly, but it's obvious, and I've heard her say things to Stephen that are almost outright acknowledgement, so. We've tried to convince her to go home, but she's so angry. The thing is, I don't even think she's angry at her exactly, I think she's just angry in general. The world dealt her a shitty hand in every other aspect except her mother, and she has every right to be angry. That friend of hers...uh..."

"Courtney?"

"Yeah, her, thanks...she comes over from time to time and you can tell Violet is oddly jealous of her. Courtney gets to live a so called ordinary teenage life, and Violet isn't allowed that, and she's aware of it. I think it's the recognition of her limitations that bother her far more than the limitations themselves. That she's aware of what she cannot do. If she was so slow that she couldn't be aware of it, I think somehow that'd make her happier, but she isn't and she is and that fucks her up."i
"...are you a psychologist?" Corrine asked, "Cause boy I could use some therapy."

Ashley threw her head back and laughed loudly, shaking her head, one hand on her collarbones.

"No, no, I just...I know what it's like, you know? To be hyper aware of what society considers your flaws and whatnot. I..." she started, then stopped, then walked to the couch and sat down, sighing as she continued, "...oh boy. One of the reasons I agreed to help you with this was because I felt like I could relate to you, because I've felt weird about Stephen and myself ever since my health got better, and it's bothering me."

"Why's it bothering you?" Corrine asked, sitting down beside her.

"When I got sick, you know, I was...I hate to admit it but I was sort of there for the taking, if you know what I mean. I was desperate. Willing. I needed someone to care about me. Stephen gave me that. But that love wasn't really returned in earnest, because what I needed was to know someone cared before I died, but then I didn't die, and now I feel guilty about trapping him like this because...being so close to death makes you reassess who you thought you were as a person, like, on a fundamental level, you know?"

"Can't say I do, never been that close to death, but please go on," Corrine said, making Ashley chuckle.

"Well, it does, and analyzing our relationship during illness vs after illness has made me acutely aware of a few revelatory things," Ashley said, "the first of which is that Stephen likes damaged women. He and Nat met during a rough time in her life where she was struggling to find something to do with her life and wasn't getting along with our folks. Then he came to me when I got sick and she didn't need him the way she once did. He likes damaged women. I don't think it's intentional, nor do I think he knows it, but it's true. And he's not taking advantage of anyone. He likes to feel needed, and to help. It's all coming from a good place, I can tell, but it doesn't change the fact that that's the kind of woman he pursues, not out of genuine love but out of a necessity."

"...I think I know what you mean," Corrine said, "I got dumped this summer, by a longtime partner, and it...it fucked me up, but it made me realize that she was too under the thumb of her own mother, and she would never be in a happy relationship unless she broke free of that."

"Right, exactly, you get it. These flaws, they need to be broken and rebuilt," Ashley said, "but Stephen's only half the issue here, because I'm also to blame. I looked to someone familiar for comfort, not for something else I really needed. All you've heard so far is Natasha's side of the story and, let's face facts, she has every right to be angry but it isn't the whole picture as you're not brutally aware."

Ashley sighed and looked down at her hands in her laps, her perfectly manicured french tip nails.

"...I decorate because it helps me retain a sense of control," she said, "same reason Nat does what she does. When you grow up in a household that takes control of any kind away from you, you sort of fight to keep what little control you eventually get back. When I was sick, when I was spending a lot of time at the hospital, I started talking with this nurse. Around the time I got better, I didn't need to go anymore, and I missed talking to her. I started noticing things I'd never noticed. I started noticing people I'd never noticed. Checkout girls and waitresses. Stephen and I would be out somewhere for dinner, and I couldn't help but coyly flirt with the woman taking our drink orders. Compulsory heterosexuality is hell. See, the thing is, Nat fought to find herself because our folks so badly wanted us to be like them. They weren't bad parents, they just...were controlling, you know? I don't know how to explain it. They weren't abusive. They just had very rigid ideals for us and we failed to live up to them. So Nat railed against it all and she fought to discover who she was. I didn't have that kind of bravery. I stuck the path. I tried to be perfect for them."

Corrine's breath felt caught in her chest, her hands sweaty. This was not what she'd expected when she'd invited Ashley over to help figure out redesigns for her work space.

"...that's why I turned to Stephen. Compulsory heterosexuality mixed with fear of death mixed with the need for familiarity. It was a whole jumbled mess of garbage, and...and I was terrified, man, I was so scared. Now I'm scared for other reasons."

"What makes you scared now?" Corrine asked.

"You."

The room was dead quiet. Corrine swore she could hear her own heartbeat.

"I...I scare you?" she asked, almost laughing.

"When you came into my house the other week with my sisters," Ashley said, turning to face her more, "I was instantly attracted to you. That's why I liked that you stayed behind to help clean up, so we could talk more. That's why I took this opportunity to come meet with you, because I wanted so badly to see you again."

Corrine didn't know what to say. This had been one hell of a summer. Her longtime partner had dumped her rather unceremoniously and now she was being confessed to by the estranged sister of her boss. What a life she led now.

"I'm sorry, I understand if this is awkward, I just-"

"No, I...I feel the same way," Corrine said, forcing the words out of her, "I found you really attractive immediately, but because of my professional relationship with Natasha, I wasn't sure if-"

"Natasha has built her entire career out of telling people to do what they have to in order to be happy," Ashley whispered, reaching forward and touching Corrine's face, making her turn sheet white, "...don't you wanna do what you have to in order to be happy? Cause I sure do."

Corrine didn't know how what happened next actually happened. She would try to recall it later, but it all seemed so jumbled. She could vaguely remember Ashley leaning in and pressing her lips against hers, pushing her onto her back and climbing on top of her, kissing her more passionately and yet so gently than she'd ever been kissed before. And she could vaguely remember not stopping her or complaining once, because this was all she wanted right now. To hell with it, she thought afterwards, we'll decorate the room another day.

                                                                                           ***

"There is nothing worse to me than being a non alcohol consuming person in a bar," Sharla said, as she, Nat and Jay sat at a table together and ate snacks and drank drinks. Jay chuckled at this statement, and even Nat cracked a smile; Sharla continued, "I just don't drink, I'm too health conscious and I hate the taste of it anyway, and yet everytime I go on dates, or just go out for fun, some dickhead has to push alcohol on me. 'Just try it! It's fun!', like, yeah, so is a root canal."

"Jesus," Jay muttered, laughing as he and Natasha ate from the same basket of nachos.

"It is exhausting, the social exhibition one has to endure in order to participate," Nat said, "that's why I never thought it was worth it. Find one or two good friends and ignore everyone else. Don't get sucked into that world of unnecessary societal norms. Just be who you are with who you want and be happy."

"Has that worked well for you?" Sharla asked.

"Well, when I finally find those two people, I'll let you know," Nat said, all three of them laughing now.

Natasha was thankful Sharla had dragged her out of the house. She'd been working nonstop lately, and she'd been so upset about Violet, so she was, in hindsight, grateful to her friends, not that she'd ever admit it outright. She was much too prideful for that sort of display of appreciation. But she didn't need to anyway, Jay and Sharla knew.

And while Nat was having a good time, unbeknownst to her her own daughter was doing the same thing. She was with Courtney and her lifeguard boyfriend at a nearby bowling alley, actually enjoying being sociable for a change. Both Simple girls were having a great time, and neither one knew the other one was doing so. If Nat could've seen her daughter, she would've realized how alike they truly were, and how proud she was of her for coming as for as she had.

The Simple girls - Violet, Nat, Noreen and Ashley - had been through a lot in life, but the funny thing is, they all came out the other end relatively unscathed.

There's something to be said about just being yourself, Nat thought.

"She was at my wedding," Nat said, "She was right there, right next to me. She helped me get ready, she helped me plan the entire thing, she helped pick out my dress, and then she steals my husband and I'm supposed to just be okay with all of it?"

Corrine shrugged. She didn't even understand why she was going to this to begin with, nor was she interested in giving advice on something she had no experience in.

"You of all people should know what it's like to be hurt," Nat said.

"There's different levels of different hurt," Corrine replied, "what happened to me isn't what happened to you, nor should they be viewed as such. My relationship didn't end because they wanted to be with someone else, it ended for entirely different reasons. And you put all the blame on your sister, why doesn't Stephen get any of the blame?"

"He does," Natasha said, turning down a street and slowing the car down to a crawl as they approached her sisters house, "he does, I just...the thing is, Stephen's just a guy I met at some point in my life, but she was my sister, my own flesh and blood, the one person in this world I thought I could trust and depend on more than anyone else, you know? That level of betrayal from someone that close to you...it's devastating."

Corrine couldn't argue with that, at least. As the car came to a stop in front of Ashley's house, Nat turned around in her seat and looked at Noreen in the back.

"What about you?" she asked, "Got any input?"

"I've never met the woman, therefore I cannot give a detailed opinion as such. But I appreciate you giving me a ride," she said.

"You shouldn't be poisoning your own sisters mind against her other sister before she's even had a chance to meet her," Corrine said, "that isn't fair. Let her come up with her own beliefs about her from their personal interactions."

Nat scoffed, then climbed out of the car. She walked around to the back and opened the trunk, pulling out a small bag, while Noreen undid her seatbelt and looked at Corrine, who was picking something out of her teeth using the rearview mirror to see.

"Why did she bring you anyway?" Noreen asked.

"I have no idea," Corrine said, "but this should be a fun afternoon."

                                                                                               ***


Natasha and Ashley Simple had been born only two years apart.

This meant they essentially grew up as children together, and did everything together. When they were little, they didn't play with other children, only eachother, and as they got older, that bond only seemed to strengthen. They shared a bedroom until they were almost teenagers, and once they had their own bedrooms in the new house, they still preferred to spend all their time together in the same room. It was hard to keep the girls apart.

One summer, their parents separated them and sent Nat to see some relatives and sent Ash to a local summer camp. Neither went well, and neither had a good time. It wasn't until they were back home that the summer was enjoyable again for everyone. Their parents pretty quickly learned just how attached the girls were to eachother, and in the end, wound up considering themselves lucky that they had a pair of siblings who didn't hate one another.

Everything Nat had said was true, too. Ashley had helped plan the wedding, had helped pick out the dress, all of those things, and then she took Stephen away. Nat knew Stephen was partially to blame, and hell, she even knew she wasn't totally infallible, but in the end, all her ire wound up being directed primarily towards Ashley. Now Ashley wanted to have a sit down with all three sisters, clear the air and start anew, but Natasha wasn't ready to start anew. She still wanted to be angry. She wanted to be angry forever.

But that wouldn't be fair to Noreen. So she put her feelings aside and agreed to the meet up at Ashley's, if for no other reason than for Noreen to get to know her other sister, because Natasha loved her sisters, adopted or otherwise.

                                                                                                   ***

"Where's Violet?" Nat asked upon entering, handing Ashley the bag as Corrine and Noreen followed her inside.

"Stephen took her out while we're doing this," Ash said, "he didn't think she would wanna be here for this. Did you bring pastries? That's so domesticated of you."

"I'm not a wild dog, dude," Nat said.

Ash chuckled as she shut the door once the others were inside, then introduced herself.

"Hello," she said, holding her hand out to shake, "I'm Ashley."

"Corrine," Corrine said, shaking her hand, "I'm a friend of Nat's."

Ash then looked at Noreen and put a hand to her mouth.

"God," she whispered, "you look JUST like mom."

"I do?" Noreen asked, giddy.

"Yeah, she's right, you do," Nat added, "it's almost eerie."

"You have a nice place," Corrine said, shoving her hands into her coat pockets as she walked through the house, Ashley on her heels; Noreen and Nat made their way to the kitchen to make some coffee, leaving Corrine and Ashley alone.

"Thank you!" Ashley said, "I like doing interior design. It's nice to have, ya know, control over your surroundings. It starts out when you're a kid and you get to decorate your own bedroom, you know, and then it blossoms into decorating an entire house. I mean, maybe not everyone feels that way, but I sure do."

"No, I get what you mean," Corrine said, "life is so messy, so...undeniably messy that it's nice to have some kind of control in some way on some level. I never got to decorate my bedroom, actually. My parents didn't let me have a whole lot of freedom, so."

"Really? That's...sad, actually," Ash said, "I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I put all that energy into making myself cool instead," Corrine said, giving Ashley finger guns and making her laugh. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Natasha was getting the coffee maker to brew while Noreen was leaning against the counter and looking at all the kitchen decorations.

"She seems nice," Noreen said.

"Yeah, so do serial killers," Nat replied.

"...can I ask you a question, about...well...about your family? Our family?"

"Of course, what do you wanna know?"

"Would mom and dad like me if they met me?" Noreen asked, and Nat sighed as she too turned away from the brewing coffeemaker and leaned against the counter, folding her arms.

"...I don't know," Natasha said, "but it's nothing personal, they just...they don't really like anyone but eachother, and even then I question that. Mom and dad are weird, that was why Ashley and I got so close was because we needed someone to rely on, you know? Mom and dad were always distant and aloof. Not cruel, don't get me wrong, they weren't cold or mean or nasty or anything like that, they just...were never really parents, if that makes sense? They took care of us, they clothed us, fed us, got us a good education, but..."

Nat took a moment and chewed on her fingernails.

"...when Violet was little, like 4 or 5, you know, she'd come into the bedroom in the mornings and she'd...she'd climb into the bed with Stephen and I and she'd lay there with us. We'd all lay there. We'd do things with her, as a family. Even when she got older, like 9, we still did things with her. Took her places, introduced her to things, had specific family nights where we ordered in food and watched kids movies together, and it was always a great time. Those are the kinds of memories Ashley and I don't have with mom and dad, you know? Those memories that ensure that your parents truly enjoyed having you around."

Noreen nodded, listening closely as Nat's voice cracked a little, on the verge of tears.

"I think that's partially why I started the show, was to show others out there that someone cared about them, and that they should care about themselves too. When you have parents, but you don't have parents, it makes the world feel so much colder and empty and sad. Here are the very people who gave life to you, and yet they don't really care much for your company. Kinda hurts, you know?"

"I understand," Noreen said, "that must be why her stealing Stephen hurt so much."

"Exactly. That's what Corrine doesn't understand," Natasha said, "Ashley was my everything, even more than Stephen. She's who I told all my dreams and secrets too, she's the only person I had that resembled family in any kind of manner, and to have her do what she did, it killed me inside."

"Well, maybe today we can resuscitate the part of you that die," Noreen said, making Natasha smirk.

After a bit, Natasha and Noreen brought coffee into the living room, where Ashley and Corrine were seated, laughing and chatting. Ashley had opened the small box of pastries and set them on the coffee table. Nat and Noreen sat down and handed Ashley and Corrine their coffee, then waited for the conversation to be over. After a minute or two of wrapping up their discussion, Ashley finally turned and looked at her sisters.

"...I need to tell you right out the gate how sorry I am," Ashley said, "because...because what happened wasn't okay, and I've felt terrible about it the entire time, and a lot of times I've considered ending things between him and I just because of that but then I think how awful that'd be for him cause he wouldn't have anyone else to go back to and-"

"I don't want your apology," Nat said, interrupting, "I don't need apologies. I need explanation. I need a reason. What could've possibly possessed you to do what you did? You were my best friend, my sister, how could you-"

"I was jealous. You had a husband, a career, a child...but it wasn't strictly jealousy. Sure, I wanted part of what you had, but you were always better than me, always knew what to do with yourself and your life and how to be with others," Ashley said, "I didn't, so I had to take what you had and claim it as my own. But, like I said, that wasn't my only reason....a few weeks after your wedding, I...I started having these painful headaches. Eventually they got so bad, I had to see a doctor, but I couldn't drive there myself cause I was afraid I'd crash, so I asked Stephen to drive me. I had brain cancer."

The room was silent, as Natasha, Noreen and even Corrine sat in shock.

"...what?" Nat asked.

"I had brain cancer, and it didn't look good at first," Ashley said, "so I started drafting up a will, and making plans for what would be left when I was gone, but until then I decided I wanted just a part of what you had, since I'd never get the chance to experience it myself, so I talked to Stephen and after a while we started seeing one another. I know it's wrong, but my mindset was 'well, you'll be dead before or if it ever comes out anyway so where's the harm?'. Then I didn't die, and suddenly my homewrecking decision had lasting consequences. I tried to end things numerous times, but Stephen started telling me how you had given yourself to your job instead of him, and I think he felt left out, and things just escalated from there."

Corrine looked from Ashley to Nat, raising an eyebrow.

"So it wasn't meant to hurt you, really it wasn't, I just wanted to feel lucky enough to have just a bit of what you had, if only for a brief amount of time before I was gone," Ashley said, wiping her eyes on her sleeve while Corrine rubbed her back; Ashley continued, "I wanted to tell you so long ago, but Stephen...I don't know, he didn't want to for some reason. Stephen is so...needy."

Natasha cracked up, which surprised both Noreen and Corrine - the latter of which gave her a strange look - but Ashley laughed too, much to their surprise.

"He's got, like, emotional insecurity or something," Ash said, "like, you know how we're kinda messed up because mom and dad were distant? He's got it like ten fold."

"He really does," Nat said, "but I liked that about him, that was why we were drawn to one another, and I'm assuming it's the same for you."

"It was, yeah," Ash said, "but I realize now you're worth much more, and I can't go through my life without my sister. You have every right to hate me, and to never wanna speak to me again, but..." she glanced at Noreen and added, "I figured, with another sister, we might be able to form some kind of bond again. If Noreen is interested."

They all looked at Noreen, who smiled warmly.

"All my life," she said, "all I ever wanted was a sister. I was happy with my parents, even after they told me I was adopted. I didn't crave to know my actual parents. But I always wanted a sibling. So yeah, if you'd let me be a part of the family, I'd like to help you all rebuild it."

Things had gone surprisingly well, even if the truth shocked Nat to her core. Her own sister had come so close to death, yet had never mentioned it? She told Ash later that afternoon that she was a thousand times braver than she could ever hope to be, and just how proud of her she was. She even told Ash that she had a friend she worked with named Sharla who was a health nut who could help her take care of herself, which Ashley didn't object to.

After a while, Nat said she should take Noreen home, but Corrine offered to stay behind and help Ashley clean up. Nat said she wouldn't be so long, and she'd come back for her. Corrine helped Ashley pick up all the pastry containers, and put them into the box, then took the coffee mugs into the kitchen. As Ashley washed the mugs in the sink and Corrine put the garbage in the can, she turned and looked at Ashley.

"She seems to consider you her best friend," Ashley said, "I'm glad she was able to find someone else to fill that void."

"You think? You think I'm her best friend?" Corrine asked, "...she is letting me stay with her, and she did give me a lot of money, and she did hire me. I guess you're right. I'm so sorry you had to go through what you did. I know what it's like to have someone drop you because of the opinion of another."

"Yeah, well, it won't be an issue much longer anyway," Ashley said, "Stephen and I are struggling. I think we trauma bonded, and now that the trauma is gone, the bond isn't as strong. That and..."

A pause. Corrine leaned against the counter next to Ashley and tossed her hair, looking at her.

"And what?" she asked.

"...nothing, it doesn't matter," Ashley said, checking her watch, "I can drop you off, save her a trip. I'll call her and tell her."

"You don't have to-"

"I want to," Ashley said, leaving the room to call Nat. As she watched her leave, Corrine felt at peace for the first time in a while. She was included in a family, albeit not her own, and she was the best friend to someone. So then why did she feel so awkward at the same time? Maybe it was because she was undeniably, overwhelmingly attracted to Ashley from the moment she saw her. No. She had to ignore it. She'd already seen the damage that had been done, she couldn't contribute to that more.

Then again, she wondered, Natasha had always spread a message about not being ashamed of what you need, and she needed something more than what she had.

Natasha was lying on Violet's bed, staring at the ceiling. The house was eerily quiet, and she didn't know what to do with herself. She rolled onto her side and looked at the stuffed giraffe Violet had forgotten to take, the one she'd gotten at the zoo when she was a little girl. Nat figured she'd bring it to her sometime soon, after she'd gotten settled in at her fathers. She knew Violet would want it. She heard the door open slowly and she looked up a bit to see Corrine standing there, sipping juice from a small glass.

"...are you okay?" she asked softly.

"I don't know," Nat said, "I think that's what bothers me the most, is I'm not even sure how I feel about this."

Corrine entered and sat on the bed, pulling her long unkempt hair back into a ponytail and sighing.

"...I think it's fair to not know what to feel, you know? It's understandable to feel uncertain about your feelings," she said, "this is a messed up weird situation, it only makes sense that you wouldn't know what to do when it happens because you never expected it to happen. I certainly didn't know how to feel after she left me this summer. I...I was upset, sure, but on some other hand, I was weirdly happy to be free of it? Everything is so confusing all the time."

Natasha sat up, posted on her elbows, and looked around the room.

"I remember when we first decorated this bedroom," Nat said, smiling weakly, "it's weird, with kids people always talk about the big things - their first day of school, their graduation, their birth - but it's the small stuff, the seemingly mundane, that you remember the most. The days when you just are together, play together, decorate a bedroom. Those are the days that I recall with the most clarity."

Corrine reached over and patted Nat's shoulder, and Nat smiled more, reaching up and holding her hand.

"She'll come home," Corrine said, "trust me, she'll come home."

"I know she will," Nat said, "...I just wish she didn't have to because I wish she'd never left."

                                                                                             ***

With Violet gone, Natasha suddenly found herself throwing herself into her work like never before. She'd always been somewhat of a workaholic, a trait that had only gotten worse in the last year or so since her fame had skyrocketed, but now...now she found herself at the studio all the time. As she parked today and walked inside, she was surprised when she found, of all people, Sharla there, in her workout attire, sitting on a medicine ball and sipping a shake. As Nat entered the room, Sharla wiped at her eyes, and then waved.

"...everything okay? What are you doing here?" Nat asked, pulling her jacket off and tossing it onto the couch.

"Just, you know, trying to come up with routines," Sharla said, "Can't keep doing the same workouts every day. Eventually people catch on. They want variety."

"Pffft, people just don't know what's good for them," Nat said as she sat on the floor beside the medicine ball, "can I ask you a question about your career?"

"Of course."

"Do you do what you do for you, or for the benefit of helping others? I'm not saying it's inherently bad to be selfish, self care is selfish no matter what anyone else might tell you, but do you genuinely believe in and enjoy helping others with what you do? Did you start out doing this for your own health, or?"

Sharla took a long sigh and squinted, clearly thinking hard about her response. After a few minutes, while Natasha looked at her nails while waiting, Sharla finally replied.

"I guess it's a mixture of both. I mean, I wanna stay in shape for myself, obviously, but I also think health is an important thing that a lot of people don't take seriously enough, and I'm all for body positivity, don't get me wrong, I'm happy if people feel comfortable in a body that isn't considered conventionally attractive, but there comes a time when those two reach a very grey area, and some people don't realize that while it's fine to be heavyset, and be happy about it, it can also be unhealthy. And there's no shame in that, either. One's a body type and one's a health crisis. They can co-exist."

Nat nodded, listening intently, pulling her legs to her chest and hugging them.

"But I do think I do a lot of what I do for me, yes," Sharla said, taking another sip of her shake, "and I'd be lying if I said otherwise. Celebrities, even well meaning celebrities, are doing some of what they do because they want recognition. I'll admit it. But it depends on what you do with that celebrity status, not what your original intentions were. You can be the most famous movie star in the world, but as long as you continue to donate money to worthy causes and live within the means of a so called 'ordinary citizen', then nobody can really judge you too harshly. It's when you put the needs of a solid gold pool over the needs of the less fortunate that things become murky."

Nat nodded, taking it in. She thought about Violet. She thought about how she'd put Violets needs behind those of other people in her life. She should've focused more on her daughter, and she could see that now. She just had gotten so caught up in things...

"I'm gonna write a book," Nat said, "Well, I'm gonna get someone to help me ghostwrite a book. I'm gonna set things straight once and for all, and tell people I am not someone to be either envied or imitated."

"That sounds like a smart plan," Sharla said.

"My daughter moved out," Nat said, her voice cracking.

"What?"

"My daughter moved in with her father," Nat said, her eyes watery now.

"Oh honey," Sharla said, reaching down and patting the top of Nat's head, "I'm so sorry. I'm sure she'll come back."

"That's what everyone's told me, and I appreciate the well wishing but...a part of me can't help but feel that I wish people would tell me she might not, and that I should be okay with that too. She's her own person. She has her own feelings. She's not an extension of me, I don't live vicariously through her. I just want her to be happy, and if her happiness comes at the cost of losing my relationship with her, then so be it. Whatever it takes."

Sharla felt her heart break a little, but she couldn't deny how thoughtful she felt that sentiment was. Nat truly just wanted what was best for her daughter, and who could fault her for that? She handed her shake to Nat, who took a sip and commented on how good it was. For someone she never expected to work with, Natasha was pretty fond of the fitness guru who'd wormed her way into her life. Turns out health nuts really do want the best for us, she thought.

                                                                                                 ***

"I have no idea what this is, but it's delicious," Jay said, shoving another piece of sushi in his mouth, "that's the thing about Sushi, if I can't tell what it is, then I can't be disgusted by it can I? Once you tell me something is made of fish anus or something, then I'll be disgusted, but otherwise, it's all just some kind of meat and vegetables wrapped in rice and seaweed."

"Do fishes have butts?" Corrine asked, sitting across the table from him, sipping soup broth from her bowl.

"I don't know, but I intend to never find out, nor taste them," Jay said.

The sound of a chair being pulled out surprised them both, but it was just Nat coming back from the bathroom. She took a long sigh, then cupped her hands on the table and looked down.

"I wanted you both here because I decided to do what you thought was a good idea, Jay. I should get a ghostwriter and release a book, but not just a regular book, I wanna release a book that tells the readers why they should think for themselves and not listen to me or look to me for guidance. A book that pushes them away from me so they can become closer to themselves," Nat said, "thoughts?"

Both Jay and Corrine were sitting there, each about to each a piece of sushi, as they exchanged a glance. Corrine popped her piece in her mouth and chewed, while Jay set his down on his plate and sighed.

"...I...I mean, it's a noble idea, certainly," he said, "but-"

"Could you help me find a ghostwriter?" Nat asked.

"I suppose."

"People need to realize I'm not to one to be idolized or revered or even admired. People need to find the strength in themselves, not in others, certainly not in me. I mean, if I can't even be there for my own daughter, how good can I be for other people?" Nat asked.

That was a question that garnered no response, not that Nat was actually looking for one.

                                                                                                 ***

She was asleep when the doorbell rang.

Nat rolled over, realized she'd fallen asleep on the couch with the TV on mute, and heard the doorbell ring again. She groaned, the finally got up and made her way to the door, stumbling over her shoes. She yanked it open, and was surprised to see, of all people, Courtney standing on her porch.

"Oh," she said, "Hi, come on in. You know Violet's not here, right?"

"I'm aware, I came to see you," Courtney said as she entered, Nat shutting the door behind her.

"Me?"

"Yeah," Courtney said, "Uh...it's about what happened. About Violet. I've been to her dads a few times since she moved in, and...and I don't feel comfortable going there, honestly. The whole dynamic is weird. I mean, you might have already known that, but, I don't know. Anyway, I just wanna say that I think what she did was...maybe not the best idea. I mean, she wasn't wrong in that she felt ignored, but...maybe she left too hastily? As someone whose family was ripped apart, I guess I'm oddly protective of moms."

Natasha smiled warmly. She'd always liked Courtney, and now seeing her here, without her daughter around to influence her attitude, she could truly appreciate Courtney for who she was. Nat sat down on the couch, Courtney sitting beside her, and ran her hands through her hair, exhaling as she did.

"I appreciate that, I do," Nat replied, "but like you said, she wasn't wrong. I did my best but it wasn't enough and it probably wasn't even my best. Trust me though, I know how you feel. Neither of my parents died, but growing up I felt neglected while my sister got more attention than me, and as a result, I looked to other older women to substitute the mom role. Teachers, friends sisters, whatever. Whoever I could stamp that role onto, I would, because I so desperately needed a mom."

Courtney nodded, listening.

"...but the thing is, I wasn't neglectful, and it still wasn't enough. I certainly wasn't intentionally neglectful anyway. Willingly neglectful. I admit that perhaps I was on some level, but it was never on purpose. But maybe that's what hurt more. My mom veered adoration towards my sister, but I veered adoration towards everyone else. If Violet had had a sibling, maybe it'd have been more understanding, but to give that attention to absolute strangers? That had to hurt to watch."

"...I just don't think she realizes how much you care, and caring can become an issue, I guess, but..." Courtney said, "...I'm jealous she has you as a mom, because you care so much about everything and everyone. But Violet isn't me, and I recognize that. Her needs are different than what my needs would be. She's special, and I know that."

Nat nodded in agreement.

"You think your mom would love you now?" Nat asked, "Not to pry or anything, but."

"I think she would, dad said she would. Dad said that I'm braver than even my mom was," Courtney said, "and that she'd have recognized that bravery and respected it. Violet and I are different, that's why we're friends, but we're also different enough from one another for there to be some weird tension sometimes, and I just...I wanted you to know that even if she's mad at you, as she has every right to be, I'm not."

Nat smiled, then pulled Courtney in for a hug. She asked Courtney if she'd like to stay for dinner, and she agreed. They ordered in a pizza and talked about her mom some more, and Nat felt some comfort in knowing that at least she could be some good kind of surrogate mother to someone in need.

                                                                                                ***

Violet was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

The house was eerily quiet and she didn't know what to do with herself. She'd forgotten Topsy, her stuffed giraffe, and she felt sick about it. She needed him. Maybe she'd call her mom tomorrow and ask her to bring him over. She rolled onto her side, facing the window, and could hear her dad and aunt talking in the hall, just far enough away to not be able to make sense of it, but close enough to know that the tone indicated frustration. Everywhere she went, people seemed to be frustrated. She shut her eyes and tried not to cry. She missed her mom so much.

After a little bit, she pulled out her laptop and opened the lid, logging onto the browser and finding her moms website. She watched a few videos, trying to appreciate what she could, but she found it so hard. She was so mad, but she was also mad that she was so mad, and then mad that that madness wouldn't subside. She felt confused, and sick. She wanted to go home, but nowhere felt like home anymore. She began to close the laptop, only to hear a ping sound, indicating she had an e-mail in her inbox. She switched over to her e-mail and noticed it was from Noreen. This lit her up a little. Violet opened the e-mail and read it to herself:

"Heard what happened. I am here for you. You are loved. - Noreen."

Violet then shut the lid and laid back down. She looked down to the side of the bed and noticed the little brown duffel bag she'd packed. She had become her father. She'd also walked out. For different reasons, certainly, but she had done it, and she hated herself for it, and that's what made her angriest of all. She was more mad at herself than she was at her mother, because society had conditioned her to believe her mother was perfect. She was great, no argument there, but perfection was not an attainable trait, and Violet knew that better than anyone. After all, it was something she'd been taught by her mom since the day she'd been born.

People saw a filtered version of Natasha, while Violet saw the real thing, and while the images differed only slightly...

...those alterations made all the difference in opinion.

"I fucked up," Nat said, sitting on the couch in the editing bay with Corrine, who was stuffing herself with a bag of chips while listening to Nat; she continued, "I fucked up in such a way that I'm not sure it can be undone. I always told her that I'd be there to pick her up from school, that she'd never have to ride the bus home, and on the rare occasion when I couldn't be lately, she could get a ride from Courtney, but she also wasn't there today and god dammit I'm a piece of shit."

"What's so bad about riding the school bus?" Corrine asked.

"It's not the school bus proper," Nat replied, "...it...it's a shortbus. The first day we went to that school, she saw it and asked me why there was a different sized bus for other kids, and I told her it was for kids with developmental issues, but I also assured her that she would never have to ride it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those kids as they are, but I also didn't want to decimate her self esteem, and now I've done just that."

"Well," Corrine said, "...that's certainly a fuck up alright. How do you fix something like that?"

"That's the million dollar question," Nat replied.

"So, how did this happen? Where were you that you couldn't make it to school on time?" Corrine asked, crunching her chips, making Natasha sigh. Truth was...she was spending her day shopping, of all things.

                                                                                        ***

"Are you sure you wanna do this? I thought we were keeping it fairly casual," Jay said as he turned over a lamp to look at the price tag on the bottom and grimacing at it before setting it back down and adding, "Not that I'm, ya know, against something more secure, I just...I dunno."

"If I wasn't sure I wouldn't have asked," Nat replied, moving a lampshade in circles to admire the pattern, "I have to move on with my life, and we're good together. We work together, we've known eachother for years, this is the right thing to do. I like you, and I rarely like people romantically."

Jay smirked, appreciating the comment. He couldn't be happier than he was with where his life had gone. He was proud of the work he'd put into getting her website and new show off the ground, seeing the success it had granted her, and even now being her boyfriend. He put his arm around her waist and made her giggle as he pulled her close to him and kissed the side of her head.

"I feel like I never do things for myself, you know?" she asked, "and this is the one time I want to do just that. So long as we're done in the next hour because I have to pick Violet up at school. What do you think about this lamp? I like this. It's old timey, and yet modern. I think it's a nice fit."

"I personally don't have much emotional stake in lighting," Jay said, "Despite being a camera operator. What time is it anyway?"

"Uh," Nat said, checking her watch, "about 1:30. Why?"

"Hungry, looking forward to dinner," Jay said.

"We just had lunch!"

"I'm a man with a big appetite," Jay replied, shrugging, making her laugh again. One thing was for certain, her relationship with Jay was so much easier than it had ever been with her ex. At this point in her life, she'd take easy over effort any way. Nat was tired of putting effort into things that nobody else bothered putting effort into, and she was glad Jay was on the same page as she was. Simplicity was where it was at, really.

                                                                                             ***

"I didn't even know he was moving in," Corrine said, "...can...can he do that, like, while I'm staying with you?"

"Well, he'll be sleeping in my room, with me, in my bed, so," Nat remarked, making Corrine nod.

"Fair. So wait, you were late because you were shopping?"

"I was late because my ex was a cheap son of a bitch," Nat said, though without context this statement only made Corrine all the more befuddled. She sat back and listened. She figured, after a bit, Nat would explain it all, and explain it all she did, boy.

                                                                                                ***

"So long as you don't change my shower curtain, I don't really mind whatever other improvements you make to the house," Nat said, "but that shower curtain covered in sharks stays where it is. Fucking with it is an act of war that will not be taken lightly."

Jay laughed loudly as he ran his hand over a well packaged comforter and shook his head.

"Don't worry, the last thing in the world I wanna do is change anything or upset the natural balance of your life," he said, "though, perhaps a new comforter would be a welcome change if nothing else. Yours is kinda scratchy."

"You leave my comforter out of this," Nat said sternly, but grinning, making Jay smirk.

The thing is...with her ex, Nat had never been able to have a faux combative relationship. It had always been 'perfect', until it wasn't, but the truth was it had never been perfect. If something seems too good to be true, chances were it probably was, and as she learned, this was the case. But this relationship with Jay, it was not only easy, but also fun. They could joke around, they could pretend to be annoyed, they could go shopping together just for the sake of it, not for an actual reason, and that was more than she ever had with her ex husband.

"I suppose a new comforter isn't out of the question," Nat said, sighing, "that one is pretty old, and you're right, it is pretty scratchy. I'm all for upgrading to softness for the foreseeable future."

She stopped, staring at Jay who was looking up at the ceiling of the store, his eyes glued to a stereo, listening intently. She sidled up beside him and watched, crossing her arms, waiting to see what he was doing. After a few minutes, she finally cleared her throat.

"Uh, yo, what's going on?" she asked.

"This is the Matt Reeves show," Jay said.

"Who the hell's Matt Reeves?"

"He's just a journalist, but...but his show is only on at 3pm," Jay said, "...and radio doesn't do reruns, it's not like television. I'm just...confused. What time did you say it was?"

"I told you it was...uh..." Nat said, now staring at her watch on her wrist with confusion, "...is...1:30? It's...still 1:30? That...doesn't seem right, does it?"

"I think your watch is broken," Jay said.

"It's three?!" Nat shouted, "I have to go, I have to...oh jesus no."

With that she turned and rushed out of the store, Jay right behind her.

                                                                                               ***

"You never bought a new watch?" Corrine asked, taking a sip from her soda on the desk as Nat sighed and laid her head back on the arm of the couch.

"I never had a reason to, and I don't even know when this one broke, it was working the other week!" she said, annoyed, "I am so fucking angry. It's not enough that he ruined my marriage, but now he's ruining my relationship with my daughter and he's not even in the goddamned house!"

"Okay sure, but this wasn't intentional," Corrine replied.

"...I guess, but still, I have to blame someone. I...I can't blame myself," Nat said weakly, "...I can't be a bad mom."

"You're not a bad mom, Natty," Corrine said, chuckling, "So you forgot to pick her up one day, what's the big-"

"She moved out," Nat said, knocking the wind out of Corrine, who stared at her, chips falling out of her mouth.

"What?" she asked.

"She moved out," Nat repeated, "...Violet moved in with her father."

                                                                                                ***

"You promised," Violet said, sitting in the living room on the couch, her eyes staring at her hands in her lap, her voice barely a whisper; she sniffled and held back a cry, adding, "...you said the one thing I'd never have to do would be ride the shortbus. They made me ride the shortbus."

"And I'm going to have a very long talk with them about that, but this wasn't my fault, my watch-"

"It's never your fault, is it?" Violet asked, surprising both Jay and her mother with her venomous response; she leaned in, her eyes finally meeting her mothers, her stutter almost nonexistent now as she continued, "it's never your fault. You're always helping someone else. You're always fixing something else somewhere else. It's never about me anymore. I don't care if that sounds selfish, but I want my mom back! Stop trying to be everyone else's mom and be mine for once!"

Natasha felt her heart break in her chest, and the light faded from her eyes. She felt Jay's hand on her shoulder as she sighed and ran her face through her hands, groaning, trying to think of something - anything - to say to her daughter that would make sense, but instead all she came up with was

"...you're right," she answered, "you're absolutely right. For the past year or so, I've been putting you entirely on the backburner, and I sincerely apologize. I put the show ahead of you, my new sister ahead of you, my relationship ahead of you..."

"I mean, I...I want you to be happy, mom," Violet said, "but I don't want that happiness to come at the cost of my own."

Nat and Violet stared at one another for a bit, until Violet finally stood up.

"I'm going to stay with dad for a while," she said softly, before exiting the room. As she headed up the stairs, Natasha couldn't understand how things had come to this. She'd always done her best to be there for her daughter, she tried to be her best friend, her protector, and now she was leaving for the man who had cheated on her with her own sister. She felt sick. Nat looked up at Jay, who wouldn't look at her, despite his hand still being on her shoulder.

"...why do I keep losing the things that should mean the most to me?" she asked quietly, "...and why don't I feel worse about it than I do when it happens?"

Jay didn't really know how to answer that, so he didn't even try.

                                                                                                       ***

"For what it's worth," Corrine said, now seated on the couch as well, with Nat's head resting on her shoulder, "you're a better mom than mine ever was. I just think some parents have a really good relationship with their kids until a certain point, and then things kinda fall apart. It's inevitable. It can't be helped. But I think she'll come back around."

"Do you?" Nat asked, "Do you really think she'll come home?"

"I do," Corrine said, nodding, "She's a good kid, she loves you, just give her some time to cool off and once she sees what living with your sister and her dad is like, she'll wanna come back. Blame the watch, blame your ex husband, blame yourself, but in the end, kids always pull away from their parents in one way or another, and that's nobodies fault. The ones who come back in the end always have the strongest relationship with their folks. You and Violet will reconcile. My parents and I will not."

Nat smiled weakly and squeezed Corrine's hand gently.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"Anytime," Corrine replied.

                                                                                              ***


Standing in Violet's bedroom that night, while she slept over at Courtney's until her dad could make room for her at his place, Natasha took in all the decor and items she owned, taking in who her daughter actually was. For such a long time, her daughter had been a one note descriptor to those who'd asked: "Yes, her name is Violet, she's developmentally disabled." But that was a facet of the personality, not the personality itself. Violet was so much more than that, and Nat always knew this, even if she didn't openly acknowledge it. She didn't like to push Violet to talk about herself, she figured when the time was right, Violet would open up in her own way to her, and a lot of times she did.

But Nat also couldn't deny Violet was right. She'd been taking care of so many other things and people lately, that she'd neglected - albeit unintentionally - her own daughter, and now she hated herself for it. She sat on the bed and looked at the night stand, turning the light on and noticing a charm bracelet they'd put together at the mall for her 8th birthday. She heard the door open and she looked up, surprised to see, of all people, Noreen standing there.

"What are you doing here?" Nat asked, as Noreen entered the room.

"Jay called me and told me to come over," she said, seating herself on the bed beside her sister, "...is everything okay?"

"I think the more accurate question is anything okay," Nat said, "...I never wanted this. I never wanted to be famous, I never even wanted to have a real show...I made the show so she could see there was goodness in the world, you know? People who care about other people. But in the end it seems all I've done is convince her that parents all wind up neglecting their children in one capacity or another. Same as my own parents."

Noreen nodded, listening, looking down at the bedspread and the design of planets and stars, running her hand over the blanket.

"...for the longest time, I was mad that I was adopted, but honestly, it was for the better, and now I can't imagine having had different parents. Violet loves you. She'll come back and-"

"You and Corrine and Jay have all independently said the same thing," Nat said, "saying 'she'll come back', and I have no doubt that that's true, but the problem is that she's not here NOW, and that's what hurts. I have the show, but the show was for her, and without her, what's the point of having the show?"

Noreen nodded, understanding as she ran a hand up and down her sisters back.

"Teenage girls are complicated," she said.

"Everyone is complicated," Nat replied.

                                                                                                   ***

"What's that bus?" Violet asked, pointing at a smaller bus behind the regular school bus the first day of the new school year. Natasha looked behind her and looked at the bus she was pointing at, trying to ascertain exactly what it was she acknowledging.

"Oh. That's...that's a different bus for special needs students."

"Isn't that what the doctor called me?" Violet asked, looking up at her mom, her eyes wide. Natasha smiled and ran her hand down her daughters face.

"You're special, yes," Nat said, "but not like that, and I promise you, you'll never have to ride one of those, okay? I might make and break a lot of promises in life to you, but I'll never let that one lapse, trust me."

Violet smiled and nodded, leaning in and hugging her mom before climbing out of the car and heading inside for her first day at the school. As she watched her daughter head indoors, Nat couldn't help but feel a sense of pride, a sense of pride for the daughter she loved more than anything or anyone else in the world. Every parent thinks their child is special, but Violet actually was.

And not just in the way the medical community considered.

"I want you to have this," Mary said, handing the glass turtle to Corrine as they sat in Corrine's backyard, hidden in the garden by the bushes and trees and flowerbeds. They were sitting on an old marble bench her father had bought just to spruce up the backyard. Corrine took the glass turtle and looked at it, before smiling and looking at Mary.

"I can come see you, right?" she asked, and Mary nodded eagerly.

"Of course! Anytime!" she said, "Plus we have e-mail, phone, we can still be close!"

Corrine smiled again and looked back at the glass turtle. She felt his pain in her chest, like something was attacking her heart. She felt Mary touch her face, and she turned back to face her. Mary leaned in and kissed her, Corrine happily kissing her back, setting the glass turtle down on the bench between them, the girls now kissing passionately. Corrine never made it out to Hawaii, but she could also never forget that last day they had together.

Now, standing on Natasha's porch, glass turtle in her pocket, she wanted to cry. Finally she rang the doorbell, and after a moment the door opened. Violet stood there, and smiled.

"Hello," she said, "I'll get my mom."

"Thank you," Corrine whispered.

Violet went back inside, and after a moment, Natasha was at the door.

"Hey!" she said, cheerfully, "what are you doing here?"

"...I need somewhere to stay," Corrine said.

                                                                                               ***

It had started earlier that day, with Jay and Sharla.

The two had gone to the small studio to set up some new stuff for Sharla's workshop. Walking down the hall, Jay was surprised at how Nat had once acted towards her, because Sharla really wasn't that bad a person. In her yoga pants and her tank top, squirting her water bottle in her mouth, Sharla wouldn't stop talking about the gym she just signed up with.

"I don't think I've ever been part of a gym," Jay said.

"Really? You should do it. Not even for anyone else, just for you. And it's not even about looking good, that's just a fantastic byproduct," she said, making them both laugh a little as she added, "it's about being healthy, you know? My families genetics, especially in the women, were awful. All died young. My mother and her sister are the only two who made it into the later parts of their life, but even now it's getting rough. I refuse to go out like that."

"Like what?" Jay asked, opening the door to the editing station.

"You know, old," Sharla said, making him laugh again.

As he flicked on the lights, Sharla screamed, which in turn made Jay scream, which in turn made Corrine scream. Corrine was sleeping on the couch, clutching a stuffed animal to her chest in her pajamas. After a moment, after everyone had regained their composure, Jay approached the couch.

"Did you sleep here?" Jay asked, before noticing the bags beside the couch, "have you been sleeping here?"

"Please don't get mad," Corrine said, "I...I got kicked out of my dorm."

"What?" Jay asked.

"Why's that?" Sharla asked.

"My parents," Corrine said, "My...my parents stopped paying for my college. I have nowhere to go now. I can't go home. This was the only place I had access to. I'm so sorry, Jay, please don't-"

"I'm not mad, Corrine, I'm not, I'm concerned if anything," Jay said.

"Well, getting a scare is certainly a good way to get that heart rate up," Sharla said, making Jay chuckle.

"I know where you can go," Jay said.

And thus, Corrine wound up on Nat's porch.

                                                                                           ***

"Why'd you get kicked out?" Nat asked as she poured some coffee for Corrine, who was now seated at the table in the kitchen, eating pancakes with Violet, scarfing them down like she hadn't eaten in weeks. Nat took a seat between the two and looked at Corrine as she drank her own coffee. After a bit, Corrine finally pulled away from her plate and took a long sip of coffee before glancing nervously at Nat.

"Uh," she said, "my parents, um...stopped paying for my college. I can't go home either. I'm effectively homeless."

"Why would they do that?" Violet asked.

"Because I was supposed to go to Hawaii this summer to see someone, but," Corrine said, sighing, realizing she had to finally explain what had happened, "when Mary's mom found out, uh, she freaked out. She also has spent the last year or so convincing Mary that she isn't...well...like me. She's been setting her up on date after date with guy after guy, none of them work out from what Mary's emails tell me, but, uh, yeah. That's why I didn't go. Then her mom called my parents and outed me."

"...the fuck," Nat whispered, quickly realizing what she'd said in front of Violet, who giggled.

"Anyway, I don't have anywhere to go. I was sleeping in the studio for a bit, until Jay found me this morning and told me to come here," Corrine said, fighting hard to hold back tears as she bit her lip, "uh...I just...I don't wanna be an inconvenience, you know? I don't...I don't wanna be in your way and-"

Nat stood up and walked to Corrine, pulling her head against her and stroking her hair gently.

"Shhh sweetheart, you're not in the way, okay? You can stay here as long as you need," Nat said, "everything's okay."

Corrine couldn't take it anymore. She wrapped her arms around Natasha's waist and sobbed against her uncontrollably. Nat stayed there and held her as long as she could, all while Violet sat and watched as she ate her breakfast. She loved her mom so much, and she was so happy to know her mom loved everyone else as much as she loved her mom. She'd never seen her mom really be outright mean to anyone, and she wasn't sure she could picture it. Still, something bothered her. Something that she couldn't shake. And that something was the fact that she felt like she related to Corrine more than she should.

                                                                                              ***

"She's lucky," Courtney said as she and Violet sat in a fast food restaurant, splitting a few orders of fries along with their burgers; Courtney chewed a few fries then took a sip of soda and continued, "not a lot of people like that get someone to go to. A lot of them kill themselves. I'm lucky too. My dad loves me unconditionally, and I realize how lucky I am to have that."

"I just don't...I guess I don't, um, really get it," Violet said, "You know? Why they'd care?"

"I don't know. Parents are weird about their kids identities. They see children as, like, an extension of themselves, so if a kid is gay or whatever it makes them wonder if a part of them is, I guess," Courtney said, taking a bite of her burger as Violet nodded, taking it all in, stuffing more fries in her mouth.

Courtney hadn't had lifeguard work today, which Violet was grateful for. She needed someone to bounce this stuff off of who wasn't her mom. And even though she'd already had a big breakfast and didn't need to eat again, nor was she very hungry, she figured this was what teenage girls did. They ate and gossiped. Violet looked around the restaurant at the other kids their age, and sighed, blowing her bangs from her eyes with her breath.

She just couldn't shake this feeling that something was wrong with her. Courtney had made such a big deal about the boy at the pool, and her mother was now dating Jay, and Corrine's parents disowned her for liking another girl. But she didn't feel anything towards anyone, and that confused her. Had she simply not met the right person? No. That wasn't it. She wasn't even remotely interested.

Violet couldn't help but wonder...what was wrong with her?

                                                                                               ***

When Violet got back that night, her mom was at the studio with Sharla and Jay, but Corrine was at the house, unpacking in the guest room. Violet stopped in the hall, looking in. The guest room was right across the hall from her own room, and she figured she should get used to have a neighbor now. She cleared her throat, and Corrine looked up from her seat on the floor, pulling things from her bag and sorting it all.

"Hiya," Corrine said.

"Are you feeling better?" Violet asked, entering and sitting on the floor, cross legged, across from Corrine.

"I guess," Corrine said, shrugging, folding a shirt, "I don't know, it's all so fresh still. I guess I just half expected for my parents to die without ever learning about me, but now I realize how dumb that was to believe."

"Can I...ask you a question?" Violet asked.

"Yeah, of course."

"Um...so my friend started doing lifeguard stuff at the pool this summer, mostly cause there's, uh, this...this boy there that she likes," Violet said, "and um...I guess I just don't, ya know, get it. I mean...I see the other kids in my school, and I know that a lot of them like eachother, but I don't understand why. They're just people, you know? There's...I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"You've never had a crush?" Corrine asked and Violet shook her head; Corrine smiled, "well," she continued, "you could be asexual. There's nothing wrong with that, either. It's a perfectly normal thing many people are. If you've never found anyone attractive or wanted to be close to them, then that's likely what it is. Now, you might meet someone you do like, but the way you'll like them isn't based on physicality. It'll be based on the other far more important aspects of their personality."

"...how did you...how did you know that..."

"Uh, I didn't, hah," Corrine said, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, chuckling, "no, um, I met Mary in high school. We came from different sides of town, so we didn't go the same primary schools, but we went to the same high school because it was both our districts. So, we met on the first day of school and we both just hated everyone else, hah. After a while, she started to hang out with this other girl, and I got REALLY jealous. Like, more jealous than a 'friend' would get, you know? I started comparing myself to this other girl, trying to be cooler than her, and finally when I guess I had made enough of an ass of myself, Mary realized what I was doing. She told me she didn't know I was that way, and I asked her what way, and she laughed because she couldn't believe I was that goddamned dense."

Violet and Corrine started laughing, lifting the mood in the room.

"Yeah, it was embarrassing. Anyway, we decided to go to a school dance together but not, like, together, you know? And then we joined some girls in the bathroom who had pot and after smoking for a little bit we just...kinda went into a stall and started making out, and we spent the rest of high school together like that until she moved," Corrine said, looking at her feet, "...she was what showed me what I was, and maybe that's why this hurts so much. But honestly, I'd give anything to be asexual. To not have that pressure on you. I know that other people who are asexual get a lot of shit from society, as much as anyone else in a minority, but I'd prefer not to want to be with someone like that than wanna be with someone purely because they're hot. Attractiveness makes you make terrible decisions."

Violet giggled and nodded, listening closely.

"You don't think you're..."

"No, I mean, I don't know," Violet said, "I've never really liked anyone, emotionally or otherwise. I just...I guess I just...yeah."

"Well, I'm always available to talk about things if you want," Corrine said, smiling, "Consider me the big sister you never had."

Violet laughed and nodded. She liked that. Violet said goodnight, then stood up and headed for the door. But, as she got there, she stopped, turned back around and walked back to Corrine, who was also now standing up, and hugged her tightly. Corrine looked towards the door, surprised by Violet's affections, only to see Nat standing there, grinning. After the hug broke, and Violet left the room to brush her teeth and get ready for bed, Nat entered the room.

"Wow," Nat said, "she must really like you. She barely hugs me."

"...I don't deserve this," Corrine said, "I don't...deserve your kindness, or charity, or your daughters friendship. I don't-"

"Honey," Nat said, "yes, you do. I'm sorry your parents taught you you didn't, but you do. So Jay is downstairs, and we're gonna order a pizza and stuff, you wanna join us?"

"I'd like that, yeah. I could use some socialization, weird as that sounds," Corrine said, the both of them laughing as they headed out of the room.

                                                                                                ***

"We'll get the coolest place," Mary said one night near in sophomore year, as the two laid in Corrine's backyard looking at the stars; she added, "We'll get like a loft studio apartment and we'll make lots of art and we'll just be totally cool. Everyone will wanna be us."

"I don't even wanna be me, why would anyone else?" Corrine asked, making Mary laugh loudly; Corrine then felt her hand being held and she shut her eyes and relaxed as she continued, "...do you really see that happening? You really see us lasting like that?"

"Of course," Mary said, "I mean, we can go to college here, in town, and then after college we can get good jobs and we won't need our parents and we can do whatever we want. That's the dream, right? I mean, imagine it, we'll go to orchestras and art shows and we'll produce high quality entertainment and our parents will have to see us in the paper and on the news and regret ever being mean to us, but we won't care cause we'll be having sex on hundred dollar bills on our queen size bed."

Corrine burst out laughing, which made Mary laugh too. Corrine's parents were having a date night, which meant they had the house to themselves until late, which meant they had a date night themselves. Mary rolled over and nuzzled her face into Corrine's neck, kissing it lightly, making Corrine moan and blush.

"The future's gonna be great," Mary whispered, "Just wait and see."

In a way, she was right. The future was kinda great. Just not in the ways Corrine had expected. That being said...

...she couldn't deny that she'd trade it all in just to have Mary back, even for one night.

They say you never really get over your first love.

In the last two weeks, Violet had only seen Courtney twice, and this was beginning to bother her. Since getting her apprenticeship at the pool under the lifeguards eye - the one she was hoping to make her boyfriend - Courtney had been extremely busy, but this weekend was dedicated entirely to Violet. Courtney had invited Violet over, and together they decided to go riding on a little trail around her home. It'd been a while since the girls had gone on horseback, so Violet was excited for it.

Bouncing gently along on their saddles, Violet and Courtney were now deep in the forested area surrounding Courtney's house, but neither one had said a word to eachother despite being together for 2 hours now. It was like the break in the friendship had killed any kind of conversation, and Violet didn't know how to handle this sort of thing. This was, unfortunately, a trait she inherited from her mother, who also struggled to say things to those she liked the most.

Like right now, for example, while Violet was off horse riding, Natasha was having lunch with Noreen, trying to scrape together some ideas for the upcoming year. Biting into her sandwich, realizing it had tomatoes when she'd explicitly ordered it without them, Nat groaned and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

"What about a podcast? Everyone does that now," Noreen said.

"That's the thing, if everyone does it, why further saturate the market? Besides, I do video, and I don't wanna make that small of a change for a meager percentage of an audience boost," Nat said, "No, I'd rather stick to what I do. Jay recently suggested I write a book, and, like, I don't do that. I prefer video. There's a reason I chose that medium."

"...how about..." Noreen started, before cutting herself off, almost looking embarrassed.

"How about what? What were you gonna say?" Nat asked, watching Noreen stir her soup around in her bowl.

"I don't know, I was gonna ask how about bringing me on? As, like, a co-host or something. A lot of your show in the last year or so was dedicated to the idea that your life fell apart, so what better way to prove to your viewers that it can be fixed than by showing them outright, you know?" she asked, and Nat nodded slowly.

"That's...not a bad idea, no," Nat said, "and I'd love to have you on. It'd be nice to have a sister I could trust."

Noreen smiled, making Nat smile. The girls had become closer than Nat had ever been with her actual sister she'd grown up with, and that made her feel like sometimes the most genuine relationships come from the least expected places.

                                                                                              ***

"Trail mix is such a weird food," Courtney said, eyeing the bag she was eating out off on her horse, "like, it's got a horrible name first and foremost. Sounds like you're gonna eat twigs and leaves. Ew. But it also is just a real mishmash of stuff. Peanuts and pretzels and raisins. What kind of weirdo came up with this? Some health nut, probably."

"I don't know, I, uh, I like it," Violet said, admiring her own bag, "It's a good variety, you know? Like, um, it's not all the same stuff and it's also not bad for you. It's not exciting, I guess, but it's still good. It's good to have variety..."

As the words left her mouth, her thoughts turned to Courtney and the lifeguard.

"So um...how is your training going?" Violet asked.

"Pretty good," Courtney said, "He's really nice. Since I'm a lifeguard I get to wear trunks if I want, which is nice. You should come and hang out when I'm on duty!"

"Why?"

"I don't know, it'd be fun to have you both around," Courtney said.

"...I'm not fun by myself anymore?" Violet asked, catching Courtney off guard, who stopped her horse and looked at her, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that ever since you got this job, and started having out with this guy, I don't see you," Violet said, sounding genuinely hurt, "we were supposed to spend the summer together, and...and now you're off doing this other thing with this other person. I've never had a friend during the summer. I've spent every summer with my mom. I wanted to spend summer with a friend."

"That's why I'm inviting you, Violet!" Courtney said, half laughing.

"It's not the same!" Violet said loudly, "I...ugh, nevermind, I, uh, I don't know how to explain it."

Violet kicked her horses sides a little and kept going down the trail, a semi confused Courtney not far behind.

                                                                                                  ***

"Did your sister ever act jealous?" Noreen asked as she and Nat walked down the sidewalk in the town, eating an ice cream cone each. Nat shrugged.

"If she did, she didn't show it," she said, "I mean, when I got the show, when I got married, when I got pregnant...she never seemed to let any of it bother her exactly, but she also was never really around either. Maybe that's why. Maybe she was so frustrated at what she didn't have that it hurt her to be around what I did have. I also never offered to bring her into the fold."

"You never wanted to work with her?"

"We're very different people," Natasha said, licking her cone, "like, she's a very private person, and I am not, as the world is well aware now."

This made them both laugh as they sat on a bench outside an old book store. Nat crossed her legs and sighed, taking a bit of her ice cream.

"Truth be told, I never really liked her much. I know that's, like, a horrible thing for a sister to say about their sibling, but she was always selfish and self centered and self absorbed. All the selves she was. She also always acted like she was better than me, when all I ever did was just be myself. I never tried to compete with her or anything, so I don't know where this weirdly combative almost competitive nature came from. I think she had trouble making friends of her own, and finding guys to date, so I think she was sort of jealous, but I never rubbed any of that in her face. I always did my best to be there for her, you know?"

Noreen nodded, listening closely as Nat shrugged.

"I guess in the end you either get along or you don't. I guess we just didn't. We were cordial, polite, but there was always this weird unspoken tension between us. And then when she fucked my husband, well, that just sort of blew everything up. The thing is, I don't even blame her for that anymore. I think I did at first, sort of a 'how could my own flesh and blood do this to me?' situation, but after thinking about how she's been her whole life, I don't blame her for grabbing her happiness where she could, even if it belonged to someone else. I blame Stephen far more, really."

"I never really managed to make friends either, and never really had any interest in romance whatsoever," Noreen said, running a hand through her hair, smiling as she added, "but I guess it shows how alike two people can be in theory and still come out so differently. I'd never have sex with someone elses husband, let alone my sisters. Then again I don't know that I ever want to have sex at all, so. And then, uh, you know, with the friends thing, I guess I...I um...I just kind of like my solitude. Except for you. I like having you be my friend. And by extension your friends, I guess."

Nat chuckled as they sat there and continued eating their cones in the warm welcoming silence of the summer sun, watching people walk by, go in and out of nearby stores. This, really, was all Nat had ever wanted from a sister. Someone to sit with and share things with and just BE with. Thank god for Noreen she thought.

She couldn't have asked for a better replacement.

                                                                                                    ***

"Why are you so grouchy?" Courtney asked, trotting her horse alongside Violets.

"I don't know, I guess I'm just, like, ya know, jealous or something. Um, I never...I never had friends, you know?" she said, "And now this boy is taking you away from me and-"

"Nobody is taking me away from you, Vi!" Courtney said, "You're still my best friend!"

"Then why haven't we spent more time together this summer?!"

"Because I wanna have normal teenage girl experiences," Courtney said sternly, the both of them looking at one another now, their horses completely stopped; Courtney sighed and shook her head, "Like, do you realize how hard it is for me to find people who like me? And I'm not just talking friends. I mean boys. To find boys who actually like me. I know on some level you understand, because you're not like other girls either, but it's very different for me. It's actually very dangerous for me, and I have to be very careful. Someone might hurt me."

Violet stared at Courtney, who was now trying to hold back tears.

"Like," Courtney continued, sniffling, "just once I wanted a boy to like me, you know? I wanted to have a normal teenage girl experience."

"Every experience we have is a normal teenage girl experience because we're normal!" Violet said loudly, surprising Courtney as she added, "who says we're, like, not? Like, uh, I mean just because we don't act the same as other girls or look the same as other girls or think the same as other girls doesn't mean we're not normal too! However you are is normal. Normal is whatever you exist as!"

Courtney smirked, both surprised and proud of this growth Violet was showing.

"I...I know you wanna do things that I don't wanna do, or can't do, but I also miss you," Violet said, "Whenever we're not hanging out, I just spend all my time in my room or with my mom when she's home, and having a friend...that's been a normal teenage girl experience for me."

"...I'm sorry Vi," Courtney said, walking her horse up to Violet's and leaning in, touching her leg, adding, "I'm sorry, I didn't know this was bothering you like this. We should talk about this sort of stuff. You're my best friend, we should be more open about these things. Thank you for bringing it up, albeit somewhat angrily."

Violet laughed, which in turn made Courtney laugh.

"...thanks for inviting me to ride horses," Violet said.

"I like horseback," Courtney said as they continued down the path, "I like sitting on my high horse."

                                                                                                   ***

Natasha was in the kitchen that night when Violet came home. Jay wasn't there, Corrine wasn't there, Noreen didn't even come over for dinner, it was just Nat and Violet. Violet peered into the kitchen to see her mother making something to eat, and she smiled at her daughter upon seeing her.

"Hi honey!" she said, "You hungry?"

"I ate a lot of trail mix and now I feel sick," Violet said, seating herself at the table; she sighed and looked around the kitchen, tossing her bangs from her eyes before asking, "mom, do you think I'm normal? Do you think Courtney is normal? She wants to have normal teenage girl experiences, and I just...I guess I don't understand what she means."

Natasha turned away from the stove, looking at her daughter.

"I think she probably means the typical stuff that's expected from teenagers," she said, "You know, dating, stuff like that. You don't wanna do those things?"

"I don't wanna date anyone, ew," Violet said, making Nat laugh.

Natasha pulled her oven mitt off and walked over to the table, sitting down and reaching in, touching Violet on the face. Violet smiled at the physical attention from her mother and shut her eyes, just enjoying the touch on her skin.

"Did you tell her what I told you? That normal is whatever or whoever you are?" she asked, and Violet nodded, so Nat patted her cheek and added, "That's my girl. Because it's not just some dweeby parentism, it's true. People turned the word 'normal' into an insult at some point, and I'm aiming to teach people that when they're told they're not normal, what they're really being told is they aren't like the person insulting them, and that's a GOOD thing. Don't be like someone who insults others. Be the exact opposite and revel in your own normal."

The oven beeped and Nat got up, walking briskly back to it as Violet got up and hugged her mom from behind, resting her face on her moms back.

"I love you mom," she said.

"I love you too honey," Nat said, smiling, "Dinner's done if you're hungry."

Violet was in fact hungry, so she went upstairs, washed her hands and then came back down for dinner. As they sat there and ate, the first dinner in a while they'd had to themselves, Violet couldn't help but feel good about just having her mom to herself again, even if just for tonight.

"So what did you do today?" she asked.

"You know," Nat said, skewering a piece of broccoli and popping it into her mouth, "normal girl stuff."

Violet smiled.