Work Text:
1991
Carol is eighteen when she decides that she’s going to die soon.
More accurately, that she’s going to end up killing herself, one way or another, so it’s best for everyone if she just comes to terms with it.
The black Casio on her wrist tells her that it’s 2:11AM on a Tuesday. By putting her tongue out, she can still taste a little bit of vomit on the corner of her mouth. The taste of bile seems to be a near constant nowadays, so it doesn’t really bother her as much as it should.
Nothing bothers her much at all.
But as she stares at the pile of vomit painting the concrete next to her, she has about two consecutive realizations:
1) She desperately needs a hit;
2) She’s a fucking idiot.
She’s a stupid fucking idiot who can’t even kill herself right, and that in itself would make her laugh if her throat wasn’t so dry it hurt to even think about. She wants to rip it off, open her trachea, and just let it all spill over her mother’s porch.
Although, she’d probably just ask Carol to clean up after herself afterwards.
A couple of drunks pass by, and she doesn’t have time to be scared or seem tough before they’re gone again, stumbling through the grass, but not before screaming at each other:
“What a way to start the new century, you fucking asshole!”
“It’s not,” his companion lets it escape, barely, through laughter. “It’s not the new fucking century yet, shit! That’s, I don’t know, in ten years! Ten fucking years! Ha!”
“Who the fuck knows where we’ll be by then, dude. Just fucking be happy we’re here at all! To the new century!”
They get too far for her to listen, their shadows becoming barely visible under the shady lampposts. Carol looks down at her wrist again.
1-1-91
TUES
2:15
She blinks. The wooden bench torturing her back seems like the warmest place in the world, begging for her body in a way nothing else can.
Instead, Carol wipes the leftover bile from her lips and starts walking home. Maybe her mother left the porch light on. Probably not. It doesn’t matter. It won’t matter for long.
She just has nowhere else to go tonight.
1998
“Jesus Christ, I fucking hate these songs.”
The DJ, aka Derek's current British boyfriend, or fuckboy, or whatever, keeps on playing the same fucking Robbie Williams songs over and over until Carol seriously considered if jumping off a two-story balcony might be a better start to the year than going to a house party where she knew no one except the host.
Well, almost no one.
“Oh, tell me about it. I still can’t believe they played the censored version of Fairytale of New York. You’d think a bunch of fags wouldn’t be so uptight about being, you know, fags.”
Carol scoffs, taking another sip of her beer, maybe her fourth or her fifth; she can’t remember. Doesn’t matter anyway. Anything that makes her not seem like a fucking nervous wreck around Helen is fine. This is fine.
“You know I love those guys, but they’re just too…”
“Gay?”
Helen barks a laugh at that, and it makes Carol’s heart skip a beat.
“Yeah, they’re too fucking gay! I’m always saying that, but they don’t listen. Like, cool it, people.”
Carol smirks, rolling the bottleneck on her palms. “Yeah, well. Gay people rarely do listen.”
Helen doesn’t say anything for a beat, but Carol tries not to look at her. It’s easier if she doesn’t. She’s always been too much of a visual person, Erica used to say. That Carol didn’t listen unless she had her head between her legs.
So she’s been trying to listen more in the months since Erica fucked off to Cali, or god fucking knows where. Carol doesn’t miss her, really, but the breakup of her semi-official-something relationship got to her ego more than anything. She thought she’d be used to rejection by now, but life has a way of surprising her in more miserable ways than one.
“Hey, pretty guy, look at me.”
Carol whips her head instantly, which should make her more embarrassed than it does, especially combined with the smile on Helen’s face. God bless you, alcohol.
Helen presses her lips together, seemingly hesitant to ask what she wants to, but, “You had a New Year’s kiss yet?”
Carol almost says that, yeah, she did, just to avoid what she knows is about to happen. Just to keep Helen away, at a safe distance, the same way she’s been doing for the past couple months since they started talking. The words are so easy; her heart is begging her to just keep it to her fucking self. Stop, stop, stop.
But maybe it is actually her fifth beer, and the world has kind of reduced itself to Helen, her blue eyes, and nothing else.
There is nothing else.
So, instead, Carol shakes her head. “Not really, no.”
She gulps, and maybe the sight of the woman next to her gives her more courage than the beer itself, because she also says, “Not ever. Actually.”
Helen keeps looking at her in the way she’s been doing for the last few weeks, like Carol is a subject of hers, like she’s someone who’s even remotely fucking interesting in any way. It makes her stomach turn. If Carol wasn’t so in love, it might make her feel sick.
Helen’s smile grows wider.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
And a last one too, Carol thinks, but doesn’t say.
2006
“Get that thing off my face.”
Helen pouts but concedes, bringing the ugly, pissing, ball of hair close to her chest, where it stays, so unlike how it did when Carol tried touching it to protect it from the fireworks outside.
“You’re mean. Don’t be mean to him.”
“Him? You said it was a girl.”
“Well, I got a better look! Turns out male cats also have tits.”
Carol rolls her eyes as Helen caresses the beast on her lap. “This thing tried to kill me earlier.”
Helen gives her a mock exasperated look. “You just tried to pick him up out of nowhere! Didn’t even try talking to him first! He’s a shy boy.”
Carol forcefully shuts her copy of Trace, but the gesture falls flat because she couldn’t get the goddamn hardcover. It makes Helen snicker and Carol huff through her nose.
“This thing cannot speak. It can’t understand you. It’s an animal. Not a person.”
Helen shakes her head stubbornly. “You just don’t get him.”
Carol narrows her eyes, pressing her lips together. “You’re lucky I’m not allergic to it.”
The creature purrs while cuddling onto Helen’s side as her girlfriend pets its ugly head. Carol feels the most ridiculous pang of jealousy, and it just pisses her off more.
You’re 33 and jealous of a fucking cat. Happy fucking New Year.
“Of course, you’re not allergic to it. You two belong together.”
Carol scoffs and settles the book by the nightstand, turning off the lamp by her side of the bed.
“Just get that thing off the bed and go to sleep. I’m going.”
“Well, can’t he—”
“You can’t be serious.”
Helen laughs and settles The Thing She Refuses to Call Joe on the floor, where it meows and escapes through the bedroom door. “You’re going to love him soon enough.”
Carol scoffs at that. “Fat chance. Besides, we’re moving next month. Or did you forget?”
“No, baby, I didn’t.” Helen settles under the covers by her side, and it takes about twenty-five seconds for the annoyance to melt away so Carol cozies up to her side. It’s her girlfriend, anyway.
“So? What are you gonna do with it?”
Helen shrugs underneath Carol’s cheek. “I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.”
Carol rolls her eyes, assuming Helen can just about hear it anyway. “You hate it when I say that.”
Helen starts braiding her fingers through Carol’s hair, which she knows is to help her fall asleep faster. It always works.
“I don’t hate anything about you. Besides, it’s the New Year.” She yawns. “New me, and all that jazz.”
Carol can barely hear her anymore, the Ambien and her girlfriend’s touch having their intended effects. Still, she mumbles, “Hm, well, I like you now.”
She feels rather than hears Helen chuckle.
“I love you now, too. Hey, did you hear Rick Steves has a new radio show?”
2017
Her mother is dead, and Carol feels just about nothing.
There’s still the feeling of an elephant sitting on her chest when she thinks about her, the woman who raised her all on her own, like she was keeping Carol’s damages to herself. A controlled fire.
That could be a poem or help with Lucasia’s backstory if she felt like it. But then again, Carol feels nothing.
“Is that normal?”
Helen throws back what’s left of whiskey in her glass without making a face, and Carol would call her butch if she was in the mood, which she isn’t.
“What is normal?”
Carol is almost too tired to speak, the new medication coupled with the few drinks she had making her groggy enough, even though it’s barely past midnight. Couples and families move around them, taking pictures and having fun. Smiling in a way that never comes easy to her, not even on a day like this.
Not even when her mother is finally six feet under, the way Carol has wished for so many years.
The sudden realization that she’s stuck feeling this way forever has no time to settle because it has always been there.
Helen’s soft, tipsy gaze is waiting on her to say something. Carol feels small and sorry for being born. I’m sorry for being born.
“Nothing.”
She leans in, not without looking quickly around them, and gives her wife a kiss. It’s supposed to be a peck, but Helen lets it linger for a few seconds by holding onto the back of her neck, and Carol allows it because her mother’s dead. Her mother’s dead, and there’s no one watching her anymore.
It doesn’t matter at all.
2026
“Uh, um, bacano. What’s that?”
“It’s cool. Quando something is cool, you know?”
Carol nods, looking at her own tiles forming the word b-a-c-a-n-o. “Cooool. Cool.”
Manousos looks at her with a smirk on his face. “Not like you.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Well, I’d say I’m just about the most bacano person left in el mundo, so,” she raises her palms in defense. “I’d watch out for como hablas comigo.”
Manousos scoffs, then seems to remember something. “What time is it?”
Carol shrugs. “How should I know? Tarde.”
He shakes his head. “Today. New Year, no?
Carol breathes hastily through her nose, swallowing the sudden dryness of her throat. “No sé, is it?”
Manny nods, his lips pressed tight in that way where she can tell he wants to communicate in English faster than he currently can.
Carol almost wants to tell him there is no point. There’s no point to anything anymore, certainly not language itself. But that’d defeat the whole point of their pathetic two-person operation anyway, so she doesn’t. Instead, she asks, “What?”
“Tu teléfono. ¿Dónde está? For the time.”
She sighs, though surprised that the raros didn't replace the batteries on the clocks. “No sé. Somewhere in mi casa. I was—“ she hesitates briefly, nonsensical embarrassment over trying blushing her cheeks. “Yo estaba, uh, trying to aprender algunas palabras, sentences. Solo.”
She plays along with her tiles, looking up when he doesn’t reply immediately. He’s smiling in that Manousos way of his, like he knows something Carol doesn’t. If it comes out as condescending, he doesn’t seem to care.
It pisses her off most of the time, but not so much right now.
“Gracias,” he offers.
Carol nods quickly. “Sure.”
When she goes back home afterwards, the barely charged phone that, frankly, she has little use for other than its camera and translator, tells her that it’s January 1st. A new year.
Carol wonders if it’s her last.