He missed half of Hanukkah and now he was missing all of New Year’s. Isaac didn’t really care--New Year’s Eve was always spent at his aunt’s house, listening to his cousins whine as his dad and uncles watched football. He didn’t even like football. But his mother wanted him to be there, and she made it very clear with the flood of text messages she had been sending for the past six hours.
His phone buzzed for the umpteenth time, and he looked down out of impulse.
10:43 Mom: Aunt Mikey made her special grilled cheese sandwiches, the ones with broccoli!
Isaac grimaced.
“It's okay,” Grace said. “I'll be fine. You don't have to stay. I know that your mother really wants you to be with the rest of your family tonight.”
Just as she gave him a warm smile, he got another text.
10:44 Mom: Aren’t those your favorite, dear?
He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Isaac thought of those sandwiches, his cousins’ obnoxious whining, and his uncles’ yelling over some football penalty. For a moment, he felt nostalgic, even guilty. Then he looked up at Grace.
She lay still on the hospital bed, her only movement the slow rising and falling of her chest. Her eyes were open but staring emptily ahead. Tubes and wires popped up from all directions, taped to her face and arms. They seemed uncountable, like all of the hours he spent worrying, like all of the times he found himself caught between rightness and responsibility.
10:47 Isaac: I’m fine at Langley, Mom. :)
“I’m going to stay,” Isaac said. He stuffed his phone into the pocket of his sweatshirt. It buzzed again, and he sighed.
--- --- ---
Kira had been perfectly content up in her room. She had always spent New Year’s Eve up in her room, alone, with the door closed. Kira didn’t care for sitting out in the cold to watch things explode, or staying in a kitchen that reeked of black-eyed peas.
“It’s a Southern tradition, Kira,” her mother once told her.
Well, Kira had thought. It’s also a nasty tradition.
She would have eaten the entire pot of black-eyed peas if it would give her the chance to go back to her room. At this point, however, she figured that was practically impossible. She was the only introvert in the family, and her parents had already told her that they were “concerned,” whatever that was supposed to mean. She wasn’t allowed to go back to her room until after midnight.
She glanced at the clock in the stinky kitchen, ticking away the minutes and seconds to 2055. A whole hour was left. Kira slumped back into her chair.
Here at the kitchen table, in her own home, she felt more out of place than ever. Her parents’ friends were in the kitchen, her brother’s friends were in the living room, and her sister’s friends were outside around the fire pit.
“You need some friends, Kira. The community center has a new teen art program. You should consider it,” her dad once told her.
She had never bothered to give it a second thought.
When her little sister, Eva, came inside, cold, smoky air rushed in and filled the room.
“Mommy, can Jessica and me have hot chocolate?” she asked.
“Um, Jessica and I,” her brother’s friend piped up.
Kira’s mother turned around, handed Eva two packets, and told her to be careful.
“Shut up, Julian. She’s like eight,” her brother said.
“We don’t say ‘shut up,’ John!” Kira’s father called out from the kitchen.
Her brother rolled his eyes.
“Wait, you let your second grader make hot chocolate by herself?” A neighbor asked Kira’s mother.
Roxana just shrugged.
“Eight’s old enough to know better,” Julian mumbled.
“You’re going to be a crappy teacher,” John said.
“We don’t swear, John!”
“Crap isn’t a swear, Dad.”
“No more swearing!”
--- --- ---
His mother’s texts became so relentless over the past half-hour that, after contemplating it for a while, Isaac turned his phone off. He tapped his fingers on the end table, flipped through a health magazine. His eyes darted around the room, from the clock, to the city outside the windows, and finally to Grace.
“Grace?”
“Dr. Rosales says I'm fine,” Grace said. “They’re just keeping me here as a precaution.”
Monitors and power chords and tubes and beeping technical things were everywhere. Shaking, he held Grace’s hand, and much to his relief, it was still warm. It wasn't like he didn't think she'd still be alive; Isaac trusted the doctors, trusted Grace. But the nagging worries inside of him wouldn't let go.
“All of the roads in the county were completely iced over. My mom said that they had lost power for two days in Lansing. Isaac, I know you care about me a l-”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. But your parents did the right thing by trying to keep you home,” she said. “Geez, for such an anxious guy, you were pretty bold a few days ago.”
Isaac smiled sheepishly.
"I didn't want you to spend New Year's alone," he said. "Even if your parents weren't stuck in Lansing, I still would have visited you today. There's no way I couldn't have, especially not after that call I got on Tuesday night. That was literally the scariest moment of my life."
"Isaac, I'm fine. I got to the hospital in time, and now I have a new prescription. Dr. Rosales says that it should reduce the number of seizures and their intensity. If Tuesday hadn't have happened, it may have been a long time before I would get better medicine."
"I know."
Grace squeezed his hand and stared at him.
"Look at me. I'm fine. Everything is fine now."
He nodded after a moment of hesitation.
--- --- ---
Kira had been evicted from her place at the table, courtesy of her mother’s noxious black-eyed peas. She found herself slumped over on the couch, bored to death and half asleep. On the TV, some overrated band was playing some overrated song in New York City. In the living room, her brother was having a lame conversation with his lamer friend.
Fifteen minutes remained. Somehow, she had made it this far on such a lame, overrated holiday.
“And that’s when I told Ian that he needed to understand that we have different perspectives,” Julian said.
“I feel so bad for both of you,” John laughed. “You guys are like night and day.”
“If he could just wrap his mind around the fact that I don’t want to deal with that garbage, then we’d probably get along better,” Julian said.
“Hey, Stripes,” John said.
“What do you want, Johnny?” Kira sneered.
“Don’t call me Johnny,” he said. “I need the remote.”
“Don’t call me Stripes,” she said, throwing the remote at him.
“Does he call you Stripes because of your sweater or your tights?” Julian asked. “Or both?”
In a split second, Kira could feel the blush creeping up her cheeks. She broke out into a nervous sweat.
"I only wear, I mean, I've only worn it once, my striped sweater, once, when we, uh, my family, went to Japan, for Grandma, on vacation. You know, to see Grandma. Last fall, in Japan," the words fell out of her mouth in a jumbled mess. "I mean, my grandma, not your grandma."
Oh my God, she thought. What was that?
"Yeah, I remember seeing a picture from your trip on John's profile," Julian said.
Her face caught on fire.
“She’s always liked stripes,” John said with a shrug.
“Is she okay?” Julian asked.
No.
“Yeah,” John said. “You okay, Kira?”
NO.
“Yes,” she said softly.
Kira’s eyes burned as they filled with tears. She tried to steady her breathing, but it didn’t calm her down. Kira got up from the couch, keeping her back to her brother and Julian, and ran upstairs. Every stair creaked as she stepped on it, but she didn’t care. She never thought she’d make it to midnight anyway.
She ran into her room, shut the door, and sat on her bed before letting the tears fall down her face.
--- --- ---
There were only five minutes left of 2054.
Isaac had his eyes glued to the clock, watching the seconds slip by. He reached into his pocket for his phone, half in guilt and half in curiosity. His finger was on the power button when Grace interrupted his thoughts.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For the flowers and for bringing my quilt. And for staying here with me. You didn’t have to.”
“What?” he said. “What do you mean ‘you didn’t have to’? Did you honestly think I was going to let you spend a major holiday alone in a hospital bed, especially after one of the worst seizures you've ever had?”
Isaac took a deep breath.
“My mother doesn’t get it. She was so upset this morning when I told her I was going downtown to visit you. She kept asking why your parents couldn’t visit you, and I had to explain everything about your parents living in a rural area and the ice storm and road conditions and--”
“Isaac. This is what I meant. You could have just gone to your aunt’s house. I wouldn’t have blamed you,” Grace said.
“You’d think a psychologist would be more sympathetic,” he said. “I know my mom has her quirks and all, but I can’t understand why she dislikes you.”
“I am a bit abrasive,” she said.
“That is true,” Isaac smiled.
“You know, everything’s going to be fine. New year, new medication, new diplomas,” she wiggled her eyebrows at him and started laughing as soon as he did. “So many new things, so many uncountable changes.”
The grin faded from his face.
“Change can be scary,” he said.
“Hey,” Grace said. “No matter what happens, I'll always be right by your side. Okay?”
He nodded and reached over to kiss her forehead.
--- --- ---
There was a soft knock on her bedroom door. She almost didn’t hear it from all of the shouting downstairs.
“What?” Kira yelled.
The door opened, and there stood her mother.
“Go ahead and ground me or whatever. I don't care,” Kira spat. “You knew I wasn't going to make it all the way to midnight, not with all of these people here.”
Roxana closed the door softly and sat on her bed.
Ten!
“I’m not going to punish you,” Roxana said. “I wouldn’t punish you for something like this. I'm so proud of you for trying. I didn't think I'd get you to leave your room.”
Nine!
Kira bit her lip and glared at her mother, trying to ignore the noise from downstairs.
Eight!
“Thanks,” she said. "You can go away now."
Seven!
“I don’t want you to spend another New Year’s alone.”
Six!
"Fine."
Five!
A firework exploded in the distance, lighting up the room in pinks and oranges.
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
“Happy New Year, muffin.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
notes
Hey, everybody! I'm Amy, and you may or may not recognize my name from Laura's comment section on Postcards from Sierra Nova. Reyerstown has been a project of mine for almost two years now, and I finally feel ready to share it. It's not really a prosperity challenge, but more of a neighborhood story. I am always looking to improve my writing and my sim-photography skills, so any constructive criticism is welcome. Thank you so, so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the chapters to come!
Sorry I only just managed to find time to pop over here and read this. Ah, this was great! I love the weaving of the two storylines through the night.
ReplyDeleteGrace and Isaac are sweet, and he really seems to care about her a lot. Her health condition sounds scary, but I hope she's right that the new medication will work for her. Sounds like they have a lot of exciting times ahead of them.
Aw, Kira. What torture, lol! I'm glad her mother understands though. That makes all the difference for a kid with social anxiety.
I look forward to getting to know your characters some more! I hope you keep this up! :D
It's fine, and thank you!
DeleteGrace and Isaac are one of my favorite couples in my game. They definitely have some interesting things in their futures!
Kira doesn't have any friends other than some kids sit near her in school. She's always been very shy and quiet, but she became almost anti-social in middle school. Naturally, this freaked her parents out. Roxana and Eiji (Roxana's husband and Kira's dad) are both very extroverted, so they don't quite understand her that well, but they are trying their best to be patient and supportive. Though she doesn't act like it, Kira really appreciates that.
Thank you so much, and thanks for reading! I'm close to finishing the next update, but writer's block and E3 have gotten in the way. It should be up this weekend, and then updates should be a bit faster.