[ kaitlin's table storage ]

I start going to Hollow Grove, often.

It starts because they like to air Theo's tour after lunchtime, plaster his face across the television screens with highlights from his time in the arena. Those blossoms start to follow me into my dreams, fluttering across my vision while I sleep. Pink and purple watercolor, candy floss clouds I dance in until I look down and see I'm standing on a pile of children's bodies. Gone skeletal, blood crusted and turned to dust blown away on a warm breeze.

Hume wouldn't let me come back to work, said that he was worried about me and wanted me to take some time to focus on myself. With Beck gone, the only noise in the apartment anymore are the voices that come from the mandatory viewings on the TV. I'd hadn't left in six days when I'd stumbled out of my apartment, that cursed place that always feels so empty, so quiet, so—

That first hit of fresh autumn air.

It'd felt better than any drug ever had.

Every day since, I'd found myself sitting on a park bench here at some point or another. I ruin the place, slump on my side and drink brown liquor out of a paper bag sometimes, leave cigarette butts behind others.

Today, it's by telling Emi I'm here.

"For God's sake," offhand, I barely consider the words. "I'm fine—"

"God's on the TV and they say celebrations are in order." She holds out her phone to me, shows me the livestream. The High Councillors, announcing some new record low rates for the Rose Plague. "Time to live a little."

"Pass," I try.

"Ugh, Nel," she makes a face, as if looking around for something. Maybe she won't notice the empty bottle under the bench. "I can smell you."

Her and her gaggle of girls she pretends are friends had shown up on roller blades a few minutes earlier, and had brought the rain with them. One of them tipped her head back, letting a raindrop splash on her tongue while Emi took both my hands in hers and pulled me to my feet.

"C'mon, I totally saw some Keepers patrolling earlier. Momma will be so upset if she has to pay off another public intoxication citation of yours."

In terms of options, I can only come up with a few that actually seem viable. Sit here in the rain, right where I was so comfortably just a few moments earlier. You can still see the dry patch on the bench where I'd been protecting it from the rain. This option is not particularly appealing, if mostly because I've run out of booze. Other option, go back home, get drunk there. Alone, with god on the TV. Find a bar where they don't care who I am, get drunk there.

The girls all cheer when I take Emi's hand and go with them.

I try not to grimace around the mouth of the orange-flavored vodka Emi shares. It tastes like her glittering raspberry lipgloss.