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" they were not that close growing up, but after certain traumas, they were brought closer together. and he kind of got around to loving his sister too late. " - best bro cassie on cameron and mia's bond
song to listen to: funeral by phoebe bridgers OR everything works out in the end by kodaline OR to build a home by the cinematic orchestra
warnings: grief, nostalgia, mentions of death, mentions of anxiety, descriptions of anxiety
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cameron peters' point of view
"Hey kiddo," I leaned against Jen's doorframe, adjusting the sleeves of my black suit jacket and trying to smile for her, "you ready to come downstairs again? Tatum has the video all cued up."
"Yeah," she smoothed out her black knee-length dress as she stood up and reassured my worries; just for a split second, I could truly see her mother in her. I got tears in my eyes, but didn't let them fall. Not right now-well, not yet, anyways. That's more realistic.
"Are you ready?" Jen's eyes twinkled with laughter as she nudged me, and I started to walk down the stairs, leaving her to follow suit.
"Are you kidding? I mean, me? I'm always ready." I shrugged, and took a deep breath as the both of us walked into the living room.
Robyn, Tatum, Ziggy, Josh, Deena, Sam, Martin, and our beloved Captain Tennille all sat around our living room, which seemed to be smaller than usual. I told myself it was just the nerves fucking around with my mind, and leaned against the arm of the lover's seat-style couch Emily and I had bought about nine years ago now. There was a metaphorical chill in the air, but not for no reason at all. In fact, it was a very good, understandable reason.
Mia's funeral had happened in the early morning of today, and Emily's had happened just two days before. There's some moments that you always know are going to happen one day, but you never think they'd happen so soon, and you never think of the circumstances by which they'd happen so soon. The circumstances in which I lost my wife and my sister are completely unimaginable, and I wouldn't even wish such a thing on Ferris fucking McNulty. It wasn't the sort of thing that was easy to describe, either-no words could accurately describe the type of pain I've been feeling since that night. It was heart-wrenching, and gut-wrenching, and blood-curdling, and there was no logical way to make it feel better. The only way to make these feelings stop was to bring them back, and if I was able to do that, I would be no better than Nick.
"Alrighty," Tatum looked around at all of us, her lips pressed into a line, "are we ready?"
There was not a single verbal response from anybody in that room, because saying 'yes' would be a lie, so we all just did some form of nodding instead. With as much confirmation from us as we could give, Tatum messed around with the tape in the TV until it turned on and began to play. The second the screen flickered, it was like an instant blast to the past. Everybody saw Mia in her favorite white and purple shirt, all the way back in nineteen-seventy-eight. I audibly gasped out of shock, and tried to hold back tears. I remembered this day. She called it the Counsellor Diary, a thing everybody at Camp Nightwing would do.
