CHANCE | ✔

19| Callista

Pretty long update because how has it been two months since the last chapter??? Plot points in this chapter. 

Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. 
— Kait Rokowski 

Sphallolalia 
(n.) flirtatious talk that leads nowhere 

August 15, 2023 

Things have started to improve in the past couple of weeks. 

Like the shroud that had enveloped this house has lifted a little bit; like the shroud that had eclipsed the sun has pulled back; like the shroud that covered Mom's body has melded with her skin and given her an ethereal glow that's made the memory of her wistfully evocative. 

It's the nineteenth night in a row that I haven't woken up crying. 

It's the third year in a row I'm spending a birthday without Chance. 

It's the first birthday without Mom. 

I suck in my cheeks, biting down on the flesh. 

It's six in the morning, it's a Tuesday, it's the summer, and it's my birthday. 

I head to my en suite to brush my teeth. 

Under different circumstances, turning eighteen would be a monumental moment in my life. Except the circumstances aren't different, so the affliction dampens the whole celebratory spirit. 

But when I exit my room for a glass of water, I find the hallway littered with purple, red, green, orange, pink, blue, and yellow balloons. 

What— 

I walk into the living room, and the usually bare East wall has been stripped of the surrealistic and miniature canvas painting. In its place is a backdrop of golden streamers and a two-tier cake before it. 

Two candles with the numbers 1 and 8. 

A pressure builds up behind my eyes. An intensifying pressure that stings my eyes with moisture. 

I sniffle, and the sound attracts Carlos' attention, who looks like a fucking fool standing in a pair of black sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt amidst a plethora of blinding colors. 

He's holding a half-inflated golden balloon that's shaped like the number 8, and on the acrylic center table is an inflated golden balloon in the shape of the number 1. 

He looks like a deer caught in three pairs of headlights. 

"Carlos..." I whisper in disbelief. A lump forms in my throat that restricts me from speaking any further. 

"Callista!" he exclaims, eyes wide like he didn't expect me. 

"Happy birthday." 

His words are little more than a shaky whisper with a wide smile, a cautious step of an uncertain man, and my heart twinges again. I can't seem to swallow the stone that's lodged in my throat. 

"I— I didn't think you'd be up so early. And I'm sorry about the whole—" He gestures towards the balloons merrily resting on the floor. "—yeah. I still have to hang them up. I didn't know if you had plans for the evening with your friends, so I got it set up in the morning."