Arsonist's Lullaby (MxM) ✔

II: We can always try superglue

 《 ASPEN GRISWOLD 》

I stared at Phoenix’s smiling face until my eyes grew tired and the shadows shifted along the golden planes and hollows, and thought about how I never promised him I would take care of Rain, Rio and Najwa, or that we would leave him behind.

But Phoenix did promise me he wasn't going to give in to the illness.

I wanted to be angry at him for breaking the promise and still having the audacity to demand things from me. Yet, I wasn't angry at him, how could I be? I was to blame for his current state, and he fought against Gold fever longer than anyone else had ever done; he didn't just give in.

I was the one who failed to save him.

So, what I wanted to do the most was to take my magic and blast myself with it so that no one was going to suffer from it ever again. But I knew what Phoenix wanted, and it wasn't that. He had given me clear instructions of the things he had in mind for us after Gold fever pulled him under. He wanted me to take Najwa, Rain and Rio away from this place, and to keep them safe. 

Everything revolved around Phoenix now that he was gone, making me wonder how someone no longer present could have such presence.

Leaving the cottage would help get literal distance from the memories its rooms held from Phoenix, but I wasn't ready to leave him behind. I had already said goodbye to his mind. His brilliant, dramatic, over-the-top mind. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to his body. Even if it was just a grotesque counterfeit of what he was before.

“We’re running a bit low on ingredients, but it'll have to do.” Rio set a bowl of something that looked like chopped grass and broth on the floor in front of me. To me it made no difference if it were lobsters or grass and water, so I just shrugged. 

Rio perched on the windowsill and carried on with the conversation: “I was thinking about going fishing. I saw some white perches, or maybe they were white basses.. I never remember which one is which.. I'll have to ask Rain, he knows the difference” Rio blinked, realizing they were rambling. “Anyway. I think you should come with me.”

It had been like that for weeks now: Rio brought me food, kept up the conversation on their own and, on rare occasions, dragged Rain and Najwa upstairs to keep me company. 

“If I go..” I started to say, my voice raspy from disuse. Rio's gaze darted to me and their lips parted in surprise. I ignored it, knowing they had reason to doubt my leaving the room for any other reason than to visit the bathroom. “If I go, and if you really want to help me, help me fix this.”

I pulled Phoenix's Walkman from my backpack, handing it to Rio. Their eyes grew even wider, as they realized what they were holding. A lifetime ago, when I tried to take Phoenix out, I broke the cassette player by accident. I have no clue what made me pick it up that day, let alone why I've carried it with me all this time. 

“Well, I'm no expert with these.” Rio let out a breathy chuckle, and fiddled with the silver hair ring they had strung in their white hair. With a long thoughtful look at the Walkman, they handed it back to me and suggested: “But we could always try superglue.”

“Do we have superglue?” I asked, pinching my brows together. 
Whenever I broke something before The After, I bought a new one. The idea of patching holes in my jeans or repairing shattered iPhone screens didn't even cross my mind.

God, Phoenix would have despised me if he had met me back then.

“I think so, yes.” Rio picked up their bowl and gestured for me to do the same. I did, but it was difficult to chew and swallow when everything tasted like sawdust and threatened to come up as soon as it went down. 

I'm still not sure how, but Rio got me to agree to a bath as well. So, after we went fishing, I took a dip in the icy water. It was so cold my breath caught and the nerve endings in my arms sparked, and it was the first time I felt anything else but guilt and pain since the day Phoenix turned into gold. I could feel weeks worth of dirt soaking off my skin and hair, and it was like some of the grief soaked off as well.

“Good news: I no longer smell like a garbage collector.” I told Rio as I towel dried my hair. Rio didn't open their eyes, but a smile spread on their lips as they continued lying on their back at the pond's waterfront. “Bad news: those few perches aren't going to make much of a dinner.”

“Good news: a few perches is better than none.” Rio pointed out, still not opening their eyes.

“Always the optimist.” I grinned as I pulled on a clean shirt. My skin was pebbled from the cold water, and I felt good. Alive. Just for a moment I was able to forget everything else. 

But then, the guilt came back ten times worse; Phoenix hadn't been gone for even three weeks and I was already cracking jokes. I had no right to feel better. It was my fault, all my fault, and I needed Phoenix here to tell me everything was going to be alright. 

“And the bad.. Hey.” Rio’s eyes snapped open when I drew in a shaky breath. The corners of my eyes dampened, but the tears hadn't even fallen to my cheeks before Rio had pulled me into the tightest of hugs. 

The kind of hug they gave to Najwa and Rain at the mall after being separated from them and then finding them again. Also, the kind they gave to Phoenix after finding out he was sick. That only made me cry harder, so much so that I struggled to breathe. 

“I miss him.” I choked out before another big sob tore its way up my throat. There was a time I would have been embarrassed to have an outburst like that, but I had hit my limit the day Phoenix turned into gold. Now there was either this or losing my mind. 

“I know. I miss him too.” Rio's voice cracked in the middle, and they squeezed their skinny arms around me even tighter. They gasped, breathing too fast and loud a few times before letting out a deep breath, forcing themself to calm down. “But it’ll be okay. We’ll make it all okay.”

“How?” I breathed, pressing my eyes shut. The world had ended, Phoenix was gone and there was no way to make it all okay. Just no way.

Rio pushed me to an arm’s length, leveling a blood-shot-eyed gaze at me. They jutted out their chin and told me with emphasis: “We’ll find a way.”

I nodded, because I knew what it looked like to be that close to breaking down and grasping for the last rope to pull you back to the surface. Rio needed to believe it was going to work out just as much as I believed it was never going to be okay again.

“We’ll start with the cassette player.” Rio decided and I nodded again, drying my eyes and standing up. If I ever made it through this, I needed to buy Rio a thank-you fruit basket.

We passed the statues, my eyes everywhere except on them, and settled by the kitchen table with the tube of superglue and Phoenix's Walkman. I was too focused on our task to notice it at first, but while we glued the broken pieces together, Rain had left his spot on the stairs and was standing by the kitchen counter. 

He studied us in silence, until he spotted the perches and began cleaning them for dinner. Najwa joined us in all silence and rustled with the bags of dried herbs, showing some of them to Rain, who grunted either in agreement or disagreement. Rio and I just sat at the kitchen table waiting for the glue to dry.

In an ideal world, that would have been the moment I started to believe we were all going to be okay. Or that it was the turning point after which we spent all the evenings cooking fish fresh from the stream, and found ways to cope and heal. In an ideal world Phoenix would have kept his promise and not turned into gold. 

As it wasn't an ideal world, little changed that evening; Phoenix was gone and we were very much not coping with the loss. But the Walkman worked and Rio was gazing at us over the table, and there was hope mixed with the sorrow in their eyes. That was, if not a start, something.