What Remains Here

Chapter 12

Today was a fairytale.

Alright, maybe not a fairytale, but there was this energy that flowed through our home, the warm tangerines and goldens of the fireplace bathing the walls in a magic hour glow for the entire day. I guess I was right for once. Things went great today, even if it's not in the ways that I had imagined.

Of course, it's annoying that all magical days have to spring from the most hectic, rushed mornings. Mom and Dad were running around, going overdrive on cleaning up our home, making sure that all our comforters and blankets were folded and that the bathrooms weren't too disgusting. It's weird that Dad was acting like normal again, but no one wanted to test how fragile the seemingly hard shell he was putting on for today.

In the meantime, even before the sun had fully risen, May, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, was barking orders at us. "Neal, Mira. Hurry and set up the rest of the games in Dad's room–where's your sense of urgency–Mom, Dad. I really hope that you guys, like, actually mopped the floor because I don't want everyone to think that we're literally living in filth. It's not a good look. At all."

"Yes ma'am," I said a bit sarcastically to May, and she shot me a withering look.

"Don't give me that attitude today. I'm the boss," she replied. "You should be referring to me as 'boss.'"

"Yes boss," Mira replied, joining in on the fun. "What would you like us to do to further the capitalistic, machine-labor–"

"I have literally no idea what you two are saying. You guys are literally so annoying," May responded, clearly unamused. "Just get the thing done, and hurry. We're leaving to gather fish, in, like, an hour."

"Yes boss," Mira and I said at the same time, giving May a salute that she shrugged off as she went to make sure that each game station was stocked up with enough supplies.

We went to Dad's bedroom to set up the game of shuffleboard and croquet, and while I was placing down the hoops for the croquet balls, Mira asked, "You ready to party like it's the end of the world today?"

"I don't know about that," I said. "Don't think that the world's going to end today, so..."

"Fair enough," Mira said. "God, I'm excited. I've finally got a chance to show everyone what our future could look like, and I'm going to try to pitch some of my bigger ideas while everyone is high on hope. Well, that's if everything goes well."

"What ideas?"

"Oh, you know, just casually creating a diplomacy group for when we meet other communities and planning out an electricity generation project to harness the tides," Mira said with a knowing smile. "It's going to be a piece of cake."

"And I thought I was the crazy one here," I said with a smile. "Whatever happened to smaller things, like mushroom farming or building more greenhouses."

"That's how I'll make those ideas less crazy. When you're bargaining with people like Mom and Dad, it's better to aim for the moon," she said. "Maybe not the moon now. Or maybe I'm just making excuses since I'm just high on hope too."

Before I could respond, the doorbell rang, and when I opened the door, the first thing that I noticed was Caspian's outfit, a red plaid button-up with jeans that looked a bit rough around the edges. He even had the bandana around his neck, crimson red to match with the shirt, and the only thing that he was missing was the distinct cowboy hat. Well, that and the boots with spurs on them, but I made him take off his shoes before walking around inside so it didn't particularly matter.

"You actually dressed up as a cowboy?" I said, still surprised.

"Couldn't resist the urge to dress up," he replied before shivering a bit. "You mind letting me in?"

"Of course," I replied, and he stepped into our home. "You need to borrow a jacket or anything–"

"Naw, Mom or Dad will bring one over soon," he responded before pointing at his outfit. "I didn't bring one because I wanted to show you this. What do you think? Had to borrow the shirt from the Shepards. Think I can pass as the all-American ground beef Texan cowboy?"

I looked down, hoping that that'd hide my blush because it's like he had plucked those words from my wildest thoughts. "I think Wyoming is the one known for cowboys, and you're kinda missing the cowboy hat."

"You got one?"

"Ehh, I think so," I replied. "But it's going to require some imagination."

I dashed down the hallway and to Mom and Dad's closet, where they had stored all the summer clothes, all the cargo shorts and flip-flops and tank tops. On top of the mound of clothes was Mom's floppy straw hat that I quickly grabbed before bounding down the hall, passing May, who took one glance at Caspian and another at the hat before muttering to me, "God. You and Caspian are such weirdos. You've turned him into a dork."

"Whatever," I said back to her as I dodged Mira, who furrowed her eyebrows when she saw the hat, before making my way to Caspian.

"Here you go," I said, and I got so caught up in the rush of finding the hat that instead of handing him the hat, I just flat-out semi-threw, semi-placed the hat on his head messily, causing the brim of the hat to smack into his face.

I grimaced a bit. "Sorry about that."

"No worries," he said, taking off the hat and looking at it. "This isn't a cowboy hat."

"I said you had to use your imagination," I replied. "Anyways, instead of being the 'all American ground beef Texas cowboy,' you can be the 'all American corn-fed, I don't know, Kansas farmer, you know?"

"Alright. I'm liking that," he said, placing the hat on his head, tilting it a bit back, and even though I expected him to look completely ridiculous (I mean, I could never pull that off), but strangely enough, he didn't look too shabby. "Wait a sec, wasn't Superman from Kansas–"

"Don't flatter yourself," I said, and he gave me a friendly shove that I was able to block as I caught a glimpse of May grimacing and Mira winking at me. I shook my head at both of them before resuming packing all the supplies we'd need to carry the fish.

When the sky began glowing a brighter gray and the deep ceruleans of dawn started fading, everyone in our family, except for Dad, who pretended to be busy working on May's balloon game, went down to the ocean. When we reached the tidal zone, we were also joined by Dean and James since both of them were assigned to keep watch of the area around our net to ensure that no one stole anything. Of course, they wouldn't be able to see anything at night, making their efforts to prevent looting pointless since that's when the net is up, but we do whatever makes Mom and Dad happy.

While we were walking down to the net, I scanned the ground for pieces of seaweed and kelp that are attached to small chunks of rock. I'm pretty sure the free-floating seaweed, unattached to a surface, won't be able to grow in the same way that leaves picked from trees will eventually die. But if we got kelp that is attached to stone, giving its roots a stable surface to grip on, then maybe we'll be able to grow them in buckets or something. I mean, I remember in my biology class that seaweed is supposedly the future, so it shouldn't be too hard to grow.

When we reached the net, the first thing that I had noticed (beyond the gaping holes that have been torn into it) was that there was less catch compared to before and a whole lot more junk. Planks of wood, some seemingly freshly splintered while others were dulled and squishy, pierced through tangles of kelp. We spent a significant amount of time just carrying wood and dumping it on the ground so that we could reach the seafood buried within the kelp.

By the end of the trip, we had about a dozen or so fish, a large bucket of sea urchins and starfish, and about one and a half buckets of various shellfish and molluscs. Even though the seafood was glistening and slimy, squishing and squelching as we transported the buckets onto the wagon, I couldn't help but feel a weird pang of hunger despite my reflexive disgust. Because it was smaller than we had expected, we had a couple spare buckets, so I went over to Mom.

"We should collect some of the seaweed," I said, pointing at all the bright green and olive fronds of seaweed scattered on the asphalt street, still moist from the tides. "Like not to directly eat, but maybe we could grow some in the greenhouse."

"Sounds like a good idea," Mom replied. "Why don't you go and pick some up? Make sure it's not rotten though."

"I think we're supposed to only choose ones that are still attached to rocks," I responded. "Like I'm pretty sure the ones just floating around are dead, but I don't really know. Grandma and Grandpa know stuff about seaweed farming, right?"

"I'll ask," Mom said. "But I doubt it, so let's go and experiment to find out."

"I mean, maybe the Johnsons know–"

"We're not going to talk with them about this," Mom replied. "I'm all for building a community, but we need to draw firm lines to ensure that everyone has an essential part, including us. Just do it, and don't worry if the experiment fails. We've still got plenty of time."

But the thing is that we don't have the time, and I think Mom even knew that she was being overly optimistic. Still, we couldn't let that bog down today, so after I had gathered a bunch of promising pieces of kelp clinging to rocks, we set off to our community, where a group of people were clamoring for our arrival. Mom relished the attention and kept waving at everyone, hoping to make as big of a splash as possible.

When we reached the group and put down the buckets, people surged towards it, claiming dibs on the lobster or the shellfish or the relatively spare fish, as the whole situation devolved into chaos. To be honest, I think that we had expected to go door-to-door to hand out food, but funnily enough, this system of distribution was probably more efficient, even if it was more chaotic than it should've been. While everyone was bartering and attempting to make deals to get certain cuts of seafood, the fish obviously being the most in demand, I was able to sneak away while Mom and Mira took charge of sorting out everyone's issues.

The beginning of our carnival was a bit lonely since everyone was too busy cooking at their own homes cooking their signature seafood dishes for Thanksgiving. It was just Caspian, his mom, Dad, May, and me along with Grandma and Grandpa, though Dad and his mom were arguing over the food heating tub since she was worried that it'd be a prime breeding ground for bacteria to which Dad responded that he had eaten tons of food that had supposedly gone bad without getting sick.

"We still good for that game of darts?" Caspian asked as we stared at all the empty games scattered across the living room, trying to ignore the debate between our parents.

"You're probably going to beat me," I replied. "But sure."

"That's what I'm talking about," he responded as we stood about eight or so feet away from the dart board. "Wanna do a couple practice rounds to get warmed up before we do the real deal?"

"We doing a best of three?"

"Whatever you want," he said with a grin. "It doesn't matter. I'll beat you every round. Maybe now's the time to start thinking about a best of one to save yourself–"

"Let's see if you've got the skills to back up your bragging. Or if you're just blowing smoke," Mira said amusedly as she entered the house and butting into the conversation and disrupting Caspian's joking pre-game gloating. "I know my little bro has got this."

"Thanks," I said to Mira before turning to Caspian. "Let's do this."

We spent around five or ten minutes getting ourselves oriented with dart-throwing, and while Caspian threw the darts, focusing on hitting the bullseye, I was devising a strategy that I believed would beat him. Given that we're both amateurs in the game of darts, it's highly unlikely that we'd have any degree of consistency in hitting where we intend. More likely than not, it's going to land somewhere in the general area, and that's where my plan comes in.

The values on the right side of the board are all high-risk, high-reward while the ones on the left side of the board are much more balanced. Because the right side punishes a lack of accuracy, it'd be a much safer bet to aim for the left side of the board, where it'd be possible to rack up a lot of points consistently. And since he was so confident in his skills and was probably going to aim for the high-value points, I had an opening to sneak out a victory.

Just before we were going to begin our best of three, Caspian began doing stretches, the type that you'd do during PE class or before a volleyball tournament, which amused me. "Is this really necessary?"

"Absolutely," he said. "And I'm so sore from moving furniture yesterday. Why do I feel like this was an attempt to sabotage–"

"Well, let's just get this done," I said. "I feel like you're making excuses–"

"I'm just saying," he said with a smile, mock putting his bands up in the air. "Just know that when I win, it'll be all the more satisfying."

"When?" I replied. "You mean if."

And so our match began. And I couldn't have had a more disastrous start when I threw my dart to the left side of the board, only to miserably miss the entire board, the dart clinking against the wall. Luckily for me, Caspian had a near equally disastrous start, his dart landing on the 1 section.

The next two darts landed where I wanted them to, squarely on the left side of the board, but annoyingly enough, they landed in the two lowest values, 8 and 9. As soon as Caspian's second dart struck the 17 at the bottom of the right side of the board, I knew that the game was over, outscored 18-17 without him even using his last dart, a fact that he rubbed in my face.

"Didn't even need to use all three," he jokingly taunted. "I've got this in the bag."

"We'll see about that..." I said.

And I was right. The second game was an absolute massacre for Caspian on paper. I kept with my strategy, aiming at the left side of the board, this time managing to hit the 11 and 16 with my first two darts while missed throws by Caspian only netted him 7 points in total. Even though I missed my last shot, he needed to hit the 20 or bullseye, and just barely missed both of them, the dart, landing on the inner section of the 1, millimeters away from beating me. It was one of those rare so-close-but-so-far moments.

"You got lucky," Caspian said.

"Well, at least I won one round," I replied. "I guess, there goes the three game sweep."

He ignored what I said as his eyes narrowed to focus on the board, throwing the opening dart for round three. And much like the previous round, it was a complete dud. Well, it was even more so a dud because as I had expected, he was going for the riskier options and ended up missing badly, earning a measly one. His second one wasn't much better, landing on the one again. In the meantime, I got extremely lucky, scoring double 16s and a 14, bringing my score up to a formidable 46 to his measly 2.

It ultimately came down to his last dart, which needed to land straight in the bullseye for him to win. I mean, the probability of that happening was next-to-nothing, especially given that he was on a losing streak. But after taking a deep breath, he threw the dart. It zipped through the air, barely arcing, and smacked onto the board, the dart just barely landing on bullseye.

"Hell yeah!" he shouted to celebrate, causing everyone to glance at him.

"I don't know how you can call my round lucky when, you know," I said, pointing at the dart that had just landed on the red circle in the center.

"Nah, it's my slingshotting skills that carried me. And my lucky charm too," he replied, completely not realizing that he had admitted that he had gotten lucky. But I didn't get a chance to point that out when he added, "But for real, cutting all the trash-talking, you fought well. Like, damn, you had me sweating for a couple moments at the end. It must suck that luck just wasn't on your side for the final round."

"Whatever," I said, smiling a bit. "Brag all you want."

"King of darts here," he said, continuing his gloating that was so amusingly obnoxious that I couldn't tell if he was doing it ironically or was actually serious. Probably a bit of both.

Unfortunately for Caspian, his reign was immediately threatened when Dean arrived, his arm wrapped around James' shoulder, though I could barely recognize him since it was the first time that I had seen him without the dark ski-mask covering his face. Although he still had his sunglasses on, I could see his patchy brown beard and a surprisingly shy smile. For some reason, I'd always imagined him scowling.

"My man James here is the real king of darts," Dean said, thumping at James' chest as he blushed a bit. "When we went bar-hopping, he'd go around beating everyone at every bar. Hell, we even made a solid amount of cash on bets and caused our fair share of bar fights."

I think he was joking about that last part because James, his voice stoic and calm even if the sheepish smile betrayed him, responded, "We didn't. I'm rusty too, so–"

"Let's do it then," Caspian replied. "Three darts. One round. No warmup."

That was his fatal mistake because, to be honest, it was the least suspenseful game I've ever seen. James hit two twenties while Caspian, who I think had figured out my strategy but hadn't successfully executed it, ended up with a total of 14 points. He needed a bullseye to win, and James immediately shut that down by smashing the dart into the bullseye as Caspian's attempts to make it a close game failed miserably, the game ending with a whopping 90-17 victory.

"I told you, James is the real king of darts, even when you guys tried cheating," Dean said, slinging his arm around James before looking at him. "Damn, you really showed them no mercy."

"Rematch," Caspian responded, looking at Dean instead. "But I'm challenging you."

"I'll pass," he said as they sauntered off to another game booth. "I only play games that I know I'll win."

"How about a game of ring toss?" Caspian asked, and Dean paused before turning back to Caspian, accepting his challenge.

What came next was this hyper-macho back-and-forth between those two as they attempted to one-up each other while James and I just stood awkwardly on the sides. Honestly, I think the both of us had second-hand embarrassment because I could not tell whether Caspian and Dean were being serious or whether they were jokingly playing up this persona.

After Caspian dealt a particularly harsh verbal blow, Dean looked at James. "Ba– Dude, why aren't you defending me?"

"Let's just get this game done with," James grumbled, ending this bickering, much to my relief, before we geared up for a game of rings.

It was actually surprisingly close, the score going back and forth as Caspian and I managed to keep up with Dean and James. But they missed the toss on their last rings, leaving me and Caspian each with one ring with one of us needing to score the winning point. Luckily, it didn't come down to me as Caspian delivered a perfect toss that sealed the game.

Caspian swore loudly to celebrate and high-fived me before turning to Dean. "Told you that you're going to get demolished."

"Let's get out of here," Dean said and looked at James as he sauntered off, not before flipping Caspian off, a gesture that he gladly repeated right back at Dean.

"You know what?" Caspian said and turned to me. "Between you and me, I'm the king of carnival games."

"How about you try a game that I choose?" I asked, and Caspian confidently grinned, blissfully unaware that I was going to choose a game that I was almost certain he was going to lose.

It's weird how competitive I am when it comes to playing games against Caspian because against most other people, I guess I wouldn't try extremely hard. I guess I'm just a bit worried about just putting too much effort in, but being around him, it's like the same feeling I get when Charles and I competed for the fastest mile times. Even though there were no prizes, only a boost to my barely-in-existence ego, I wanted to win no matter what.

I guided him to Dad's room, just as the Xiaos were leaving, presumably after they had finished a game of croquet, and pointed at the wooden board on the ground, with four pucks laid on each side.

"We're playing shuffleboard," I replied. "And I assume you know the rules–"

"This is like air-hockey, right? But instead of scoring a goal, you just slide the puck down into the score box."

"Yeah, basically. And there's also the option to knock people's pucks out to prevent them from scoring," I said, and he immediately had a devious smile that made me regret emphasizing that part.

I suppose I was being a bit arrogant when I said that I was choosing a game he'd most certainly would lose because I'd only played shuffleboard a couple of times. It was mostly during family-friend trips to Yosemite and Big Sur, where we'd hang out in the main lodge lobby after an afternoon of hiking, just stalling time until we could light campfires to heat up homemade Indian food and cook some smores. But I was great at bocce ball, a sport all about control that I was dominant in during middle school PE class, so I thought that the skill would transfer easily to shuffleboard.

And it certainly did. While we were both practicing and doing warmups, after overshooting it a couple of times, I managed to begin sliding the pucks perfectly into the 2s and 3s section, something Caspian was only able to do periodically. However, I severely underestimated Caspian because while his shots were almost always underdone or just flat-out zipped off the mat, he had killer accuracy, and spent most of the time just knocking my pucks out, much to my annoyance.

Yet, his killed accuracy couldn't save him in the game, where I swept both rounds that we played simply by placing safe, creating blockades with the pucks to protect my pucks in the endzone from being knocked out while watching with pleasure as Caspian, in his attempts to knock my pucks out, only knocked those blockade pucks into the endzone. And the moments where he attempted to actually score instead of just trying to make me lose, he way overshot everything, the pucks sent clattering against the walls.

"Alright, you're too good at this game. Let's settle this, once and for all, with a neutral game," Caspian said as he threw up his hands while giving up. "I've chosen one, you've chosen one, and now–"

"I'll choose the final one," May said, butting into the conversation as she popped into the room. "I'm bored of all these lame games. Time for some real suffering, so I'll finally have some entertainment."

"Please don't be something like a push-up competition–" I was saying before being cut off by Caspian.

"That's a great idea. Let's do a push-up contest–"

"Luckily for you, Neal, we are obviously not doing a push-up competition because I have literally no idea how that would connect with the whole carnival thing I'm going for here," May replied. "Instead, since no one has touched this even though this is literally a genius idea, we're going to be doing a game of apple bobbing. Except with no apples obviously."

She took us to the living room and pointed at a large tub of water, filled with styrofoam balls floating on the surface. When I dipped my fingers in the water, I noticed that it was cool, not freezing cold like I had expected given that May had promised suffering.

I could see that Caspian was grinning because he thought that I was screwed, the nerdy guy supposedly having no chance at the sporty jock in such a physical sport. And to be honest, I was pretty pessimistic about my chances of winning, and I could see May sporting her evil smile as she rigged the game to make sure that I lose. I wanted to ask her, "Where's the family loyalty?"

I could see that she knew what I was thinking because she suppressed her snickers as she explained the rules. "It's simple. There are thirty one 'apples' in the tub, and whoever fishes out the most wins. I don't have to repeat the rules, right?"

"Nope," Caspian replied.

"It's not on a timed thing, right?" I asked. "Like whoever fishes out the most in one minute or three–"

"Do you think I have a stopwatch? Or do you actually expect me to count all the way up to, what is it, like two hundred seconds?" she sarcastically spat out. "Obviously not. It's a fight to the death. That'll be more entertaining. Just remember not to knock each others' teeths out. I don't want to get roasted by my Mom or yours, Caspian."

We kneeled down next to the tub, our hands tied behind our backs with some old silk belts that I had gotten from elementary school martial arts classes. The styrofoam balls bobbed on the surface like buoys on the ocean, and when I looked around, I noticed that Caspian's mom wasn't in sight. I think she'd probably not approve of this activity given how our saliva is mixing in the water and the fact that we're not going to replace the water every time the station is used since water is pretty spare.

Just before the game started, though, Caspian had the same concerns because he asked, "The water here, it's all filtered and boiled, right?"

"Yes. Don't worry. We're not trying to give everyone water poisoning," May replied.

"Great," Caspian said before looking at me. "Any last words?"

"Uh, why would I need last words?" I asked because I didn't really have any response on the top of my head. And for once, my hastily spit out statement was actually good.

"Cocky," Caspian arched his eyebrows and said. "I like this new side of you. It's too bad you're going to lose."

"I guess we'll see about that."

The moment that May shouted for us to start, I dove my face into the water, shuddering at how cold it actually was, as I desperately tried to grab the styrofoam ball with my teeth. It was harder than I had expected, mostly because I couldn't stabilize myself with my hands and had no practice round, but luckily for me, Caspian was struggling too. After a couple more tries, I managed to get a firm grip on my first ball and spit it out next to me at roughly the same time as Caspian. We gave each other a quick glance, both knowing that it was going to be a close game.

While I went into darts and shuffleboard with a strategy, here, there was no discernable strategy. Midway through the game as we got better at fishing out the balls, there was an attempt by Caspain to sabotage me by bumping his body on the tub and sloshing the water with his face. The balls bobbed up and down fairly intensely, making it more difficult to catch for me, but the downside for him was–well, I think it's obvious why he ditched the plan as we reached the closing stretch.

The third to last ball managed to get knocked to my side, so I was able to pick it up easily at the same time that Caspian grabbed the second to last ball. All that was left was a single styrofoam ball bobbing in the center of the tub of water, and from what I could tell from a quick glance, we had approximately the same number of balls on our sides. There was a decent chance that we were tied 15-15 at the moment.

"You ready to get destroyed?"

I didn't even quip back, and instead, just dove my head straight into the water to grab the final ball. I could save the sarcastic retort for later when I won since there's no need to get overconfidence. Unfortunately, I missed the ball, sending it careening towards Caspian's side of the tub, and when I lunged for it with my body, our foreheads ended up bumping lightly as a thought flashed through my mind.

At that moment, I realized that if we're both searching for the same ball with our heads, I guess there's a chance that our lips might meet. And that thought freaked me out because even though it'd be accidental, I didn't want to risk kissing Caspian because that'd just be creepy, especially with all that he's going through. I mean, it'd be less like a kiss and more like a momentary brush of our lips, but still, I don't want to mess anything up.

I pulled my head out of the water, and let him grab the final ball easily. He seemed pretty surprised. "Did you just give me the last ball?"

"I'm pretty sure that I've won already," I said, bringing out the retort that I was supposed to save. "So I guess this is a consolation prize."

"You got me there," he said as he both sat in silence, breathing deeply and leaning our heads over the tub to let the water drip there instead of on the floor while May counted our balls to see who had won.

"And we have–" May began to announce before furrowing her eyebrows and recounting. "I thought I counted it wrong, but, like, apparently Neal won with 17 apples to Caspian's 14."

It took a few moments for that to register since we were both panting and dripping water onto the hardwood floor. Once it did though, all I could muster was a weak fist pump while Caspian seemed genuinely surprised as he stood up and counted the balls for himself.

"I guess the last one didn't matter after all," he said before giving me a fist bump. "Damn, you were ferocious in the water. How did you get so good?"

"I mean, I don't really know, but, like, I wasn't too shabby with super physical sports. My dad made me do martial arts when I was younger," I said. "And, like, I think in seventh grade or something, we had to do a wrestling unit, and I thought I'd be really bad, but I ended up beating a couple of people that I was close with."

"Wrestling, volleyball, and running," he replied. "What sports aren't you good at?"

"Like basketball–I can't get anything to land in a hoop unless I'm standing right under a basket–and baseball too. Also soccer, and I'm not that great at volleyball," I said.

"Well, you should come around sometime to teach me those wrestling moves that you learned if you're such an expert."

I blushed, though there was no hiding from it this time, as I attempted to stammer out a response. "It– I'm– Yeah, uh, totally."

"You need a new shirt?" I quickly followed up right after my practically incoherent response. The top of the white tee that he was wearing underneath the plaid button-up was soaking wet, the translucent cloth clinging to his skin.

"Nah, it's cool," he said and casually took off the tee before I could avert my eyes to avoid blushing too hard or worse, staring at him out of what could only be described as "jealusty." But since this was all sprung up on me so fast, the best that I could do to calm my racing heartbeat was to just look at the areas around Caspian's outline while trying to act normal.

Of course, May didn't even try to have any sense of decency, just gazing right at Caspian as he hung his shirt near the fireplace. And from the quick glances I took, let's just say that everything that I had expected was true, even if he was also looking rough from the lack of food as our bodies continue to break down our muscles for protein. As I was standing up to go to my room to change my shirt, I noticed Mira giving May and I weird looks, and I cursed at myself a bit at that moment because I probably didn't hide my emotions well enough. And if Mira knew, then Caspian would know, and that'll make things too awkward.

While I was walking towards my room to change my shirt, May intercepted me, probably under the guise of checking up on the shuffleboard and croquet.

"God, I wish that he was straight," she said as I groaned on the inside. "It's like the world is literally taunting me right now."

"I feel like that's a bit homophobic–"

"No, it's not," May replied. "I'm not actually going to try and get with him to, like, de-gayify him or whatever. Now that would be homophobic. I'm just saying that I can't help the way I feel. Like having that ferris wheel moment–obviously not with a real ferris wheel–or that prom dance floor moment would make this event more perfect than it is."

"More perfect?"

"What? Do you have any issues?" May asked aggressively. "That's exactly what I thought."

"No, I think everything's going fine," I said. "You're doing a much better job of event-planning than when I tried planning an event for leadership in seventh grade. Literally no one attended, and the whole event flopped pretty–"

"Okay, I get it. I'm amazing," she said. "But, like, I wish we could do this more. Why can't we be in a zombie apocalypse or something, where we can actually grow food and gather fish and actually have a chance of getting power with solar panels instead of just slowly starving to death here?"

"I mean, this beats just randomly dying one day if you aren't paying attention," I responded. "At least, when you're dying slowly, not like we are, but you can at least prepare."

"Well, I'm not prepared to die just yet," she replied. "Because I have literally so many ideas for stuff to do for Christmas. Caspian and I brainstormed a bunch more stuff that just needed more time to be set up since we literally did this whole thing in two days, so, like, I'm super prepared."

"What ideas?"

She groaned. "How many times do I have to tell you? Sharing friends doesn't mean that you get to know everything that me and Caspian talk about. Not like that matters anyways since he's flirting hard with you."

"No he isn't."

"Umm, that wrestling comment?" May replied. "Even I know that wrestling is literally the gayest sport in existence–"

"I don't know. That was just a really jock-y thing to say, you know, or I think it is. I'm not too sure," I said, leaning against the wall, my hand on my neck. "Either way, I'm pretty sure It literally doesn't mean anything."

"It wouldn't mean anything if you actually told him that you're–"

"We're not going to have this conversation again," I said. "Just know that he's not looking for a relationship. Trust me on that."

"Okay. What is it? Spill the tea."

"No," I said, crossing my arms. "Didn't you say something about not mixing up friendships?"

"You're so annoying," she said and then looked down the hallway. "You know what else is annoying. The fact that I have to keep going around and micro-managing all these games because people keep moving things around and not putting things back."

"Good luck with that," I said as she began walking to Dad's bedroom. "You're doing great work."

"Thanks. At least someone appreciates all the work that I'm doing," she said, and then paused her walking before looking back at me. "Wait a sec, why am I doing the busy work? I'm the boss here. Go make sure that all the croquet stuff is there and that the pucks are placed nicely next to–"

"Sorry. Can't hear you," I said, dashing out of the hallway before I got assigned to do a bunch of busy work.

When I rushed back to the living room, I noticed that Caspian was sitting down on a stool, chatting with Mrs. Xiao. As soon as he noticed me, he motioned for me to come to him. "C'mon here. Mrs. Xiao's going to be doing the portrait of both of us."

"Why didn't you get started?" I asked.

"Because it's depressing to get the picture done by myself. It's too lonely. I wanted to do it with you," he replied with a smile while patting the seat next to him. "C'mon, get over here."

"Alright," I said, sitting on the stool next to him as he turned towards me.

"Oh, wait. Before I forget," he said and lifted the straw hat from his head onto mine. "Here's the crown for the king of carnival games. You want me to... kneel down–"

I groaned at his cheesy pun about my name, though I felt this pang of sadness because it's a joke that Charles had made hundreds of times. I guess it just felt a bit weird to see such a blatant overlap since Caspian and Charles are so different. Well, outside of their affinity to making bad puns, but at that moment, I wished that Charles were here with Caspian and I, the three of us bunched up, trying our best to sit still and not laugh.

After I re-adjusted the hat so that the floppy brim wasn't covering my eyes, Caspian put his arm around my shoulder so that we weren't just awkwardly sitting next to each other with our hands by our sides. I guess I panicked a bit because I didn't want to just have my hand by my side, so I just put it around his waist instead of his shoulder like any rational person would do. Once my fingers touched his waist, I knew that I couldn't take it back, though I don't think he minded because he stared straight ahead. I think I was just overthinking.

"Do we need to smile the entire time?" Caspian said, his megawatt smile a bit dimmed by the fact that he was gritting his teeth from smiling at full power for an entire minute.

"Of course," Mrs. Xiao said while furrowing her eyebrows before bursting into laughter. "I was just kidding. Just make sure that you try not to move much. That includes tilting your head."

"Neal," Caspian replied, trying to not tilt his head. "Mrs. Xiao and I were just talking about where she learned to draw–"

"Yeah, she told me a while back. Amusement park work," I said before directing my question to Mrs. Xiao. "How are the colored pencils? I'm not super sure if they're–"

"They're very nice. A lot nicer than the ones that I had to work with, my cheapskate manager striking again," Mrs. Xiao replied as she furiously sketched our outlines. "Apologies if I'm a bit rusty. I'm fairly certain I got my bad portrait of the day out with my absolutely horrific caricature portrait of my husband–"

"Oh, c'mon, you can't just tease us like that and not show us the portrait."

"I'll show it later. Don't want you two laughing and unable to sit still," Mrs. Xiao said.

"Then at least give us the most memorable experience you had working at the amusement park," Caspian replied.

"Hmm," she said as she squinted as her strokes began getting smoother and more focused. "I've certainly had memorable drawing experiences, but I'm too sure if they're particularly interesting, just the usual entitled customers, crying toddlers, complicated tattoos. The most interesting and memorable moments happened after work: stealing extra beer from the stores, sneaking into the water park after it closes to watch the firework shows at night–"

"Wait, what?" Caspian said. "You can't just brush past all that without giving us more details."

"I did all that when I was a crazy teenager. That was over a decade ago. Now, I'm a responsible adult," she said, and Caspian narrowed his eyes before giving her a skeptical look as she laughed a bit. "Okay. I know that makes it sound like I'm trying to convince myself that I'm a responsible adult, but I've just remembered one moment where I had to draw a parrot caricature because this man brought a parrot to the park."

"A parrot?"

"Yeah, a parrot," she said. "And he wanted a portrait of her done. Said that he would pay extra for it because it's a fairly unusual request. I thought he was weird, but he was actually fairly nice. Honestly, the hardest part of it was making sure the parrot stayed still long enough that I got a good sketch."

"That's cool," Caspian said. "Now give us one of those crazy stories–"

Mrs. Xiao smiled and brushed off his request. "These stories are too crazy, and I don't want you two remembering me based on the mistakes that I made when I was your age. All of that feels like it was from a different life, and trust me, I'm not as reckless as I used to be now that I've got bigger things to worry about."

"That's fair," Caspian replied. "But I just wanted to let you know that I don't think of you like that, so can we just get a little more just so that we can live vicariously–"

"Thanks, but I'm sticking with a no, at least for now," she said, putting down her pencil. "It's tempting to live through others' experiences so that you'll be able to get a glimpse of what life was like when you could mess up and be reckless, and maybe I'm not the one to lecture you two about it since that was my life, but I've been thinking about this for Adrian. What he'll go through will be radically different from either one of our childhoods, and that's something I still need to fully accept. What I'm getting at is that to live vicariously is to live in perpetual regret. Given what we're experiencing now, I don't want any of us to wallow in regret for the rest of our lives. Don't worry. You're young. Even in times like these, you're going to do some crazy things. Trust me on that."

"Now, I need you two to stay still and smile for a couple of minutes," she said. "So that I can get the finishing touches for your faces."

While we plastered smiles on our faces, the adults began streaming in, carrying pots filled with stew and plates of boiled sea urchin or charred fish and placing them into the heating box before heading off to the games. The carnival, whose silence was only punctuated by brief conversations in the beginning, blossomed to life as the sounds of bowling pins clanging, exclamations of "So close!" or "Yes!", and plastic rings rattling filled the room.

"Alright, you're all good to go," she said as she pulled out the set of colored pencils and began coloring in the rest of the drawing. "It'll take me about ten minutes to finish this. Twenty extra to add extra details, like backgrounding, if that's alright with you guys."

"Of course," Caspian said, hopping off the stool before facing me. "You wanna go play something else, just for fun?"

"Yeah sure," I said as we began to wander around the living room, picking up metal bottles that had been scattered across the floor by a particularly hard throw by Mr. Shepard or, in Caspian's case, cheering on the Johnsons playing bean bag toss. Most of the games that we hadn't tried yet were busy, so we ended up just standing around the ring toss station, aimlessly throwing them.

"Actually, I have an idea," Caspian said. "What if I bring my volleyball over and we make home kind of hoops game, like the ones in the arcade–"

At that moment, I remembered what Caspian's mom said, that Caspian is diving too deep into all the activities he used to do and is at risk of falling into the same state of depression as his dad. And I really didn't want anything to happen to him, especially when everything was going right today, even though nothing particularly bad happened when we played volleyball together. But I feel like his family knows him better since I've only known him for just under two months and haven't fully seen the side of him that he keeps from everyone. So I decided to trust her judgment.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I said before lying about a reason. "It's just that May might get mad at us because, like, she's worked really hard on the carnival thing, and I just don't want to mess up anything, you know."

"Alright, alright," he said, backing off, and I wished that his mom didn't have to burden me with this because I knew that I had way overreacted. "Don't sweat it. You obviously seem worried–"

"May can be really scary sometimes," I said, trying to play off my response as a joke, though I wasn't exactly sure successful I was.

"Maybe next time," he replied.

"Like Christmas or New Year's or something," I responded. "I don't know. We can figure that out maybe–"

"It's really alright," he said. "You don't need to apologize. It's cool. We can play volleyball basketball some other time, and I'll finally beat you."

"You guys busy?" Mira asked, bursting into our conversation. "I was thinking about getting May and having the four of us play a game of bowling. Dean and James are finally done with their game."

"Let's do it," Caspian said, his smile returning.

"But before we go, why were you wearing my mom's floppy hat?" Mira asked Caspian before turning to me. "And why are you wearing her hat now?"

Caspian and I both looked at each other before I said, "It's a long story."

"It's really not," May said, interrupting our conversation as she was probably heading to the ring-toss station since I could tell that the blue and red rings had been mixed up. "They did a carnival competition. Winner takes the hat, for some weird reason."

"It's more complicated than that," I replied. "Anyway, Mira wants us to play a game of bowling, family bonding, you know."

"Gross. I think I'll pass," she said. "As you can see, I'm way too busy to do this thing called having fun."

"C'mon, it'll be legitimately fun," Caspian said, stepping forwards. "Don't you wanna team up to beat your brother and sister?"

May thought about it for a moment, though, given the fact that Caspian had asked, I already knew the answer. "Okay, fine. But we're teaming up because I want to win. I don't have time to deal with losers."

I guess she was right because man was I terrible at bowling, though I swore that I never used to be this terrible, and Mira ended up having to carry me. Same with Caspian, where despite May's attempts to ruthlessly bowl strikes, her ball would clatter on the sides, forcing him to do the bulk of the scoring. Still, they barely edged out a victory when Caspian got two strikes in a row to take the lead at the very last moment.

"Take an L," May said, making a hand gesture at Mira and I.

"Guess what? Two Ls make a W," Mira said, crossing her fingers. "So we're the real winners here."

"That's not how it works," May said. "I'm ready to win a second round."

"I think it's fair to do a team swap," Mira said with a smile as May protested. "Old people vs. young people. Caspian, you ready to beat May and Neal up?"

"I've been waiting all day for this moment," he said as he fist-bumped Mira. "Time to get destroyed."

"This literally isn't fair," May replied.

"Life's unfair," Mira said as she began the game by bowling a strike, sending the bowling clattering everywhere. To say that the game got only worse from that point on would be an understatement. Let's just say that the game could only be described as complete and utter carnage. At the end of the game, Mira and Caspian both high-fived each other while May and I stood on the sidelines, too ashamed to even look at our final score (which I will not be mentioning).

"How'd you get so good at bowling?" Caspian asked.

"We had a bowling place right next to our college, only a five or so minute walk away," Mira said. "So my boy– husband, Leon, and I and all our friends used to go there all the time. There's no better way to destress after midterms than a bucket of greasy fries, unlimited soda, and a pair of bowling shoes. Leon, well, he was too shy to admit it, but he was a bowling fanatic. Too many sports magazines poisoned his mind."

"That's exactly what my boyfriend was like too," Caspian replied. "And the first time that we went bowling, I thought I had to take it easy because I didn't want to embarrass him since he didn't seem like the bowling-type. But then he blew me out of the water on the first game, just no shame at all with going all-out. He's lucky that he did that with me."

"Was it as bad as us destroying Neal and May?" Mira asked.

"Naw, at least I put up a fight," Caspian replied with a smile. "Just kidding. I bowled almost every one into the gutter that first game. You two got saved by the walls."

"I didn't want to disturb your game," Mrs. Xiao said before handing Caspian the caricature portrait. "But I finished and added all the extra details. So what do you think?"

Honestly, I was pretty amazed. The portrait really did capture his smile, toothy and front and center for his character, while mine naturally got my black glasses prioritized in my caricature but none of my prominent acne scars, which I was grateful for. I even got a golden crown on my head instead of the straw hat. She also captured how his arm was around my shoulder, pulling me close, while also taking more creative liberties, like having our two characters leaning into each other. Actually, thinking about it, maybe that was how it was, and I guess I'm a bit embarrassed.

The entire thing was filled in with vibrant colors, like the bright crimsons of his button up or his vivid cerulean eyes that almost appeared to glow under candlelight. But the colors on the caricature didn't compare to how intricately detailed the background was, and I finally understood why it took her so long. She had drawn pink and purple cherry blossoms on the corners of the picture, with petals falling behind our characters, illuminated with a backdrop of a blazing sunrise, colored with a carefully shaded gradient of ruby and amber.

"This is really great," I replied while Caspian stared at the picture for a couple moments longer, completely enamored.

"I mean, wow. Damn, this is really cool," Caspian said. "You didn't need to put all this effort in. I mean, look at all these details–"

"Trust me, doing this was no bother. It feels so good to finally draw again. It's been forever since I've last drawn one of these," she said before pulling out a piece of paper from underneath her drawing pad and showing it to us. "Here's the one I did for my husband, for reference. It's a miracle that it ended up being much better. I suppose the second time's a charm."

To be honest, we were all confused because her caricature of her husband was pretty good, the black and white outline capturing and exaggerating his facial features fairly well. Caspian finally broke the silence, "What are you saying? This is amazing. This is way better than I could ever draw. I'm serious."

"Is it? Maybe I'm being over-critical. It's a bad habit of mine."

"You two look really cute together," Mira said as I pretended to scoff while looking at Caspian's reaction to that statement. To be honest, with the flickering light from the fire in the background, I couldn't tell if he was blushing or just not reacting to what she had said because he kept his grin. "Not going to lie, with the cherry blossoms and sunrise, it looks romantic."

"Romantic?" Caspian said with his eyebrows raised before looking at me and playfully asking, "Are you in love with me?"

"Ha ha ha," I deadpanned, even as my heart was beating so hard that the palpitations would probably be visible if I weren't wearing a shirt, and turned to Mrs. Xiao. "I guess I'm a bit curious about the cherry blossoms."

"It's hard to explain, but it just felt like the right accessory," she said. "I suppose this entire picture is a reminder of what's to come if we stick it out together."

And even though it was vague, I understood what she meant. The possibility of making it to a real spring sometime in the future, where the coralline and pearly white flowers would burst from bare tree branches, and the possibility of finally waking up one day and seeing the sun, it's all captured here. And when she said "entire picture," I think she was talking about more than just the cherry blossoms and sunrise (maybe that's why she drew us leaning against each other), though that could just be my overactive imagination.

Mira ended up getting her caricature portrait done next while Caspian and I wandered around, passing the drawing between each others' hands, as we tried to figure out what to do next.

"Where do you think we should put it?" he asked. "I just realized that there's no way to split the photo in half."

"You want to hang it up next to the Dream," I said, and he looked a bit confused. "Oh, it's what we call our whiteboard of ideas that we've got hung up. I can show you."

"Mushroom farming? Smokehouse? Radio tower?" he commented when arrived at the whiteboard as he gazed at the multicolored scribblings.

"Yeah, it's pretty crazy stuff, but I guess that's why we call this the Dream because it's everything that we're slowly working towards, one day at a time."

I guess I took a tiny nub of tape and pasted the picture of both of us right next to the board, the bottom of the paper fluttering from the warmth of the fire. I thought he was going to say something, but he only continued to scan the board with his eyes, so we descended into silence.

"Man, this is probably the craziest dream we've got up here," I said, trying to defuse the awkwardness. "Like the dream of a real spring."

"Or even just seeing the sun again," he said and looked at me. For a moment, I thought that Caspian wanted me to say what I was thinking of, what Mira commented on. But I know that that isn't the truth.

"Or just valuing art in general like we used to," I said, deflecting, and he almost seemed disappointed, though that just might be my imagination. "I mean, how many cans of soup would you trade for the Mona Lisa?"

"A lot," he said. "Who cares if it's the ending of the world? It's the Mona Lisa."

"Okay, fine. I guess that was a pretty terrible example," I replied.

"Do you–" Caspian was saying after a brief lull in our conversation before he got interrupted by his dad, who was probably waiting for that moment of quiet to speak up.

"Hey, son," Caspian's dad said to him. "You want to knock down the bottles. I've been warming up my pitching arm for this."

"Yeah, Dad. You sure you've still got this magic?" Caspian said, fairly excited, and I stepped into the background to let them talk with each other. Even though they were talking about something seemingly innocuous in public, I knew that baseball was more than just a sport, so I gave them a bit of privacy.

"Never faded," he replied. "My throwing arm feels good today, and it feels great to finally do something with my twenty years of baseball experience."

"Oh, c'mon Dad. No need to flex your baseball skills. You always talked about them with–" Caspian said, pausing suddenly as the shimmer of his smile faded more a moment, replaced with a bit of fear.

"With Gabe," his dad said, finishing Caspian's sentence, and although his dad seemed fine, not heading into the depressive state that both he and his mom have hinted at, I think that Caspian didn't want to continue down that road because he rapidly changed the subject.

"Neal, you want to join us?" Caspian said before turning to his dad. "Did you know that Neal used to play baseball?"

"That was when I was in, like, third-grade, and I was no good," I replied. "Anyways, I think I've got to go check on the greenhouse to make sure that everything is still warm, so, like, have fun with your game."

"Wait, before you leave, I just wanted to thank you for convincing your parents to go with my plan," he said and raised a hand at me to stop me from downplaying whatever role I had in this. "You don't need to put yourself down. It's still a bad habit that I have to break, but I saw how skeptical your parents were, and I'm just happy that you fought for this."

"It's really not a big deal," I responded, blushing a bit.

"Are you kidding me? It's a huge deal," Caspian said. "Now we've got maple–"

"It's sycamore–"

"Sycamore syrup for at least the next couple of months," he replied. "Finally, something to go with acorn pancakes, whenever we find the next stash of acorns. But really, thanks a bunch for doing this."

"It's really no problem," I said before shuffling away as fast as I could before my face could get any redder as I entered the humid, somewhat warm greenhouse, taking a breather in the relative silence and privacy that it offered. The heated pots of water were barely lukewarm, drifting precariously close to being cool to the touch, so I quickly rushed to the fireplace to get replacement pots. I guess I had been a little careless having fun instead of making sure that none of the plants had gotten frostbitten.

Between the rounds of just replacing the pots of water, I grabbed the bowl of mung beans that I was sprouting and gave them to Grandma and Grandpa, who planned to lightly steam them and make some sort of rice vinegar salad with it. On my last round, I noticed that the Johnsons had wandered into the greenhouse, staring at the rows of plants stacked onto the shelves getting lusher and greener every week.

"This truly is splendid," Mrs. Johnson said to me as I squeezed past them to replace the last pot of boiling water, just barely avoiding singing myself. "It's really a marvel that has been blessed to us."

"Oh, uh, thanks," I replied.

"How have things been going with our harvested plants?" Mr. Johnson replied. "I understand that not all plants can be grown from root, but have we seen any successes?"

"I haven't really gotten to it just because we don't have a lot of space, and I'm honestly not sure what conditions these plants prefer or, like, what their uses are," I responded. "I don't want to mess up the roots and your hard work because I know that these are rare."

"Of course, we can re-label them," Mrs. Johnson said. "I'd imagine it'd be confusing for someone who hasn't had as much experience foraging."

"Perhaps, and I hope I'm not being too bold, it might be useful for us to expand the greenhouse operation," Mr. Johnson. "We want to help, and with your family's expertise in agriculture, you could help my wife and I set up our own operation, teach us all the basics. There's the reason our Creator brought us to a family with these skills because we're destined to build bigger."

"I don't know. I'll have to talk with my parents about it, you know," I said with an uncomfortable shrug, though I knew that they were right because with their wealth of foraging and herbal knowledge, we could begin to utilize wild plants that might be a bit more hardy and survive the brutal winter.

"Well, I hope that you have a blessed day. We'll be sure to hand you the relabeled plants in a couple of days," Mrs. Johnson said as they grabbed the bag of wild seeds and left the greenhouse as I stayed behind the greenhouse, listening to the muffled clattering of metal bottles as I took a quick peek to see how Caspian and his dad's game was going. Turns out that his dad really had the touch, his balls whizzing through the air before cleanly knocking down the bottles, and his mom had even joined the game after sitting out for the bulk of the festivities.

After a while, where I spent checking the pots for any weeds that may have hitchhiked in the soil, I exited the greenhouse, only for Dad to approach me, bean bags in his hands. "Do you want to play a game of bean bag toss with me and your mom? We're saving a spot for you since Mira and May are both busy."

"Uh, sure?" I replied, looking around and seeing that Mira and May were really not there for backup, but Caspian was sitting down and not doing much. "Caspian, I guess, would you be interested in joining?"

"Obviously," he said, reaching out a hand that I used to pull him up from the mattress, a task that took more effort than I had expected, and as all of us walked towards the bean bag station, he asked, "What are the rules?"

"First team to get twenty through the hole wins," Dad said as he lined up about fifteen or so feet away from the target with Mom lining up behind him. "You two want to do adults vs kids?"

"You wanna pair up?" I asked Caspian.

"Why else would I agree to play?" he responded. "Let's go beat up your parents."

"Hey, we're getting a head start to make it fair," Mom said.

"Sure," I said and then looked at Caspian. "Are you alright with that?"

"For sure. It'll make our win more satisfying."

"Don't get so overconfident," Dad said. "I've been doing a lot of practice with the bean bags, and my wife and I, we're here to win."

"Are you sure that you aren't just going to make that excuse where you say that you just went easy on us?" I asked, hoping to box him and Mom into a bit of a corner.

"I can't promise that," Dad replied. "My main priority is for you kids to have fun, and if it's more fun to have you two beat me badly, then that's what's going to happen."

I groaned because of course, Dad would say something like that, and we began doing a couple of practice rounds. Honestly, tossing the bean bag was a lot easier than tossing rings, where there'd be an abundance of cringe-worthy moments where the rings could just sail above the bottle or clip the bottle top. Here, there was a lot more leeway since as long as the bean bag landed in the general vicinity of the hole, gravity would pull it through.

And as expected, Dad, in between tossing bean bags, began grilling Caspian, much like he did to Leon. To ease Caspian into a sense of complacency, he began with a softball question. "How are you enjoying the carnival we organized?"

"It's been lots of fun," Caspian said. "What you guys have done, it's just really amazing."

"That's good, though I wouldn't leave just yet. The best is still yet to come."

"I don't think anything can top all of this," he replied. "But I'm here for whatever surprise you've got planned. Neal hasn't told me anything about that, so I'm not sure what to expect."

"Don't worry. We've really not got anything prepared," I responded. "My dad's just saying random stuff. We're just going to do normal Thanksgiving stuff afterwards."

"Oh, c'mon. I was trying to get him excited," Dad said as he attempted to playfully jab me, a move that I parried easily. "But I'm surprised that you expected Neal to tell you about it. I didn't know you two were such close friends, and, well, I'm curious what you guys talk about."

"You don't need to answer that," I replied. "Dad, you're being kinda weird–"

"It's fine," Caspian said, and for some reason, gave me a weird look, as if I'm the one being unreasonable here. "Just the usual: tasks and things we've got to do, the world around us, sometimes, sport and other old things, and the future."

"Your family have something planned for the future?" Mom asked. "Maybe our family can step in and help–"

"It's just mostly clinic expansion stuff and creating a larger solar grid," Caspian said. "And we're mostly planning these out with the Shepards since it involves scavenging for resources: new medicines for the clinic and wires and panels for the solar project."

Mom and Dad looked at each other, both alarmed, because the Coopers aren't supposed to like the Shepards, but I suppose I'm a bit skeptical that we're about to be backstabbed. I think they're just trying to prioritize projects over politics, though I think it's pretty clear that Dad's anti-scavenging beliefs that he still ardently holds onto are hurting us hard.

"That's the first that I've heard of this," Mom said, shooting me, of all people, a dirty look as if I was a spy sent to investigate the Coopers. "But I'll talk about that with your parents. Let's get the game started."

Despite Dad constantly grilling and not-so-subtly throwing out friendly jabs at Caspian, we managed to get a significant lead on Mom and Dad, only to see it begin to dwindle mid-game as Mom and Dad began scoring more consistently. By the time we reached the end, because of our string of bad luck with Mom getting on an insane streak, scoring three points in a row after barely scoring throughout the game, the game was left tied nineteen each. Caspian decided to call for a team huddle as Mom and Dad stood in one corner to create a game plan while the both of us were supposed to do the same.

"What's up with the huddle?" I asked. "Any last-minute tips."

"Nope," he said, and I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. "I know that you didn't want to talk about it yesterday, but I'm telling you, right after this game, it'd be the perfect opportunity to talk with–"

"I don't know," I said, knowing exactly who he was talking about. "I– I just don't know."

"I get that things are complicated, and I don't know all the details. But–" he said and seeing that Mom and Dad had exited their huddle, quickly finished what he was saying. "I don't want you to lose your dad, especially not the way I did."

"I'll think about it," I said and broke out of the huddle.

Dad and I were pitted against each other for the final round. Obviously, if we each miss our three allotted bean bags, then Mom and Caspian would go against each other, but I knew then that that just wasn't going to happen.

My first throw completely missed the board, completely overshooting it, probably because I was still flustered by Caspian suddenly bringing up Dad into our conversation. It's not like Dad's attempt was any better, his bean bag grazing the left side of the board. My second throw was a lot better, but it was still undercooked, thumping against the lower half of the wooden board and sliding off. Dad's second throw smacked the upper left corner, and thankfully, he threw it with a little too much force and the bag flipped off the board.

It all came down to the final bean bag. And man was it a suspenseful shot.

It landed on the top-most part of the board, but instead of flipping over the edge, it began to crawl its way to the hole, slowly sliding down. And for a couple of moments, I thought that I had tossed the winning bean bag. But then, just as it reached the hole, it just stopped moving, the lower half of the bean bag just above the upper edge of the circle.

"Oh, c'mon," Caspian said. "Please drop just a bit more."

But there was no one that answered his prayers, and after waiting a couple more moments, Dad stepped up to shoot his shot, likely to be the winning one since he'd probably found the perfect balance and generally did great with these third shots.

Then, the most incredible thing happened. When Dad tossed the bean bag, I thought that it arced perfectly through the air and was for-sure going to land straight into the hole. Instead, he had just slightly overshot it so that it landed just above my bean bag, knocking mine into the hole while his stalled above.

"No way. We actually won this," Caspian said and gave me a two-handed high five (a colloquial high ten). "I thought we for-sure were screwed."

"Told you that I'd let you two win," Dad replied, and truth be told, I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not because of how well placed that shot was, and since this whole event felt like he was trying too hard to make things up for yesterday.

"I'm going to check on the food. Make sure it's all warm. I'm sure you all are starving," Mom said and left at the same time that Caspian, giving me a subtle nod, said, "I'm going to check up on my parents. See if they're doing alright."

With Mom's legitimate reason to leave and Caspian's flimsy excuse, Dad and I were left alone. For once, he wasn't really the angry caricature that I had made him to be but was his somewhat goofy, overprotective self, like the one who would suggest the horrifically cheesy gratitude circle or wish Leon good luck even while threatening him. Caspian was right that this was the perfect moment to bring up therapy with Dad, not as an option to think about later but as something that needs to be taken seriously.

"Dad–" I said before stopping myself.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Whatever. I don't know. Nothing," I said. "I forgot what I was going to say."

I just couldn't talk to him about that. The weird thing was that there were so many good reasons to do it. If I was feeling spiteful, I could confront him about therapy to ruin his day and make him angry, exposing his weaknesses in front of everyone. If I wanted to make Caspian proud and do something objectively good for both me and Dad, asking about therapy would go a long way in helping out Dad and making the first genuine move to repair our relationship.

Yet, I just brushed aside the response that I had planned in my mind, where I'd say, "Dad, I think you should seriously consider talking about your fear of the ocean with Caspian's mom. Right now, what you're doing to yourself, it's hurting all of us, and it's hurting you the most. I get that you want to appear tough, but actually working out these issues properly, not just barrelling through it, is the real tough way to approach your fears. I'm really worried that something bad is going to happen, worse than what happened yesterday, so please just get help. It's the only way to fix things between us since only then, I'll know that you're actually making your own decision to commit to change."

I suppose it's a bit long-winded and wouldn't play out exactly like I had written, but it's what I would say in a perfect world, where Dad didn't cut food from Charles and his family and force them far away from here, and we could actually have a chance of dialogue. I suppose that it also circles around to the fact that I'm a hypocrite and haven't really made the real commitment to change.

There's still the last figment of Charles' memory lying on the shelf, the letter that I've considered opening so many times but never had the courage to commit to finally hearing his last words to finally let go. It's like the only real path to forgiveness, not the detours that I've considered, and healing for the both of us runs through this flimsy piece of paper. One that, after the events of today, I'm getting extremely close to opening.

As the room continued to darken, people stopped playing the various carnival games because it was far too difficult to see and started congregating in the living room. From what I could hear, both the symphony of grumbling stomachs and murmurs of conversations, everyone was starving. It didn't help that the scent of all the delicious food, stored in the warm tub, still lingered in the air, a nutty, slightly minty, salt-tinged aroma that would normally sound pretty gross but smelled heavenly at that moment.

Thankfully, Mom began the proceedings before people started to rebel. "Did you guys all have fun today?"

I heard a couple of cheers and whoops from the crowd, with Caspian and Mira doing a particularly enthused "Hell yeah!" Even the Shepards, who seemingly did not approve of our plan during the city council meeting, were clapping and nodding their heads. When I looked at May, she was beaming with a genuine smile, not the plasticky one she typically wears, and almost seemed embarrassed by the attention.

"I want to give a special shoutout to my youngest daughter, May, who put this event together in just a couple of days," Mom said, and there was a soft applause as everyone looked at May, who was relishing the spotlight. "And I thank you all for showing up to this event and breathing life into all the carnival games we've set out. And most importantly, and I'm sure that this is on top of all your minds now, we're really grateful that all the families here helped cook delicious meals to share with all of us."

There was scattered laughter and a bit of applause as people began to get a bit antsy. Dad, sensing that, stepped up to go straight to the point. "Before we begin appreciating all the food here, and believe me, I'd love to 'appreciate' all the food down into my stomach, I'd like us to do a gratitude circle. Times are tough out here, but we're alive to celebrate Thanksgiving, and I thought that this would be an appropriate move."

There definitely was some grumbling amongst the crowd, though it was difficult to parse out who exactly was responsible for the complaints because everyone was so bunched up together. But Mom ignored them, and was about to speak when she was cut off by Mrs. Shepard.

"I suppose I'll kick this off," she replied. "I'm grateful to have helped found a community built on a foundation of mutual trust and cooperation. All of you have proven invaluable in contributing resources and labor to create this tight-knit group, united by the desire to build a better future, and I don't need to hope that the future will be better. I already know it."

Everyone applauded loudly except for Mom, who gave the softest possible clap while glaring at Mrs. Shepard for stealing her position as the opening speech. Before Mr. Shepard could cut Mom off and relegate our family to playing second fiddle at our own feast, Mom stepped up. "Well, I'm thankful that we've all gotten the courage to work together, and make this wonderful feast for all of us. Let's hope that there will be many more of these to come."

Although people applauded, it wasn't as deafening as the first round because Mom's speech was far too similar to Mrs. Shepherds. Even though she was smiling, the supposed joy on her face didn't reach her eyes, and it was clear that not only was her position stolen but also her prepared speech.

Luckily, before our family got completely usurped, Dad spoke up even before the applause died to cut off Mr. Shepard. "I'm grateful for my family, both our resiliency and ability to work through any tough issue we've faced, but for sticking by my side to give me the strength to overcome any struggles that I may have faced. It's a tough world out here, but we're tougher."

"I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the night watch," Mr. Shepard said, possibly as a deliberate snub at Mom and Dad. "Going out and patrolling to keep our community safe is honorable, and I'm grateful that their work has prevented any attacks so far. Let's keep up the good work team."

Dean whooped loudly at Mr. Shepard's comments before quieting down as Mira stepped up. "I'm both thankful and proud that we're all dreaming big and how much we've accomplished this month. From the greenhouse expansions to the water collection tarps to the creation of the group pantry, we've gone so far and have transformed this community one day at a time into a vision of what it could be. Here's hoping that our progress continues."

A couple of people pumped their fists, and Mom and Dad clinked their fists together while May groaned audibly as she took center stage."I'm, like, really happy to be alive."

Although I'm not sure how funny that was, everyone started laughing and someone called out "Hell yeah!" before she continued her speech, "And this is cheating, but I would be very thankful if we could make it to literally just Christmas, who cares what happens after, so that I can do something like this over again."

There was this raucous cheering and Mira encored it by asking everyone whether they'd another event like this for Christmas, bathing our family in applause. I even caught Mom smiling a bit, pleased by all the attention. Although I was supposed to go next, I didn't really have a good one beyond the generic "I'm grateful for my family", so I passed it off to someone else.

"I suppose it's on the same line of thinking, but I'd be grateful for any rain," Mr. Weaver exclaimed. "Maybe finally get a chance to test out the water collection system, and I'm sure you all would love to get a break from carrying buckets of water from the river every week."

Mrs. Weaver held up a small jar of dark orange liquid that oozed around as she waved it high above her head, showing it to the entire crowd as people marveled at it. "I'd like to give a special thanks to our hosts tonight for sacrificing their own resources to give us an opportunity to test out my gadgets. And I'm proud to say that we were able to secure a jar of sycamore syrup that you guys may try during tonight's feast."

Even if this gratitude might be a bit too brazen in order to make up for the strife that the food pantry caused, Mom seemed pleased by it since it made all of us look better. She even clapped for them, as Mr. Johnson spoke up. "I'm going to extend a hand of gratitude to our Creator for blessing us with a miraculous harvest of acorns and pine nuts just prior to the holidays to reward our resilience and faith in Him during these trying times. Let's have faith that this stream of generosity will continue far into the future."

"I'd similarly give thanks to the universe for guiding us to this community," Mrs. Johnson said. "With people so filled with hope and generosity of spirit, meeting all of you has most certainly been fortuitous, and I cannot imagine what the path to the future would look like without the amazing individuals that we've come to grow closer with."

"I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude that our community is focused on building up to be something greater instead of tearing everything down," Mrs. Xiao said, holding Adrian close to her. "Having the opportunity to show Adrian that even in these moments, we're able to work together brings me a lot of hope for all our futures."

Mr. Xiao put his arm around her and looked at their baby. "I'm also grateful that within our community we've got so many skilled people helping to create a safe community for my son, and, eventually, when he comes of age, teach him the skills he'll need to thrive for the future."

"Not sure what else I can say that people here haven't said," Dean replied with a shrug to a couple of groans. "What? I'm saying that you all have taken my ideas and have nothing more to say.

"I'll thank those who helped with the traps. We should be able to catch some game soon," James responded and then lightly elbowed Dean in the ribs to give a proper response as all eyes turned towards him.

"Fine," Dean said, putting his arm around James as he attempted to shrug it off. "I'd consider myself lucky that I'm here with my closest friend from college. Not sure who I'd thank because this was blind luck, but he's here, and I'm happy."

Mrs. Shepard then spoke up, holding a clipboard with a pen in her hand. "I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to help people with my clinic and to get back into the rhythm of my job. And that includes annual physical check-ups, so please, if you have not scheduled a check-up, I'll be passing around a sign-up sheet after food is passed around. You should reach out if you've got any signs of illness, I mean any."

I think I heard murmurs of someone, probably Dean, saying that we don't need a PSA right now, but most people just politely clapped along as the clipboard passed through the crowd. By the time that it had reached me, pretty much everyone except for the really old people, who had already been checked up on, had signed it.

"I'd just like to thank everyone here for keeping a positive, 'can do' attitude," Caspian's dad said. "It's been a tough time for all of us, these past six months–I'm sure that we've all had days where we've struggled–but as long as we never give up, never say no to new ideas, we're going to do better."

"I'm grateful to just have fun and everything we did today, like throwing rings and bean bags or going dunking for apples," Caspian said with a smile, and I could see that May was especially happy with his response. "We're so lucky to have the ability to hope for a better future."

All the grandparents went next with Mom and the Xiaos translating. Grandpa was grateful that he could go fishing again while Grandma said that she was grateful for the garden while Mrs. Xiao's parents both said that they were just grateful that they could spend more time with family and newfound friends. After they finished talking, Mrs. Shepard asked if we had forgotten anyone, and Mom pointed a finger at me.

"I guess what I'm most grateful about is that we're all here, you know," I said, thinking of Charles and Leon and all those people whose lives I'd just barely intersected with and are now gone. "Like right here, in this community, having the opportunity to, like, meet each other. Maybe in some other life, some of us would've moved away and we would be missing something from this event, like the grilled fish or the portraits or acorn bread, but all of us being here, it's pretty special, even if I guess I wish that there could be more people joining us here."

I suppose I should've done a crowd-pleasing closure, one that would hype everyone up for the post-carnival festivities, but I just couldn't force myself to lie like that. And I think everyone was a bit bummed out by my speech since the only people that clapped hard for me were my family and the Coopers while everyone just politely patted their hands together, barely making a sound.

"Alright, who's ready to get drunk," Mrs. Shepard said, uncharacteristically jolly as she pulled out a dozen bottles of wine from a large paper bag by her feet.

All of the adults cheered at the prospect of alcohol, and I think they had gotten a bit too enthusiastic because no, and I mean no one, asked where it all came from. The crowd split into two as half of the adults rushed to the wine to get drunk out of their minds while the rest of us practically dashed to the food, forming a wildebeest stampede-esque stampede. I bet if David Attenborough were here, he'd probably say something like, "Look at this flock of Homo sapiens as they stampede to the feasting table and marvel at the hunger in their eyes" because we certainly were animalistic.

To avoid being trampled by the crowd, against the urges of my stomach, I hung back while everyone else pushed and clamored for plates and utensils. Honestly, it was a miracle that no one broke any plates or got accidentally stabbed by a fork (or had an eyeball scooped out by a spoon). While people were still fighting for seafood, Dean notably attempting to wrestle a half of a fish away from Mr. Weaver, I felt a tap on my back.

"Got you a plate," Caspian said, holding out a plate with a piece of grilled fish on top of a thick sauce. "Had to fight hard to get that. People are going crazy."

"Yeah, I know," I said, and I was going to make the David Attenborough quip but stopped myself since he probably wouldn't get the reference. "Thanks."

"So, how did your talk with your dad go?" Caspian asked, and my heart rate spiked. "Did he say yes–"

"He did his usual 'I'll think about it later,'" I lied, trying not to look down and poke at my food out of shame. "I don't know. Maybe this planted a seed in his mind, but I doubt it."

Although I was grateful that he had thought about me, all he brought back was fish. I didn't really want to have a tiny taste and hand the food back to Caspian because that would be weird. "Thanks, but you fought for the food, so you deserve it. I don't mind getting a plate later."

"Alright, if you're sure about it," he said and ambled away to eat with his family while I waited for the crowd to clear up.

Although most of the dishes were half-eaten, the plating messed up by how aggressive everyone lunged for the food, that still didn't diminish the splendor. The Shepards had made grilled fish, the skin just slightly charred and glistening, while the Xiaos had made some type of spicy soup, though the broth was thicker than a normal soup, with chunks of white fish sticking out of the orange liquid. The Weavers had taken the crabs and turned the small ones into crab balls while serving the large ones boiled whole, served with a sprinkle of dried herbs. The urchins and starfish cooked by the Johnsons were decorated with fresh seaweed and a variety of blended wild plants that lent this dish an aromatic but briny smell.

I grabbed Grandma and Grandpa's shellfish along with the bean sprout salad, and I was about to leave when I decided to go back to just take a very small chunk of the grilled fish just for a little nibble. As much as I hate to admit it, I just can't afford to be a picky eater, no matter how much I deny it publicly to Mom and Dad because I know they'd make some embarrassing comment. And in all honesty, I guess the fish wasn't too terrible, tasting vaguely like a moister, grosser version of chicken, though I was right in handing the plate back to Caspian instead of forcing it down my stomach.

Just as I was about to enter the living room, I got intercepted by Mr. Xiao, who was holding a plate full of the fish soup his family made, and I braced myself to be confronted for not eating it until he said, "I didn't get the opportunity to tell you this, but I just wanted to thank you for donating the books."

"Oh, yeah. You're welcome. It's not really a big deal," I replied, shrugging. "I think I've got a couple more buried around my house–"

"It's alright. We're good for now," he replied. "I've got more than enough stories to read to him at night."

"Maybe he's going to be the next Shakespeare," I said.

He chuckled a bit. "God, I hope not. I've still got nightmares from college English courses, and I graduated ten years ago. If Adrian starts talking like Shakespeare, I'll be very proud of him, but I've got no idea what I'm going to do."

"Yeah, reading Romeo and Juliet two years ago was pretty painful," I replied. "I couldn't understand a thing they were saying."

"Actually, I've got one request," he said. "Your family has an encyclopedia, right? Or a dictionary of some sorts?"

"I'm pretty sure we do. It's probably somewhere in this mess," I replied, waving my arm around.

"We don't need it, but I was just wondering if your family could keep it safe. For Adrian, in the future," he replied. "Life's going to be tough out here, and being able to read labels and survival manuals by himself, having more independence even when he's young, will be invaluable, just in case none of us don't make it all his life."

"What are you two talking about?" Mrs. Xiao said, swooping him and holding Adrian in front of her as she turned to Mr. Xiao. "Hey babe, you mind holding him for a bit?"

"Of course," Mr. Xiao said and picked up Adrian, making all kinds of baby noises at him as Adrian seemed to coo back and smile. Even though I was feeling a bit of second hand embarrassment because I still don't understand why adults are so shameless about this, I guess I let out a bit of a grin. "We were just talking about our little soldier here, and how he's going to be the next Shakespeare."

"I know he is. He's got that creative streak from his mom," Mrs. Xiao said, and I attempted to smoothly slide myself out of their conversation since I felt like I was intruding. "Hey, I noticed you're missing a little something on your plate."

"You've got to try our spicy fish soup," Mr. Xiao added. "It's spicy heaven–"

"It should be a lot spicier, and I wished that I had saved more packs of chili sauce from takeout restaurants" Mrs. Xiao said before shooting a glance at her husband. "So someone over here, who's not spice tolerant, has lucked out."

"I really tried, but I have zero clue how you eat the fermented tofu just drenched in chili oil. I think you're too spice tolerant," Mr. Xiao said and then looked at me. "But if you've got normal tastebuds, trust me, the soup is amazing."

"Yeah, I did try it, and it was really good," I lied. "But I've got, like, negative spice tolerance because it was a bit too spicy for me. But everyone in my family really loves spicy food, so I'll tell them to get second helpings."

"Good," Mr. Xiao replied before looking a bit apologetic. "Sorry if I'm being pushy about it. My in-laws made it, and they don't expect any leftovers, so I've got to go around promoting it."

After promising again that I'd tell my family to get second helpings of the soup, I went and sat in between Mira and May as Dad was handing out cards for a game of judgement while May was setting up a chart to tally up the point values. Just as we were about to begin our game, the Shepards decided to crash our party.

"You mind if we join?" Mrs. Shepard asked. "I just saw you guys setting up this card game, and I've never seen anything like this."

"Of course," Dad said with a bit of a smirk, knowing that the Shepards were about to take a major beating. "I'll hand out cards for you both."

He then did a basic rundown of the rules for the game, though to be honest, the rules are quite convoluted and confusing, so we skipped straight to a couple of practice rounds just so that they could get a hang of everything.

The actual game honestly was just a blur. In the beginning, we were mostly quiet, placing cards onto the pile and collecting our hands without much fanfare, mostly because it was awkward having the Shepards around. However, as the game went on, everyone loosened up, and soon we were all taunting and trash-talking each other, groaning at having hands being unexpectedly stolen by trump cards, and flat-out going scorched-earth when there was no chance to win the round.

In one particularly memorable moment, Mr. Shepard had started a round by playing an ace trump card on the first turn, an action that is not only considered taboo but also heavily discouraged because it's highly risky and leads to complete chaos.

"What are you doing?" May shouted at Mr. Shepard, scoffing as she was forced to sacrifice her king. "That's it. I'm going to have no mercy. Time for you to die."

Mira tossed her queen into the center pile and sighed, crossing her arms. "I'm seconding that. If I'm not winning, no one is."

"Finally, something we can agree on," she replied, standing up and pointing at everyone. "It's time for my villain era."

"I've got a grand plan, everyone. Trust me, I understand the game now," Mr. Shepard said, and everyone snickered a bit at him. "Alright, laugh all you want, but I'm about to outsmart the women and As–"

Although he stopped himself before he completed that sentence, we all knew that he was saying "Asians," and that brought a frostier atmosphere that cooled the heated competitive talk. I could see Mira cringing and burying her head in her hands, Mom resuming her passive-aggressive glare, and May mouthing "awkward" at me while Dad attempted to save the game. "Maybe drinking more wine will help with your judgment. The drunker you are, the better you play. Take that from me."

All of the adults laughed, defusing much of the tension, while May sat in her corner, plotting her revenge. And what a (short-lived) villain era that was as she screwed almost everyone over during that round, except for me funnily enough. It turns out that, despite all the blustering and insisting that he had a grand plan. Mr. Shepard ended up losing hard that round, winning far too many hands than he had predicted, a trend that had continued all throughout the game. On the other hand, Mrs. Shepard has played a strong, strategic gameplay, going for safe bets and opting to win zero hands on most occasions, which allowed her to avoid catastrophic losses.

While we were playing our card game, the rest of the living room was abuzz with life as the flickering fireplace basked us all in a warm, orange hue. The autumn leaves that we had strung on loose strings of yarn and twine slowly spun around, their fiery colors enhanced by the perpetual sunset being cast on everyone. Light refracted off the glass and crystal ornaments that we had brought out, splotching our walls with specks of golden, and it's as if our house had become a whole new world, severed from the ashstorm blanketing the roofs and yards of all our homes.

At some point, after we had switched to playing zero-stakes poker, someone, probably Mrs. Weaver, drunkenly shouted, "Karaoke time," and suddenly, all the adults began cheering and just completely abandoned all the card and board games. For some reason, karaoke time is like catnip for people above the age of thirty because they were standing by the fireplace, brainstorming all sorts of crazy ideas for doing song instrumentals with pots and pans. In the end though, none of their ideas panned out and people began going at it acapella style, leading to a horrific series of off-key, off-tempo "singing" (in quotations because I could hardly describe the sounds being made to be considered singing).

"You want to get out of here?" Caspian asked while his dad and mine were attempting to duet some Adele song and horribly failing at harmonizing or even keeping up a steady rhythm. "I love my dad, but this is just not it."

"Yeah, this is very painful," I replied. "You want to head to my room. The walls in my house are pretty much paper-thin, but, like, hopefully, it's a bit quieter."

"Yes, anything to save me from this," he said, just as both our dads were attempting to hit some high notes that weren't meant to be.

We stepped into my room and closed the door behind us, muffling the sounds of terrible singing, while I turned on a flashlight to make sure that Caspian didn't trip over the empty bed frame or smack his face on my bookshelf. When we sat down next to each other, leaning against the wall, I asked, "You want to see something cool?"

He nodded, and I pointed my flashlight at the ceiling, at the dozens of translucent plastic ladybugs and butterflies that had been taped to the ceiling for probably decades. "I got a bunch of these when I went through a huge insect phase when I was younger. So my dad basically taped a whole bunch of them to the ceiling, and I guess I forgot about them until right now."

"That reminds me, you still owe me a story from that time," he said, fist-bumping my shoulder.

"I'm going to go with what Mrs. Xiao said," I replied. "It's like, I used to be the kid who used to carry rolly-pollies around or ride bikes so fast that the chain broke, leaving me with a very nasty scar on my knee. But I don't know..."

And I hope he understood what I was saying, that I guess I'm afraid that he likes the person who I used to be, my adventurous and daring kid self with all the crazy tales and interesting stories, more than me right now. And I don't want to be compared to a version of myself that just doesn't exist anymore, at least not most of the time.

"I think it's been long enough," I said before I could hear his response and turned off the flashlight, plunging the both of us in darkness, except for the tiny sliver of light sneaking underneath the doorway. After a few moments, the bugs on the ceiling began to glow a fluorescent green, dozens of butterflies and beetles and spiders speckling my ceiling, like constellations in the night sky. When the lime greens turned duller before fading to dark, I turned the flashlight back on and faced Caspian.

"What did you think?" I asked, biting my lip because I was a bit nervous.

"Wow, that was– that was amazing," he replied. "It reminds me of when Gabe and I went stargazing. Or at least attempted to. It's part of the reason why he always wanted to head down to Zion. Light pollution is awful around our area, and the day of the meteor shower just happened to be a bit cloudy, so we only glimpsed bits and pieces of the constellation."

"Yeah, it's the same for me, with Charles. But with the moon instead of the clouds," I responded. "We climbed onto the rooftop, and he brought a telescope this time so that we'd actually be able to see all the planets properly, maybe for the last time. And we just talked about all kinds of stuff, and after that, I don't know. I don't think I'd be able to look at the night sky again, whenever it appears in the future."

"If you need support, you know that I'll be there," Caspian replied. "I didn't get to tell you this during the gratitude circle because I didn't want to single you know, but I just want to thank you for being here and not being scared off when I've had breakdowns or–"

"It's really no problem," I said. "And you don't need to apologize for, you know, crying. I think it's admirable–"

"Yeah right," he said. "I love when friends boost my ego but–"

"No, I'm, like, serious," I responded, my heart skipping a beat when he said that we were friends, even if he mentioned it before. "And I guess I wanted to thank you too. I've been thinking, well, actually, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to open Charles' letter today."

"That's amazing," he said. "What made you make up your mind today?"

"I don't know," I replied. "It's just today, I guess I can finally, for the first time, realistically imagine a good future without him."

I don't really know why I admitted that to him, but maybe it's because I was still high off the adrenaline rush when he said that I was still a friend. I guess I always imagined being friendless and lonely for the rest of my life once Charles had left. Now, there's just this comfort in the knowledge that I won't be left friendless, at least not in the near future.

He stood up and grabbed the flashlight from my hands. "It's going to go great, trust me. Now what do you say we go and join everyone on the dancefloor. I think both our dads have stopped singing."

"I'm good," I said. "I have been traumatized by my freshman year dance unit. Our group failed our dance project so hard that I can barely remember the event because my mind has erased it out of existence to protect myself."

And what happened next came out of nowhere, and there was nothing that I could do to stop it.

"So instead of dancing, you're going to do what? Read books like..." he said and picked a random book from the top row of the bookshelf, all of which had their spines facing the inside. When his flashlight briefly moved over the book cover, I caught a glimpse of moody blues and fluorescent reds. And for the first time in my life, I just wanted to shout a stream of swear words because I knew which book he had grabbed and it just had to be the worst book. There was no explaining away a book whose cover had two hunky shirtless guys kissing in the rain.

"Oh, uh, that book. It's, well– It's–"

"How is the book?" he asked, completely unbothered, which was honestly more unnerving than if he had spent a minute or so staring at the book before staring straight at me.

"It's– It's alright," I replied. "I guess it's a pretty fast read."

"You mind if I borrow it for a couple of days?" he asked. "Let's see what's the big deal with reading. And plus, the two guys on the cover are hot."

"Yeah," I said, and he smirked. "I mean, like, yeah, you can borrow the book. And you know what, I'll go dance with you, even if I'm probably going to get retraumatized again."

"That's the spirit," he said and reached out his hand. When I grabbed it and stood up, I was hyperconscious about how close my face was to his, so I quickly stepped back. Exiting the room, my heart was racing because I was anxious that his newfound knowledge would make everything awkward. The only consolation that I had was that he hadn't found the crinkled magazine with the model in it.

When we re-entered the living room, the karaoke craze had settled down, and Mrs. Johnson had been assigned to singing duties because she had a pretty decent singing voice, going through a catalog of old hits that I've never heard of before. The rest of the adults were scattered across the living room, some sleepily shuffling while others were still rocking out, propelled by a drunken high. The living room was already getting pretty messy, the paper leaves clipped onto the twine falling off and scattering onto dishes that were pushed to the sides of the room, barely avoiding being trampled by people's feet.

When Mira, who was still partying hard, saw the both of us, she motioned for Caspian and I to join her on the dancefloor, and Caspian forced me into the middle of the crowd. We were squished in between the Weavers doing the cha-cha and Dean forcing James to dance, though I could tell that all this light and noise was making James nervous since we could attract raiders, especially without any night patrol tonight. But (spoilers alert) as of right now, nothing has happened, so I think the risk that we took paid off.

While Caspian and Mira were both rocking out their dance moves to various degrees of success, doing a hilariously terrible mini-dance battle with each other, I guess I just stood on the side, shuffling my feet and bobbing my head a bit. It's too bad that Caspian noticed that I was leaning against the wall because he squeezed his way through the crowds to reach me. "C'mon, you can't just stand here and not enjoy the music."

"I mean, I kinda can, and I am enjoying Mrs. Johnson's singing," I replied.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about," he said. "I came here all dressed up just for you, and now, the least you could do is just give me one dance."

"I don't really know what I'm supposed to do," I responded, shrugging my shoulders.

"Oh, finally something that Mr. Know-It-All doesn't know how to do," he replied with a mischievous smile. "I'm just teasing. Don't worry about that. I'll teach you a couple of moves for all the night-clubs and bars you'll be heading to when colleges open up again."

"Yeah... I don't think my college experience will be like that," I was saying as he grabbed my hand and dragged me back into the center of the living room, surrounding by the aroma of sweaty bodies and booze spilled on the wooden floors, turning the soles of my feet ever-so-slightly purple.

"C'mon," he said, touching my tensed up shoulders. "Loosen up a little. Sway your head and your hips with the music more. Close your eyes and just feel the electricity of all the people coursing through you."

I guess I half-tried what he was saying, but when I closed my eyes and began doing my best impression of swaying, I just felt like a pendulum stiffly swinging from side-to-side. When I reopened them, Caspian flashed me an encouraging thumbs up as he began doing crazier and wilder dance moves, his body and arms flailing all around, and I guess I just stopped dancing for a moment to just stare at him with wonder. "How do you actually do all that?"

"You've got to have confidence," he said. "Who cares about what other people think when it comes to trivial things like this? It's a party and half the people here are too drunk to remember today by the time tomorrow rolls around."

"I mean, I'll remember–"

"That's not the point," he said. "Open up. Let loose. I can dance with you if you–"

"Naw, you can do your own thing."

"Well, at least promise me you'll stay on the dancefloor for the entire time," he replied. "And get working on those dance moves of yours. I'll know when you aren't trying–"

"Sure, I'll stay, though don't expect much improvement," I said. "I'm a really terrible dancer, I swear."

"Everyone tells me I'm a terrible dancer, but I think I'm the best dancer in the room, so I go all out," Caspian replied, thrashing wildly as I mostly stood in one spot and bobbed my head. "For things like this, it's not about what other people think. It's about what you think of yourself, and I want to see that in the sick moves you better be coming up with."

Although he cushioned the statement with that last phrase, I realized how right Caspian was about how I think of myself. It's weird, but I've never felt more exposed than at that moment. The more that I hide behind my shell, the more that I would reveal my innermost thoughts and embarrass myself.

"Neal, on the dance floor?" Mira said, as she shimmied towards me, thankfully providing a distraction. "I can't tell if it's a miracle or if the world is about to end."

"Ha, ha," I sarcastically panned and stood still. "I'm being forced by Caspian to stay here, so yeah. Kinda being held hostage at the moment."

"It doesn't seem like it," Mira said, brushing sweaty strands of hair from her face, her footsteps a bit tipsy. "My little bro, actually having fun for once instead of being buried in all those romance books or the greenhouse. I'm so proud of you. This is character progression–"

"Are you drunk?" I asked and kinda lied. "And, you mean, fantasy books."

She giggled a bit, and I had to stifle my laughter before we collapsed into a fit of random laughter. She pointed at Caspian, who was twirling May. "He's good for you, you know. I'm serious-serious about this. Go and dance with him."

"That's not happening," I replied. "And trust me, when you wake up tomorrow with a throbbing headache, you'll thank me for not taking your drunk advice."

"Tonight, with the music and food and all the people around us, it's like prom night. I've already had my night of fun, but it might be the only prom night you'll ever have," Mira said, ambling away. "There's no better time to take a leap of faith."

But I didn't take Mira's leap of faith, though I stayed on the dancefloor for the rest of the evening. Maybe it was out of fear, whether it be of judgment or embarrassment or regret, but what this entire celebration has made me realize is that we've still got tomorrow, that if we're able to come together like we had done today, there will be many more tomorrows. There's no need to do hedonistic "leap of faiths," as if every day were our last. I've realized that we've still got time to see where the risks I've taken this evening will take me, and I suppose that's the beauty of finally having hope for the future.

As the party began winding down, drunk and tired people stumbling out of the door and shouting incoherent goodbyes, Mom and Dad tried their best to clean up the mess on the floor but ended up collapsing onto bed next to each other. To be honest, there's a weird beauty behind the chaos, the kitchenware crusted with flecks of seafood, the glitter-coated leaves catching the flickering light, the tipped-over bottles of alcohol hiding amidst the bowling pins, and when everyone wakes up tomorrow hungover, they'll know that what had happened wasn't just a fever dream. It was real, every aspect of this magical day.

I suppose I've been procrastinating. Maybe that's why this entry is so long, filling it with every single detail I could remember, and I haven't woken up either Mom and Dad for their fire-tending duties. But I'm nervous that I'm coming to the end of the entry since I know what's waiting for me afterwards, the letter that I had promised to open, the truth that I don't know if I'm ready to face.

But I remember what Caspian had said, that the letter wouldn't be what I had feared and contain joy and hope, and what he had reaffirmed today, that he'd stick by my side. And maybe I too have gotten high on hope, infected by the optimism of Caspian and Mira and even May of all people, today, but I'd like to believe that he's right. Today has been a fairytale, and now, at about three or four in the morning, I've finally gotten just a moment of privacy to finally read the letter.

Now, I can only hope that the universe will let my only wish come true.

What would you say if you were the king of deers?

Deer, Kneel!

I'm sorry. That was a terrible pun, but I haven't got much time left (and ignore the old calculus homework on the back. It was the only piece of paper that I could find). I just wanted to start this off with something lighter that I'm sure you'd fawn (see what I did there) over or, at least, let out a big groan. But the buck stops here, and it's time that I come clean.

I know you've noticed all the glass in my shoes and the cuts on my legs, even if you've never mentioned it. And you're smart–I'm fairly certain you knew what those meant. All the shattered windows around my neighborhood, those were from me and my family. We were looters, and while we broke into mostly deserted homes around us, empty homes don't have much food. Our weekly meetings were the only times when I felt like we were back in the old world: the afternoons we spent walking back from school, making terrible puns and arguing over swords and axes.

But even those moments were tainted. I know you knew that we weren't starving by the time we hit August when our scavenging provided more than enough, and I should've stopped asking your family for cans of food. All we were doing was padding out our food supply for our trip South, and your family needed it more than mine, but I don't know why I kept doing it. It's why my family moved right after your parents cut us off from your food supply because now there was nothing tethering us to the city anymore.

I've never seen you truly angry, but I'd imagine you'd have to be right now. And all I can say is that I'm sorry, for betraying your trust, for not telling you sooner, and maybe for even writing this letter. I know it's not what you wanted to hear, but your last item on the bucket list was for us to be completely truthful to each other, and I wanted to uphold my side of the promise. I wanted to tell you just before we parted ways, but I couldn't make myself ruin that last day, so I kept quiet until now.

Although I'm sure that you hate me and won't believe anything I'll say next, I want to say that I meant everything that I had said on our last day. Maybe you won't want to meet the Texas guy I'll bring back, but I know that you'll find a good guy in the future. And I hope that your family will make it long into the future, even with the food that we took for you, and that, when we meet again, you'll forgive me.

I'm sorry,

Charles

I guess I'm crying, not because of the looting of living people's homes or because of the real reason why his family left so suddenly since no matter how much I wanted to deny it, I already knew the truth, but because he left thinking that I hated him. That when he thinks of me as he treks across the Sonoran desert or begins a new life in a safe haven in Texas or New Mexico, the only thing that comes to his mind is hate. Not that last magical day that we had together, but of this letter that he had penned out of regret and shame.

Because the truth is, I don't care, Charles. I don't care what you think you've done or whatever ways that you've "betrayed" me. I forgive you. I forgive you for all of it, for whatever you think that you've done to me, and for whatever you had to do to survive and make it to a better life. You were there for me during the times that had mattered, stuck around throughout high school and into the end of the world, and nothing, I mean, nothing, will change that.

My only regret was not opening it the moment that you dropped it off at my doorstep. I would've chased your car down, sprinted down the dusty streets and up the mountain hills and whatever direction your family had taken, and told you that I forgive you, and that I don't hate you, and that I still mean what I said at the end of that day, that I love you. But now you're far away, too far away to ever reach because I'm a coward for not opening the letter soon enough, and all I say is that I'm sorry that I never got a chance to tell all of that to you.

I've added your name to the people who are allowed to open this journal because maybe someday, this journal will make it into your hands, and I'm hoping that you'll know that I've always forgiven you and whatever burden that may be plaguing your heart, it's all for nothing. And hopefully, you'll be able to forgive yourself, even if I'm not around, because I won't remember you by your letter, but by those lazy afternoons walking back from school and our last day together, going through all of the things that made our friendship matter and real.

The traces of your legacy that remain here, helping me push myself out of my comfort zone and letting me know that there are people around that truly care about me, that's what really matters, and I wish you knew that. I wish you knew that I think I may have found a guy that I'll be able to have a future with, someone who gets me like you do, and that the future, no matter how grim it may seem in the moment, is looking good. And I wish– I'm sorry if some of this writing is getting blotched with tears and unreadable, but I'm not thinking straight right now– that I had a magical bottle that I could bunch this entry up into and chunk into the ocean to reach you so that you'll see how much you mean to me.

Maybe that's the biggest regret that I have about this all: that I was too afraid to open up until it was too late.