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 Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 6:09 pm
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 6:25 pm
Desperate Measures
Word Count -- 492
Micah wasn’t the same, and Misha didn’t need to be her twin to see that. She moved slower, spoke less… everything was just off. Their parents had noticed too, in the times they’d come up to the apartment to visit. They wouldn’t say anything to her, she was delicate when she was herself, there was no telling what kind of precarious balance she’d struck inside of herself now. Misha found himself walking on eggshells around the rooms when she was home – and she was always home now – in an attempt to put off the meltdown he could see looming on the horizon.
Just one more day. Keep yourself together for just one more day.
As if one more day was going to make a difference in the long run.
Maybe that’s why he was doing this. Maybe the pizzas and the sodas were a desperate attempt to maybe see something of what Micah used to be. Like maybe this would remind Micah that there was more to her than whoever Acubens was now or had been. That she was still Micah Elizabeth Anne Driscol, his sister, above all else.
Her eyes didn’t change when she walked in from work that night, seeing the boxes and bottle laid out on the coffee table. Misha didn’t know until his heart sank that he was hoping.
“I thought we could stay in tonight. Your patrol will be there tomorrow,” he explained as she stood without moving. She stood a little longer before nodding and slinking off to her room. Misha sank into the couch, knowing it was hopeless to even have tried in the first place. Whatever she was going through out there, whatever the world was putting her through, she was beyond his help now. All he could really do was sit at home and hope she came back.
The couch sinking next to him made him look up (he hadn’t realized he’d hung his head.) Micah watched the screen, stuck on Pitch Perfect’s title screen while he waited.
“Remember this movie? How much we loved it?”
Micah didn’t nod. She didn’t do anything.
“Thought we’d watch it again tonight, sort of ground you back here, with me. You do remember me right?” Misha laughed for a second, silenced only when Micah turned her head to look at him, expressionless. They held each other’s eyes for a long moment before Misha looked down, searching for the remote to start the movie. Micah turned back to the screen a moment later.
The pizzas lay untouched for the whole evening, and the sodas unopened. Micah didn’t laugh, didn’t shift, didn’t sing along. Misha tried to get her engaged but she met only silence. She left when the movie ended, locking herself away in her room again and Misha wasn’t sure if she stayed there or if she’d hopped out the window to patrol anyway. He didn’t sleep that night. Crying has a way of breeding insomnia.
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Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:22 pm
Seems Like It's Been Forever
Word Count -- 3031
Misha had gone away for college and then some. With Micah vanishing off the face of the earth, her body never found… the funeral… and then his parent’s divorce… he needed out. Out of the apartment he was supposed to have shared with Micah, out of Destiny City, out of his family, out of his old life. Halfway across the country, he’d gotten his degree in civil engineering, and now despite everything he was back. His old haunts still looked the same, felt the same, smelled the same. He almost felt like he was back at home.
Almost.
26 years and he had envisioned his life being so much different. Married by now probably. Raising little terrors alongside his sister. A big family of redheads. Micah at night off fighting bad guys or whatever it is she did when she went out dressed up like a superhero. He’d have taught her spouse how to dress her wounds and not ask where they came from because they’d never get a real answer.
Or maybe she’d have laid down her mantle by now. Ten years was long enough to be fighting, and there had to be others who could pick up where she left off, right? Maybe she’d have a protege who could carry on her legacy. Maybe he’d have known the kid. Maybe they doubled as a babysitter and Micah fixed them all family dinners. The kid, him, his family all along side Micah and hers.
A whole life for his sister sprawled out before him, semi opaque and foggy. A life he’d never know. A life cut short.
“Sir, are you alright?”
Misha looked up to the woman standing behind the register, and then down to the tearstained surface of the counter between them. He touched his face as though he wasn’t certain what was happening to him and then, just as quickly as the tears had started, he wiped them away, cleared his throat, and muttered, “allergies,” before continuing to order.
Rhona didn’t look up from her laptop when the bakery door’s bell rang. Honestly, she hadn’t even really heard it. Numbers scrolled before her eyes, intakes and outgoing expenses flashed and shifted as she calculated this month’s earnings for The Farmer’s Daughter. The mug of steaming black coffee sat poised at her lips as it had been for the last several minutes, but she had yet to drink.
She only looked up when a concerned voice cut through the haze of her concentration. She looked up, no other muscle in her body moving, to gauge the situation and see if she needed to get involved or get out.
And then her heart stopped.
For a moment Rhona didn’t know who she was looking at, only that she knew him. Red mop atop a slender face dusted with freckles. Black button down shirt, red tie, and immaculate jeans. Shiny black shoes. His voice was deeper than she remembered --
Than she remembered?
Misha
The lump which hadn’t plagued Rhona in years lodged itself in her throat as her mind fought itself to keep memories that had no place in her new life down. Bullies in the schoolyard under Misha's feet. Micah’s first fight for her brother’s honor. Playdates with other kids at their house. Bickering with loud voices and making back up with tears. Lazy snow days. A trial Micha would fail. Her sins and the tragedy of her life slammed against her all at once.
The mug of coffee slipped from her hand and splattered against her laptop. She cursed loudly and leaped to her feet, jeans already soaked and apologized as she tried to salvage her coffee-logged laptop.
Misha had already accepted his scone when the woman in the corner whom he had not noticed at first cursed and began fussing with her laptop. For a moment, his heart broke. No. Broke was too trite a word. It shattered. It was pulverized in his chest. Frozen to an icy star lodged deep in his chest, one that he thought had died long ago.
And then, a moment later, when green eyes locked on his, the feeling passed him over, leaving him hollow and embarrassed. Of course, that wasn’t Micah. Micah, for all intents and purposes, was dead. He’d attended her funeral. Carried his father away from her tombstone. Watched his mother waste away without her.
“Ah, sorry,” he muttered, ducking his head down when he realized that he’d been caught staring. “I thought… it doesn’t matter.”
He left the shop as quickly as he could and took off from there, going who knew where. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. Away from the hollow feeling in his chest. That familiar feeling from years ago. Whenever he turned a corner and she wasn’t there. Whenever he saw red hair and it wasn’t hers. That hollow feeling like she’d died all over again.
Unseasonably warm air hit him in the face, but that wasn’t why he was sweating.
Once he was moving, Misha couldn’t seem to stop his legs. They moved of their own accord, something Micah used to talk endlessly about near the end.
Near the end.
She was dead. She had to be.
And the woman in the bakery was just…
Was just…
Rhona flapped at the attendant trying to help her. Really, she was just doing her job, but Rhona didn’t give two ******** about her laptop. Couldn’t give them if she tried. It wasn’t until she trashed the damned thing and tossed a twenty on the table to pay for the cup she’d smashed that she finally got the poor girl off of her and was able to chase after Misha.
They locked eyes for a moment. Only a moment. But Rhona could swear that he knew who she was even if it was only for a second. Maybe longer. Maybe he still knew her, even though he also knew that was impossible.
The sane thing to do would have been to let him go. To allow Misha to slip back out of her life and on his way and let them both reheal from the sudden reunion…
But this was Rhona.
She dashed out of the bakery in time to see her brother -- her brother -- rounding the corner. She wanted to call out to him but her voice caught in her throat. Instead, all she could do was all that she was ever able to do. She followed her feet.
You’ve got a good pair of legs Micah. Use them.
Where was he going? Rhona felt like she knew the way, like retracing steps in a dream, but there was no concrete idea of his trajectory. And he didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. Even though Rhona was tossing apologies over her shoulder as she body checked people, Misha seemed to be avoiding them without issue.
It wasn’t until tall iron gates loomed overhead that she was suddenly very aware of where Misha was headed.
Micah’s grave hadn’t been cleaned, it looked like, in years. How long ago had mom and dad moved away? Three? Four years? It wasn’t long after Micah’s funeral. Not that Misha could blame them… but that didn’t stop the surge of anger as he brushed leaves away from the headstone and tossed the long-dead flowers away. He should have stopped and gotten more.
There was a lot he should have done.
He should have bothered Micah more to get her to open up to him. He should have forced her into therapy if she wouldn’t. He should have made her take a year off to recenter herself. He should have… he should have…
He should have done something. He was supposed to have been her big brother, and he hadn’t done anything. She was falling apart and he didn’t do a damned ******** thing to help her. Nevermind that he didn’t even know where to begin helping her. Nevermind that he hadn’t the slightest idea what she was going through at the time. Never mind that, even if he did know what was happening, there probably wasn’t a damned thing he could have done.
He should have tried.
Micah Elizabeth Anne Driscol. Loving Daughter and Sister. May 9th 1993 - January 24 2014.
“I hate you.”
The word came unbidden to his lips, but there was nothing he could do to stop them. They came again and again, and Misha wasn’t even certain who he was talking to. Was he kicking the stone because he hated his sister for dying? Was he kicking the stone because he wanted to hurt himself? Was it just the only thing he could do now?
Questions to which he would never have answers as the kicks came harder and faster, one after the other until his foot was sore. And when he could no longer kick, Misha dropped to his hands and beat the stone with tightly curled fists, shouting his hateful mantra so loudly it tore his throat apart. He screamed and he screamed until the words lost meaning and the only sound he could muster was the wretched sobbing that sucked the wind from his lungs.
Why was she here? Rhona shouldn’t have even followed Misha. Should have picked up her s**t and left. Let Misha leave. Let them meet like ships passing in the night and then part ways without a word.
But she didn’t. And here she was at the cemetery she hadn’t been to in five years looking at a tombstone that bore a name that wasn’t hers anymore while the man that was her once-brother assaulted the stone and cursed her name.
And it hurt more than Rhona could bare.
Misha was always the strong one. The stoic one. The one who held things together. Near the end he had been the one who held her down. Hell, had Bischofite not gone out the way he had, Misha might have kept her… her… probably forever, just by virtue of being that rock steady man that he always was.
The lump in Rhona’s throat threatened to burst through her flesh. Her stomach was coiling in on itself and threatening to tear itself in two. Her nerves frayed and spat like they hadn’t done in years. She could feel herself slipping back into who she was. Back into Micah. Afraid and alone and helpless. Every cry her brother made. Every time his feet and fists hit the stone. Every time he broadcast his grief to the world Rhona felt herself breaking a little bit more.
She hadn’t felt herself move. Hadn’t officially planned to do so. And she certainly hadn’t intended to cry out for her brother, begging him to stop it, just stop it, Misha!
And it wasn’t until she was between him and the stone, clutching his bloody fists in her hands as she tried to kiss the blood away that she realized that she had done anything in the first place.
Things happened so fast. One second he was at his sister’s gave, and the next his hands were being held and kissed by the woman from the bakery. And his knuckles were bleeding. And she knew his name. How did they start bleeding? Why did she know his name? What had happened between his arrival and this moment that made his throat hurt so damned much? When had he started crying
“Wha…”
The girl bowed her head and that fleeting feeling of recognition returned.
Except that this time it didn’t go away.
She lifted green eyes to meet his and though her face was not the one he remembered -- not the one he saw in the mirror every damned day... he knew.
His mouth hung open as the woman sobbed, still kissing his wounds with blood stained lips, pleading with him by name to stop. He searched for words that would not come as his mind caught up with what his heart already knew. What it figured out in the bakery. What it probably already knew.
“Micah…”
Her old name. Said by an old voice. Rhona lifted her eyes to meet Misha’s, emboldened by his realization. She smiled, lips red and sticky with his injury, but she didn’t care.
“Misha,” she answered, reaching one hand out to touch Misha’s face. The face she used to share. The face she gave up. He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. His face felt hot from the exertion and his terrible grief. Grief that she had caused.
“Misha, I’m so sorry…”
How long had she longed to say those words? To touch this skin? To be here in this moment with him again like this. He didn’t flinch away, and Rhona took that as permission. She rose to meet him, forehead to forehead, and met his tears with his own while he started sentences in confusion and failed the finish them at all.
“It’s okay,” she kept cooing, rivers of her own emotion soaking her face, “it’s okay, I’m here. I’m right here.”
I’m right here…
Objectively, Misha understood what he was being told. And he knew who the woman before him was. But there was something keeping him going from knowing to understanding. And so he knelt there like an idiot, gaping at this woman was she took his face in her all-to-real hands and whispered reassurances to him in a voice he did not know.
How many sentences had he started and not finished? How did he even go about finishing them at all? What had he begun to say in the first place? Everything was too big. Too close. Too real. He shook his head, trying to lean away from the woman before him, as though that would move him away from her enough to allow for clear thinking.
“No.” It was the first coherent thing that he had been able to say. It cut through the haze of his panic and his grief and his disbelief.
And it stopped Micah.
He watched her for several stunned moment, her jaw hanging open in surprise that mirrored his own. Her face glistened. Her eyes were red.
“No,” he repeated, this time with more venom in his voice. Again and again he said this, his face twisted in anger.
“No, my sister is dead,” he said resolutely when cognition at last returned to him. “She died in a warehouse fire and we couldn’t find her body… we buried an empty casket…”
“No, Misha, I was there, you didn’t…”
“My sister is dead.” Still more power to his voice, and yet… no anger. Just desperation. Desperation and blinding sorrow. Her hands were still on his face, roving over his cheeks and brows, but they had gotten so hot. He grabbed her wrists, still so slender, and threw her arms away from him.
“My sister is dead, and that’s all that’s true as far as I’m concerned.”
He needed to leave. He needed to be anywhere but here. Back at the hotel, sure. Fine. Whatever.
He stumbled over a low grave, toppling backwards painfully but he never stopped backing away from her, as though turning away opened him up for attack.
Somewhere between then and the gate he broke into a run, and he didn’t stop until he got back to his hotel room. Once there, gasping for air, he realized that Micah hadn’t been chasing him.
And only then did he feel any real anger.
No.
The suddenness of the statement shocked Rhona into silence. She stared at her brother, slack-jawed. And then he said it again. And again. And then Rhona found herself echoing him, as though that would negate him. His expression twisted and Rhona’s crumbled. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. She could find Misha again just to lose him. She had felt so whole. So perfect. So complete.
My sister is dead?
Oh, was that all? Rhona actually laughed, but it was a desperate and mirthless thing. That was all then? Rhona could clear that up in no time!
“No, Misha, I was there, you didn’t -- ”
“My sister is dead.”
No, he didn’t let her finish. He was still so scared and confused. Of course he was, how couldn’t he be? If Rhona could just get a word in edgewise, she could clear all of this up? She stroked his face, wiping tears from his cheeks and sweat from his brow, all the while trying to find a way to explain to him that she had been there the whole time.
Please just let me explain.
Let me explain.
Just let me…
Misha threw her hands off and it took her a long moment to realize what he had said. After that stunned moment, however, she went cold, like a bucket of ice had been dumped over her. She froze, letting her arms hang limp at her sides.
He rose and she watched him. He fell and she watched him. He ran from her and she still watched him. She watched him run out of the cemetery and down the road. She watched as he flew around corners, chest heaving, and crashed through the doors of some unknown hotel. Would he be packing his things now to flee the city? Would he take a taxi out of town that night or wait for the morning?
She shouldn’t have followed him. She should have let him slip back out of her life.
She should have let him go with the happy knowledge that he is alive at the very least.
She should have kept that close to her heart and gone home to Lavender and poured all of her sorrow out to her and been done with it.
She should have.
She should have…
She should…
She should go home. Rhona looked around her with bleary eyes. Night had fallen around her, draping the graves in velvet darkness while the grasses whispered around her. The blood on her lips had dried and begun to flake away.
Lavender was probably worried.
And so, like the day of her funeral, Rhona walked home with legs that she could not feel and a heart that felt too much.
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2023 10:36 am
Homecoming
Word Count -- 618
Back in Destiny City. This time, for all intents and purposes, for good. The old family home up for sale was now in his name. The halls still smelled the same. The walls were still the same color. Countertops had remained unchanged. Somehow, it was like he had gone to school and come back after a long day of classes and hallway dramas. Something hung in the air around him. Not oppressive but present all the same. Like his mother's perfume after she passed through the halls. Or his father's aftershave. Or Micah's shampoo. The floorboards all still creaked in the same way. Hinges still squeaked at the same octave. His home had been like a time capsule.
Why had he bought it?
What was the point? He'd left Destiny City so that he could start over, and now here he was taking a million steps back. He was coming back to mom and dad's but at the same time... no he wasn't. He was taking back part of his past that he had given up as lost. Given up for dead.
He spent his first week back unpacking things. His home in Indiana had been a small condominium. His home had been minimalist, to begin with, but now, spread out over three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a finished basement... he felt like he had nothing at all. Misha even tried to fill in the gaps as best he could. Tried to find something to hang where his mother's spice rack had been but nothing seemed to fit. Tried to replace the cabinets but the wood never seemed right.
And now he stood, alone in a house meant for a family, and wondered what his next move was.
Without his permission or knowing, his hand pulled his phone from his pocket and began dialing. Without Rhona's new phone number, the only way he knew to reach her was the number for her farmer's market. a young woman's voice answered and he hung up.
What was he doing? Not just in this moment but back here. In Destiny City. In this house. What was he trying to prove? To gain? The life he had before? Trying to turn back the clock and relive his life over again? Make different choices? Better choices? For whom? But then he already knew that answer, didn't he?
Staring down at his phone again his mind raced. Everything that had happened. Every single event. From his earliest memory to now. Replaying every fulcrum he could until he got to this place in this moment in this room.
This time he dialed slowly, the number long since memorized from aborted call after aborted call. A voice he did not know but still felt so painfully familiar answered after two short rings.
“Farmer’s Daughter Market, how can I help you?”
“Hey, Mykes. It’s… it’s me.”
Silence.
“I-I’m sorry?” Did she sound more confused or distressed?
“It’s me -- It’s… Misha.”
Silence.
“Look I’m back in Destiny City and I… I need your help.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah I just… I just can’t decorate worth a s**t, you know?”
Silence. Silence that dragged against Misha’s brain like wickedly sharp nails.
And then laughter. Beautiful, clear, bright laughter from the other end.
“Are you ******** joking, right now?”
Misha laughed along side. Or was he crying? It was hard to tell.
“Nah I’m… I’m really not. I bought a house and now I just… I dunno what to do with it.”
Tears were shed on both ends of the line. Plans were made. She said I love you. He said it back.
The new year turned over behind while Misha wasn’t looking.
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2023 10:38 am
Like you
Word Count -- 1386
Rhona and Misha were sweating. They had been for some time. And their muscles ached. But the good kind of ache. The kind after strenuous exercise and a job well done. Before them, where there had once been shelving built into the wall of the living room, there was now a cavity. Two perfectly symmetrical pockets sunken back on either side of a rectangle of the wall where the TV would sit, standing out from the shelves that once were.
“What are you going to put in there now,” Rhona asked before she wrapped her lips tightly around the neck of her coke bottle and drank deeply. Misha shrugged, nudging the pile of particle board shelves with his toe. The debris worried them both -- being creatures of comfort and stability, mess always had that effect on them.
“I was thinking aquariums,” Misha sighed offhandedly, drumming his fingers on the untouched bottle in his hands.
Rhona glanced sideways, still drinking, moving only her eyes towards her brother, and even then only for an instant. “I didn’t know you liked fish now,” she answered, the gentle question of deeper curiosity lilting alongside her words.
“I don’t.”
“Then why aquariums?”
“Why not aquariums?”
Of course, Rhona thought. Same old Misha after all.
“Because they stink,” she answered simply, “and they are expensive, and fish are boring.”
Misha shrugged but did not argue. Rhona was right. Aquariums stunk. And the upfront cost was enormous. And the cost of upkeep wasn’t cheap. And for what? It wasn’t like paying for a cat or a dog that gave back… fish just kinda… were…
“I don’t want to put shelves in.” Misha hadn’t even known that he didn’t want shelves until he spoke the words.
“Why not?”
“We just took the shelves out.”
“So put in nicer shelves. Stronger ones, I don’t know. Or like one thing on one side and one thing on the other.”
Misha shook his head then, finally taking a sip of his own soda.
“They have to match,” he said with certain finality.
Rhona fell silent and seemed to be considering the cavities in the wall for some time before she spoke up again.
“What is it with you and things looking the same?”
“They don’t have to look the same. They have to match.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Matching means they go together. Not that they look the same. I just want things to look like they belong together. They don’t have to be mirror images.” He took another drink of his soda and tilted his head, considering the cavity as well. “It’s about balance. If one thing exists, so must it’s counterpart. Like you and me.”
“We’re still counterparts?” Rhona didn’t like the fear she heard in her voice. And she didn’t like the way Misha looked at her like he was surprised that she was afraid. And he was. Misha hadn’t heard fear in his sister’s voice before. Anger, heartbreak, sadness, sure. Panic as well, but never fear. And that scared him too.
And just like that, they were back in the graveyard, both kneeling before Rhona’s empty grave as they panicked and cried in confusion and wonder. And Misha had left her… had she been afraid then? If he asked, he knew she’d say yes. Because she was honest. Painfully so. And when Rhona was asked a question, she answered it with that honesty.
And if he asked her if this was the same fear that he heard now, Rhona would also answer yes. Because she was honest. And she loved him. And you were honest with the people that you loved.
“I think we always will be.”
Rhona relaxed against the cushions, blinking too much for it to be dryness in her eyes.
“Even if we don’t look the part?”
The question was weak, and Misha answered honestly, because he loved Rhona, and you were honest with the people that you loved.
“Even if we don’t look the part.”
The silence that settled between them wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t easy either. It was tense, bated, almost. Like a held breath before a scream.
“Why did you go,” came the question unbidden from Misha’s lips.
“I already told you,” Rhona evaded, her mouth already around the neck of the coke bottle as she spoke.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“You wanted to go, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And Bishcofite was only the engraved invitation you needed to feel less bad about going, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Silence. Rhona had never admitted that to anyone. Not even herself. Hell, she hadn’t even thought of it, but when Misha asked, the answers sprung to life inside of her. They leaped from her lips, fully formed and mature things, like she’d known them all along. Misha could tell by the rise in her brows that she had surprised even herself with her answers.
“I’m not mad,” he almost whispered, though he didn’t turn to look at her.
“You should be.” Rhona didn’t turn to look at him either.
“I’m not.”
“Why?”
“I don’t see the point anymore. My sister is alive. I begged for a second chance and I got it. What good would throwing that way do?”
“I like it when you call me that.” A smile replaced the fear in Rhona’s voice. As long as Misha had been praying for his sister back, Rhona had been begging for her brother. Like two poles pulled too far apart, inexorably linked despite the distance.
“Call you what?”
“Your sister.”
“That’s what you are.”
“I know. And I like it.”
A silence, no less tense, resettled over the twins. It rested for a long moment, the silence punctuated by Misha bouncing a slat of particle board against the floor. A sound to fill the void before the scream sounded again. This time it came from Rhona.
“I went to my own funeral.” Her voice caught in her throat. Misha didn’t say anything about it.
“I know.” Misha’s voice caught in his throat. Rhona didn’t say anything about it.
“You remember?”
“I remember.”
Rhoan took in a deep, shaking breath, and wondered for a moment if she wanted the answer to the question that she was about to ask.
“Did you know that it was me?”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“When you passed me I smelled your shampoo. It was the same you’ve always used. And for a moment when I glanced at you, I thought it was… well… who you used to be I guess.”
“Oh.”
“You still kind of look like her. Micah, I mean. Just a little from certain angles and when the light hits you right. And only for an instant. But she’s there.”
She’s there… She’s always been here. Rhona touched her sternum, beneath which rested the same starseed that had been there before. She remembered the painfully familiar flicker of temper that she had worked so hard to control. The way her legs itched if she didn’t run in the mornings. The way she still felt everything too much and too close and too loud.
“I hate that we don’t look alike anymore.”
“Whos’ fault is that?”
“d**k.”
Misha laughed into his bottle, but he did glance at her. And, for an instant, she did look like she used to. But then the moment faded and her cheekbones rose and her jaw widened. Her arms roped with muscle and her face got longer. She looked like the movie adaptation of herself.
“I hate that you don’t look like me anymore either.”
“We can fix that, you know.”
Rhona had surprised them both. Misha went stiff and Rhona held her breath.
“You want me -- ”
“It was a stupid idea.” Rhona began to rise, shaking off the hand her brother threw across her wrist.
“Rhona, I just -- ”
“I said it was stupid.” She tossed the coke bottle in the garbage can, brought it out from it’s home under the sink for smaller debris and sniffed as the dust rising from the can made her eyes water.
“Anyway, I’ll see you later, Mish. Lemme know when you figure out what you want to put in there and I’ll help you out.”
She left, slipping out into the darkness beyond their former home leaving Misha to whisper, “I didn’t think it was a stupid idea.”
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2023 10:41 am
Softly Wishing
Word Count -- 822
The wish had struck Misha in a place that he didn't even know was vulnerable. Somewhere next to him, Rhona was carefully reading papers in order to select her trade, but she sounded suddenly far away. Because... wow... it was like someone had reached into his brain and pulled out he single though that had been plaguing him for months now. One he kept pushing to the side because of every bullshit reason he could possibly think of. He was busy with work. Nissa was busy with her practice. They knew what was in each other's hearts, they didn't need to say it. Misha made sure Nissa knew with every act of service, every gift, ever kiss and caress and sigh against her skin. She knew. He was sure.
But then Rhona told him that she loved him and he reciprocated with brand new ease because, even after all of it, she was his sister. And even if he knew that she knew, there was something about saying it. Something about hearing it repeated back. Something that made him feel light he could float away and kept him rooted firmly in the earth at the same time. And it came so easy to the twins' lips, even with the years forced apart.
How would it sound on Nissa's lips? How would her voice wrap around his name and the confession? Would she lean in, a smile gracing her pretty painted lips? Would she sigh the words or would they tumble from her tongue in excitement? Would he trip over his own voice or would he maintain composure? Composure was something Nissa tended to dangle in his face and then dance away with, her laughter on the wind as Misha fumbled and stumbled after her, giddy all the same. He'd bumble it for sure. He'd fall over his own lips and blush and try to recover and fail. Because Nissa made him a fool. A soft, happy, smitten fool.
"Did you find one, Mish," Rhona asked, landing a series of feather light punches against his bicep. He theatrically winced and cowered, returning her light laughter with his own before he nodded, holding up the slip of paper for her to see. She mirrored his action and then tossed him a pen for his own wish. She was already scribbling as he sat down at the table to think.
"What'd you find," he asked her to distract from the dizzying plan that was formulating in his brain.
Rhona turned the paper in her hands over and read, "I wish people would practice radical kindness. Planning on setting up donations with the local shelter for this. Donating excess stock and good that aren't out of date, but close."
It was a good plan, one Rhona seemed primed to offer. Had she been thinking about this for a while?
"What about yours," she asked, attention still focused on the slip before her. Misha hesitated enough that she looked up at him, but he smiled and answered, “I wish more people would say ‘I love you’ more freely. It does NOT make it less special if you say it more often.”
"Aww... I love you Misha Edward Greyson Driscol." Rhona even wrinkled her nose sweetly as she delivered her saccharine confession. Misha could only laugh and mimic back, "and I love you, Rhona Lee Burningham." and he laughed because Rhona still hid her face, squealed, and blushed at the mention of her wife's name attached to hers.
"What are you writing back," he recovered, drawing Rhona out from the cover of her hands and her hair.
"Oh, that's easy. I wish more people would plant things. They can start with these papers, so the grant is built into the wish! What about you?"
""I wish people welcomed more softness into their lives. In a world that strives to make soft people hardened, remaining soft is the most radical form of rebellion possible."
"You're just trying to not get bullied about your plushie collection," Rhona shot good naturedly as she stretched to tie her wish to the tree. Misha came up behind her and lifted her by the waist to assist. She only wriggled a little at the surprise, and kicked to announce that she was ready to be lowered again.
"I mean Xi Wang gets it. Nissa isn't exactly sad about the collection either, by the way."
"And speaking of Nissa," Rhona cooed, flicking the wish Misha had taken with a wicked little grin. "You gunna stop being a wimp about how you feel and tell her?"
This time Misha paused, laughing nervously, and hid his blush with a duck of his head. Because Rhona was right. He was being a wimp about how he felt. He was hiding behind excuses and assumptions...
"Yeah," he finally sighed, snagging two star charms and ignoring the way Rhona gasped and clapped. "Yeah, I think it's about time."
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