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  Month 5: November (Part 2)

  Samantha

  “I don’t know about this, Samantha,” Uncle Paul said as we ate dinner together.

  Three weeks had passed since that night with Miguel and Bianca and their family. Everything with Eli had been great, even if he was still stressed about school. Bethany and Kelsey had already filmed another video, and sales were actually on the rise thanks to the free publicity we were getting, plus a boost from an event comic one of the Big Two was running. But I’d put off telling Uncle Paul about Thanksgiving, for no reason other than my own cowardice.

  Did I mention Thanksgiving was in three days? Because Thanksgiving was in three days.

  “Eli’s family is nice,” I said, picking at the greasy slop of processed pork wedged between two slices of white bread pced before me. It was my cheat day, and it was Uncle Paul’s turn to make dinner, but I was still having trouble mustering up the courage to eat this thing.

  “His aunt and uncle are nice,” Uncle Paul said. “Nothing about his parents, from the way he describes them, makes them sound in any way nice.”

  “I mean, yeah, but I think this is important to him.”

  “I think you’re important to him, and he wouldn’t want you to do this if you weren’t sure,” Uncle Paul said before finishing inhaling his sloppy joe. He was on his fourth one.

  “But I am sure,” I said. “I want this.”

  “... Alright,” Uncle Paul said, “If you… If you…”

  “Uncle Paul?” I said.

  He grunted, then grabbed at his forearm and clutched it tightly. His face warped with pain as he struggled for breath, and all that came out of his mouth were pained grunts that slowly turned to screams.

  “UNCLE PAUL!”

  Elijah

  “So, have you made a decision?” Mrs. Duncan asked me, sitting in her yellow ergonomic chair behind the gss desk in her office. It was decorated with knick-knacks, ceramic ptes and gss sculptures of foxes and hand-knit cozies occupying every inch of free space. Mrs. Duncan was a tall, svelte bck woman with iron-gray hair worn in braids that tumbled down her back. She was at least as old as her husband, or possibly a few years older. A picture of her and Mr. Duncan, much younger, on their wedding day, sat on her desk next to her name pte.

  I’d been meeting with her every Thursday night the past three weeks instead of going to my usual css with her husband. She was, frankly, a stelr advisor, walking me through what she actually taught (business management) and how my apparent talent for talking people up and my head for numbers would transte well into the field. And it was giving me ideas. “I have,” I said. “I want to transfer into your program, starting next semester.”

  “I thought that was where this was heading, to be honest,” Mrs. Duncan said. “You’re already paid up for next semester, so that shouldn’t be an issue at the moment. But past that, it’s a two year degree, and you’ll need some way to cover the remaining three semesters. Have you talked to your parents about this yet?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I said, drumming my fingers on the desk. “I know I need to. I just… It’s not gonna be a fun conversation.”

  “I can certainly appreciate that. I had a simir one with my parents a while back.”

  “About studying business?”

  “No, about dating a white boy,” she said pinly.

  “Huh. Fair enough.”

  “Have you considered applying for financial aid?”

  “I have. But don’t I need better grades for that?”

  “Yes,” she said pinly. “But if you raise your GPA by a significant margin next semester, you’ll qualify.”

  I ran my hands through my hair, let out a heavy sigh, and said, “This is all hinging on a lotta variables.”

  “I know it is, kiddo. But we’re talking about your future here. It’s all variables. They don’t teach this in school, but there are no guarantees in life. Almost every choice you make will be a shot in the dark. You just gotta do what feels right, and hope for the best.”

  I held my breath in my chest, letting it sink like a stone into a deep, dark pool of water. Everything used to be simple, straightforward. Just do what I was told, think what my parents told me to think, and it was smooth sailing. Now I was charting my way through an endless stormy night, desperately hoping not to capsize.

  I breathed out. I could be a bad electrician and make no money; or I could take a risk on something I was actually good at and pray to God that it would work out.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s make this happen.”

  Mrs. Duncan smiled at me, and pulled some paperwork out of her desk. “Proud of you, kiddo. And my husband is too, even if he struggles to show it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, looking for any kind of proverbial lighthouse in the distance. That was when my phone rang, and the name on the caller ID was all the light I needed. “Do you mind if I take this? It’s my girlfriend.”

  “Go right ahead,” Mrs. Duncan said with a gentle smile.

  I stood up and answered the phone as I stepped out of the room and into the hallway. “Hey, Samantha, what’s up?”

  “Eli? I’m at the hospital. It’s Paul- he’s had a heart attack!”

  Panic nced my chest. The light on the horizon was snuffed out, and I was left treading water on a turbulent sea. Breathe, Eli. Breathe. She needs you. And Paul needs you too. “I’ll be right there,” I said.

  I expined the situation to Mrs. Duncan and took off, weaving through traffic and cutting through every yellow light that tried to stop me. My focus was ser-guided as I found a parking spot at the hospital and ran inside. A nurse led me to the room where Paul was spyed out unconscious. Samantha sat at his side, gripping his hand. An IV drip was hooked up to his arm, and the heart rate monitor was rising and falling at a slow, steady clip. Samantha looked up at me, mascara and foundation running down her face, lips trembling, pupils so dited they were practically consuming her eyes wholesale.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling up a metal chair next to her, putting my arm around her.

  She leaned into the crook of my neck. “Hey.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “The doctor says he’s stable,” Samantha said, her voice low and hoarse and monotone. “But they also said he’s gonna be here for at least a week. He’s also gonna need some serious adjustments to his lifestyle, like major diet and exercise stuff, if he wants to recover.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?” I said, struggling to smile. “This could be a wake up call for him-”

  “I want it to be, I really do,” she said, white-knuckled hands gripping her knees, staring straight ahead as if trying to look beyond the walls. “But he’s just so damn stubborn about everything. I swear he just ughs it off every time I tell him he should be healthier but he… He just… He won’t listen, and I don’t know how to make him listen!”

  “Then we’ll show him the way,” I said. “You’re a good role model as far as this is concerned. It’s been what, four months since you started your diet? You’ve already lost twenty pounds!”

  “Thirty,” she whispered.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she said, a flicker of a smile igniting like a candle in a hurricane. “Measured myself this morning. A lotta clothes don’t fit anymore.”

  “Hey,” I said, putting my hand on her chin, “I’m proud of you. And I know this is scary, but we’ll get through this. All three of us. I know how much Paul means to you. And he means a lot to me as well.”

  “Thank you,” she said, kissing my cheek. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it for Thanksgiving, though.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. It would make my parents incredibly annoying to deal with, but surely they’d understand if I said my girlfriend’s uncle had a heart attack.

  “There is one other thing I’m worried about, though,” Samantha said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Our big Bck Friday sale that Bethany and Kelsey have been helping us promote.”

  “Oh, right. God, that’s gonna be a huge stressor. Whose brilliant idea was-”

  “Yours, babe,” Samantha chuckled. “All you.”

  “... Right. Yeah, that makes sense.”

  “We’ll get through it,” Samantha said, squeezing my hand, fingers interlocking with mine.

  “We will,” I said. “We absolutely will.”

  I sat there for a while, holding her, watching Paul as he fought for his life. It was all I could do. But for her, I’d do it happily.

  The future was in flux. That much was clear to me now. The best I could do was get myself to a pce where I could take care of the people I cared about, be the rock that kept them steady. Keep her steady. Holding her in my arms, I knew it would be worth it.

  ***

  Samantha

  My doorbell rang at four in the morning, and I dragged my way through my empty, silent, mess of a house and to the front door. Eli and Kelsey and Bethany stood on the other side, Eli holding coffee and bagels and Bethany armed with a makeup kit. Once more into the breach.

  I mustered a pitiful excuse for a smile and led them in. “Just lemme shave real quick,” I said, wincing as my voice came out low and haggard.

  “Don’t forget to cleanse beforehand!” Bethany called after me as I stepped into the bathroom.

  “Ugh, yes, mom!” I snarked as I stepped inside to clean myself up.

  The shop was opening bright and early at 6:30 today. I wanted to look as good as possible, if for no reason other than my confidence and self-esteem, before I went through what I was hoping was a very busy, very stressful day.

  Bethany got to work on my makeup once I’d shaved and cleansed and toned and moisturized, going for a bold look with popping eyeshes and dark eyeshadow and dark-red lipstick. She would be in and out of the store filming promotional content for her channel, especially once the special delivery manga came in at noon. She’d also been actively telling her fans that she’d be there for signing and selfies throughout the day, and hopefully we’d get a decent number of customers off of that alone. Kelsey had also been telling everyone she knew about our sale, namely from the superhero book club she was a part of. Eli had been pestering her to make our shop the new meeting space for it, but it was an uphill battle to get them out of Kelsey’s grandmother’s house (the old dy made cookies for every meeting. I suppose that’s what you got when your grandmother had been a fangirl since she first picked up an issue Lois Lane back in the 60s).

  “How do I look?” I asked my boyfriend as I gave a twirl in my blood-red knee-length pencil skirt. My torso was adorned with a tight-fitting bck t-shirt that said ‘anime is trash and so am I,’ one which did an ample job making my baby boobs look as big as possible.

  “Gorgeous,” he said, giving me a pick on the lips. He handed me my coffee. “Got your favorite.”

  “You’re a right proper d, Eli Luna,” I said, poking his nose. “How was Thanksgiving?”

  He froze, the vein on his neck throbbing and his eyes diting and his fists and jaw clenching. It only sted a second, a microsecond, really, but I saw it, saw the pain radiating from his face and posture. “Can we talk about it ter?” he asked.

  “Uh… Sure,” I said. “If you want.”

  “I do. I do want that,” Eli said.

  “Alright,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get to work, then.”

  We packed ourselves into Bethany’s bug, and off we went.

  I unlocked the store, and soon enough, it was time.

  Our first customer came in the second we opened. It was the kid who Eli had sold the comics to on the night I’d hired him. Eli waved to him and greeted him with that winning smile of his, and led him over to the indies shelf. My man spent five minutes talking to him, pulling books off the shelves and putting them in the boy’s hands, until finally, the boy was making a purchase of ten trade paperbacks!

  Bethany filmed parts of the process, with the kid’s permission, of course, and then posted it to her socials with the caption of ‘first Bck Friday Sale of the year!!!’

  They started trickling in, slowly but surely, half of them for Bethany’s meet and greet and the other half for the books themselves. Eli kept closing sale after sale after sale, while I rang up each and every one of them. But standing behind the counter, I felt distant. Closed off. Not quite trapped, but definitely isoted. Like everyone was doing all the work, and I was just…

  There. Just there, like I always was.

  I resolved to change that. I wanted to be better than who I was before. Eli was a social butterfly, and I wanted to stand by his side, arm in arm, and announce myself proudly as his girlfriend and his coworker. And I wanted to make this Bck Friday mine based on my own merit. I needed to be more. For myself, and for him, and for…

  For Uncle Paul. This shop was his pride and joy, the only child he’d ever had. I had to do for it what he had done, what he would do if he were here right now instead of ying in a hospital bed convalescing.

  “How’s it going?” Eli said, walking behind the counter and grabbing his water bottle off the lower shelf underneath.

  “Good, good,” I said as he chugged a few gulps. “Do you mind if I take the next sale?”

  “Heck yeah!” Eli said, rubbing the small of my back. Ohh, Lord, but that was nice. I could picture his hand going lower and lower, taking a fistfull of my ass and-

  -No, NO, down girl. You are at work. You do not have the time for your brain to melt out your ears. Now get to work. And don’t get a boner!

  I gave my boyfriend a kiss and then headed out into the crowded floor. Our little shop hadn’t been this busy in a long, long time, and it was honestly pretty invigorating to see. I scanned the room for people who weren’t here in groups, people who looked like they were searching for something.

  I mean, we’re all searching for something- no, no, not now.

  I spotted a young woman near the back of the shop, parsing through our horror section. I didn’t know superheroes as well as Eli did, but I could definitely handle this part. She looked a couple years older than me, probably just out of college. She had long brown hair worn down her back in natural-looking waves, with pearl-studs in her ears and a diamond ring on her finger. She wore a golden-yellow dress with a long skirt and short sleeves and a plunging neckline, and her pink lipstick and heavy mascara accented her beautiful face all the more.

  “Hi!” I said, hoping my voice sounded okay. Just do what Eli would do. “Finding everything okay?”

  “Uh, actually, I’m looking for something for my fiance,” the woman said. “It’s his birthday soon and I… Hold on, do I know you?”

  “Um, I don’t believe so?” I said, tilting my head to the side and folding my arms behind my back. “My name’s Samantha, though.”

  “Robin, I… Sorry, I just swear I’ve… How long have you been working here?”

  “Uh, since I was sixteen,” I said. This conversation was taking an odd turn. What the heck was this about?

  “And you’re what? 20?”

  “Not for another two months, but almost,” I said.

  “Last time I was in here was three years ago, honestly, but the kid I talked to then was… Wait, hold on. You-”

  Dammit. “I’m not-”

  “You’re like me!”

  “... In what regard?”

  She traced a horizontal line through the air, then a vertical one below it and down the center. A ‘T.’ Meaning… Meaning the girl I’d humiliated in the shop all those years ago was- “Oh my God, you’re that girl… Oh GOD I’m so sorry about that, I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was talking about, and I was-”

  “Hey, it’s okay! I get it. I mean, I didn’t, but now I do,” Robin said, hands up and palms held ft towards me, a conciliatory smile gracing her perfect face. “Go easy on yourself, yeah?”

  “Thanks. Thank you, I… Thank you,” I said, hoping I wasn’t welling up. “I think about that night a lot, actually. That was what first clued me into the fact that I’m… Well, that I’m me.”

  “Gd something good came out of it,” Robin smiled.

  “So, uh, you’re looking for something for your fiance? What’s he into?”

  “Horror, mostly.”

  “Well, you got the right store clerk to help you with that,” I said. This was good, I could handle this, I could work with this. “Realistic? Supernatural? Surreal?”

  “He loves ssher movies. They’re like, his favorite thing ever.”

  “Oh hey, same!” I said.

  “Perfection!” Robin said, snapping her and pointing at me. “What do you recommend?”

  “What’s your budget?”

  “Hundred bucks,” she said.

  “Damn, aight.”

  “Yeah, I just got a new coding job. Pays great. It’s how he and I met.”

  “That’s so cute! I can… I can rete.”

  “Oh yeah?” Robin said.

  I hitched back my thumb towards Eli. “See that pretty boy behind the counter?”

  “OMG, is he yours?” Robin said, giggling.

  “Yeah, he is,” I said, giggling right back. I gave a wistful sigh and leaned on the shelf. “Still can’t believe it, but he is.”

  “Good for you,” Robin smiled.

  “Thanks,” I said. “So, hundred bucks, horror, sshers. Okay, well, we’ve got a compendium of tie-in comics for various ssher movies, all the big franchises. That comes out to fifty bucks.”

  “Good, good, I’ll take it.”

  “Excellent. Anything else I can interest you in?”

  “Well, he also loves supporting indie creators.”

  “Oh, that’s not gonna be an issue at all,” I said. I led her over to a shelf full of Image books, and pulled ssher-adjacent titles off the shelves. By the time I’d finished, she was buying three new trades in addition to the compendium, and Robin was putting her number in my phone while I rang her up. She even put the remaining ten dolrs in the tip jar from the remainder of her budget!

  And just like that, I’d made a sale and a friend. I couldn’t believe it. But what was more unbelievable was how amazing it felt. Like I’d really connected with someone, helped someone, forged a bond over a shared camaraderie and a love of the art.

  “Great job, babe,” Eli smiled, rewarding me with a kiss on the cheek.

  “Eeee, thanks!” I squealed.

  Customers kept pouring in, teenagers looking to spend their part-time job paychecks and parents looking for early Christmas presents for their kids and college students looking for something to purchase while visiting home for the holiday. I let Eli handle a couple of them while I rang people up and, wanting to keep my hands moving, grabbed my sketchbook. I’d been working on my ssher drawings off and on since Eli and I had first started hanging out, but talking with Robin had given me a buzz to get back to it.

  It got me thinking, though. My idea, about a jousting tournament between sshers. All the killers in that were based on pre-existing ones, thinly-veiled copies of copyrighted characters. I’d given Robin a whole book of those, but the ones she’d seemed more excited about were the original creations. Maybe I should lean into that? And sshers were hard to connect with (you know, because of all the murder and sex-negativity). It couldn’t just be all sshers at the tournament. Maybe final girls should be there too…

  No, actually, that didn’t feel like me.

  What about the slutty girls? What about the slutty girls who the sshers killed coming back to fight in the tournament?

  My hands moved practically without thinking, as an image of a victim, a college girl with an enormous bust tarnished by a hole in her heart. She had long bck hair and abaster skin and a gothic style, but I made her much skinnier than me, as skinny as I wished I was, and I drew a killer with a hypnotic swirl of a face holding the heart in his hand.

  It was rough, but… It was good.

  But I needed more. And I knew enough to know that ideas came from experience.

  “Whatcha working on, good looking?” Eli asked, coming behind the counter and chugging another bottle of water. Jesus, could that boy fit a lot down his throat. Made me wonder about- STOP. DOING. THAT. BRAIN. I CANNOT GET A BONER RIGHT NOW. I CAN’T. And besides, I don’t think Eli would be super interested in doing anything with that. Maybe other aspects of my personage- nope, nope, not now. Not thinking about this now.

  “Mind if I get another one?” I asked.

  “By all means,” Eli beamed.

  “Cool,” I said. And before I left, my hands, once again moving entirely of their own volition, pinched his butt.

  He gave a cute little yelp, and I giggled again as he looked at me in flustered shock. “Daring today, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe,” I said, winking at him and blowing him a kiss

  I sauntered out from behind the counter with a spring in my step, waltzing past Bethany taking selfies with a group of fans- mostly girls our age- and looked for someone I could work with. Shortly into my search, I found a very confused looking mom wandering about the manga section. She was Southeast Asian, with close-cropped bck hair accented by sparks of gray. She was also incredibly short, probably no taller than five foot one, with her bulky blue sweater and long, flowing bck skirt threatening to swallow her whole.

  “Hi there,” I said, pleased with how my voice came out. “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m looking for something for my son. He’s very into this whole Japanese comic thing. Personally, I don’t understand what’s wrong with good old fashioned French comics- the cssics, the Asterix’s, the Tintins, the Valerians, the what-have-you’s, but hey, kids these days amiright? Do you have anything you recommend? He’s very into, like, the whole genre of buff teenagers beating the tar out of each other while working for some kind of organization patterned after Japanese bureaucracy.” The woman spoke at a million miles per hour, her hands flying about as the words came soaring at me. Oh wow. Mom on a mission. This would be a lot to keep up with.

  I took a deep breath, and tried my best to give a beaming smile. Oh God, I hope I didn’t have anything in my teeth. Or on them- Oh God, please let there not be any lipstick on my teeth! “Well, we’re in the right section for that kind of thing. Maybe you could point out a few of the series your son already enjoys, and we can work from there?”

  “That sounds good. Also, money’s tight this year and I’m hoping to stay under fifty dolrs, just we’re clear.”

  “Fair and valid,” I said. I ran my hand over the tankobon shelf and pulled off a volume of MHA, a volume of Demon Syer, and a volume of JJK. “Does your son like any of these?”

  “Yes, he loves that one with the swords especially!” she said.

  “Okay, then I think I have an idea,” I said, going to the ‘B’ section and pulling off a few volumes of a childhood favorite of mine, with a buff ginger boy cd in a bck robe and wielding a katana on a white-backgrounded cover. “Perhaps your son might enjoy this. The first couple volumes would come to forty-five dolrs total with tax, and I really do think he’d enjoy it. This is coming from someone who’s a fan of both series.”

  “Perfect!” she said. “Thank you so much for your help, by the way! I’m Debra!”

  She offered up a handshake, and I returned it happily, introducing myself as I brought Debra over to the check-out counter.

  I buzzed with giddiness at the success of my second sale. This was good, I was getting better, and it felt amazing. And with the number of sales we’d made today, we would more than turn a profit for the month.

  And it was only noon.

  I womaned the counter again for a while, letting my hands guide my pencil in-between sales. The talk with Debra made me think: moms were a big part of ssher movies. Friday the 13th had its famous twist in the first movie, and it revisited the well more than once; Psycho had the whole dichotomy thing going on with Norman and his mom; the Elm Street and Halloween franchises had a recurring fixation on parenthood and the messy retionships between kids and their mothers. Mommy issues were a motif of sorts, possibly more so than all the sex negativity.

  So, if my story was trying to reinvent the wheel with sshers, turn conventions on their heads with things like the ghosts of slutty girl victims going up against sshers in a jousting tournament (where they rode unicorns, naturally), how did moms factor in? Perhaps the moms of the sshers were trying to break into the tournament to stop it from happening, protect their precious babies? Or perhaps the moms of the victims were the ones responsible for the tournament as a form of karmic punishment to their daughters’ killers?

  My pencil slowly found itself crafting a tall, buxom blonde woman in her forties, the image of a woman who’d normally have been killed in a ssher film for the crime of having sex, but who had, by some miracle, been allowed to survive and move on with her life. Perhaps she became a mother. Perhaps to a daughter. Perhaps her daughter had taken after her, and had found herself in a ssher movie, but hadn’t been so lucky as her mother. Perhaps she hadn’t survived, and her mother had gotten into the occult and created the tournament to give her daughter’s spirit a chance at vengeance, to give all the fallen girls that chance.

  I had another rough sketch of a character done after an hour of intermittent work. I smiled at my art, for the first time in a good long while. I wasn’t really sure why that was, but-

  “Ooohh, what’s this?” Bethany said, leaning over the counter and looking at my sketchbook.

  “Gah!” I shouted, smming the sketchbook shut and breathing in sharply.

  “Hey, hey, it’s just me, girly, it’s all good,” Bethany said, hands raised high and palms held ft. “We need to switch you to decaf for the rest of the day, maybe?”

  “Uh, yeah, maybe,” I said, forcing out a nervous chuckle.

  “Sorry, I really should’ve asked first before I looked,” Bethany said.

  “No, no, it’s fine, I just… I usually don’t show people my sketches.”

  “Didn’t Eli get a look at them earlier?”

  “... Good point,” I said. “I dunno, I just… I dunno, it feels different with… With…”

  “With what?”

  With women, the words shot through me, a hollow point round straight out of a rifle. Shame saturated my cells in its wake, and I blinked rapidly. “With, uh, people I’m not dating, I guess,” I said, hoping it sounded convincing.

  “Well, unless you get into a polycule, that’s gonna wind up being most people,” Bethany pointed. “Is everything else okay?”

  No, I thought. “Yeah, it’s all good,” I said.

  She gave me a look I was reasonably sure conveyed skepticism, but she didn’t press the issue. “Well, just figured I’d ask if you wanted something for lunch. Kelsey and I were gonna make a food run.”

  I did. I very much did. Thoughts of greasy, delicious carbs and meat and cheese occupied my every brain cell. But then the image of my uncle in his hospital bed, drugged out of his mind and barely able to breathe let alone think or speak, exploded inside my mind, burning me with cold fmes of anxiety and dread and self-loathing. “No, I think I’m fine.”

  “Wrong answer,” Bethany said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you need to eat. It’s one in the afternoon, and breakfast was seven hours ago for you. You’re eating.”

  “But I’m not-”

  “Yeah, this feels like the part where you say you’re not hungry and then your stomach rumbles audibly and then you’re left with the proverbial egg on your face.”

  “Oh come the hell on, that does not happen in real life. Nothing is ever that well-”

  My stomach rumbled. Bethany raised an eyebrow. Eli and Kelsey turned away from what they were doing and stared at me. Several customers did the same.

  “-Timed,” I said, unblinking, bnk-faced.

  “Locks on a bagel good? There’s a pce a block away that does them so well you’d think you were in Brooklyn,” Bethany said, pinks lips upturned in an utterly smug smile that, on anyone but her, would probably look unfttering.

  “... With tomatoes and capers, please,” I said.

  “Onions?”

  “Yes, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Bethany said, still smirking at me.

  “You’re enjoying this.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “And you’re paying for the food.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair,” she said before blowing me a kiss. “More coffee?”

  “Yes please. No cream or sugar, though.”

  “Obviously,” she said, waving at me before beckoning Kelsey to follow her with a crook of her manicured index finger.

  I was left to stew with my hunger and my thoughts for a second. Why did I have so much trouble with women looking at my art? I had trouble showing it to be people in general, frankly, but girls… OTHER girls, I was always worried they’d ugh at it. Think it was stupid. Think I was stupid. There had to be some sort of trauma response going on there, right? It was the only expnation. Either that or I just had some kind of internalized sexism I needed to work through.

  Neither was a terribly appealing concept.

  I thought back, trying to remember the first time I’d ever shown one of my sketches to someone, and I found, buried deep in the back of my mind, a memory of my childhood home. Or rather, my parents’ home. I’d spent all day waiting for Mom or Dad to get back from work, all day drawing cartoon characters, fairy tale princesses mostly, in my sketchpad. Sitting at the kitchen table, letting some show I wasn’t watching py on the television and some album I wasn’t listening to bre on the speakers to drown out the silence otherwise strangling the house. Finally, as the sun began to fade in a slurry of red and gold and navy, the front door unlocked and my mother came in with her hair and makeup a mess and what I now knew as hickeys decorating her neck.

  I was six. I was just excited that Momma was home. So I ran to her with my stupid fucking drawing and I-

  And she-

  She fucking tore it up!

  Another memory, this one of my middle school art css. It was the first time I’d gotten an A, and I held the drawing I’d done to win such an accode in my hands proudly as I stepped outside of the art room.

  Only for a girl in my css- I couldn’t even remember the bitch’s name at this point- to steal it out of my hands and tear it up, ughing to her friends, “You know what they say about boys who are good at art! They’re all f-”

  There were other incidents. I was sure of it. But I was at work, and I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. Besides, today was different. I was different. I was becoming better. And I wanted to keep going on the path upwards.

  I kept sketching and working the counter until Bethany and Kelsey arrived with lunch, at which point Eli was gentlemanly enough to let me break first.

  I kept on sketching while I ate, drawing up art of different contestants for the jousting tournament. Okay, so what did I want this graphic novel to be, exactly? How long? I would have to limit the number of competitors for this to work without it mutating into a longer series. For the tournament structure to work, the number of contestants would need to be divisible by four. Four itself was too small, and sixteen was too big, and twelve didn’t math properly. But eight… I could work with eight. Four sshers and four girls. The MC could be the dark-haired girl I drew, the ssher who killed her could be her final opponent. And her mother could be behind all this.

  I flipped through my pad, and found I had a solid ten pages worth of character designs. I liked them. It was probably the first time I ever thought my stupid little idea had any real legs to it. But it did, I could work with this. I could make this happen. I could make this happen! I could be an actual comic artist! Holy fuck! HOLY FUCK, I COULD BE AN ACTUAL COMIC ARTIST! HELL FUCKING YES!

  The timer on my phone chimed, and I headed out front for the rest of my shift. I popped a breath mint before giving my boyfriend a kiss and sending him to go eat in the back, and with that, I readied myself.

  I was gonna be a comic artist. I was gonna cure whatever weird, sexist energy was still infesting me after years of getting smacked down by the women in my life. And I was gonna close so many damn sales today.

  I watched as Bethany and Kelsey kept recommending manga to people- I would really have to give them a cut of today’s tips- and I smiled. A mother and a daughter, the girl probably still in middle school, came in, and I gave them a wave that brought them over to the counter.

  “Hi! Welcome to Kendrick’s Comics. Anything I can help you find?”

  “Go ahead, sweetie,” the mom said, nudging her anxious looking little daughter.

  Hesitantly, gradually, nervously, the girl opened her mouth and said, “I really like Supergirl. Do you have any comics about her?”

  Not exactly my forte, but: “I can show you where her books are shelved! Right this way. And, uh, I can ask my associate what he’d recommend for a younger reader, if you’d like?”

  “Okay!” the girl beamed.

  My heart practically melted. The mom’s heart was definitely melting as I led them over to the appropriate section. I asked Eli to fill me in on stuff a kid could enjoy, and wound up closing a sale on two trades.

  The day was good. And it stayed good.

  Eli

  Finally, we flipped the ‘open’ sign over to ‘closed’ and started locking up. I dumped out the contents of the tip jar- of both of the tip jars we’d managed to fill to the top- onto the front desk and started counting, while Samantha took inventory with Bethany and Kelsey’s help. Bethany and Kelsey eventually parted ways, leaving the two of us alone in the dim light of the shop. “How’d we do?” Samantha asked while I looked over all the receipts.

  “We made, and I’m not exaggerating here, a killing!” I said. “A month’s worth of profits, in one day.”

  “Holy shit,” Samantha said. She started bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, the way I’d seen Bethany do, and her breasts gave a little jiggle when she did so. She looked down when she saw that was happening, then looked up at me with the biggest, goofiest smile I’d ever seen on her face. “Holy shit! Holy shit holy shit holy shit!”

  I leaned forward and mugged. “Indeed.”

  She grabbed a fistful of my t-shirt from across the counter and buried her tongue deep in my mouth, and I happily returned it as my fingers traced up and down her arm while my spare hand brushed through her hair. “This looks good on you.”

  “What, boobs?”

  “Yes. But also, happiness. It looks really good on you.”

  “Heehee,” she said, giving me another peck on the mouth. “Thank you. For everything.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I just… Just wanna help, you know. Wanna feel useful for a change.”

  “Eli,” she said, cupping my face, her soft, warm hands a lifeline in the storm.

  “I know, I know,” I said, making a weak attempt to ugh it off. “More good news, by the way: I’m gonna be starting the business management program in the new year.”

  “Babe, that’s amazing!” she said.

  “Heh, thanks,” I said, eyes downcast. “Nice to get a kind word on it.”

  “I take it your parents didn’t react well?”

  “I haven’t told them yet. I told Tio Miguel, though, and even he said my dad is gonna flip his shit when he finds out. He’s, uh, not crazy about the whole management thing.”

  “I mean, fair, but it’s what you wanna do, right?”

  “I think so,” I said, looking around at my pce of business, at the pce I’d found community and companionship and romance in. The pce where I’d found direction. “I think… I could really help this pce. And maybe others like it, too.”

  “That’s my man,” she said, kissing me up and down my neck.

  “Last night was,” I said, “it wasn’t great.”

  She stopped, looked me straight in the face. “What happened?”

  “My cousin Sarah went into bor.”

  “Wait, seriously? You’re an uncle?”

  “Second cousin once removed, technically,” I said. “But yeah, I have a nephew, sorta.”

  “So what’s the problem? I know you said your cousin is a bit much, but isn’t the miracle of birth a good thing, generally speaking? Was the baby healthy?”

  “Completely. Strong as an ox,” I said. “But Sarah’s water broke right as my Dad was giving a toast. He did not like that. And he let everyone know that. Loudly.”

  Samantha’s face contorted with fury. “Are you fucking serious? He got mad about a toast getting interrupted? It wasn’t even at your house!”

  “I know,” I grumbled. “It wasn’t a great look. And my mom taking his side didn’t help, even when Sarah’s mom tore into her. And my Tio Jose, who’s house we were at, also took my dad’s side, and my Tia Consue started calling Sarah a slut for having a baby out of wedlock-”

  “Jesus Christ. What about you? What did you do?”

  “I just… Did what I could. Sarah’s boyfriend was running te, so I held her hand while we waited for him. He ran a whole bunch of red lights to get there, and then I went to the hospital with them along with my aunt and uncle and Tio Miguel and Tia Bianca. We all just let everyone else keep screaming at each other while we did what was important. I was at the hospital all night with them, and when I saw Sarah holding that baby, little Nate, she looked… She looked changed. Like she had a new way of seeing the world. And seeing herself.”

  “Did you get to hold the baby?” she asked, walking behind the counter and taking my hand.

  “I did. He was so tiny. He was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, I said. I didn’t leave until Bethany picked me up at the hospital. Visited Paul before I left- he was asleep, but it was still good to see him.”

  “Wait, you came straight to my house from-”

  “Yup.”

  “So you haven’t slept in-”

  “Well over twenty-four hours.”

  “How are you standing right now?!” she said, visibly and audibly concerned.

  “Pure willpower,” I said, “and adrenaline. And a lotta caffeine.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah,” I said, everything starting to fall away. I wanted to fall over right there and then. I needed to get to sleep, but the idea of going home to whatever clusterfuck waited for me with my parents, probably furious I’d taken Sarah’s side in my dad’s stupid fucking argument gave me a fresh spike of panic straight through the chest.

  “You wanna crash at my pce tonight?” Samantha said, seemingly reading my mind.

  I blinked. “A-are you sure? Are we there yet?”

  “Down, boy,” she said, poking my nose lightly. “I’m not quite ready for that either. But we can make out all you like, and you can sleep in my bed. Or the couch. Whichever you want.”

  I could have wept. I could have fallen asleep in her arms, sobbing my eyes out while I listened to her heartbeat. “Babe. You’re the best, you know that? I don’t know what I did to be worthy of you-”

  “Oh, stop,” she said, kissing my cheek. “C’mon, grab your stuff. I wanna show you the sketches I worked on today. And we can make some dinner, help ourselves to Uncle Paul’s whiskey, since he’s not gonna be able to drink for a while. I’ll call us a ride.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, checking for my phone and wallet as we walked out from behind the counter. The car came pretty quickly, and my girlfriend took my hand as she led me towards it.

  It felt like she was leading me towards something.

  This was what direction felt like.

  It was nice.