(The summary that got cut off) Jonathan looks, acts and seems like your average guy - except that he's secretly an international bestselling author. After releasing the final installment of his bestselling series under the pen name of Sid Rouile, he decides to catch up on a life he's missed out on in the 10 years that he had spent working on the books, and heads to sunny California to return to school. Documenting his life in undated journal entries, it is there that his life gets more complicated than it ever had been before. With each written secret, his life begins to unravel, and relationships begin to blossom...
Sid Rouile. Sid fucking Rouile, author of the global bestselling series Gold, household name and presumed millionaire, the mysterious man that everybody wished to meet, that everybody wished to know. The man of a million questions – what is he like? What does he like? What does he do? Where does he come from? Most importantly, who is he?
That's my life to the public world. Sid fucking Rouile, man of a thousand mysteries, the faceless author that nobody knows anything about except for the fact that he penned a series that solidified its position in the eyes of the world as one of the greatest action and mystery novel series to ever be written. After nearly ten years of writing professionally under the pen name of Sid Rouile, after nearly ten years of secretly living as the renowned author – in the process allowing this hulk of a figure to overshadow my real life - I think I'm done.
Nobody knew I was Sid Rouile – at least, nobody significant to me knew. Other than a few choice close friends and a few close family members that I had let in on the secret, nobody knew. Best of all, nobody could figure out. Who would've thought bumbling, stammering old Jonathan who couldn't even string a sentence together without mixing up his words at least once would've had such a way with his words? Who would've thought that insane old Jonathan with the goofy, clown-like laughter would've been capable of something introspective? Who would've thought that little Jonathan, the nerdy joker in the back of the class, would've managed to live a life bigger than his own?
And so nobody suspected a damn thing, and simply accepted that Jonathan, the Jonathan that was almost mediocre in school, the Jonathan that was slow to pick up some things and notice others, the Jonathan that could barely tell his left from his right, the Jonathan that never went on to do anything big or extraordinary after he graduated with less than amazing results from high school, was doomed for an unimpressive life.
Except, in a way, they were right. My life – Jonathan's life – has been pretty fairly unimpressive and eventless. When my first essays came back with gracious comments and praise from teachers about how surprisingly well-written they were, I kept quiet and kept my head down, keeping all that under wraps. There wasn't anything to boast about – there were so many better writers out there that wrote much better than I did. No matter how many books I read and how many words I understood, I could never pluck them out of my vocabulary and put them to their proper uses, be it in everyday life or in writing. I told that to my senior year English teacher, who disagreed. "What is impressive about your writing isn't that there is an expansive vocabulary that outranks everybody's writing, but that you translate the emotions of your characters into words so smoothly that it's hard not to relate to them." She then encouraged me to write more, insisting that I had a potential that I needed to tap into. I couldn't take her words seriously – Jonathan was dull.
When I started penning the first of the Gold series – Fresh Gold – I kept quiet once more. I wasn't proud of what I was writing, not at all. I kept looking at the other books and novels I had in my collection and I kept wondering why I couldn't match up to these bigger, better writers. Maybe it was the comparison that killed it for me – putting enough emotional stress on me that I somehow poured it all onto the pages. When Fresh Gold was picked up by an editor – and later a publisher – I had to keep quiet again. I thought they were kidding when they said that the story was a rollercoaster ride. I could hardly believe it either when the reviews came in for the book, ranging from rave reviews singing high praise for the story to mixed reviews commenting on where it could've improved. But I couldn't celebrate – not openly at least. I lay low, smiling and laughing quietly in my home with Luke with a couple of glasses of rum and coke and a few slices of thick, cheesy pizza. There wasn't much for me to celebrate about. I had to get back to work and continue writing the next novel in the series. I had to get back to work at my part-time job at the game store, and pretend that I was just good old Jonathan the part-time game store clerk. Besides, the achievement wasn't mine. It was Sid's - Sid fucking Rouile's. Sid's life was impressive. Jonathan's wasn't.
But don't get me wrong here. It's not that I detest being Sid Rouile. Sure, he might've taken over my life and the bastard may have made Jonathan seem like a doofus next to the hulking greatness of a genius that he was. But I loved every moment of being Sid. I loved writing as him, and I loved being secretive. I loved having all the privacy in the world that came with the anonymity, and I loved being able to pick out my writing materials and my groceries and my video games at stores without being recognized for who I was. I loved being able to watch movies and read books at the library without having people come up to me asking for pictures, and I loved being able to hang out with Luke at all the restaurants and diners in the city without having extra things coming to our table 'on the house'. I loved being able to walk around the neighborhood without having people yelling out my name – or Sid's name – and how much they loved me. I loved not having fanmail come straight to me, in my mailbox or in my email inbox, flooding me with all the comments, love or hate, and all their gifts. I loved being Jonathan, and I loved being Sid at the same time. I wasn't even in the least bit bothered that Jonathan wasn't getting any bit of the recognition that Sid was getting, or that Jonathan was simply an average man living his average life when he could've been big and famous. I liked my life as Jonathan and my life as Sid separate.
What irked me was writing as Sid. It wasn't easy every step of the way. When I broke out with Fresh Gold, people saw the potential. People wanted more, and they wanted better. People had expectations. I had my first block there, an obstacle that I struggled with for the second book. I pondered over the question for the longest time – "In Soft Gold, how should the friendship between Ash and Grant develop further? Should it even develop? Should it simply fade?"
I went about with that question for so long it began to infect my conversations. Almost all of my foster siblings thought their friendship should experience some violent tumult that broke them apart before it strengthened itself slowly. Mother thought it would be best if their friendship faded – it was a mark of reality. James, my manager and editor, agreed with her on a personal level.
The comments on multiple sites on the Internet disagreed vehemently with both sides. People wanted their friendship to grow and to flourish. People wanted to see the possibility of them coming together as best friends. Some of the more hardcore fans wanted to see them come together as a couple. Some wanted to see them both break apart, stating that Ash deserved better. It wasn't easy at all, between deciding whose hearts I should break – mine, or the readers'.
What irked me as well was how the readers felt about Sid. Whilst I knew most of my audience revered Sid for his writing and for his stories, it unnerved me to know that I had people who were more interested in the man behind Sid Rouile, the person behind the mask. The countless speculations about who he might be did not bother me – it is but a price to pay for prompting the curiosity of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions – but the possibility of someone taking it into their own hands to find me, to find who I am and the life that I lead irks me and makes me worry every once in a while for my own private life. When would someone eventually find me and expose me to this world? Where would little Jonathan run, then, to protect his own secretive, quiet life?
Thankfully enough, James has been my guardian angel from the start of my career as Sid when I made it clear as day to him that I did not intend to unmask myself or to let Sid Rouile be just a pen name. Sid would be an entire person of his own, separate from the life of Jonathan Lewis Smith. He understood immediately what I wanted and desired, and he worked harder than ever to keep my privacy alive. Fanmail was redirected away from me, addresses, email addresses, all forms of personal details obscured. He was my shield, my protector from the prying eyes of the world that wanted to see more of Sid and know more about who lay behind the name.
He was also the first person I went to earlier to confide in about my intentions to take a long hiatus as Sid Rouile. I told him I had to stop after Death Gold was finalized and finally released for the world to enjoy. It had been ten long years of commitment to an identity and to a series, and I deserved a break. Sid Rouile deserved a good long break.
"What are you going to do, then? People are going to ask questions." He mentioned. "They're going to bombard the offices with letters and fanmail asking where you've gone and what you're doing that you have to go away for so long. We'll need an official statement from you that will settle their spirits and make them accept you're taking a break."
"I don't think they need a reason. Sid's life is none of their business." I dismissed, to be frank, stupidly.
"Ten years and you've yet to learn the basics of public relations." James sighed disapprovingly. "It's a good stance to take personally, that your private life is none of anyone else's business – but these are your fans we're talking about. They'll want an answer, especially since you're going to vanish for quite some time. They'll feel entitled to know a bit about you and who you are and where you're going. They'll feel entitled to know how long you're going to make them wait."
"Look, even I don't know where I'm going. I don't even know what I'm going to do, or – or how long this break is going to be." I confessed slowly. I was never good with spoken words – writing was more my field. I had more time to think and to slowly wait for words in my vocabulary to surface. Besides, my brain seemed to be connected more to my hands than my lips. "I'll just be really – really glad to let Sid off my… my hands for a bit. This way I can live as Jonathan again, and grow as Jonathan."
James looked at me with keen, discerning eyes. I knew he knew what I was trying to say, because he answered –
"You know what? Leave the fan questions to me. Take the time off, work on yourself. You've worked hard for the past ten years. You've missed out on a good load of things. People have been doing things you haven't been – going to college, dating, getting married and having kids. Take the time off, get started on some of these things, maybe. Or just go on a long holiday in Tahiti and get more inspiration. Just make sure you come back stronger than ever, okay?"
And so he left, my manuscript for Death Gold firmly stowed in his briefcase. He was right, I had missed out on a lot. Sid Rouile started the moment I left high school, taking over every bit of my life. I never went on to do the things many other people did. I just lived as plain old Jonathan, silly little Jonathan that didn't seem good enough for college, while I wrote out pages and pages that detailed a world under the name of Sid fucking Rouile in the dark.
Not long after he left, Luke came knocking on my door. He seemed more excited than usual, whilst I remained – again, stupidly – oblivious as to why. He rambled on about things at a faster pace, his actions were more dramatic and animated than usual. Every once in a while, while he thought I wasn't looking, his eyes would shift to the coffee table where the paper bag he brought lay. Or maybe he knew that I was looking and was deliberately doing so to make me pay attention to it. Either way, I caught on quickly to his oddness.
"Okay, what's up?" I interrupted before he could start another sermon about the problem in his day that day.
"Oh. Nothing." He shrugged, his eyes darting towards the paper bag again.
"You keep looking at that paper bag." I accused, and I watched as something shifted in his eyes. "It's like you don't want me to question it, or you want me to notice it."
"Oh." He said simply, and began to take an interest in my face for some odd reason.
"What's up, Luke? You're weird."
He examined my face for a little while longer, before he frowned. "Seriously? You don't remember?"
"Remember what?" Stupid, stupid me.
"It's your fucking birthday, moron. You really don't remember that?"
"Oh." It was my turn to vocalize simply. I truly forgot about my birthday, mainly because I willed myself to forget about it so many years back. The prospect of turning old was uglier than ever to me, for it reminded me constantly about how much I was missing out every year. At twenty-one I tried to forget that I should've been in college by then, and I should've been happily celebrating in a bar with my college friends about how I was allowed by law to consume alcohol. At twenty-five I tried to forget that I should've already graduated college by then and started on that little childhood dream of mine to travel the world. It was only in the recent years that it was almost so easy to forget my birthday, the date in the calendar the somehow always managed to summon the beginning of the summer heat waves.
Luke shook his head in disapproval. Every seemed to do that these days – be in constant disapproval of me and my actions. "You really forgot. For god's sake, you're nearing thirty, the big three-oh. That's a milestone you don't want to miss."
"If it's anything like all these years, it's a milestone I will want to miss." I bit back. "Thirty is not a nice number, by the way. Just another forty or so years – if I'm lucky – till I die."
Luke shrugged. "Over thirty here, still feel great. I feel like I'm living life to the fullest. Anyway," He picked up the paper bag haphazardly from the side of the table and chucked it into my lap. "Your birthday gift. It's nothing special, but you'll like it."
With a sigh, I peeled open the paper bag and spilled its contents into my lap. Of course it was nothing special, but Luke knew exactly what tickled me most. A thick hardcover journal landed on my lap, the simple, plain surface embossed with thick gold letters spelling my initials. Just beside it was a clear plastic box with various writing equipment in it, ranging from quills to professional looking ballpoint pens.
"Like it?" Luke asked, barely able to conceal the timid edge in his voice. "I mean, everybody's probably given you something like this before, possibly every year –"
I cut him off. I had to. "I love it, Luke. I fucking love it. You know how much of a soft spot I have for this sort of things. Everybody else gives me video games and story books and action figurines and for some reason magazine subscriptions, but nobody has ever come up with this."
He grinned sheepishly. "I got tired of simply giving you all those after nearly twenty years. I thought you deserved something nicer and better to celebrate ten years in writing."
I grimaced. "I only just told James – he came and left before you did – that I was going to take a very long break as Sid and stop writing professionally for a while."
I expected Luke to be shocked. I expected those dark brown eyes of his to go wide, and the thin hard line of his lips to part in surprise. I expected all of that. Except he was far from it. He seemed completely calm and unsurprised by this revelation, as though it was something he had long seen coming.
"You're not surprised?" I queried.
"Not at all. You've been kind of out of it for some time. You just never really noticed and just plowed on with your story. I mean – you didn't look like you hated being Sid. You just looked really tired."
"So why did you give me these?" I held up his gifts gingerly, afraid to even move them in case I'd do some weird damage to it.
"Because it's you. I can't stop you from writing. I can't stop you from needing to express your feelings or telling another story. Even if you're not going to write professionally, you're going to end up writing something. You're a storyteller, Jonathan, and you've always got things to say that you can't ever get out of your mouth. Just like how Mom and Dad could never rip the book or the controllers out of your hands back in those days."
I sighed at the memory of the better part of my childhood. "Those were the days."
"Those were the days," he agreed. "You grew up to be an oddly tough nut, you know that? You sure don't look the part, but you're pretty tough."
And so here I am with this wonderful journal and an exquisite pen set. He was right – I had to write. I had finished with writing Death Gold mere days ago, but my life was emptier than ever. I had to tell a story, and I had to express my feelings. I had to use Luke's gift right away to detail every single thing in my life, because right after I was finished with telling a story that I made up, I had to tell another story that I crafted – the story of my life, and Sid Rouile's life.
The news broke earlier today, just as Death Gold was set for release a few months down the road. It was the talk of the streets – at least I thought it was. The bookstore was unusually packed when I went down to pick up a few more notebooks and some ink, and I could barely squeeze myself into the stationery section, much less make my way to the cashier. For the first time in forever, it took me a full half hour before I could even walk out of the store with my wares.
But I digress – the bookstore was where I heard some of the wildest speculations about me and my temporary departure from the literary world. Or rather – Sid's departure. If I ever had expressed my joy at never hearing my name yelled out in public, or even Sid's name yelled out in public, I suppose this joy and the desire to keep this joy alive had been strengthened by the events at the bookstore.
All around me was chattering, intense and unrestrained. Nobody seemed to be holding back – people were fanatically introducing their friends to the first three instalments of the Gold series, commenting on what made the series so intensely well-liked and summarizing the qualities of the plotline. Another group of people were lining up towards the cashiers, Rose Gold tucked underneath their arms – perhaps to catch up on the story before the release of Death Gold, I thought.
It was, however, a group of girls nearby the entrance of the bookstore that caught my attention. Each of them had different books from the series tucked underneath their arms amongst the rest of their shopping, and they were talking loudly, excitedly and with such intensity that I had believed they were discussing some serious world issue before I came within earshot of them. Instead, they were discussing none other than the great Sid Rouile and his works as well as his hiatus from professional writing.
"I wonder if he's taking a break to get married! I heard he was!" One of them cried, the colorful streaks in her hair giving her words an added dramatic quality as she swished them about.
"That'd be so cute! It's so romantic – him meeting the love of his life, and then abandoning all this fame and glory for this one person that he's so in love with!" Another squealed, her voice sharp and piercing.
"I know," a third drawled dreamily in high tones. "It's so sweet. He sounds like such a sweet guy, too! Just the way he wrote Rose Gold... Oh, god, I'm not going to spoil it for the two of you, but so far, it's so good..."
At that point, I walked away with my purchases, unwilling to hear more. I was not taking a break to get married, and I definitely had not met the love of my life, as pleasing as the entire affair may sound. Yet, hearing such intense and wild speculations about my life and about Sid's life made me so aware of how badly I needed the world to hear less of Sid for a while. It was too much. I needed to retreat back into the shadows and just be good old Jonathan, just for a while.
I will not deny, however, that Rose Gold was written with a romance in mind. The months of writing the third book of the series were so intensely thrilling and passionate, I wondered if when I awoke from the dream, I would be so immensely drained of energy that I could not bring the tetralogy to a close. I spent days and nights – depending on how deep into the darkness I wrote myself into before turning in – lying in bed with my heart thrumming rapidly and forcefully against my chest, excited beyond measure about the deep love I held. The other side of my bed would be empty, devoid of a sleeping partner, but I would pretend that I had one by deliberately sleeping in on one side of the bed and filling the other side with a bundle of pillows. Each morning when I awoke, I would turn towards the largest of these pillows and hug them, sometimes even pecking them gently as if I were kissing a lover. It was a ritual I kept up with in the months that I wrote, a ritual that began in the month preceding the start of my work.
It almost sounds like an odd thing to do and an odd habit to have. Truth to be told, it wasn't a habit as much as it was a desire. I needed to be held every morning, and I desired to kiss, and to be kissed every morning. I was very much and very shamefully in love, and in love with someone that could never be beside me for much of my days and all of my nights no less. At that time, every moment we spent felt like both a blessing and a curse – a blessing for every little sweet nothing we managed to sneak, a curse for every time when we had to leave each other's side. And so whenever I came home from whatever little of a date I could go on, I was both drained and reinvigorated, spent, yet raring for more. It was this feeling that I decided to capture in Rose Gold, and it was this feeling that I needed badly to express and let out. Like Luke said, I had to tell a story.
But at this moment, this very moment, I had little desire for an attachment. Even if those girls offered themselves to me, I would have rejected them based on three simple things – that I was no interested in a romantic relationship, that I was not interested in a romantic relationship with my fans, and that I was not interested in a romantic relationship with them. Whilst the first two are easily susceptible to change with time and with circumstance, the third was quite a solid rule I held based on my impression of them as well as the fact that they were not quite what I looked for in a partner.
That's why the questions kept coming – "When are you going to find someone? Who are you dating? When are you getting married? When are you going to get on with your life, Johnny boy?"
It was because I was almost always alone, and whenever I found something, someone that came by, I lost the opportunity as soon as I held it in my hands.
Luke's been dropping by recently, and he asked if I've been writing frequently these days in the journal he gave me. I told him that I had, mainly because that's what I've been doing these days in the place of writing the Gold series. I ended up asking myself one night – Why am I still tiring my hand out and wasting the ink of my pen on relentless and irresponsive paper?
I think it's been mentioned before that I'm no speaker. I stammer and stutter and I babble when I can't think. Sometimes words are in my head and etched in my vocabulary but refuse to surface on the tip of my tongue at the right time. Sometimes I get all tongue tied and I jumble up all my words. Writing is so much easier, and I doubt I could ever possibly tire myself from it.
Luke is also trying to get me to tell me what I'm going to do now and where I'm going to go now that I'm not going to be Sid Rouile for a while. He thinks I'm being all secretive and not telling him anything on purpose, but in all honesty I really don't know. Maybe I do, but I've yet to realize what I really want to do. I'd love to go out and see the world, but how? I'd love to catch up with my life, but is it too late? Should I travel? Should I go back to school? Should I give the dating scene another shot, even though I already know how it would end – in complete and utter failure? I wish Luke wouldn't ask me, so I wouldn't ever have to think about it and I wouldn't ever have to answer.
It's been a comforting time so far not being Sid Rouile. For once – after a long time – it feels like I have space in my mind to breathe. No longer is my head filled with constant thoughts about how I should go about describing Ash and Grant and Gabriel and what they would do, and no longer do I have a universe in my head with its happenings dancing bout in little circles as the world turned. My mind feels a little lighter, like a load has been taken off it.
At the same time, though, my mind just feels empty, too empty. The vacant space left behind in my being is begging to be filled, an so I've simply been whiling away my time with video games and TV shows and internet videos and whatever book that I haven't read off my shelf. I've felt the urge to pick up the pen and write once more, to make an entire galaxy appear upon the pages and tell a million stories of that galaxy. One too many times, I find myself wandering towards my notebooks and staring longingly at it, whilst I resisted the urge to pick it up, out of the drawer, and start scribbling wildly all over the pages with my terrible scrawls.
I've made do, however, with some short stories and these journal entries. It's almost like an addiction, and I'm going cold turkey. The electric need to do something is biting away at my muscles in my hands and in my mind, and I constantly feel the urge to pick up a pen and write. It was only some time before I decided that I had to make do with a slow cessation and to slowly learn how to keep myself still. Luke once joked that he'd chop my hands off and I'll still try to write because that was how I worked.
The dark humor that Luke carried with him is something that everybody would eventually get used to, yet still be caught off guard by it every once in a while when he goes beyond his usual darkness. Even after so long, I wonder if it's his way of dealing with everything, of coping with his past. I wonder quietly to myself every now and then if the reason why we have an understanding and why we work so well together and why out of all my foster siblings he was the one that I am the closest to is because we're alike in that sense – haunted by our pasts and coping with it with whatever we can find. For him, his humor and his work, for me, my stories and my writing. Between us, we've shared so much, so many outlets for our frustrations and our overwhelming emotions – games, shows, movies, you name it. We're both secretly escapists on the inside. I once speculated that one of the only few things that separated us was the fact that he's older and he was born to someone else.
But I digress once more. I was talking about my dilemma. It's almost too easy to get distracted from a topic that you really wish to avoid. Just think about something else, something just as or more significant. At least, that's the way it is for me. My mind hasn't ever worked right from the day I was born. And from the day I was taken in, any chance of it ever working right vanished into a little puff of smoke that dissipated through the chimney top of the home that I lived in for the better part of my childhood.
It's set. I've thought of what to do. After extensive deliberation, I've decided to do a little bit of everything at once. The best of every world. I'm going to college – ten full years late, no less. I wasn't that interested ten years ago, and I was caught up with all the Sid business so much that I decided that it wasn't necessary. But in the midst of all that, I think I've lost out on the experience and all the knowledge that I could've acquired. I've missed out on the wild drinking in bars that's integral to youth. I've missed out on the vigor and vitality and hope. I've missed out on all that hazing, all that 'let's meet new friends' spiel, all the examinations, deadlines and assignments that I used to hate so much back in school. And so, college. It's almost like an insane last-ditched effort to be young before I turn thirty. But there's more to why I decided to go. There are exchange opportunities, the possibility of going away and around the world. Besides, there's also the possibility of being able to go to another state and live there for a few years – something that I never had a chance to do.
Luke thinks I'm insane. I probably am. Back then, when I'd graduated, I celebrated in joy because I hated school so much. I never had much of a good record in school, and neither did I have any particularly strong feelings towards school. He's heard me complain about the workload in school millions of times, each time phrased differently and worded differently – which is why he doesn't understand why I've decided to go to college after so long. At the same time, he's worried, worried that I wouldn't fit in because I'm older than everybody else in there. I told him –
"I already wouldn't fit in regardless. I'm the weird kid, the messed up one, remember?"
Which was true. I never quite did, no matter how much I tried. Not that nobody was nice to me – I've had a fair share of friends and dissenters back then. There were people who'd avoid me mainly because they disliked me, and there were people who'd laugh at my jokes and the stupid things I'd say. Yet – no matter how much I stuck around, and no matter how I acted, I always felt an odd detachment from everybody else.
"Which is why I'm worried." Luke explained. "Weird kid that's older than everybody else. You're going to end up suffering there."
"Oh, come on. You said it yourself before – you still feel great even after all this time. It wouldn't be a problem at all, and even if it's going to be, I'll find a way. I always do. Besides, it's a great time to go. It's just a few years, and I need to have something to tack to my name besides the fact that I'm secretly Sid Rouile."
Luke shook his head absentmindedly. "Can't stop you. I guess it'll be a good time for you to meet other people too. And…do people stuff."
"And by people stuff you mean…" I narrowed my eyes at him expectantly.
"People stuff." He simply said. "You know what I mean."
I knew exactly what he meant. Except I wasn't ready for it, not at all. I just wanted to re-live everything that I've missed out on – except that. And so I changed the subject.
"Either way, I'm going. It's a great time to go. I'll be back before you know it, anyway."
Luke merely shook his head absentmindedly again. I knew he was protesting silently inside, and I knew he was protesting not because he doesn't like the idea but because he doesn't like that I'll be all alone out of his sight there. My eldest foster brother and best friend for nearly my whole life now – I'm not in the least bit surprised if he can't let go that easily and can't stop worrying about me for a moment in his life. I'll always be his precious little brother, no matter how old we grow or how many strands of gray and white we have on our heads. No matter how many people we eventually come to take care of, we're always the one of the first – if not the first – to care for each other. We've depended on each other for so long, it's hard to see how we can simply come apart from each other.
He looked so utterly upset when he helped me to pack up the apartment – he had that expression on his face, the same expression I saw that night when he came home after breaking up with his long-time love. He had such a broken look on his face – the sort that looked perfectly fine at first glance and especially to the unacquainted, but the sort that you knew he was about to cry at any time if you knew him better. The sort that carried glassy eyes in its sockets, breaking and revealing a shattering heart underneath. And while you'd expect him to cry, and he'd look like he would, his eyes would stay dry, no tears streaking down his cheeks and no whiteness eating away at his face. You'd know that this was a man breaking inside whilst he remained blank and unrevealing on the surface.
I wish I could've given him a hug right then. It was always our fiercest show of love – a tight bear hug that lasted for so long we'd sometimes forget what we had to do next. I was such a hugger and he always called me the giant cuddly teddy bear. He loved my hugs, nonetheless.
Except I couldn't spare him the bit of affection and the bit of comfort. I had things to do, letters to write and send. I had records to dig up and things to writer. Most of all, it'd hurt too much and make our separation all too real if I hugged him right now. I resolved to keep it for the very final parting, if it ever happens and when it happens, before I wouldn't be able to see him for months at end, before I was constricted and limited to only phone calls and instant messages, without a face to put to the voice and to all of the words.
It's going to be such a bittersweet parting. Wherever I'm going to go, wherever I end up, whatever I'm going to do, I can't guarantee that I'll ever be as happy as I was in this rough, rugged place. It's not the prettiest place in the planet to be, or the most charming community to be around, but a place is only ever as good as the people you surround yourself with. Here, I have people whom I love and love me. I have a family that accepts me constantly for the oddball that I am and I have an entire life back here, both as Jonathan and as Sid Rouile. I have a home that is truly my own, where I eat, sleep, breathe and play. And I'm trading all this in a stupid attempt to re-live something so youthful that I've missed out on and might not truly enjoy, a façade of beauty and a life I generally wouldn't agree with. Leaving this place wouldn't be without pain. Like Luke said, I must be fucking insane. I guess that's just how I operate – wild, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. Even James had learnt to not talk me out of my questionable choices, not unless it was seriously questionable. God knows how many times he's saved me from unnecessary trouble, bless that man.
Now, all that there is left to do is to write. Letters to compose to sell myself without selling myself out, records to polish and send and reference from to prove that I am someone worthy of admiration as well as a place in college. Compositions to prove my worth on. And then maybe I can rest, and wait in hopes of being taken in and taken away from this familiar place.
Luke stormed into my place today with a frown upon his brow. For the first time, his entrance was louder than ever – maybe because the house was now much emptier and bare than it ever had been before with my books and games removed off the shelves and the decorations plucked off the cabinets and the walls.
"Your Mom's hopping mad that you're leaving." He almost yelled. "You didn't even tell her at all?"
I returned his accusatory glare with a blank, almost arrogant expression. "I did tell Mom that I'm leaving. I told everyone that deserved to know, and that included everybody in the family, the last I checked."
An ever-familiar scowl appeared on his face, the same one that appeared every single time I said something like this. "I mean your biological mother, dude. Betsy Banner."
"Bitch Banner." I corrected.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, Bitch Banner and her sisters Blabbermouth Banner and Barren Banner." He scowled once more. "Thank god Mom hasn't caught onto your nickname for her. She'd be hopping mad."
"Whatever. Bitch Banner ain't my mom, anyway. Mom is." I seethed through clenched teeth. "I don't care if I came from her. She's not my mom, period."
"God damn it, Jonathan. You're still mad at something that's happened nearly twenty years ago –"
"She killed my dad! My own father died because of her!" I shouted, the venom seeping into my voice, beyond my control. I was shaking all over – not that I'd realized it at that time. In retrospect, I regret shouting at Luke. He didn't deserve the flak for what Betsy Bitch Banner did. He didn't deserve the hate that I had for her after all that had happened to me and to my biological father.
"She didn't kill him, and you know it. She was just a bitch that Ashton Smith stuck with until he got chopped up. Not that she's not at fault, but she never killed anyone."
"That's just about as good as killing him. She caused him to die, and that's all that matters." I bit angrily. "If – if only he'd left her…"
"Then you'd either never have been born, or you'd be fatherless." Luke pointed out.
"If only he took me with him and ran away."
"Then we wouldn't be talking right now. Fuck, she didn't kill anyone, dude. Sure, Uncle Smith got chopped up by some guy thanks to her, but did she order that guy to do it? D'you really think she called up the Masked Killer and said, 'Hey, so I think my husband's a fuck, could you come kill him for me please?'? Dude's known for being a psycho killer. He kills anyone and everyone as long as they're in his way, there's no selection involved. You know that. You've seen the stories. You even have an entire file on that guy."
I knew that. I knew that Bitch Banner didn't kill anyone. I knew that the infamous Masked Killer simply killed because he could, and my biological father might have been simply a random victim of his. But she might as well have killed him. She might as well have killed me, too, when she took what my life could have been away from me. There would be nights where I would lie all alone in bed, listening to Luke's snores from the bunk below me, imagining what my life would have been like if my father never died, and instead took me along with him as he left Bitch Banner for a carefree, happy life. There would be no more insanity, no more yelling and fighting. There would be no blood and no death. I would have been a perfectly happy child, and not a child tossed under the care of my childless elder aunt who had to make do with a family of foster children. It wasn't that Lisa Banner wasn't nice, or that her husband wasn't a good person, and neither was it that my foster siblings had been terrible people. It was just that I lost a man that I loved dearly and called father, and I had to throw away my ties with the last of my direct family out of sheer hate for her biggest crime. She sent my father to his gruesome death, and I could not forgive her, much less love her again for that. I was cared for and given affection in my new home, but I felt alone nonetheless. I didn't have a blood mother or father anymore. I wasn't loved and cared for by the people who brought me into this world.
I must've done that pouting thing again then, because Luke's gravelly voice cut into my thoughts -
"You know I'm right. You're just holding a grudge – not without a good reason, but a stupid grudge nonetheless."
"She's a bitch." I grumbled.
"She certainly is." He agreed, nodding. "But that bitch ain't getting why you didn't tell her you were leaving. I'd get it if you don't want to tell her where you're going, but I'm confused as to why you didn't tell her you're just screwing off somewhere else and not dropping dead."
"Just tell her that I'm going to drop dead, then."
"Dude, you're not the only person that's lost him. She's lost him too. You think she was laughing her way through the funeral? Or that she was choking on laughter the whole time when she drank herself silly and took all those painkillers like they were vitamins?" Luke challenged. "Have some empathy, dude. She's a bitch, but she's your mother. She deserves to know at least a little bit of what you're doing."
The truth was, I simply didn't think she deserved to know. Of all the countless attempts that I made to try to reconnect to her and forgive my biological mother, it never seemed to work. She was still hooked and high when I made my initial attempts. Experiencing withdrawals in my later attempts. I only stopped trying when I figured that even when she was sober and clear-headed and being a functioning adult, I couldn't reach her, try as I might. All of these phases, I came back spitting angrily with disappointment and fury and solidifying her place in a dark alleyway in my heart as 'Bitch Banner'. I'm not ready to give her another chance after all that she's put me through.
But I couldn't say that to Luke. Luke is a family man. He can't quite get my bitterness against Bitch Banner, despite coming from similar circumstances. He couldn't see how I could still hate her or how I could still feel this way towards her. To him, because she's my birth mother, no matter what she's done or how terrible a person she is, she brought me into this world, and she deserves the tiniest bit of care that I can afford to give her. And so he hopes, again and again, that somehow, her maternal connection to me would transcend the grievances I had suffer in the past. He hopes that one day I'd forgive her and at the very least share the superficial bits of my life with her. No doubt he sees her flaws as much as I do, but he's the man that forgives.
I've proven time and again that I can't be that big of a man like he is – maybe because that's how I am. As much as I love the people I'm surrounded by right now, as much as I love them to death and want to share with them every single bit of what I can share with them, I can't ever extend these feelings to Bitch Banner, because I will always childishly hold on to the fact that she killed my father. As much as I'm thankful for the way I turned out, no matter how odd I did turn out, I can't ever extend these feelings of gratefulness to her.
And so I've learnt to feign it, to pretend like I can do what Luke can. Make him happy to see that I've grown and that I've learnt to become a better man. Make him see that I have reason more than my hatred for Bitch Banner to exclude her from my life; I'll rationalize my irrationality like a fool.
And so I lied to him about my reasons. I hated lying to Luke, he always could tell. But the longer time passed, as we grew older, he stopped calling me out on my lies. I sometimes wonder if he'd stopped being able to tell if I was lying or if he simply understood why I'd lied. I sometimes wonder why I still bothered lying to him when there's always that chance that he knew. I guess it's one of those things that you do to try and keep everybody happy.
"Look, I thought it'd somehow be better if she didn't know. It wouldn't be nice to go to her after all this time just to tell her that I'm leaving."
Luke shrugged. "Whatever. She knows now. She caught wind of it from Cynthia – you know how she can never keep her trap shut."
"And who told Blabbermouth Banner?" I asked.
I might have sounded like I was accusing him, then, because he replied, almost defensively, "I didn't! I'm not a fucking blabbermouth like she is and you know that too. Nobody knows how that leaked – or rather, maybe someone knows, but isn't willing to admit it. But for Christ's sake, I didn't do it. I know better than to blab about your shit to others – especially Cynthia."
"I didn't say that you did. But someone's got to have said something about that to Blabbermouth Banner. And I think the people I've said it to know me well enough to not say a thing to her."
A silence fell upon us, and we sat there, in the near-emptiness of my living room, pondering. I had a nasty, nagging feeling deep in my heart who it was, yet, it was hard to think that my foster mother, my biological aunt, the saint of a being who took me in on top of her existing foster children after what her sister did – could possibly seek to reconnect with her sisters. Lisa Banner had done all she could to make her children – and by extension, me – happy. And when I insisted on never seeing Bitch Banner again, she gladly cut both her and Cynthia Banner out of her life and my life. They had no feud, not that I knew of, but she kept her away from herself, away from us, away from me, all because I wanted nothing more to do with Bitch Banner. As far as I knew, Lisa Banner was no longer just an aunt. She was my mother, and my mother and her husband were saints.
"Do you…" Luke began, hesitating, saying it almost as though he didn't believe the words himself. "Do you think… that… it might've been Mom? I mean," he took a deep breath, "She might've not spoken to them in forever, but… don't you think she might've – just out of courtesy – slipped it to Cynthia hoping that it gets to your mom since she probably thinks that Betsy deserves to know -?"
"No way." I cut in firmly. "No fucking way. Mom's not one to do that. Not unless I ask her to. It's been that way all this time. She'll never disrespect my wishes like that."
Luke fell silent, his dark eyes glinting. A part of us wanted to believe what I had said, but somehow, somewhere, there was that nagging feeling, a deadly, nasty feeling gnawing away at us, yelling at us that we were wrong. But that was that. The question of how Blabbermouth Banner came to know of my imminent departure was still shrouded in mystery, and Luke left my place again. I swore to myself I'd have to be even more careful about who I let my secrets out to. God forbid Bitch Banner or Blabbermouth Banner find out about the Sid Rouile business. I'd hate to think what sort of scheme they'd come up with to suck the soul out of me.
This morning was a bout of insanity for me. I awoke just as the sun was beginning to rise, my head whirling from the nightmare that had just passed. Ever since I had the talk with Luke, the events of that one, fateful night kept appearing in my head in the form of a nightmare – screaming, shouting, storming…
But this isn't about the events that led up to how my first family crumbled. When I got past the headache and the heartache and finally pulled myself out of bed to wash up, I skipped outside to retrieve the mail in my mailbox. The sun seemed brighter than usual for May, and the clouds only very sparsely littered the blue sky above me. It seemed like today was one of those days where nothing could quite go wrong at all. In that moment, I suppose, the idea of leaving became a little sad. I would miss this place to the very end.
But whatever tinge of sadness passed, it was washed away by the uncertain excitement that flooded me the moment I fished out the wad of letters from my mailbox. Right on top of the stack was a letter posted from California. California it was – I was going to college in sunny California!
To be frank, I'm surprised they even liked me, especially since I'm starting nearly ten years late, and even more so when I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer (I might possibly be one of the dullest, but that's subjective and I'll leave it at that). And so – imagine my surprise when I read the words that spelled out in formal terms that I had been accepted into the college!
I've went on to make some of the necessary preparations and call up some of my closest friends and family to pass on the news. Some of them were excited, some not quite so. Some tried their best to feign excitement, with bits and pieces of their heartache slipping through the cracks in their voice as they spoke. The rest of the day was jam-packed with paperwork regarding my lease as well as some more paperwork regarding my cross-country move. It's odd how while you busy yourself with all these things, whatever that should bother you and had once bothered you seemed so insignificant and so little, occupying only a very small corner in your list of priorities.
The temperature took a slight dip in the afternoon compared to in the morning. It seems like an odd thing to talk about and to notice, but I guess when you're about to leave a place that you're so familiar with, even the smallest of details, the smallest of things like this matter. I'm going to miss this when I reach California. I'm dreading to say this, but in the midst of all this excitement, I think life here started becoming a lot more interesting. I've begun to do small things like walk down the street even slower than before, observing people from all walks of life carry on with their lives. I've begun to visit little coffee shops and cafés that I've never visited before to have coffee with our resident coffee addict (Luke!) whilst I stare out of the window and into the street to watch people walk by, some carrying heavy bags and others with various shopping bags in their hands. I even began taking an interest in street performers that I've walked past so many times before, their music blossoming from one of a transitory, transient phrase that would fade out into nothing as I distanced myself, into full-fledged masterpieces. I think I've made friends with the man who plays the keyboard in the park. It began from a few tips that I threw into his tin, and eventually sprouted into a conversation over tea break about his musical training and how he would play seasonally for the State Orchestra. Suddenly, everyone seemed much more interesting than before and much more exciting than before, such that the thought of leaving became so painful and so sad, tinged with varying shades of melancholy.
The same could be said for this afternoon. I went about my life in the outside world, first having coffee with Luke at yet another coffee place and then going about my life and business. I'd have lunch at a bistro near the park, before dropping by to show my moral and financial support to the pianist Andrew. He was playing his final song before heading off for his little tea break when I'd arrived, and he'd graced my ears with what he said was a well-known piece of Chopin's. I knew little music beyond the stuff that Luke and I listened to, so I simply smiled at him as he played the hauntingly beautiful melody, one that reminded me of night skies as dark and mysterious as the eyes of a lover when he'd first look at you in his declaration of love to you. The way his eyes would twinkle light bright little stars when you'd return his affection. On a little bench in that quiet park, surrounded by Andrew's music, I think I could've wept.
I must've been sullen and quiet and had that expression that Luke hated so much on my face, for when the music stopped and Andrew got up from his place by his keyboard to sit beside me on the bench, he looked immensely concerned.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"I guess." I replied vaguely, and abruptly changed the subject. "I'm leaving North Carolina soon. For school."
"That doesn't sound so bad," he said, shrugging as he stretched out and leaned back into the wooden bench, scratching the wild gray mop on his hair carelessly. "Such is the life of the young. With all the energy and time on your hands, it's best you spend it where it counts. Be it college or work or love."
"I know that. It's just... Difficult to go. I've tried so hard to not think about it, but the more time passes, the more stuff I tear myself away from here and the less things I have to do… I end up thinking about it at the end of the day. And I don't even know what I'd do the first thing when I get there. Maybe I'd go to the beach, maybe I'll be a proper adult and settle into a new place. Maybe I'd just do what I do best. I don't know. It just feels… odd to leave my family behind, my best friends behind. And while all that goes on… I have to be busy. I have to prepare for my life there, make all the calls and things like that."
Andrew gently patted me on my shoulder. "So let yourself feel odd. If you never feel odd, do you think you would ever be able to deal with feeling odd? Just look at me, young man. Joining the State Orchestra wasn't an easy task. I was nervous from the start to the end, but I pressed on and went for it. And in there I found something I loved. I loved the music, the harmony of it all, and the smiles on people's faces when they stood up and clapped in the theatre. I loved it all. I wouldn't have found the two biggest loves of my life without that one moment that I felt like I was making the wrong choice. And the same to you, too. Maybe you'll find something, maybe someone there for you that's just right."
Hearing the encouragement from Andrew lightened my mood a little. Sure, it wasn't as if he shared my life and related as if he knew me, but it felt nice to voice my hesitation and my uncertainties to somebody who related back and gave advice. So I simply smiled wryly and thanked him, to which he replied –
"It'll all work out in the end. Just like how street performing while I'm not working worked out for me. Come see one of our shows when you're back some time, will you?"
And he left for his break, leaving me to go on with my day.
After spending an hour or two surfing the net for a suitable place to live in in California, I finally settled on what looked like paradise compressed into an album of photographs. A stunning view of the city and the beach, a balcony with a pool and an overall stunning outline and appeal. Enough space for two people, but the landlady is intent on only one tenant. I barely looked at the listed price when I shot her a call.
"Yes, about the apartment. I'm interested in it."
"That sounds nice, but I only just had a young man call in about it. He's interested in it, too. And although I'd suggest that you two share, I'm not going to deal with two people after the last pair messed with my nerves like that."
"But I'm flying there in a little more than a week," I complained. "I'll be there first to see and sign the agreement. And I'll take any price you offer."
She chuckled. "It's California, sweet pea, are you sure you want to do that? The rent here isn't infamous for no reason, you know. Of course, it's not as bad as New York, but aren't you afraid I'll bite your head off?"
"You wouldn't be telling me if you were." I answered quietly.
A soft laugh sounded from the other end of the line. "Good point. But I'll go easy on you only after I see you. You do sound like a breeze to deal with compared to the last two. I'll look forward to meeting you, then, when you land."
I suddenly felt really terrible. Whoever the other guy was, he was looking for a place to stay in California. And if it was just a college kid looking for a cheap opportunity, I had just ripped his chance at a good place out of his hands.
"Wait." My mouth moved almost automatically. "About that… other guy. Is it really alright if I just take this from him?"
"Don't be silly. I said you sounded like a good deal, not that the place is yours. Like I said, I might decide to go easy on you once I've seen you. He's still on the hook, until you formally take the place. Of which you have a relatively high chance of, actually. Like I said, after the last pair, you're almost like a refreshing breeze."
"Could you… contact him for me?" I blurted out. "Just tell him that if he's got nowhere to go, I'm up for taking him in as a roommate. If he wants, that is. And I'll pay for the whole thing and he'd pay me to make up for it, something like that."
She chuckled once more, this time her laughter more pronounced, as if in true amusement. "You really are interesting, aren't you? You were so eager to take the place but now you're offering to share. I really hope that even if I don't bite your head off, California won't, either."
She paused for a thoughtful moment. "I'll tell him that. But be warned – if you are going to take it and if you do take him in as a roommate, I expect only to deal with you, and I expect more than satisfactory behavior from the two of you. If there's anything wrong, you're the person I'm coming after. Whatever he says will not count, because legally, the place will be in your name. That is to say, of course, I decide to let you have the place. Is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am." I smiled coyly to myself. As much as she tried to assert that she might not let me on the apartment, I had a strong feeling I had nailed the call. All I needed to do was to more thoroughly inspect the place and get the contract dealt with when I landed in California. And, if I had made the right choice, I might have saved a person from too much of a loss – and I might end up with a roommate. I wouldn't have any regrets… would I?
I'd like to say that I don't have any regrets in leaving, but I do. I have lots of them, too many to count, and the one at the very top of the list is leaving itself.
And finally, my home state remains behind me. In a flurry, a week and a half had passed, and since there was little else more to do and there was little else more that tied me down and held me back, I left North Carolina for sunny California.
Before I left, I had a short stay at the Patterson family home. Mom and Dad were both there that morning when I arrived with Luke in his magnificent car, sitting on the patio and drinking their morning coffee. Dad was reading the morning paper – as usual – with his glasses pushed up against his nose, and Mom was rearranging the breakfast items on the table, looking around with a relaxed, serene expression on her face as she observed the bits and pieces of nature around her. Upon approaching them, they glanced up and shot up from their places as fast as their bodies could go, and reached out for me, taking me in a warm embrace when I reached them.
All the things in my apartment had been shifted out, with the bigger of the bulk sent away to a storage compartment and to be picked up by the movers once I gave the heads-up, and the lesser things – my laptop, my books, my consoles, everything small that was significant and made me feel at home – was packed into my trunk and unloaded into what used to be my old room, where everything looked just about the same, and felt just about the same. Nothing seemed to have changed, not the people who I have acknowledged as my parents, not the house that I spent the better part of my childhood in. It was all so familiar, just like the rest of the state that I had lived in for the past nearly thirty years. Yet I was going to leave them all behind for something so unfamiliar, where there would be nobody from this familiar life that I could bring there to make me feel more at home.
At the very start of the week, it already became evident that my departure hung over the family like a cloud of gloom. Luke no longer seemed as energetic as he always was, acting as though he had lost all of that vigor and vitality that never seemed to drain even as he exited his youth. I could've sworn I heard Dad sighing to himself whenever he thought I was out of earshot, and shaking his head to himself whenever he thought I couldn't see. Mom kept up with her candor, readily breaking out into a smile whenever I appeared in front of her, but the moment I vanished out of her sight, it almost always felt like I had just left a funeral. Her eyes were a deep, sad blue, the eyes of a person that had just lost something great. I caught glimpses of her with a glassy glint and tinges of red in the whites of her eyes, and I wondered quietly how much she was holding back. She never cried when I left the family home the first time, and she never did cry when I left North Carolina for the first time. All I ever saw were soft glimmers that vanished the moment I saw them.
Maybe it was me, too, but the meals that we had were sadder and quieter than what I had remembered from my past. The food also tasted a little off, and I wondered to myself too, without saying a thing, if the tears that Mom never cried had landed themselves in there. But I kept my composure. I didn't cry, not even when the waves of nostalgia kept washing up against the banks of my mind and putting me at the very edge of my emotional capacity.
The week went by, dull as dishwater, just like that.
Two things did stand out throughout the week. The first would be when I received a call from a number that I barely even knew at all, the day after I returned to the Patterson family home for my little stay there. I was half-asleep when the call arrived, my brain still caught up in the blurred moving pictures in my head when my phone buzzed beside me. Like any tired human would, I grumbled for a good moment before I used whatever little energy I could gather to pick up the call.
"Hello?" A voice called out from the other end of the line, warm, deep and sweet, and I was almost instantly thrown awake by the suave male voice.
"H- Hello…?" I answered.
"Uh, Jonathan, right?"
I acknowledged.
"I asked Mrs. Sandler for your number. She told me you might take the place… and that you're willing to share if you do."
I perked up a little bit. "Yeah, I said that. I mean – it's a great place, and you were there first. I didn't want to be selfish and take it away from you just because it was convenient for me and I liked it."
"Look… it's a great place, like you said. I don't think I can find another place there that's as good as that. The idea of sharing is great, but there's no way in hell I'm going to let you pay for the place alone and just live off you like that."
"If it makes you feel better, you can pay me. But I'd rather you not – it's not like I can't aff- "
"Dude – I have to. I can't live off you. I'm glad enough you're willing to share. It's not every day I meet someone that nice, and you're probably the first."
"I'm not that nice." I giggled. "I might be a serial killer for all you know. Or I might be a peeping tom that takes photos of guys in their sleep."
He laughed a soft, breathy laugh. "Maybe I'm a thief that's going to steal all your things. Why are you trusting me straight off the bat when you haven't even met me yet?"
"I could say the same for you."
He chuckled. "Because you're nice. Not creepy nice, but nice enough. I don't know how, but I sort of can tell from your voice."
I stilled, and stared up at the ceiling as his words soaked in slowly. He was the first to break the silence between us.
"Uh – anyway, if you do get it, which Mrs. Sandler hinted that you really might – then I guess… we're roommates. Thanks for taking me in, though. It's not easy to find a place there."
"N… No problem. It's kind of the reason why I let you…"
"Thanks, dude." He reaffirmed. "You're the best. I hope we do become roommates. And I hope I'll get to see you soon. I'll be landing in California in a little bit more than two weeks. I guess I'll hear from her when it's all settled, then."
With a click, the line went silent. Just like that, I had unknowingly met my first friend in California, my potential roommate, and I had no idea what his name was. All I knew was that I think I would grow to like him very, very much.
The second thing that stood out was a much smaller event, a small thing that I decided to get back into the habit of doing at the very end of the week, on the morning just before I left the Patterson home once more, California bound. It was but a small ritual I had taken to doing in the years before I first left the family house, a little thing that was later referred to by the family as my 'written secrets'. I'd take small pieces of papers and post-its and I'd write my thoughts, however random they were, down on them and stick it in places around the house. Nobody really understood these messages, and called it my written secrets because it was my secret code. But they never pried or tried to find out what they were all about. Maybe they'd already figured out, I don't know.
But that morning, just before I left, with my things all packed up once more and my room returned to its original orderly state, I took a post-it and stuck it to my door. It wasn't much of a random thought that I had as much as it was my farewell for them, only for as long as I'd be away. I'd written –
"I'll always be dreaming about you all."
Hello everyone! For the first time in what seems like forever, I'm starting on a new multi-chapter work. I'm hesitating to call this chapter the first chapter since it mainly sets the scene and in fact has very little of the H2OVanoss that we all want, so I'm just going to call this the prelude chapter. This story is going to be written entirely from Jonathan's perspective in the form of (undated) diary entries, and I'm sorry if it seems like it's a really odd format. It's something I really wanted to try. As always, the beginning is going to be really slow, so bear with me for a little bit!
Another thing is the regularity of my updates. At this moment, I can't do what I did with Rule of the Heart and update every week or two because life calls. I will try to write whenever I can, and I do hope to churn out the first actual chapter for this story soon!
-delmin