Welcome to the beautiful Lalonde family.
No one is a criminal.
No one is an addict.
No one is a failure.
Welcome to the successful Strider Bro's Co.
No one is a criminal,
No one is a plastic city,
No one is a failure
Houston, Texas. Hot, sunny, and a hell of a lot better than whatever backwater town Bro was making us move to. I didn't see the point in it. He said it was 'to stop paps from straight up harassing [Us],' we both knew that was a lie. It was an easy place to pass me off for a while instead of him getting pestered by journalists about this mysterious brother of his, this kid he's forced to look after. That's what it was. Even I, fresh faced at twelve, could see it.
I'd been seeing it my entire life.
Forgetting is good for the brain: deleting unnecessary information helps the nervous system retain its plasticity
Meeting Roxy Lalonde was like meeting a storm.
Well.
If you knew how to appreciate a storm that is.
I first met Roxy when we were ten years old. Bro and I had come down from the Texas heat to one of the big cities, Roxy and her mother had come all the way from Rainbow Falls. Her mother said that it was so she could get a proper taste of that ordinary school life. Bro said the same thing. We both later figured out they'd both just needed to get rid of us for a few hours every day to work.
A few hours turned into more.
Turned into days.
Sometimes weeks.
Months on some rare important occasion. If you define rare as, at the very least, six months a year. Sometimes in a row, sometimes spread out.
When I met Roxy she was probably the most innocent she's ever been. With cute butterfly clips in her hair, and the knock off light up sketchers she'd begged her mother to buy for her when they came to the city.
She told me that same day I met her, her mother had said there were better pairs of shoes to find.
She told her mother that there wouldn't be another pair of shoes like that in the entire goddamn world.
Not in those words.
Roxy could barely say 'darn' around her at that age.
We and our guardians both stood in the front office of that school, Bro had been texting away to one of his producers, or maybe some actor. A starlet he wanted to fuck later in the week. Something like that. He'd given me some portable DVD player, put on some stupid colourful horse show like he expected it to distract me thoroughly enough to not demand his attention and tear it away from whatever he was doing on that phone.
And fuck the guy.
It worked perfectly until Roxy got antsy and her mother wasn't enough to distract her while we waited.
One thing I can say is that Roxy's mother was a bombshell.
She had hair that looked like they'd taken the stars and melted them down into some bleach or dye and put it right on top of some pure silver that'd been fashioned into a wig for Pandora herself. She had this gloriously smooth umber skin. There was something about her though that, even at the age we were then, was pretty damn intimidating. Like she knew far more about everyone in the room than that person knew themselves. Might've been the whole dark and foreboding thing she was going for. Considering the kind of books that she wrote, which I only found out well into the year.
I ended up pouring over them late at night, analysing them like there was nothing else in the entire world that would help me get closer to understanding Roslyn and Roxy Lalonde.
Roxy was different to her mother, if you looked at them and blurred your vision a bit you'd think that they weren't even related at all.
Where Roslyn was sleek and proper, Roxy had this excited air about her. This boundless energy and obvious, obvious happiness. Roslyn's hair was sleek, put into a short bob. At this age her hair hadn't been cut yet, hadn't been straightened and given curls and twists instead of being left kinky. No, then she had two thick braids, this wild curly hair at the end of them. Her mother had these cunning eyes, almost constantly a bit narrowed. Roxy had eyes that reminded me of some badly photoshopped image of the sun that someone had turned pink, bold and vibrant, wide, but unnatural in colour.
They were too vibrant, too bold.
They had the same skin, but if you didn't look at the structure of their noses, the same pouty lip, those cheekbones, you wouldn't know they were from the same family.
I'd gotten through at least three or four episodes of that stupid old generation My Little Pony, (goddamn it Applesauce or Applejack, whatever, don't jump off bridges like that), when Roxy bounded over. Releasing herself from her mother's grasp to wander on over to us. She sat herself right next to me on the office's couch. Leaning right against me, almost pressing me against Bro, as she tried to have a look at what I was watching. She pointed to the screen, twelve year old fingernails painted this metallic pink. It wasn't messy, the less messy it was the more likely her mother had done it. Or, later, me.
"What're you watchin'?"
She wasn't loud yet then, didn't have a voice bursting and full of life, and love, and happiness. But she had a nice voice still. Just at a normal volume and pace.
"I dunno." I did know. But what kind of kid was going to admit they were watching a show made for three year olds in the principal's office? Especially considering this was a new school entirely. After settling in? Fuck, maybe.
"Some show Bro put on."
"Don't put it on me, li'l man, you're the one that likes it." His voice was absent, trying to seem like he was barely listening. It took me a few years to tell the difference between disinterested and trying not to seem interested. Almost directly proportional.
Still, when he spoke I flushed red and a giggle came from the girl beside me. I scowled at Bro, he'd only given a slight smirk in return.
I didn't have time to salvage my reputation before the principal called the Lalondes to him. Roslyn's slender hand grabbing her daughter's and gently guiding her into the room. She winked and waved at me before her mother pulled her away.
Once they were gone I slid down in the seat, hands over my face and groaning. First day and already Bro had made me into some joke. It was just like back home, which I still wasn't happy about. In my opinion, Texas had been fine, ideal even. Who cared it was hot and far from where he set his home base to work. There was nothing wrong with Houston. It didn't even matter that the arts co-ordinator and drama teacher really wanted to get close to the hot director/producer/writer/actor that sent his little brother to this school to get him out and about. It didn't matter. I would've even taken being left at home to my own devices over moving down here.
…
It was cold here.
It wasn't too long after the Lalondes went in and came out again (Roxy bouncing on her feet beside her mother) that we were called in. Strider Bros Crime Syndicate Co., the hottest and coolest pieces of shit this side of the goddamn galaxy. Pluto's freezing space ass included. Bro didn't grab my hand when we were called in, simply stood up, patting the top of my head to signal for me to stop moping and get up. I didn't want to. But I did.
There were these two plastic, uncomfortable chairs in front of the principal's desk. The wood looked like someone had tried to disguise something made from some cheap ass wood with varnish and darkening it.
Still looked like shit, wouldn't say that to her face for a couple of months or so though.
She started off with some basic introduction to who she was, what the school valued, bunch of crap that I couldn't even be half assed listening to even then. It was pretty much the same at every school: Don't make us look like assholes. No problem. Easy as. Couldn't if I tried. They'd do that all on their own.
Bro signed some forms, put down phone numbers to contact. Even if he put down his number, they'd have more luck contacting his assistants and then getting put on hold for a couple of hours than they would actually talking to the guy. It's happened before. It'll happen again. I couldn't have too much faith in how readily available he was to help out or save me from getting into some shit with the school for some stupid reason. Karen did that more, and better, than he did. And I hated it when Karen filled in his guardianship duties.
Maybe I just hated he wasn't the one doing it.
Regardless, the time in that office flew by quicker than a Strider can rap and rhyme. Then we were ushered out, principal following to meet us up with the Lalondes again. I only noticed then that Roslyn seemed taller than bro, probably would be even without the heels. Bro was pretty gangly, tall, but she seemed godly in a way. Powerful.
Yeah. ten year old me was already intimidated by her.
Roxy sidled on up to me when she saw me again, looping her arm through mine like a flesh and bone vine.
In later years, Roxy would tell me that vines were parasites. Wrapping around trees and other things to absorb nutrients from them and steal sunlight from them. Slowly killing their hosts, strangling them.
Roxy's arms had never seemed to drain a single thing from me,
They gave more than they got.
She didn't mention the horse show, My little Pony, only tugged me along with her after her mother and my brother. Talking about how exciting it would be to move to this new school, the new friends it would bring, the cool things we would learn. Even back then I could tell she was nervous and as unhappy about her move as I was.
Roxy Lalonde had been raised in captivity, in a cat zoo of a home on top of a waterfall. Her mother wrote books about wizards in a cozy study and Roxy wrote comics sometimes, one day she'd end up showing me, the satire and irony clear. She played dungeons and dragons with a slew of cats, dressed up as Harry Potter in her spare, spare time and played video games of all kinds. All while living within the glass walls of this cage of a house. Separate from the rest of her own kind. Not knowing a single thing about what it was like in a normal suburban neighbourhood, or in a normal suburban school.
Then again.
I guess I didn't either.
Eventually Roxy stopped, unnoticed by the three adults in front of us. Letting go of my arm and holding out her hand for a handshake.
"I'm Roxy by the way, sorry, should've started off with that in the first place."
"Dirk." I shook her hand, a limp and loose ten year old's handshake, "I'm Dirk Strider." I almost expected her to ask about Bro, even then I'd bet a few of the other people at the school would recognize him by name, if not by his face. But she didn't.
She didn't watch too many movies, she'd admit to me later down the line, he didn't make any wizard movies so she'd never heard of him before.
When she told me that, I decided right then that I would rather nothing else but to know Roxy Lalonde for the rest of my life.
"You from 'round here or?" She didn't have an accent that suited this area, but I guess neither did I. I thought that much was obvious. She had the strangest hint of British in her voice. Later she'd admit she used to watch Harry Potter more than she did anything else. Those movies helped her enunciate better she claimed.
I think her mother kind of forgot to do it herself.
"No. You?"
"No. Rainbow Falls actually! You?"
"Houston, Texas. You ever been?"
"No, actually! What's it like in Houston, Texas?"
"Hot."
Riveting conversation evidently. Nothing like it in the world. We were poetic masters at such a young age.
Bro and Roslyn salvaged us though, noticing how far behind we were and calling for us. They made this in-sync hand wave to draw us closer. We didn't notice it at the time, honestly.
Roxy grabbed my hand, pulling us forward towards our guardians. Had to continue the principal lead tour after all.
We wouldn't be starting today, we had nothing on us, of course. No books, no pencils or pens, no lunch either.
Not that Bro would make me lunch. For all I knew I'd have to do everything myself because he'd forget.
Forget he had a kid to look after.
Wouldn't surprise me.
We got lead through the school, stared at through the windows in the doors of classrooms. Watched other kids whisper and gossip and point. Wondering if we'd be in their class. What kind of people we'd be like. I had a feeling I'd disappoint them.
We wouldn't be those New Shiny Cool Kids they'd want, they'd want suave and smooth. Or rough and good at whatever sport was popular here, cricket? Seems like a cricket school. Or maybe they'd want another personality entirely. Something that fitted in a slotted with their personality and what they expected.
I didn't want that.
Roxy Had. Certain issues with personal space. At the time I didn't really get why, found it too awkward to ask why or to ask her to let go.
Living a life of isolation seems to keep someone from learning certain social cues. Then again, what did I know about how to avoid being awkward, that's what the shades were for.
"Obviously there are certain rules about dress code, especially eyeware-" Speak of the devil and he shalt appear. "-Of course we can't allow Dirk to wear his-"
"Non-negotiable." Bro's voice was ever monotone, but I could see that ever slight downturn at the corners of his mouth. The slightest hint of furrowing. He had my back on this at least, there was no way I was going to give my shades up for this school. I needed them, only the worthy could get a good look at these eyes. "Photosensitivity. He has to wear them." I don't know what about it made Roxy's mom look doubtful, but there it was. She turned her head though, readjusting Roxy's braids. Smoothing down loose hair.
"I- Of course. Of course. Moving on, hair is-" Roslyn looked to the woman. That sentence to this day remains unfinished, dying in her mouth every time she tries to bring it up to someone new. I've seen it happen before. She freezes up. It's said that her hair gets greyer and her skin more sallow every time she tries. I could never tell if that part was true though. Never looked at her close enough.
Wordlessly she led us back to the office. Giving our guardians those final forms before sending us on our way.
That was my first goodbye to Roxy Yidhra Lalonde.
Yidhra. "...An Outer God who is worshipped as a beautiful, awesome and terrible earth-mother, similar to Shub-Niggurath and might be connected to The Darkness..."
Roxy seemed like the least likely person to be connected to any kind of darkness. But what did I really know about Roxy Lalonde then? Not a fucking lot.
"I hope we'll be in the same class! That'd be nice."
"Yeah. It would. Get up to all sorts of crazy new kid bullshit together, ask teachers where the bathrooms are when we already know, start collecting gossip on why Jessica is such a slut, overthrow the Ukrainian government, try and get shit for cheap at the canteen. Normal stuff."
"Lmao," she said it out loud, actually said 'lmao' and fuck if I wasn't going to find that some cute shit later down the line, "I'm hopin' we're gonna be havin' that kinda fun. 'Specially with overthrowin' that government, can't let 'em govern and control the hopes of the people for as long as they have been. Somethin' somethin' beep boop bourgeois."
Beep fucking boop.
Her mother lead her away. Bro ruffled my hair and clapped my shoulder to guide me back to the car he'd only recently really learned to drive.
"What'd you think of the school?"
"S'alright."
"How'd you find the Lalondes?"
"Roxy's alright."
"Cute kid."
"Yeah."
The rest of the drive back to our new place was filled with rapping to advertisement music and songs that weren't supposed to be rapped to.
Freestyling all the way like a streaker at a football game. Like a commander going commando on a mission through the Amazonian rain forest to root out Russian spies that've got some new nuclear tech designed to help them take over the free world, only to find out that the very government that sent you after that tech has tasked their special equipment they gave you to blow you up as soon as you have those plans. Leading you to wonder whether you should fulfill your patriotic duty or go back home to your wife, children, and eight cats in one piece.
Truly a difficult choice.
Our new place wasn't anything like the old one. We hadn't even really finished unpacking yet. The apartment we used to have was fine, cords and wires running all over the place. Bro's turntables always somewhere different. A fuckton of swords on the walls that I wasn't allowed to touch but did anyway when he wasn't around to stop me. Hell, Cal liked it better back there too.
It was an empty house. Despite the unpacked and still packed boxes. The furniture, bought and brought. Despite the birdcage in the corner of one of the larger rooms and despite the cat that like to curl around Bro's shoulders in the morning when he made his coffee in his dressing gown originally designed for sultry women in pornos, or forty year old widows who arranged for the murders of their late husbands. Bro was hopefully doing neither. It was an empty house. Cold and empty.
Even the apartment, filled with just me, Li'l Cal, birdshit and the cat most of the time, was warmer and fuller than this place. I liked it better than this place.
But I didn't have a choice.
No one who isn't an adult living on their own really has a 'choice.'
If you go away, you do what your parents or guardians tell you to do, go where they direct you, eat what they tell you and so on and on. You don't have a choice until you're 'old enough' to make your own choices. In which by then since you've been unable to do that because of the previous restrictions, you don't really know how. So you blunder through life forcing yourself to make choices without knowing how and end up failing spectacularly until you get the hang of it. Wasn't exactly the best system for mental health I'd say. But, what would I know. I was a kid then.
When we got home I didn't storm over to my room and lock the door. Not. not right away at least. I knew how to play it cool, and I had to make this place as much mine as I did the last one. If I had to stay here I'd have to.
I grabbed a water bottle, big for a ten year old but small for an actual adult, and filled it with the only real drink we had in the fridge at this stage. Juice that we'd mixed with soda water. Wasn't the best, but Bro hadn't gone out to get Fanta yet.
It'd do.
After that I visited by BirdShit's cage to drop a couple more seeds into it.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
Bro needed to teach that bird some other words.
"Seize the means of production. Fuck!"
Mm. Maybe not.
I headed to my room after that. Now that BirdShit was fed I could do whatever I wanted in relative peace and quiet. Bro's music would probably start up soon.
It wasn't bad, I didn't mind too much.
My room wasn't quite up to standard yet, but it was better than the blank slate it'd been. Wires weren't running everywhere yet. In later years, there'd be some of Roxy's wizard statues strewn here and there. But not yet. The puppets were up in their piles, or strung up at the roof. I had my desktop setup, Bro got me a new TV when we moved. Big, attached to the wall. It was pretty damn good, admittedly. Even if the first movie he'd given me to go with it was one of his own shitty LD ones. It'd ended up being a mashup of the entire series, scenes from one movie plastered over another and mixed together. It'd been a nightmare to watch, only if you did it unironically.
Li'l Cal was waiting on the windowsill for me, my Katana (a ten year old's birthday gift to himself) in his puppet-y precious hands.
I put the katana to the side, grabbing Cal and turning the TV on. Sitting down on the pile of mattresses that made up my bed at the moment. Sipping on the shitty makeshift soft drink as I flicked through the channels with Cal.
Despite myself I couldn't help but wonder what the girl I met today was doing. Whether she had a house that was just as empty as this one was right now. Or if her mother had already filled it up and made it warm. How it was decorated. If her mother actually stuck around and they had conversation after conversation about the day. About the move. About empty and cold houses that only had empty and cold boys to fill them.
I doubted it.
Until a rock tapped the glass of the window.
When I heard it I almost spat out the shitty soft drink, holding Cal a bit closer before moving over to the window. Replacing the bottle with the katana before I looked down.
And there she was.
Two braids hanging over her shoulders, a manic grin on her face as she waved at Cal and I from below. She held a cat in a tuxedo in her arms, he waved his paw too. Cute.
I opened the window up, leaning out over it, shifting Cal so he had his arms around my neck from behind.
"Hi!"
"Yo."
She shifted the cat in her arms to around her shoulders, it seemed rather complicit. Easy going. I didn't want to know how Bro's cat would react to the smell of it in my room. Once the cat was around her shoulders she started climbing up, tiny fingers finding holds in the smallest of grooves between the bricks that made up the outside of the house. I was pretty damn impressed honestly. Once she was close enough I reached out my hand for her to grab onto, pulling her up into my room. The cat jumped off and made itself at home on my desk.
"Did you follow us home?"
"Nope! We live nearby now here actually, and I saw the car your two got into so I thought I'd come say hi again. I'm Roxy, I said that before right? Sayin' it again. I remember your name though! No need't repeat it or nothin'."
"Or anything."
"What?"
"Nevermind." Her lips twisted, dissatisfied with the lack of answer, or maybe because I'd corrected her. My ears felt warm. "Do you want to sit down or? We got shitty soft drink if you want it." Her smile came back at that, waltzing her way over to the mattresses and sitting down. Patting the space beside her. I joined her.
"You gotta cool room! I've got the sneakin' suspicion you like puppets." I'd puffed up slightly when she called my room cool, about to say 'just wait until everything is unpacked it will be even better,' but ended up flushing for a second at her mention of the puppets strewn about everywhere. It wasn't exactly an interest people usually had. "They're kinda cute!"
Well that was a relief.
"Bro started buying them for me when I was younger. Creeped him out but I kept asking for them."
"Hella. Where's your bro now?"
"Dunno." Still in the house probably, even then I didn't really feel like introducing the girl who technically broke into my room to him. He always found some way to get anyone I knew under his thumb, ended up hanging with me to know him. And if she knew WHAT he did, I'd lose her as a proper friend quickly. "Probably working."
"Cool! Don't need to worry 'bout anyone gettin' in the way then," A worrying statement a murderer tends to make, "You got MarioKart? My mom's. Busy. And MarioKart is amazin' to get to know people with. You can skip out to my place!"
I hesitated.
I wasn't sure how well Bro would take that. And.
I wasn't even sure at the time if I wanted to get to know her right away. I had. A preference for the masculine in general. Everything about Roxy Lalonde screamed femme at the moment. From those braids and pink irises to the cats she'd obviously had her mother sew onto the bottoms of her jeans.
I had to admit it was nice handiwork.
"Uh. Well."
"C'moooon, we're on the same street, I'll bother you every day 'til you do it."
"No way."
I ended up over at the Lalonde house the next day after school. Fitfully uneventful and filled with other kids talking shit.
I didn't fit quite in like bro said I would. I acted the same as I had last time. Stoic, aloof, the perfect Strider cool act. It'd worked great last time. But, I guess everyone had already known Bro then. Or perhaps being overly cocky and flaunting how much better I was at the same time might have been the problem.
Roxy fared better for a little while. Then she'd brought a thick book with her, some grotesque creature on the front. Messed with my eyes even through the shades. I guess she expected people to be impressed with it. Wearing her family's accomplishments proudly as if they were her own. I'd envy that later. And even later regret the envy. Some kid cried at the sight of the horrific book cover. Said it was wrong, that it kept changing.
The next year I'd get the volume that followed that book as a birthday gift. I had to agree. It wasn't exactly a normal book cover.
I kept it in a box for a couple years before trying to read it. I regret not reading it sooner.
Anyway.
I sat with Roxy on these two couches she'd pushed together and covered in pillows and blankets in her little den area. The house the Lalondes had moved in to was bigger than ours, but not by too much either.
When I went over to the Lalonde house, I'd expected I'd have to go pretty easy on Roxy.
I got absolutely fucking obliterated.
"Oh come on!"
"First place sucka!"
I couldn't believe it honestly. I thought playing Tony Hawk skater pro would make me some pretty boss ass gamer. Roxy had, as she put it.
"Pro strats, Dirk, pro strats."
"Those aren't even complete words!"
She laughed from her chest, that kind of uncontrollable cackling. Hearty and loud. Unapologetic about her joy and amusement in every sense of the word.
An itch of something started with that laugh. I just didn't know what it was yet. And wouldn't for a long time.
"I can't believe this. There is no way you're not cheating somehow. You have to be looking at my side of the screen." I was scowling. But I wasn't mad at her either. I just hadn't expected her to be good.
"Nuh uh! Pure skills here, Dirk, don't worry. Maybe someday you'll manage fourth place." She gave me a wink and I rammed her shoulder gently with mine, sending her off course for a second or two. With an indignant gasp we returned right to the track. Shit talking each other like we'd been doing it our entire lives. Didn't feel like it yet. But it would.
Roxy's mother wasn't entirely aware her daughter was bringing home some kid from school while she was gone doing whatever Roxy's mother did. And Bro wasn't aware I was sneaking off after he dropped me home either.
If this were a movie, or a show, or a book one of our guardians wrote. Then it might have been a plot point. Separated due to distrust and lying and not letting the elders know what we were doing.
Funny thing really.
They never found out. They were never home to catch us in the act.
Not even by chance.
The awkward firsts of this new place and new school were easily forgettable. There weren't any cliche outsiders to adopt us, no cliche clique to torment us. I kept to the outskirts of the social circle at first and Roxy, strangely charismatic, drew attention to her like nothing else. Eventually I socialised more at her insistence.
We hadn't met Jake or Jane yet, I wonder what it'd've been like if we had.
Empty, cold houses remained empty cold houses with the Strider clan. We didn't have the furniture or the need to fill up the entire space so we didn't and the Lalondes seemed to have too much and over filled before selling pieces off.
Bro bought a couch from the Lalondes.
It sits underneath my TV.
Days formed weeks, formed fortnights, formed months. Next thing I knew Roxy and I were turning thirteen. One day after the other. Bro and Roslyn let the two of us have a combined celebration.
Which really meant Bro had time to hit on other parents and Roxy's mother had time to sneak sips of alcohol when she thought no one was looking. I was always looking.
Roxy got me my first statuette of a wizard on our thirteenth, and a cap for Cal along with some last bits and pieces I needed to start my biggest project ever.
I handmade her a cat wizard toy and got off ebay a legit signed copy of the first Harry Potter book. That day she was so happy she said she could kiss me.
I told her that I knew she wouldn't be able to resist the utter charm and unmistakable sexiness this Strider had oozing off of me like pus from a really gross wound that got infected during the 'Nam campaign way back when.
She told me I was gross and kissed my cheek anyway.
Bro teased me for a good week after about it.
I placed the grey scale wizard on a shelf where I could see it from my bed. It fitted perfectly. I couldn't imagine a better place for it. And it made Roxy grin every time.
I guess I sort of loved that grin first.
One thing that I can say, unrelated to the Lalondes, was better than Houston,
Is that Bro was around.
In a few years we'd head back to Houston for a year and Roxy would video call me every day and sometimes I could tell she'd cried beforehand from something her mother had said or during the call purely because she'd missed me.
In that year,
I'd find a fascination with those celebrity lookalike pages in magazines. People who were almost, but not quite, the famous stars we love to gawk and poke and point at like exhibits in a zoo. Pushing our hands through the gaps in the bars of their cages for a chance to pet them, to feel someone less than real.
And then I'd find the level mouth of a celebrity lookalike I wish I'd never seen before that day.
Dirk's first year of small town life revealed that every summer Roxy disappeared, off on holidays to a family owned island. He had to admit, when she came back,
holding up seashells and dry pressed flowers as trophies and wearing her family's luck as her own,
He was the slightest bit jealous.
(Him, with all the Everything he had and all the bonuses he got,
In future years he could've gone to those premiers of his Bro's movies, did what Roxy did and wear his success like it was his
He didn't)
Year two of this small town Dirk learned Roxy hid sadness in smiles and the more happy she seemed the more things she didn't want seen. Sure, maybe it was some form of illusion, but if there was one thing he knew it was recognising his sister cities.
Year three of small town life got cut short quick, it was July when his brother got the call to head back to Houston. He didn't sell the house, no, not yet. But Dirk still felt like his time here was at an end anyway.
The way Roxy had refused to cry
(She had so much practice showing that brave face but he didn't know that)
Her jaw clenching and face screwing up the slightest bit to hold it all back when he'd pushed her out of their hug to look at her.
(He couldn't break his face out of the stoney expression, constantly blank, constantly flat)