('cause you were all) yellow
It's a typical wintery night in the middle of January, and Lexi is cold, colder than she can remember feeling in a while. She's agreed to work extra hours tonight, on the day when she doesn't have another shift to get to, and the skin of her fingers is pink and wrinkled and stinging from the cleaning products she's been in contact with nearly all day, no matter how much cold water she tips over them.
If only her family could see her now, she thinks, as she hurries across the almost-empty carpark: a dishevelled woman, too skinny to be healthy, soaked with the pouring rain, who spends her days working three jobs for minimum wage. What would they think of her?
She fumbles in the pocket of her tatty coat for the car keys; they're not her car keys, and it's not her car, but rather they are the keys and the car of the elderly woman who lives in the flat across the hall from her, the one that watches her son in the evenings when she has to disappear more often than not to clean tables at the local pub. Lexi is grateful for her kindness, because perhaps it is kindness that she does not deserve.
She flicks on the heater as soon as she gets inside, holding her damp hands in front of it as it wheezes out a puff of slightly warm, musty air. It's better than nothing, and so she shrugs her coat off and throws it over the back of the seat, trying to fix herself up by looking in the mirror. Her hair, currently falling to her chin, is drenched, more brown than blonde, droplets dripping from the ends and soaking through the shoulders of her yellow shirt. Her eyes seem very dark in this light, standing out amongst her pale face. She looks like she could be a ghost - and, technically, isn't she already one? The old body, her "real" body as one could argue, has been dead for a while now. It's 2018, and she's been in this human skin for five years - how long has it been for her brother, for her father? How long have they mourned her death, if they ever mourned her at all?
She tries to ruffle her hair to get it more presentable, because she doesn't want another gentle lecture from the woman across the hall about how she needs to wrap up warmer or else she's going to get ill again if she's not careful, but it doesn't have much of an effect, and so she gives up and begins the drive home. Rush hour is long since over, and the roads are clear now; Lexi flicks on the ancient radio, but it's stuck on one station that only seems to play four songs, and she knows them all so well that she can tap her fingers on the steering wheel in time to the beat.
She's stopped at a red light when it happens. She's waiting patiently to go, even if there's little to no traffic, thinking about the five precious hours of sleep she can have if she gets home in good time, when there's a tapping on the passenger window. A guy is there, hood pulled up against the extreme conditions, peering into the small car. Against her better judgement, Lexi rolls down the window, and is hit by a spray of rain from outside. It must have gotten heavier since she's been on the road.
"Yes?"
"Yeah, sorry, I don't want to bother you -" he has to yell over the sound of the weather "- but can I get a lift?"
Lexi raises an eyebrow. She's been warned many times about the dangers of strangers, and every lesson she's ever been taught is flashing in her mind right now - but she can't help thinking that, dear god, underneath that hood the guy looks young, young enough to be roughly around the same age as she is. Too young to be left out in the rain.
With that in mind, she pushes the passenger door open, and he jumps in, just as the light ahead of them turns green.
"Thanks." He's shivering a little as he curls up in the seat beside her. "Sorry about this, but I didn't know what else to do. I got kind of lost on the way home."
"I know how that feels. Where is it you need to go?"
"Just up the main road a bit, and then left. Can't miss the turning." He rummages in his rucksack for something, bringing out a phone; the screen stays blank when he presses one of the buttons. "Battery's dead. Thought it was. Couldn't call my mum and dad to let them know I was coming." He puts the phone away again. Then: "Good song, this."
Is it? She hadn't even noticed the change. "I suppose so," she agrees, glancing at him sideways. There's something about him, something that prickles under her skin, but she can't quite put her finger on what it is. "How did you end up lost out here?"
"It's a long story." At first, he keeps quiet after that, and Lexi thinks that's all he's going to say on the matter, until: "I did some stupid things as a kid. Made some mistakes I don't know if I'll even be able to make up for. But, for what it's worth, I'm gonna try, you know? Feels like I owe it to my mum and dad."
"I know," Lexi says, as she thinks of her own parents. She can't remember her mother very well, but she can remember her father vividly, even after all this time. She still doesn't know a lot about herself, this human self, but she knows that she won't be that kind of parent to her son. She'll die - again - before she lets that happen.
Apparently, her face gives away more than she would have liked.
"You too, eh? Guess everyone did stupid things when they were young."
"Maybe not quite like I did," she says out loud, before she can stop herself.
"Oh, yeah? What did you do?"
She sighs before she answers. "Well, it's like you said: I made mistakes that I won't be able to take back. I did a lot of things that hurt a lot of people."
There's silence for a moment, whilst her words hang in the air between them. Then:
"Did your parents ever forgive you?"
Forgive her? She could almost laugh at that, even though a part of her knows that he's asking for reassurance in himself.
"My family encouraged me. Well, my father, anyway. My mother - she wasn't around to see what I did. Maybe she would have forgiven me, in the end. I would like to think she'd at least try to see things from my point of view." She's musing now, more to herself than to him. "Maybe, if there was a way I could speak to her, she would forgive me. Perhaps it would help me forgive myself."
"What happened to her?" The guy, this stranger in the car, is openly curious now, and Lexi wonders, for a moment, why is she telling him all of this. She hasn't told anyone about her family, hasn't mentioned them for five years now - why would she suddenly want to start bringing up old memories? Especially when they are so much better left unsaid?
"I can't actually remember," she answers, regardless. "I think she died, a very long time ago. Nearly twenty years it must be now."
"Sorry."
"It's alright. Like I said, I don't remember her."
"Still. It's not easy to lose a parent. Seen plenty of examples of that. This friend of mine, a kid I knew - his mum passed away. He said that it gets better, but I don't think that kind of loss ever does."
"Better," she echoes. "Isn't that what they always say? It gets better?"
Better. Would she even call this better? She was born a princess, after all, and now, here she is, a humble Earth citizen, working three jobs for next to nothing, coming home to a fridge that is more often empty than it is full. Except now she has her son - her son, whom she loves more than anything else she has in her life, and could probably ever have. She'll take it all on for her son, the whole world. She'll work every hour of every single day if she has to, if it's to give him the best life she possibly can.
"You're lucky, you know," she says suddenly. "To have both of your parents, I mean."
"I know. It took me a while to realise that, but I got it. This friend of mine helped me, him and his family. Showed me that I needed to be grateful for what I did have, and now I'm finally about to them." He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, as if he isn't quite sure what kind of reaction he's about to get from her. "Maybe you could one day find yours."
"I don't think they even know I'm still alive." At the look on his face, she elaborates. "We...fell out. A while ago, now. They didn't approve of my lifestyle, I guess you could say."
"Lifestyle? What kind of lifestyle?"
Human, her mind supplies.
"Single parenting," she replies aloud, as he gestures for her to turn left at the next junction. "I fell in love with someone I shouldn't have, and the situation got complicated. He wasn't old enough to take care of a child. He could barely look after himself."
She snorts a little at that, at the memory of Tom Clarke - still out there somewhere, getting himself into trouble. She wonders how old he is now, where he is in the world. Does he still think of them at all? Once in a while, when the sun shines in the right place or the stars in the sky align, does he give any care to how they turned out in this world that is still so very new to them?
"That sounds very brave of you," her passenger muses. "Taking all that responsibility on yourself."
"I did what was best for everyone," Lexi replies.
"Because you think he wouldn't forgive you if you burdened him again."
He doesn't phrase it as a question, and Lexi doesn't quite know what to say to that. Perhaps, somewhere in her subconscious, a part of that is true.
She pulls to a stop in front of the house on the street corner, the one that the guy next to her points out. The lights are on inside, glowing from behind the curtains, and it looks homely, more homely than the poky one bedroom flat that Lexi has to go back to after this.
"Get inside safe," she says, when she finds that there isn't anything else to say after everything they've discussed in this short drive.
"You too. Thanks for the lift." The passenger pulls his hood up, and moves to get out of the car, into the rain, before stopping. He leans back inside, and offers her a hand to shake. "Jackson, by the way."
Jackson. She knows that name. Somewhere, she knows that she's heard it before.
"Lexi."
He blinks, and for a moment - a single moment - she's sure that he can see something in his eyes, something she doesn't quite get, before it's gone.
"Good luck, Lexi," he says instead, and then he gets out of the car properly.
"Have we met before?" She blurts out suddenly, finally, just as he's about to slam the door.
"Hm?"
"You just - I don't know." She shrugs then, feeling a little stupid from the outburst. "I feel like I know you from somewhere."
He doesn't answer her question, not even to tell her that she's crazy.
"You should forgive yourself, Lexi," is what he replies with, and there is genuine sympathy in his voice when he speaks, before he shuts the door and heads towards the house in question, home at last.
Lexi watches to make sure he's inside, and then waits some more to make absolutely sure, before she eventually drives away.
i can't believe that i'm back in the hole of WvA. what is this, 2014?
in case there was any doubt, i still love lexi with all my heart and soul.
title comes from the song 'Yellow' by coldplay, and i own nothing recognisable.