by: bj
in sum: so she went, and in the going broke.
label: delia. futurefic.
rating: pg.
sissies: i know you'll have no spoilers.
legalities: don't own, don't sue.
i say: futurefic. pre-"conscious."
muse: "autumn princesses" and "in the going she became complete" by piotr mancewicz. book: sleeping on the ground. "weight" by sarah slean. album: universe.
you say: all comments appreciated, answered, and archived.
she was invulnerable
Delia is a freshman when Ephram leaves, and she is a senior when he comes back. Their father shakes his hand and swallows his questions. Ephram is nearly silent, he is at the house for two days. He watches her graduate, he kisses her cheek, he leaves again.
Delia smiles as he drives away and she doesn't cry. She has realised that if he can leave, she can leave too. She has decided that she is capable of inflicting just as much pain as he is. Her father understands, and he trusts that she will back for the winter, and back for the summer, and that she will be back for the rest of her life. Delia isn't so sure, but she loves him and she hates the way he looks when he thinks of Ephram. She lets him believe in the power of the town.
Delia arrives at Beloit alone and leaves a writer. She has spent winters and summers in Everwood, and she has discovered that it is not a town in need of a writer. She goes back for a month. Her father buys her a car as a graduation gift. She cries and she won't tell him why. She fills the tank, she drives to Denver, she stands in the airport parking lot watching the planes leave. She watches a plane bound for LA.
Delia arrives in LA with two suitcases and a phone number. She sits in the arrivals lounge waiting for Ephram, she drinks two martinis, trying to forget the way her father smiled when she told him where she was going. He said he understood. He asked her to bring Ephram back with her.
Delia lives with Ephram for two months before he learns how to talk to her again. He helps her get a job at an urban paper. She asks him what days he wants to cook and he smiles, he tells her he doesn't eat dinner. She asks him what his work schedule is and he squints at her, he tells her he is a composer, he doesn't have a schedule. He goes out at nine in the evening and returns after she has left for work. She wonders where he lost himself.
Delia quits her job and flies with Ephram to New York on two hours' notice. She finds them an apartment while he meets with his new manager. She sits on the fire escape in Brooklyn and writes her father a letter. She knows he will worry when she tells him they are in New York, but she does it anyway. She promises they will come to Colorado for the holidays, she tells him he must come stay with them for Julia's yahrzeit.
Delia turns twenty-five facing southwest, standing on the roof of the Empire State Building, alone. She is holding a copy of Playbill and she cannot believe her name is on the cover. She thinks she can see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon, but she knows it's only New Jersey.
End.