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Author's Note: This makes year four. This chapter is honestly the one I'm the least sure about. It may be kinda cheesy. But my brain insisted this was how it was supposed to work. I know from experience that when you lose someone, sometimes there are certain songs or movies or places that your brain ties to them and it makes those things harder to experience. I wanted to give Laurel and Thea something like that for them to work through together, so I went with Harry Potter. The fifth movie came out the same year The Queen's Gambit sank. I have the shipwreck occurring a short while after the movie came out, which makes seeing it one of the last big things Laurel and Thea did with their siblings. The eighth movie then came out at the same time of year four years later, which would be the anniversary represented by this chapter. So I decided to take that and make a chapter of it. Hopefully it doesn't seem too odd. Enjoy!
Year Four
By the time the fourth anniversary comes around, Laurel's life has gotten pretty good. She and Tommy are officially dating. So far their relationship is actually going fairly smoothly. Her job at CNRI is amazing, and she's loving every minute of it. And her father has been sober for almost a year, which is no small feat. He's still not the man he was, but he's doing well enough that Laurel finally felt comfortable moving out and getting her own apartment.
Which is what has brought her to her present dilemma. In cleaning out her room for the move, Laurel rediscovered a box of all things Oliver. Things he had given her or left in her room or that even remotely reminded her of him. The evening after The Queen's Gambit sank she had gathered it all up in a fit of rage, fully intending to burn it all. But halfway through slamming it all angrily into the trashcan, anger had given way to crushing grief and Laurel had ended up sobbing on the floor. She had woken up the next morning to find herself in her bed with the full trashcan now emptied of all the painful memories. She's always suspected she owes that to her father, but she's never dared to ask. The rest of the Oliver-related items had been numbly deposited in a box and stuffed in the back of Laurel's closet where she had proceeded to all but forget about them.
Until now. Cleaning out her closet for the move had unburied the forgotten box. Laurel had set there on her heels for a long time just staring at it, waiting to see if the sight of it would cause an emotional explosion. But it hadn't. So finally she had put the box in her car with everything else and taken it over to her new apartment.
That was almost two months ago. She's pretty much completely moved in now, which is why she's finally made herself sit down at the kitchen table and open up the dreaded box. It contains an odd hodgepodge of items, much like the box Thea gave to her three years ago. There are a few pictures of her and Ollie, but most of those had been ripped to shreds and tossed into the trashcan in her violent effort to purge him from her life. The box also holds a few tickets from movies they attended together, a CD he had bought her for one of her birthdays, a sweatshirt she borrowed from him on a particularly cold night out, a stuffed animal he won for her at the fair, his copy of the last Harry Potter novel that he had lent her (one of the few book series he had actually enjoyed), a necklace she wore on their first date together, and a few other odd items. Most of the items she sits and looks at one by one before carefully depositing them in the trashcan she has pulled up alongside the table, a sort of symbolic way of proving to herself that she truly is moving on. But there are a few items, such as the sweatshirt and the book, that she pulls out and places in another pile. A pile for Thea Queen.
This, she knows, is the real reason she's waited so long since the move to go through the box. Because tomorrow is The Day. And while it no longer stings as badly as it once did, she still doesn't want to be alone tomorrow. True, she'll be at work with Joanna, but her best friend never knew Sara. And while Laurel and her dad will be visiting the cemetery together during their lunch breaks, that still leaves her evening free. Her dad has an AA meeting that night, and Laurel still doesn't quite trust him enough to let him miss it. Tommy is out of town and Laurel's mother has come up with a reason she can't visit, so that leaves Thea. Creating a pile of items for the youngest Queen will give Laurel an excuse to see her.
Thea's comment about making this a tradition has been rolling around in Laurel's head over the last few weeks. Despite the fact that they no longer have any interaction whatsoever for the other 364 days of the year, somehow their shared pain keeps drawing them together on this one. Maybe Thea's right. Maybe they should just make it a tradition.
Once she has finished sorting through the box, Laurel pulls out her phone and finds the number she saved after last year's incident. It takes her a few minutes to construct a text that seems inviting without sounding like she's begging Thea to come over.
Hey, it's Laurel. I found some stuff of Ollie's I thought you might want. I'll be home tomorrow evening if you want to come get it.
She sets her phone on the table and pulls out her laptop to try and get some work done. Five minutes into it, her phone goes off. Laurel picks it up to see a text from Thea.
What time?
Laurel holds her breath as she writes back seven o'clock and her address. She's barely set the phone back down on the table when it goes off again. She picks it up to see three words from Thea Queen.
See you then.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
At precisely 7:00 the next evening, there comes a knock at Laurel's door. She forces herself to take a deep breath and let it out before opening the door. Thea is standing there looking horribly nervous. Laurel is mildly surprised to note that the younger girl looks sober. Despite last year's incident, Thea has continued to move deeper into the party scene. But at the moment, she looks neither high nor drunk. Which is a good thing, considering she probably drove herself here in her new car.
"Hi," Thea says awkwardly.
"Hi," Laurel says. She opens the door and motions for Thea to come inside.
Thea steps into the living room, taking a look around the freshly furnished apartment as she does so. Laurel closes the front door before joining her in the room.
"Nice place," Thea says.
"Thanks," Laurel says. "I've only been here a few weeks."
She heads over to the couch and picks up the plastic bag of items, which she then hands to Thea. The younger girl opens the bag and takes a quick inventory of the items. Her fingers brush over the fabric of the sweatshirt before catching sight of the book title.
"Harry Potter," Thea says quietly. "We read this one together right before..." She pauses, and Laurel doesn't have to ask what she had been about to say. Then Thea keeps going, lost in the memories. "Mom thought I was too young, but Ollie let me borrow his copies. I read the first six on my own, and then he and I watched the movies together. There were only four of them back then. He took me to the opening night of the fifth one."
"I remember," Laurel says with a small smile. "Sara and I were behind you in line. She always loved those books. I never really got into them, but she always made me go to the movies with her."
"I remember she had those fake glasses on," Thea says with a growing grin. "And she had the scar painted on her forehead."
"You had that wand Ollie bought you for your birthday," Laurel reminds her. "You two kept having pretend duels in line."
"He kept letting me win," Thea says. Her smile falters then. They both know that only a few weeks later The Queen's Gambit had gone down.
"I never saw the others," Laurel admits in the sudden silence. "It just wasn't the same without Sara. I keep buying the DVDs, but I just can't make myself watch them."
"Me neither," Thea says quietly.
It's strange, Laurel thinks, that those movies can still have such a hold on both of them after four years. The final movie in the series had hit theaters only a few weeks back, and it had been impossible for her to see a single poster without thinking of Sara. There was a time when she hadn't dared to watch the other films for fear of somehow dishonoring Sara's memory. But as she waits for the release of the DVD that she knows she probably won't watch, part of her has begun to wonder if maybe it's time to break that tie and let herself move on.
"Do you want to?" she says suddenly. "Watch the other movies? The last one isn't out yet, but I have the other two..."
She trails off, leaving the silence dangling in the air between them. She hadn't even meant to make the offer out loud. It just sort of happened. Thea bites her lip as she carefully weighs the options.
"We don't have to," Laurel says quickly. "I shouldn't have even brought it up. I just thought since you were here, maybe it might do us both some good-"
"Okay," Thea says. Laurel stops mid-sentence, visibly surprised that the younger girl has agreed. Thea tightens her grip on the bag in her arms and gives a small nod. "Maybe it'll help. I mean… if you want to."
"Sure," Laurel says. She pauses awkwardly, not really sure how to go about this. "Um… have you eaten? I was going to order some Chinese for dinner."
"Chinese is good," Thea says, answering the unspoken question.
"Okay," Laurel says again. She motions over at the couch. "I'll go get a menu. You can… make yourself at home."
As she heads into the kitchen to find the take out menus, she gets the feeling that Sara would approve of this fledgling friendship if only because it involves two of her favorite things: Chinese food and Harry Potter. Somehow that seems to Laurel a fitting way to honor her sister's memory.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
In the end, Laurel and Thea don't pay much attention to the movie. As they work their way through take out containers full of different combinations of meat, noodles, and vegetables, they end up talking about their dead siblings more than anything. The familiar characters on the screen bring up a storm of memories that then lead into more stories. It feels good to be able to talk so freely about the loved ones they miss. The movie goes in stops and starts as they repeatedly pause it to talk. Some memories make them laugh so hard they almost fall off the couch. A few leave them both in fits of tears that take a good deal of Kleenex to recover from. Some memories have nothing to do with the movie, but neither of them seems to mind. What matters is that they're talking about it. It's a release they both badly need, especially today.
By the time the movie finally ends, it's nearly midnight and neither of them remembers very much of what actually happened in the movie. But Laurel figures that wasn't really the point anyway.
"I should get going," Thea says finally as the credits finish rolling. "Thanks for dinner."
"No problem," Laurel tells her. "Thanks for staying."
"It was good," Thea says quietly, and they both know she's not talking about the movie.
"It was," Laurel agrees.
Thea picks up the plastic bag of Ollie's things and heads over to the door, where she steps aside so Laurel can unlock it. The door swings open, and Thea takes a small step toward the hallway. Then she pauses and looks up at Laurel.
"You know," she says carefully, "there's still two more movies. Maybe we could... do this again sometime."
"Next year?" Laurel asks knowingly.
"Yeah," Thea says. Her eyes are still a bit red from her last round of crying fifteen minutes before, but there is a small smile on her face. "Next year."
Laurel responds by pulling Thea into a warm hug that the younger girl returns.
"Drive safe," Laurel tells her as she lets go.
"I will," Thea assures her, stepping out into the hallway. "Bye."
"Bye," Laurel says.
She closes the door, alone once more in her apartment. But as she turns the key into the locked position, she can't help noticing that, for the first time in four years, this particular date feels just a little bit brighter.
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