There was a familiarity to the church on the east side of town. Leon wondered if stepping inside would give him some comfort, despite never feeling it since he was a boy. Still, there was something romantic about looking at a church.

"What do you say?" asked Ashley, clutching his arm with a look of concerned hope.

Leon didn't answer. He continued to stare at the tip of the steeple, refusing to telegraph his emotions.

"You look sad," she said.

Leon shuffled. "I'm thinking."

Ashley peered up at the church, as if trying to find his thoughts on the bricks. A bus unceremoniously pulled up to the bus stop just in front of the front doors, pausing to pick up the anonymous travelers across the street. Leon turned and began walking down the sidewalk away from the church, Ashley following close behind.

"I don't think you'll burst into flames if you head in there, y'know," she said, quickening her pace to keep up with his gait.

"We're gonna' be late for the party," said Leon. "I was late last time, I don't want to be late this time."

"Pretty convenient," said Ashley. "Never took you for a devoted party guy."

"Well, I am."

"Never took you for a close friends guy either, really."

"That's just cruel." Leon removed a pack of cigarettes as he walked, placing one between his lips and readying his lighter.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Ashley bolted to him and yanked the cigarette from his mouth. "When did you get these?"

"This morning."

"This morning, eh-" Ashley yanked the pack from his hand and threw it into the street. Leon watched apathetically as the bus pulled away from the bus stop, treading over the cigarettes to turn them into nothing more than spread tobacco flakes. "You wasted seven dollars this morning, then."

"They cost eight."

"Eight, then. You just wasted eight dollars."

Leon peered listlessly into Ashley's frustrated eyes. With that, he continued down the sidewalk.

"Why did you buy them?" she asked.

"I don't have a thesis prepared for you."

"What?"

"Ashley!" Leon abruptly stopped on the sidewalk, facing a startled, yet confident Ashley. "Today is really not the day. I, just… give me today. Give me today to be an asshole. I promise I'll make it up to you. Okay?"

Ashley defiantly stared into his eyes.

"Hey, guys!" a voice shouted from across the street.

A stout, red-haired man waved ecstatically on the opposite sidewalk, excitedly looking both ways before shuffling across the street toward Leon and Ashley.

"Afraid I missed the bus! You see it go by?"

"We did," said Leon and Ashley, unprepared for the energy this man brings.

"Living Christ!" he said with a laugh, meeting them on the sidewalk. "Ready for the shindig, then?"

This was Bentley O'hale. A man of many words, and perhaps genuinely innocent ventures through life. His stout, puggish demeanor was not only a result of his look, but his easily excitable attention span. Leon somewhat envied his London enthusiasm, maybe even his Irish oafishness.

"Ready for the shindig," responded Leon, looking at Ashley.

"Fantastic," said Bentley. "Uhm… you guys have a car, yeah?"

Leon shuddered, continuing down the sidewalk without them. Bentley looked at Ashley with a concerned glance. She sheepishly smiled at him with a shrug, before following Leon.

A Ford Escape waited for Leon in the parking lot. Its left front end was smashed to bits from what was, as Ashley referred to it, as a "little bump" from another car she assumed moved forward at a green light. It, of course, did not.

"Oh, shit," said Bentley, eyeing the poor car. "Little bump, then?"

Leon begrudgingly glanced at Ashley.

"Little bump," said Ashley.

"Oh." Bentley reacted to the scandal with a hand over his mouth.

Leon walked to the car, entering the driver's seat. Bentley stifled a chuckle, before Ashley frustratedly gave him a good jab to the arm to quiet him. They both entered the car, which started with a labored, mechanical grunt.


"HEYYYYYYYYY!" screamed Claire upon opening the front door.

"Oh, my god!" Ashley lunged past Leon, wrapping her arms around Claire as a hello hug.

Chris stood further in the foyer, a welcoming smile as he met eyes with Leon. It's been awhile, their eyes said. Leon nodded.

"It's been awhile!" squealed Claire, clutching Ashley with all of her strength.

"Careful, there," laughed Chris, moving past the girls. "Don't want to hurt anyone now, right?"

Chris took Leon in an embrace. Bentley stood there, shuffling quietly with a pressured, but excited smile. They all hugged quietly as he looked around the front porch.

"Looks exactly the same as the… the last time I was here. Exactly the same."

"Alright," said Chris, patting Leon as he stepped away. "Come on in. You're fashionably late. But in a cool way."

"Oh, god!" said Claire, stepping away from Ashley with excitement. "Yes! Come on in, make yourselves at home. The others are tipsy by now, so don't worry about the small talk."

"Thank god," said Ashley.

The group made their way into the house, Chris shutting the door behind them. Leon immediately noticed the decor of the house. Bentley was right; it hadn't changed one bit.

"Look at the kitchen!" said Claire.

They made their way in, passing by the living room filled with a few tipsy party guests having a chat. The kitchen, unsurprisingly, looked exactly the same.

"Notice anything?"

"In the kitchen?" asked Ashley.

Leon, Ashley, and Bentley scanned the kitchen. Not a single thing out of place from where they already imagined it.

"Uh…" Ashley strained for the finer details.

"Gotta look for it. Try not to… hurt your eyes from how bright it is." Claire smiled and glanced over to a disinterested Chris.

"Oh!" Ashley faked her excitement.

"I finally got it!"

Everyone's attention shifted to an ornate lamp on the counter.

"Took me ages for Chris to ruin his absolutely pristine aesthetic, but I finally convinced him it looks good."

"I didn't say it looks good. I asked you to shut up, and this did the trick," said Chris, taking three beers out of the fridge. "Leon, Bentley. Your beverages."

"Oh, I got a vodka soda with your name on it," said Claire, smiling at Ashley. "I just can't believe how that looks in here. Can you?"

"I really can't!" said Ashley.

The lamp was hideous.

"Oi!" a burly voice erupted from the doorway.

A tall, stocky man lumbered into the kitchen. His casual swagger was aided by his grip on door frame for balance.

"You can't hand people a beer and not hand me a beer," he said, taking a moment for his serious face to warp with boisterous laughter.

"How could I make that mistake?" said Chris, reaching into the fridge and handing the man a beer. "Guys, this is The Mitch. Say hello to The Mitch."

"Hello, the Mitch," said Bentley.

"The fuck are you?" asked The Mitch.

"I'm… I'm Bentley."

A moment of awkward silence overtook the room. The Mitch raised the beer into the air.

"PROST!"

"PROST!" everyone shouted.

Bentley took a sip of his beer, nervously smiling.


"How you doing lately?" asked Chris, leaning back in the lawn chair beside the pool.

"Oh, you know," said Leon, raising his beer. "It's whatever."

"No, no, no, no," said Chris. "Don't gimme that shit. Come on. Be real with me. When's the last time you actually talked? I mean, REALLY talked."

"I've been talking all night-"

"Leon." Chris set his drink on the small glass table beside him and sat up. His body faced toward Leon. "Stop it. Just stop it, man. You drunk?"

"What-yeah, I'm drunk-"

"Good, then be drunk with me right now. Talk." Chris revealed a pack of cigarettes. He opened it and handed one to Leon, who gratefully took it. They lit their sticks. "How are you, Leon?"

Leon paused, his face clenching. He looked out toward the pool. The sounds of laughter and shouting echoed from inside the house, but it didn't disturb him.

"I'm not fine, man," said Leon, taking a drag. "But I'm not bad. It's not like it's-"

"Leon," said Chris. "Don't abridge anything."

"Will you let me finish?" asked Leon with a scoff. "It's not like it's hell, okay? It's not like I'm… I don't know, reliving things on a loop, it's… it's… simpler than that."

"Okay. Simpler how?"

Leon smiled, the water refractions lining his face.

"Hey!" A pounding on the glass door that separated them from the chaos inside the house. Leon and Chris turned to see Ashley drunkenly pounding on the glass. She motioned to come on inside. It was a party, after all.

"There's your girl," said Chris with a laugh.

Leon smiled wearily at the drunken girl pounding on the glass, urging them to come in. A muffled shout within the house drew her attention. She stumbled away, giving one last beckoning with her hand for them to come in.

"She doing well lately too?"

"Oh, she's good, I'll tell you that right now," said Leon, taking another drag from the cigarette. "Shit, I don't want that." Leon tossed the cigarette into the pool.

"Hey, hey, hey, what the fuck?" said Chris, sitting up further.

"Jesus, shit-I'm so sorry-" said Leon, cracking up into hysterical laughter, patting Chris's shoulder.

"Yeah, you're sorry. You just bought our next box of chlorine," said Chris.

"Does chlorine come in a box?" asked Leon, still cracking up.

"Ours does, yeah. You dick." Chris struck him lightly on the shoulder. They both watched the light reflecting off the pool.


The living room was rife with shouting, laughing, snorting-whatever noises come from the human body came from this room. Everyone-some whom Claire was barely familiar with herself-was enamored with the air of the party. Chris and Claire were known for throwing absolute bashes, after all. It was a genuine surprise if anyone claimed one of their parties as "mediocre."

"My mom saw this board of wood once, yeah?" said The Mitch, stifling a belch. "She saw this board of wood once against the basement door when I was a lad. She comes into the living room and says to my brother and me, 'Oi! Which one of you put this board of wood on the basement door?!'"

Ashley and Claire leaned on one another, trying to stay awake.

"We say, 'It wasn't fuckin' us!' She says, 'It had to be!' And I was 10, my brother he was 12, 13? She goes on and on and on about how we had to have put the board there, like we had some mission with a piece of fuckin' wood! Then she says to us, 'Oh, I see. I see. You're tryin' to make me think I'm crazy, is that it?'"

The Mitch stood up to reenact her movement.

"We say back to her, 'What the fuck are you talking about, you cunt?' She's tellin' us how she's onto us, how she knows we're trying to make her crazy-and get this? My mother goes into the kitchen, takes the board from the basement door, walks back into the living room, and she fucking chucks the thing out the window! She says, 'If you wanna make me go crazy, you're gonna have to go get that fucking board now! It's outside!'"

Donna, one of the other guests, leaned forward and cleanly vomited into her glass. Everyone recoiled with disgust.

"Oh, shit," she said, belching painfully.

"Fucking Christ, Donna," said The Mitch.

"Sorry. Sorry. Great story. I-" She held in a yack. "Claire, Claire, uhm-where's the toilet?"

Claire waveringly pointed down the hallway, signalling right. Donna stood up and stumbled down the hallway into the darkness.

"Yeah, she said, 'It's outside!'" The Mitch laughed and took a hearty gulp of his beer.

Claire leaned over to Ashley.

"I think it's midnight," she whispered.

"It's 3:47," whispered Ashley.

"Yeah, I think it's time to abort mission."

"Ohhh." Ashley nodded emphatically. "Time to abort?"

"Hey," said The Mitch, pointing at the women with a serious tone. Ashley and Claire looked at him with concern. "You don't talk about that." The Mitch took a step back, stumbling on the coffee table.

"Yep," whispered Claire to Ashley, who was stifling laughter.


The clouds veiled the moon as a gentle blue glow in the sky. The earthy colored leaves crunched as the party guests made their way to their cars.

"Redfield, Redfield, Redfield," said The Mitch, slapping his hand on Chris's shoulders. "You know how to throw a shindig if anyone ever did."

"Thanks, man," said Chris, removing The Mitch's hand from his shoulder.

"And Claire!" he yelped, making her flinch. "You are as lovely as always, and the best addition to any party."

"Thank you, Mitch," she said with a smile. "But don't say it too loud, or Deb's gonna cut your balls off."

The Mitch laughed with a guttural, drunken joy. With a thumbs up, he stumbled toward his car-where a sober, annoyed Deb waited in the driver's seat. Chris and Claire looked at one another, turning toward the house to leave the headlights outside to their destinations. Leon, Ashley, and Bentley were inside helping with the clean up. Ashley was hard at work on Donna's vomit glass, while Leon and Bentley attacked everything else.

"Another one down, boys and girls," said Chris, closing the glass front door and clapping his hands. He glanced over at the dying flame in the fireplace. "And all before we ran out of firewood."

"Yeah. Even if The Mitch's tank of a bladder endangered that," said Bentley. "That man can hold his liquor. If the Pacific were filled with Pabst, we'd be fucked as a planet."

After an hour or so, the clean up was finished. Leon plopped onto the massive couch in the living room, letting out a deflating sigh to himself as Ashley slept on the shorter side of the L. He watched the fire become all but embers in the fireplace; the night was done, with all its distractions. Bentley closed the dishwasher and started it, letting out a satisfied sigh; the night was done, with all its untidiness.

Chris and Claire came out from their bedroom, ready for a good night's sleep.

"Worn out there, Leon?" asked Chris as they sat on the couch opposite.

"Oh. Yeah," said Leon. "Haven't partied like that since… well, since the last time I partied here."

"I think Donna went in my room," said Claire.

"Why?" asked Chris.

"There's puke on the rug."

"Oh, then she was definitely in your room."

"When did she even go in there? She's like a mouse." Claire picked up a glass of wine from the table and sipped.

"When you back at work?" Leon asked Chris.

"Oh. I'm getting there," said Chris, shifting in his seat. "Doctor said it's gonna take a little more time before it's, uhm… before it's a good idea."

"Dr. Schindler still?"

"No. No, I changed a few months ago, it's Dr. Monson now."

"Dr. Monson? Haven't heard of him."

"What, are you supposed to know every psychiatrist within a 100 mile radius?" asked Claire, sipping her wine.

"I get around." Leon looked over at Bentley as he sat down beside Ashley, who remained out cold.

"Ahhhh. Time to relax."

"Not yet," said Leon.

"Fuuuuuuck," said Bentley, slapping his head back against the couch. "I don't want to walk. I'm too drunk."

"You're a lightweight, Bentley," laughed Chris.

"Doesn't look like Ashley wants to walk either." Everyone looked at Ashley, a hearty creek of drooling running from her mouth.

"Fuck it," said Chris. "There's a guest house for a reason. Take it."

"No, no, no, that's alright," said Leon. "We can walk, Bentley."

"No, seriously. Take the guest house."

"I do love the guest house," said Bentley, a childish glimmer of hope in his eyes as his head perked up.

"He loves the guest house," said Chris to Leon. "Come on. I'll get the key."

Chris got up and walked down the hall into his bedroom. Bentley stumbled up and excitedly followed him.

"How are you lately?" asked Claire to Leon.

"Cool as a cucumber," said Leon.

"You asked Chris, but are you working now?"

Leon smiled and looked toward his lap. "No. Uh. Not sure I want to again. I was thinking of, uh… well, I was thinking of becoming a professor. Actually."

"A professor! Really?"

"Yeah. I've been looking a lot into West Point. It's not too far from here, so not too big of a change."

"You know, Quantico would be pretty cool if you could get it."

"Yeah," said Leon with a laugh. "Not sure if I could land that one. FBI's a little cliquey with its faculty."

"Yeah," laughed Claire. "Yeah."

A silence overtook the room for a moment.

"And… how are you with…" Claire's hesitation finished the sentence for her.

"I'm good," clipped Leon. "I'm good. Uhm… nightmares stopped. So that's good. And, uh… yeah. I've come to terms with how she was and everything, and… I guess that's the way she would have wanted to go. It's not the first time, after all, so sometimes I kind of expect her to crash through a window or something. But… yeah. It's just the way her world worked. And mine too, I suppose."

"Are you feeling happier lately?"

Leon chuckled. "Uhm… uh… heh. No. No, I, uh… no, I'm not."

"Okay!" said Chris, walking down the hallway with Bentley.

"But I'm okay," whispered Leon to her, looking up with a smile as Chris and Bentley entered the room. Chris jingled the keys, with a bug-eyes Bentley smiling behind him.

Ashley drooled down the side of the couch.


Ashley drooled down the side of the bed.

Leon and Bentley settled into their separate beds. Bentley guzzled down glasses of water he poured from a pitcher on the nightstand, while Leon shifted to a comfortable position under his sheets.

"That's a nice lamp," said Bentley, pointing to a lamp as he swallowed his water. "Very ornate. I want a lamp like that."

"Just looks like a lamp to me," said Leon.

"Yeah, but look at the colors. It's got a bit of a… churchy thing going on with that stained glass and all. Sort of brings the room together, you know?"

"Yeah," said Leon.

The branches outside brushed against the walls of the guest house.

"Little blustery, eh?" said Bentley.

Leon nodded. He picked up a remote from the nightstand and aimed it at the lamp, turning it off. The room went from a warm coziness to a blueish tranquility with the light pouring in from the window.

"Good idea," said Bentley. "Got a little tired myself."

"Me too," said Leon. "Big day tomorrow. Get some sleep."

"You too, pal. Night, Leon."

"Night, Bentley."

Bentley laid down into the bed, enjoying the coziness of a mattress he himself could not afford. Leon laid his head down on his pillow, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. The branches scratched the window for a brief moment, causing Leon to alarmedly look out. He saw nothing but the faint outlines of twining branches dancing in the light gusts. The glass had become damp as the clouds lowered into a mist.

"See you around."

Leon looked back up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. No sleep tonight.


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