Note: FTA LIIIVES. Obviously it's been about two years since I updated and I suck and I am sorry. I don't actually expect anyone to read this, let alone review—that's not and never has been why I write—but this fic is closer to my heart than anything I've ever done and I promised myself that I would finish it. And edit the previous chapters that so badly need editing. In my defense, though, a lot has happened in the last two years. Like learning how to figure skate! And winning a US Figure Skating Adult National championship in my level/age group! Yay. Also, I learned part of the mambo from the Dance at the Gym the other day and it was awesome and had cactus arms. Yes.
Proper credit: anyone who's sent me a message wondering where the heck this chapter is, and/or anyone reading this right now. Seriously—thank you. And RhapsodyInProgress for putting up with my babble. No idea when the next chapter will be up, but it's on my radar, I promise.
—viennacantabile
fell the angels
twenty-six : someone i loved
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How long does it take to forget the odor of someone who loved you? How long until you stop loving?
If only someone would give me an hourglass.
—Anna Gavalda, Je L'aimais
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Nobody ever lies about being lonely.
—From Here to Eternity
.
She dreams of nothing, that night, and when she wakes up in the morning she opens her eyes and stares up at the ceiling and feels—nothing.
Velma knows what has happened, remembers the metal bite of the swings imprinted in her palms and the sharp intake of her breath, cut off before reaching her lungs. She remembers the unsteady sway of her legs, standing on concrete but still caught by the motion of the swings. Still falling, still in midair. The facts are easy enough.
But the image of the line of his back moving away from her is lost. Maybe it's stupidity, maybe it's blindness, but she has no memory of it at all. It hasn't caught up with her. It's not real yet, and she doesn't know when it will be because it's too hard to understand, too hard to process something that is so utterly impossible.
Gone, she thinks, testing the word in her mind. The concept is so alien to her she almost laughs, before trying out fine. Fine is a better word. Fine has no hurt, no pain attached to it. Fine, she decides, is how she will feel.
(But in the end she knows that no matter where she hides, the weight of what has happened will find her. It won't be, it can't be this easy. And when it comes for her, she doesn't know how she will be able to bear it.)
.
"So where the fuck is he?"
It's daylight, now, and no matter what she does the world refuses to leave her alone.
"He didn't say nothin' to ya?"
"He must be plannin' somethin', then; he wouldn't just up an' leave—"
"But without tellin' us? Gee, I don't think—"
"D'ya know what happened?"
"It's just—we thought the Reds mighta gotten him—"
"I wouldn't put it past 'em," says Action with a scowl. He is the loudest, when he finds out the next afternoon. He is the one who demands, over and over, to know where Ice is, the one who almost reaches out to shake the answer out of her before yanking back fists still seeping red through torn-up scraps of old t-shirt. He can't stop moving, can't stop railing against the world, and when Velma tells him, as she has every time he's asked this question, that Ice is just gone and that's all she knows, Action shakes his head.
"Bull," he snarls, rage and fear warring in his eyes. "He'da told you somethin'."
"He did," Velma says tonelessly. She has answered every question but it isn't enough for them. Block it out, she thinks, shut it out, don't let it in, and if she chooses to forget then maybe she will. "He told me he was leavin'."
There is a pause.
"Action," ventures Baby John, "maybe she really don't—"
"Goddammit, Baby John!" thunders Action, head whipping around to glare at him. "Who the hell d'ya think's in charge around here, anyway?"
They're not all here—Action has sent Snowboy, Gee-Tar, and Anybodys out to see what they can find—but none of the remaining Jets says anything. Not even Big Deal, who's made it clear that going along as lieutenant is very far from volunteering for the captain's job. The thing is, Velma thinks, there hasn't been any official vote in the day since Ice's disappearance. Not even a discussion, really, because there's barely been time to take it all in. And now here it is.
Baby John shuffles his feet, but finally shrugs, avoiding Action's gaze.
"Exactly," Action says, glowering at Baby John. "So I'm askin' the questions around here."
It makes sense, Velma thinks from outside herself as the new leader turns back to her with the same question as before. Action takes over because the rest of the Jets, when they speak, are scared, shocked, angry, and his is the only voice they can trust not to break. This is the third captain they've lost in less than a year, and none of them is certain of anything anymore now that one more person in their lives has vanished. None of them wants to be next in line. Action takes over, she thinks, because no one else will.
"I didn't think he meant it," Big Deal says later, after they've all gone, with something like guilt flickering underneath the bruises ringing his left eye. He clears his throat, shifts his weight, and when Velma says nothing, hurries away. She doesn't know what he's talking about but it's not hard to guess. The weight is too much to handle, she supposes, which is the reason they're all running from it now. Too much for all of them when there are still wars left to fight.
Wars. That is too close to the knowledge she doesn't want, Velma thinks, and redirects her attention to the boys who are here now. None of them is unscathed. The Jets have driven off the Reds for the time being, Velma learns, but the funny thing about this victory is that with all the blood and fear it looks an awful lot like defeat. They're still spitting, cracking underneath their wounds but this time there is no one to calm them, keep them in check, and what the Jets become without their captain, Velma sees, is uglier.
Three days after the rumble, they grab the young, blond Red and interrogate him behind the school for two hours. He knows even less than Velma does, but it doesn't matter. They don't let him go until his wide-eyed face is speckled with purple and he's choking on blood. Velma, catching a glimpse of this from behind a fence, has to go, has to turn around and leave the sight of it behind. This, she thinks, for the second time as she hurries away. This is what they do. What it really means to be a Jet now. She supposes at this point she shouldn't be surprised, but she is.
It's just that he's so young, Velma thinks in spite of herself, in spite of all the Red has done, her breath catching. So much like her little brothers.
She forces the thought back, consciously separates the two parts of her life. Her brothers—her family—have nothing to do with this. Never, never.
But it's not only the Reds. The gang interrogates Stamper, Ammo, Rattle, Wheezy, even Mouse, one of the last Emeralds hanging around. Every kid who ever had anything to do with the Jets, and half the ones who didn't. The only gang they leave in peace is the Sharks, and even then just because Baby John reminds them all of the cease-fire.
"They wouldn't do nothin' to Ice," he says from behind Doc's counter after a couple days of this, "just like we wouldn't do nothin' to Pepe."
Action, rubbing his still-raw fists, looks like he isn't so sure about that, but he's too busy trying to ignore Anybodys to scoff. The tomboy is dancing around him, trying to get him to listen.
"Look, don'tcha think snatchin' kids from every gang around's askin' for trouble?" she says, eyes bright. "An' askin' 'em where they dumped our captain? That's like sayin' come pay us a visit 'cause our biggest gun is gone. Don't sound too smart to me."
Velma's picked up enough from the Jets to have to think she's got a point. Broadcasting the fact that their leader's skipped town probably isn't the best idea, but Action never was one for thinking ahead and taking over doesn't seem to have changed that.
The new captain scowls. "We gotta find him before we take out the Reds for good, an' Velma ain't coughin' up."
"'Cause I don't know," Velma says for the thousandth time from her new perch by the window, but no one listens. She doesn't know why she's here, either. The darkness, the heat in here, is stifling and when she's with the Jets, it's harder to pretend.
"Well, if he don't want us, then whadda we need with him?"
There's a harsh undercurrent of bitterness in Anybodys's tone as she slouches in the doorway to the stairs against the pinball machine. She's scratching at the bandage on her arm, resentful gaze cast up at Velma. Of all the injuries picked up in the rumble that night, Anybodys's remains the most visible reminder of how much things have changed in less than a week. The cuts have scabbed over, the bruises have faded to yellow, but the wound made by Reaper's knife lingers.
"C'mon, go ahead," the tomboy says, her voice low and directed straight at her. "Make excuses for him runnin' off and just leavin' us like that."
Velma stares at her. Of all of them, Anybodys seems to have grasped the situation the quickest, has figured out that this is more than just some police-baiting scheme like the ones Riff was always cooking up. That Ice is gone, and maybe for good.
For good. The idea pierces her, and just as quickly she shoves it away.
"I have to go," she says, standing up and pushing her stool in with unsteady hands. Nobody looks at her except Anybodys, whose expression is unchanged.
You don't get off that easy, she seems to say. Not this time.
The worst part, the part that she keeps pushing away is, Velma thinks, retreating to the door, she's right.
.
This time when Schrank calls her in, he sits and stares at her with shrewd dark eyes before clearing his throat.
"Thought you said you'd be leaving him soon."
Velma bites the inside of her lip, gently. If it hurts, it's real, she thinks. Isn't that the rule, anyway? "Guess I didn't have to."
The lieutenant sighs. "Look," he says. "Let's be straight with each other, all right? I know you kids think I'm here to make your lives miserable, but I'm surprised you still got lives, the way you've been taking each other out. So now—"
"I don't know anything," she says, the words hollow in the air. For once she's telling him the truth, that Ice stopped talking to her about gang business long before he left. That he didn't have to, for her to know how scared he was.
No. No, she thinks, her pulse hammering in her chest, this isn't the time or the place for thinking about that. She has a role to play here, and not a bit of it involves having a heart.
Schrank ignores her and goes on, rolling his cigar between his fingers. "—now you tell me if I got it right. The Jets tangle with the Commies for a couple weeks. They get tired of them. Plan a rumble. Your boy learns a thing or two from the last one, and he brings a knife and slices their captain up. He thinks about it, wises up about his chances, hides out as far away from the docks as he can get." Schrank leans across the table. "So the Jets decide, why not? They don't need him. And they run roughshod over this beat worse than they ever did before. You don't know anything, sure, but do you got any idea how many cops I got coming to me about gang kids being snatched and turning up beaten into a bloody pulp?" He pauses, gaze sharp. "All except the Jets and the Sharks. Whaddaya think about that."
Velma gazes straight into his dark eyes. She doesn't know whether he means it when he says he wants to help, and she's even less sure of her feelings about the fact that for once it is the Jets he's talking about, but she does know exactly what to say, though it costs her some effort. "I don't think anything about it."
"Don't you?" Schrank asks. "Seems to me you'd have plenty to think, what with being his girl and all." He chuckles, but his eyes stay narrowed. "Oh, but that's over now, ain't it. Trouble in paradise, eh?"
Something cracks in her, then, and now it isn't that she doesn't think, it's that she doesn't care. The Jets got themselves into this without her; they can get out of it without her because for all they say about Jets being family, they couldn't help their own when he needed them and part of Velma can't forgive them for that. "All of you," she says, her voice even. "You've got so many ideas. So many stories about what you think happened. About them. Because you know them so well," she says. She thinks she's saying too much, but for once Velma's sick of pretending. "Well, you don't. Least of all Ice."
And it hurts, then, because whatever the Jets did or didn't do she is worse than them in that even though she did know him, she couldn't help him and she can't forgive herself for that, either. So stupid, Velma thinks, her stomach clenching, she's so stupid.
Schrank shakes his head. "I don't gotta know them. I figured out a long time ago they're all the same. And if you think different, little miss, you're setting yourself up for a world of hurt. Do yourself a favor," he says, putting his cigar down. "You're still a nice girl. He's gone; whaddaya need with them? Get out now, while ya can."
Velma stares at him, at the hard set of his jaw, at the way even now he is looking for any information she has. She knows the script. Her part. And still Velma is just too tired to play it.
"If that's supposed to be a warning, Lieutenant," she says, "you're too late."
.
"The thing is," says Minnie, earnest as ever, "he loved you. He really did."
It's a week since he's been gone and Minnie, being Minnie, has shown up bearing sugar cookies and chocolate and baby Riff. This isn't entirely unexpected, Velma thinks. For the second time in a year, the Jets' girls have been left leaderless. Only this time, the new captain doesn't have a steady girlfriend to step up and take the reins. Pauline is the closest, maybe, but both she and Action would have a fit at the idea of being each other's one and only and the oldest of their group has never been one for responsibility, anyway. Even if she were, things have changed. Graz and the twins are usually at home with the babies, too busy to come and sit at Doc's like they used to. Minnie, she thinks, in the end, it's Minnie who keeps them together, organizes ice cream trips and visits to Bloomingdales and babysitting shifts and pencils herself in as a substitute when Pauline, as she always does, disappears just as it's her turn to show. Minnie cooks, bakes, flutters around each of them, makes sure they're all okay. Or at least getting by. Like Velma.
"You know that, don't you?" Minnie asks, her forehead creased. Velma can see how hard she's trying to fix things, make her friends feel better. It's what Minnie does, who she is. And she's so earnest, so sincere that Velma doesn't have the heart to tell Minnie that the last thing she wants to do is talk about Ice and those unfathomable reasons why he left. Even with the closest thing she's ever had to a little sister.
"I do," Velma says instead, against the voice inside her that points to the facts and her own loneliness and says even if she's right, even if he did love her, it didn't make a difference in the end. She takes a cookie, bites it, plays pretend once more. "These are good, Minnie."
"Thank you," her friend beams, and doesn't skip a beat. "You know, I'm sure he only left because he's planning something really wonderful. Or, maybe he's thought of a way to end all these rumbles and he had to go so he could do it. I know there's a good reason, Velma. I'm sure of it."
Velma, picking up Riff, settles him in her arms and breathes in the warm milky scent of baby. He's sweet, she thinks, watching him yawn, really sweet. And so is Minnie, for trying to cheer her up, but even she can't change the reality that the only one who saw what really happened is Velma and so she knows none of this is true.
"Yeah," she says, forcing a smile on her face. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, Minnie. I'm fine."
"I know you are," the youngest Jet girl says. "And it'll be okay, Velma. I promise."
Minnie's so innocent. So hopeful. She used to be like that, Velma thinks. And Graz, and Anita, and—Maria.
She wonders, then, what's become of the two Puerto Rican girls. She's heard things, here and there, mostly from the Gambini twins, whose mother has somehow ended up with the Shark girl Rosalia as a babysitter for Izzy. About the Sharks, and about nurseries of their own.
Minnie, she thinks, her heart twisting as she looks at her friend and wonders if they're all just doomed to repeat the same vicious cycle, over and over again. Of all of them Velma can't bear the thought of it being her. Please, God, not Minnie.
.
The first school day of the second week, Velma leaves her building to find a boy leaning against a streetlight, waiting for her. For a moment she's deceived by the height, and the build, but in another, she shakes her head, frustrated by her own wishful thinking.
"What're you doin' here, Mouthpiece?"
"Ain't been to school since I dropped out," he says with an easy smile. "Thought maybe I'd walk with ya today."
Velma opens her mouth to tell him no, she's fine, that he can go home, but he's already hefted her bag and taken a few steps down the sidewalk, as if this is the right and natural thing to do. She supposes, in his world, it is.
"C'mon," the tall Jet says with another grin. "You're gonna be late."
Velma stares at him for a moment. Normally she wouldn't think twice about turning him down, waving him off, but she doesn't think he means it that way. As silly as Mouthpiece can be, she isn't fooled about this. He hasn't crawled out of bed three hours early and walked all the way over to her apartment just on a whim, or even to try and take Ice's place. He's doing it for her, because he doesn't want her to be alone.
"Okay," she says. "But you don't have to go the whole way."
He smiles. "I will, anyway."
Up close, he looks nothing like Ice but his wide familiar grin is comforting enough. "Why?"
His expression doesn't change. "To make sure you're okay."
Velma bites her lip, hard. "Tall order," she says, when she can keep her voice even.
Mouthpiece smiles. "Nothing's impossible," he says, with that absolute certainty he still hasn't lost, even after all this time. It's one of the few things that hasn't changed. "'Specially not for a Jet."
"Yeah," she says as they begin the long walk to school, her voice soft. "You'd think so."
.
Velma has never been afraid of the dark but now, in the nighttime, she leaves the smallest of her lamps on. And still she wakes up in the night gasping, clutching her chest because she can't breathe and she doesn't know why. She doesn't cry. It would be easier, somehow, she thinks, if she did, but she hasn't, and if she's honest she thinks it's a little strange. She should cry, Velma thinks, for all that Ice was and is to her.
Maybe she is cold, she supposes, like Schrank and Krupke and all of them—even the Jets and their girls, probably—think. Maybe that's why she and Ice lasted so long.
She hasn't told anyone what happened when he left. Not the Jets, not her mother, not even Graziella. She's only said that he's gone, that he had to leave. Which is all that matters to them. Because what would be the point? she wonders. Whether or not she was enough, whether or not he stopped himself from hitting her, whether or not it was the rumble or her that was the last thing that sent him over the edge, the end result is always the same and the one thing she can't change.
She thinks she understands Graziella, and those Shark girls, a little better now. The difference is that Riff, Bernardo, Tony—none of them chose to leave. None of them looked at what they had and said it wasn't enough, that it couldn't ever be enough, and left. They'd be here right now, she thinks, if they only could. What makes Ice different?
She'd thought she'd known, Velma supposes, once upon a time.
.
Velma doesn't think she would have noticed the quiet footsteps behind her, if not for the fact that in spite of everything, she still keeps hoping. She stops. "What're ya doin'?"
From the shadows emerges a figure: Anybodys, looking wary and almost defensive. "Nothin'."
"You don't live anywhere near here," Velma says, puzzled. They're almost to her building and she's never seen the tomboy in this neighborhood before. "You followin' me, or somethin'?" She swallows hard. "I told you I don't know where he is."
Anybodys scuffs the ground with her shoe. What Velma can see of the tomboy's face is a mixture of resentful and exasperated. "It ain't that."
Velma frowns. "Then what?"
Anybodys, still not looking at her, shrugs. "He asked me to. An' maybe he ain't my captain an' I don't follow his orders anymore, but I said I would. So I am."
Velma doesn't understand. "Why would he—"
"The Reds," mutters Anybodys.
Now she gets it, Velma thinks, remembering his fear. Now she understands. But it still doesn't explain everything.
"But you hate us," she says, too tired to talk around it. Too tired to care. "The girls. All of us 'cept Minnie. You always have."
Anybodys hesitates, a frown knotting her face. "I don't—"
"An' me, ever since I came here," Velma says. "I don't know why you'd care now."
"It's just—you don't know what you did to him," bursts out Anybodys, her small face ferocious. "Before you showed up Ice was never some stupid sap, not like the resta them. Not for anyone. He never went crazy over a skirt before, an' he never just sat there an' smiled like he couldn't see nothin' else in the world an' he—" She stops, shakes her head. "He was a Jet before he met ya. He wasn't the same, after."
Velma stares at her. "You think I—"
"You weren't one of us," she says, eyes narrowed. "He was."
Velma doesn't quite understand. Or she does, but it doesn't matter. "That's why you hate me?"
Anybodys's face twists. "I don't—I wish I—" And then she stops, a certain longing on her face. "It's so easy for you."
Velma almost smiles. "Is it." And then she looks, really looks, at the way the redhead's face is screwed up, like she could almost cry, and remembers how the only time Anybodys ever seemed like a girl was when she looked at Ice. And then Velma catches sight of the scar on her arm, still bright and vivid after weeks.
So, she thinks, the cynical tomboy does believe in love.
Velma lifts her gaze to Anybodys's blue eyes, the thought forming as she kicks herself for not having seen it sooner. "You—"
"Shut up," Anybodys snaps, shaking her head as she tugs her arm behind her. "You think you know me but I don't care, okay? I don't," she says, sounding almost desperate. "You shouldn't care, neither," she adds. "He's just a boy."
But the problem with this is that Ice isn't just any boy. He's hers. Or, at least, was. He doesn't want you, Velma tells herself, the memory of those two words bursting out into the open. Not anymore. Salt into the wound. And, as Anybodys says so well, if he doesn't want you, what do you need with him?
"I just don't get it," says Anybodys, her voice strange, quieter now. "He had it all. The Jets, his ma, you. He was captain. He'd just won a rumble, for Chrissake. Why would he leave?"
Velma stares. So that, she thinks, is what it looked like from the outside. Then she shakes her head. It's not like being on the inside was any clearer. "I don't know."
"What else is there?" asks Anybodys, face troubled. "What could be better than this?"
A lot of things, Velma thinks. Little, insignificant moments she can't keep away now, just because they were happy then. Sitting without speaking. The window, opening. The feel of his hand on her hair. Right now she'd give anything for that.
"Anybodys," she says, reaching for something, anything. "How—what's going on? With the Jets?"
Anybodys stares at her. "We're fine."
Velma furrows her brow. "But the Reds—"
"Ain't done nothin' yet," the tomboy says, a touch of her old fierceness back. "They don't dare, not with Reaper's mug still healin' up. That don't mean we ain't keepin' tabs on 'em," she adds, hands on her hips, "but they're in no shape to be makin' trouble yet."
Velma nods. It's strange, she thinks, but she's even more out of the loop than before, when Ice wasn't telling her anything, because even then she'd overhear details at Doc's, or from the girls. Now, though, avoiding both, she's more cut off than she ever was.
"Anyway, it ain't that I care, but ya oughta be careful," Anybodys says, back to her gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. "Don't walk around by yourself. Only so much I can do."
Velma nods. "Yeah," she says. "I'm almost home now, though."
"Guess I'll go, then," Anybodys says, backing away. She's turned and poised to run when Velma speaks, against her better judgment.
"Anybodys?"
The tomboy turns, the old wariness back in her face. "Yeah?"
Velma didn't see it happen—doesn't even want to think about it—but the livid scar on the girl's arm is proof enough of what she owes to Anybodys. "Thank you."
The tomboy's face spasms, and it's a few seconds before she scowls. "I didn't do it for you."
"I know," Velma says, but all the same, it's a debt she won't ever be able to repay. "Thanks anyway."
A fleeting look of naked pain crosses Anybodys face. "I swore I wasn't gonna let him—not after Riff an' Tony—" She stops. "Goddammit—"
And then she's gone.
.
It takes longer than she expects for her mother to ask.
"I haven't seen your young man in awhile," Mrs. Andersen says, her voice cautious. "Is something the matter?"
Velma, sitting at her vanity, brush in hand, is glad her mother can't see her face from the door. She has to take a moment to breathe deep, swallow hard, before she can say anything. It's been three weeks and endless questions and still she hasn't figured out what to tell her family.
"No," she says, conscious of the inadequacy of her response, "everything's fine, we just—we're taking a break." It's not the whole truth, not even half the truth, but she doesn't know what else to say. "It happened a couple weeks ago."
She hears a rustle as her mother moves over, puts her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Velma—"
It's the first time her mother has used her daughter's American name, and Velma has to hide her surprise. "I'm fine," she says, shaking her head. "Don't worry."
Mrs. Andersen meets her Velma's gaze in the mirror. She doesn't say anything, but Mrs. Andersen has the same blue eyes as her daughter and they're not hard to read. Of course, they say. Of course she worries.
Velma breathes deep, tries to smile. But all she can think of and all she can remember are the words running through her head, still unbelievable as they were that day on the swing.
He's leaving he's left he's gone—
It's funny, Velma thinks, dropping her gaze. She used to be a much better liar.
.
"Well," Graziella says. "I still can't believe it. That rat bastard."
They're sitting in the Roberts apartment, putting Riff to bed and Graziella, it seems, is just getting warmed up.
"Y'know," she goes on between bites of popcorn, "I woulda expected it from the other guys, sure, but Ice? Guess he had me fooled."
Velma swallows hard. Of all the girls, Graziella is the one who has talked about Ice the most, has gone over and over how horrible she thinks the whole thing is and how she's always said you can't trust men. Never, never.
The sad thing is she knows Graziella's just trying to make her feel better. Velma understands because it's what she would do herself. But part of her still wants to defend Ice, say you don't know what happened or what he went through because she still loves him and Velma knows, better than anyone else, how hard it really was for him. Well-intentioned as Graziella is, she doesn't, can't know what Velma does.
"Graz, stop," she finally says during the tenth tirade on how Graziella never trusted him. "This isn't—it ain't helpin'."
"Then say it all yourself," Graziella bursts out. "C'mon, Vel, I know you must hate him, an' you'd be right, so c'mon. Go ahead."
Velma shakes her head, bites her lip. No matter how hard she tries, Graziella doesn't understand. "I can't, Graz."
"But don'tcha wanna talk about it?" Graziella says, leaning forward. "Look, I know how it feels, Vel, an' it'll help if ya talk."
"Graz," she says. Her ears are ringing. "If I talk about it, it's real."
"It is real," Graziella says, her voice insistent. "C'mon, Vel, I know it hurts, but ya gotta face it."
"I don't—I don't want to think about it," Velma says. Is this how he felt? she wonders miserably, every time she pushed him further, every time she asked more from him than he could give? That no matter how far he shrank in on himself, there was still someone waiting to tear him open with love?
I'm sorry, she thinks, far too late. I didn't know.
"Vel," Graziella says, her voice harsh. "You have to forget him. He's just another one-a those boys who leave an' don't come back. That's how it is."
"No," Velma says before she can stop herself, "no, you're wrong. You are. Ice, he's not—"
Graziella, brown eyes bright, shakes her head. "You still think you can love him an' it'll all be fine. I thought that too, once."
Velma stares at her. Now that her friend has settled down into a life, of sorts, with Tiger and the baby, Velma sometimes forgets how bad the last year really was. "Graz—"
"You're better off," the redhead says. "Not puttin' your whole life on someone like that. Someone who'll hurt you. You are."
The baby fusses a little, and Graziella reaches down and strokes his head before turning back to look at Velma, her gaze serious.
"See, us, we don't get the fairytale, Vel," she says, her voice soft. "Not the prince or the castle or nothin'. That ain't how it works."
"No?" Velma says, then chokes out a laugh through the crushing weight of sadness settling over her. "No such thing as a happy ending, huh?"
Graziella turns back to the crib, rests her hand on the baby's cheek.
"No," she says. "Not here. Not for us. Not even for you."
.
Over the last few weeks, Velma's come to accept the fact that Mouthpiece will be waiting for her before and after school—Clarice calls him her guard dog—but it comes as a surprise when he takes a detour one afternoon.
"C'mon," he says, taking her hand and towing her through the streets. "I wanna take you someplace."
Velma stares at his hand and resists the urge to pull hers back. "Where're we goin'?"
"Someplace," is all he says before he is humming happily, lost in his own world, as always.
Velma just shrugs and doesn't question it until she sees the chain link fence and hears the squeak of the seesaw. And then she stares through the fence and at the swings and feels her stomach turn. "No—Mouthpiece, I don't want to be here."
Mouthpiece is already sitting on a swing, long legs skidding on the ground as he tries to build up the speed to get into the air. "You oughta try this, Velma!"
"No," she says, shaking her head, feeling cold all over, "no, please, let's go."
The boy glances up at her, confused, then shrugs. "Okay."
They get all the way back to her building before Velma tries an explanation.
"It's just—we used to go there," she says miserably, scuffing the bottom of her heel on the pavement. "An' I can't—"
Mouthpiece plops down on the front steps. "Okay."
It's all he says. And Velma stares at him. "You're not askin' why?"
Mouthpiece shrugs, digging in his pocket. "Don't need to know."
"Never stops anyone else," she says, unable to take her eyes off him.
"I ain't nobody else, though," the Jet says, coming up with a grimy piece of candy. "I'm Mouthpiece. Want it?"
"No thanks," Velma says, amused in spite of herself. "You're funny, you know that?"
Mouthpiece pops the unwrapped candy into his mouth. "I hear that, sometimes," he offers between bites. "I hear I'm a lotta things."
"Yeah?" says Velma, the corner of her mouth quirking up. "Like what."
"Dumb, mostly," the Jet says, counting on his fingers. "An' more trouble'n I'm worth, an' a real piece-a mouth—"
"Oh," she says, finally getting it, "that's where you got your name, huh?"
"Yup," he says. "But my real name's Marvin."
She blinks. "Marvin?"
"Yeah," he beams. "Marvin Harvard Winkle. 'Cause my ma wanted me to go to some big school in Yonkers or somethin'. Don't think that's gonna happen, though."
Velma stifles a laugh. Just about the only person she knows who's smart enough to go to Harvard is Midge, if they took girls, and she can only imagine her reaction to Mouthpiece locating it in Yonkers.
"Well," she says, "I don't know about Harvard, but I think you're a good guy, Mouthpiece."
"Gee, thanks, Velma," says Mouthpiece happily. "I think you're the nicest girl I ever knew."
Velma almost smiles. "That's sweet, but it's stretchin' the truth a little, Mouthpiece."
"No," he says, and she is surprised to hear a note of seriousness in his voice. "If there's one thing I can promise ya, Velma, it's that I'll always tell ya the truth."
Velma glances away. She doesn't deserve this, she thinks. She doesn't deserve this sweet, earnest child-man looking at her like she's the be-all and end-all of his universe. She's not worth it.
"Thanks," she says. "Though I can't promise you the same."
"It's okay," Mouthpiece says, and when Velma looks up she is surprised to see him grinning as happily as ever. "You don't have to."
After he leaves, Velma locks herself in her room, closes the curtains, turns one lamp on so that she can see, dimly, the photo in her hand. She's there, smiling up at the boy next to her with complete and utter adoration, but it's Ice's face Velma is looking at now. She stares, for long minutes, and tries to see in those pale inscrutable eyes what she'd felt outside.
Unconditional love. It's not, she thinks, as simple on the other side of things. It's not whether you deserve it or not, it's not always uncomplicated. It's not always the gift they make it out to be.
"I don't love you," she whispers. "And I'm not yours."
The photo stares back, a mute challenge. Velma swallows hard, then puts the photo inside her dresser drawer and locks it.
.
"Look at me."
Velma, hearing the words, is almost too afraid to turn around.
When she does, the face she sees in the moonlight looks like a mask, a jagged crack down the side, wet with blood. She doesn't dare breathe, but this time, when she sees what Ice has done, Velma doesn't turn away.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"You don't have to be," the Soviet says. "It doesn't take that to make someone bleed."
Velma bites her lip, lifts her chin. "Go ahead, then."
"I'm not going to touch you," he says, his dark eyes unreadable. "But let me tell you something he could not accept. We are not different," the Soviet says. "The two of us."
Velma shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"He did. And he was afraid," the Red says. "Weren't you?"
Velma flinches. "What does that matter?"
"You think you can change people like us," he says, the glaring red slash down his face shining in the light. "You can't."
And it's Ice's face she sees now, jaw clenched, eyes hopeless. Ice's voice she hears, disappearing into blackness.
"You don't know what it was like. Seein' what kinda person you are. Seein' what you could do."
"Maybe I don't," she says, caught by the saddest voice in the world. "But I know you."
Velma wakes up to cool air blowing through the open window, gasps for breath, tries to unsee that macabre face in the darkness. But she keeps hearing his words, caught up in her own fears.
"We are not different. The two of us."
But they are, she thinks, haunted by the image of a boy chased by demons. Reaper wanted it. Ice never did.
Velma gets off the bed, slips through the window, and sits, feet dangling over the street, on her fire escape. She has had a long time—too long—to think, and she still isn't any closer to understanding. But she knows this.
You're wrong, she tells the phantom Reaper, just as she has told Graziella and Schrank and her parents and everyone else who never believed in him. Even Ice himself. You're wrong.
This time, though, the only one there to hear is herself.