EPILOGUE - FYHA
2.5 years later
Fuck alarm clocks, was the first Mike Wheeler thought when the unholy thing on his bedside table started going crazy.
6;30am.
He drew in a deep breath and blindly made grabby hands at around the place where El's chest would usually be.
Nothing.
Hmmm.
Oh. Right. It was Thursday.
El had the night shift and she wasn't back yet.
-'Jesus fuck' he sighed sleepily and let his upper limbs dramatically shoot out into stretching.
-'Deezus foh!' He heard a tiny voice exclaiming from the threshold of the door.
Mike groaned loudly,
-'Nooo Levi, you know you can't repeat the bad words I say, what have we talked about?'
He tried to sound authoritative but it instead came out as a whine, since he was still too asleep to activate dad mode right now.
-'Sowwy, da-ddy'
-'That's better' a yawn escaped his mouth, and he made his way into the bathroom to get ready for the day.
Ever since Levi mastered the art of walking, he had followed Mike everywhere he allowed him to.
Like right now.
Toothpaste foam hung from his mouth as he felt a pair of sneaky hands clinging around his leg. He was so used to it, it stopped startling him about a year ago.
-'Hey' he mumbled, looking down at his son's bright green eyes,
-'Aaaaah' the child responded before pouting and darting his tiny arms up.
Mike chuckled and lifted him up on the bathroom counter.
He bit on the toothbrush so it wouldn't fall off his mouth while he gave his son his own.
-'Dn' ead dee doodpazte' he said, between brushes.
Levi copied his dad as best as he could, then rinsing his mouth.
Mike inspected the little being before him and wiped off his small face. He smiled charmingly,
-'You almost got it, my boy!'
Seeing a tiny being that resembled his twenty year old self was surreal. Still to this day.
Sometimes, in mornings like these, when El was still catching up on some well deserved sleep, he would look into his son's face and try to count the freckles, try to count every eyelash, every stroke of hazel in the irises of his huge eyes.
Mike washed his own face afterwards and made sure no stubborn baby hairs had decided to sprout on his chin this time. They hadn't.
He held Levi up and made him to into his own reflection,
-'Alright kiddo! A handsome morning it is! Let's get cleaned up, big day today!'
Big day indeed.
After being rejected by a few schools in Chicago due to his numerous health necessities, Levi and his parents had managed to get an interview in a midrange school 20 minutes outside of the main city, where they lived in a tiny two bedroom flat along with two Guinea Pigs.
At first El took the rejections as personal offenses, going off on the principals saying they were discriminating and "I will fucking sue", luckily Mike was always there to ground her, "Let's not", he would whisper.
Even after El said she could get out of her shifts at the hospital for an hour to give him oxygen therapy, the schools refused, saying it was too much of a bother.
On top of it all, they had to deal with the judgmental glare of the school boards.
Not like they were not used to them.
Chicago was a tricky thing. A place of black and white. Never grey.
They could go to take a walk as a family one day and get dirty looks darting from the eyes of judgemental old people because GOD FORBID, a young woman wears a crop top (proudly sporting a scar across her stomach) and short jeans while taking her son out to feed the pigeons on a plaza; as well as they could watch Levi play with other children in the park behind their apartment buildings.
People like Mrs. Nora and Mr. Claude, who would call El a "slut" whenever they thought she was out of earshot. And people like Tanya, who let Levi and El marvel at her long braids of thick black hair with a welcoming smile on her face.
Chicago had a lot of things. Not all of them good, not all of them bad.
El noticed though, all the looks and whispers, if there ever were any, were directed at her. Never at Mike.
Was it because Mike dressed differently? Was it because he presented himself older than he was? More presentable? If anything, Mike was as quirky as El.
Both of them spent endless hours on the weekends just having movie marathons, both of them accompanied their homemade burgers with some beer once in a while, both of them dressed Levi in Star Wars merch shirts, both of them were total dorks. So why did El get all the hate?
Right. Because a father dressed in a polo shirt and jeans looked better than a mother wearing a crop top and thigh-lenght denims while taking the child out to play.
El was a "slut", a "shame", a "dumbass", a "burden for the country", a "bad mom".
Mike was not.
Mike himself had always wanted to fight anyone and everyone who looked at her wrong.
He remembers the first time he got detention in school.
It was El's second day in high school.
-'History sucks a little bit, but I'll be okay' the fourteen year old girl chuckled, holding Mike's hand tighter, they were on their way to the cafeteria to meet their group of friends.
El was enjoying being around other kids. A few girls have been nice to her in math class and she thought it meant she was up for a good start.
Mike helped El open the tupperware thingy his mom packed for them both.
-'It's meatballs and sauce. You like that, remember? My mom told me to share some with you' he smiled wide and she nodded, dipping a piece of white bread toast into the red sauce.
Lucas teased her with an EWWW sound, to which she glared at him but couldn't help a chuckle as soon as he made a funny face at her.
El then started on the meatballs. Table manners werent her forte, so she just held one of the pieces of food between her fingers instead of using the plastic fork Mike was offering her.
A bit too focused on her food, El (or anyone else really) caught the two juniors walking by. They grimaced in disgust (Their expressions were so exaggerated El might as well could be eating horse shit, really! She had just forgotten to use a damn fork), and chuckled before slapping the back of her head and muttering "retarded animal" loud enough so the whole table could hear.
El hadn't even registered the blow when Mike had already stood up.
He knew talking to the guys who just called his girlfriend a retarded animal would be in vain, so he went right for the face.
His boney knuckles hit the side of the blonde one.
—
The child looked around, seeming lost or disrupted
-'Where's mamma?' He asked, green eyes searching for El.
Mike let the kid walk around, -'Mamma's working, we'll see her soon though!'
-'An-an den you wohk too?'
-'Yup! That's how it works, little man...but first we have school, right? Remember we talked about that last night?'
The kid nodded excitedly,
-'So we need a good breakfast so you can be your smartest self! Come on!'.
After thirty minutes of struggling through breakfast, showering and getting the kiddo into the back of his 1980 BMW (Mike acquired a taste for moderately nice cars), they hit the road, knowing it was gonna be a mildly long car ride.
Ten minutes in, and he sighed deeply, -'I can't remember if I changed the fucking rats' water...shit'.
After another minute on the road, and being stuck in a jam, Levi started asking questions. He fucking loved that. It reminded Mike of El, when she was like thirteen and fourteen. Always asking, always curious and he was more than happy to oblige.
-'Da-ddy why is dee sky bdue'
-'Because the sun reflects more blue light into the earth, and it bounces off as blue, or soft blue sometimes'
-'Oh...'
Mike chuckled and looked back at the kiddo in the child's seat,
-'Any more questions?'
-'Nuh uh, jusd dat...denkiu'
-'You're welcome'.