It was sunny out. A commodity, she knew. A lucky break between days that were harsh and cold in the warmer seasons and harsher and colder outside of them.
She enjoyed the feeling of soft rays of light caressing her face, lighting up her nerves pleasantly.
She lay on the ground, content, the grasses surrounding her soft, scratchy and alive.
Their uneven blades tickled at her neck. She listened to the ferns as they swayed gently, dancing to a tune only they could hear. The sky was clear and blue.
She knew he was enjoying it, too.
There to her left, entwined with her own, lay the hand of another. She let her head fall softly to the side so she could see him better. His hands were both calloused and soft despite his age and rested in her own like weights. Real and solid.
His face to her was, in her hazy state, blurry. But she could still discern the green of his eyes, matching the shaded clubmoss she knew rested under the treeline.
He wore a crooked grin. His front teeth peeked out over his lower lip, his top lip curled up ever so slightly, the corners of his mouth pressed strongest to one side. She found it quite cute.
His lips parted, and when he spoke, his words came out muffled, but she knew there must have been good things there. She could feel her mouth open wide, straining at the sides of face, and the air was swept from her lungs in silent, breathy peals of laughter.
He laughed, too. His voice cracked, and carried a series of high notes and normal ones into the empty space between them.
Her face settled into a grin. And then a frown.
She felt something foreboding from deep inside her guts. As he laughed, still, it rose through her ribs. It grew, steadily, from an unpleasant tingling to a deep burning, ravaging through the soft pits of her stomach until it felt like she was choking on it, suffocating and scrabbling, burning alive.
Estrid walked slowly, somberly down the gray, cracked concrete sidewalks of a coastal urban city. Her hometown.
It felt empty, and though it was a nice, sunny early afternoon, passersby were sparse. It was a weekday. Many people were still at their jobs, and most teens and children were busy in school, preparing for their respective finals and graduations.
She felt a lot like a ghost.
Her own graduation had happened the week before. Her district had let her grade out early, perhaps as a congratulation to all the graduating Seniors or maybe as a pity gift for everyone who was lucky enough to get into college. Yay! You're an adult now, go bask in the crushing weight of student debt.
So, there she was. Left to her own thoughts, she had decided to venture out into the city. Buy some groceries. Her mother would tell her to go back home. Walking out alone, in the city, while it was so empty? Not the smartest move, or maybe her mother was just paranoid. But hey, what could you do? She had chores to do. Things to brood.
Honestly, though, it troubled her. She dreamt often, and often too her dreams were hazy, which was maybe normal. She thought.
However, occasionally, once she woke, she couldn't help but to be overcome with an inescapable sense of nostalgia and grief, fresher than anything she'd ever felt. There was an unmistakable impression of realness in those dreams that her other dreams lacked. Actual dreams. Which she did have too, by the way. But who was she to say that those weren't her actual dreams, either? Maybe she was reading too much into it, as usual.
At least she'd just been getting dreams, lately. For many nights since she'd turned fifteen she'd gotten nightmares too. One nightmare in particular, really. It was kind of hard to not remember that one, or the way it seemed to leave neigh permanent bags under her eyes.
Estrid sighed and shifted the grocery bag hung over her left arm. She was nearing her apartment complex.
It was a decently small building, located near a few grocery stores, where she had just been. It was new to her, but the circumstances that had led her there hadn't been.
Previously, she and her family lived in a pretty suburban neighborhood. White picket fences, green lawns and all that. But due to a falling-out a few years ago between her parents, they had decided to downsize and traveled further into the city.
The Mr. And Mrs. were so close to divorce but decided to give their relationship one final try anyways. Estrid's mother had always wanted to travel the world. Her father wasn't as fond of the idea, but he was willing to try almost anything to save their marriage. He was a hopeless romantic.
Estrid thought they should just save themselves the drama and break up.
Part of the money earned by selling Estrid's childhood home was put towards their new apartment and the rest was put into their travel expenses. That's where they were right now, off traveling Europe.
The morning after Estrid's graduation, they had hopped onto a plane and flown off. Last she heard of them, they were backpacking in Spain. They wouldn't be back for another two months at least. Good riddance.
Estrid pulled an old keychain out of the back pockets of her shorts and pushed at the door to the lobby of her building with her hip.
It was the size of a bedroom. There wasn't much in there. Just a thin row of mailboxes. Tiny metal lockers embedded into the wall that, to try and pull open, she had to yank so hard that she flew backwards. They got stuck pretty easily. Most were overstuffed because people just couldn't be bothered.
There was also a stairwell, a yellow-taped elevator -the thing was constantly broken, and so Estrid didn't think she'd ever actually seen the inside of it- and an empty desk.
She assumed that whoever built the complex had originally planned on hiring some sort of secretary, and then those plans had been thrown to the side when the apartments changed hands. The building wasn't really big or expensive enough to warrant one, anyway.
Her home was on the third floor, which was only a quick jog up the stairs (she hurried up, the heat was getting to be a little too much), and then she was in the hall. Her door was one right away, all the way to the back left, right next to a half-filled supply closet. In front of it lay a ratty welcome mat, probably one of the few remnants she had left of her old home. Sooner or later that would be stolen from her too, she was sure.
After a moment of fumbling with her keys, she was able to push open the door to her apartment. She felt a lot like Ariel on her rock while she was singing dramatically about wanting to have legs. The air-conditioning felt like heaven.
Quickly, she shut the door, and went to empty out her groceries. When she was younger, her mother would always scold her whenever she left the doors open. You don't want to let the cold air out.
She hoped the milk hadn't spoiled. At least the fridge wasn't empty anymore.
She grumbled to herself quietly. Getting used to living on her own was new. It was quite nice, though, actually, being able to have some real space for herself again. Time, too.
Up until last weekend, she'd had a part-time job at the local DQ-adjacent. It was nice enough. She started when she was fifteen at a store in her area and her boss was nice enough to transfer her to one by her apartment when she moved.
Mostly she just worked on weekends. Estrid had to quit, though, after an incident with one of her coworkers. Minimum wage wasn't worth that. Fucking Ethan.
Estrid exhaled. She had started sweating halfway home. The air conditioning helped cool her down, yes, but now she felt grimy. After she'd placed the last grocery into the cupboards, a box of cereal (Applejacks. It was her favorite), she'd folded the plastic bag she'd with her to the store and slipped it back under the sink.
The kitchen was in the same place as the living room, the only thing separating them being a bar which doubled as the dining table. They had a couch that faced a large TV which her mother liked to watch over the counter while she was cooking.
Estrid would do the same, except she usually got a little too into watching television and would end up burning whatever she was cooking.
In between the two was a hall which Estrid trotted down. It was short, with a closet in the middle where the Bengtssons stored their clean towels, spare sheets and cleaning supplies.
Estrid pulled it open, the back of the door hitting the opposite side of the hall, and grabbed the fluffiest one she could find. It was a bright white one, probably new. Sometimes her mother would storm out after arguing with her dad. She must've bought them, as she often went to the Bed Bath & Beyond around the corner when she was trying to cool off. It was closed now.
The closet door shut with a gentle click. There were three more doors. The one farthest down the hall to the right was the one that belonged to her parents. Most of their room was pretty impersonal from what she'd glimpsed of their bedroom, which they usually kept closed except when they were arguing. One big double bed, a closet and two bedside tables.
The second farthest door to her left was hers.
She went inside. Her room, unlike her parents', wasn't bare. She'd done her best to make it look homey, though whether she succeeded was up for debate.
A pile of stuffed animals graced one corner. Across the ceiling, at the recommendation of her mother, she'd strung a fake plant by the door and a few ugly lights. There were posters all along one side of her wall, held up by sticky tape.
She didn't have nearly enough of the last two to make her room look full, but they were a nice touch. She thought so, at least.
Their landlord didn't allow any nails or pinning, because of the holes they'd leave in the walls, so she had to make due. Though she wasn't completely sure that the tape would leave the wall unscathed when it was time for her to move out.
She'd already pulled a piece off while trying to rearrange her things a while before and ended up peeling off a fist-sized patch of white paint. She covered it with another poster.
Another side of her room had her closet. She glanced over at it, but did nothing more. It was almost empty and she knew she wouldn't find what she was looking for in there. Opposite her closet was her bed, her desk and a little cubby, its drawers stuffed with boxes of pens and assorted alcohol markers.
Most of her stationary and some paints she'd gotten last year for Christmas were stuffed into her desk drawers, the top of it cluttered by papers and old fantasy novels. Estrid's pajamas had been carelessly strewn across the top of her desk chair along with the rest of her clean laundry. She'd done it earlier that day and couldn't be bothered to fold her clothes and put them away yet. Absently, she thought, she'd have to do that later.
The bathroom was just next to her room. Estrid sat her clothes and her towel down on the counter, by the sink. She turned on the shower and watched the water run and emptied the rest of her pockets while she waited for the water to heat.
In one of the jeans pockets of her shorts she had her phone and a set of earbuds. Without looking, she tossed them on top of her towel. Her earbuds missed it and went sprawling in the sink.
Estrid stripped, pulling both her shirt and her bra off over her head. She tossed them haphazardly onto the floor and stepped into the shower and turned up her head, letting water run over her face.
She felt kind of empty.
Estrid waited, listening to the humming of the microwave as it heated up her Kraft's Mac and Cheese. The only light from inside the apartment was the glow from the LED inside.
Estrid had spent hours in the shower, just letting the water wash away her thoughts. It had gotten dark out in the meanwhile.
She'd plugged her phone into the wall in her bedroom and decided it was time for dinner. Dinner and TV. Can't mope properly without good television.
She sighed.
The floorboards creaked as she shifted her weight from one foot to another.
1:59… 1:58… 1:57… 1:56…
But what good television was there? Most of what she liked had been taken off Netflix already. She could always try watching The Outsiders.
It was kind of sad, but she liked the guy who played Dally a lot. He was cute, but it probably cost something off Amazon. She had cash to spare, though. Still. Should she really be spending money now? She was jobless, of course.
1:34… 1:33… 1:32…
Or maybe Estrid could try watching The Goonies. She'd never seen it before and she had no idea what it was about. Her dad told her it was a classic, though, so it couldn't be all bad.
1:00… 0:59… 0:58… 0:57…
The Breakfast Club?
No.
Pushing Daisies?
Not Today.
Chuck?
Again, she didn't feel like spending anything on Amazon Prime. Everything that came to mind was something she either wasn't interested in or was something she'd definitely be charged for. Estrid wrinkled her nose.
0:04… 0:03… 0:02…
At least her Mac was ready. She popped open the microwave so it would stop beeping at her, and pulled a paper towel off a roll on the counter. Shit.
Estrid stared forlornly at the strip of hot metal. She'd accidentally left her spoon in the bowl while it was heating up. Well, there was nothing she could do about that now.
Using the paper towel to cradle her hot dinner, standing straight as possible in order to balance the towel she'd wrapped her hair in.
She speed-walked her way over to the couch in the living room. Hot, hot, hot- Quickly, she sat her bowl down on the coffee table, jostling it slightly in her hurry. Perhaps she'd added too much water, because some liquid cheese splashed onto one of the pink sleeves of her pajama shirt.
"Fuck!" Estrid jumped back from the table, and down onto the sofa, her hair becoming unwrapped in the process. She pulled down her towel to try and wipe off as much of the cheese off her shirt as possible. Great. Now I've stained both my shirt and my towel. These are my nice PJs, too.
Feeling that the worst of the damage that could have been done was already done, she slung her towel over the back of the couch. No one else was there to tell her to go put it away. Her hair was mostly dry, anyways.
Long black strands of hair lay damp over her shoulders and down her front. When it was dry again, it would become wavy, she knew. It was her best feature, so she made sure to take care of it well. The rest of her face was awfully average. Plain, even. Estrid brushed as much of her hair as she could off her chest and to her back, then got up.
Under the cabinet where their TV was mounted was a box full of neatly organized DVDs and VHS. Precisely what Estrid was looking for. Some would say it was a wonder they still had them, or a DVD player, even. Or even half of the VHS tapes they had had. Streaming services were more convenient, yeah.
Estrid knew the VHS tapes were because she knew her parents, the Bengtssons, were a bit old school. Inside of the bin, she knew, were mostly older movies. Most were additions from her parents. Others were movies from her childhood. Not as many animated ones, and even fewer in number from the mid 2010s, as those were the ones that her parents deemed most likely to sell in a yard sale, but there were a few.
Estrid couldn't really blame the fact that they didn't have any decent movies on only her parents, though. She'd always gravitated towards old movies. It wasn't anything to boast about or anything that made her unique. Plenty of people felt the same.
There was just more to go through. More fans, deserted online spaces. It was fun, searching through the empty carcasses of long dead forums.
She spent her free time doodling and scrolling Tumblr in her room and searching through some of the older sites. And cursing her internet. Life was just easier when she didn't have to wait for a page refresh.
One flipside of that, though, was also that most of her favorite series were long abandoned.
The latest, one stationed near the early twenty-tens, perhaps, or the end of the basic two-thousands, had a community that was practically closed. The one before that consisted of only a small group of ancient people who had a lasting friendship that she didn't feel comfortable inserting herself into.
It was difficult not having someone to talk to about the things she liked.
Estrid crouched down in front of the box, she pulled it out from its place in the cabinet. Moving aside a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife, she shifted her weight forward and peered into the bin. Some of the older animated movies she knew that they still had included The Thief and The Cobbler, The Swan Princess, The Last Unicorn, and Anastasia.
Of the few movies from the 2010s that survived the move, one was How to Train Your Dragon. They had a few of those DVDs, actually. A smattering of DVDs spanning from the short films, the Riders of Berk series, Defenders of Berk, and an unopened disc that belonged to the first season of Race to The Edge.
She didn't remember much from those series.
It -the last disc- had been a going- away present from one of her old school friends. She wasn't sure either of them knew it was a 'going away present,' per se, given that they both knew she wasn't going to be transferring schools because of the move, but it held an air of finality to it that made the space between them feel suffocating.
But yes, her new home was only a district away, and her old high school lay on the border between the two.
It wasn't that difficult to get to the petition forms to stay, and it was one sliver of stability her parents thought she might need, what with everything that was going on in their personal lives. She honestly wished they'd just let her transfer. It would have saved her a lot of heartache, really.
The commute between her school and their apartment was long enough. Estrid knew, at sixteen, that a lot of their money would get wasted on gas. Once her parents realized the same, they'd forgotten her at school on multiple occasions. On and off, one of them would come to pick her up hours after they were supposed to.
She'd had to figure out her own way back a few times once she realized they weren't coming. Having to learn how to use public transport late at night made her terribly nervous. Most of the time she wasn't dressed right, so the rides back home were cold and miserable. Many evenings would find her scurrying home down the city streets, head moving back and forth like a scared animal.
Eventually she had just given up on them and started getting onto the public bus as soon as school went out. Hence, that is what pushed her into getting her own license.
Estrid had taken on more hours at her job in order to make up for the amount of money she was spending on gas and on car repairs. She had less time to spend doing homework at school, which she ended up doing during her lunches. She had less time to spend before and after school, and so her friendships suffered as a result.
She was left just sitting alone at lunch. Her grades dropped from solid Bs and sporadic As to low Cs. With no extracurriculars, she hadn't been accepted into any choice Universities. Or any of the general ones she had decided to apply to.
Maybe it was the nostalgia she felt for her friend, maybe it was the desire to cut off her apathetic spiraling, maybe it was fate, or maybe it was a horse that led her to picking up that dusty copy of RTTE, she wasn't sure. But she did. She sighed, and with a half–hearted push, slipped the bin of movies back onto its place in the cabinet.