[for Jayden] cara mio addio

[lowtohigh]

She wakes up most mornings fully convinced of the fact that she's done with silly, stupid mistakes. She ends a statistically significant number of days having managed to maintain that in the most important arenas.

But it's not every day.

And it's certainly not every night. There are still nights when the idea of sitting at home and doing work drives her up a wall--when the idea of going to see her brother for a 'classy' evening of wasting money on something 'useful' like the arts feels just as terrible as sitting home alone. There are nights when she asks the driver to wait around the corner and pretend he doesn't know where she's going so she can actually breathe deep something other than the rigidity of the life she's been building since Elisha returned and got her back on track.

There can't be anything so wrong with it, surely. It rarely, if ever, bleeds back over into her days. She always drags herself out of bed in the morning, whether she'd fallen into it at 10pm or 4am the night before. She always sits through classes and shows up for work with the same fierce, determined smile. She barely ever thinks of what might have happened the night before once she's got herself set for forward motion again.

Admittedly, sometimes she gets texts at work from numbers she definitely hadn't gotten at the university or the lab or any of her brother's little get-togethers. Jayden's number certainly didn't come from any vetted point of contact. It surprises her, really, how easy it is to extend something of her daytime self to a nighttime number. It's not a line she's really ever blurred before.

But he's coming to the aquarium. She's invited him. Almost like sleepwalking, she's explained to her supervisor that she wants a floor shift out in the actual building rather than holed away doing research. Idly scanning the crowd at the building's tall cement entrance, she wonders vaguely if she's even recognizable like this--flat shoes, hair tied tightly back, barely a stitch of makeup on and her wits obviously about her.

It's entirely possible he'll just walk straight past her. There are large signs for the penguins near the door, after all.

Comments

[immigrantpunk]

Huh?

[He glances over at her phone and sees the misspelling, and snorts at it. Wouldn't be the first time. His parents went through all that trouble to change his name and people still don't get it right.]

Yeah. And an e, not an o.

[He looks over her shoulder, to make sure she gets it right.]

Yeah, I was like four. I don't remember too much before America. What about you? Did you say you were born in Israel?

[lowtohigh]

[Two birds with one stone, then; the way he leans means she can lean back even once she's fixed his name in her phone. More contact is always better, right? Right.]

No-- my brother was. We were still back and forth a lot when I was little, but I was born in Chicago. [Which, in her opinion, was the better end of the stick.] My mother was-- nervous, I guess, about me having been born here. Like the second passport was diluting my roots more, you know?

[immigrantpunk]

[Right. He smiles a bit dumbly at the prolonged contact.]

Ohhh, yeah. But hey, she should be happy you were born here. Getting citizenship is a huge pain.

[lowtohigh]

Sure seems that way. [Her elbow nudges slightly against his ribs as she glances at him properly.] Did you have to go through the whole-- screening and testing and shit when you were a kid? Or just your parents?

[immigrantpunk]

It was my parents more than me. There's this thing where if your parents get citizenship when you're a minor, you automatically do too. Which is good, 'cause otherwise I'd have to— [UH WAIT.] Would've had to wait till I was eighteen and apply and take the test and all that.

[That was close.]

[lowtohigh]

[Thankfully, it comes off as a tiny linguistic tic more than a slip of terrible lies. Her brother has lived in this country even longer than she's been alive, at this point, and he still has his moments of unconscious sliding, after all.]

Lucky break. You think you'll ever go back?

[immigrantpunk]

[Yes, let's go with that. It's an easy enough conclusion to come to, especially when every so often he'll hear a word he spit out and think it sounded way more Russian than it needed to be. The idiosyncrasies of bilingualism. The close call is almost immediately forgotten because this question never has the simple answer people want. He ends up doing black flips in his mind, trying to work with the little information he has and how no one from America is likely to know what he's talking about.]

Uh, I dunno. Maybe. Russia's, you know, Russia. And the part I'm from isn't so safe. At least the war's supposed to be over now, I guess.

[Ah, yes, what every girl wants to hear about on the first date: how you fled a war-torn region. He clears his throat.]

Like I said, I barely remember it.

[lowtohigh]

[It's not something she'll ever truly understand. It is, at least, hopefully something she can understand her lack of understanding about.]

Must be weird. [Which is clearly an understatement.] I guess that's-- part of being American, though, right? Feeling-- weird about what came before.

[immigrantpunk]

A little bit.

[He shrugs.]

That and not knowing how good we have it.

[He's heard that a lot from his parents over the years. He nudges her a little with his shoulder and nods toward a burger storefront.]

Hey, is that the place?

[lowtohigh]

Yeah, elef ahuz. [But, to be fair? Having it good was something Eileen had a very strange metric for, even compared to many Americans.

Thankfully, it wasn't something that stopped her enjoying fast food burgers.]

All right-- new topic for eating. [Not that this isn't a pleasant early dinner conversation. Her fingers twist to hang with his again as she moves to grab the door.] Happy sober hopes and dreams.

[immigrantpunk]

[He squeezes her hand and walks inside. He squints at the menu, trying to decide what to order.]

Graduate college, get a good job, marry a nice girl? [He finds himself blushing a little and ducks his head, hoping she won't notice.] ...Is that too boring an answer?

[lowtohigh]

[Her own attention stays on Jayden. It's not such a far walk from her work, after all; and it's somewhere she's entirely unlikely to run into any of her brother's friends. Why mess with the perfection of her usual order?]

What, a nice girl? That's just, you know. Living way out on the edge. You want 2.5 kids too?

[immigrantpunk]

[He's slightly embarrassed but tries not to show it. He keeps his head bowed and snickers.]

I guess I'd round up to three.

[lowtohigh]

Poster child for the American dream. Terrible.

[Except clearly not so terrible, if her smile is to be relied on--or the brief way she leans up to bump her nose against his cheek just shy of a kiss.

True, it's followed by an abrupt moving away to order, but that's got to be par for the course while grabbing burgers.]

[immigrantpunk]

[Oh. Oh. He tries to shrug casually, as if having that close to him is no big deal... even though a blush has traveled up his cheeks.]

What can I say? There's a reason we moved here.

[He waits for her to order, then drops in beside her and puts in his own. Then he pulls out his wallet and offers the clerk money for the both of them. Smooooth.]

[lowtohigh]

[She'll allow it. There's something Old World Gentlemanly about it, after all.

Probably she'll remember to feel guilty about it later, but not just now. Just now is for rolling her eyes slightly at him.] Have to head a lot farther out if you want to hit the "nice" American girls, you know. We're all pretty high maintenance outside of the Midwest.

[immigrantpunk]

[He shrugs, grinning.]

You seem nice to me.

[He takes his change and stands off to the side to wait for their order to be called.]

[lowtohigh]

Me.

[That requires her to ponder a moment as she drifts along beside him. Pondering also requires her to lean her head against his shoulder again for a moment.]

I can't tell if that's complimentary or just depressing.

[immigrantpunk]

[He snorts, glancing down at her when she leans against him.]

What's wrong with being nice?

[lowtohigh]

[Wrinkling her nose is an incredibly old habit. She barely notices she does it anymore.]

It's-- a little reductive, firstly. And, personally? It just-- stands in. For-- [Her hand waves absently.] This idea of following where you're supposed to. Giving up some of your agency. 'Kind' and 'friendly' and 'considerate' I can get behind, but... 'nice' feels like giving something up.

[immigrantpunk]

Oh.

[He's a little stumped by this. He gets what she's saying, he thinks. But he wants to ask what's wrong with following where you're supposed to, and he senses that won't be taken well. It's an American thing, he knows, the importance of striking out and being your own person, etc etc. He's gotten that plenty in school, but not so much at home, especially not lately.

But it's probably much easier to tell her what she wants to hear.]

Okay, you seem kind and friendly and considerate to me. And smart.

[Might as well add that last one in, because it's true. He sure knows a lot more about sharks and octopi than he did this morning.]

[lowtohigh]

[With any luck, they'll be drunk again soon. In all likelihood, they'll be much better able then to dive into the ravine which comes between a first and second generation in a nation like this one.

For now, rolling with her opinion seems like the best way to get them back toward drunk together later.]

Sweet of you to say. [Her elbow nudges slightly against his ribs as she watches their order being pulled together.] You, though. Could definitely stand to be a lot less nervous.

[immigrantpunk]

[That is what he wants, more alcohol, although the formalities are fine too. It's all fine, really, she's a girl he likes when he's sober, too. He wasn't 100% sure that would be the case, but it is. He laughs sheepishly, rubbing at his chest where she elbowed him, even though it didn't hurt.]

Sorry. I guess I wanted to impress you.

[lowtohigh]

To impress me? [There's absolutely a bright laugh for that.] So why didn't you say you wanted to-- be a Grand Prix driver? Or an astronaut?

[immigrantpunk]

[He laughs too, because it never would have occurred to him to say something so outrageous.]

Because then I'd be lying.

[He's only really selective with his lies, apparently.]