🗸 the quintessences of cherry & cigarette

4.9: aeipathy

"Wow, that's a lot of whitewashed history..." Devin whistles. "Look at this lie."

Cerise scoots over to his side and reads the paragraph he points at. She sighs. "History is, after all, written by the victors."

"But are colonizers truly the victors? Like, honorable victors?"

"Now, that's a very philosophical question, and not one our school will ask us."

"Fair point..."

They revert to reading and jotting down notes again. This is a new addendum on their post mid-terms routine. They are at Thomas Beach, cozied up in their favorite perch on Devin's Chevvy, and trying to get a head-start for their end-terms even though said examinations are almost four months away. A full chapter on the American Revolution later, Cerise feels a needling burn behind her cornea; she rubs her eyes. She wants to take a break, but she promised to help Devin with their extra-reading for their English Literature course. While Three Men in a Boat is not as heavy as some of the other things they read – that too out of sheer interest and nothing more – it is going to tax her out after this very long, very information-saturated American History session.

Much to her relief, Devin yawns, stretches, then says, "I think I'm done for today. I feel like my head'll fall off my shoulders..."

Her relief dissolves into concern. With her hand on his chin, she turns his face towards herself. Painfully aware of the dark shadows that gather under his eyes, she asks, "is everything alright? Have you not been sleeping? I know you're busy with home stuff and—"

"I took up another job," he intercedes, "as a nightguard at this small apartment complex on the seventh avenue cul-de-sac."

"How many days a week? How many hours?"

"Three... six."

Cerise wants to ask why but she doesn't – she knows why. Devin's father brings little to nothing to the house excepting the stockpiles of alcohol. They have mortgages which cannot be paid in liquor. This tired, desolate boy she loves is trying to hold onto a roof over his head, to keep the fire in his hearth from dying out, to ensure Ray Jameston and he don't sleep hungry. Her heart aches for him and she wishes for nothing more than to be able to help him carry the burdens that threaten to crush him. Remembering the list of ways in which she believes she can help, build bastions brick by brick around him, Cerise reaches into her backpack and retrieves a large lunchbox. "I made something for you."

"For me?" A small smile vivifies his tired eyes; he takes the box. "What is it?"

"Vegan... chicken... sandwiches!" She ends her statement with jazz hands.

Devin laughs. As he opens the box to unveil the little triangles arranged to fill the square space, the garnish of carrot-slice roses and sprinkled chives, he exclaims, "oooh, fucking Christ. You shouldn't have."

"I wanted to," she argues.

Intently observing him bite into one sandwich, she's rather pleased with the pure bliss that smoothens his worry lines. "This... this is amazing. No, better than amazing," he relays, taking another, larger bite. "Oh, this is it. How'd you get this texture?"

"The perfect ratio of raw jackfruit preserves and king oyster mushrooms."

"Ingenious." Devin finishes another sandwich, making a little sound of appreciation in his throat that somehow manages to make him more endearing to her.

"I know," Cerise says proudly, then asks, "you got any soda in the icebox?"

"I think there's Dr Pepper."