glow - trixya

chapter 12: light

Katya's relapse takes her by surprise one week after the wedding, when she finds herself wandering in the street Del Rio's has been on since she was a child. More than burnt oil, she can smell the hormones of the local highschoolers who like to hang around this part of town, wearing their stupid vintage clothes and holding their ridiculously expensive new iPhones.

She likes to tell herself that she doesn't miss being eighteen, but when she enters Del Rio's again for the first time in ten years, Katya's soul is immediately invaded by the dread of being young and unsure again. She knows the feeling so well it doesn't even startle her with its presence, but rather gently taps her on the shoulder to remind her that perhaps she isn't as grown up as she thought she was. For a moment, she feels like around her are all the cool kids, laughing at short videos on their phone, while she is the one uncool loser who has been left out of an inside joke that everyone in the room knows.

Katya shakes her head. She isn't eighteen anymore. She's twenty-eight. And she's not afraid of teenagers, no matter how much eyeliner they wear.

Trying not to focus on how lame her outfit might look to the kids who surround her, her eyes search for an empty table by the window, where she used to sit with Trixie back when they were young. One of the booths is taken by a couple of boys holding hands as they smile, the other by a group of what Katya guesses are goths. She struts to the third one, clacking the short heels of her boots loudly in an effort to assert dominance, but nobody looks dominated at all. Maybe they don't care about me , she thinks. She used to believe that teenagers are all the same, no matter where or when, but she's ready to grow out of that idea - hopefully, things have changed and nowadays highschoolers aren't worried about being intimidating anymore. Hopefully they're just chilling. The group of goths doesn't even blink when she walks past them and her shoulders loosen, like the knot in her chest. They do seem like they're just chilling. As she sits down, she overhears a conversation about defunding the police coming from the booth behind her.

Weird way to chill , she makes a mental note, but something in her heart smiles. At least they aren't focused on terrifying other kids anymore, but rather on the system in which they have been forced to live their whole lives. Katya couldn't even take the pressure of her two snarky friends being homophobic bitches, or of her parents' disappointment, let alone of having an entire society against her. These kids don't seem to have the same problem. Good for them . She could buy them all a cup of hot chocolate, but decides against it when a smiley blue-haired girl hands her a menu.

Katya orders a black coffee, and it doesn't take the friendly waitress too long to come back with the steaming cup. Being immersed in teenagehood again, now that she knows not all is lost and that they probably couldn't give a flying fuck about her, is comfortable and easily makes her slip into the depth of her thoughtfulness. It reminds her of herself, of all the ways she went wrong, of the things she used to dream about, and the fears that used to haunt her. It reminds her of Trixie, even though she sits alone. She blows on the coffee, knowing it's too hot for her to drink right away. But it's okay, she has time.

***

It's all a relapse, it's all her not moving on, yes, but it's a good kind of relapse. She insists on the same relapse for three other months, using her weekly hours of silence at Del Rio's to daydream about everything that could have been, but wasn't. By the third month, she knows that the blue-haired girl is called Adore, she knows that nobody in there cares about her presence in the slightest, and she feels safe and satisfied in her own little bubble, only allowing herself to daydream about Trixie as she silently sips on her coffee, like it's some sort of appointment she wouldn't dare miss.

Fall has already started to peek out from under the rug, and the wind has become chilly. The late afternoons are now darker and Del Rio's is no longer as busy as it was in the summer, but Katya has no complaints. She goes there two or three times a week, wearing a red scarf and a leather jacket that makes her look a lot cooler than she actually feels. Adore greets her with a smile and lets a few curse words slip as they make small talk when Katya's coffee is ready. Then, she stares out the window at the people who pass by and wishes things were different, missing Trixie, and missing the life she never had.