tw: death / death mention
all that's in adrian's stomach is half of a roast beef sandwich and half a liter of diet coke. it's a bad combination, he'll admit, but he wanted to treat himself so he ate at some restaurant down the street. the only thing that was remotely appetizing was the roast beef sandwich, and the diet coke was flat. he gives it two stars.
he's at homegoods, doing some christmas shopping. he really didn't want to come to homegoods, but his fiancé, celestia, wanted a new bed spread, and there were none in her favorite color anywhere else. he hated this shopping center, the one on condolence drive, too many bad things had happened there.
it was a great neighborhood, of course, they were building new houses just beyond the back end of the stores, by his brother's construction company. there was a brand spankin' new parking garage just across the street from the place. office buildings were peppered all along condolence drive, filled with investors, marketers, interns, lots and lots of employees. they were in the east part of town, the most industrious, adrian will have you know.
the thing is, his first love broke up with him in this parking lot, when the only thing here was a desolate target super center. his sister was shot by her boyfriend in this parking lot. when adrian came to this parking lot, to identify his sister's corpse, he felt grief for the first time. but he had to overcome that, and he did. didn't he?
adrian briefly scans the bedding department before finding the perfect gift for celestia, and smiles. his step-daughter had recommended this shade of blue, and he had to agree that it would match the color scheme of their bedroom. adrian finds himself in the children's section after ambling through the store for a bit.
he has a step-daughter, chelsea, who just turned 16. she probably wouldn't want any of the frilly pink bed skirts or fuchsia bean bags that homegoods had to offer. tess though, his five (and a half) year old, may like it though. he absolutely loved to spoil tess, and would only purchase the most suitable of items for his little princess. celestia was actually pregnant with another bundle of joy. a boy, adrian hoped, so that they could share hair gel. celestia said she wanted to name this one, but he really liked the name eddy. he could see himself sharing hair gel with his son, eddy. not his son grant, the name celestia had first thought of.
"where's adrian?" he pictured in his mind.
"off teaching little eddy about paperwork. cute, aren't they? he wanted to teach tess, too, but she wants to go into politics like her mom."
eddy and adrian would get along, he decided. although another girl would be fantastic, too, he had lots of hair gel he needed to get rid of soon. he'd tried once before to use it on tess when she was four, but celestia laughed in an appalled sort of way and said, "i don't think our child needs a mohawk, does she?"
"if you say so. she likes it though," he had said, kissing her chubby cheek.
tess liked princesses, but not ariel. she didn't like fish at all, and mermaid terrified her. "what if i become one, daddy?" so the fact that the only things that matched the color scheme of tess' room all had disney princesses on them. what would he get her? some red curtains? she wouldn't care.
he frustratedly drove his buggy out of the kids department and toward the register, paying for his things and rushing out the door with his bag.
he comes to a quick stop once he sees that it's raining, and crosses into the parking lot hurriedly. he throws the bag into his trunk and sits in the passenger seat contently. he'd hardly gotten any rain on him. it was truly an achievement on his part.
the ignition starts with a steady turn of his wrist, and just as he puts his seatbelt on, he thinks he sees someone watching him.
his eyes dart towards the lightpole a good 200 feet away from him, and he think he sees his sister there. her golden hair whipping in the wind, expression blank, stocky frame slumped. he blinks and she's gone.
he realizes that that was the place that she'd been shot and shudders. the sky darkens and the rain picks up, heavy pellets falling onto the roof of his car. it feels like the day she died too, adrian realizes. it's all grey.
he feels bad that he couldn't help his sister. he feels bad that her boyfriend didn't get a longer prison sentence. he still feels guilty after nine years.
a sole tear escapes his manly eye, and he wishes that he could feel her presence again. he feels like she's just been gone on one if her long business trips and that it won't be long until she just shows up at his house again. he misses her so much, and she'd never know it. he wonders how she would react to his wife and kids, his new job, his new life. he thinks that she probably would have gone shopping with him today.
he pretends the tears rolling down his face don't exist as he pulls out of the parking space, and back towards condolence road. he pretends he doesn't feel an aching hole as he passes by the street lamp that she died at. he promises himself that he'll take tess here one day with eddy when they're older. he promises himself that he'll see his sister again one day.
|| unedited because i cried while writing this. i've never done that so i guess it's an achievement. ||
