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nuagederose · 9 months

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As the Seasons Grey | Chapter Thirty-Five: Love from the Other Side

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Alex had lit up a few candles off to the side for his little group there in the backstage area. Though the entire room was well lit from above with the warm fluorescence on the ceiling, he treated them to the warmth of fire on a cold winter’s night. Christine nestled down on the couch in the corner, right across from the candles, and then he joined her right there with a corkscrew in one hand: Nelly had done the honors of opening the fresh new bottle of wine, while he took the corkscrew back to the little set on the floor next to the arm of the couch. Right before the couch stood a narrow heavy wooden coffee table with a loaf of French bread and a small plate of cheeses. She poured the four of them fresh glasses of red wine, which carried a slight fruity smell to it upon the mouth of the bottle.

“Good wine,” Nelly remarked after she took a small sip.

“From Paso Robles, California,” Alex explained as he picked up his glass and took his seat next to Christine. “Right near where the two of them plan on traveling to this summer.”

“Oh, how fun!” Nelly declared; Christine and Eric both picked up their glasses for a sniff of the fruity quality on the grapes. The four of them then followed it up with a toast to each other, right over the table.

“To a great new year,” Alex decreed as he downed a hearty swig of wine.

“To a great new year,” Christine echoed as she took a sip herself: Alex set his glass down on the table before him and rubbed his hands together.

“Who wants bread and cheese?”

“I do!” Eric declared, much to Christine and Nelly’s amusement. Alex had just began to slice into the bread, when they were interrupted by one of the stagehands.

“The other members of the party are here,” he informed them.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right!” Alex said, and he handed a slice of bread over to Christine. Greg and Louie ducked into the room wrapped up in heavy black winter coats.

“Hey! You guys made it.” Alex stood back with a big beaming smile on his face as he gestured for the two boys to come on into the room. “Welcome.”

Christine and Nelly glanced at one another, taken aback.

“I invited them,” Eric told them as Alex handed him a slice of bread. “I ran it by Alex before we left.”

“We got stuck in traffic,” Greg explained as he sank into the seat next to Nelly.

But even if the two of them missed the show, the party after the show proved to be a lovely one. It was early in the evening, and thus, Christine could help herself to her glass of wine, the bread, and a handful of cubes of cheese. She was especially particular on the Havarti and the Roquefort, and she noticed Alex popping in pieces of baby Swiss into his mouth as if it was candy. Nelly, Eric, and Louie all told jokes to one another while Greg told stories about life in California. Next thing she knew, Alex had downed a few slices of bread and a lot of cheese with two glasses of wine. He leaned back next to her with a pleasured smile on his face and a soft twinkle in his eye.

“Do you ever just feel so enamored by your own indulgence that you feel like you just sinned?” he asked her in a low, husky voice.

“Can’t say I have,” she confessed.

“Ah, man, you haven’t lived, dear Christine! It’s the best sorta pleasure you’ve ever…” His voice trailed off.

“Are you drunk?” she asked him with a chuckle.

“No…” Alex bowed his head and held his breath.

“What was that?”

“You know what it was,” he told her with a hearty laugh and a little grin on his face. Christine didn’t even have to think twice about it as he had kicked back a couple of glasses of wine on top of that fresh bread and cheese: he had a full belly topped with that lush wine.

His eyes drooped closed and he leaned in closer to her as if to lay down on her. Christine held onto the side of his face for a little kiss on the cheek.

“I love you and want you,” he sputtered to her. “You are just… everything. I love you and everything you do, dear Christine.” He hiccuped and smiled at her. How she absolutely loved this side of him. She kissed him on the cheek again, that time a firmer peck that tasted of sweetness and wintry warmth.

“Isn’t he cute,” Nelly declared in a sweet voice. Christine gently stroked his chest and kissed him on the neck. She put her arms around him and held him as if he was a big teddy bear.

“He’s got a full tummy and now he’s all sleepy and a little tipsy,” she said. “It’s funny, he only had two glasses of wine.”

“Wow, he’s a lightweight,” Eric decreed as he put his jacket back on and tapped in the back of his wrist towards Christine.

“What time do you have to be home, Chris?” Louie asked her.

“I promised my mom I would be home by ten,” she replied, “which means we better get moving.”

“We just missed the last bus, though,” Nelly pointed out with a glimpse at her watch. “I don’t really feel like taking another cab, either, especially since there’s more of us right now.”

“I’ve got my car,” Greg told her. “It’s got room for all of us.” Alex leaned his head against Christine’s shoulder: she could smell the soft scent on his hair.

“Is he asleep?” Nelly asked with a clearing of her throat and a pat of her hand on his shoulder to stir him awake.

“Huh, what?” Alex shook himself awake. “Nope, nope, nope. I’m awake.” He hiccuped again and ran his fingers through his hair. He stood up before the two women, but he was in no shape to drive or even ride the bus home to Brooklyn. Christine moseyed up next to him to keep him from falling back onto the couch, and she caught him with one arm.

“Let’s take you home, Alex,” she suggested as she put her arm around his shoulders. She lightly patted his belly and kissed him on the neck. “My goodness, you are so warm.”

“I really, really don’t want to go out there to the snow,” he sputtered out with a soft chuckle. Christine cupped his face for a soft kiss on the lips. He was so warm and happy that she had the urge to curl up next to him and make love to him there on the couch. Alex rested his hand on the small of her back and tugged her closer to his warm body. Christine thought of the softest crushed velvet on his chest and his belly as she ran her hand down to the waist of his trousers. She lifted herself up onto her toes to reach his soft lips.

The sides of his hair swept over the sides of her face as if to protect her from any prying eyes. Since he had plenty to eat and drink, his kiss felt more intoxicating than usual. She thought of a touch of the sky overhead, the caress of the clouds on her skin as it enveloped the two of them together for the softest bed on the back of the earth.

“I feel like I’m reading a copy of Hustler,” Greg joked. Christine held back for a look into Alex’s face and the little smirk that she knew he couldn’t resist from her. She gently patted the sides of his face, and she put her arm around him to guide him over to the door. Nelly’s coat-clad arm reached past Christine’s head to keep the door open for them.

They were met with the lightest of flurries from the menacing orange sky overhead, and Christine could relax at the fact that she told Wendy they were headed home soon, and before any more snow flooded in for the night. Alex shuffled along the sidewalk with Christine nestled up next to him on his left and Nelly with one hand on his right shoulder to keep him steady. Greg skirted past them to the sidewalk up ahead: Christine caught the jingling sound from his right hand, and she watched him scurry him to a low black car parked up near the corner.

Alex hiccuped again, and that time, he let out a low whistle and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I really, really want to curl up under the covers and go to sleep,” he confessed to her.

“You know, I would absolutely love to curl up next to you,” she told him as she put her arms around his waist; he was too tall and thus, she couldn’t kiss him on the neck again. Through the soft light from the street and the city, she could see Nelly showing her a knowing smile.

“A little hard to walk when you’ve got your arms around me,” he told her. She gave him a little squeeze, followed by a gentle pat; Nelly skirted around the front hood of the car as if she was the one to drive. The ceiling light shone down on the black leather seats which sat down low in the car.

“Looks like there’s only room for the five of you,” Alex remarked with another hiccup.

“There’s actually room in the very back of the car,” Greg explained as he zipped up his jacket. Christine gave Alex another little squeeze around his waist before she let him go. He shuffled forth towards Greg, who then guided him to the back of the car. At first, Christine thought he was climbing into the trunk, but rather, it was the way back section, where Alex could lay down for the ride back to Brooklyn.

He rolled onto his back there with his knees bent up.

“Watch your knees,” Greg told him, and he shut the hatch. He gestured for Christine and Nelly to follow him to the car, but then the latter stopped him.

“No, I got it, Greg,” she quipped.

“You sure?” he asked her, slightly baffled.

“I’m all the way uptown anyway,” she told him, even though Christine knew that it was only a few blocks over to Nelly’s apartment complex. It made sense for Greg to drive to drop Nelly off at her place and then drive Alex back home, and then the four of them would return home. But Christine sighed through her nose as Greg handed over the keys and tucked himself in the middle back seat next to Louie: Eric climbed in after and closed the door. Christine climbed into the front seat, and then Nelly slid behind the wheel. All the while, Christine wondered as to how Nelly would come home given she refused a cab back there in the backstage area, and she had never taken the subway that late at night, either.

Once she fired up the car, they began down the busy street once more, all the way back down to the Lower East Side and the Brooklyn Bridge. All the night traffic, the bright lights, the sights and sounds even with the snow and the darkness all around, all of it served as an odd comfort to Christine, who still remained preoccupied with the fact Nelly was driving. Somewhere before the turn onto the bridge, she could hear Alex’s soft snore at the back of the car, which in turn brought a smile out of her. It wasn’t too loud, and she couldn’t help but picture him back there with one hand rested on his belly and his mouth propped open ever so slightly.

Christine peered out the window as the buildings gave way to the entryway of the bridge. The black waters of the East River loomed before her, a constant stretch of cold solid darkness towards the bay. The clouds hung low enough to hide the crown and spires of the Statue of Liberty way off in the distance, but she could rest easy knowing Alex had fallen asleep in the way back part of the car.

The bridge turned into a single street once more, and Nelly led them to his neighborhood, the street with all the trees, all of which were coated in a thick blanket of pure white snow.

Christine climbed out to coax him out of there: she lifted the back hatch and she was met with his soft, slumbering face, accentuated by a thick lock of black hair over his face. She ran her fingertips along his chest in a little circular motion. He groaned in his throat and rolled his head over what looked to be a sleeping bag which he used as a makeshift pillow. His eyes cracked open and he showed her a little smile.

“Mmm… there is a heaven,” he crackled out, and he cleared his throat. Christine offered to help him out of there, but he insisted on climbing out himself. Alex ducked out of the way back, still with a hand on his belly.

“Phew…”

“You’re not going to barf, are you?” she asked him.

“Nah. Just really full, and I was laying on my back the whole entire time, too.” He closed the hatch with his free hand, and Christine walked him back up to his front door. She stood next to him as he took his keys out of hiding and unlocked the door.

“I really am a lightweight, though,” he confessed as he stifled another hiccup. “I’m gonna drink a lot of water once I’m in here and hope nothing bad happens to me.” He nudged the door open, and he turned to her with a sleepy smile on his face. “You have a good night for me.”

“Sweet dreams, baby,” she whispered to him, and he treated her to a soft kiss on the forehead. He kept the smile on his face back to her, all before he bowed into the apartment. She wished she lay next to him all to feel his warmth as she doubled back to the car. Even though she was walking away, she could still feel the warmth in her face as she ducked back into the front seat next to Nelly.

“The two of you are so cute,” she remarked as Christine strapped herself back in. Nelly fired up the car again and they began back to the street which led back to that familiar neighborhood. Christine expected her to turn left, but she instead went straight. Confused, she glanced out her window.

No way Nelly could have missed that, especially when it wasn’t snowing and she had done it before.

“Nelly missed the turn,” Eric whispered into Christine’s ear.

“Yeah, she did,” she whispered back. She returned to Nelly with a clearing of her throat. “Where are we going?”

Nelly never replied as they wound through the streets of Brooklyn. Christine glanced out the window with the expectation to see all of the little neighborhoods between her place and Alex’s apartment building, but everything seemed so monotonous and so unfamiliar to her. No way Nelly could have lost her sense of direction when she had been to Christine’s apartment twice before then.

She swallowed, even with the pounding in her chest. She was with Eric, Greg, and Louie, but they were about to lose themselves with Nelly.

“Where are we going?” Christine demanded, that time in a louder voice.

She heard the seat belts behind her clicking as the three of them unbuckled. She wondered if they were going to open the doors and roll right out to the snow, but they were moving too quickly for her to even consider such a thing, even if it wasn’t her doing it. Christine then clasped onto the steering wheel to stop her.

“Nelly? Where are we going?”

Nelly jerked on the wheel, and they swerved to the left. She then pulled over to the side of the road, right below the on-ramp to the Long Island Expressway. She tugged on the parking lever and turned to Christine with the light from the street lamp on the side of her head: her feathery hair looked as though it had been comprised of pure gold leaf. Even in the darkness, her eyes gleamed.

“Where is Chris buried?” she asked Christine without a change of tone in her voice.

“Huh?” The question caught her off guard.

“Where is he buried?” she asked again; for a second, Christine believed she heard the back doors opening but no sound emerged from the back seat.

“Nelly, it’s almost ten o’clock at night,” she insisted. “Plus, you’ve had a glass of wine and I promised my mom that Eric and I would be home by ten, she’s probably worried sick about us.” Nelly pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at her. Christine knew right then she was being completely serious. She sighed through her nose and shook her head.

“I don’t remember,” she confessed. “I really don’t—after he died, I shut down and blocked out all of those memories. All I know is he’s way out on Long Island.” She closed her eyes and shook her head again. “You can’t be serious about this, Nelly.”

“I am!” Nelly assured her without a second thought about it. “You know, I figured, he was Jewish and there’s only one cemetery out there that’s based out of a synagogue and it’s out by Calverton.” She glanced back at the back seat, where Eric, Greg, and Louie were all comfortable together now with Alex safe in his apartment. “Now put your seatbelts back on, all four of you.”

With a sigh, Christine clicked her seat belt buckle back in. She wished Alex was next to her again so she could hold him some more. It was too late at night and she knew she would have to explain to her mother what happened afterwards. She had no idea if there was good service out on Long Island, either: a message to Wendy probably wouldn’t arrive until the early hours of the morning.

“Calverton, isn’t that out by the Hamptons?” Greg asked.

“Yeah, it’s like a hundred miles,” Christine muttered.

“Yup, now let’s move it—” Nelly lifted the parking brake, and they rolled forth down the dark street, past the on-ramp and under the overpass. Christine knew they were headed towards Metropolitan Avenue, which would take them all the way out to the dense woods of Long Island and that quiet place that she had left buried in her memory. There was something daunting about going down that way, and more so as Nelly made that left turn. It was a straight shot from Queens out to the countryside. Given Long Island extended out towards the ocean, Christine believed they were headed for the great wide abyss. She didn’t want to face it, especially not at that late at night, and especially when time was of the essence.

The ten o’clock hour had already passed, and her heart sank at the mere thought of having to explain it all to her mother.

But then, there was Alex. She still had yet to tell him about Chris, a daunting task in and of itself.

As the small neighborhoods fizzled out into thick wilderness, she kept on picturing her encounter with him. What made it particularly difficult for her to think about was what his reaction would be once she told the truth.

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell him, Nelly,” she confessed as the Turnpike gave way to Middle Country Road, a narrow two-lane road out to the furthest reach of Long Island. “You know, how am I supposed to break that to him? I couldn’t tell Chris that I was in love with him—how am I supposed to tell Alex about Chris?”

Nelly remained uncannily silent as the road neared the cozy village of Calverton: something told Christine if they ran out of gas, there was no way they could bother anyone there for a place to stay. Long Island in the middle of the night in the heart of winter turned into the middle of nowhere within the drop of a few hours.

A sign emerged on the side of the road: a fine layer of snow covered part of it, but Christine caught a glimpse of the word “synagogue” on the left side.

The cemetery. The Jewish cemetery, and right across the street from a plant nursery which was illuminated by big white floodlights from the ground up.

The patch of bare earth into the graveyard was damp, even with all the snow they had back in the city. Nelly parked there before the gates: even with the bare dirt under the car, Christine could see the blanket of snow over the graveyard and the trees that surrounded the area.

“Best advice I can give is to just relax and say it to him,” Nelly finally said in a soft voice. She craned her neck to the back seat. “Lou, there should be a flashlight under your seat.”

Shuffling caught Christine’s ear, and she closed her eyes and sighed through her nose.

“I don’t know… I don’t feel right about this,” she confessed. “It’s almost midnight, it’s snowing, and the gates look to be locked, too.”

“We’re just gonna look around for him,” Nelly assured her as she took a small light out from the inside of her door. “I mean, it’s not like we’re gonna exhume him and desecrate a Jewish cemetery.”

“There’s a few inches of snow on the ground, too, it’s not like we can anyway,” Eric pointed out. A bright halogen light flickered from the back seat right then.

“Okay,” Nelly announced in a low voice. “Let’s go.”

The wet, cold night air blanketed Christine’s head as she climbed out. She closed her coat and shivered; Eric and Louie stood next to her with the flashlight balanced on his shoulder as if he was carrying water. The former ran his fingers through his hair: she could tell he was uncomfortable as well.

Nelly strode up to the heavy wrought iron gates and nudged on the left one. The hinges squeaked as the gate opened. She held the flashlight up to her head, and she gestured for them to follow her inside.

“Keep an eye out for him,” Eric then told Louie, “for Pereira.”

Christine tugged her hood over her head lest it snow again, and she kept her hands in her pockets as they strode into the cemetery. The sky hung low over their heads, but it was enough to give everything an extra chill, even with the snow in the ground.

“Do you remember where he was buried?” Louie asked her as Eric joined Nelly and Greg at the first row of tombstones on the right side.

“I don’t, no,” Christine confessed. “It was so long ago, and like I said, I pretty much blocked out everything after he died.”

Louie shuddered and adjusted his coat as they stood at the second row of stones at the left side.

“The whole entire time, I was thinking, ‘how’s Nelly even going to get home?’” she admitted.

“Oh, me, too,” he said. “It’s Greg’s car and she didn’t want to take a cab, either.”

“She lives all the way up in the West End, too,” Christine added. “It’ll be two o’clock in the morning before she gets home.”

“My god, really?”

“Yeah. Greg very easily could’ve chauffeured all of us home. But no. We had to come to a graveyard out on Long Island at eleven o’clock at night for some reason.” She sighed through her nose yet again: she knew she had to stop it, but it was useless given they were there and not in the safety of their homes. “To be fair, Nelly did promise me to take me to Chris’ grave. Why now is beyond me, because I could have found a way to hit up his parents over in Monticello and reconnected with them.”

“Yeah, that’s a strange decision to make,” he said as he shone the halogen light in the stones next to them. He then gasped. “Wait, what’s this?”

Christine’s heart skipped a beat when he neared the second stone from the main trail, a small rounded black stone with a thin layer of snow on the front surface, right under a small spindly tree. Louie knelt down to the right of the stone and wiped the snow from the left side for her to see the epitaph for herself:

Christopher Noam Pereira

September 21, 1973 - July 5, 1987

Beloved son, brother, and best friend

Christine gasped as her gaze swept over the engraved words on the little tombstone. Louie held up the flashlight for her to better read the epitaph of Hebrew underneath the main part. All around them, the flurries floated down from the orange sky, but it made no difference to either of them.

“Is this him right here?” Louie asked her in a hushed voice. “I just saw his last name.” But everything seemed to fall away from all around her. She knelt down on the snow bank with one hand on the surface, still smooth as if they had just crafted and polished the stone.

“Hello, my love,” she whispered.

“We found him,” Louie called back behind her. Christine knelt closer to his stone, still with one hand on the engraving, on his first name in particular. Her mind fell blank as her eyes wandered across the Hebrew words at the bottom. To think of all the things that she wanted to do with him as the two of them grew up and grew old together.

Though her mind was initially blank, the flurries on her head and Nelly, Eric, and Greg venturing through the snow behind them let the blackness fall away to give way to her first memory of Chris.

The first day of kindergarten. The slightly older slightly chubby boy with the ill-fitting shirt, and the full, round face and the long dark hair down past his shoulders. He sat down next to her with a smile on his face and the desire to be friends with her. She recalled his eyes, the deep eyes that seemed to stare right through her.

The deep eyes that haunted the back of her mind for nearly two decades.

The deep eyes that reminded her of Alex.

“Love of my life… my darling, with me… forever…” Her voice floated out from her lips, and yet it seemed disembodied, as if she had dreamed it instead. She felt a hand on her shoulder, but she never lifted her gaze from the epitaph.

It flashed through her mind like a bolt of lightning. The day of the funeral. She recalled Mrs. Pereira crying as the rabbi read the prayer, but then she closed her eyes and surrounded herself in blackness.

“Christine, you’re getting wet,” Nelly’s voice cut through the darkness like a knife.

Christine opened her eyes and turned her head to see Nelly and Eric huddled down next to her like a pair of emperor penguins. With a sniffle, she lifted herself up to her feet and dusted the snow off her pant legs. Nelly let go of her shoulder all the while; through Louie’s flashlight, she could see Nelly wiping away tears. Eric put his arm around Christine, and the five of them trekked back to where they came from, back towards the gates.

Christine remained silent the entire walk back: the flurries softly landed on her head and shoulders, and the snow crunched underneath her boots. She tried to not cry right then given the cold, and she had no idea if her tears would freeze upon her face, simply because she had her worries that everyone back in Queens would be able to see the girl with the frozen tears and have nothing but questions for her.

Greg nudged the gates so they could all file back out to the road. Not a single car traversed out before them: the lights at the nursery across the street filtered through the flurries and the incoming low clouds which in turn gave them a ghostly feeling. He continued to haunt her, though she wanted to uncover the memories.

To exhume the memories from under the blanket of snow.

Nelly reached the driver’s side door first and unlocked it with the help of Louie’s flashlight from behind her. Eric let go of Christine and opened the door for her.

She quietly thanked him as she climbed inside: she knocked her boots together to rid of the snow before she slid inside all the way. She dusted off the extraneous snow from the crown of her head before she closed the door. The boys climbed into the back seat and shut the doors on either side. Nelly climbed in and shook her feathery hair about.

She let out a loud sigh.

“I have… no words,” Nelly confessed. She turned her attention to Christine, who gazed out the windshield to the snow-covered bushes and the dark road up ahead. Though the village was up the road, she couldn’t help but imagine it extending out to the ocean. Chris was buried within range of the ocean.

“Christine?” Nelly asked her. Her bottom lip trembled. Seventeen years. Seventeen years gone. Seventeen years and she never found the chance to tell him the truth.

“Christine? Are you alright?”

She couldn’t stop her bottom lip from trembling. She swore that she was going to cry frozen tears right there in the car, but there wasn’t enough cold inside of there for her to even consider it. Nevertheless, the first tear fell from her right eye, the tears that had been locked away for nearly seventeen years. Her shoulders shuddered from the sudden welling of water within her. It was as if someone had switched on the hose and broke off the handle.

She bowed her head and cupped her face in her hands, and she wept right there in the front seat. She sniffled and let it out even louder, as loud as she could without waking the dead.

“We should go,” Eric said to Nelly, who then promptly started up the car. She sank back into the seat with her face buried in her sleeves so her tears would remain liquid. Or so they wouldn’t have to see her this way.

Christine wept the entire ride home. She had enough tears to last a hundred miles and then some.

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doctapuella · 2 years

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testament, "nobody's fault"

#testament #testament band #chuck billy #alex skolnick #eric peterson #louie clemente #greg christian #hi hello this is the video and the moment where i fell in love with louie #(top left obv)#i didfind a better quality of this mv but it doesnt have the fun bits at the start and that is the whole point for me #there are so many good moments in the video #but these are the ones that stuck out when i first watched it #so now i'm making it everyones problem k love u all smooches for everyone #things that make me happy right now #queue've got something about you

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sunset-supergirl · 3 months

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Happy birthday Louie Clemente

#Louie Clemente #testament #Spotify

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metalcultbrigade · 3 months

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Louie Clemente 23/01/1965

#metalcultbrigade #metal #thrash metal #thrash #testament #legacy #louie clemente

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politicaldilfs · 28 days

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Kentucky Governor DILFs

Wendell Ford, Paul E. Patton, Steve Beshear, Julian Carroll, Brereton C. Jones, Matt Bevin, Earle Clements, Edwin P. Morrow, Ernie Fletcher, Flem D. Sampson, John Y. Brown, Happy Chandler, Keen Johnson, Lawrence Wetherby, Louie Nunn, Andy Beshear, Ruby Laffoon, Simeon Willis, Wallace Wilkinson, Ned Breathitt, William J. Fields, Bert Combs

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caelwynn · 2 months

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I'm still physically wiped out and my head's too fuzzy to do 'real' writing/revisions on my story, but I'm just coherent enough that I want to chitter-chatter about my fic.

So in the course of working on Choices, one of the things I've spent an inordinate amount of time on is figuring out the 'cohorts' for the valleyfolk. What I mean by 'cohorts' are the groups of people who are in a similar age-range to one another and then further subdivided into 'natives' (aka 'people who grew up together in the valley') and 'transplants.' After all, one of the things I'm trying to accomplish is interweaving three large expansion mods with the base game and coming up with a cohesive whole, and that means knowing who from the various mods have known each other basically forever.

Under the cut, I break down who's in what cohort. I may or may not later flesh out my thinking about why I plopped certain people into certain groups, mostly because when I started to do so with this list, the post grew disgustingly (more) bloated. If I do, I'll probably do a separate post for each cohort. After all, this is the site for rambling about this sort of random stuff, right? 😅 (Edit: that's exactly how I spent my afternoon. You can find my thoughts on each cohort here: Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4, Gen 5.)

If you squint just right, these could be considered spoilers for SVE/Ridgeside/East Scarp.

I divided the population of the valley into five different cohorts/generations. Ages are based on how old they are/would be during the course of Choices. They are also in order of eldest down to youngest. I have actual ages recorded for most of the characters, but it cluttered up this list waaay too much.

(OG) - Base Game, (SVE) - Stardew Valley Expanded, (R) - Ridgeside, (ES) - East Scarp

Gen 1 (Aged 60+) Natives

Maive (R)

Richard (R)

Gil (OG)

Evelyn (OG)

Linus (OG)

Willy (OG)

Lenny (R)

Gen 1 (Aged 60+) Transplants

George (OG)

Mr. Aguar (R)

Sonny (R)

Mrs. Olsen (Emily and Haley's mother) (OG-ish)

Lola (R)

Freddie (R)

Gen 2 (Ages 40-60) Natives

(56-60)

Lewis (OG)

Vivienne (ES)

Jessie (ES)

Mr. Olsen (Emily and Haley's father) (OG-ish)

Lily-Anne (ES)

Ezekiel (R)

Clement (ES)

(50-55)

Helen (R)

Marlon (OG)

Daisy (Adventurer's Guild Expanded)

Mark (ES) (Sterling's father, unnamed in mod)

Jess (ES) (Henry's father, unnamed in mod)

Pierre (OG)

Alecto (Stand Alone)

Robin (OG)

(46-50)

Marnie (OG)

Gunther (OG)

Susan (SVE)

Kimpoi (R)

(40-45)

Kent (OG)

Bert (R)

Olga (R)

Lorenzo (R)

Caroline (OG)

Gen 2 (Ages 40-60) Transplants

(56-60)

Rasmodius (OG)

Carmen (R)

(51-55)

Pam (OG)

Andy (SVE)

Jodi (OG)

Demetrius (OG)

(46-50)

Olivia (SVE)

Pika (R)

Malaya (R)

(40-45)

Naomi (R)

Gen 3 (Ages 25-39) Natives

(31-36)

Tristan (ES)

Clint (OG)

Shane (OG)

Henry (ES)

Sterling (ES)

Mona (OG/ES?)

Jacob [He turns 31 during the fic] (ES)

(25-30)

Mateo (ES)

Jasper (ES)

Kenneth (R)

Emily (OG)

Sandy (OG)

Anton (R)

Maria (R)

Paula (R)

Gloria (ES)

Zayne (R)

Kiarra (R)

Sophia (SVE)

Gen 3 (Ages 25-39) Transplants

(31-39)

Harvey (OG)

Shanice (R)

Callie

Mia (ES)

Elliott (OG)

Leah (OG)

Bryle (R)

(25-30)

Philip (R)

June (R)

Kataryna (ES)

Jeric (R)

Aideen (ES)

Rosa (ES)

Flor (R)

Irene (R)

Gen 4 (Ages 18-24) Natives

Penny (OG)

Sebastian (OG)

Alissa (R)

Abigail (OG)

Shiro (R)

Corine (R)

Sam (OG)

Ysabelle (R)

Alex (OG)

Haley (OG)

Lexi (ES)

Blair (R)

Gen 4 (Ages 18-24) Transplants

Victor (SVE)

Maddie (R)

Faye (R)

Juliet (ES)

Sean (R)

Gen 5 (Ages 5-17)

Maru (OG)

Oliver (ES)

Ariah (R)

Trinnie (R)

Keahi (R)

Eloise (ES)

Louie (R)

Vincent (OG)

Jas (OG)

Yuuma (R)

Lavril (ES)

Gen 5 (Haven't decided ages yet)

Leo (OG)

Morgan (SVE)

Bliss (R)

Pipo (R)

Undreya (R)

Yeah, I know there are characters missing (especially from East Scarp, as I have difficulty keeping track of all the individual NPC mods, and SVE), but there it is. I wonder if this is actually interesting to anyone other than me. Oh well. 😅

#stardew valley #sdv #stardew headcanon #stardew choices #stardew valley expanded #ridgeside village #east scarp

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tommytranselo · 2 years

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wait a minute. so i've seen a lot of claims that mafia 4 will be set in sicily and that it follows salieri, but because of some timeline issues (namely salieri's criminal career taking place primarily in lost heaven) those can't both be true. for some reason people seem to be leaning towards it being set in sicily though i'm not sure where they're getting that. but just for a moment let's assume that's true. you know who did have a criminal career in sicily?

tomaso moretti.

mafia definitive edition, which is the most recently released game, laid the groundwork for it. there's no other mention of moretti i'm aware of except a very oblique reference in joe's adventures, where eddie says carlo obtained the position of don violently. given there's no further elaboration and how long this was before mde was released, i honestly believe moretti as a character didn't even exist yet (another circumstantial piece of evidence for this: fredo clemente was also mentioned in mde via the cigarette cards, yet alberto clemente's frankie potts file makes no mention of him, so i have a feeling some of the lore characters mentioned in mde, such as louie, fredo, and moretti were very recently created). considering the additional first time mentions of los ondas (which again, seems to be based on los angeles rather than las vegas due to the mention of hollywood) and havana, i feel like the intent of subtly introducing all this new lore in mde might have been partly to allow for several storylines that future games could pursue.

you know who else i think we're fairly likely to see if it is set in sicily? giuseppe. he jailbroke clemente's uncle (along with some other mobsters) in 1917, which lines up pretty nicely with the potential timeline.

#it COULD be about leo & frank but moretti looks significantly older than them in the cards so i think he's more likely #allows for a longer game timeline #m4 speculation

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randgugotur-6 · 13 days

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This Day in Metal 🤘

On This Day (Live at Eindhoven '87 (Album) Testament (April 14, 2009) Remastered

https://youtu.be/G_NlkrLlMIs - (Disciples of the Watch) Live (Audio)

https://youtu.be/vjSK9LZfzbo - (First Strike Is Deadly (Live at Eindhoven) (Audio)

Live at Eindhoven is a live EP by American thrash metal band Testament.

It was released in 1987 via Megaforce Records for Europe in 1987 and the US in 1990. It was recorded at the Dynamo Open Air Festival in Eindhoven, Netherlands on June 8, 1987.

track listing: 1987

1. "Over the Wall" 5:38

2. "Burnt Offerings" 4:52

3. "Do or Die" 5:24

4. "Apocalyptic City" 5:54

5. "Reign of Terror" 4:31

** - Remastered reissue of the Live at Eindhoven EP, released on April 14, 2009 through Prosthetic Records.

It now features the group's complete 1987 performance at that year's Dynamo Open Air Festival in Eindhoven, as well as a newly designed cover artwork.

Track listing; Remastered reissue

Disciples of the Watch

The Haunting

Apocalyptic City

First Strike Is Deadly

Burnt Offerings

Alex Skolnick Guitar Solo

Over The Wall

Do or Die

Curse of the Legion of Death (C.O.T.L.O.D.)

Reign of Terror

Chuck Billy: Vocals

Alex Skolnick: Lead Guitar

Eric Peterson: Rhythm Guitar

Greg Christian: Bass

Louie Clemente: Drums

http://www.testamentlegions.com/

#LiveatEindhoven87 #Testament

#Eindhoven

#thisdayinmetal #testament #LiveatEindhoven87 #live performance #thrash metal

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feverinfeveroutfic · 1 month

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”pebble beach”

The escarpment of the Sierra Nevada Mountains hung within my sidelong view as we made our way along the watershed towards Mono Lake. It had been forever and a day since I had come up this way, especially whenever I came up to Yosemite with my parents and my brother, it was on the other side of the valley coming in from the Central Valley. I leaned back in the faded leather backseat with one arm up on the top, and I let my curls dangle down over my shoulder like one of the waterfalls over in the other valley. Eric and Lou were huddled down in the front seats as if they were a couple of bobsleigh pilots, even though it was a beautiful day there in the eastern Sierras.

“Have you even been on this road before?” Lou asked him at one point.

“What, Tioga Road?” Eric replied. “Yeah, a couple of times before. It’s a a rare occurrence, though, because it’s closed ten months out of the year.”

I hadn’t been on there since I was a kid, and back then, from what I recalled, things were pushing it. The middle of June and there were still pockets of snow around the cliffs, and Sonora was still closed to top it off as well.

All I told Lou was to not look down once we neared the peak of the pass. And it made better sense to me to be behind Eric all the way up. I was so relieved to be in that car with them, although I knew I would have to go back with Chuck as well as Joey

It was the middle of the day, with the sun beating down on my head and shoulders, and yet I could feel the cold of the mountains right before us like this gigantic wall of iron.

The highway wound down to a tight bend and we found ourselves in the small town of Lee Vining, complete with a view of Mono Lake: all I recalled of that lake was Mark Twain had written about it and I had no desire to head on down to the shoreline after that.

Eric took to the next left turn and we were headed up Tioga Road. Those cold mountains stared down at us as if we were facing some kind of gods who were about to judge us; the brick lodge right after the turn-off felt like the last bit of comfort for a while.

The trees were thick and lush, and the hills guided us up along that road as if we were ascending into the sky above. I swore that I was the one climbing and not Eric, and it was times like that I wished that I was better at photography. We were passing by the Ansel Adams Wilderness in all its rugged glory: how I wished to look beyond the high spires of peaks and down into the glassy lake and that vast valley as well. Everything about that initial stint of the road only made me want to explore more.

Explore more, and of myself as well.

We made our way upwards, and all I could think about was what we could do once we got into Yosemite. All I knew was those three boys who called themselves Green Day were supposed to meet us there at the campground for the next week. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to sleep in the same tent with Chuck because I was enjoying the sun on my face and the views before me. Everything was so rugged and rough as if it had been left untouched this whole entire time.

I gazed out to the drop below the other side of the railing and I spotted the glassy lake at the very bottom. Even with the royalty in place and with the ring on my finger, I vowed to always be as soft as that water. As soft and tender as that glassy water.

My ears popped and Chuck from Florida burst into my mind. I wished he was there in the backseat with me and we could relish in the view together. Indeed, I peered over to the seat next to me and I pictured him there, those thick lush curls sprawled around his shoulders as if he had dunked his head into those lake waters down below and let the cool mountain air dry him off. Those eyes, as blue as the granite walls that surrounded us as we continued to ascend into the heavens.

I really believed that we were headed straight for another world, one that chilled down with each passing mile. Lou peered out the window to the cliffs on the other side of the road: I saw him visually swallow, and I knew that we must have been high up.

I shivered at the sight of everything outside of the car; Lou breathed on the window and made a peace sign in the condensation.

“Jesus,” Eric muttered as he switched on the heater. Our sweatshirts were packed in the trunk given it was warm down in the valley before we left, and yet something told me that I was going to be cuddled down in the safety of my own for the entire trip. I hunkered down in the seat: how I wished to be held close in a warm blanket right then.

The road kept going up into the mountains, and something ran through my mind that told me we were about to drive off the edge of the road at any given moment.

Now I understood as to why the pass was closed out of most of the year.

I peered out the window to the view down below us, the final glimpse out to the valley before we ducked away into the mountains themselves, the last glimpse back to that glassy oasis down below and the final moment of paradise before we persisted into the craggy mountains before us.

I rubbed my upper arms with my hands. If nothing else, I hoped that Eric would have a horse blanket there in the backseat, not just for myself but for him and Lou, too, and the three of us could huddle down together.

Eric himself glimpsed into the rear-view mirror for a look at me.

“You warm enough back there, Alex?” he called back to me.

“I have got this persistent chill up my spine right now,” I told him.

“Yeah, we do, too. I hope we level out here soon—”

We rounded a bend and beheld the view of the vast canyon, still capped with snow from the blizzards of the winter before. The trees decorated the landscape as if they were made of chocolate and powdered sugar; on my side of the road was a steep drop into the abyss. My head spun and my ears popped; I turned my attention to Eric right as he rubbed his temple with one hand.

We passed a sign that read eleven thousand feet, and I could feel my fingers and toes tingling. Lou ran his fingers through his hair and breathed a bit harder than usual. I peered out the window to the towering peak on the right side of the road.

The road peaked at a crest and then dipped down a bit: I spotted what appeared to be a toll booth for the entrance fee into Yosemite up ahead, complete with three other cars in line there. I was just eager to be on the other side of the pass down in the valley again. We must have reached the top at some point if we hadn’t already. The mountain peaks surrounded us like a series of meringue peaks: for a moment, I believed that we had entered the land of all things sweet and decadent.

When we reached the booth, I took off my sunglasses and rubbed my eyes.

“Ninety-nine hundred feet, just shy of the century-century mark,” Lou remarked. “And I swore we were there just a few minutes ago.”

“I feel it,” Eric told him as he continuously massaged his temple.

“Yeah, I do, too,” I added; my head would not stop spinning. “Helps that we’re basically coming up from sea level.” All I wanted to do was lay down and cuddle, and it didn’t help matters that the line seemed to inch along the pavement. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on either top of the seat before me; Eric leaned over the rim of the steering wheel and kept his fingers on his temple. He peered over his sunglasses at me.

“I can’t remember the last time I had vertigo like this,” I confessed.

“My head is just pounding,” he told me.

“You know, I’ve heard Viagra helps with altitude sickness,” Lou informed us, who looked to be the only one not affected by it, but his skin had washed out to the same color as a sheet. He let out a low whistle, and he turned his attention back to the road before us.

“I’ve heard that, too,” I said with a few quick breaths. “Let’s ask the ranger about it.”

We inched ahead and Eric rolled down the window: the cold swept over us, and all I wanted was my sweater and a blanket. I held still as I tried to not think about my head spinning. The first thing I would do, once we reached the valley floor, was find something to eat and then feel the spray from the waterfall on my face.

We inched ahead to the toll booth where we were greeted by the ranger, an older gentleman with these big black leather gloves much like the ones Lou wore sometimes for his drumming.

“Do you have anything for altitude sickness?” Eric asked him as he paid the fee; it was right then I noticed he sounded more out of breath than usual. “All three of us aren’t doing too well.”

“Uh, yeah! I’ve got some pain pills in here with me, and things to help with blood pressure. I’ll suggest drinking more water and eating more, too, especially if you’re going to come back this way or hang around the mountain peaks here for a while.”

“Can do,” I said with a shake of my head, and my head spun even more.

“Keep the window rolled up until you reach the valley floor, too,” he advised us. “Staying warm will keep your blood flowing. But if you boys are desperate—” And he turned back into the booth for something.

“Yeah, I worry especially because I’m driving,” Eric told him, and the man handed him a small bottle of aspirin and a little white box, and I could already see those little blue pills inside.

“You fellas be safe up here for us all, okay?”

“Always,” Lou assured him.

“Yeah, thank you,” I called out to him.

“Thank you so much,” Eric added as he held the bottle and the box in his lap: he darted ahead to the first bend in the road just so we could take our medicine.

“Alex, you got any water?” he asked me as he rolled up the window; almost immediately, it warmed up again in there.

“Plenty.”

Eric opened the box for us, although I had a feeling that the pain pills would help us just as easy. But the next thing I knew, I was taking a blue pill. Eric and Lou did as well.

We drank our water down, and then Eric ran his fingers through his jet-black hair.

“Okay, where’s our campground at?” he asked us.

“It’s coming up here, isn’t it?” Lou recalled, still out of breath.

“I wrote it down…” Eric reached over to the glove box for something, and I peered back into the very back of the car for anything to keep myself warm.

“Yeah, Tuolomne Meadows,” he informed us. “I think it’s coming up here in a few minutes.” He closed the door, and I caught the sound of hesitation up there in the front seat. “What’re you looking for, brother?”

“Me?” I asked him as I turned back around, and my head spun some more. “Do you have a blanket in here or something?”

“In the trunk, yeah. Would you like it?”

“Please. I am just freezing back here.”

Eric kindly picked out the big heavy horse blanket for me, to which I wrapped it around my body once we got moving again. The spinning in my head persisted a bit as we made our way along the road more towards the meadow in question. The trees were so thick and lush, and most of them still blanketed with snow. I spotted the hulking silhouette of Half Dome off in the distance, and I knew that once we got down into the valley floor, our heads wouldn’t be hammering so much.

I thought about what the ranger had told us in that we had to eat more to keep the feeling of the altitude in check. Indeed, I was feeling hungry as the road dipped down and gently meandered with the coldest-looking river I had ever seen in my life. In fact, something told me that I could eat enough for three people right then.

I wanted to eat once we reached our campsite, and I hoped that those three boys had beat us to the punchline there because it was all I could think about. I had no idea if it was the altitude or not but for a moment, I believed I was seeing things. The fact the mountains resembled to meringue, the chocolate look of the trees, the fact that I was hungry… this was a far more potent high than any joint that I had ever touched in seventh grade.

The trees thinned out and we were met with the vast meadow in question, with the thick, lush grass interspersed with such cold, glassy waters. The sun shone down on us without a cloud to obscure anything: even with it being cold, the sunshine made everything so bright and crystal clear.

Billie Joe, Mike, and Tré had already checked into their reservation and pitched a tent for themselves at a spot, one nestled between the trees and near a small waterfall. I peered behind us to the towering mountain which bestowed the waterfall: my head proceeded to spin once again, but at least I had something to balance me.

The spray from the waterfall touched me on the side of the face: it made me think of all the heat waves over the Bay Area as a kid, and I would stand in front of a swamp cooler; this was the damp feeling of that on steroids.

The smell of pine surrounded the three of us like a veil, and I tilted my head back to feel the afternoon sun and the spray of the falls on my face. All I knew was we had to return to camp soon enough to put up our tents and then eat a bunch of food to keep the sickness away, that is if we saw those three boys up at the top of the waterfall.

And then I realized we had taken Viagra once we had entered the park.

“Alex?” Eric breathed right into my ear over the noise of the waterfall. I turned to face him and the hooded look to his eyes. I really believed that I was hallucinating right then, hallucinating from the hunger, the altitude, and the rush of blood straight to my head.

“You wanna take a walk with me?” he offered me. “Take a walk and look for something to eat?”

“Isn’t there a pie stand or two right on the other side of the trees here?” I asked him.

“There’s a pie stand and a market,” he added as he nudged a lock of hair behind my ear. “We’ll come back and surprise those three dudes with all the goods we’ve picked up.”

“Let’s get two blackberry, two pecan, two apple, three cherry, three blueberry, a chocolate, a lemon, and a peach,” I suggested. “I dunno about you but I could literally eat a pie and a cake right now.”

“A pie and a cake, and you wouldn’t be able to fit into the sleeping bag,” he quipped as he ran his hand down my belly. I peered up to the scraggly dogwood trees and pearly white birches that surrounded us: I had no memory of how we got there to that particular spot in the trees, right by the river and the waterfall, but he was touching me, and he was coming close to me, and I was leaning my back to the birch behind me.

“Eric… are you feeling what I’m feeling right now?” I asked him with a rubbing of my forehead with my temples. It reminded me of the times I would get high and I had the strangest euphoria every time the paper hit my tongue.

“Headache and vertigo from being so high up and intense hunger from that and the fact we haven’t eaten since we left this morning? You bet your booty that’s what it is.”

“No, I mean… the fact the ranger gave us Viagra for the altitude.”

He showed me his tongue before he crammed it into my mouth.

We were hallucinating and horny, and I had no idea about him but I had no restraint whatsoever. I put my arms up over my head as he reached down my pants to feel me. I could feel that I was already hard, harder than I had ever been, as hard as the cold stony mountains all around us.

“Eric—” I gasped from the feeling. “Eric—what if they hear us?”

“They won’t hear us,” he assured me with a breath of a whisper right into my ear. “They won’t hear us here down by the waterfall.”

“What if they see us?” I choked out again.

“We’re way down here, and they’re way up there,” he assured me again, that time with a grasp onto my fat one. He held onto me for a brief moment before he rubbed up against me. He was as big as I had ever felt before, and I had nothing to hold me back, either.

We were doing it outside, and I had not a care in the world about it. We were doing it outside, and I could feel everything. I could feel everything even with my head lost in the realm of the altitude. We were going to have a bunch of pie and curl up under the blanket and the sleeping bag afterwards, but we had the blue pills to take care of at first. Blue pills like little pebbles that led us to that nook in the trees.

I ran my fingers through his black hair, and I treated him to a tongue lashing and a groan right into his ear. His lips on my neck. His tongue in my ear. Our flesh against itself. One of us was going to come first.

The spray from the waterfall and the veil of the birches protected us from any onlookers. I leaned my head back against the tree trunk again as he sank in deep, as deep as he could go with me. I realized he was getting me right in the prostate as well as grinding up against me.

I parted my lips and let out a low moan, one that buried itself under the roar of the waterfall. Those three boys were going to be in for a treat of sorts should they descend from the towers behind us. But Eric twirled his fingers around the locks of hair at the back of my head and slithered his tongue into my mouth to finish the job.

“Let’s get down to it again when we get the tent set up,” I whispered into his ear right then.

“You got it, big boy,” Eric whispered to me; he reached down and touched me again, and he showed me a little smirk. “You wanna get down with Lou, too?”

“May as well,” I said in a broken voice. “You’re still hard as stone, too.”

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josiebelladonna · 8 months

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trial by fire // testament

lowkey obsessed with this song right now

#my boyfriends #testament #testament band #1988 #chuck billy #eric peterson #alex skolnick #greg christian #louie clemente #the new order #nirvhannahgarden soundtrack #music #Spotify

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stoneoferech · 9 months

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Testament "Practice what you Preach"

#testament #chuck billy #eric peterson #alex skolnick #louie clemente #thrash metal #gregg christian

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nuagederose · 1 year

Text

As the Seasons Grey | Chapter Five: 6th Avenue Heartache

Christine’s heart soared as she and Alex strode on out to the wide open street before them after their lunch: the clouds gathered around the halo of the sun but the day could not be brighter. He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose and showed her a sweet little smile.

“That was perfect, wasn’t it?” he asked her.

“It could not have been more perfect!” she declared.

He ran his fingers through his black hair and cleared his throat.

“Not to mention, that food just absolutely hit the spot this time around,” he continued. “I don’t know why, either.”

She resisted the urge to tell him that it was because he had paid for it instead of her, and she knew that she would have to find a way to give him a piece of pie as well, given they hadn’t had that, either. He stood next to her and beamed down at her: his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose a bit to show off his deep-set bright blue eyes to her, lined with those thick dark eyebrows. He looked as though he wanted to tell her a secret of some kind.

“I have time by the way,” she told him.

“I would hope that you do,” he said with a sly little smirk on his face. Out of the corner of her eye, Christine saw Nelly making her way over to the door on the far side of the room, right behind him, as if she was about to stalk the two of them. She hoped that she wouldn’t, just so Nelly wouldn’t have to put herself up to a situation like that. She and Alex descended the stairs before them down to the sidewalk: the clouds overhead swirled around and changed between light and dark tones, and it was hard to say if more rain was upon them.

She returned her gaze to the street before them, and she expected to see the doors to the cafeteria open for Nelly to step on out, but she never did. Alex tucked his hands into his jean pockets, and he let his satisfied belly hang forth over his black leather belt. Christine pursed her lips together at the sight of him, and she resisted the urge to do something about it. His shirt hugged his body and accentuated the full shape of his waist. She imagined herself touching him there at some point: there was nothing that should hold her back when she thought about it. Absolutely nothing.

Christine shivered under her long green jacket and adjusted her grip on the strap of her bag. Though it wasn’t cold out, she still shuddered at the thought of him being in the arms of another woman. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something about the thought of him not by her side all the time that only made her want him all for herself. It was a thought that lingered in the back of her mind, and more so when he spoke again.

“What’s on your mind at the moment?”

“I really have no clue what I want to do in life, Alex,” she confessed to him. “I don’t know what I want to do, I don’t know what I want, period. And it’s hard for me to set goals, too.”

“You know, if it’s any comfort to you, Christine, I don’t know what I want out of life, either. Except for maybe ‘peace of mind’ but that’s about it.”

“I just think about how there’s this constant feeling of having to pick choose a career and staying with it for decades, and yet—there’s just so much that I like, between playing around with clay and doing art. There’s a huge part of me that just doesn’t want to do only one thing, whereas I feel immense pressure to choose.”

“Again, if it’s any comfort, I feel the same way, too. I started out playing guitar, playing rock n roll guitar, and then I got bored with it and expanded with it. Some days I feel so limited with it, and other days, it’s like the sky is the limit.”

“Is that why you teach?”

“Nah, I teach because it’s fun and it’s yet another thing I’ve always wanted to do. When I sub, I don’t just want to limit myself to Mr. Hansen’s class, as much as I like you guys. Sometimes I do literature classes, and this week, I’m going to substitute for chemistry.”

“Ooh, that should be fun,” she said.

“I dunno,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “It’s second-year chemistry so, talk about out of my wheelhouse.”

“Thinking I’ll try out chemistry for the winter quarter,” she told him. “Just to see how it fares with me.”

He showed her a thoughtful look. “You really are something else, my dear Christine,” he remarked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really think so, to be honest,” she confessed to him. “I suffered as a teenager, and I spent most of my twenties baffled and trying to get a grip on life. I feel the entire adult world laughing at me.”

She turned her attention back to him and the thoughtful look plastered across his face.

“Sometimes I just feel like I don’t belong in the world,” she continued. “Not me, not my body…” Her voice trailed off.

“Something tells me you made some U-turns in life,” he finally said.

“I have,” she told him. “When I was in high school, I thought I would have studied abroad and moved to Italy by the time I was the age I am now. It was such a lofty goal that I look back and ask myself, ‘what the fuck was I thinking?’”

“You dreamed big,” he said. “It’s like when you’re a kid and you dream of being a rockstar or something: somewhere along the way, you get a reality check and you feel the kid in you crying because you realize that life isn’t fair. It’s why so many people give up on their childhood dreams and become boring, stale adults. You seem reluctant to become another boring adult, though.”

“I do?”

“Oh, yeah. The fact that you’re willing to try out new things like play around with clay or study dangerous chemicals tells me that you’re curious about life. You don’t see that with people your age. People your age have settled. You know, they get married, they move to plain old houses up in Westchester or on Long Island and that’s it. The fact you’re here in the heart of the City tells me that you’re always curious.”

“Like a child,” she followed along.

“Just like a young child,” he echoed her. He brought a hand up to his mouth, and then he slid it down onto his chest and down onto his belly. “Next time we should totally have pie again.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said with a little smile and a glance down at his hand there on his full, round waist.

“I should invite you to come see my trio at some point,” he told her.

“A trio? What kind of trio?”

“Jazz.”

“You play in a jazz trio?” She showed him a little grin.

“Not just any old jazz trio,” he told her, “mine. The Alex Skolnick Trio. We play around town, and sometimes when I’m not subbing, we’ll go overseas.”

“Wow, you’re like Superman,” she remarked, to which he chuckled.

“Nah, I’m just a guy who does what he does,” he assured her. “I don’t want to be remembered as jazz guitarist or metal guitarist or anything like that. Just a guy who plays and learns new things every day.”

“You should play something metal the next time you sub for Mr. Hansen’s class,” she suggested.

“Whip out some kind of loud, screaming thing that wakes up the whole entire school,” he followed along with a hearty chuckle and a nudge of his hair away from his face.

“We are actually going to touch on rock n roll at some point during the class, though,” she pointed out with a slight snicker. “It’d be cool if you subbed for us at that point.” She glanced over at him again and the fact that he never moved his hand away from his waist. He glanced over at her right as the sun broke out of the clouds.

“You sure are touching your tummy a lot,” she pointed out to him.

“It feels really good in here,” he answered with a gentle pat. “Very warm, almost tender. Like I said, it hit the spot.” He then nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose once more. “What’s that lunch lady’s name in there?”

“Vanessa,” she replied.

“Vanessa! Yeah, she knows how to make something good, even if it isn’t all that healthy.”

“Oh, you,” she teased him.

“What?”

“So anal about your health,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Anal?” He laughed at that.

“Yes! You are so anal about it.”

“I want to be around for a long time,” he told her with a little smile on his handsome face. “The fact you used the word ‘anal’, though.”

“A teacher with a sense of humor is a good teacher, no matter what the subject,” she pointed out.

They reached the corner, and he turned to her. “So, I have to head on back to the other side of the school to where the adjuncts meet at,” he told her. “I don’t know what your time slots are like for today, but I can walk you to your next class if you’d like me to.”

“That is so sweet,” she said in a soft enough voice for him to hear over the noise from the street. “But I’m right over here, though. I don’t want you to be late.”

He kept the smile on his face: the hazy sun reflected on the black rims of his glasses to where they resembled fire opals.

“You’re too kind,” he said. “I want to meet up with you again, though. Not necessarily after school, but I do like hanging out with you, though.”

“Yeah, we should,” she replied with a little tilt of her head, and yet she had no idea as to what to tack on next to that. She could feel a little something inside of her at the sight of him before her, a light tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach and down into her belly and her hips. It was as if she had known him for quite some time, even though she had only seen him over the course of two weeks. “We should.”

He squinted his eyes at her and showed her a thoughtful little smile.

“I’ll see you later, dear Christine,” he told her, and then he doubled back up the pavement to the doors of the cafeteria. She still pictured Nelly coming on out of there to see what was happening between her and him, but she never did surface from there.

But something caught her eye from across the street: three heads of inky black and one of rich red copper. All four of them padded over to her with mischievous looks plastered across their faces.

“Christine and Mr. Skolnick, sittin’ in a tree,” the one brunette, Colette, declared in a singsong voice. Christine rolled her eyes at that.

“What happened?” the redhead asked her.

“Not if you tell me your names first,” Christine insisted as she buttoned up her jacket. The sun was still out through the veil of haze, but their presence gave her a deep chill right in her spine.

“Marlene,” said the redhead.

“Sabrina,” said the brunette with her hair in a bun.

“Valentina,” said the brunette with pigtails: Christine glanced over her neck at the heart-shaped pendant around her neck made of shimmering black tourmaline.

“And you know me as Colette,” said the brunette with her hair down and the white gloves on her hands. She then rubbed her hands together and gestured towards them.

“Alright. Spill us details.”

“Why should I?” Christine scoffed.

“It’s a juicy piece of collegiate lore,” Colette pointed out. “You also promised us.”

“Lore, not gossip?” Christine pressed her hands to her hips.

“Gossip implies we’re going to tell the entire campus,” Marlene explained. “Lore implies that it’s a tale to be passed down for centuries once the two of you are no longer with us.”

“It’s still gossip,” Christine insisted. “And I still can’t say, either.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like we’re going to go around telling everyone here that Christine the quiet girl in Mr. Hansen’s class is fooling around with the substitute teacher,” Sabrina said in a single breath.

“I’m not fooling around with him,” Christine assured her with a shake of her head. “And that’s all I’m going to say about the matter, too.”

“Did you promise him not to tell anyone?” Colette followed up.

“No, I promised Nelly I wouldn’t tell anyone else,” she declared.

“Nelly?” Valentina raised an eyebrow.

“Lunch lady Nelly,” Christine clarified.

“Oh, her!” Marlene declared. “I’d be careful of her if I were you.”

“Why? Because she knows everyone in the school?”

“Exactly, yes!”

“What’s so bad about that?” Christine demanded, curt.

“Do you know how dangerous that is?” Marlene asked her.

“How is that dangerous? If anything, I’d rather have someone within arm’s length who knows everyone’s name rather than someone who is trying to pull my secrets.”

She shook her head and gazed up to the overcast sky.

“Why don’t I just go home?” And she felt a hand on her shoulder right then. She peered back for a glimpse of pigtails right behind her.

“Girl, we’re not going to gossip about you,” Sabrina promised her. “But the four of us have seen the look in his eyes and we’re curious about the two of you. You know, given he’s older and whatnot.” Christine turned around all the way to face the four of them.

“I don’t really know, to be honest,” she confessed. “I don’t know how I feel about him. I don’t really feel all that great talking about it, either. He and I are just lunch buddies at this point. Does that make sense?”

“Of course,” Marlene assured her with a flutter of her eyes at her. “It’s just… he paid for your lunch and laughed at things you said. You don’t think there’s anything there?”

“No,” Christine replied, still curt. “Why would there be?”

“Now, Mar, if he touches her, then maybe there can be something more there,” Colette pointed out. “But—I don’t think he has, though.” She turned her head to the side a bit as if she recalled something from before. “No, I don’t think he has.”

“He hasn’t,” Christine assured her; she dared not tell either of the four of them about the mystery woman on his phone. She needn’t stir the pot that way, and especially when they seemed so set on herself and him being in some sort of couple unit together, even though she had no intention of this happening. “Trust me. He hasn’t touched me.” She then paused. “And if he has?”

“Then there might be something there,” Colette repeated with a little flick of her hair back from the side of her face. “Even if it’s just a little innocuous touch on the arm. Even if he gently pats you on the back.”

“A light touch for any reason whatsoever,” Marlene added.

Christine sighed through her nose, and she peered over her shoulder to across the street: she spotted Eric under the trees with his long black hair streaked behind him like a Jolly Roger atop the highest mast on the ship. The shadows from the trees over his head washed over his face and shoulders: it seemed as though there was so much on his mind right then.

“I have to go to class,” she told them.

“We do, too,” Sabrina chimed in as she fixed her pigtails, right first followed by the left.

“And we promise not to tell anyone about this, either,” Marlene vowed to her; for a second, she thought that she had flashed her a wink before the four of them headed on back across the pavement to the other school building there.

It was right then Christine began to wonder if there was something more to Alex that he wasn’t telling her. He did smile at her, and Nelly’s plan worked after all as well. Maybe there was something there that she missed.

She yearned to see him again after school, and she wanted to try it out with him. Maybe he did want to touch her, and she had no way of registering that with him. If only there was a way to ask that of him, to suggest his soft touches unto her and without it seeming as though she begged for it from him as well.

She kept on thinking about this over the course of the class period, such that she could hardly pay any attention to the lecture that day. She gazed on at the front of the room with a blank expression on her face and her chin rested in the palm of her hand.

He was such an enigma to her, and to everyone in that school as far as she knew, as well. Those deep eyes hidden behind those bright shiny glasses. That streak of silver at the crown of his head, like the crown jewel of a prince of the land not yet seen.

Christine strode out of the class with her bag over her shoulder and her eyes on the clock as she knew that the bus was coming soon. She bowed out of that building and back across the pavement to the main building. She kept her eyes open for a glimpse down every corridor on the sides of that main artery.

She had no idea as to where the adjuncts met up at, and she had very little time as to find out about it as well.

Alex was nowhere to be seen, and she could only assume that he had already clocked out and headed back home. She sighed through her nose, and she hoped that he would keep his promise to her and they could meet up once again.

She hurried back outside to the bus stop, and there was Eric, as if he waited for her on the next ride home. Two other boys stood next to him, a short slightly stout one with long frizzy dark hair with a part that obscured a part of his face and a tall and slim one with long dark waves that spread over his narrow shoulders.

“Christine, these are my friends, Lou—” Eric gestured to the short one. “—and Greg.” He flashed her a finger gun.

“The strawberry girl,” said Lou.

“Or is it Christine Sixteen?” Greg joked, and Lou laughed.

“I was thinking about having nicknames for one another,” she confessed to Eric.

“We ought to,” he beseeched, and he rested his hand on her arm.

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