Food Market.

Alaska rose an eyebrow as the neon letters burned into her retinas, searing firetruck red and glowing against the dim night. Food Market was a grocery store, and from the outside it was lively as a cemetery. The night sky swept over her head, morose cobalt and lulling indigo were cursive letters, sweeping into one another in broad strokes. Luminance stars dotted the i's, while the last lines of sunlight crossed the t's.

She squinted, blurring together the store's sign until she cracked her eyes back open. Alaska tilted her head down, twisting her arm so she could see her wrist. In the dim light from her car she reread the meeting place and time she'd written on her skin. She had checked so many times the words were beginning to lose meaning to her.

This was the place, Alaska surmised with a low sigh. A grocery store with a rather uncreative name, it didn't at all seem fit for a meeting place. The building loomed over her, glaring down with a smirk drawn onto the automatic doors as if mocking her. She rhythmically tapped her thumbs against her thighs, breathing between her teeth uncomfortably.

Call it paranoia, but Alaska had a sneaking suspicion this was some sort of joke.

She slowly unbuckled her seatbelt, prompting an unsavory string of thoughts about just last night. Her seatbelt undone then, prepared to be an accomplice to her early death. Eternal youth sounded such a mesmerizing idea, until it existed due to a lack of life.

Alaska wasn't happy just because she hadn't killed herself. Her mind had been a whirlwind of morbid fascination with the idea of a headstone in her remembrance. Her name had never looked beautiful on her birth certificate, yet Alaska wondered if it'd look better scrawled onto stone.

Her thin, rattling bones always stuck through her skin. Maybe the ribs protecting her heart would be prettier once shed of her tainted skin. Alaska's mouth tended to run rampant, murmuring things she never should have spoke. Kissing the necks of mistakes, leaving gentle marks with her teeth. Her lips could look so lovely, pursed and sealed under six feet of dirt.

The only difference between last night and now was that Alaska had the added guilt of what she'd almost done. Resisting the darkest urges plaguing her last minutes hadn't been some epiphany about life being precious. It hadn't conjured a desire to keep going in her, rather it had twisted her arm until she felt too bad to follow through.

Alaska got out of her car and locked the doors behind her, and then headed inside. Her expression was a riddle of unspoken tragedies, one void of answers. Dark as the nearly empty parking lot she crossed through. She figured if this was some sort of joke and Thatcher and Birdie weren't there like they said, she could at least buy toothpaste.

"Welcome in, dear," an older woman croaked to Alaska when she walked in. The lady who spoke was at the register nearest the door, dawned in a pale yellow apron with writing to match the cherry red sign outside. "Milk is 75%. Our refrigerators broke so we're trying to sell all our dairy products before they spoil," she absentmindedly rattled off without sparing Alaska another glance.

Alaska curled her lips a tad at the idea of a grocery aisle of spoiler milk. "Right..." she replied to the lady, nodding slowly then averting her gaze to her feet.

"Alaska!" The girl had yet to even raise her head and glance around before she heard her name shouted. She recognized Birdie's voice, beaming and breathy as spring's breeze. Alaska hadn't heard anyone say her name so excitedly since Mason died. It stalled her for a second, kicking up a cloud of dust in her guilty lungs making her breath hitch.

Deja vu prodded at her, recalling visions of the city and how she and Mason used to roam it. Nostalgia was a pesky bastard, sneaking through your eyes, ears, even creeping under your skin at the worst of times. Alaska bit her tongue, attempting to bury those memories. For those memories were the lifeless body of a friendship ended too soon, and remembering them was to rehash her guilt.

If she didn't bring them to light in her head, no one could bear witness to her distress. Because for some odd reason Mason lived on in the stelae of eternal youth. A concept turned tragic by an early death, instead of evergreen life. And Alaska took her every breath for granted, wishing for end times.

She forced herself to stop thinking about the boy who gave her the only happiness she'd known in the city. Alaska straightened up, tugging her lips into a smile until her face was a masquerade. Birdie waved her over enthusiastically to the soda aisle. Thatcher lingered a little further down said aisle, taller than than the rickety shelves.

"Hey," Alaska greeted when she reached them. Thatcher swiftly turned on his heel, steps falling lightly as a bird's feather would. Birdie clapped her hands together gently, face alit by her bright teeth grinning. Alaska glanced at the rows of fizzy drinks, furrowing her brows. "You have a craving for off brand soda, or?" She trailed off.

"Yes, actually," Thatcher nodded, snagging a six of cans off the shelf, which made it creak and shake. He proudly presented it to the group, smirking in a way Alaska could only imagine was sarcastic. She narrowed her eyes to read the small lettering on the soda.

"Fruit crush?"

Birdie put one hand over Alaska's arm, while the other gestured at the beverage in question. "Fruit crush is Food Market's very own fizzy fruit punch." To emphasize Birdie's explanation, Thatcher gestured around the soda like it was a game show prize.

Alaska wrinkled her nose. "That doesn't sound great."

"Oh, it tastes like battery acid," Thatcher agreed. Alaska could see his eyes lighting up, boasting vibrance akin to the city flicking to life at night. A sick smile twisted his lips to boot. "And it stains your tongue blue until it looks like you gave Papa Smurf a blowjob."

In the same beat Birdie let out a groan of disgust and Alaska snorted. "Why Papa Smurf?" Birdie covered her face with her hands, concealing the red flush on the apples of her cheeks. The deep maroon pranced on her skin, drawing out warmth in her dark skin.

"Because older men are more experienced," Alaska suggested, feigning an innocently helpful rhythm until a scattered chuckle broke the facade.

Thatcher joined the chorus, bursting into a fit of laughter. Together, their voices filled the air in a dance. His boomed a bit louder, taking the lead in a guffaw like thunder crackling in the sky. While Alaska's milder laugh played the melody of a haunted violin's last note, being spun around Thatcher's delicately.

Birdie's frown deepened, her short arms crossed her chest and she groaned playfully. "You're both twisted," she mumbled.

——

"Stop, oh my god, i'm gonna be sick," Birdie hands held tightly onto the shopping cart she was sat in. It was zipping through the parking lot, speeding down to where Alaska stood. Thatcher was at the other end, watching the hurtling cart with a fist in front of his mouth.

"Thatcher, why did you push me that hard?" Birdie shouted, whipping her head back as she sailed across the concrete. Alaska wasn't positive, as Birdie was moving so fast her face practically merged into her hair, but she was pretty sure she was smiling still.

Alaska certainly was.

The sounds of the wheels squeaking crept closer, and closer Birdie nearly crashed into a blue pickup truck. At the last possible second Alaska grabbed at the end of the cart, and Birdie came to a screeching halt. This is how they had spent the last thirty minutes, just pushing each other in Food Market buggies.

Alaska was surprised with how much fun it truly was to be so stupid. There was something about the air whipping into your face, and your hair flying every which way as all control was taken away... it was electrifying, freeing.

Birdie was catching her breath, face stricken with a mixture of amusement and relief. "My past, present and future just flashed before my eyes," she breathed out a subtle laugh, shaking her head and smiling up at Alaska.

"Your life also flashed before my eyes," Alaska joked, offering Birdie a hand to help get her out of the cart. "I almost didn't catch you," she added as Birdie clamored without grace from the metal box.

"Well, if I had died it would have been on Thatcher, anyway," Birdie raised her voice and threw a beady glare in the boy's direction. Speaking of, Thatcher jogged his way over to the girls with his hands held up in defense.

"But you didn't, therefore we don't need to be mad at Thatcher for pushing you with a little extra gusto," he fruitlessly tried to reason. "I mean, everyone's been there before," he carried on, thoughtfully stroking his chin before sweeping his arm in Alaska's direction. "Sometimes you just accidentally push the shopping cart your friend is in a little too hard, right Alaska?"

"I can confidently say I have never been in that predicament," Alaska said. "To be fair though-" she gave a dramatic pause that allowed Birdie to playfully roll her eyes. "This was the first time i'd ever pushed someone around in a shopping cart, so I may just have beginners luck."

Birdie put her hand over her heart, gasping in surprise. "What?" She questioned in sheer disbelief, her eyes filled with skepticism and bubbling curiosity. "You've never pushed your friends around in a shopping cart before?" She asked as if it was the most scandalizing confession she'd ever heard.

"We popped your cherry," Thatcher cheered her, even pumping his fist above his head to celebrate. "Yay," he murmured dryly.

"Are your analogies always so horny?" Alaska quipped back, to which he shrugged. "And, no," she turned back to Birdie, and shook her head.
The night had grown cooler, traversing over the kids until their skin may as well have been blue. Alaska didn't much mind it, though Birdie was shivering slightly. "But I did used to live somewhere that you didn't have to get so creative to have fun."

"What do you do for fun in New York then?"

The phantom taste of cherry wine swirled on Alaska's tongue. The bittersweet tang carried notes of what tasted like euphoria at the time, but was now tainted. Birdie's question prompted a mirage of New York's glittering effervescence to intrude upon her eyes.

A movie was created of all the nights she had spent roaming the bustling streets, hand in hand with Mason. The two of them had been renegading souls, dancing to the same beat as the city but contrasting it all the same. Every screen had to go black, Alaska just never expected the credits to roll so soon. Now she found herself recalling the lines they'd exchanged that were now scripts she had memorized. Photo booths, live music, and sneaking into the rich kids' house parties were just metal keepsakes now.

Alaska cracked a smile, eyes dropped to her feet and her head tilting mildly from side to side. "You know, I think we've talked about me far too much," she pointedly looked between the two kids. "What about you guys? What do you do for fun besides nearly total shopping carts?"

"Why don't we show you instead?" Birdie smirked.

"Well, I have always been a visual learner..."

The truth about New York was that the ashes of who she used to be were scattered there. That city would always be home to the part of her that first discovered grief, sex, passion, piano, and more than those things, who she was. When she was exiled by the reaper who took her mother's life she was leaving behind more than busy streets an a shitty apartment.

Her best friend's grave was there, perched beneath rarely beneath a beautiful tree in the shade. The flowers his mother brought every week would no longer be accompanied by the whites roses Alaska left. The boys and girls who Alaska spent nights tangled in lust with would move on. The coffee shop on seventh would grow old apart from her, forgetting the seat she used to write poetry in. And the four walls of her apartment that knew her better than anyone else would become a stranger.

New York City was full of faces she'd always remember and names she'd already forgot. And she owed the city a debt of joy for all it did for her.

~If Alaska were in another piece of media, what would it be?~

Hello lovely readers! Honestly? I hated this chapter. I don't feel like I wrote it well, but I would like to remind myself and you guys that this is a first draft and will be fixed at some point! If you did still enjoy, please tell me in the comments and consider voting if you liked what your read! Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!