"I plan on either getting into a fight, or laid at this party." Thatcher tried to tame his mane of hair by combing his tawny hands through it. The inky locks only slipped back in protest, befriending the breeze to rebel against Thatcher himself. "It's been awhile since I've done something stupid, doc says it's because the meds are working," he sighed dramatically. Thatcher pointed to his chest, pausing his steps to glance back at Alaska momentarily. "Now me? I say all they're doing is depriving the world of my full potential to be an idiot."

The moon hung proudly in the sky, welcoming the stars to join it in lighting up the night. A week had passed by, the days rolled on like frail tumbleweeds destined to be drab. Alaska, Birdie and Thatcher had spent more time together, and luckily those two had a knack for making the dullest moments glimmer. Alaska was sure Melissa Garth's birthday party wouldn't change their exuberance.

Alaska's boots fell in pace with Thatcher, moving quicker to compensate for his gawky limbs. She listened carefully to the light tread of Birdie's sneakers. Birdie's feet traversed the cracked pavement behind them, the height discrepancy between the three made her trail behind. Alaska's had tuned her ears to pick up on any shift in the rhythm of her steps to ensure they didn't too far ahead of her.

"If it makes you feel better, I never would have guessed you weren't at your full potential," Alaska offered, smiling dryly to herself when Birdie huffed a stifled laugh. The air wrapped it's arms around Alaska, blowing strands of hair away from her face cooly. Autumn was reconciling with the earth, returning from it's grave and beginning it's short cycle of life and death again. The leaves were yellowing, aging like weathered book pages- profound in that the fall months could tell stories just the same.

"Oddly?" He mused, tilting his head in Alaska's direction dramatically. Thatcher dropped his hand on her shoulder heavily, and met her eyes deeply. "It does," he finally nodded, then was back on his merry way.

Alaska exhaled through her nose, and felt her chest swell with amusement as she watched Thatcher's jaunty steps. His limber legs carried him buoyantly, making each stride seem light as a feather. Alaska had noticed Thatcher's body language traveled all throughout him in the same way. A certain twinge of theatricality was his keeper in this respect.

"He's like a gazelle," Alaska snarked to Birdie, smirking shallowly. Their feet slowed, and they stared as he just kept walking on without them.

Birdie's hand slipped over her hips, resting them in place while staring ahead. Her deep brown eyes focused on Thatcher's back, and her mouth became formed of fireflies who's wings carried the corners of her lips up. "A very unobservant gazelle," she agreed, snorting as he continued on unbothered. "He's gonna get up to the door before he realizes we aren't following him," she chuckled.

Like clockwork, just before Thatcher reached Melissa's front door he stopped. Frowning, he turned of his heel a huffed. "Come on, kids," he convoked, sighing brashly after placing on hand on his hip and gesturing for them like a tired mother. "You're lagging behind," he added. He spoke louder, near shouting in a struggle for power over the blaring music expelling from the teenage rager going on inside.

Alaska's head was facing the ground, watching each infinitesimal crack which littered it. The cement had a thousand cuts wounding it, laying waste to it like a broken soldier. From the gashes in the sidewalk, tiny flowers sprouted up to grow in the destruction. It reminded Alaska of the dandelions that returned in eternal life over Mason's grave each spring.

Each time Alaska was blessed to feel happy, it came hand in hand with guilt.

Kids were scattered over the lawn, moving their feet to the music but missing each beat. Slurred shouts ricocheted from every angle, piercing her ears which were caught in the crossfire. Their voices all stuck out somehow, loud and messy and drifting into the atmosphere as orbs of color. Alaska was peering through a kaleidoscope, vision exposed to droves of voices all floating past her brightly.

Drunk people spoke a language only decipherable when intoxicated. Teenagers were yelling over the music, but their words melted together as if their tongue was a flame. Alaska couldn't pick apart a single word from the cacophony. This was definitely her type of scene. Despite the twinges of guilt clutching onto her heart, Alaska lowly grinned.

"I hope people inside are more coherent." Birdie crinkled her nose, finding the vile sight of two kids choking one another with their tongues. Alaska smirked, clapping Birdie on the shoulder before walking onward.

"The yard is usually overflow for the people who are already so drunk they're vomiting," Alaska said, casting a glance over her shoulder. "In my experience, anyway."

——

"Where do you think Thatcher is?" Birdie asked. She took a small sip from the red solo cup in her hand, it happened to be filled by juice with a splash of alcohol. She'd been nursing the same beverage for awhile now, even after the hour or so they'd been at the party. She must have been the only sober one in the entire house.

Alaska gingerly ran her fingertip across the rim of her cup. The little scribbles written across her arm were faded, however she was sure that soon enough they'd be filled back up with her lists and whatnot. Her expression was a candle flicking in the hollow light of a dim room, aglow with the ecstatic vibrance of the setting. Birdie and herself say on the floor across from each other, with the soles of their shoes pressed together.

Solitude gifted them it's presence, to graciously harbor them from the hurricane outside the room. Alaska's smile didn't diminish when her eyes shifted to the closed door, to watch the shadows of people's shoes pass it by under the frame. The world outside coasted on without them, anthemic music screeched and kids got into trouble while they escaped for a bit.

"Getting laid, or in a fight if I had to guess," Alaska chuckled. The rings on her fingers quietly tapped against the plastic receptacle, playing an absentminded tune for them. "Though, I think we're in the only unoccupied room, so probably the latter."

"As long as he gets his energy out somehow," Birdie sarcastically remarked, and batted a hand carelessly. She ran a hand across the top of her head, and Alaska watched as her fingers rose and fell against the coiled texture. "He's probably already wasted," Birdie laughed, flicking her stare to the clock hanging over Alaska's head. "I have no idea how Melissa even managed to get so much booze."

"Fake ID?" Alaska shrugged.

"Everyone here knows each other." Birdie smiled, adding to the warmth in the room like a million little candles flickering between them. "There's no way the guy who owns the liquor store wouldn't recognize her and cut it up," she added, before pausing to sip her drink. "Guess that's not how it is in New York, huh?"

"Knowing everyone in New York would be like trying to find the needle in the hay stack by moving the hay straw by straw," Alaska mumbled, shaking her head down at her lap. "So, how long do you think I've got before the gas station I get cigarettes from realizes my name isn't Sapphire Celeste?"

"Sapphire Celeste?" Birdie incredulously questioned, before throwing her head back laughing. "That is not the name on your fake ID! I don't believe it," she replied, and gently nudged Alaska's foot with her own.

Alaska gasped jokingly, and placed a hand over her mouth the disguise her crooked grin. "My, my Birdie Maye. Are you calling me a liar?" She cocked her head to the side and challenged Birdie silently by raising her eyebrow. A playful, sprite made home in Alaska's gaze and sparked a glimmering array of dizzyingly luster inside her irises.

"Yes, I'm absolutely calling you a liar," Birdie nodded quickly.

Alaska clicked her tongue against her teeth, to next pull her wallet out of the pocket of her jacket. Her jacket which was draped on the floor beside her. She flipped it open, revealing the little plastic card sitting behind the clear plastic cover at the front of the wallet. "Sapphire Celeste, just as promised."

Birdie snatched Alaska's wallet from her hand, and stared open mouthed at the name. "Wow, your name is Sapphire Celeste," Birdie muttered in joyous disbelief. "You were born in 1971 which makes you..." Birdie trailed off, and began to count on her fingers. "Twenty five," she realized with a scoff. She narrowed her eyes at the tiny writing, a smirk clinging for dear life onto her lips. "And you have brown eyes," Birdie leaned away from the card, blinking her doe eyes at Alaska brightly.

When Birdie met her gaze, she purposefully maintained contact with her very green eyes. Alaska rose her hand defensively, but that couldn't distract from the sly mischief radiating from her form. "They look different depending on the lighting," she breathed airily, pressing her lips into a line to stop her from breaking into a grin.

"I'm sure they do, Sapphire," Birdie said. "Does the lighting also age you nine years?" She asked.

"What can I say, sixty watt is too harsh on my skin tone," Alaska shrugged. She was resigned to watching Birdie begin to paw through the black bifold, and glance at her actual ID. Alaska knit her brows when Birdie looked inside the side pocket. "If you're looking for a condom you're out of luck, I gave my last one to Thatcher," she joked.

There was this moment- this fleeting flash of time where Alaska was frozen. She lacked haste, and nerve and her hands wouldn't have been fast enough to stop Birdie from pulling out the photos she was tugging on. The photo booth pictures were forgotten, laid to rest in the pocket Birdie had been searching innocently. Unlike the night she and Mason had taken them, the photos seeped to the back of her mind and served only as a vessel to shatter her all over again.

Her eyes were distant, exiled from this moment and dragged to the past. Alaska internally vied to not become buried six feet under into the grave of that night. The world above was the happiness attached to Mason's memory, if only Alaska had ever been one to delve into joy before ache. The ground opened up for her, an invisible force had her by the ankle and was tugging her. The earth slipped past her grasp, there was dirt beneath her cracked nails- she couldn't cling onto to anything to stop her from falling into her personal hell.

Because... no matter how frantically she tried to latch onto the happiness, the darkness already had her by the ankle. It always did.

"Who is this?" Birdie's pleasant curiosity foreignly filled Alaska's ears. Between her careful fingertips lived the set of pictures, brooding at Alaska and daring her to relive the truth. She and Mason had been beaming, but those smiles were nothing but a daunting foe now. Alaska's chest rigidly drew in a breath, forcing herself not to let it hitch. The weight of dirt being throw over her ribcage made a massacre of her former, buzzed mirth. Her throat was closing, or perhaps insects were crawling into it.

Alaska was being buried alive by the calamitous abundance of despair she couldn't outrun.

Still, she offered a half-smile in the afterglow of her funeral. "His name was Mason," Alaska's voice was the smoke erupting into the air once the candles were extinguished. A thin veil of cheer expanded over her eyes, seizing her gaze with false merriment to mask the bittersweet taste on her tongue. Alaska's hand crept up to her collar, and her cold touch gently soothed herself as she ran a hand across her collarbone.

"Was?"

The question rattled the air, screaming volumes in the silence that followed. Alaska found her body to fight her, trying to do anything besides keep still. Her hands went to her rings, the hem of her shirt, her hair, whatever she could fiddle with. Everything was static noise in the background. The thrill of the party outside the door dimmed, even the music seemed to bow it's head in respectful silence to Alaska. She'd become good at tuning out all the noise.

Alaska took a sip of her drink, cheap whiskey. Bittersweet as she was, and stomach turning when she realized it reflected the taste of what had been in Mason's flask. The cruel dusk he'd uttered that he was sick and dying lived on in Alaska's mind, stuck between depression and acceptance. Lambent was the soft radiance of Alaska's billowing, ghostly and mournful soul. She was one with the autumn leaves, in that she grieved for the part of herself she lost in every early death she'd experienced.

"Something I've learned over the years," Alaska eventually piped up, keeping her words tightly tethered in her mind so they didn't unravel. The noise filled her throat, ravaged as the last song from a lark's beak before the reaper's visit. "Is that the places you stay, the feelings you bury, the passions you have-" Alaska paused, lips twitching up sadly as a sheen decorated her eyes.

A knowing edge traipsed through her voice, wondering if Birdie recalled their conversation in the music room. "The people you know..." Alaska shook her head, fending off the frown sabotaging her illustrious act. She pressed her back into the wall behind her, smiling like she was about to cry. "None of it lasts forever. Nothing does."

Delicate as Alaska's fragile tone came Birdie's cautious stare. The other girl swept a hand to her mouth, gingerly unfurling her fist to cover her lips. The picture remained in her grasp, however Birdie couldn't seem to look at it anymore. "Are you saying that he..."

"He died," Alaska nodded, finishing the sentence that hung on the tip of Birdie's tongue. She ran a hand over her forehead and blinked away those pesky tears of her's. A play enacted before Alaska on Birdie's expression. Like the transition from act one, to act two Birdie's perception of Alaska was dismantled into a pensive rhythm of pity.

Perhaps in spite of herself, Birdie couldn't help the next spill from her lips. "How did he die?" She asked, before regret swarmed and stung her with guilt. "Sorry, you don't have to answer. I shouldn't have asked, that was so rude-"

"It's okay, Birdie," Alaska assured softly, smiling somewhat as she rambled. "He found out he was sick and died a few months after being diagnosed. Those pictures are actually from the night he told me he was dying, a couple years ago." The raw, and bitter twang was vulnerable as an exposed vein. Alaska would have clawed her arm open with her bare hands, and ripped out each vein in her body if it meant this ache diminished. If it meant her visceral, vile bloodline be spilled- so be it.

After all, Alaska could hang herself from her barren family tree with a noose made of her bloodline's sins.

"You kept his picture all this time?"

Alaska tipped her cup back, draining the contests into her mouth. It burned as she swallowed, it stung like road rash on her throat. "Better than to forget." These words left Alaska on instinct, leaving before her mind could possibly catch up to her mouth. "There was a lot worth remembering about Mason," she said fondly, recalling the memories that brought life to his humble legacy. "I practically learned how to walk beside him, I knew his faults and mistakes but above anything else I knew how kind, and warm he was," she continued. "He was the type of person that could make you forget how much of a mess you were, just by being near him."

Birdie mustered up a dreary smile when Alaska huffed a mournful chuckle. "I'm sorry I never met him," she offered quietly, tapping her shoe deeper into Alaska's as a reminder she was right there beside her. "I know that if you loved him like that he must have been someone special."

"He was, he was," Alaska nodded. Truth was, Birdie sometimes reminded Alaska of him. But that was a thought she didn't need to voice right now. "Sorry for rambling," she chuckled, expelling the dirt from her lungs by way of a shaky sigh. "I talk a lot when I'm buzzed."

"No, don't apologize," Birdie chided. Her stare became faraway, lost in a constellation of thoughts. There was an elusive darkness renegading through Birdie's wandering eyes, until she returned to the present and softly sighed. "I'm so sorry, Alaska," she almost whispered. "I can't imagine how much that must have hurt... I think I would die if I ever lost Thatcher."

Alaska was taken off guard by how genuinely Birdie's sympathy blustered into the air. When Mason had died the only person who offered her amiability was her school's guidance counselor, and Mason's family. Her mother's mind was lost in the slurred translations of reality her wasted mind sputtered, to comprehend such a loss. Asking her mother to try and understand the pain would have been like asking a ghost to mourn the living.

Alaska didn't know what to say to Birdie, so she didn't.

If everyone had a path in life, Alaska's was a hazardous highway. It was paved by loss, and every turn revealed a cross stuck into the earth, branding her with a newly extinguished life. Outsiders would merge into her lane, and elapse the grave markers like anyone did when driving past the flower ridden remembrances. She would know who each petal was for, though. In fact, Alaska would tediously choose each little flower in the bouquet, and would carve each name into the cross herself.

And then she'd continue down her road, leaving the loss in her wake but seeing it in her rearview.

Luckily for Alaska, the sound of shouting outside the door fractured the silence for her. One of the loud voices belonged to none other than Thatcher, and as it continued on the rest of the party got quiet. "That doesn't sound good," Birdie hastily said, collecting herself from the ground.

"Sure doesn't."

~do you listen to music while you read? If so, were you listening to anything while reading this chapter?~

Hello lovely readers!! Woohoo, another chapter down! How did you guys like it? I know it was a longer one, so I apologize for that! I hope you enjoyed it still, and if you did please be sure to tell me in the comments and vote on this chapter! Thank you so so much for reading, and as always, have a good day/night!