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Chapter One: It's Something


Kelsey sat in the window, staring out at the city skyline while the air conditioner blew, ruffling her hair and chilling her toes. She hugged her knees to her chest. She imagined all the people that belonged in all the windows of all the buildings that filled the picture window's view. How many of them were leading perfectly normal lives, with everyday choices like what to eat for lunch and whether or not to go see a movie that night, rather than the things she was facing. She sighed, a deep, rattling sigh.

The door to the room clicked and opened and Desmond came in balancing two McDonalds cups and a giant bag of food that made the whole room instantly smell like fryer grease and salt. He put the bag and sweaty drinks down on the table. "I got a job," he announced.

Kelsey swallowed, "Where?"

"McDonalds," he said. He opened the bag and rustled around in it, pulled out a fish sandwich and one of the containers of fries. He walked over and handed it to Kelsey along with her drink. He pulled a straw from the brim of his hat, popped the paper off by banging it against his knee, and stuck it into her cup lid. "It's only temporary, until I can find a better one, obviously," he said, "But you really can't knock McDonalds. You know they pay you twelve bucks an hour to flip burgers? And benefits?"

Kelsey sat up and let her feet slide off the air conditioner, "McDonalds offers benefits?"

"Apparently. If you work full time. I'm only part time. But who knows, maybe it'll be worth sticking around for." He tipped his hat off his head, perched it on the TV, and grabbed the remaining food and drink. He threw himself into a chair next to her. "I mean it's not Hollywood, but it's something."

"Yeah," she nodded.

"I didn't find any apartments in our range, though. At least not that didn't look like something dracula would eat his victims at anyways," Desmond said. "I'm wondering if we might do better trying to find a small house and financing."

Kelsey sighed.

"I know, you don't wanna commit to anything as big as a house yet," Desmond said, nodding. He opened his own straw and shoved it into the McDonalds cup. "I'm really trying here, you know? I really think this town is the answer. I think it's gonna help." He looked over at her, an almost pleading expression on his face.

Kelsey studied the fish sandwich, picking at the triangluar bits of cheese that stuck out from under the bun lid. "I know you are Des, I'm just -- I'm tired, you know?"

"I know," he replied.

"After everything that happened back home, sometimes I feel like it might be easier to just give up," she confessed.

Desi shook his head, "It wouldn't be." He paused. "Kels, you saw so much hope in this city when we got here. Remember? Standing on the balcony out there, the hope radiating like sunshine?"

"Maybe I don't deserve hope."

"You deserve hope."

Kelsey took a bite of the fish sandwich. "Did you look into AA?" she asked.

Desmond nodded. He chewed thoughtfully on a french fry. "There's a church down the street. They run weekly meetings. There's one tonight. I might walk down to it."

"Good." Kelsey nodded.

Desmond studied her and stuck the remainder of the french fry into his mouth. "Kels." She looked up from the food. "I know I've let you down in the past, but... not anymore. You deserve a better friend than I've been to you."

A tiny fragment of smile twitched her lips and she said, "Desi, you try your hardest. I can't expect more than that, nobody can. You got me this far, right?"

He could feel things building, words on the tip of his tongue that didn't quite form. He wanted to blurt them out, to speak them to her in oracles and sonnets and make her understand exactly how he felt. But the words caught in his throat and instead of telling her everything, he opened the lid of his burger and peeled a pickle out of the sauce and held it out. "Pickle?" he asked.

She took it.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten the pickle on his burger from McDonalds.

"I'm going to abstain from men," she commented suddenly.

"Going rainbow on me?" he joked.

Kelsey laughed, "No... Just... I need a break from men. Especially after everything with Luke."

Desi nodded, chewing. He was glad he had a mouthful of burger to keep him from saying all the crap he could've about Luke. Not the least of which being a scathing remark about the definition of real men. He said them all in his head instead.

"Maybe I'll take a nice bubble bath while you're at the AA meeting tonight," she said.

He nodded. She'd taken three since they'd been there. The apartment she'd shared with Luke hadn't had a deep enough tub, and she'd heard someone say that taking a bath pregnant wasn't safe. Though that had turned out to be a wives tale upon researching it more, she'd still been afraid to take one. Afraid of what might happen if she did. Not that it mattered any longer...

But Desmond did like the way she smelled when she came out of a bath. Like fruit and coconut and something else, some kind of flower that made him think of a pastel bluish-purple color. He'd smelt it the first time she'd taken the bath and he'd had all he could do to stay sitting on his own bed, reading the free newspaper he'd found in the lobby. He'd looked over and watched her open a bottle of nail polish and paint her toes mango and wondered what it would be like to hold her. He'd wondered that for ages, but the smell of her post-bath really increased the desire.

"I really appreciate you looking into AA," Kelsey said.

Desmond nodded.

"I just don't want to go through anything like I did with Luke again," she added.

"I understand. I respect that." Desmond nodded.

"You really think things are gonna get better?" Kelsey questioned.

Desmond shrugged, "They can't get any worse."

She laughed.

"I think they're better already," he added.

Kelsey nodded, "Yeah, maybe."

After they'd finished eating - mostly in silence from that point forward - and watched the city lights turn on, Desmond stood up and took his hat from its perch on the top of the TV set. He balled the empty McDonalds packaging into one of the bags. "I guess I'll go to the meeting thing then," he said, and he stood by the door.

"Okay," Kelsey replied. She put her feet back up on the air conditioner and went back to her business of watching the windows and dreaming about the people that lived behind them.