2019-04-03 - Dream A Little Dream Of Me

It was a quiet morning at the B&B when Alex rises and readies himself for the work day. It's not unusual, there were days when Logan and his not-dead-wife leave the house and he's got the place to himself. Though he won't be able to recall precisely what was served for breakfast, he goes to prepare a plate in the dining room, where Logan's left a small portable radio on somewhere, though he won't be able to figure out where it's at. The music is very quiet and full of intermittent static, but Alex can pick out the of 'Por Amarte Asi'. The piano and guitar accompaniment sound off though. Amateurish. It must be the reception; surely there was no version of this song played on a Casio keyboard in spite of how it sounds.

But there's work to be done, Alex, no time to figure out where the song was coming from. When he rides his bicycle to work, he passes by the coffee shop and hears the music from the speakers inside floating out here to the street. I'll make love to you, if you want me to, the music follows him down the road for a turn or three of bicycle wheels before it's lost. The parking lot of the hospital is thin this morning, and as Alex locks his bike in the rack, he might notice the beginning of a fog rolling in off the streets. There's a specific entrance for hospital employees (this is where his badge always comes in handy) but today, construction signs lead him through the front doors instead, into the lobby with the receptionist who is always filing her nails. Today is no exception.

There's no one else in the lobby. The lights seem brighter, glowing white, but the one above the receptionist's desk is subtly swaying. It bathes her in consistent shadow, swirling like snakes along her arms, her face, and though she routinely doesn't look at anyone when they approach? She's all smiles for him this morning. "Good morning, Doctor Reyes," she lilts, her voice charming and pleasant. Maybe that smile is even a little flirty. In her freshly manicured nails, she produces a pink slip of paper, which she flicks at him. "Your daughter called. She said it's very important. She said to call this number when you get in," and when she hands him the paper, she purposefully slips her fingers along his hand, a smooth caress until the very end, when she nicks the knuckle of his thumb with her nail. It stings. "Oops. Sorry. I just got them done."

Alex, who is from Normal Places, doesn't have that twitchy hindbrain that makes him question what are obviously just little coincidences. He likes those songs, they're familiar to him, and if they happen to be romantic songs... well, he's not going to put together those little pieces right away. But he's pestered in a small, unfamiliar way that he can't quite put his finger on when he rolls up to work, intending to pass right by Marilyn at reception, because he's not in the mood for her, now. Not that they ever talk, but yeah.

"Excuse me?" comes out of him with surprised sharpness, and he looks at her weirdly. She looks weird, and the look that he gives her for looking weird is also weird. He back-tracks to the desk, tacking on a quick, polite, "Good morning," like he still realizes pissing off the receptionist (even if she looks fucking weird today) is bad juju. There's no particular method in his mind for dealing with this situation, that caress, that sting, so he frowns at her for a moment before concluding, "Thank you. They look very..." Something. He doesn't say what. And looks at the paper, looks at her, and walks the fuck away, to the opening of the adjacent hallway.

He turns his back to her mostly, keeping her in his peripheral vision while he dials this unfamiliar number, phone-to-ear now.

It's odd, because the number isn't Sophia's, but it's not unfamiliar either. It's one of those things that itches in the back of the brain, like he knows this number but just can't put his finger on it. But hey, that's probably just a coincidence too, right? Marilyn's smile grows wide as he compliments her nails, and she tap-tap-taps them across her desk. "Thank you," she coos, the tapping continuing at a steady beat as she watches him walk away, to the opening of the hallway.

She put a scratch on his thumb, took a little nibble off the skin. When he dials the number, he even notices a thin speck of blood rising to the surface. But when he lifts the phone to his ear, there's nothing. No ring. The screen reads: SERVICE UNAVAILABLE. "Doctor Reyes?" Marilyn's rising to her feet - she's wearing heels. She is very tall. "Isn't your office over there?" Those sharp nails point to the elevator.

Alex, when that phone doesn't connect, after giving it a terse little frown like it is to blame for not being correct, taps out a text to Sophia. Short and sweet: Everything is okay?

That's when he notices the well of blood, while he's looking at his thumbs, and he rubs the one with the other, swiping the blood off his finger and having nowhere appropriate to put it. He can't just wipe it on himself, so he smudges his fingers for now to spread it out as much as possible. In a minute, he's gonna wind up washing his hands and putting on gloves, so. "Excuse me?" for the second time, when he looks up distractedly from his phone to very tall Marilyn. "Yes, thank you. Are you sure about this message?" Fading back toward her desk, he holds the note in between his index and middle fingers, turning it so her writing is visible to her.

Poor Alex's phone is just not cooperating today. He sends the message, but beside the text, a little circle spins and spins. Sending...sending.. message undelivered. He doesn't even have any bars. Marilyn just stands there, file in hand, poised to her fingernails like she's going to start sharpening them again, when he comes over. Was she ALWAYS this tall? On those heels, she stands a whole head over him! It means she has to lean down - down down down - to see her writing on the ticket. "Yes," she is sure, flashing him a big smile while she's down there, and then stretches back up. "I'll get the elevator for you."

The click-click-click of her heels upon the tile floor was sharp. When she leaves the desk, the lights seem to lean, keeping her in the shadows. With her nail file, she pokes the button to call the elevator, and the doors open with a quiet swish. "In you go," she instructs, with a gesture of the file.

Alex does what any normal human does when there are no bars: he turns off the receiver and then he turns it back on, expecting this will solve his problem. It doesn't, and just adds to his aggravation. He looks back and forth between this broken phone and Marilyn, milling around for a moment, pocketing the message that's obviously wrong, woman. "Hmm," is all he says about that, just not willing to get into it with the receptionist. Again, bad juju.

"No, I'm - " Having ISSUES with his phone, does not want to get into the elevator right away. But he also doesn't want to stand here, being looked down upon by a woman who can't even take a goddamn message correctly. So in he goes, eyes particularly black for a moment when they follow her, jaw working with a file of his teeth behind his lips. "Thank you." He hopes she dies now, but manages a false smile at her.

This day, Alex has decided, sucks. So badly that he won't even comment on the lights, though he's gonna call facilities as soon as he gets to his office, count on it.

"Have a good day, Doctor Reyes!" Marilyn chimes, reaching into the elevator to be oh-so-helpful in pressing the button there, too. She extracts her hand before the elevator closes around it, and he can see her wiggling her fingers at him. The ones with the nails that seem too sharp, particularly when the swing of the light catches the tips and they glint.

But hey, this day sucks. The elevator whirls, and there's this sensation that he's going up, but that's not possible since the button is definitely pushed to take him to the right floor. The speaker in the corner of the elevator flickers in with a good amount of static, and a song filters out. 'You're Still the One' by Shania Twain, odd choice for elevator muzak, especially since the song turns on at the chorus rather than the beginning. Clearly, things were on the fritz today. Damn old buildings.

But as Shania was saying: Look how far we've come my baby the elevator comes to a stop and the doors swish open. This was his floor, no doubt about it. But man, it's kinda weird how all the doors to the various offices are so dang tall, except for his own, which is as short as he is. Have they always been like that? Probably.

Alex hits the speaker. Not hard, just with the flat of his hand. He's irritated, and there's no one in this elevator to see him, and that song is making him more irritated, so he whacks the speaker briefly. It doesn't do anything, maybe makes him feel a little better, but also makes his thumb bleed again. There's a 'what the fuck' mumble spilling out of him when he turns his attention upward, toward the numbers.

And maybe this is a dream. Alex is the type of person that would know things like how to tell if you're dreaming. Step one: check your watch. The numbers are there, the dial seems to be working right, so probably this isn't a dream. Plus, thinking back, he read that message just fine and - he steps out of the elevator and into bizarro-hallway. Composure be damned, he's sweating now, prying his fingers at the knot of his tie. "Hello?" He knocks his knuckles on one of the big doors, rap-rap-rap, then the next one. "Doctor Stevens? Hello?" In front of his own wee door, he stops, swallows, and has finally worked the knot of that tie loose enough to unbutton his collar behind it. Now he can open the door to his office, where he can go in and start his day and everything will be perfectly normal.

The only thing hitting the speaker does is make the music louder, Alex. Now it's screaming: LOOK HOW FAR WE'VE COME MY crackle crackle BAAABBYYY. Good job.

At least the music stops once the doors shut closed and the elevator goes elsewhere. Doctor Stevens sounds grouchy this morning when his door is knocked on: "I'm on the phone!" he hisses through the door, and Alex can see shadows creep. Maybe it's a bad morning for everyone. At least his office seems normal.

Normal except for the stack of pink 'Missed a Call' messages that sit right next to his phone. Every single one is in the same handwriting, with the same exact familiar-but-unfamiliar phone number. There's at least a dozen. If he tries to pick up the phone, there's a dial tone! So it'll work. Maybe.

Alex does not shout at Stevens, but he totally mutters, "Fuck you, too," under his breath before he moves on.

Inside the safe familiarity of his own office, where - as he knew it would be - everything is perfectly normal, Alex sets about restarting his daily routine from this point. He quits his coat, hangs it up, pulls on his lab coat instead, clips his badge to it, and settles down at his desk, behind his computer, to get things rolling. The stack of messages gets a side-eye, cross, and he takes out his cell phone one last time. Hope springs eternal, after all. Maybe the reason he (and Stevens and Marilyn and the lights and the elevator) all seem off is related to the reason his fucking cell phone doesn't work.

That's too big a problem for one (small) man to solve. So he takes the top message, crumbles the rest in his fist, drops them into the otherwise empty waste can, and picks up the desk phone. He dials the number on all the messages, cradling the phone with his shoulder so he can put his password into his computer. He does not hum Shania fucking Twain... at least, not once he realizes he's doing it.

Perfectly normal, that's what this office was. The telephone call on the other hand...

The phone begins to ring as soon as the numbers are dialed. Once, twice, three times the charm, before the person on the other end picks up. The reception is fairly clear, but the voice is muffled. The woman on the other end sounds ten years younger than she is today, out of breath, and pissed.

"Hello? Alex? God, it's about fucking time. Didn't you get any of my messages? I told that stupid receptionist it's an emergency." It's not Sophia. It's her. Amy. That's what that phone number is, the land line to the deluxe apartment (in the skkkkkyyyy) where he sang to Amy that she was still the one oh so long ago. "Look, they want to put Sophia in the advanced ballet class and you didn't answer my calls so I just went ahead and put it on the credit card. Fifteen hundred. It's important, Alex."

He'd absolutely remember this conversation, as it happened oh so long ago.

Alex's hackles raise immediately. That voice just gets right into his brain, makes him stop trying to move the mouse around on his computer so it will hurry up and let him get to his messages, since now it's important that he uses that hand to hold the top of his head. You know, so it doesn't blow right off when his blood starts to boil. "Did you seriously - " That's as far as he gets, the snippy tone doing him no good since she plows right on ahead. Because she plowed right on ahead when they actually had this conversation.

Back then, Alex had words to say. They were not all kind words, some of them were words about whether or not she had even asked Sophia first, and some of them were tired words, about how it was fine, that's fine, whatever she needed to do, he'd move the money around. Right now, confused Alex has no words. So other than the initial attempt to snipe at her for using his daughter's name instead of her own? There's silence on his end of the line. He holds his head, his fingers moving against his scalp, and his eyes searching the desk in front of him for some sort of inspiration about WTF is going on here.

He's not entirely sure where "upstate" is, but he definitely doesn't want to have to go there. 🙁 So snap out of it, Alex.

"Did I seriously what?" This was Amy, clapping right back. "Seriously do what's best for our daughter? Yes, Alex, yes I did. Are you seriously not even going to say anything right now?" Big sigh, one could practically hear in her voice that she was pinching the bridge of her nose. She was definitely going to have a headache tonight. And for every night following for the next month. "You know, maybe if you weren't so short with money," that's an odd turn of phrase. Wasn't it tight with money? "We wouldn't have this issue. Do you want to disappoint your daughter, Alex? Disappoint her like you disappoint me."

Oh 😕 That's not how the conversation went before. Back before, when he had things to say.

There's nothing on the desk that explains what's going on. But if he's looking for inspiration, it's in the picture frame beside the phone, the photograph that used to be just Sophia but was now one of those horribly overpriced studio photos of the three of them, him and Sophia and Amy, where they were posed and happy. Well. Fake happy. It was the same photograph he had on his desk, when he worked that soul-sucking job and had this conversation that wasn't quite this conversation but still would probably end the same. You know, with Alex not getting any for awhile.

Why would Alex get roped into an argument that he doesn't need to have now, and didn't need to have back then? Why wouldn't he just end this bizarre call and figure out how to wake up from this bizarre dream? Because some people just know how to push other people's buttons, and Amy knew how to push Alex's. "What do you want me to say? You spent the money, it's done." He'll just be laying that picture face down on the desk now, tyvm, and then go back to scratching the top of his bowed head, leaning over the phone.

"Did you even ask her?" All the old familiar punches. "This ballet - this is your shit, not hers, not mine, your unresolved shit, so stop putting it on her." Alex just makes her go to math camp, so clearly he is a better parent, since STEM is important and ballet is stupid. "Congratulations, you spent fifteen hundred bucks on something she doesn't even want to do. I'll be sure to bring home a gold star, just for you." He sounds as tired of this conversation now as he did then, so just hang up, dude. He looks longingly at the cradle for the receiver.

There's a huffy sound on the other end. This was Amy, rolling her eyes. "Ask her? Of course I asked her. I actually talk to our daughter, Alex. Unlike you. All you do is work. I just want.." There's a crackle of static on the line, Amy's voice goes in and out for half a second, before the words become clear again.

Now, her voice sounds older. Tired. Like they've been at this for awhile. There's another little nip to his thumb, like the scratch from the receptionist earlier, except higher up and seemingly from out of nowhere. Another scratch, a thin line of blood. ".. The money, Alex. We're already going to have to sell the house, so you can get your half, and that's going to destroy her. She's lived here practically all her life and now whenever she comes back home, she's going to have to go somewhere else." They had this fight too, a week before arbitration, when her lawyer made the demand for half of the savings that Alex had put away for Sophia's college fund. Amy was good with the guilt. It wasn't about her, it was about Sophia, and what he was doing to Sophia, even if she asked for the divorce in the first place. "If you just sign the papers, we don't have to do this. We don't have to put her through this. It's just money."

Alex mumbles at her in Spanish during that static, because it pisses her off when he mumbles at her in Spanish, and it's one of the little ways to stick it to her. Since sticking it to her in a big way was off the table now. Then comes the nip - then the blood - and his hand trembles with the phone in it. Trembles enough that he drops the phone to his desk, making a plasticky-loud clatter, but not loud enough to drown out the voice still coming through the speaker.

Briefly floundering, he takes stock of what he can possibly do in this situation. Take his pulse? He starts to do that, fingers to his wrist, but her voice is still spilling out, so he can't even concentrate to count the beats. So, with shaking breath, he folds his hands and closes his eyes and sifts through his memory. The guy goes to Mass every Sunday, and went every Sunday while Amy was doing Amy-things - poolside or nails or he honestly didn't even know (or care) by the end. "Loving God, you are always near to me, especially when I am weak, suffering, and vulnerable. Lift my burdens, calm my fears. In the name of the Father," and everyone knows the rest. He'll just be here crossing himself and mumbling snippets of remembered verses that seem appropriate.

Because religious.

"Are you even listening to me?" Amy barks from the other end, and the phone was on the desk but she was still coming out of it loud and clear. "Are you PRAYING? Oh my GOD, Alex, do you really think God can help you right now?" the laugh that filters through is a mocking one, it practically takes shape and reaches out of the phone to take another bite of him. But even with his head bowed, he can feel something isn't right - his gut reaction to get out of the way is a good one, maybe God even takes the wheel for a second to jerk him out of the way. When he opens his eyes? He'll see shadows curling out of the phone's speaker, twisting and coalescing there onto his desk.

Shadows that were trying to take a bite out of him. Shadows that instead extend to flip the photo back around so that it faces him. It's just Sophia again. Sophia as she was today, smiling so big and proud .. holding an ultrasound photo that's been blown up. The frame around the photograph reads in happy letters: I'M GONNA BE A BIG SISTER! The shadows slip back into the phone. They were never here.

The speaker crackles. Amy's voice fades out. Then it comes in again. This conversation wasn't so long ago. Just a month at best. "I'm pregnant, Alex. Sophia's so happy. Phil's so happy. It's everything we've always wanted."

The phone just tried to eat Alex. The phone that Alex wants to hang up very badly now? Just tried to eat him. So he can't just reach over there and hang it up, because it tried to eat him. His hands unfold from that prayer, blood dried in a scrape on his thumb, and he flails backward from the desk with the shadows and the picture that he definitely wouldn't have framed, barely getting out of the shitty chair before it tips over. The receiver continues to inform him of how happy everyone is, and he grabs the base of the phone with both hands and yanks it off the desk, pulling the cord straight out of the wall.

The maintenance guy is going to be pissed at him.

Everything he says to God now is all a fast blur in Spanish, things that boil down to God is awesome, Alex totally loves Him with all his heart so please help, God, because Alex could really use the help right now. Maybe wake him up from this nightmare, or at least come lay the smack-down on Satan, because Alex is a good, Catholic guy, so can he just get a little help here, por favor?

God is good, Alex. God is so awesome that as soon as Alex yanks the phone cord out of the wall? Amy's happiness silences. He's left in the quiet of his office, but even under all that Spanish praying, he can hear the click-click-click of sharp heels on the floor, the scratch of even sharper nails along the wall. They get closer and closer, until it comes to a stop outside his door.

"Alex?" Amy's voice sounds tearful, a mix of present and past. The doorknob rattles, but it doesn't open. "Alex, I don't know what to do." She had said those words nineteen years ago, when she fell apart on her parent's bathroom floor over their positive pregnancy test. "You'll do this with me, right?" But the words that follows are different. Not scared, pregnant teen. But tearful, pregnant adult: "He.. he freaked out. He left. I don't know if he's coming back, Alex. I need you." Rattle-rattle goes the doorknob. "You'll do this with me, right? Please."

On the desk, his cellphone starts to vibrate. The ringtone is not standard - instead, it is piano chords of 'Hallelujah'. The music swells over Amy's own pleading through the door, and on the screen, the caller is Sophia. He certainly feels a tug, an invisible shove towards the phone, demanding he answer. And somehow he knows there are only two choices here: Pick up the phone. Or open the door.

Oh, there's no question about it. Amy is fucked. That's not his problem, and he's sure as shit not paying for someone else's inability to wear a condom. He stays well away from that door, and probably wouldn't have answered it regardless of the phone - at least, not once the initial jolt of remembered terror passes, when his sixteen-year-old self hit his knees because his dad was gonna kill him!

It's all but a dive toward the phone, despite the wrong ringtone, despite the tickling that puts in the back of his mind. That song? Wasn't so long ago. He trips over the fallen chair, but catches himself on the edge of the desk, only knocking into the handle of the drawer with his shin, leaving a bruise but whatever. His voice is careful, afraid but this is his child, so he stuffs some of that fear down deep, really digs for where to put it, and asks hurriedly, "Sophia? Baby doll," except in Spanish, "is that you?"

"Alex, please." On the other side of the door, Amy was sobbing. Huge, ugly sobs. But then she punches a fist into the door, and the sound her nails make down the wood grain are cringe-worthy, like nails down a chalkboard. Her voice warps, twists, and it's not just Amy talking anymore. It's the shadows, too. "Open this FUCKING DOOR, Alex. Don't be such a goddamn pussy."

But he makes the right choice. Perhaps. He answers the phone, and there's nothing but static on the other end. Through it, he can barely make out Sophia's voice, and she sounds strained, and the static eats many of the words. "Dad? It's ... mom ... twins ... she's freaking ... should hear it from me." The line clicks. The phone buzzes strongly again. The office goes black. HALLELUJAH!

Alex finds himself awakening suddenly in his bed in the B&B. It's a gray morning outside, his alarm is going off. Had he ever even gotten up in the first place? Beyond the alarm, he can hear Logan doing kitchen stuff downstairs, the scent of bacon permeating through the house. His thumb is bloodied, his shin is bruised. But what happened was most assuredly a dream.

Beside him on the table, his phone vibrates with an incoming text. Buzz buzz.

Of course it was a dream. It had to be a dream, because things like that don't happen in real life. Like, okay, weird stuff definitely happens in the Bible, but Alex doesn't actually live in the Bible. He jolts awake, drenched in sweat, and sits up in that state, dragging in a massive breath. Right now, he's thankful that he sleeps alone, so there's no one here to deal with this flailing state he's in. Cradling his bizarrely throbbing hand in his lap, staring at it dumbly, he tries to reconcile this all.

Probably, he just flailed around in bed and hit his hand. That sounds logical. Also, he hit his leg. That also sounds logical.

Right now, he flails around to get his phone. A text is something he can cope with. It doesn't have shadow-nails that want to eat him. (Right? He'll be bummed if it does.)

Wrong! The phone leaps out of his hand and eats him. Omnomnom.

Just kidding. It's just a text.

Sophia: Just heard from mom. They found out it's twins.
Sophia: She said Phil got scared and left after the appointment. She's freaking out. She doesn't know if he's coming back. I might fly home this weekend, after class on Thursday. But I'll go to church with you next weekend instead. Promise.
Sophia: I thought you would want to hear it from me first.

After that last text, the phone buzzes in his hand again. The caller ID reads: Amy. It's almost like Sophia summoned her from the depths of fucking Hell.

Also, there's no one around to hear him going, "Fuck," because howcome bad dreams have to come true? 🙁 Howcome it's not the dreams where he's totally banging cute shopkeepers on his desk and no random babies pop out nine months later? 🙁 His reply to Sophia is short and sweet (aw, like he is): Okay. Thank you. Please call me tonight.

His look at the phone in his hand, which will require him to speak into it, which will be much harder to pretend he's just fine? Is grim. Reaper grim. Absently, for a second, he knuckles his lip with his battered thumb, dabs it with his tongue in a way no doctor ever should, and then hits accept call. He does not sound happy. "Hi," is the shortest possible word available to greet someone.

Sophia: Okay, I will. Love you! :-*

Alex could probably tell that he wasn't dreaming anymore. There was no music from anniversaries past, no creepily tall women with sharp nails and heels that go click-click on the floorboards. Just the rustling of pots and pans downstairs, and Amy's voice on the other end sounding as though she is trying very hard to keep it together and not come across as weak. "Thank you for taking my call," it's almost sarcastic, like she expected it to go to voicemail. "I had the appointment with the doctor. It's twins. Can you believe it?" Why should he care? She's quiet for just a moment, before she carries on: "Sophia wants to come home, for the weekend." Inhale, exhale, goes Amy, before she gets to what she wants: "Could you pay for her ticket, Alex? You could even come with her." Pause. "There's an opening here. At the hospital. The pay is good. You could apply. Then maybe Sophia wouldn't feel bad about transferring." Pick-pick at the scabs. "I think it would be good. For all of us."

OMG, Alex is gonna hang up on this bitch. Like, the desire is so strong that he only half-hears 'appointment with the doctor' with the phone held away from his ear, thumb over the satisfying red [end call] button. He gets the phone back to his ear in time to be asked to pay for Sophia, and his answer is mechanical; "Yes." And then he laughs right in her ear about coming back there, too. He lets her say her piece, but still, "No." It's not a no that invites further discussion, it's a no that sits there at the end of everything else she has to say and isn't interested in this conversation.

He looks at the bloodied knuckle, which wells a little when he tightens his hand into a fist, flexes and releases it, with 'all of us' repeating in his head. Him and his daughter and his ex-wife and her two babies, one big happy family. "Are we done? I have to go to work." (Now play that on a loop for, like, twenty years, and maybe Amy has a few justifiable bones to pick.)

He can hear the swift inhale of Amy's breath at his laughter, and the dramatic silence that follows at his 'No.' It did not invite further conversation, did it? But maybe his last statement - the statement she's heard on a loop for twenty years - rattles something in her. Or maybe she's just a bitch. Maybe it's the hormones! Either way: "No," we're not done here.

"Alex, you can't stay in Gray Harbor forever. There's nothing even there for you, and Sophia isn't going to stay in Seattle forever." She wasn't picking at scabs anymore. She was going for blood. "It's not like you moved on, Alex." Not like she did.

But then, softer tones: "Just think about it. I'll do up the guest room for you." You know, the guest room in his house, the one she got in the divorce. "There could be something for you. Here. Again. Just think about it."

Alex is a good person. He is. He's not a mean human that does mean things. He has some faults - like being stubborn, old-fashioned (and not always in the 'aw, isn't that quaint' way), snobby, and exacting - but who doesn't, you know? Right now, he needs to remind himself that he's a good person, because this conversation is making him want to be a bad person. Flexing his thumb, he reflects on that dark, horrible dream and the dark, horrible part she played in it. And there's nothing for him here -and she's not wrong, per se. Sure, he's crushing on someone, and he signed a lease, and he has a job, but those are all things that could end with minimal fuss. Though thoughts of Violet's face after 'we have to stop' twist his stomach into the really bad kinds of knots, make him feel bad in ways he thought were long behind him.

There's no need to say anything other than 'bye,' but he still tells his pregnant-with-someone-else's-twins ex-wife, "That is never going to happen." Which is at least nicer than the 'go fuck yourself' that's on the tip of his tongue. If they keep this up, he'll get there - not that he knows about THEM, just about HER and her selfish bullshit. He climbs out of bed, concluding, "I have to go. Bye." And hangs up, THEN starts calling her all kinds of bad words. In two and a half languages - since he only knows the bad words in Italian, not the filler words.

Alex has to go tell Logan that the mirror upstairs 'broke itself.' That should make him happy, right? Something to fix that he didn't break? 😃

It was too bad that Alex holds fast to the good parts of him. Because the dark horrible parts really want to play, and the dark horrible parts were making Amy go on and on, poking and prodding. Reminding him that he had nothing in Gray Harbor. Reminding him that he could have something back home. But at least she stopped when he hung up the phone. Mostly because she had no choice.

She wouldn't call again. But twenty minutes later, she would text. An ultrasound photograph, two babies indicated, and a little note: "Doesn't this remind you of when we saw Soph for the first time? 🙂"

But it was a terrible thing. Because tomorrow, Phil would be back and he would apologize and he would tell Amy that he wasn't going to leave. That they would do this, together. And tomorrow, Alex would get one more text, cold and to the point: "Tell me the details for Sophia's flight. I scheduled family photos for Saturday. Her, me and Phil. I know you wanted to come with her but you shouldn't. She won't have any time to spend with you." The end.

Alex does not do anything rash. But he does sit around and think about how he should have fucked Violet on his desk without a condom, because their kids would be a lot cuter than Amy's and Phil's ugly fucking trolltwins are gonna be. So it's a good thing this happened AFTER that happened. 😃 Also, he breaks the mirror again after Logan fixes it. Sorry.

Alex is gonna need to go to confession. He has a lot to work out with God.