sparks fly ~

Oz couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more going on below the surface. Of course, time and experience had taught him that there was always something going one below the surface, but he’d also developed a talent for sensing when someone was holding back. Only now he didn’t know if this was just Kennedy, how she had always been around him, or if something had happened in the time since he’d left. Eleven years was a long time to give someone room to grow and change and face all kinds of disasters in life. Time had also taught him that people would share when they were ready though, so he bit back the questions that rose to mind and made a choice to enjoy the moment instead. 

Enjoy the moment. Honestly, it was no surprise that he felt something was off; he felt it himself. It was the disorientation of meeting someone who had known a different version of himself. He had a feeling he had known a different version of Kennedy. Everyone change through their twenties, be it for the better or the worse, and he didn’t think anyone would look back on their teen years and think they were the same. Or want to be the same, for that matter. If he was feeling caught off guard and distracted by it, how much worse must it be for her; someone ever concerned with details and order? He felt a little more at ease with that in mind, feeling as though he had discovered the source of the discomfort, if that was the right word for it. In time, the feeling would settle and they would get comfortable again. Really, he had to think about the fact that they had only known each other for a year. A year that was probably a little clearer in her mind than it was in his, to be fair. The memories now were fuzzy at best, only as clear as they were because it had been such an important turning point in his life. 

Again, Oz ducked his head. He had grown used to talking about his old vices, but that was always with people who knew only this version of him. Not people who had been witness to it. “Thank God I’ve been able to put all that behind me.” He said, looking back up again, lopsided smile much softer now. “I’d be dead right now if I hadn’t.” He stated it as a fact, with a one-sided shrug. He had been nearly there before stumbling into her church. That was a memory that he didn’t think would ever fade. Be it waking up on a pew to her father standing over him, to waking up on their couch, to Kennedy glaring at him. It almost made him chuckle to think about, comparing the two meetings in his mind. 

Oz came into focus suddenly. Something in her tone, in the lay of her words, he thought he had found the source of that something off. He looked hard at her, trying to decide if it was something to poke at in order to learn more, or leave be. He leaned back, hands on the counter as he rolled words over in his mind, doing his best to take care with what he said. “You know I was…well, a little distracted back then. I didn’t really pay attention to the world moving around me. Since getting out on my own though, I’ve learned that people can be in ministry and do a lot of good while neglecting other important things. I don’t really know how your dad did with that, but you know, if you ever need to talk…” He let it trail off there, feeling it made his point well enough. He’d had moments of looking back and realizing he disagreed with some of the things he had been taught, but he’d never thought to examine the man’s personal relationships. He’d always been attentive and supportive with Oz, but that hardly meant that he was perfect. 

Instantly, Oz was smiling again, a laugh escaping. A younger him might have been embarrassed by that, something he was long past. He’d gone without, sure, but more often than not he had been fed by eager families who were offended by people who didn’t finish the food they were offered. Working in groups, he was always the person that his teammates passed their food to while other people weren’t looking, when they couldn’t finish it or just didn’t like it. He had been accused of not having taste buds, in the past. “I’m a growing boy.” He defended himself, without much heart behind it. He hadn’t been a growing boy in a very long time. “And I wasn’t really used to having food readily available at that point.”

“Psh,” Oz shook his head, pulling open the fridge. “I happen to be a great cook, thank you very much. I’ve learned a lot in the past decade. Now,” He scanned through the contents, trying to decide on something that would be simple and fast. “How do you feel about cold pasta? Or, I could probably throw together some chaufa, if there’s rice in the pantry. It’s basically fried rice, I’ve been in South America for the past couple years so that’s the food I’m in the habit of making.” He straightened back up and turned to look at her. “I will always be the first person to admit that I’m immature. Jesus himself said that we should make ourselves like children and I do my best every single day.” 

Kennedy often found herself saying one thing but wanting another. She could come across as uptight and snippy if she wasn’t aware of how she was feeling. She was the kind of woman that propelled the stereotype of “I’m fine” into real life. Very little was laid out on her sleeve for others to see. She had grown up being told to keep her feelings to herself, even when her mother was alive. Her father simply didn’t want to deal with a child with even simple emotions, let alone actual feelings, and acted as such. When her mother had died, it had been a whirlwind and she knew she needed professional help in healing. Her father’s only offer was to guide her in bible study. Needless to say, it had not been enough. 

Everything was documented, down to the single words her father would use to answer her questions or statements after he hit his wall, in her journals. Meticulous her entire life, she had journals of all sizes - pocket journals, large leather bound tome looking journals, petite, nightstand journals - with entry dates cataloging all the way back to before first grade, when her small little hands wrote single sentences for each day. We learned about fish at school today. Dad was upset at me because I did not want to eat my broccoli. The dog puked on my shoe. Though, most of the older journals had a vast amount of spelling errors that made her smile whenever she pulled them out. That storage container of journals was one of the only sentimental items she had lugged with her from Chicago. She had packed light, otherwise, a single duffle bag and 2 large suitcases on the flight and then 4 cube boxes shipped over with other things she wanted for her room and that was that. She needed a fresh start; that was the whole point.

But now, she was face to face with one person who made her feel more human and fallible than she wanted to feel. That notion was ridiculous, though. Oz knew nothing of her past, nothing of the things she had been through. She was just that girl that yelled at him when he showed up late to church or pitched a fit when he slipped up and got high. She wasn’t broken, in his eyes. At least, she didn’t think she was. She presented such a put together, organized front that she was almost certain if hid the cracks threatening to splinter her at any given second.

 Kennedy knew, the moment the words left her lips, that she had spoken out of turn, in a way. Her father would have shot her a look that could kill had he heard what she said. Thankfully, she was miles and miles away from him but the thought of his reaction was enough to make her stomach churn. She nodded at him and smiled, looking down at her damp papers. “My father is an amazing pastor. But he was never much of a dad.” She glanced up to him and forced a smile, knowing that there was much more to it than that. He was her father but not much of a dad. She had always said that to her friends - he was her father; a father was the man who helped create you and bring you into the world. He was not a dad; a dad was someone who took you out for ice cream even if your mom said not to and a dad played house with you and wore the fancy tea party hat when you asked him to.

Her father had never said it out loud, but part of Kennedy knew that he had wanted to have a son. There was something missing in her relationship with her father that he seemed to search for in others. He had found it when Oz came into their lives and in plenty of young men who needed guidance in their lives. For so long, she had pushed it off as her father wanting to serve the community like he often preached, but perhaps it was more than that.

She was thankful for Oz’s ability to completely shift a conversation from something serious to something so lighthearted was a welcome memory. He had always been good at that, to the point where as a young adult, Kennedy had called him out on it, somewhere along the lines of “no, Oz, you cannot distract me from yelling at you for stupid thing a, b, and c from today, regardless of how wrong you are about x, y, and z.” Now, though, the states were much less serious. She wasn’t railing him about using or his faith this time around. “Man, it’s all coming back to me now...I was sitting here thinking, how could I have ever been so mean to someone so nice...and now I remember. You make it so easy sometimes, you growing boy.” She patted him on the upper arm in a slightly condescending manner as he peeled away to look in the fridge. 

What Oz had never managed to admit to himself, much less Kennedy, back when he was staying with her family was the fact that he would not have managed to change if it weren’t for her. The pushing and the encouragement from her father had been good, of course. It gave him the confidence he had so desperately needed to actually believe that he could be worth something beyond just a street rat. But it had been her picking and pushing and nagging that had kept him going when he didn’t want to care enough to be any better. In the moments that he’d wanted to give up, she’d always somehow materialized and spouted something that had convinced him that he couldn’t stop trying. If nothing else, he’d wanted to prove her wrong about him. Now that he had, he only felt silly for ever feeling that way. But it had been the push he needed, so he couldn’t regret it too much. 

This was ridiculous. Oz was a grown man now, over a decade out of that phase of his life and successful. The fact that she could make him feel like he was a nineteen year old mess again was damn near impressive, and she wasn’t even trying. She had been nothing but friendly to him, and here he was, feeling the need to prove himself. He knew, in his heart, that he didn’t have to prove himself to any fellow humans. He knew that it was not a matter of works, or what a person had done, or even how long they had been a Christian. In this matter, the world was black and white. There was no grey, no better or worse, there was only people.  Each with their own flaws and breaks and differences. If he tried to prove himself, he was already failing. 

There was the old Kennedy, though. He couldn’t help feeling as though the world made more sense with the sort of backhanded compliment that felt more like the girl he knew. He smiled, all lopsided and dimpled, having reached a point where those comments didn’t sting anymore. He didn’t struggle talking about his past, he’d given his testimony in front of thousands by now. “Eleven years sober. I’ll drink here there, I mean, but that was never really my problem.” He didn’t feel any need to have a drink, was the difference. He could go a year without thinking about having a drink. It was the other things that he had struggled with. He still sometimes felt those old urges pop up, typically followed with locking himself away somewhere as private as he could find and praying until they faded. “Your dad really did change my life.”

Oz covered his face with his hands, briefly. Everyone always told him he could never play poker; his ability to hide was he was thinking was nonexistent. Still, he was grinning when he dropped his hands again, all mixed up with a grimace. “I think I’ve gotten a little bit better. I think it just surprised me, coming from you.” He hoped she wouldn’t take the tease wrong. They had both grown up, clearly, and it was possible she did not want him bringing up how unlikely she had been to hand out compliments before. At least, not to him. He hadn’t seen her interacting with her friends much, to be fair. She had always made it rather clear that she didn’t want him hanging around them. Not that he could blame her. Nothing to ruin a teenage girl’s friend night like an awkward, troublesome teenage boy. He had never blamed her for that, and he’d never had much interest in hanging around anyway (other than to pester her). Back then, pestering her had been one of his favorite pastimes. 

Another compliment. Oz pulled out the stool to sit back down, but was up again nearly as soon as he sat down. “Do you want something to eat? I can make something.” He needed to do something to be moving. Besides, that had been the original intention of coming to the kitchen anyway. He strayed to the fridge and flung it open to search for something that looked appetizing enough to cook. “Are you saying that I’m immature? Because you wouldn’t be wrong, if you were.” 

Kennedy had never struggled at putting on faces: there was a proper face for her parents, the one where she nodded and accepted their decisions and made her peace with them; there was the face for her friends where she yelled and pitched a fit about the things her parents made her do, made her feel; there was one for school where she did exactly what was asked of her and then some. As an adult, she still felt like she was often wearing masks, hiding the anxiety she was struggling with or the distance from the faith that brought her to Paris in the first place. With Oz, way back in the day, she had never struggled to tell it like it was. She was brutally honest with him past the point of being mean. She hadn’t been nice to him in any capacity most days, and yet, here he was: all smiles and offers to help her.

The way his dimples pooled in his cheeks had her chest tighten in a way she was not comfortable with. Memories flooded back to her: the night Oz told her he was leaving Chicago. The way he chest had cracked under the pressure, of what, she had no idea. The same feeling that settled in her chest now was the same one she had been fighting against just before he left. She thought those feelings died a lone time ago, along with any hope of seeing Oz again. He was a way finder - someone who paved the path for others, explored new places, had adventures. Kennedy was not. Kennedy was safe. She didn’t take risks and if she did, they were calculated to the point of not being risky anymore. She had pushed down those feelings, ignored them, told herself she was being childish and stupid. Oz was not someone you felt like that toward. He was a godless junkie, not the sort of man her  father would have approved of. Perhaps that was why he had been able to push his way into her life.

She tried to keep her laugh soft and actually managed, nodding. “Oh, I’m aware of your vices.” Perhaps not in excruciating detail, but she knew it was hard drugs. Miraculously, she’d never found herself interested in drugs. Not even after her mother died. She drank herself stupid once or twice and got pregnant but never had she crossed the line to anything like Oz had. But eleven years sober? That was no feat, especially when she had seen him at his worst. She knew he had kept her on the straight and narrow in college, too. Her friends had experimented here and there - weed, acid, mushrooms - but she had stayed far away from that mess. And that was because she had seen first hand what a bad trip looked like, the sort of things detoxing did to your body. She’d been there to wipe the sweat from his brow and make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit. She wasn’t even sure he knew, if she was being honest. 

“I’m glad my father was able to at least help someone.” She felt as if that had come off more pointed than she wanted it to. She was keenly aware of the fact that she had spoken as if her father was not one to help people just now. To be fair, he helped plenty of people on plenty of occasions. Just not Kennedy when she needed it. That was not something she was about to bring up, now or ever. That was for her to know and her alone.

Kennedy’s eyebrows lifted and fell quickly and her arms crossed in front of her as he spoke, nodding along with a slightly lopsided smile. “Oh, yeah, is that so?” He was calling her out on the way she used to talk to him and she deserved it. But she’d never let him just get away with it without a little bit of a jab. “Well excuse me for being sassy with the boy who would come in and cleared out our fridge in a matter of a single meal.” It was easy to get under her skin, though, which she also knew. She was an easy target, especially for a kid who knew exactly what buttons to push. And Oz most certainly had. It seemed that he still carried that skill even over a decade later. Hadn’t lost his touch.

Raelyn couldn’t help but smile at the easygoing nature of her new companion, pen continuing its loopy trail along the plain paper as she recreated the lesson plans. Rae had never struggled to remember things visually, things she’d seen coming quickly to mind with little effort. It contributed heavily to her love of meeting people - she could see the surreal images that flittered through conscious thought, able to remember them. A library of human thought that occupied her every waking moment… for better or for worse.

When Kennedy wrote out her message, Raelyn couldn’t help but smile wider. People often assumed that because she herself wrote, that she was deaf… to be fair, that was an entirely fair assumption. In truth, she wrote because she was mute… yes, she was deaf, but her lipreading paired with being able to see the images in people’s minds meant she could usually understand what people were saying. Seeing that small gesture of kindness never did get old, however.

“I’m not deaf.” A white lie, she wrote it out on a notepad she placed between them. She shot Kennedy an apologetic grin. “Though everyone thinks that, don’t worry. Perhaps it can save some writing on your part! :)”

A few moments of writing out the lesson plans more, and Raelyn paused to stretch and reply to Kennedy’s own note. She herself taught sign language and martial arts for a few extra pennies… but could she really offer advice to a real teacher? Her mouth turned down at the corner, fixing the brunette with a skeptical look while she thought before shrugging.

“Treat the classroom like a shared experience, not a didactic factory.” She explained, thinking back to her own lessons in teaching: haphazard sidelong instructions by an old man who had been drunk more often than not. “And remember that they’re human, too.”

A genuine smile was followed by a final scribbled note, “And if you need someone to vent to about your horrible days, I’ll always have an open ear.” The irony was not lost on Raelyn, who had to stifle a giggle while pushing the note across the table.

Kennedy immediately contorted her face in a clear apology; she had just assumed that the girl in front of her was deaf just because she hadn’t spoken out loud. That was silly on her part. She tried to shift her face back to a normal position as she exhaled. “Gosh, darn it, sorry.” She wrinkled her nose as she reached for another hi-lighter. Orange, this time, to help show off the little stars she had drawn up in the right hand corner of all the pages of her welcome packet. While she was starting mid-year, she felt it was important to let the parents know who she was, what her expectations were, and what the students could expect from her.

Watching the girl work, expertly rewriting lessons it had taken her days to piece together, she shook her head. It was amazing. A near perfect reissue to the things she had written herself; it was remarkable. “That’s incredible,” she said, reaching to point at the page she was working on. She had never seen anything like it. It put her own telekinesis to shame. What was the use of moving objects without touching them? Being able to impeccably recreate things from memory? Now that was magic. Her’s was a power of trouble, mayhem, and sadness. It was something she liked to forget she could do, in all honesty.

As Raelyn offered her advice, Kennedy nodded, putting her suggestions in her toolbox for teaching. She used different items from her toolbox for different students. Some needed more attention than others and others needed different approaches to learning. Everything Raelyn said was just something to add to her arsenal of teaching help. “Thank you, honestly. I’m sure I’ll need it. They’re young -- preschool, most of them are 4, turning 5.” Her favorite age group, but a trying one nonetheless.

“But sometimes we need it.” Oz finished for her. People didn’t expect him to understand. People also tended to think that he was some saint who followed all the rules and had all his shit together. He could try to explain it, but nobody ever really believed that he was still a mess of a person, always learning and growing and trying to make himself better. The problem was, sometimes the church could be too much. All too often, it strayed away from the true ideals of the bible and began to rely on rules and repetition to be ‘good’. It, at times, took breaking out of that to remember that the church was the not the equivalent of real relationship. A person had to make mistakes to understand that weakness, that mistakes, that failure was not what separated one from God. If anything, it brought Him closer. Unpopular opinion in many churches, sure, but he had found it to be true on far too many occasions to dismiss it. 

Now he was going to start preaching to himself, if he kept on like this. Normally he didn’t mind, and would usually even start taking notes on a roll like this, but he was attempting to have a conversation, which meant that notes would have to wait until later. If he remembered, and the chances of that happening were about as good as him keeping track of any notes he did take. Organization had never been one of his strong suits, and it still tended to be his downfall. Oz chuckled in a self-deprecating sort of manner, as he tossed the towel off towards the counter, wiping hands down his legs to dry them off. He didn’t know what to do with this older, matured Kennedy. He kept waiting for the stinging comment to come, but here she was complimenting him and he felt a little lost as to how to respond. “I just like to help people.” He finally said, with another helpless shrug. He decided that it was suddenly of most importance to fix the struggling ponytail he currently had, slipping the rubber band off, then raking hands through his hair to push it back up into the short stub of a ponytail he kept it in. 

Oz had forgotten how she signed her name, until now. Of course it was cleaner, more practiced and neat than it had been when he had known her before. But the heart was still there at the end, and it made him want to laugh again, for some reason. He didn’t. She would probably think he was laughing at her, if he did, and he didn’t want that. That would not make her think that he had changed in the decade that had passed. Why he was so worried about what she thought of him was…well, he would get past that eventually. 

Now, his hands had nothing to do. He still had the energy that demanded he bounce around, but he swallowed that for a moment and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans to keep them still. He blamed the knots in his stomach on the fact that this was someone from his past. Someone he had to prove to that the effort put into him had been worth something, that he had used the help given to him for something good. His head ducked, feeling himself grow red at the memory of just how energetic he had been before. The kind to make him seem calm now. “Yeah, I uh, I guess the weight has slowed me down.” It wasn’t the best logic, but he figured it would probably result in a laugh, if nothing else. Really, he just had learned to spend his free time working out, if he had any, and it helped to tired him out. Sometimes. Everyone kept telling him that he would lose energy when he got older, but it hadn’t happened so far. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a church here that asked me to come over and work with their youth for a while. It’s a good group of kids so far, and much easier work than what I’ve been up to for a while.” If anything, this felt like a vacation. He was getting paid, for one, and he worked regular hours. He felt lazy. “I don’t really know what to do with myself with all the free time they’re giving me, though. I’m used to more of all-consuming sort of things.” 

Kennedy wanted to be angry with him for how much like a pastor he sounded in that moment, but instead, her heart was light. He knew the right thing to say, to fill in the gaps where her head simply wouldn’t let her make the connections for whatever reason. Her father would be beyond proud at the man Oz had become. It really was remarkable what a decade or more could do to someone. She was no exception. When Oz had first met her, she had offered backhanded compliment after backhanded compliment. The first had been the worst, in her opinion: so, you’re the stray. Scraggly, unkempt, on detox. 

Back then, she had told herself he was pathetic. But she had been projecting. She had been at a point in her life where she felt worthless but it was so much easier to just pretend like the junkie your dad was fostering was far worse off than you were. Her father was the man who found a new way to preach the same passage from the bible six different ways that always had you walking away thinking that you just needed to be a Good Christian TM and then everything would fall into place. She had grown up thinking that and now, even as a free thinking adult, it was difficult to rewire her brain to think otherwise. 

When Oz laughed, it tugged on her heart strings. She knew that laugh. That was the uncomfortable laugh used he use all those years when she would make flea jokes at him. It looks like someone gave you your flea bath this morning. Instead of Oz, you look nice. She had been so mean to him back then. It was a miracle he didn’t absolutely hate her, in all honesty. “So you don’t need much of the help yourself these days then?” There it was. Not as nasty as it had been back then, but still an unnecessary jab at the boy he had been when she first met him. He was nothing like that boy anymore; she could tell that just from these few minutes she had just spent talking to him. When he started to mess with his hair, she wanted to tell him it looked fine, but she didn’t. She felt so strange, sitting her in Paris, with Oz Smith, of all people. Just having a normal conversation about the time that had passed and their new professions. 

The blush that set in on Oz’s cheeks had Kennedy smile, dimples pooling on each side of her face. “Still a giant dork. Can’t take a compliment. Maybe nothing’s changed.” She was lighthearted in her jests this time and nearly reached out to elbow him but she was too far away. Instead, her feet swung from the stool she was sitting in and she reached for a hi-lighter to toy with to keep her fingers busy. It was a poor attempt to keep her focus on something other than the pit in her stomach that came with the idea of her father calling later in the week to check-in on her first few days. She knew he would ask if anything interested happened and she could lie; she was good at lying to him now. How are you, Kennedy? Oh, I’m good, Dad. Thanks for asking. It was so simple now and he never questioned it. Something told her though, that she should just tell her dad she had run into Oz. No need to tell him that they were essentially neighbors. 

Sign language was a complicated mess of gestures that, if adjusted even slightly, could be taken the completely wrong way. The eccentricities of how one should hold their fingers was often lost on the average person, paired with facial expression it became downright impossible. So, as one could imagine, when Kennedy presented her name by signing the letters, Raelyn’s beaming smile became positively radiant. That this woman had gone to the effort of learning even basic sign language was a huge mark in her favour, as far as Rae was concerned. When she misgestured her last letter, Raelyn did not laugh at her, merely nod. She knew what the girl had meant, everyone made mistakes.

Raelyn presses a fist to her chest, first signing her deaf-name - first pressing her knuckles together before extending index and thumbs until the tips touched, before pressing both indexes to the side of her mouth as if pushing up a smile. The name had been given to her by an online deaf community she kept in contact with. They had been the only people willing to maintain a friendship throughout her worldwide wandering. Following Kennedy’s lead, however, she then spells her name. Raelyn.

Without further preamble, Raelyn plops herself down in a seat beside the one Kennedy had previously occupied, hands resting in her lap like some overzealous schoolgirl. Her smile was unwavering as she retrieved a pen from her pocket and began absently writing out the lesson plans in neat font on her notepad. In between sentences, she scribbles a quick note which she sets on the table beside her, writing far more messy. “U Are a teacher?”

Kennedy had wanted to take ASL as her required language course in undergrad but her friends convinced her that taking French was a better choice. So far, she hadn’t really used the two years of French but was certain that the sign language would have come in handy, especially as many young children used sign language before spoken word these days. It was a very common practice among preschools, even overseas.

Kennedy couldn’t help but smile as Raelyn signed different names. She couldn’t quite make out the first, but was able to read the individual letters. “Raelyn.” She glanced down at the other woman’s note and nodded. Grabbing her own pen, she clicked it open. First day is tomorrow! I’m getting nervous. She didn’t need to be nervous but she couldn’t help it. Most of these children were under the age of five and many were learning English as their second language. She knew minimal French, just what she had learned in those basic courses in undergrad; she was no where near fluent. She was just hoping the children knew more than she was expecting them to in regards to conversational English.

Looking back on that transitional year, Oz had always wondered what he had missed under the surface. Admittedly, he had been wrapped up in his own problems and life at the time to take notice of the little things. And while it had been over a decade ago, he could still look back on some other small moments that had gone over his head at the time, but he now realized might have been signs of something going on. Things that now, he would try to dig into. But then, he had just been a kid, trying to turn his life around. Kennedy didn’t feel half as resentful as she had back then, another thing that made him question. But the past was the past, and if they were both here, both clearly doing well for themselves, he saw no reason to dreg up old memories. He would only be glad that she actually seemed happy to see him. 

He couldn’t help himself from rolling his eyes as she went with the idea of it more readily than he had hoped. But she had been raised in a church with strict morals and even he had taken a while to realize that the rules some churches set were not necessarily hard and fast. “It’s been a while, I figured you could have changed.” He offered. The easy smile shifted away briefly. “Sounds like you had some shitty friends back in college.” It was one thing to disagree with someone’s views; it was another thing entirely to force them into something they didn’t want. He knew a thing or two about either sides of that and he didn’t care to be in either of those positions again. Not that he had ever tricked anyone into drinking, even he had his limits. He wondered if he would see the same old judgmental look if he told her that he still drank (by choice) sometimes, and it was not to take communion. He didn’t think that he would test it just yet, though she would figure it out soon enough on his own. Alcohol had never been his drug of choice, anyway. That had been more, well, drugs. 

She had definitely grown up. That, or time had exaggerated his memories of her brushing him off and trying to subtly cut him down. Still, he couldn’t think of a time she had referred to his presence as a good thing, except maybe when he was leaving. He reminded himself that it was all work related, still not personal. He would give anything to know what she was actually thinking about at the moment. “Anytime you want me, I’ll have to get you my number so you can get in touch with me. As long as I’m not working myself, I’ll be happy to swing by.” It was exactly what he would have offered to anyone else, but he couldn’t help feeling as though it came off a little too eager. It was ridiculous, he knew, and he blamed it on the fact that he had once ( a very long time ago ) had a crush on her. But that had been the young, over-enthusiastic kid who was looking for anything to believe in. 

Oz chuckled, reaching around to comb fingers through the back of his hair. “Well, I hope that I’ve calmed down a little at least.” He said, trying to acknowledge the fact that he knew he had been a lot. He wasn’t much less now, but he liked to think he had tempered a little with age. “Besides, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you find an old friend? Spend some time catching up?” Mostly to force himself to stop talking, Oz took the now soaked towel back towards the sink and dropped it on the edge, collecting a fresh one from a drawer. He thought he had gotten up most of the liquid, but he pressed it against anything left on the surface, then turned his attention to the edges of the counter and down the sides. 

It had taken Kennedy years to get over the things that had happened when she first met Oz. Nothing that happened regarding her father and the way he treated her had been Oz’s fault. At 18, that was not an easy thing to accept but as she got older, she knew that she couldn’t simply blame the blonde man for her father’s lack of support in regards to her. As much as her father preached about finding peace and how lucky everyone was to finally reach Heaven when they passed, he struggled with his wife’s passing. No matter how much you peached something, it was a different thing to believe it yourself. Kennedy spent years thinking one thing but filtering out the proper passages to deal with something. It left her feel robotic at times but at least she had a way to process things when they happened. Stressed? John 14:27, “peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”. Feeling weak or unprepared for something? Philippians 4:13, “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength”.  Need direction? Ephesians 4:2, “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love”. She had different bibles for different things. A few were completely decorated and done up, mostly for herself. Passages she enjoyed were hi-lighted and rewritten in the margins and one was just for reading,  nothing in the margins. 

Her college friends had been just what she needed, though. They had all been children: 18 and legally adults, but such small babies alone in the real world for the first time. These kids hadn’t believes a single word that fell from her lips. One had even asked if she was from Footloose. To be honest, some of the stories she told made it sound that way. “Shitty, yes, but...” she couldn’t finish her sentence. She shrugged. It was difficult to explain. College was different, an experience she should have enjoyed more instead of rushing through undergrad in 3 years. 

It was his sincerity that had always gotten her upset. For whatever reason, she struggled to believe that someone could honestly be as nice as Oz often was. Even she had her limits and she worked with small children every day. Some nights, she just needed to scream or cry or smack her pillow into the couch. Oz, though, seemed genuinely kind and for whatever reason, that had irritated her as a young adult. Now, it was oddly refreshing. Amidst all the anger and sadness and darkness, there was Oz. Just as bright and bubbly as ever. “You always were too big for your britches, Oz Smith. Offering to help me whenever I need it.” She reached forward to a dry piece of notebook paper and pulled it toward herself. She wrote her phone number on it, along with just her first name followed by a small heart at the end of the y, a signature she had gotten so used to writing she didn’t even notice it anymore. Perfect script, the curves and lines almost formulaic. 

Watching him clean, she nodded along with him. “I’d say you’ve grown into it. You’ve filled out a bit so at least your level of intensity isn’t disproportionate now...I don’t think.” To be fair, she hadn’t spent much time with this Oz. The Oz she knew from 12 years ago was strikingly different. This man in front of her wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, she tried to tell herself. Knowing someone in this house was a good thing; she had the beginnings of a support system. That was one of her big concerns with uprooting from Chicago and moving here. Back home, she had her close friends, the therapist she saw twice a month, and a heap of co-workers she had considered friends. But making this move had been necessary and the right thing to do. “I think we owe ourselves that time, yes. I’m sure my father would be delighted to know you’re still doing well and making a way for yourself...spreading His word, I’m sure?” For half a second, she thought that maybe she would lie and tell her father that Oz had fallen off the bandwagon somehow. He was clearly clean; that much was obvious. But something small just to knock Oz down off of that stupid pedestal her father kept him on like some prized trophy. Another moment passed before she was mentally reprimanding herself for even thinking that. What sort of woman was she to even think that? Perhaps she was more lost than she was letting on.

Over the course of two months Freya had made best friends with the coffee pot, and honestly she wasn’t angry about the fact that it was her life. At least she knew she would never have to survive without caffeine. As for human friends well that was still up in the air, but at least she was now trying to make them. Getting over her own terrible awkwardness was proving to be quite the challenge, but at least she was making an effort. She had been stepping into the kitchen she heard a loud noise that alerted her to something was wrong, but when the woman assured her that she didn’t need help she wasn’t sure what to do from there. “O-okay?” She said slightly unsure as she raised her eyebrows, “How about I get you a cupcake though? Everyone can use some sweetness when things go wrong.”

Kennedy lifted her head to see who she had waved off and exhaled when she did. The woman in front of her seemed startled but still willing to try and help somehow. She smiled brightly in a poor attempt to cover how flustered she was and nodded. 

Raelyn found that of all the rooms in the house, the kitchen was steadily ascending her list of favourites. The bustling cooks, full scents and vivid visualisations all culminated into a thriving body of a workplace that Rae simply enjoyed… existing in. Sitting in one of the back corners of the space, she found relaxation in simply studying the cooks as they went about their work. Aged cheddar, biting garlic, tender steaks. The images rioted through her head one after the other as the various cooks all devised their plans, cooked, and hoped for more.

A smattering of rather unsavoury images cut off her stream of captive thought, drawing Raelyn’s gaze to a woman sitting at the far end of the kitchen working away at what appeared to be school work. A brief glance at the woman’s visualisation of the pages corrected Rae’s initial guess to a teacher. Her smile widened. Raelyn had always loved professors and teachers, if only because she could not be one herself. 

Almost without meaning to, she found herself padding over to stand beside the woman, that friendly smile still in place as she holds up a notepad previously drawn from her pocket. Her words scribbled onto it rather messily, “I remember what was on the pages, if you’d like me to help you re-write them?”

Kennedy glanced up when the other woman approached her, notepad in hand. She read the words written down and nodded. “Yeah?” She sighed, reaching for the roll of paper towels across the table. Pulling a few pieces loose, she started to mop up the warm liquid. After enough of it was wiped up, she managed to scoop up the wet papers. She stood and opened the trash can, her foot pressing the pedal just a bit too hard. The lid fly up and she jumped slightly. 

As she turned back to the woman who offered to help, she tilted her head slightly again, wondering why she had written the words instead of speaking. But she didn’t ask. Instead, she put her hand on her chest, and then slowly, offered each letter of her name in ASL. When she got to the y, she accidentally put up “I love you” instead, though she realized and quickly dropped the pointer finger, leaving the letter y for her. “Sorry...I don’t know much.”

Oz felt like he was only hearing half the conversation. He’d gotten used to picking up on those kinds of things in his line of ‘work’, but there was never any easy way to point out, much less when it was an old and antagonistic friend from the past. That had to be it. Everyone he had met in the last decade had known this version of him. A man, a pastor, a missionary. He was open about his past but it was just that; his past. Nobody had seen it. They hadn’t watched him fall off the wagon only to see him try to claw his way back up. Kennedy had. She had disapproved of him back then, and despite himself, he felt like he was nineteen and trying to prove himself once more, sitting in front of her. God, where is my head at? What happened to being past this? He threw up the silent prayer and just the acknowledgement was enough to put him more at ease. 

Both his eyebrows raised. Oz himself didn’t have a problem with drinking or bars (done in moderation), but the church he had met Kennedy in had been nearly as straitlaced as Kennedy herself. He was struggling to fit her into the image of a bar. “Kennedy Johnson, don’t tell me you’ve partook in the devil’s drink?” He asked in a teasing, southern accent. Hell, he’d done some of his best preaching in the middle of a busy bar with a beer in his hand. The old nickname did not go unnoticed, either. That also made him feel like a kid again, but not in the same, bitter way. Rather, it reminded him of the better times spent within the walls of the church, the moments when the two of them had not been at odds. When he had felt normal. There were so many things he had almost forgotten, making him smile now. 

“Ah,” Oz waved a dismissive hand at the praise, shaking his head. “Not like any of it was me, anyway. I think the fancy terms are ‘divine intervention’ or something like that.” As a teacher, she probably had a better idea than him. He still had never so much as finished his high school degree, something he always intended to do, but never found the time or opportunity for. “Really? I would love that kind of opportunity. And I’d like to see you at work.” He could already imagine that it was a sight to behold. From what he remembered, she had always been studious and driven and it certainly looked like that had paid off for her. “You’re going to do amazing.” Remembering the mess, Oz grabbed the towel and started blotting the liquid again. “Alright, what needs to be saved? Rewritten? I’m yours for the afternoon, whatever you need done.” 

Kennedy had grown up around people who spoke openly about helping those who needed it and being the best versions of themselves but those were the people who, like her father, refused their children grief counseling after a loved one passed away or would only let them discuss concerns about their lives if they were not discussing sin. As a teenager and young adult in Chicago, it was only so long before she was in the locker room at school watching people near her shoot up like it was a school sanctioned activity. Her father refused to discuss any of that with her. But when Oz showed up? Oh, that was his chance to prove something to the congregation about how they could help anyone find God. That was part of why she had always been so short and dismissive of the younger man. Now, though, she knew that had been her childish behaviors taking over the truth she knew she needed to practice now as an adult. Everyone deserved a second chance, an opportunity to grow and learn under the grace of God. 

When he asked her about the devil’s drink she couldn’t help the laugh that echoed through the kitchen. “You know me better than that.” She shook her head, shrugging. “I could only wave off my friends in college for so long. I drank soda most of the time. Though, to be fair, there was one night that my friends got me wasted before I knew what was happening. Virgin drinks that are half simple syrup really hide the alcohol.” She had stumbled home, barely been able to open the door to the house, and nearly fallen down the stairs twice. Her father never came out of his room but the next morning, Kennedy was positive he knew. The 6 a.m. wake up, claiming the church needed them, was a clear sign. Followed by the amount of noise he made the entire time before they left. It was a sadistic thing to do, especially because she hadn’t even intended to drink. Kennedy could count the number of alcoholic beverages she had consumed on one hand: 2 glasses of white wine at her cousin’s wedding three years ago. 1 cocktail on her 21st birthday. 1 beer during the NFL football game an ex-boyfriend had dragged her to. That was it. The taste of it had never really been anything she sought out and it confused her that people actually consumed it willingly most of the time.

There was something oddly calming about the way Oz carried himself now. The Oz she remembered was enthusiastic beyond words, which she could still see but he seemed to simmer with his excitement, like a pot that was always boiling, instead of the rolling boil she remembered. Though, perhaps he still got excitable like that. “I’ll be honest, most of the staff I am going to be working with is female. I think it’d be great to get a male role model into the classroom even if it’s not all the time. Someone who’s not a five foot three brunette.” From her interviews on Skype, most of the staff seemed fairly similar: younger, petite women, like herself, with little diversity mixed in. She’d work on that, somehow.

           frances was carrying a tray full of empty mugs of varying sizes ,      colors and antiquity ,     a few plates and what most certainly was a bird’s skull of some sort ,    covered in mud from the recent rains .           all of this balanced on her arms ,    while a thick book was tightly pressed to her side beneath her arm .         holding her breath ,       she barely glanced at the other until having set down everything by the sink .                hissing apprehensively through her teeth ,     she proceeded to purse her lips and lean against the counter ,      leaving the book aside on a safely dry place .                    ‘      i wasn’t going to offer help ,      i’d probably burn the papers trying to make the liquid into steam .      ‘                   water ?          hard .              turning on her heels ,        the young woman opened the tap and started washing the plethora of mugs .                 ‘     i take it those were important ?      ‘

Her breath was caught in her chest; she couldn’t breathe. This was a panic attack in the making if she didn’t get herself together. When small things threw off her focus, she was easily upset. This was one of those moments. She drew in a deep breath, nodding at the other woman’s comment. “I start teaching tomorrow. Fifteen munchkins to prepare for the world, hell or high water. I mean, they’re four, so it’s not rocket science. Only, the last time I taught, it was over in America and I had been there for six years.” Her forced smile hopefully hid the nausea that was settling in. Another deep breath. In and out. She reached for the nearest kitchen towel, dangling from the edge of the counter, and started to sop up her coffee. “It’s my fault, really. I should know better than to risk the color coordination for a half applied effort to keep focused.” Not that she really needed it; it was nearly three in the afternoon. She was wide awake. But sometimes, it was just habit that took over. Lesson prepping meant coffee, plain and simple.

Clearly, he was not the only one thinking of how different he looked now. He liked to think it was a good change; he couldn’t imagine how it wouldn’t be. He was clearer, and he had figured out who he was and what he believed in for himself, now. He’d been sober almost fifteen years now, and that felt unreal. When had he gotten this old? He pulled his second earbud out, realizing it was still playing music, and shut it off on his phone. He raked fingers through his hair and forced it back into the sad, barely contained ponytail he’d managed to grow out after the last time he’d been forced to cut his hair short, feeling oddly self-conscious as he did it. 

“Yeah, I uh, I guess it’s easier to look like a human being when you’re not a junkie.” He didn’t know why he was bringing that up, except that he didn’t feel much like himself at the moment. Maybe he just wanted to clarify that he was still clean, he hadn’t backslid after all. He’d always felt like she expect him to, somehow. “But look at you,” he said, trying to shift the subject away from his own slip. “You haven’t aged a day, I bet you couldn’t get into a bar if you tried.” She had a few rougher edges, to be fair, and she didn’t look as angry as she had back then. Still organized, of course. He wondered if she would get as upset as she used to if he reached out and messed up the order of her things, but he didn’t test it. Instead, he grabbed at a chair and dragged it closer, shifting himself into it. 

“Wow, that’s incredible, Kennedy.” This was slowly feeling less forced as the shock of seeing her wore off. It could be worse, after all. It could be someone from the stage in his life before her. He planted an elbow on the table and leaned his chin in his hand, attention fixed on her. “Oh, I’m, I had a church call me a while back and ask me to run their youth for a while. I met some of their people in Argentina while I was there working on planting this other church and we spent some time talking and we exchanged information. One of those crazy God-things, you know?” He realized that he had, without thinking, picked up one of her pens and started rolling it between his fingers, needing something to keep his hands busy. 

In the years since Oz left the church, things had changed. Not just her, but her father, too, the church that had helped him find his way, clearly. Kennedy had seen it all - the attempts, and failures, at sobering up, staying off the hard drugs and off the streets to find the word of God? That was a lot to ask a 19 year old boy. Oz had been nothing more than a street kid when he stumbled into their church. Now, though? From just a glance, he seemed to be one of the men her father would simply nod at, approve of from a far and never get too involved with. Her dad had never been great at anything involving his daughter, why start now? Her mother had been the one to do her hair when she was little She had picked out her own dress to her mother’s funeral; he had handed her the credit card inside the mall and told her to “find something appropriate” and do it relatively quickly. Her was the type of person you’d want to help you out of a car that flipped over but when it came to emotional support? Forget it. 

Kennedy waved him off quickly when he said she hadn’t aged a day. “Oh, they stopped carding me a long time ago, Bumblebee.” As the nickname fell from her lips, her breath hitched in her chest. It really had been a long time since she had called him that. When he got on her nerves somehow, she’d give him a side eye and say something relatively snarky but appropriate for church. Always followed by ‘Bumble bee’. A quip on just how blonde his hair was. All iterations of Oz were off the table. Somehow, that just felt wrong to her. Kennedy was her name and people tried to shorten it all the time - Ken was reserved for a few select people and none of them were in her life any longer. Her mother had been one of them, and once upon her time, she had let her father call her that. Now, though, no one did.

Listening to him speak about how he ended up here had her teaching job seem like small potatoes. He was everything he was supposed to be after coming from what he had come from. She simply tilted her head, smiling, absolutely amazed at the life he had made for himself. She couldn’t help but shy away slightly at the way he was listening to her; he was acting like he really cared about the words that came from her mouth. “Started from the bottom...that’s an impressive story for how you got here. I think the kiddos at school would love you if you wanted to stop in one day. I officially start tomorrow so we’ll have to see how I do, but...” she gestured to the mess in front of her, shaking her head at herself. “You’d think I’d learn to keep the coffee away from the important stuff, but alas.”

He was caught up at once in who he used to be, nearly glancing down at himself as if he would see the old skinny teenager with scars and gang signs tattooed onto his skin, but that person was gone. People thought he was energetic now, but at least he sat still enough that he had been able to fill out more, and he’d covered up those scars and tattoos with new tattoos that made him someone different. He thought he had come to terms with his past, but looking at someone who had witnessed him at his lowest points, he wasn’t so sure. He remembered the childish crush he’d had on her, and wondered at just how much he had changed over the years. How much she had changed. She didn’t look like a kid either, anymore. But she was an old friend and he wouldn’t let his own confused feelings get in the way of that. Another stuttered moment of silence between them, then Oz leaned in to wrap an arm around her. “What’s it been, ten, eleven years? Something like that.” He leaned back again, leaning against the counter. “What are you doing here, anyway? Sure it’s a small world, but…wow.”

It was not Oz’s fault but her father had taken a keen interest in him the moment he’d shown up at their church. But her father couldn’t have cared less about the own help his young daughter still needed, even years after the passing of her mother and her miscarriage. The whispers in the pews behind delicately opened bibles about the fact that she was always so uptight, inflexible, neurotic. She had struggled with her need to keep everything a particular way for a long time; it was her own way of coping with the things she could not control. Kennedy kept perfect control over the things that were within her power. What was out of her control was out of her control, at least, that was what she tired to tell herself.

She realized she hadn’t said anything more when Oz’s arm wrapped around her. She tensed up for a moment before her hand found his back and she ran it across the width of his back twice. “At least...you’ve...” changed? How cliche was that? While true, she felt stupid saying it. “I mean, look at you.” Her laugh was uncomfortable but only because she remembered Oz when he first showed up on their doorstep and goodness, was he a different sight back then. He was nearly double the size he had been and he just looked good. She had gotten older, sure, but she was still very obviously Kennedy. Sure, her hair was a bit shorter and she had a few wrinkles around where only dimples had been before. But she looked like Kennedy. She would have believed him if he had told her his name was John and never thought twice about it.

 “I know...it’s been...” she dipped her head, looking at her organizers and binder clips, pens and washer tape. A long time. Back then she had been broken, damaged, half of who she really was. She was more full now, but still not whole. She wasn’t sure she would ever be. “I took a job down the street at St. Michael’s Academy? It’s a Christian Day School. I just...needed to leave Chicago? You know?” 

“Catchafire, let it burn within, gotta, catchafire,” the music would go missed by anyone around Oz, with earbuds in to keep it to himself. He’d made that purchase after it had become obvious that most of the other residents of the house did not appreciate his brand of music. That would not, however, stop him from listening or singing along to the odd line or two. He thought he had met most of the people living in the house after a couple weeks, but as he slid into the kitchen, he didn’t recognize the dark head of hair sitting with her back to him at one of the kitchen stools. He tugged one of the earbuds out of the ear closer to her and went to the fridge. He went so far as to get it open before a screech sounded and he shut it on reflex, looking over. There was now a mess where there had been order and perfection and he grimaced, grabbing a towel from the counter and approaching. This time when she spoke, familiarity rang and he came along side of her, dropping the towel on the counter in from of her and losing all focus that might have been on the mess. “Kennedy?” He asked, one hand planting on the counter and the other covering his face. This was the last thing he had expected, the last person he had expected. 

The towel came to land on the papers and she reached for it thankfully, despite having asked the newcomer to leave it be. When he spoke, her own name reverberated in her head in a voice she hadn’t heard in years. Her eyes flickered up and she settled on a man she definitely did not recognize, at least, not in this iteration. Blonde, blue eyed, and built beyond anything she remembered, Kennedy could just barely make out the man she thought the voice belonged to. All she could do was blink, everything rushing back to hit her all at once. She had met Oz just a year after the worst 18 months of her life. She had lost her mother and an unborn child in just over a calendar year. Turning Oz into a “true Christian” (as her father put it) had been near the first real thing her father had accomplished after moving them to Chicago besides conducting services. She pulled back from the towel, her hands coming together in her lap. She almost immediately starting moving her fingers: thumb nail dragging against thumb nail in a way to try and let out the nervous energy that bubbled to the surface. “Oz...?” She had come to Paris to get away from Chicago and everything that had happened there. It was fitting, somehow, that she simply couldn’t.

kennedy marie johnson

(age.) thirty two. (species.) human with magical abilities (abilities.) telekinesis (occupation.) full time preschool teacher at St. Michael’s Academy (fc.) crystal reed – Is that { she/her + crystal reed } walking through the door? Oh no, that’s just  {kennedy johnson }. They’re { 32 } and room with { a roommate / open to roommates }. Sometimes they might remind you of { fresh picked daisies, a worn leather bible, and homemade apple pie }, and they’ve lived in the house for { 3 weeks }.  [ caro; I’m just putting 27 now, she/her, est ]

bio tw: death (parental death), abortion, miscarriage