we can rewrite your song

x

“Yeah, I feel like half the time I’m still surprised and the other half I’m just… so over it. If that makes any sense.” Ravi admitted, shaking his head. Coming back to Mallory had been a bit of a shock to him. On the surface, it looked like a lot had changed but, underneath, it was clear that the town was still the same. Still full of teens who were counting the days until they could escape, full of adults who either thrived in the small town or felt stuck there. A lot of the time, Ravi found himself wondering where he would be if he had stayed in town. 

“Really though, thank you. I’m so bad with technology. Trying to fix anything just makes it more broken when I get my hands on it.” He continued, remembering far too many times in which he had fiddled with something and absolutely destroyed it in the process. At this point he had learnt his lesson. When something was broken he immediately stepped back and called for help.

“Uh yeah… Kind of? I mean… Yes?” Ravi started, realizing how ridiculous he sounded. “It’s not in a school school.” He explained quickly. “We do more after school and summer and weekend stuff. But yeah. Still have the classroom and lesson plans. Gotta teach kids about art somehow.”

“Either that or I’m just super lucky.” Ravi countered with a small laugh. Lucky wasn’t exactly a word he would use to describe himself. Plus, before he’d worked as a teacher he’d mostly done food service and retail jobs, definitely not the kind of job that would require a printer. “What about you though? You’ve obviously fought off quite a few printers. What do you do for a living?” He asked as he watched Naz find the paper that had caused the whole mess.

“It’s not as if Mallory is exactly a tourist destination.” Naz can’t imagine what customers a Mallory hotel gets beyond things like teenagers renting a room to drink on prom night, cheating spouses, things like that, the sorts of stuff everyone will gossip about after church the next day. Not that she frequents the same churches as a lot of the population of Mallory, hardly a practicing Muslim in the first place.

“I don’t think fixing printer jams is an inherent skill anyway,” Naz says reassuringly, pulling out pieces of shredded and crinkled paper as she comes across it inside of the printer. She’s usually a bit unimpressed when people can’t navigate google enough to figure out how to do something, but a printer is sort of a different story.

“So... a summer school? Or like a community center?” That’s the only assumption she comes to, but she thinks that’s quite admirable, to teach something so creative. Naz likes to consider herself fairly creative, but she’d never label herself an artist. “Do you teach how to make art, or just about art as a subject?” Equally admirable.

Naz finishes the printer, closing the door on the front of it, pleased when it starts whirring back to life. “I’m an event planner in New York City. Rather high profile events, to be completely honest.” And she’s traveled for it too, but she doesn’t want to come across as bragging. “I started off as an intern though, when I was in school. Interns always have to unstick the printers. Try it now.”

open starter @ derek’s funeral

the  hollow  echo  of  footsteps  accompanied  the  soft  murmur  of  the  crowd  as  it  swelled  into  the  church,  the  sounds  muffled  by  the  heavy  velvet  curtain,  next  to  which,  as  almost  every  time  he  entered  the  church,  stood  jasper  alcott,  leaning  against  the  cold  brick  wall,  which  hadn’t  yet  warmed  in  the  midday  sun.  through  the  painted  glass  lattice,  a  few  rays  permeated  the  altar.  it  did  little  to  comfort  jasper,  in  what  he  felt  was  a  claustrophobic,  dim  space,  invaded  by  far  too  familiar  faces  of  people  who  had  cast  such  pitiful  glances  at  him  for  the  past  ten  years.  people  with  eggshell  skin  spilling  from  their  collars,  and  with  an  evident  terror  for  eye-contact––  god,  he absolutely hated  this  place.    

to  clot  their  bleeding  desire  for  a  distraction  from  their  suffocating  worlds,  they  must  imagine  him,  and  grotesquely  think  of  the  suffering  he  must  have  gone  through  ten  years  ago.  and  they  must  wonder,  would  it  be  any  better  to  lose  a  child  now,  when  they  are  older?  and  they  must  turn  to  the  mitchell-bach  family,  and  wonder  why  such  a  gruesome  fate  befell  their  darling  son.  the  hometown  hero.

somewhere  between  method  and  madness  lay  jasper’s  own  fascination  with  derek’s  death.  yet  he  knew  not  to  ogle  the  grieving  family,  or  to  whisper  quietly  in  the  pews  about  the  rumours  of  a  beheading.  the  people  lurching  in  an  out  of  their  seats,  making  ungainly  movements  with  their  animated  hands,  dropping  their  hymn  books  to  the  ground;  they  had  all  done  this  before.  ten  years  ago.  

when  he  had  the  mind  to,  jasper  slowly  pushed  himself  off  of  the  wall,  and  straightened  his  tie.  having  grown  into  the  same  suit  he  wore  at  joshua’s  funeral,  it  fit  him  much  better  now.  yet,  he  had  not  expected  to  need  it  ever  again––  not  this  soon,  at  least.  he’d  never  been  good  with  funerals.  

“i’ve  never  been  good  with  funerals,”  he  said  to  the  unfortunate  person  wandering  past  him,  at  that  moment,  and  offered  out  the  hymn  book  he’d  been  given  at  the  door.  “not  much  of  a  singer,  either.  you  must’ve  missed  the  books  by  the  door.  care  to  relieve  me  of  my  burden?”

there isn’t really any part of naz that’s changed her mind over the years and now believes that she has any right to grieve anything beyond the obvious, her own parents. playing an instrument with joshua doesn’t make her feel like they were close friends, like he would have thought about her in her final moments, no matter how fond she’d been of him.

but if there’s anyone who might be able to relate to whatever jasper is feeling at this funeral, reliving his own memories, she thinks it’s likely her. the amount of people who knew her name increased from roughly, well, zero, to the entire town the second she lost both of her parents in one go. she remembers the way the church had packed to the brim with people there to mourn two people they’d never even met, the way people who had laughed at her when she shared her stories in english class suddenly wanted to show sympathy.

if there’s any hypocrisy in her own attendance at this funeral having had that experience, she won’t acknowledge it.

“i didn’t miss them,” she says in response, nobody close enough to politely pretend like she thinks jasper isn’t talking to her. “i’m just not much of a singer either. i can take it for you if you need me to, though.”

“I got wine,” he said, checking his cupboards. He tried to keep a little bit of everything. It wasn’t like he entertained that many guests, but you never knew when someone might stop by or he might meet someone and want to invite them over for a nightcap. More often than not, at least recently, he’d been drinking alone. It was nice to have Naz as company. “But sure, have a beer. The red’ll be there if you change your mind later.” He popped off the cap and handed her one.

Naz wasn’t always the easiest person to talk to. She was something of a closed book, not the most social person, but Nathan was kind of an introvert as well, even if he was the nosy kind. Over the years, their conversations had grown easier and easier, until they’d become almost effortless. But this one was different.

“You didn’t have to come,” he said kindly. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he didn’t miss her. “I know you have a life back in New York. This place must feel like the backwoods in comparison.” He picked at his food as he spoke, losing eye contact for a moment. “Yeah, I’ve kinda had my head in this case for a long time. But I don’t worry about myself. I worry about you.”

-

Naz accepts the beer, finding it a more appropriate beverage for her current nostalgia, which isn’t the most positive. Her memories of Mallory are most recently tainted by a house party gone about as wrong as can be, the smell of chlorine and beer from cheap kegs flooding her when she thinks about that night. “You know me, even if I change my mind I’d never admit it out of pride.” And that goes for something as unimportant as which drink she has with dinner.

“No, I suppose it’s not easy to come back, but not coming back felt even weirder.” Naz doesn’t owe anyone here anything except Nathan, in her opinion, so it’s not like she’s here for the funeral of someone she has warm regards for, but something has drawn her back anyway. “It’s not that bad!” she insists, but it’s kind of obvious she doesn’t mean it.

She takes a bite of her chicken as she studies him, absolutely believing he spends more time worrying about her than he does himself, but that doesn’t mean she likes it. “There’s no need to worry about me, not when you’re the one who’s going to be working on this. Because I know you will.”

…

Cordelia gave a hum and a small nod of her head. Party planning was definitely not in her wheelhouse. One of her charges, Aiden, had his birthday recently and while she had helped as best as she could with the planning, she had discovered quickly that she was simply not the person for the job. Too many moving parts all at once, and one wrong move could send it all down the toilet. She would much rather be in charge of keeping the kids alive and lurking in her little basement cave with her recording equipment. Those were absolutely more her wheelhouse. “I don’t envy you, but I also do admire you. Keeping those big fancy events from crashing and burning can’t be an easy task.” 

The question Naz asked next actually got Cordelia to let out a laugh. There’d been debate about her official job title when she’d first taken it on. The kids, in their quest to be waspy and regal, had insisted on calling her their ‘au pair’, though their parents had been fine with ‘nanny’. They were technically too old for a nanny at this point, both adolescents in school, capable of taking care of themselves, but Cordy was the one with the drivers licence. “At this point, I think it’s safe to just call me the kid whisperer. I drive them to and pick them up from school, help with homework, keep an eye on the house and the pets while everyone is at work and school. Elevated house sitter also works.”

Cordy nodded along, offering a small shrug of her shoulders. “I’d lose my mind. Planning someone’s perfect day. I’d be too worried about everything going wrong. Meanwhile, I tripped and fell into living in a rich family’s basement and driving their kids around. And I guess the podcast, too. That was also kind of a happy accident. But I do enjoy them now, so I guess it’s net win.”

“It’s okay that it’s not easy, I like the challenge.” Before, Naz’s idea of challenging herself had been pursuing music. But her cello just gathers dust now, music no longer part of her life. It’s not that she dislikes what she does, or else she wouldn’t do it, at least she likes to think she wouldn’t. There’s no use dwelling on that though. 

“Kid whisperer, I like that,” she repeats with a soft smile. Naz has no real experience with kids, beyond planning sweet sixteens for kids who have never experienced a hardship in their entire life beyond their desired designer bag being sold out of the color they want. She’s not sure she’d be interested in caring for children in that capacity, so she respects that. It takes a certain level of patience she definitely doesn’t have. “What sorts of pets do you watch for them?”

Naz nods in understanding of that. “It’s definitely a fear, but I guess I just tell myself failure isn’t an option, if that makes sense.” Something out of her control could go wrong, but she’s certainly not going to allow anything in her control to go wrong. “What is your podcast about?”

x

“Makes sense. I don’t know if you can really expect much from a hotel in Mallory.” Ravi replied with a shrug. He could tell that she was annoyed at how passive the workers were. It made sense but Ravi was also very used to this type of thing happening. Despite her annoyance, and the printer not working, Ravi couldn’t help but smile as the woman walked into the room and agreed to help. “Really? I… Thank you! Thank you so much.” He replied, moving out of the way.

“No, thank god. It’s just some lesson plans. I don’t need them right away. If we can get them printed out that’s great but if not, it’s not like I really need them for another few weeks. I can be out of your hair.” Ravi rambled. He tended to do that when he was nervous or felt like he was inconveniencing someone. He’d managed to shed a lot of his old life but the rambling was an annoying habit that had carried over. 

“I’m actually surprised that I haven’t had to tackle more broken printers in my day. I’ve had so many odd jobs that I thought it would come up more.” He continued before pausing, mentally telling himself to stop. “Nice to meet you Naz. I’m Ravi. Thank you for this, really.”

“I suppose I should know better than to have high expectations at this point.” Perhaps if life had gone differently for Naz, she would have fonder memories of her hometown, but as it is, she simply feels suffocated when she’s here. “Don’t mention it, it shouldn’t be too difficult.” That might come across as condescending, but it’s not how she means it. 

“You are a teacher?” She can’t imagine who else would have to make lesson plans, but it feels polite to ask and clarify. She also understands the urge to be overly prepared, far before a deadline. She’s never been much of a procrastinator, even when she indulged in fun things more often. 

“That just means you have been lucky enough to work with actually functioning printers,” she notes, not looking at him as she opens the front of the printer to start looking for the jam, turning various knobs inside once she spots the stuck paper in question. “It’s no trouble at all.”

OOC INFORMATION

Name: bunny

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 25+/28

Timezone: EST

Activity Level: 7-8

Triggers: photos of food/talks of excessive eating

Anything else? nope!

BASIC CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name: Nazik “Naz” Bulut

Birthdate & Age: January 1st, 1993, 28 years old

Gender & Pronouns: Cisfemale, she/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Occupation: Event Planner

FC: Özge Özacar for present day, Cemre Baysel for past FC

IN-DEPTH

Aesthetics: a smile that no longer reaches the eyes, a collection of stashed away photos, muffled cries into a pillowcase

Biography: Naz was quiet from birth, taking so long to cry when she was born that the doctors and her parents feared the worst, but when she finally opened her mouth to cry, even that moment wasn’t terribly loud, just a quiet reassurance that she was breathing. Her family had moved to America from Turkey when she was only a baby, so she grew up in Mallory, may as well have been one of the locals born and raised there. But despite living in Mallory her entire life, Naz was never quite able to find her place. It wasn’t like being interested in music (she started playing cello at a very young age) was isolating considering one of the golden boys of Mallory, Joshua Alcott, was also a musician. It was more so the fact that it seemed like Naz never had much to say, and when she did speak, she usually got tongue tied, or so shy she would stumble over her words. Anyone who paid enough attention to Naz described her as living in her own world. If she wasn’t practicing the cello, she had her nose buried in a book, or was writing in her journal, or flipping through magazines to cut out pictures for her vision board. Those she was most comfortable with, she would talk about her ideas for parties and balls in magical worlds that she invented on her own. Whatever anonymity Naz had in life disappeared when both of her parents were killed in a car accident her sophomore year of high school. She’d always just been the quiet girl in band, but suddenly she was the person whose parents’ deaths were on the front page of the local paper, pictures and all. In a small town, word spreads, and it’s not hard to figure out that a fifteen year old girl is suddenly an orphan. Her parents were family friends with a detective in town, Nathan Choi, and he took her in so that she wouldn’t have to leave the only home she’d ever known. It was awkward, at first. Naz isn’t easy to bond with. But over time they formed a sibling sort of relationship, though if Naz had been quiet before, it was nothing compared to the way she retreated into herself after losing both of her parents.

Ties to Derek Mitchell-Bach or Joshua Alcott? If there was one person who actually paid attention to Naz, it was Joshua Alcott, her fellow cello player. When she reflects on her high school years later in life, she won’t call them best friends or anything, but she will remember how kind he always was to her. Sometimes they would just sit in practice rooms adjacent to each other, offering each other a wave, checking on how each of their etudes are going along as they practice. Naz never went to parties, but the party that results in Joshua’s death is supposedly going to be a huge one, and her senior year, and she thinks maybe she should check it out. It goes about as she expects, with her mostly lingering on the edges. She tries to loosen up, it’s her last party after all, and she does break out of her shell a bit, talking to a few people, having a few drinks, even noticing that maybe a few people are interested in flirting with her. But then it happens, and Naz fully retreats back into her shell. She doesn’t really feel like she has any right to grief Joshua, but she does anyway, and after witnessing her third death in a few short years, she decides Mallory is cursed, and can’t wait to leave.

 What were you like ten years ago?

Naz has absolutely no real reason to be here. The only redeeming factor about Derek to her had been his friendship with Joshua, and she felt that for years after high school, having bumped into him several times due to her line of work in the city. But she has no real reason not to go either, not when everyone else will be going. The only real reason she’s come back to Mallory at all is to support Nathan and the way he’ll inevitably want to pursue the truth now that there are two bodies. 

She’s sitting in the very back as people mill around, as far from the friends and family section as she can possibly sit, surrounded by people whose names and faces she recognizes but that she doubts recognize her, which is fine with her, essentially. But part of sitting in the very back is that there’s a lot of space next to her, and inevitably, someone is going to want to sit there.

“I’m not saving this seat for anyone, if you need it,” Naz briefly looking up from the phone in her hand, replying to a text from her assistant. “Help yourself.”

The grocery store is enthralling. In the sense that it enthralls you to buy more than you need and purchase weird food items you’re not even sure you like. It waves items in front of your face and offers you discounts it brands as a good deal. And Odessa is exactly the type of customer that falls for grocery store’s tricks.

She’s reached for the third box of Lucky Charms, part of a buy two get one free deal, when her eye catches the eyes of another person. Naz, past classmate and event planner for her torn-up engagement’s engagement party Naz. Nazik Bulut. That Naz. Sheepishly dumping the box into her cart, she waves at Naz before pushing her cart toward her. “Hey. Doing some last minute shopping?” she asks before answering Naz’s pleasantry, “I’m fine. What about you? When did you arrive? Did you drive here?”

Naz’s eyes sweep over Odessa’s choices of groceries, but not judgmentally, just because it’s somewhere to look other than the other woman in the eyes. Lucky Charms are a good idea, now that she’s thinking about it. She can’t remember the last time she treated herself to a sugary cereal. Probably high school, actually. 

“Yes, just stocking up my hotel room,” she confirms, reaching for her own box of Lucky Charms, dropping it into her basket. She’s not getting much, or at least that what she’s telling herself so she doesn’t buy a bunch of snacks simply for the nostalgia of it all. “I just got here today, actually.” Which is why she’s got a bottled Starbucks iced coffee in her basket as well. “I did drive, wasn’t too bad of a trip. Very tired now though.” She glances around, feeling herself wanting to let the conversation die because she’s anxious about it all. “This is the first time I’ve been back since graduation.”

where: the diner with whom: open to anyone

Whenever Martin missed his parents, he’d make sure to make a perfect plan so they’d have to come to New York: he’d buy them tickets, greet them with deliciously smelling dinner and organise activities for the entire weekend. Deep inside he knew that his parents were aware why he didn’t want to visit them. They weren’t stupid. They knew that for Martin, going back to Mallory was simply too painful. Therefore they never complained, and Martin never had a reason to come back. Until now, of course.

He couldn’t remember when was the last time he wandered around these streets, but nothing seemed to be changed. Everything looked the same, and every corner had its stories that were waking up some memories — which, by the way, were buried deep inside his subconsciousness. And not all of them were pleasing his heart. In fact, most of them were making him tired. Exhausted.

As he put out his cigarette and threw it in a bin, Martin sighed and entered the diner – the one that most days he’d visit after school. “Coffee, please,” he muttered as he was greeted by a waiter. He hasn’t even reached his table when he made his order, and it was one of two things that made the diner’s employee annoyed. The other was bumping into someone standing in front of Martin, and the fact that this person spilled their drink on the floor. “Shit… Shit! I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

Naz doesn’t feel jetlagged, because she hasn’t done any jetting around to lag from, but the aching sort of tired in her bones that comes from being back at the source of her trauma. She mostly wants to stay in her hotel room all day, to avoid two things: accepting that she should just stay at Nathan’s, her childhood room still there, and walking past the site where her parents had been lost to her forever. So far, so good.

Still, she needs food, which is what brings her to the diner, though the second she steps inside and is absolutely overwhelmed by nostalgia, Naz loses her appetite. She orders a coffee to-go, not planning to stay, not sure where she’ll go if she doesn’t, but she doesn’t have any time to think about it because now her coffee is on her shirt. Thankfully it’s iced.

“I’m alright, please, it’s okay,” Naz insists, already reaching for napkins from a nearby table, starting to dab at her shirt. “It was an accident.” There’s no annoyance in her tone, though it is a bit annoying. “Just add a second to your order, if you don’t mind.”

…

“I’d say it definitely counts if you’re attending the fancy events in your best ball gown, but I’m also the land rich, cents poor aristocracy who only got to go to the country club because of wealthy penny pinching grandparents. So I tend to be a little bit judgy toward those nouveau riche, day drinking snobs.” Cordelia laughed a bit as she tossed the new bag into the basket hanging from her arm, looking through it and realizing that she hadn’t really bothered going for anything substantial. She could always go to a diner and get a burger. Hell, if she was feeling really frisky, she could stop by the big family dinner her mom was planning and eat half burnt chicken while everyone in the family asked her when she planned to get a real job.

They tended to overlook her nanny gig, since no one in the Wynn family would ever appreciate being something as low on the totem pole as a nanny. She almost missed her spoiled rich kid charges and their insistence that she learn this weeks TikTok dance.

“I’ve been eating a lot of French food, lately. The waspy kids I watch– who I adore, by the way, I call them waspy out of love– are in the middle of a cuisines around the world kick, and this past week was French foods. Snails actually aren’t that bad if you smother them in cheese.” She chuckled a bit as her eyes cut back toward the shelf behind her, spotting and grabbing a pack of oreos and holding them up. “Bingo. So party planning? How’d you trip and fall into that gig?”

“I would picture me more in a reasonable professional outfit with my clipboard making sure everything is going to plan.” Naz’s whole thing is that she never wants attention, wearing a ball gown is the direct opposite of that. She can’t say she has any resentment for the wealthier people she works for, but she has no desire to be their friends either. Being in the snack aisle in the place she grew up has her feeling nostalgic in a way that makes her uncomfortable. She’d become a different person as a protection, and so far that strategy isn’t working now that she’s back.

“I’ve tried snails, actually,” she says as she falls into step next to Cordelia, finding herself warming up to the conversation, though not enough to go off on the tangent about a French novel she read recently in a way she might have when they were in high school. She’s not that girl of fantasies and daydreams anymore. “So what is your official job title?” Is the word nanny offensive? She’s not sure.

“I did it willingly,” she corrects, but there’s no heat in her tone, not offended by the assumption. “It’s just something I found myself quite good at. I could take a client’s vision and create their perfect day.” Perhaps not the best way to channel her imagination, but she enjoys it.

Closed for @nazbulut​

-

They hadn’t always been close, but when Kerem had died, they’d both been left without him. Nathan had always wondered if she had seen him as invading on her family, some kind of sibling rivalry with people who weren’t actually siblings, as if he was trying to take her father from her. It turned out, fate had taken him from both of them, and it had taken her mother, too. In the wake of that loss, he’d gained a friend and sibling. It had been years since then, but they still hung out and had dinner together or went to the movies or some local event. Tonight, it was Chinese food.

Sometimes he cooked. He was pretty good at the Korean dishes of his childhood, but damn, it had been a long week. Takeout it was. Nathan had ordered ahead of time, scheduling the delivery for shortly after she was due to arrive, and now it was sitting on the table in plastic containers while he grabbed plates. “Did you want a drink?” he asked, grabbing himself a light beer to go alongside his Chow Mein and egg rolls.

He awaited her answer, bringing her one too and taking his seat near her on the table. He could feel the elephant in the room, the things left unsaid. “So, how’ve you been doing?” he asked, doing his best to seem to be making casual conversation rather than asking out of concern. He wasn’t sure it was too convincing. “This stuff with Derek must bring up a lot of memories.”

If there’s anything she actually misses about Mallory after leaving to go to school and work in New York instead, it’s Nathan. She won’t say that gaining a family member is any consolation for losing both of her parents at once, but at the very least she hadn’t been left completely alone in the world. So if she ever has to suck it up and return to Mallory, she can do it for him. 

“No, thank you. Well, unless you have wine.” She peers around his shoulder into his fridge as if willing her favorite red to appear there, but now that she’s already turned the beer down, she actually kind of wants one. “Wait, I’ll take one actually.” She’s partial to crab rangoon and orange chicken, personally.

Unimpressed by his attempt to keep the conversation away from the obvious, she lifts an eyebrow. “I’m back here because of yet another death connected to this place, so I’ve been better.” She doesn’t have anything even remotely close to a monopoly on the old wounds Mallory can hold, but it stings all the same. “Surely it must bring up more for you.”

…

She wondered if it was odd to feel like Mallory felt like a completely different place. It wasn’t the same shitty place she’d grown up, living on the outskirts of the inner circle and keeping secrets for people who thought they were better than her. She’d been a teenage socialite without the money that went with the job, and now she was… something else. She’d ditched the preppy shirts and light washed jeans and experimented with hair dye and lived for the fucking taco truck that parked in the middle of Raleigh every day. She didn’t know who to be now, and it had been pretty evident based on the reactions she’d gotten from the family she’d already run into that they didn’t quite know how to classify her either.

Although, her mother had raved about how exciting it was that she’d gotten a sponsor on her last few episodes, as if the woman had listened to a single one of them. Probably got the rundown from one of the siblings on it. Sponsors meant money, which meant, Cordelia assumed, that Mommy dearest was looking for a payday.

Her attention focused on the woman, trying to force her brain into recognition, as clearly, they knew one another. They were probably even friends. Cordelia had been a lot more friendly than her siblings ever had. It took a moment to click, and Cordelia smiled as she reached out to grab the bag. “Naz. Been a while. You’re a lot stiffer than I remember. You didn’t join a country club, did you? Please say you didn’t join a country club, they so aren’t worth it, and you’ve got this country club vibe right now. Also, yes. Still one of my faves. Good memory.”

The idea of being called stiff makes Naz, well, stiffen. She isn’t intentionally like this, and her idea with being more closed off is more about protection than anything else, but having it pointed it out by someone else makes it a bit harder to swallow. She wasn’t always like this. She’s always been shy, more reserved, but around people she trusted and liked, she thinks people may have called her whimsical. Now she’s... simply not.

“I have not joined a country club, no,” she says with a smile that makes it seem like she’s in on the joke and not like the idea of it stings. “I do plan events for people who join country clubs though. Does that count?” She imagines it must. Naz is more than comfortable financially now, but it’s nothing like the people who hire her.

“Taste buds cycle continuously over the years in adulthood, but I figured this is a timeless classic.” Naz wonders if it’s wrong to be talking about snack foods like this when they’re all clearly here for the same reason, but there’s something a bit comforting about it, especially chatting with Cordelia. “I still like Oreos, after all. Are they down this aisle?”

x

It shouldn’t have come as a shock to Ravi that the woman he was talking to seemed so put together but, for some reason, it did. Rationally, he knew that this was a hotel, it wasn’t somewhere that residents of Mallory stayed, but he was still startled. Maybe it was the part of him that had grown up in the town, but it was obvious from the moment Ravi laid eyes on her that this woman was not from Mallory. The way she held herself spoke of someone who belonged in a big city with tall buildings and busy streets. Not the quiet, suffocating blanket of Mallory, Ohio. “I… I mentioned it to them and they just… shrugged it off. Not sure what it means but…” Ravi shrugged. It had been quite obvious that the person at the front desk did not want to be there. They had greeted Ravi kindly enough but once he had mentioned the printer, had seemingly decided that the problem was above their pay grade and not their problem. He honestly couldn’t blame them either. He didn’t want to be dealing with a jammed printer either.

Naz’s nose wrinkles a little at that, finding it remarkably unprofessional to ignore the needs of a guest, regardless of whether or not it’s something one feels like doing or not. “It means this hotel isn’t very guest friendly, apparently.” Naz makes it sound like a joke, but the actual distaste is a bit obvious in her tone. She doesn’t recognize him, isn’t sure if she’s supposed to, but she does feel bad because she understands the frustration of not being able to get work done. “I can take a look at it,” she finally gives in, as if he’s been prodding her to do it, and not like she just still isn’t the same person who likes to help others that she was in high school. “Are you on a deadline?” she asks as she fully enters the room, figuring the sooner she gets him out of there, the sooner she can get her own work done. “My first job was in an office with... outdated equipment, to put it lightly. I had to fix the printer jams all the time.” She’s already kneeling by the printer, working on finding the source of the jam. “I’m Naz, by the way.”

where: the convenience store with whom: open

Cordelia had just landed, and she needed snacks and caffeine asap. She already missed Raleigh, the heat and the rugrats, her dark little basement apartment in the Maxwell’s house, and to top it off she had already run into three of her siblings, her mother, and some kid who apparently listened to her podcast and asked her if she had any news Daniel. 

She was finally relieved to be alone, grabbing unhealthy shit to load up her hotel room with (because, of course, with eight children there simply wasn’t room for everyone at home). She’d picked up on that little clue, and she also knew full well that she was the only one of the eight children staying in the shitty motel while everyone else got their old rooms back at the house. It was fine, the nieces and nephews could have her old room and she would be happy on her own. Besides, the motel walls weren’t so thin that she couldn’t do a bit of recording while she was here.

She was answering a text from Mrs. Maxwell about her flight landing just fine when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and twisted around to face yet another companion with half a scowl and an eyebrow lifted. “I’m Cordelia, not Druscilla, and if you’re looking for literally any of the other nine Wynns, I have no idea where they are. For the record.”

The thing about becoming a different person after high school was that while it might protect Naz from the heartache Mallory had brought her time and time again, it also meant that she was more isolated than she’d ever been as a nobody who became a somebody because people find someone suddenly becoming an orphan fascinating. She’d been awful about keeping contact with people from school, she knew that, but it was easier to ignore how bad she felt about that when she was in New York, and not here, surrounded by what felt like literal ghosts.

She didn’t think she should approach Cordelia. She awkwardly stood at the other end of the aisle with her own purchases in hand for a long moment, having spotted Cordelia a few moments ago, and trying to decide what would be more unwelcome: saying hello, or simply being back without saying anything. But she spotted one of Cordelia’s favorite snacks on the shelf beside her, so she grabbed it, and slowly approached.

“No, just wanted to say hello. To this specific Wynn.” Cordelia was the only one she’d been close to, after all. “Do you still like these?” She held out the snack in question, not wanting to make it feel like an apology gesture.

Naz was great with her clients in a professional setting, but absolutely awful with interacting with them if she ran into them outside of work. And while she didn’t really expect that to be an issue considering the bulk of her work was done in the city, none of it in Mallory, it still didn’t surprise her all that much to bump into someone she’d worked with. It fit all the cliches, running into people from your past when you went back to your hometown, regardless of wherever you’d first interacted with them. Odessa was no exception to that, and it was made even worse by the fact that well, Naz knew about the whole engagement being called off thing. She ordinarily might not say hello, but it was too late, having accidentally made eye contact in the aisle where she stopped to get some groceries to take to Nathan’s. “Odessa, hello,” she said politely. “How are you?” Probably an awful question, considering why they were all here.

Where: Hotel Lobby

Who: Anyone

Despite the fact that it was technically Ravi’s summer break, he hadn’t actually taken a break of any kind. Even the fact that he was three states away for a funeral wasn’t stopping him from lesson planning. Some people might call it hard work but Ravi just called it hyper fixation and a lack of any social life. This mix was exactly why Ravi was sitting at the hotel computer, trying to figure out how to use their printer. It really shouldn’t be that hard. A printer was a printer. You put paper in, click print, and then your page should come out all nice and ready to go. Unfortunately, the hotel printer had decided to be difficult and had jammed multiple times. It wouldn’t matter too much if it were his own computer but Ravi was in a public place and he could feel someone staring. Finally turning to face the person behind him, Ravi sighed. “I’m sorry. Do you… do you need to use the computer? I can be out of your hair soon… Do you… Do you happen to know anything about printer jams?”

Naz knew she had a place to stay with Nathan, but she (correctly) anticipated that her first day back in town since she’d left as quickly as humanly possible would leave her feeling a bit, if not a lot, overwhelmed. So she was settling in at a hotel first, needing a bit more alone time before she saw her family for the first time in a couple of years. There was a part of her that could feel the guilt for writing Mallory off as much as she had, and for her, the solution was to get some work done. But naturally, as soon as she opened her laptop, it decided it needed an update, which was what had her in the computer lab. She tried to leave without being spotted, but it was too late, and she stopped at the door, unfortunately locked in conversation now. “I do, but it’s no rush.” Tone polite, pointed, trying to be clear she wasn’t trying to chat. But that wasn’t quite her true nature. “Yes, I do. I... maybe we should ask the front desk though?”