Jon sat in the Nite Owl diner and considered throwing himself off the wagon. His empty stomach chewed on itself, but it was a distant thing. He hadn’t been himself for a while. Stubble burned his palm when he rubbed at his chapped mouth, and his shaggy black hair hung in limp curls across his brow. His dark eyes burned from lack of sleep, and his skin—a freckled, burnished bronze on his best days—was wan and dry.
He needed a hot shower, ten hours of sleep, and a fresh tub of shea butter. Even the synthetic stuff would be better than nothing.
He had a bad idea and a flask. It was heavy as a dying star in his palm, cut in blue and violet from the neon sign shining out front.
Anniversaries were always hard. Another one of his loomed, dragging itself closer with every hour. With it came the same old gang: dread and grief and remembrance. The cold, helpless anger that stuck in his windpipe like a knife. Guilt.
Always, always guilt.
Years ago, before this planet was terraformed and the many-Ringed city of Centralia and her mines were dug deep into its crust, before the scattered Generation ships touched down at all, before ice and fire swallowed the first Earth, Jon’s ancestors were Catholics in Mexico City.
Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Passed down from parent to child in a language people rarely spoke anymore. These days English was the new Standard.
“English has always been the standard,” Jon’s Abuelita had told him once, before the air rotted her lungs and they’d had to burn her. “Al diablo con eso, nieto.”
To Hell with that, she’d declared, time and again. She’d taught them Español along with God, same as her mother before her, and didn’t give a lick whether or not the government approved.
Maybe that was where the guilt came from. Maybe his grandmother had planted that seed good and deep, when Jon was still young enough to sprout it.
Or maybe you’ve just got a lot to be sorry for, Jonny. Do you even remember Tommy’s voice?
That was Roan’s gravelled rasp in his ear making him flinch, though the man was three years dead. Dead, and the only one who’d ever called him that. Guilty and ghost-ridden, that was Jonny Wilde. With the flask still in his hand, standing at the crossroads and waiting for the devil.
Three years alone, one year sober. Fourteen years a failure. Lord, anniversaries were hard. His fiancée, his best friend, and at the root of it all—
He derailed that train of thought. Some graves were best left untouched.
Christ, Mother Mary, turn your eyes away. I’m a sorry sight tonight.
His throat was parched. Bone dry. His thumb worked at the cap of his flask with a soft metallic scraping—
A mug thumped down onto the table, and coffee splashed down into it.
