Throwback Thursday

(Try to ignore the fact that I haven't posted in a week...)

Spring semester 2010. This is my friend J who lived across the hall and around the corner my sophomore year. Yes, the wall is most likely holding me upright. I'm not the most graceful person on the planet on solid ground, and even less so on skates. But it was fun, and that's all that counts.

I still ice skate at least once a winter.

Throwback Thursday - Halloween Edition

(I swear I will do an actual blog post soon. Promise.)

From Halloween 2007 it's Raggedy Ann. There was no Andy - I couldn't find him, and then decided I didn't need him - and that handmade red yarn wig was absolutely awesome. I had to lifeguard part of the IAC swim meet after school and wore that while sitting in the chair.

As for this year? Well, I'm rockin' out in my Iron Man arc reactor t-shirt my cousins got me as a gift when I was still in the hospital back in August.

Happy Halloween!

From the Vault

My weekend was, barring a flat tire while traveling to the Farmer's Market with my sister, rather uneventful.

This morning I had coffee with a good friend of mine from high school. She went to college for English, and we've both always been very interested in writing stories. We even looked at some of our old stuff and had a good laugh over it.

Naturally, with November being only four days away, we talked about what we were going to do for NaNo - National Novel Writing Month. My original intention had been to finish Terrathela and Two for the Aisle, but we got to talking and I got to thinking about how much I really liked an idea that had started off as a dramatic text while I was abroad. I'd started a new view on the idea of Jokul Frosti while I was in Wales, kind of spliced it with elements from The Pied Piper, and the beginning efforts of the novel are only about 12,000 words right now.

I'm going to go play in this sandbox again for the month of November. The characters are fun to work with, the plot is fairly solid, and Jack isn't a protagonist I'm familiar with working with. He's darker, and in a way, he's a little flat because he doesn't have a clue what to do with human emotion.

Wandering back into the urban fantasy neighborhood, too, is a promising prospect.

This excitement over ideas and story lines is what makes it fun to be a writer. Though, in a way, I'm also looking forward to the frustration that's going to make me want to pull all my hair out.

Strangely Fun

(I'm trying to blog every day in the attempt at being a better blogger. Key word is attempt.)

I have a six-year-old niece and she watches a lot of Disney channel, and that's where I first heard this song. Then I think I heard it on the radio. It's strangely addictive, and has also become one of the songs I listen to on my walk.

Have a good rest of the weekend and I'll be back on Monday!

#PitMad

Two for the Rent

Matthew Winchester is about as good a best friend as anyone - Topher Stanton included - could ask for. He looked past the Stanton billions and simply saw Topher. So it's no big deal when Topher comes out as bi during their fall semester senior year.

Except it throws Matt's already muddy perspective on his own sexuality into a tailspin. Having a girlfriend doesn't seem right, and watching Topher attempt a fledgling relationship with another man doesn't sit well, either. Losing Topher's not an option, so Matt sucks it up and buries it all in the proverbial closet. 

While Topher might be emotionally conflicted on where his best friend stands in his life, he's not an idiot. He can see Matt's frayed edges and knows something's gotta give, but he's had too many important people walk out on him to lose Matt the same way. It'll be a miracle if they make it Christmas, let alone graduation in May.

Topher slammed open the door to the apartment and shut it just as viciously. The cats scrambled across the hardwood, disappearing of all places, into the bathroom, and Matt turned on his cushion, staring wide-eyed at his roommate.

He undid the top buttons on his double-breasted, calf-length dark gray peacoat with trembling fingers, allowing the two halves of the fabric part without actually removing it completely.

"What the hell is going on, Matt?" Topher said, his voice odd in the silence of the apartment.

Blindsided, Matt tried to buy himself some time. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You. What the hell is going on with you, Matt, because last I knew when I first came out to you in September, you weren't a homophobic asshole!" Topher gripped the sides of his coat with white-knuckled fingers. "But I swear to God that you can't stand the idea of me dating anyone."

"Where in hell did you get that idea?" Matt demanded, rising up on his knees and keeping the back of the couch as a barrier between them. "And I'm not homophobic, you asshole." He wasn't. He wasn't sure what he was, but he knew he wasn't that.

"Then what is your goddamn problem?" Topher looked at his breaking point, and Matt hated himself for putting the two of them in this position.

"I don't have a problem with you," Matt said carefully, looking at Topher's nose instead of his eyes. He opened his mouth and had to glance away from Topher's face; the words wouldn't come.

Topher, however, could read between the lines well enough. "Why did you break up with Charlie?"

Matt rested his elbows on the back of the couch, scrubbing his face with his hands. "She wasn't...she wasn't what I wanted." No, that wasn't quite right. "She didn't feel right to me. When I held her." When he kissed her. When he put his arms around her and held her tight. She was curvy in all the places he wanted her to be flat.

He licked his lower lip, glad his coat was wool as a lesser fabric would have split from the tension or been marred beyond repair. Topher made Matt's gray eyes briefly, swallowed thickly, and whispered, "Why did you stop playing football?"

Either Topher was operating at a higher brain wave than the rest of the human race or he was damn good at connecting invisible dots Matt wasn't aware he'd left out in the open.

"Why did you stop playing football, Matt?" Topher repeated, louder. He took a step forward. "You love it. You absolutely love it and you've played for years and you were a freshman starter and you gave it up. So why did you do it?"

"Why is this important now?" Matt shot back, gripping the cushion like his life depended on it.

Closing his eyes, he swallowed again, like he was having to force it past a lump. "Why, Matt? You gave up dating Charlie, you gave up playing football - "

"Does it honestly matter? Does it seriously fuc - "

"Yes it matters, because it doesn't make any goddamn sense!" Topher's chest heaved. "What the hell are you hiding? From me?" 

Back Again

I'm approximately four days late on this one, but didn't we already discuss the idea of better late than never?

Anyway. After a brief hiatus, The Sleepless Writers are back with a new look, new format, and new ideas. They have a collection of different writing styles and voices from across the US, Canada, and the UK. There's a little bit of something for everybody, whether you're a hardcore novelist or someone just looking to make your every day writing better. Come check us out and see what we have to offer.

You can follow on Twitter, tumblr, YouTube, and Facebook, too.

Moving Up and On

Sometimes it's the unexpected that does the most good. I was not prepared, Friday mid-morning, to be leaning against the counter of a souvenir kiosk and have my ex-boyfriend's wife go walking by with other members of her fire company. Really, the first thought upon seeing her was, to be honestly, incredibly shallow on my part in I was wondering how exactly she had passed the physical training aspect of it. Then I realized that really wasn't any of my business.

Even more surprising was the utter lack of emotional response the mere sight of her drew up. I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I simply...was. He'd moved on in a direction I had no intentions of going any time soon, and I think I finally realized in that moment I was good with who I was, and what I'd done so far in my twenty-two years on this planet.

Kind of also didn't surprise me to see said ex-boyfriend's sister on my walk back from getting coffee. She gave me a hug, there wasn't too much chitchat, and then it was back to hawking souvenirs and ringing up credit card purchases.

The ending gambit to all of this was, roughly in the same position as when I first saw his wife that morning, I saw the pair of them walking by. He looked much the same as the last time I'd seen him - only a little plumper, as not doing three sports a year like high school will do that to most of us - and, again, there really wasn't a whole lot of emotional reaction. It was like he was just another person passing by, though at one point he'd been much, much more than that.

I'm good. I'm good with who I am and what I've done so far with my life. This little series of events over the course of one day, almost totally randomly in a place where it definitely wasn't expected, proves it to me. And when I came to the conclusion that I was, indeed, not a complete wreck at the mere sight of them - together - well, I'm incredibly happy that I'm in a place where, I might not have expected a few years ago, but I'm more than okay with.

I'm more than okay with me in this moment.

Almost Like a B&N

I'm not one for self-promotion - especially when it comes to my writing - but I thought I'd try something a little bit different.

Many of you have probably figured out that I'm a little stuck with Murphy and Me. Mostly because I finished Sophomore Fall and started Sophomore Spring to have an excerpt to apply for the Trias Writer in Residence Workshop, and I kind of haven't touched the new writing process really at all yet, and I've been trying to edit my way through the first 59 pages of printed manuscript. So that's kind of stalled out right where it's at and I'm not entirely when I'm going to be doing something new with it, since I chose the retyping the whole damn thing route in terms of editing. I was already leaning that way, my professor also suggested it....

Anyway.

Maybe some of you knew this - and maybe some of you didn't - but I have this tendency to work on more than one project at a time. That way, if and when writer's block (yes, it's a real thing, and really frustrating to work with at times) hits, then I'm not totally stuck not writing for however long it takes to break out of the funk. In some cases - like with parts of The Crossing, that massive thing in composition books - it could be anywhere from a couple weeks to over six months. Patience, when writing, is key.

I have other projects, other novels in progress, that while not in the same sort of genre as Murphy and Me are somewhat in the same style and voice. So I thought I would go ahead and share their blurbs, their links, and a little bit about the inspiration behind the story. That way, while you're waiting on Murphy and Me to do something or actually go somewhere - hopefully in the direction of a publishing contract - you might find something else you like just as much, maybe more.

Sage
Eleanora Hope knew from the tender age of four what she was destined for – she was the latest in a long line of Sages, those charged with keeping the dead beneath the graveyard ground – and she had more than willingly accepted the task at hand. At eighteen she was the youngest Sage, a byproduct of the passing of her grandmother, Lynette, fifteen years after the murder of Ella’s parents. And while the dead might deem otherwise, Ella was more than content with the life she had reconciled herself to.

Until Azrael and Aeryn literally drop in and introduce her to part of reality she hadn’t rightly considered. With two voluntary fallen angels – one who might not be as angelic as he should be – they turn Ella’s quiet existence as Sage sideways. Now with the possibility of an apocalypse and a power-hungry council of women after her graveyard, Earth seems to have become the proverbial war zone, and the lines between angel, demon, human, and Sage are more than a little blurred.

But if life weren’t complicated, it wouldn’t be worth living. And life for this Sage is far from simple.

Sage was born out of the cemetery by the Colleges and walking through there with my best friend and her camera in the fall of our sophomore year. It originally started out as my National Novel Writing Month story, but I didn't finish even remotely close in the month of November, and it's sort of turned into an ongoing project. 

The Icicle Man
Mari's life was to look after the animals on the small farm she and her mother kept in the New York Adirondacks. Other girls had come back from college looking to settle down, shack up, and raise babies. She'd come back to the farm and its simplicity. It was all she wanted. Until she met Jack. Or rather, Jack met her on her way through the forest to her grandmother's.

Convinced she was one of those piper-stolen children, he cages her into returning to his palace, for he is the Icicle Man, Jack Frost. Mari's not sure what to believe, but she knows she's no piper's child. Jack's plan, whatever that may be, is turned on its head when Mari gives him a challenge he can't refuse - what it means to be human. As Jack steps out of his centuries-old role, Mari discovers what makes the frozen Winter Prince tick.

And what it means to be truly human.

The Icicle Man started out as a play text - and is actually still in that form, as well, though not here, here is the novel form - and was started during my semester abroad in Wales in the fall of 2010. It's a retelling of the European fairytale Jokul Frosti (Jack Frost) mixed with a little bit of The Pied Piper. And a whole lot of fun.

I'm hoping that while I figure out what I'm doing with Murph and Ollie that you'll take a look and maybe find something you enjoy just as much. Or maybe you spam my inbox with messages looking for more Murph and Ollie and that will kick start me into writing them again. Either way works for me, truthfully.  

Murphy and Me XXXXIV

[This is the second to last chapter in Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall. But don't worry, because after the fall semester comes the spring semester. Happy Monday.]

I keep swearing every time a big paper comes up I won't do this. It's not fun. It does nothing for my blood pressure and my brain melts right around two-thirty, three o'clock. These don't get any easier. Might actually get harder, come to think of it.

Which is why all-nighters aren't good for the human body. Which was why I was not totally coherent.

Which was mostly why I was falling asleep in my omelet in Saga the second day of finals. My T-S Britain paper was due at eleven, and Em and I had handed ours in at ten-thirty after starting them at six the previous night. Not a moment of brilliance on my part, and if there was a way to mainline coffee, I needed to do it. Preferably an hour ago.

"Olivia?"

Not a voice I recognized, first of all, and, to be frank, my outfit left a lot to be desired. Murph's flannel shirt, rolled up to the elbows, William Smith soccer sweatpants, the legs pushed up to my knees, and my beaten New Balance sneakers. A hot mess, that was me.

I looked up, blinking hard to get the fuzziness out of my eyes.

Manda.

I was not awake enough for this shit. That much I knew.

"Hi." She looked like she hadn't just ripped an all-nighter - more like she'd come from the gym, with all her carefully applied makeup still intact - and she sat delicately across from me.

My appetite promptly fled. "Morning."

"Yeah." Manda shifted. "So, you're Murphy's new girlfriend?"

If she meant "new" as in "together officially for four months" then yeah, I was the new girlfriend. "Kinda, okay, yeah." Really hope that made some sort of sense.

"Well, there's some things you should know." She shifted again.

What happened next was more...verbal vomiting from a sleep-deprived brain that did not want to deal with this shit. Not now. Not ever.

"Wait a second."

Manda looked at me - actually looked at me for the first time - and froze.

"If you're going to sit there and tell me secrets - dirty secrets about Murph, then I don't want to hear them. Not from you." That damn Boyd temper was rearing its ugly head. "Any secrets," I said, calmly gathering my things, "about Murphy I plan to learn from Murphy when Murphy is ready to tell me." Didn't care she had to look up at me. "I have no desire to hear anything you might have to tell me about Murphy. Good luck with your finals."

And I walked away. That was a moment of brilliance.


Packing was a good way to procrastinate on studying for physics. While listening to music, of course. My orgo exam had been more of a train wreck than originally thought and the act of decompressing from that was more to let my brain solidify again by random action than anything else.

The little black flip phone buzzed against the bed frame.

you upstairs? from Liam, of all people. He must have been visiting his brother. I sent back an affirmative and seconds later - which told me he'd been standing outside the door - he was knocking. A quick trip to open said door, then around the piles on the floor to turn the music down.

Liam must have figured the only safe place to stand was leaning against the door. "So...You walked out on Manda."

I moved a pile of sweatshirts and sank into the moon chair. "Yeah. Guess I did." To be honest, that whole exchange had a funny, almost out-of-body feel to it. More like I watched it happen than actually did it.

"Thank you."

Again, not what I was expecting.

Liam opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found the right words. "When Murphy was with Manda he...He wasn't happy at times. Downright miserable, really. And when you're the older sibling - by a whopping minute and forty-five seconds - you want your younger sibling to be happy." He put his hands in his pockets. "I haven't seen my brother this relaxed in a long time and he's content with you in a way he never was with Manda."

I clutched the pile of sweatshirts tighter, not sure what to say.

"I don't know," he said, "if I were in your position, if I would have walked away. I really don't. And to do that took a lot and, just...Thank you for having such faith in my brother."

Liam was open and raw in a way that was almost shocking in its intensity. It made me wonder what exactly Manda had done to him, and why anyone would ever want to hurt Murph in any capacity, but especially on this level.

"You would've," I said. "You would've walked away."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have a solid answer for that."

Just because he wasn't sure didn't make me the better person. Did it?

"You're good for him," Liam said. "And thank you for that." He smiled softly. "And he is going to be unbearable for the majority of winter break."

I blinked. "He won't be that bad."

Liam outright chuckled at that. "Oh, yeah, he'll be fine for the first two weeks and then he'll be bear to live with." He brought one hand out of his pocket to swipe at his nose. "But you're good for him." He fumbled for the door handle.

"He's good for me, too." Not sure if he heard me, but he smiled one last time and left almost as quietly as he'd arrived. I sat in the chair, still clutching the pile of sweatshirts, and trying to put my newly melted brain back together again.

It really helped to put perspective on things. What perspective on what things was a little vague, but at the end of it all it boiled down to being with someone - loving someone - and being loved in the capacity Murph and I had found in each other. This was probably one of those cases where the head had problems reasoning through what the heart could understand instinctively.

It was more than slightly confusing when a critical examination was attempted. Better to just go with it, no questions asked.

There was another knock on the door. No point in me getting up to sit back down. "Yeah, it's open."

Murph slipped in and had no qualms about navigating the piles to sit on the only space on the bed not covered in physics material. "Hi."

"Hi." Now I was not only procrastinating at studying but also procrastinating at packing. But Murph was always a welcome distraction.

"So, Liam's done tomorrow at eleven and then we're packing the car and heading home."

"I have the seven to ten tomorrow."

"Shit." Murph scratched at the slight stubble he had going. "You'll be around in the morning?"

"Yeah." My room was a mess but he'd probably seen worse. "You wanna stay tonight? Up here?"

He hesitated, glancing at the open physics book. "You have an exam tomorrow."

"Tomorrow night." There was this almost tangible I sleep better when you're next to me that we both acknowledged but didn't verbalize. "I have all day to study for physics."

"Like you've done so far?" He smirked.

"Funny." Smiled anyway. "But really. Stay, please?"

He looked at me, then looked down, then finally back at me. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure." No hesitation on my part. There probably never would be, either.

Murph looked at my clock. It was late. "You want me to go grab some pajamas?"

"Yeah. I'll stuff all this stuff...Somewhere." Have I mentioned my hatred for packing? I asked Murph as much. He grinned. I scrubbed my hands over my face and mumbled, "I need to go to bed."

"I'll be right back."

The door swung shut behind him and left me there staring at the piles of stuff on the floor and wondering how I was going to get all of it home. Then again, did it all need to go home in the first place? Regardless, it went into the hamper and the hamper - now bulging - sat by the closet.

A pair of soccer shorts and a tank with a built-in bra were pajamas, and I was tugging the hair tie from my curls when Murph came back in, dropped both warm hands to my hips and tipped his forehead all the way down onto my bare shoulder.

Neither of us needed to say anything. The how long is winter break and I'm going to miss you was clearly there. But that was going to be then. We wanted to stay in the here and now for as long as possible. Here and now in this corner single with Murph and Ollie and nobody else, not even in memory.

Murphy and Me XXXXIII

Halfway through orgo Monday it dawned on me there were two weeks left of classes in the semester. Ten days. That was it. Then three days of Reading Days - where, in some cases, freaking out about all the reading not done over the course of the semester is a requirement - and four days of finals. Then home. For a month. Half of us would be ready to be back by New Year's.

There was, however, a lot to do in ten days. Including a massive formal lab report that was going to eat my soul before Friday.

Good things to look forward to. Positively enlightening.

Oh. Shit. I was going to attempt to not procrastinate on my T-S Britain paper and actually start the damn thing before the night before it was due. An all-nighter did not need to happen. Mostly because my orgo exam was seven to ten that same night, and a decent amount of sleep beforehand was labeled as helpful.

Holy zone out, Ollie.

Then again, we were doing synthesis, which was not one of my favorites. Still, it was better on all accounts than physics.



There was no lab that afternoon - thank God - and I swung through the Pub to use the last of my snack money on a Starbucks peppermint mocha. The line was a bit long, but with no where else to be it was perfectly fine.

While fumbling for my mp3 player in my peacoat pocket, a group of Smithies came in behind me.

"So, do you guys know what Lori saw this weekend?"

Oh, Lord. Save me or strike me dead from whatever binge drinking glory story was sure to follow.

"What did she see?"

Would be great if the line could move a little faster. And how friggin' deep was this coat pocket?

"She saw Murphy with a girl."

Yup. This line needed to move. Now. Our campus wasn't big enough to have multiple men by the name of Murphy.

"Oh. Why do you think I care?"

There was a sigh and for the love of all that is holy where was my mp3 player?

Someone snorted. "Because ever since you found out about his new girlfriend you've been asking nonstop about her. And every time you see somebody and they say how happy he is with her you sulk." There was a pause. "And that she's pretty."

Found the mp3 player and promptly dropped it, the headphones my fingers tangled around the headphone cord. Fantastic. I picked it up, plugged it back together, and started digging for my Vera.

"Pretty could mean not pretty. They could have just been being nice."

Really? Just - Really? My cheeks flushed. The person ahead of me moved and I stepped up to the cashier. "Venti peppermint mocha with skim milk, please." Handed her my card. "Should use the last of my snack money."

The girls behind me were silent for a few moments. Until I had my Vera in my pocket and in the process of untangling my headphones.

"So, what's her name? If you know it."

Not necessary for me to hear. Head down, I went to the other end of the counter for what served as the pick-up area for drinks. The student making them was a bit backed up. The girls behind me showed up almost with me, and as I'm only human, only the right earbud was in.

"Ollie. Her name is Ollie."

"Tall vanilla latte with soy?" That voice was oddly familiar.

Tanya's head appeared around the side of the milk steamer. Her eyes widened briefly, looking between me and whichever Smithie was, presumably, Manda. I shrugged, not daring to say anything.

"Venti peppermint mocha, skim milk!" Tanya called, and I reached for it, snagging a lid with my other hand. "Hey, Ollie."

"Tanya. Good to see you." Death by stare, if I wanted to tempt fate and turn around.

"You, too." Her brown eyes darted between me and Manda. "Tell Murphy I said hi."

"Will do. Thanks." Taking a deep breath I turned and looked for the first time at Manda. It had to be her - none of the others had such a death stare goin' on. She was skinnier than me, preferred to pass spandex off as pants, and carried an oversize Vineyard Vines tote rather than a backpack. Really the only outward thing we had in common was our hair, and that led me to the conclusion that Murph had a thing for brunettes.

Peppermint mocha in hand, one earbud in, and with an audience, I really wanted nothing more than to say something incredibly snarky - probably about her spandex - and then walk away. She'd look scandalized, I'd be smug, and it would, for all of ten seconds, feel like a victory. That was the idea.

The reality was I looked at her, she looked at me, I tucked the other earbud in with a smile and walked away. Because my parents raised me to be the better person. With that firmly in mind it was fairly easy to let the rest go.

Not to mention, from the sound of it, Manda wasn't completely over the break up. The particular aspect of dating is hard in a small school and not easy to deal with in general. God knows I'd be a walking train wreck whe - if, go with the if - we ever broke up. A much bigger train wreck than Bobby could ever hope to cause as I really, most likely lo - really really like Murph.

Yeah. Definitely in deep shit.

It was snowing. Big, fat flakes miraculously clinging to the still-green grass and sidewalks. Even the upper stairs from the Pub to the space between Coxe and Gulick were covered. Not a light snow, either, a full on no-other-goal-but-to-make-life-miserable kind of snowfall.

My peppermint mocha was too hot to do anything but sip at on the way back to Jackson. If this kept up - and stuck - I was going to need to dig out my Timberlands, as my Chuck Taylor's wouldn't cut it with the powdery stuff.

Having nothing else to do the for rest of the day presented a bit of a problem - what, exactly, to do to fill the time? As always there was the looming pile of physics reading or the slightly larger pile of back work - an entire book, by this point - for T-S Britain. Could always work on the monstrosity of a formal lab report. There were also lines to be memorized for acting, namely our monologues for the final, from The Laramie Project.

And, as always, there was the idea to say screw it and nap. Naps were glorious.

The steps by the College Store were nothing but treacherous and it was by pure luck I didn't find myself on my ass.

Dev and Murph were going out as I was heading in.

"Hey." He gave me a one-armed hug and a kiss on the forehead. "Oh, Colby might ask you for some of the girls' last names."

That was appropriately cryptic. "Okay."

"Colby's got something up his sleeve," Dev said, stifling a yawn.

"What time did you get back?" When Murph and I had returned from dinner Sunday, Devan still hadn't gotten back from Maine. Murph, at the time, had had no clue as to the geographic location of his roommate. Neither, ironically, had Dev himself.

"Six this morning." Dev shrugged. "Figured if I went to sleep I wouldn't wake up for class."

Having nearly once been a victim of that, sometimes it was better to stay up and mainline coffee than attempt to sleep for a couple hours.

"Yeah. When I woke up my roommate was magically back and swearing at his computer." Murph grinned. "But, we gotta go." He gave me another forehead kiss.

A rather disheveled Smithie came through the doors next before I had my Vera out and nearly whacked me in the face. It was a difficult catch with only one hand and this was one instance when spending summers waitressing was a good thing for more than a steady paycheck.

The walk to the fourth floor seemed longer than normal. My Starbucks had to be set on the little round table Jo and I did homework at for me to have a free hand to get my shoes to the side of the door and not face-plant. Then to find the Vera, then the room key, and -

Oh.

Balanced on the door handle was a rectangular-shaped package wrapped in newspaper, complete with a red bow.

A birthday present.

With a note on my white board that read:

It's late but you already knew that. Happy Birthday.
-Love Murph

I unlocked the door, ferried in both the present and my Starbucks, and went about getting comfortable. It was slightly warmer than normal - not by much - and once the light was on, the door shut, and I had on the first sweatshirt available, the Starbucks sat on the dresser with me at the end of the bed, newspaper package next to my thigh.

The bow wound up stuck to the dresser. Bearing in mind it was newspaper and not specifically wrapping paper - a copy of The New York Times by the look of it - I was a little less careful than otherwise.

He'd gotten me a movie. He'd gotten me my own copy of Moulin Rouge. There was a sticky note on the front with another message.

Present also includes dinner and viewing of movie. How does next Sat. work?
-Murph

Works for me, Murph. Works for me.

I passed the rest of the afternoon reading my month's worth of back chapters for T-S Britain. The snow continued to fall, and the wind started up at some point from the north. It was turning downright nasty out there and shortly after four I propped open the door to get some heat from the hallway.

Ordering in Chinese was beginning to look very appealing. Rather than walking all the way to Saga in this shit passing for weather, at any rate.

Jo popped her head in around quarter past five. "Dinner? And did you see you have a message from Murphy?"

"Yeah. It went with my birthday present." My copy of The Reformation looked like El had taken a blue marker to its pages, but highlighting was the only real way for me to retain information when reading, especially something so thick as history. I flopped it carelessly to the side and pulled the neck of my sweatshirt - Murph's by the smell and the size - up to my nose.

"Moulin Rouge and dinner," she said, putting the DVD back in the moon chair. "Very cool. Dinner?"

"I thought about ordering from Main Moon?" Lowered the sweatshirt. "I don't wanna go back out in this."

Jo looked at the window - the shade was almost always up for Henry to get natural sunlight - and the tree branches on the other side of the glass whipped back and forth. "I told Maria I'd meet her for dinner." She shuddered. "Better bundle up."

"Yeah." There was no way in hell I was leaving the building tonight. "I'm probably gonna order in. Have fun with Maria."

Jo wandered back across the hall and I let my head thunk against the wall. A hundred and fifty pages later and no so much as a dent in the workload. Talk about Karma for a lifelong procrastinator. Damn it. There was only so much British history I could handle.

A break would probably be for the best. Not to mention my email hadn't been opened all day and was probably full. No surprise that between Facebook notifications, general HWS spam, and suggestions on where to study for finals, there were about forty new messages. One of them was from Colby.

Need Some Help
From: HOLBURN, COLBY
To: KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA
November 30, 2009 11:30 AM

Ollie,
I'm planning on having everybody for dinner Friday (the last day of classes) but don't know everybody's last name. Like the girls who were at movie night that one night. And there are no Sasha's at all in the directory. Help?

Colby

'Course there were no Sashas because Sasha's actual first name was Alexandra. Sasha was a nickname.

I hit reply.

Colby,
Josephine Cornish
Alexandra Meyer-Roberts (Sasha)
Cara Freislow
Better put me in the CC so they don't just delete it.

-Ollie

That should be fun, all of us for dinner.

Facebook was after email and there was nothing new there. The picture of Murph and I at Halloween was still my profile picture.

Pretty could mean not pretty. They could have just been being nice.

Clicked the picture to enlarge it. Murph - broad-shouldered, hazel eyes, beautiful, slightly crooked smile - and me. In a four-year-old pirate costume that wasn't as loose in the bodice as it used to be. Which made sense, considering my high school sophomore self was skinnier than my college sophomore self. But by how much? Was it noticeable? Had I gotten fatter since soccer season ended? We had until February as a break, but was there a need for me to get back on the treadmill sooner?

There are parts of me I'd rather get rid of. My love handles. That bit of my back just above my rear end but before the rip at the end of the my spine. The way my middle back skin rolls when I move just right. Those were parts of me I wasn't particularly fond of. And my thighs? Larger than normal, definitely. A life spent playing soccer year-round.

Twenty years old and now wondering how pretty I was. Which, of course, leads naturally to Murphy and what he thinks and the idea of possibly having, at some point, sex with Murphy, which leads to giving up my virginity, which then leads to if I'm not good with seeing myself naked, how am I supposed to let somebody else? Somebody being Murphy. My boyfriend.

What it all boiled down to was the fact that until I got over the fear of my own body, Murph and I wouldn't so much as start for whatever level was next

Of course it wasn't Manda's appearance that brought on that happy revelation, it had just brought it front and center at the moment. When there was enough academic stress already to choke an elephant.

Jeezus. What. A. Mess.

On the other hand - as there was always another hand somewhere - Murph chose me. He could have walked away at any point but he didn't. He wanted me as his girlfriend, free and clear. Not a replacement for Manda.

Just like he's no replacement for Bobby. Murph never could be, either. They were too different. It was comparing apples to oranges with the only common factor between them being the fruit market they were bought at.

"Ollie?"

I turned in the chair. Murph was looking at me with an expression that clearly said he'd been trying to get my attention for a while. It was rather adorable, really.

"Ollie?" he repeated.

Oh. Right. "Yeah. Sorry. I think I just compared myself to a fruit market."

If he found that little tidbit of insight weird it didn't show. He shrugged instead, and said, "You'd make a pretty fruit market."

Good to know we're on the same page, whatever book it might be in.

"Sorry." I closed the laptop and went to give him a hug. "Thank you for the birthday present."

"You like it?" He grinned.

"Very much. And dinner and a movie next Saturday sounds great." The first of three Reading Days. Perfect for taking it easy before freaking out about papers and exams. "I'm gonna order Chinese for dinner, you want an egg roll?"

"Sure." He settled on the end of the bed. "How was your afternoon with the Brits?"

I dug by the side of the mattress for my phone. "Bloody brilliant." Took a few minutes to pace on the green indoor-outdoor carpet while ordering dinner, glancing occasionally at Murph. Anywhere from forty minutes to an hour. I snapped the phone shut.

"Ollie?" Murph toed his shoes off in front of the mini-fridge, the thump lost in the burst of noise echoing down the hall from the other door. For something to do - and since this was a conversation nobody else needed to hear - I kicked the door stop under the pirated TV table and waited for it to close.

"What's wrong, Ol?" Murph piled my T-S literature and notebook and dropped them onto a pile of dirty laundry. He turned to face me when I sat in the middle of the bed, swiveling his whole body with a suppressed wince.

How the hell to start this conversation?

"I met Manda today." Apparently by blurting out information like it burns.

Murph blinked. "Where?"

"At the Pub. Oh, and Tanya says hi." Maybe this would be easier than originally anticipated.

"Was she nice to you?" There was a tone in Murph's voice I hadn't heard before. Like he was trying to keep his temper in check.

"For the most part." It was true - she hadn't come right out and said anything to me, just about me. There was a distinct difference. And nothing bad, either.

Murph gave me a stink-eye worthy of El.

"Really." Which got him one in return. "She's not over you, that much is obvious."

"Not surprising," he muttered. He looked at me fully. "I broke up with her."

There wasn't anything to say that wouldn't sound both cheesy and cliche. Murph didn't need me to say anything other than, "You make me happy." Today, tomorrow, for as long as he was content with me, he made me happy.

Murph, in a feat of contortion, curled on his side between me and the dresser, his head on my thigh. My bigger than average thigh. Damn it.

"I did nothing but sleep all weekend. Why am I still tired?"

"Because it's only been a week." I rubbed the back of his neck. "It takes longer to not feel wiped out."

"It sucks."

"Yeah. I know." There was a lull. "You have a lot to do these last two weeks?"

"Start final papers." Murph relaxed further. "I only have one sit-down final the second day." He rolled to his back to look up at me. "What about you?"

"Last slot on the last day." Which meant going home Saturday morning instead of Friday night. "Physics." My hand migrated to his chest. "It's great."

He snorted. "Okay." His hand came up to hold mine. "Can I hang out here for a while? Dev's passed out on his laptop in the middle of econ spreadsheets."

"Of course. Might need to do some reading but yeah. You can pop in a movie or watch TV if you want to."

"When you get up to get delivery. Then I'll movie."

The warmth of his chest seeped through his layers into my palm. Part of being happy was being comfortable. I was comfortable with Murphy. It was being comfortable with myself that needed some improvement.

Escapades and Shenanigans

Last night (this morning, really) I set my alarm and accidentally set it for 8pm. Shortly after that, in my haste to unplug my computer cord from a barely reachable power strip wedged between the fridge, dresser, and movie crate, I accidentally switched it off and have yet to fix the damn blinking time that currently reads 1:30 in the afternoon. Needless to say this was the type of morning where liberal amounts of Kahlua wound up in my coffee, which, thankfully, I remembered to grab on my way out the door.

My analytical lab is under the impression I'm probably going to drop dead from caffeine ingestion very shortly, due to the amount of coffee I ingest on a regular basis. The only saving grace is that, according to our most recent analysis by HPLC, there less of a caffeine concentration in dark roast coffee than light roast (mostly due, we think, to the roasting process in that you literally bake the caffeine out of the bean). Also, I usually only drink after that first cup of coffee unless it's going to be a seriously hellish night, and then all bets are off. Usually by that point I've been to Timmy Horton's and am probably contemplating a Dunkin run.

The highlight of my day came this afternoon - closer to dinnertime - when my housemate found she had locked herself out of her room. Naturally, she called campo (campus police) to come open her door. So we sat there in the living room for a further five minutes, when I calmly remarked, "Don't you have a bottle of vodka sitting on your dresser?" She looked at me, muttered, "Shit," and we immediately began planning how exactly we could get in that room to hide the so-called evidence. Campo had already taken a bottle of booze from us earlier in the week (it was left out, they came to let somebody in, we got an email from Res Ed and all found it slightly hysterical), and, well, long story short, we remembered there's a fire escape going up the back side of the house, conveniently stopping at the window of our house manager who happens to share a bathroom with my locked out roommate. House manager was not at the house. There wasn't enough time to get shoes on, so, out the door we go - her in socks, me barefoot - and around to the back of the house.

K: I can't do this. I don't like ladders.

Me: Okay.

Keep in mind it's pitch black outside. With no lights on to light this damn fire escape.

You guessed it - barefoot up the metal ladder in the middle of December, move the screen out of the open window (bless you, B & G, for having the heat so damn high), foot in the waste basket after sliding off the chair in front of the window, stagger across the room, open door, go through shared bathroom, hide vodka, fix everything like you'd never been there, and wind up in the living room with semi-frozen feet. The guy showed up about three minutes later to let her in.

Mission accomplished; crisis averted.

Even better was the conversation we had while randomly watching an episode of 30 Rock we found on Comedy Central.

T: So, gin and tonic is just gin and tonic, right?

Pretty sure my housemates have made my senior year so far. I couldn't ask to live with a better group of girls (and three guys) than I currently do. They keep me smiling through the week.

Hysterics

I dunno whether it's because I'm in that kind of mood or because it's quarter after midnight, but I found this to be more than slightly hysterical. The only reason I went looking for this particular song? It's been stuck in my head since I heard it this afternoon after taking my grandmother to get her car from the repair place.

It's okay to headbang a little. You know you want to.

This is when I think I should probably get out of this chair and crawl into bed.

Since When?

Hi. It's been a while, hasn't it?

At this point I hope there's nothing swimming in my coffee mug that's been sitting on the floor since I left for soccer roughly six hours and twenty minutes ago. The coffee mug that takes all four cups from my coffee maker in one go with room to spare. It's the equivalent of heaven for this chick.

One assumption you could make as to my absence from my lovely blog - and my lovely blog reader, which keeps up me to date on what the rest of you happy people are doing - is that I've been busy with my last first semester of undergrad. Yeah, you read that right. I'm a senior. Believe me, it's still terrifying to me, and it's been a month since I've moved back to campus, and we're going to be starting week five already, which is another jaw-dropper. As a result there hasn't been much Murphy, and I apologize for that. However, trying to keep Murfee (my Focus) occupied and on task has been an uphill battle some days. Specifically the ones where I get out of lab and all I want to do is crawl into my dorm bed (which, if you haven't seen my Twitter, I BIG PUFFY HEART) and sleep for at least six hours. But I can't do that. It would be unproductive and one thing that I've managed to be is productive.

With some extra incentive, too.

I started playing soccer again.

The above statement gets it's own line because, for any of you that don't know, I had to stop playing soccer little over two years ago because of my health issues. I wasn't able to keep the fitness level required to be an official Heron, and it was a big step to realize that, and an even bigger step to realize that wasn't a path I could easily follow anymore. A path that was more hassle than it was worth, despite my love for the game. Two years later this feels like a second chance at doing what has been my first true love. I get to put my spandex on for a reason other than wearing it to bed, strap on some shin guards, and buy new goalkeeping gloves because my other ones have literally been shredded.

Soccer is keeping me sane. It's relaxing. Not as relaxing as knitting, which my dad brought my knitting needles to me today, so I'll spend some time unwinding with that before I go to bed. I have a second chance to do what I love.

And it's my senior year. There are a finite number of "tomorrows" for me.

Now, I could take another post to do one of my favorite "features" but that would take a little more time and, frankly, two posts directly after one another is a little odd. So, think of this as a shortened Things to Know. Kind of like an unexpected present.

- "Holy F--k that's a big spider!" (While in a car in the middle of campus)

- "Are you inebriated?" "No, I'm a chemistry major."

- I apparently can't communicate in written form to save my life. Or my lab report grade in analytical.

- To the professor that said students spend less than 10 hours per week on their work outside of class - I spend 10 1/2 hours a week in lab.

- I make a trip to Coldstone once a week. This seems to be an okay arrangement with my brain and my hips.

- I finally put up all my posters, cork-board, and Vera photo thingy last week.

- It's the beginning of week five, if you need a reference for the previous.

- I found my bedroom floor Wednesday, because I thought my mother was going to actually come in the house when she came up.

- It's five weeks in my senior year of college.

- Where the hell did the time go?

- I have a houseplant named Henry, and have named the majority of his babies after the subsequent English monarchs.

- Not one of the posters hanging on my walls is hung straight.

- My Focus is a slippery little bugger that likes to play on the train tracks out behind the house.

- Speaking of which, one of these days, when the damn train goes through, the hill and the house are going to slide into the freakin' lake.

- The prospect of graduating and going on to grad schools scares the shit out of me.

- While the previous is true, I think I'm ready for it.

- Why do men feel the need to sit with their hand in their pants? Or is this something only collegiate-age men do, because it's kind of awkward.

- My biochem partner for the first week fidgeted more than my niece when she has to potty.

- I carry on conversations with my houseplant like he should be answering me back. But you're supposed to talk to your plants, right? It helps them grow, right?

- I feel like I've been given a second chance at soccer, and I'm going to take it. Every minute of it.

- My mother and sister have been canning fiends lately. The result is that I have a jars of raspberry jam, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa currently in my possession.

- You'd have thought I was asking for the universe on a silver platter when I asked if I could have a jar of sauce.

- But yes, it's that damn good.

- I bought new colored pens from the bookstore on Friday and thought I'd died and gone to heaven during biochem.

- I have a love of office supplies.

- I finally hooked up the cable on Wednesday, just so I could watch Harry's Law.

- The fire marshal catches a glimpse of the tangled mess of wires that's everything on the one side of the room in a power strip, he'll probably have a heart attack.

- I could care less. Mostly because I'm a senior.

- And hell hath no fury like a Louise without her automated coffee pot.

MIA

Where the hell have I been the past month and a half, right? Finishing up the summer, working, being an Orientation Mentor (helping new students arrive, orient themselves, and generally get the lay of the land before things kicked off officially yesterday).

There's a bit that's happened between then and now, and as it's the start of my senior year of college (WTF did that happen?) and I'm currently using my biochemistry textbook as a booster seat in my desk chair (yeah, I'm good like that), there's probably a lot you've been wondering about your crazy Sagittarius. Rest assured, you'll get some introspection into my ever-scary mind before too long. At this moment, however, I need to pack up my lovely laptop and head to lab (who has lab the first week? Seriously...) but I'll leave you with this. This being the flashmob I was a part of during Orientation. Yes, the words I and flashmob were in the same sentence by design. Scary, huh?

Anyway, check it out, have a laugh, and generally get ready to crash your way through the first half of my collegiate undergrad experience.

Note: This song has a Pavlovian effect on all Orientation staff, myself included. Just sayin'.

Murphy and Me XXXX

[Quadruple X....Must be really good porn. Or Louise is having fun with Roman Numerals. Which, FYI, I had to look at the wikipedia page on them to know where the hell I have to go next. Methinks we might not have that many sections left. It's hard to believe there's been forty.

Anyway. Happy Thursday, Heather Ann. Hope this brightens your week.]

Don't ask me how, but instead of perpetually behind in four out of five classes (education seminar included; physics decided as a lost cause) I was now two weeks ahead in my education seminar and crawling (tooth and nail) from under the pile of history reading I'd heaped on myself. The easy thing would be to ask Murph, as he'd already taken the class. But that would be the easy way out and maybe against academic policy. Not that I'd bothered to read the eighty-something page packet the Committee on Standards stuffs in our campus boxes every year.

This was my own damn fault and I was going to get through it. Even if it killed me. Might not kill me, but would make me more batshit crazy than I already was.

So, on a Saturday night (in much the same fashion as Friday night had been spent) that's why I was slogging through page after page of Early Modern Europe with a heaping helping of The Restoration for dessert. Practical Magic was in the DVD player; as books and papers were spread all over my bed, I'd taken up residence in the moon chair, shivering. The heater, which wasn't doing a hell of a lot to begin with, seemed to have died completely. Buildings and Grounds hadn't gotten up here yet and Jo had already confirmed it was warmer in the hall than my corner single.

One answer was to curl in the same bed as my porta-furnace, but Murph hadn't looked too good earlier. However, there was always his closet and I know the boy owned flannel. Could check up on him while I was down there, too.

Check on boyfriend first, raid closet second, and take a mental health study break from the very screwed-up early days of the English monarchy.

That was my plan.

Since the weather had turned nasty wandering around in socks wasn't a bright idea. Once slippers were on, it was down to the third floor. It was warmer immediately outside my freezer of a room. Didn't wait long for Dev to open the door.

"Hey, Ol." Dev looked rather startled, truthfully.

"Hi. Can I come in?"

He looked behind him, at Murph. "He's not feelin' so hot."

I blinked.

"He's thrown up, like, four times."

And this was supposed to deter me how? "Okay."

Dev looked at me, cocked his head to the side and said, "Yeah, right, must not have been in my right mind to think you wouldn't want to see him after he's hurled multiple times."

"I'm not a sympathy puker." He let me in the room.

"Thank God neither am I." Dev shut the door quietly and peeked into the trashcan. "Murph? Murph, Ollie's here."

Murph had his comforter all the way to his chin, hair sticking up in every direction, face roughly the same color as paper. Long story short: he looked like utter shit. Adorable shit, but still. Shit.

I dragged his desk chair over to curl up in it so we were close to being eye to eye. "Hi."

He blinked. It was a look very similar to what I had worn while trying not to hurl. Carefully, one of my hands snuck under the blankets to find his and tangle our fingers together. "Think you got whatever I had?"

Murph's thumb spelled no on the back of my hand.

"Just general crappiness?"

He blinked at me again.

"You feel okay, Dev?"

Dev popped an earbud out. "What?"

"You feel okay?"

He gave a half shrug. "Yeah. Tired. But pages of econ spreadsheets do that. Liam and Colby were fine today and yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"When I got back yesterday in the afternoon, Murph was already in bed with the trashcan." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Cheatin' on me with the trashcan?" I pushed Murph's bangs off his sweaty forehead, smiling when he snorted. "I mean, it's an attractive trashcan." He chuckled.

"Why are your hands so cold?" It was the first Murph had spoken and he sounded like he'd been gnawing gravel.

"I don't really have any heat in my room, which is why I'm going to raid your closet for a flannel before I go back upstairs." When stated matter-of-factly it didn't sound quite so bad.

"You have no heat?" Murph croaked, shifting uncomfortably.

"It's not that I don't have any, it's just that I don't have a lot..."

"Have you called B and G?" Dev asked, giving the hold on gesture to the computer. He must have been video chatting with someone.

"Yeah. They said maybe tomorrow." Which they said on Thursday. Not that the boys needed to know. They were already a bit outraged. "It's fine, it's just a little chilly." More like freeze your ass off, but, again, they didn't need to know.

Murph looked ready to suggest I stay with him, winced, and squeezed my fingers.

"What?"

"My belly hurts."

I leaned forward and kissed his forehead, apprehensive about the head coming off him. Usually the only way for me to sleep in the same bed as Murph was, basically, for us to spoon. Either him around me or him with his head on my chest. That worked best. Unfortunately, neither of those put him in the right spot if he needed the trashcan in a hurry. Which, from the bleary look of understanding in his hazel eyes, he knew.

"I'm sorry." Firsthand experience speaking - belly pain sucked. "I've got pills to take care of that."

Murph snorted again. "Might skip that, thanks."

Yeah, might not be the best idea out there. Not that I'd do it - I just wanted to make him smile. Mission accomplished on that front.

His eyelids were drooping.

"I'll stop by before I go to bed." He nodded; I kissed his forehead, then his nose before extracting my hand from his. He was half asleep when I put the desk chair back and gently snoring by the time I'd rummaged through the closet to find a flannel shirt. It was almost the size of a tarp, heavy, no doubt warm, and smelled of Murph.

"I'll be back in half an hour," I said to Dev. He gave me a thumbs up and went back to the man on the screen.

My corner single was positively frigid. Murph's flannel shirt went on over a cami and some leggings, the tails hanging halfway down my thighs. With the bed cleaned off in record time, I grabbed Edgar and headed back downstairs. Dev opened the fishbowl; only his desk lamp was on. Murph was out. It took some reaching, but Edgar soon sat next to Smokey, unblinking eyes on Murph.

"'Night, Dev."

"'Night, Ol."

Despite the fact that I sleep better when I'm cold and have to burrow, it took a long time for me to fall asleep. A very long time.



One minute sound asleep, the next moment wide awake and wondering what the hell had woke me up.

Bang, bang "Olivia! Ollie, wake up!" Thump thump bang.

Sounded an awful lot like Dev. A panicked Devan beating on my door. I scrambled out of bed and jerked the door open, almost mowing over my own toes. Dev stood in the hall looking four-kinds of panicked and wearing just a pair of a boxers.

"Wha - "

"Murphy won't wake up."

Oh, dear God, what?

"Murph - His phone - And he didn't when he does - And Liam kept calling - "

Dev's panic was not helping my skyrocketing blood pressure. Not at all. No clue what I was supposed to be doing at the moment, but putting on pants seemed like the right kind of start. I was listening to Dev babble, almost hyperventilate, and generally freak out, and was trying to breathe while putting on jeans.

Something wasn't right with this picture.

Murphy won't wake up.

I grabbed my Vera, stuffed my feet into my sneakers, and sprinted after Dev trying to understand what exactly was going on. We burst into the fishbowl to see Liam slapping at Murph's pale cheeks. "Murphy! Murphy!" There was a pleading in Liam's voice that I'd never heard before.

I leaned against Dev's bed as he pulled jeans and a t-shirt on. Murph wasn't moving - didn't even look like he was breathing. "Did somebody call an ambulance?" Rubbed a hand over my chest, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack and concentrated on breathing.

"They're on their way. I'm gonna go meet 'em at the door downstairs." Dev was gone, the door closing slowly behind him.

Liam ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe - Maybe you can - "

He didn't have to get it all out before I was staggering across the room and behind to hold Murph's face in my hands. The heat coming off him was unbelievable. Almost frightening.

"Murphy," I said, lightly tapping his nose. "Mur - " My voice broke. "Murphy. Murphy wake up."

Nothing.

The paramedics barged in then; I stepped back until the desk rammed into my kidneys, grabbing at Liam's wrist with epileptic fingers.

"What's his name?" One of the paramedics - Toby - asked.

"Murphy. Murphy McRiley." Liam was surprisingly calm at this point. Jittery, but more calm than me or Dev who stood by his wardrobe chewing his fingernails.

"You look like family," Toby said while his partner pushed aside comforter and sheets to get to Murph. God, he was so pale. "How old is he? Allergies?"

"We're twenty and he's allergic to penicillin." Liam shuddered, trying to tune out the other paramedic giving stats into his radio. They didn't sound good. Not that I would know what the hell good or bad stats would be no matter how many episodes of ER I'd watched when I was thirteen.

"When did Murphy start to feel sick?"

Liam looked at me and I stuttered out, "He - He was fine Wednesday night. Said he was a little tired after our date." Pushed hair out of my face with trembling fingers. "It's getting to be the end of the semester. We're all tired."

"Did anything hurt? Was it just a head cold?"

The questions were almost overwhelming, especially when Toby's partner did something to make Murph jerk in pain, even unconscious. There was some talking amongst them, the phrase "Really needs a hospital" surfaced and they manhandled Murph - in his boxers - onto a backboard and then onto the stretcher waiting in the hall.

Liam threw on his coat and pressed a set of keys into my hand. "Have Dev drive. I'm going with my brother." He jogged after the paramedics and I practically threw the keys at Dev. There was no way in hell I was with it enough to drive. Not that Dev looked much better, but he wasn't shaking half as bad.

Couldn't tell you if we turned out all the lights in the fishbowl, or if it was snowing or raining, or how many red lights we hit between St. Claire and the hospital. It was cold, mostly because my peacoat was in Jackson and partly because I had no idea what was wrong with my boyfriend but we were headed back to the freakin' ER.

Dev got us there in one piece, somehow, and we entered the ER waiting room to a pacing Liam.

"What's - Did he wake up?"

Liam shook his head. "They're doing X-Rays or a scan or something to figure out what the hell's goin' on." He blew out a loud breath. "I called Colby and Ma and Dad are on their way. They were my next call after the ambulance." He sat heavily in a hard leather and wood chair. The kind that seemed to be in every ER on the face of the earth.

I fell into the chair next to him. "How did you know? That something was wrong, I mean."

He shrugged. "I dunno. Call it that mystical twin thing - I couldn't sleep. Knew Murph wasn't feelin' well and needed to talk to him."

Dev leaned against the soda machine on the other side of the room. "The phone kept ringing. And ringing. Murph always picks up. Even if he's passed out drunk he answers the damn phone." He swallowed. "I got up. Tried to wake him up and he wouldn't. I called Liam, told him I couldn't get Murph up. He came over, we dialed Campus Safety - I did - and he called an ambulance. We weren't waiting for Campus EMS to show up."

"Then you got me up?" Pulled my legs up and rested my cheek on my knee. "I thought he had what I had."

Liam put an arm around my shoulders. The three of us were the only ones there, muted CNN on the TV, and so quiet you could practically hear the gears in the damn wall clock.

Well, it was quiet until Colby came tearing through the halls like his ass was on fire.

"Colby?" Liam rose to his feet only to be caught up in the manliest hug I'd ever seen. When he got a hold of me it was like he was trying to break ribs. Dev didn't escape, either.

"Any word?"

"They're doin' tests."

I alternated between pushing up the sleeves on my borrowed shirt and pulling them over my knuckles. My hair was still a just-asleep mess and somehow - some-friggin'-how - I hadn't devolved into tears over the fact that my boyfriend hadn't woken up.

Maybe I should be thankful my stomach hadn't tried to make an escape.

ER's suck. Majorly.

"Ollie?" Colby was crouched in front of me. "Is there anybody you need to call?"

"Uh..." Where was my mind? Definitely not here.

"Sasha?"

Yeah. Sasha probably. I checked my pockets for my phone. "Uh...Can I...?"

"Here. Use mine." Dev handed me his BlackBerry. Sasha's number was already ringing.

"How do you - " The line picked up on the other end.

"Hello?" Cara. A very sleepy Cara.

"Hey - It's, it's Ollie."

"Ollie? What's wrong, Ol? Why aren't you callin' from your phone?"

I was having a harder time keeping it together talking to Cara than being in the waiting room with the boys. "I'm at the ER. Murph's - Murphy's sick. Really sick."

"Oh, honey." There was some shuffling. "We'll be right there."

"Oh, no, you don't - " God, everything was just spiraling.

"Olivia. We'll be right there. And tell Devan I wanna know why his phone number is on my girlfriend's cell." With that she hung up.

Dear God, could this night get any worse?

"McRiley?"

The four of us looked toward the desk to see a man in scrubs and a hair net. Liam stood, wiped his palms on his jeans and said, "Yeah?"

The doc did a double take.

"Murphy's my twin," he said with a small smile. "What's wrong with him?"

"It seems to be Murphy's appendix that's giving him problems. At the very least it's painfully inflamed, at the worst, it's exploded. This is a fairly routine surgery we're talking and we need you to sign some paperwork."

He'd gotten steadily paler but nodded, "Of course." Liam followed the doc to the counter to sign away.

"His appendix," Dev breathed.

Abdominal surgery. Deja vu.

Liam came back and sat wearily, rubbing at his face. "My brother's having emergency surgery to remove his appendix."

"You need to call your parents?"

"They're on the way." He chuckled dryly. "Da's probably doin' ninety on the thruway."

"Oh, God," I murmured, realizing that tonight, in the ER waiting room, I was going to meet my boyfriend's parents for the first time. Sleep-rumpled and in their son's flannel shirt, too.

Now I was really going to puke.

"Ollie!"

Sasha came through the doors like a force of nature to hug me, Cara not far behind her. This time I wiped at my eyes when we parted, me stretched awkwardly in the chair.

"Hey, you guys didn't have to come - "

"Olivia." Cara squeezed herself onto the chair with me and threw her arms around my shoulders. "You, my dear, are my girlfriend's best friend. Her sister. When you hurt, she hurts. When you're stressed, she's stressed. So, damn straight, hun, we're going to be waiting with you until that boy wakes up." She leaned close to my ear. "And he's gonna look at you and think damn, I worried that beautiful girl, but she's still here. It don't matter that you haven't said those words yet. You bein' here says it all." She kissed my temple and stood, hands on her hips and staring hard at Dev, all Southern business. "Devan."

"Miz Cara," he said, pocketing his BlackBerry.

Sasha had once called Cara her sweet-tea drinkin', peach-lovin' Southern shrew (even though the girl was only from Virginia) and as she was staring at Dev she was every inch of a strong-willed Southern woman.

Hell, I wasn't in the receiving end of that look and I was a little worried.

"Playing a go-between between best friend and boyfriend of the birthday girl is a bit hectic." He shrugged. "That's why we swapped numbers."

If I had a desk, I'd have whacked my head off the damn thing. "So, my boyfriend and my best friend were conspiring for my birthday?"

"And we're really good at it, too." Sasha grinned. While Cara had at least put on sweats, Sasha was rocking shorts and Uggs. I think I was too fried to really comprehend, otherwise she wouldn't have heard the end of it.

"Okay." Drew my legs up again, wrapping my arms around my shins. "I don't wanna know until Murph is well enough to enjoy it with us."

"Duh," Sasha muttered. "You had any coffee today?"

"A long time ago." A really long time ago, truthfully. My head thunked back against the wall. "Could really use another cup. Or four."

"Last thing you need is coffee," Colby muttered.

"Yeah, but she's not the one who parked in the wrong parking lot and ran through the friggin' hospital like he was a track star," Liam shot back.

We chuckled. Colby turned a fascinating shade of red.

"Anybody know what time it is?" Simple question, really.

Sasha grinned.

How an inquiry as innocent as the time turned into an off-key chorus of Happy Birthday, I've no idea. It happened anyway. It was my turn to be a funny shade of red, smiling tiredly.

"Thanks, guys." I'd been twenty for almost an hour. Twenty's not that much different than nineteen. Didn't feel any different, anyway.

We settled in, talking and glancing at CNN and that's maybe when I dozed off for a bit. I jerked awake and rubbed at my eyes. Liam was in the chair next to me, elbows on his thighs and fixated on the screen.

"Where'd everybody go?" There was one hell of a crick in my neck.

"Wandered down to find some coffee. I think." He took a deep breath. "My parents should be here soon."

Oh, shit. This was far from the ideal situation to meet the boyfriend's parents. We all knew it. Which was why it was just me and Liam waiting for Mr. and Mrs. McRiley.

"This wasn't how I imagined meeting them." Really, it was anything but ideal. "Middle of the night, in the hospital." Overwhelming. Just, overwhelming. "I don't even know their names."

"Dermott and Maggie."

"Irish."

He chuckled. "Very."

"Maggie?"

"Margaret." Liam smiled. "You'll be fine."

Great. Another McRiley that could read me like a freakin' book. And he didn't even have to look at me to do it.

"Do you know we're named after our grandfathers?"

Where the hell had that come from? "No."

He settled back, sprawling as best he could. "Yeah. Ma was an O'Hare before she married Da and her father's name was Allen. Ma took the Roarke that was his middle name for Murphy's. Grandpa McRiley's middle was Connor."

"That's cool." And nothing like that had happened in my family. Izzy shared a middle name with our mother - Marie - and there was rumor that one of my mom's ancestors, a Boyd, was named Mae. Which trickled down through the years to be my middle name. "Someone on my mother's side was Mae."

"Your middle name?"

"Yeah. Olivia Mae."

"You haven't told Murph that, have you?"

I shook my head. "I'm not too wild about my middle name, honestly." Partly because it was so damn short and partly because people said it no problem and then butchered my last name because they weren't paying attention.

The joy of being Polish.

"Karizslowski is Polish, right?" He was then on the receiving end of a ya think? look. "Are your parents immigrants?"

That's where he was going. "Oh, no. No, my mother's family has been here for a couple generations. My father's parents came from Poland between the wars and he was the second child born here. His older sisters were born in Poland."

"Big family?"

I shrugged. "Lots of cousins. Cousins with siblings." My family was, more or less, frickin' huge. "There's a lot of us here in central New York, but some in New England and a few in West Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan."

"Most of our family is still in Ireland." His head thumped lightly against the wall. "Has Murph told you about our parents?"

"A little." Wadded myself in the chair sideways to look at Liam. "Your dad's a glassblower - and you haven't been allowed in the studio since you were twelve."

His head snapped around to look at me, eyes wide. "He told you that?"

"Yeah. And your mom works in insurance." Butterflies started in my belly. "What - What do...What are they going to think of me?"

Liam straightened, turning toward me. Blinked. "They are....They've been wanting to meet you since Murph told them he had a girlfriend. He emailed Ma some pictures of you from Halloween."

Which, okay, I'd done the same to my mother in our weekly, bi-weekly emails.

"Honestly, they can't wait to meet you." He swallowed. "It shouldn't be me introducing you. It should be Murphy."

"We can't control that." Not right now at least.

"I know."

Yeah. Not the ideal situation. From the borrowed shirt to the ER to the elephant in the room of not having Murphy here - this was crazy to a whole new level.

We lapsed into silence, uncomfortable and stretched, content to wait. Or, rather, wait and fidget in my case.

The doors to the parking lot slid open.

"William? Oh, William - "

Liam stood, automatically moving to hug his mother while I tried to continue to breathe. Wobbling upright, I hovered in the background, content to watch. Both boys looked like their father, only Dermott wasn't as filled out - probably because he wasn't a football player - and, unlike his boys, Dermott had red hair. Or what used to red, as he was slanting toward gray in places. Maggie was thin and not a whole lot taller than me. She had the dark hair her boys did and Murph's hazel eyes.

Hazel eyes that looked around her son to me. Through me.

"Liam..." Dermott said quietly.

"Sorry, Da," he said, reaching back and snagging my borrowed shirt sleeve. "This is Olivia - Ollie - Murphy's girlfriend."

Maggie smiled. "Hi, Ollie. I've seen pictures..." She trailed off. "Nice to finally meet you, only I wish the circumstances were better." There was a lilt to her voice that two decades in the States couldn't wipe completely. "I'm Maggie."

There was such a kindness in her eyes, such an understanding....Between physics, orgo, Murph in the ER, and turning twenty, everything was suddenly too much.

I burst into quiet tears right then and there.

"Oh, love," Maggie said, gathering me into her arms. "It's a bit overwhelmin'."

Didn't matter it wasn't my own mother, Maggie was still a mom and I needed a mom's shoulder to cry on right now. Which I did. Soaking up the warmth Maggie provided. This would be damn mortifying if it didn't feel so good. And if I didn't need it so badly.

"Sorry," I mumbled, pulling back and wiping my cheeks.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Ollie." She rubbed my arms lightly. "And you made a very pretty pirate on Halloween."

Cue flaming cheeks. "Thank you." Gathering what composure I had left, I turned to Dermott. "Hi, Mr. McRiley." He shook my hand, looking closely at my tear-red eyes and then, much to my horror, my shirt. If he recognized it, he didn't say. Which was one of the better things to happen tonight.

"Nice to meet you." Dermott's accent was thicker than Maggie's. He smiled slyly, and that's when I really saw Murph in his father. "Cold down here lately?"

Not what I was expecting and, honestly, a hell of a lot better. "Yeah. It hasn't been too bad, but, um, I don't have any heat."

We sat, Liam and I, between Dermott and Maggie. The rest of our motley crew returned, and Maggie hugged Dev and Colby; I introduced Cara and Sasha. And then we sat. And looked at each other.

In silence.

Oh, Lord.

The drunks and mishaps started rolling in around three. Girls who had been out partying, frat boys worried about their passed-out brothers, and city kids who didn't have enough sense to read the warnings on the Jackass DVD's. We made small talk - or rather, Cara, Liam, and Maggie did as Dev, Colby, Dermott, and I kind of sucked at it - and around four-thirty a doc came out.

"McRiley?"

Maggie, Dermott, and Liam went to speak with him. Sasha sat next to me, holding my hand tightly in hers. Dermott and Maggie followed the doctor through the door and Liam came back to us, hands in his pockets.

"His appendix had exploded." There was a collective flinch. "Yeah. They removed what was left of it and cleaned out the infection. He's on antibiotics, painkillers, and should come out of anesthesia sometime soon. Might not come out of it for long, and he might just go right back to sleep. He's gonna feel like shit when he does wake up." He took a deep breath. "They've moved him to a room on the second floor. He, uh, he's gonna be just fine. Eventually."

I uncurled and hugged a shaking Liam. Now that he knew his brother was going to be fine he was more or less losing it. All the control he'd had since the whole fiasco had started - in the fishbowl and then waiting until his parents arrived, then with his parents - he didn't have to be calm and composed anymore. Now he could worry.

"They have visiting hours tomorrow, right?" Cara asked, prodding a half-asleep Sasha. "We should come back tomorrow."

Colby rubbed his eyes. "That sounds like a plan."

"You want a ride to your car?"

"Please."

They gave one last round of hugs and paraded out the ER doors while Liam led Dev and I through the hospital to an elevator. We passed the time waiting outside Murph's room (once we found it - we had to circle the floor twice until a passing nurse took pity on us) by playing the Movie Game - Start with a movie or an actor and then get another film or actor from the first one. So, start with George Clooney and get Ocean's 11, then say Brad Pitt, who was also in Fight Club. Edward Norton then gets you to The Italian Job. Donald Sutherland gets you to Pride and Prejudice and Kiera Knightley leads to Pirates of the Caribbean. That sort of thing.

Liam was a little scared at how long Dev and I could go without needing to start again.

Maggie poked her head out the door. "He's awake. A little disoriented and tired, but awake."

Dev shoved Liam into the room first then we waited a little more until Dermott waved us in.

Murph was still too pale to be healthy and hooked to both a heart monitor and an IV. Liam pulled gently by my sleeve all the way to the side of the bed and I slipped my hand under Murph's. He was definitely more drugged than our previous ER trip. Still, he gave me a ghost of his regular smile and whispered, "Hi."

"Hi, Murph."

He swallowed hard, like his throat was dry. "Ha - Happy Birthday, Ol."

And then, right there in front of his parents, I leaned over and kissed his nose. Just to see him smile.

Happy Birthday indeed.

That Song, You Know...

Where have I been, right? I've been a little all over the place. Or, rather, I haven't. My beloved Oldsmobile failed to pass inspection (rust in the subframe) and he's bound more or less for the scrap heap, sadly.

Anyway, I've heard a couple of songs this summer that I really like and that like to get stuck in my head. I thought I'd share them with you.







Don't worry - There'll be an actual post from me sometime soon. Soon as I can figure it all out.

Two Sweet, Two Fabulous Two Years

I'm currently sitting on my bed - finished watching Cutting Edge: Going for Gold - and I realized that April was the first month I started blogging in two years ago. A little detective work (because there are some dates I just can't remember) and, turns out, I almost missed it.

Today is my two year blogiversary.

It's been two years since I started blogging about life, college, and everything in between. There's been high points and low points, triumphs, fails (epic fails, in some cases) and three months that were spent on the other side of the Atlantic. Two years ago I was wetting my feet in the blogging world, not really knowing what I was doing, not really sure where I was going (which, honestly, I still don't know and frankly I'm okay with that), and just more or less wandering around randomly poking things. Proverbially, of course.

Two years later there's still plenty of wandering, some poking, a 53,000+ word novel (yeah, that's how many words Murphy and Me has), and a series of asshattery best described as Things to Know. There's also a heaping dose of reality and, always, too much coffee for one wandering Sagittarius.

Raise your glass - or your coffee cup, you know I'm not picky - and we'll just say here's to two years down, and as many more to go as we can handle. Cheers!

Integrity

I write for the alternative student newspaper at my campus. That's no secret. I'm also layout editor for it, and a general ear when someone needs to vent in a way that we can't necessarily print. That and I keep my editor from going completely batshit on our publishing weeks, and she returns the favor.

Believe it or not, I bring a lot of who I am as a person to that role. I can't not, in a way.

I am an honest (blunt, at times) person who strives to do the right thing, even if it hurts and thinks that people should know the truth, even if it's the unpopular opinion. For someone to call into question my abilities as a writer - as a journalist - though it's my chosen field, calling me out on my fact-checking, and denoting a lack of "interviewing and investigation" and flat-out accusing me of lies? You right there are not only criticizing my ability as a writer, but you're criticizing my integrity as a person.

I have not, did not, and never will print anything that is not the truth. Information can come from different sources, and the source I used, while it might not have been the one some people would have liked, it was reliable information and, as far as I can (I haven't sat down and run my number's against our fellow newspaper's), the damn information that was printed there.

If we had felt the source of the information was sketchy, we would have done more "digging." But we didn't. We trust our source, and I stand by the information I printed to be true. To have the audacity to call into question my integrity as a person - albeit indirectly through this - it's the same as walking up to me, and saying, "Molly Louise, you're a liar."

That my friends does not fly with me.

I'm not infallible. I know there are things in my article that were ambiguous. There were details about minor things I did not put in there, and I'm woman enough to know I'll eat my words next issue with a follow-up article. It happens. However, the main point of this weeks' article - asinine concerts, asking for a ridiculous amount of moment for said concerts when they have, in the past, not even broken even, and instead caused a significant deficit - will remain unchanged.

As with all of my writing, I'm not going to give you flowery bullshit. I'm going to tell you the point, and I'm going to be blunt about it. If people have any questions, they're more than welcome to actually come to me and talk about it. Talk about what they didn't like. A student government hoping to set standards on journalism? Well hell, why don't you just attempt to censor us.

I will not apologize for something that needed to be said. For something that was said. For information from a valid, reliable source that was used, and my decision to keep my integrity and allow that person, who came to me in confidence, to remain anonymous like he requested.

Questioning my writing questions my integrity. This is not something to take lightly. While some may choose to take the low road, sling a little mud and get a little dirty, I will remain classy. Again, you might not like the result, but you poke me like this, there's a good chance I'll punch ya. That you must always expect.

Murphy and Me XXXIV

[Happy Almost Friday.]

Four days, three practices, and one game later, it was finally Sunday and I was double-checking that, according to my planner, multiple syllabi and whatnot, that I was indeed ahead for once, instead of perpetually catching up.

Which proves miracles can - and sometimes do - happen.

There wasn't anything that needed to come with me, other than Murph, and we needed to get moving. It was roughly a fifty minute drive if I didn't cut over the hills and through the hollow. Going through town was a bit nicer, scenery wise, as it followed the lake from one end to the other, but it added about ten minutes.

Then again, driving no less than sixty got me home - through town - in forty-five minutes. And if my mom needed to get up here quick? She could tackle the distance in half an hour.

Keys in hand, I trotted down the back stairs and pushed open the door to the third floor. There was a cacophony of voices from the lounge, occasionally drowned out by a TV sports announcer. Sounded like Syracuse playin' someone. Murph was leaning against the lounge window, turning his head every now and then to see the screen.

Syracuse scored a touchdown and there were a few "damn it" and "oh, shit" grumbles amidst the cheering.

I twined my fingers with Murph's and watched the replay. A one-handed grab under double cornerback coverage. That was bound to makes SportsCenter later. "Nice."

Murph shrugged. "Everyone has a SportsCenter moment, D-one or D-three."

We were NCAA Division III in all of our sports except for lacrosse (which was Division I) but if you watched any game, meet, or competition, we went at it like every move was covered by ESPN. It doesn't matter what it's not, we still go hard.

He looked at me, oblivious of our audience - half the lounge was watching the TV, and other the half us. "We goin'?"

"Yup." We waved to the boys - Dev among them - and started for the other stairs. Once in the parking lot, standing by the driver side and looking at my boyfriend over the roof of my beat-up Oldsmobile, it hit me what we were about to do.

Murphy was going to meet my parents. The last boy to do this, three years ago, was Bobby.

"Ollie?"

Bless that boy. "Yeah, Murph?"

"You okay?"

And was that a loaded question or what? "Yup. Just...thinking." Unlocked the car, ignoring the slight shake in my hands, and hoped Fred started first try.

Hallelujah. Two miracles in one day.

Five minutes later we were going fifty-five down the state route with the lake on our left. Murph turned the radio on, navigating the seek button to find something between country and screamo. He found an easy listening station and I relaxed marginally, trying not to think about specifics or what was going to happen in roughly half an hour.

"There's a lot of vineyards out here," he said, looking out the window.

"Yup. There's twenty-eight wineries from one end of the lake to the other on this side." I'd been incredibly bored and tired on the drive one time and had counted. It'd kept me awake.

He looked at me, incredulous. "No."

"Yes." Grinned.

"You've counted?"

"Boredom and falling asleep at the wheel."

Murph chuckled. "You know, I don't think I've been this far south before." He held up his hands. "Before you flay me for that, I've been to New York City and further south, south, but not down into this part of New York."

"So you haven't been to the southern tip of the Finger Lakes?"

"No - And how do these people use metal wheels to farm?"

Central and Western New York - known also as the Finger Lakes Region - was wine country. The hillsides of the glacier-made lakes were lined with vineyards and dotted with farmland. Grapes and corn. In Yates and Ontario counties there were a number - quite a lot, actually - of Amish and Mennonite farms. There were more on the east side of the lake and the way to figure it out? Look at the wheels on the tractor.

"If the machinery has metal wheels, it's an Amish farm. Rubber wheels are Mennonites. If we're lucky, we'll pass a horse and buggy." Counted those one time, too. Eight of 'em.

Murphy was positively bug-eyed; this was normal for me.

"What's that out there?" He pointed to the lake.

"Naval station." Apparently Murph hadn't gotten out much. "Research station. The lake, at its deepest part, is about six hundred and eighty-five feet deep, which makes it a good place to do submarine research." I tapped the brakes, eyes on the car to the right at the blinking yellow light. "You can't get within five hundred feet of it without them wanting to know who you are and what you're doing. Or they threaten to shoot you." I grinned. "Looks like a pirate ship comin' from the other way after dark."

He snorted. Darius Rucker's Alright filled the lack of conversation. I 'bout jumped through the roof when he slid his big palm under the hand currently resting on the armrest between us. Yeah, I'm a bad person and don't drive at ten and two unless it's snowing or my niece is riding with me, so it's usually only the left hand on the bottom of the steering wheel.

Nobody really gives a shit about how your hands are after your test, anyway.

His thumb stroked up the side of mine, coaxing my blood pressure out of the stratosphere.

Darius made way for Rascal Flatts and Fred rolled on through the miles, the lake sometimes disappearing from view and other times a dark, shimmering blue between two hills awash with reds, golds, and oranges. I waited five miles for a passing zone to get around a Chevy driven by a senior citizen on a leaf-gazing, forty mile-per-hour Sunday drive coming up on the last major hill and the final, if curvy, stretch of road before we'd drop down into the village.

Yes, village. Not a town. A village. Population of three thousand. Except for my family because we live six miles in the country.

We hit the four lane on the way into Watkins and he took everything from the motels and bed and breakfasts to the Elks Club building and the old iron works building on the last curve and then onto main street. There were still a ton of tourists around - especially at the State Park - and once past that traffic thinned and we went through the skewed intersection and up the hill across from Pizza Hut.

"Hilly," Murph remarked.

"You've no idea," I grinned.

"I'm a suburbs kid, I guess," he said, slightly wide-eyed at the open farmland and the view across the hills. Sasha had called them "mountains" when she'd come with me for Easter last year. "Wow."

The closer and closer we got to my own driveway, the more and more butterflies began beating at my ribcage.

It occurred to me then I should've asked Murph if he was allergic to animals.

"Murphy?"

"Hm?"

"Are you allergic to cats or dogs?"

"Nope."

"Oh, and just to warn you, Dex is a little...hyper."

He looked at me briefly before returning to presumably try to figure out which of the houses coming up was mine. "Dog?"

"Yeah." Pureblood, registered, long-legged border collie. He loved to wash ears, too.

There was a curious feeling in my belly as I flipped on the turn signal and backed into the driveway. It - well, when compared to other things, it wasn't much. An almost square house with white siding and a two-seat wooden glider by the door on the concrete pad. Murph squeezed my fingers and I had to really think about it to get my hand to release its death grip.

"This is it." Slid out of the driver's seat to stand on wooden legs.

"It's nice," he said. "Is that a store door?"

"Yeah. We're in the process of remodeling the downstairs from an old store into livable space. So it looks a little rough."

If I didn't get a handle soon it wasn't going to be pretty. Namely, most likely one of my mother's hanging flower pots would get a little extra fertilizer. Then I'd catch hell.

I led the way through the door and into what was starting to look like the mud room it was going to be. It wasn't in use yet, and we had to weeble through the downstairs to the kitchen door. There were voices behind the door and still feeling like I should be praying to the porcelain god, I opened the door and decided to just go with it.

Decent philosophy in theory, hell on the system in practice.

Mom was clipping coupons from the paper at the table, and she looked up when the door opened.

"Hi." She put down her scissors and hugged me halfway between the door and the tile-top table. Mama's a couple inches shorter than me, so when Murph stepped off the rug in his blue argyle socks, he dwarfed her.

"Mom, this is Murphy. Murphy, my mom, Anne." They shook hands; Dex pounded down the stairs and nearly ran into the side of the stove. He took the long way around the table and leaned his front paws into my midsection, trying to lick my ears.

Until he saw Murph, decided that was someone he didn't know, identified as friend, and attacked my boyfriend. In a friendly way, of course.

"Dexter!" Mom snapped, reaching for the neon green collar.

"Oh, he's fine," Murph said, laughing as the dog ravished his left ear. Dex eventually wandered away, back end wagging furiously.

I reached around Murph to hang my keys and Vera on my hook under the phone and then...didn't know what to do with myself. And the fact my boyfriend was in my kitchen.

Which apparently blew my mind.

"Where's Dad?"

"Store," she said, sitting down to clip coupons again.

Murph wandered further into the kitchen, taking in the light green walls and carpeted stairs. He followed me up to the pale yellow living room - complete with no curtains because, well, we just didn't. Not yet. He didn't say anything and it was turning the still-present butterflies to lead. From the plum-colored chairs to the right, the small, blue-plaid couch, and the pictures of Izzy and I on the wall behind the bigger couch Dex had claimed as his, he took in everything. Especially my senior photo on the wall.

"Your hair's shorter," he said.

"Yeah. I'm sort of growing it out again." And was almost there. "The bathroom's this way." It was on the right, before the closed door of my parents room and the left turn to the short hallway to my room, back guest room, and open computer room.

"Your room down there?"

Our eyes met, my heart thumping uncomfortably loud, and from the tightness in my chest those damned butterflies might have broken a rib. Maybe punctured a lung.

And so I showed him something of me Bobby had never seen - everything from my cluttered dresser-with-mirror to my five CD changer stereo to the stars painted on the ceiling.

"Did you paint those?"

"No. They were here when I moved in." The black cat curled on the bed lifted her head and stared at us with yellow eyes. "That's Pepper. She's a bit temperamental." Meaning, poke her belly and lose a finger. Possibly the whole hand.

We wandered back into the living room; my ass buzzed and the little black flip phone made an appearance. Text from my sister.

u guys here?

'Yeah.' "My sister." Motioned behind me. "She lives across the road."

Murph shoved his hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet a little. "And I'm gonna get to meet her later?"

Phone buzzed. made monster cookies. bring the boy.

I grinned. "Right now, if you want to. And she made cookies."

He shrugged. "Okay."

Back down the stairs, shoes, then out through the door and across the front yard to the mailbox. Nothin' comin', across the road and up the driveway to the back porch.

"We built this."

He looked at his feet. "The porch?"

"Ripped the old one to shreds and built this one as a family." It was warn enough out - and she'd been baking, too - that the back door was open behind the screen one. I caught the black and gray kitten as it dove for the door, cradling him against my chest until I heard the latch.

Murph pointed to the kitten. "Who is that little guy?"

Grinning, I put the kitten in his palm and he gently rubbed its tiny head. It purred. Loudly, for such a small thing.

"Wow," he murmured. "Talk about a V8."

Izzy was leaning against the doorway, inspecting the guy taller than her fridge.

"Murphy, meet Murphy."

His face was priceless.

"He's so ugly he's cute, isn't it?" Izzy grinned.

Murphy the human looked between two sets of green eyes and a nose that was probably eerily similar. "Are we talkin' about me or the cat?"

Resolutely not looking at my boyfriend found me wandering to the counter with a, "Ooh, cookies." Picked two off the plate and handed one to Murph. "You're cuter than the furball."

"Was a little worried for a sec," he mumbled, taking the treat, the kitten balanced against his chest.

"Are you allergic to oatmeal or peanut butter?" Izzy asked.

Murph shook his head, took a bite, and more or less blissed out. Monster cookies. Always good.

"Murphy, this is my sister, Izzy. Izzy, Murphy."

An orange tiger kitten padded in. Izzy pointed. "Morris."

"Like on the cat food commercial?" Murph still had his furry namesake.

Izzy grinned. "He's good."

He shrugged. "Used to have a cat."

Izzy took the kitten Murph handed to her. "She knows you're home. I told her you'd come get her after she got up from her nap and take her over to play." She rubbed Murphy the Kitten's fur the wrong way.

"Send me a text."

Murph tentatively raised a hand. "Can I have another cookie?"

"Of course you can have another arsenic cookie," she said sweetly, and again, Murph's face - cookie hanging out of his mouth - was priceless.

"She's kidding," I said, practically shoving him out the door. "Just kidding."

Dad's little black truck was in my driveway as we crossed the road and weebled back through the downstairs. Murph tensed at the kitchen door. "What if he doesn't like me?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

He shrugged. "He hasn't met me and I'm his daughter's boyfriend."

"He hasn't met you." I reached for the door handle. "And besides, it's not hunting season yet."

"Yeah," he snorted, "because that makes me feel so much better."

Kissing his cheek required standing on tip-toes. "You'll be fine. He doesn't bit." Which was true, but holy shit the man could bark.

Once on the other side of the door, Dex wandered over and Dad set a newly made pitcher of iced tea on the table.

And this is when I officially stopped breathing like a normal human being.

"Murph, my dad, Peter. Dad, this is Murphy."

That was, quite simply, all there was to it. Watching them shake hands, Dad offered him a glass of tea, Mom asked if he was hungry, and the next thing that happens is Mom and I are watching Dad and Murph talk football over roast beef sandwiches.

It was, simply put, frighteningly easy and incredibly normal. Which brought back those damned butterflies.

Dex sat staring at Murph until Mom physically pushed him away.

"What are you studying, Murphy?" she asked.

"History." He reached for the tea jug. "I want to teach."

"That's what Ollie's doing, too."

"Back up, plan," I protested. "Don't have a plan but I have a back up plan." Which was par on course for me, truthfully.

Conversation was the typical "boy-meets-parents" stuff and quite relaxing, to be honest. Even when the cat came waddling down the stairs resembling a pot-bellied pig more than a feline (she pulls her belly fur out, we have yet to figure out why) and began bellowing at Murph in an attempt to get him to share his chips.

Yes, cat eats potato chips and yes, sharing is required.

Time became one of those things that slipped easily away and before I could really fathom it, my phone was buzzing.

she's waiting for you.

I grinned.

"What?" Mom asked.

"Elizabeth. I told Izzy I'd get her and bring her over to swing."

Murph looked briefly terrified at the prospect of being left alone - temporarily - with my parents. He was a big boy, he could handle it. And if Murph could handle this, then he stood a chance of handling what was coming next.