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On the glorious wintry morning of December twenty-second, 2009, the snow is hovering to the ground in sprinkled bursts; the birds are not chirping in any capacity whatsoever; the sun is bright and high in the sky as it smiles upon Uranium City, SK below; and death has arrived.
Birthdays were never all that TV cracked them up to be. At five years old, Ocean O'Connell Rosenberg beholded what was—at the time—the event of the century: Tommy's birthday on the Rugrats, blaring inside the ancient boxy screen set up in the living room, back when Mom and Dad still allowed some select "brainwashing government telemechanics" within fifty feet of the O'Connell Rosenberg residence.
It was monumentally, world-changingly magnificent: never-before-seen cake, streamers, presents, friends, and—most importantly—people singing in perfect unison, all to celebrate the day you were born.
Of course, until that moment, an O'Connell Rosenberg had never celebrated a so-called "birthday" before. Right then, Mom and Dad scuttered across the floor, smacked the OFF switch on the ancient old box TV, and plunked themselves down on the carpet in front, looking solemnly like she'd just pushed baby Jesus down a flight of stairs.
"Blossom," said Dad, face harder than it'd ever seemed capable of setting, "we don't speak of those things in this tribe."
Mom nodded in somber agreement. "Birthdays are a carnivorous, capitalistic trap designed to keep Hallmark a supercorporation so they can maintain the consumerist agenda."
Ocean deflated.
"It's time to teach you the truth."
As it turns out, the truth was called "Seed-Planting Day": an occasion on which, for every December twenty-second thereafter, Ocean is thereby "empowered" to "give back to the land which birthed you"—in this instance, through the righteous task of burying a small packet of tomato seeds in an overgrown corner of the garden in the backyard.
She never really liked tomatoes.
As such, birthdays come and go without the fanfare or celebration bestowed upon Tommy Pickles—sometimes, every handful of years, with a forgetting of the occasion altogether. And that's been just fine, because even after becoming aware through the cupcake bashes hosted for classmates in elementary, the subsequent parties on TV of Angelica Pickles and Timmy McNulty, and the hooky others played from school in junior and senior high, that birthdays didn't actually belong to Mother Earth, when there was no one to sing the song in perfect unison to you, birthdays are merely more days.
Until now.
Ping.
Ocean's eyes peel open with the same sprightliness as wet concrete.
Ping-ping-ping.
Groaning, she's spatula-flipped over in bed, one arm bravely venturing out from beneath the covers to slap on the nightstand and flip open her cell. Her eyes just manage to piece together the words on the screen.
"Noel G."
(@lepetitgibeau)
(10:12)
come outside.
(10:12)
irs an emrgebfny,
(10:12)
emegrbcy
(10:12)
EMERGENCY.
(10:13)
fingers cold. come outside. emergency.
It's not.
In fact, Ocean knows it is not, because she heard it was not.
"December twenty-second," Constance's hush was traveling through St. Cassian High School's halls, three fateful weeks ago after rehearsal for this winter's showcase. They'd all gone home—supposedly. Ocean backtracked into the ancient auditorium to recover a forgotten wad of sheet music, until familiar, mingled whispers began escaping through an open crack in the music room's door.
"Jesus." Noel's whistle. "I've suffered her presence since grade one. How did I not know that?"
Curiosity slaughtering this proverbial cat, Ocean tipped closer. It went quiet, for a fraction of a minute.
"She's not really one to," said Connie, halting, for a breath, "celebrate."
"Welp, too bad! She will be now," came Penny's audacious intonation.
The telltale rattle of Misha's wild gesticulating colliding with a music stand. "We make A-Hole have birthday. Does not matter what shit she celebrate."
"This is sounding more and more tyrannical." Ricky's AAC. "I'm down."
"Okay!" Constance smacked her hands together. Ocean glued to the opposite wall. "So, plan's good to go? Ten o'clock, my place, my car?"
Varied noises of agreement.
"Itinerary all set? Full day, back by sunset, Mom's handling it. Any last-minute suggestions?"
"Wait, wait. I had an idea for the…"
"…actually, maybe we should start with…"
"…was thinking, we might want to call ahead and make sure…"
"…what kind of drink she like to…"
At that point, Ocean had slipped away, forgotten sheet music unrecovered, one secret plan wiser and one gram heavier because not a handful of months ago they had almost died.
Prior to which, Ocean did not know Ricky's device is called an AAC. Or that Misha often talks with his hands. Or Penny's voice rasps when she's excited, or Noel has terrible circulation in his extremities, or Constance hadn't been happy since the Accident, because she'd never bothered to know.
As it happens, tangoing with death alongside these people and subsequently spending a series of pain-ridden, trauma-inducing, boredom-filled months in St. Damien's Health Centre of Saskatoon really does a lot for your relationship. And your psyche, because suddenly you realize maybe a birthday all about you is the furthest thing you ever should've had when you'd already been turning every day into one anyway.
But alas, sorry's were issued, however insufficient, patterns shifted seismically, and three months later the St. Cassian Chamber Choir has planned an entire day of Seed-less festivities for her despite it all and the only minuscule problem standing in the way of it is the funny little fact that death is here.
Every muscle, as they give their all to groan her upright in bed, feels like it's had the energy sucked straight from it with a straw. Both temples throb, oppressively, like someone has elected to repeatedly whack them with a pair of squeaking rubber mallet. Esophagus is about as comfortably smooth as sandpaper, legs as capable of standing upright as a skyscraper formed entirely from popsicle sticks, and the chills—when did it get so cold?
Ocean is, currently, cursing the land which birthed her for the fact everything feels like returning straight to it.
It's safe to say: She's contracted the alien parasite. Or something. And, with the sensation of her organs being flash-frozen from the inside-out then gracefully dunked in a refreshing vat of ice water, and the added, delightful, oxymoronic addition of a thin sheen of sweat sticking skin to sheets, it is equally sound to issue such verdict: It is awful.
No.
Ocean backtracks right then and there. In fact, no. Actually, reconsidering, everything is fine.
Ocean is cool. Has to be—because, the St. Cassian Chamber Choir has gone to the trouble of raising a fanfare and planning a celebration worthy of Tommy Pickles, even though Ocean had never gone through an awful lot of trouble before the—everything herself, for much of anyone. There's no telling them to go home. There's no confuting this emergency.
She'll just have to endure the absolute time of her life.
In direct defiance of the straw and the mallet and the sandpaper and the cold, Ocean manages to lift the sheets, hobble to the window, and pluck open the moth-bitten curtain.
It's sleeting snow.
Teeth grit, and also chattering, she pulls on about an onion's worth of layers, jets perfume from the bottle that's almost empty, and hikes down the steps with the banister as her brace.
Downstairs, the air is hazy. Muffled laughter is sounding from behind the closed door of the bedroom tucked in the corner of the far wall, telltale mist seeping under the crack. In one pocket is a rapid pingpingpingping, and Ocean extracts the brick cellphone the Blackwoods passed down to her, "for emergencies"—in this instance, not exactly wrong.
"Misha B."
(@B4D3GG6969)
(10:22)
Emergen
(10:22)
come outsiDE
(10:22)
COME OUTSIDE
(10:22)
CPMEOUTSIED
(10:22)
CIMR OURSDeE
(10:22)
COME OU
She stops reading.
Steadying for a breath behind the door, Ocean then throws it open, slams it shut on the haze behind, and turns to get five facefuls of Choir.
"What, what?" she pretends not to know, exactly: "What is the big emergen—"
Pop.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
Ocean jumps. Multicolored streamers flutter to the snow, the two smoking guns being a pair of party poppers wielded by none other than Misha and Ricky. Everyone is proudly flourishing a full set of teeth with the wideness of their grins.
"Surprise!" whoops Penny, hands in the air.
"We found out," Noel informs of the obvious.
Ricky lowers his popper. "Try as you might've to hide from us."
"Little bird say," pipes Misha, smug.
Constance shrugs, the avian in question. "Sorey!" she chirps, not sounding terribly sorry in the least, before rushing forward, kicking up flakes as she goes, to take Ocean's hands in her mitted ones. "Buuut, maybe you'll forgive us, because we've got your ideal day planned!"
"Outings, excursions, packed to the brim," says Ricky, twirling said popper.
Ocean blinks.
"Pa—packed?" she echoes after what feels like a millennium, only a little dumbstruck. "To the brim?"
Constance gives her palms a squeeze. "Whole day, baby!" she giggles in that fizzy way of hers, eyes soft. "Morning to sunset. We know how much you like highly efficient recreational itineraries."
But: Morning to sunset, is the only thing stuck, looping in the record player of her throbbing brain. She does like highly efficient recreational itineraries—would like this one, in fact.
Despite this one, something washes over Ocean and she tries to pretend it's not dread. Or an abnormal human body temperature.
Nothing ends up coming out of her mouth while Penny nods, practically jumping in her boots. "Filled with all your favorite random shit!" she proclaims.
"It is very weird shit," Misha chimes, helpfully.
"But, we did it anyway." Noel slips into the forefront, at Constance's shoulder. "Because"—he struggles, for a moment, doesn't look her in the eye and instead finds the streamer snakes in the snow absolutely entrancing—"because, you're alright. I guess."
The cold's beginning to seep in her bones, in contrast to the shaking waves of sudden hot. Every limb is already begging to simply faceplant in the snow and call it a day. Every thought has an ever so subtle wooze to it, conversation like one large disastrous game of Scrabble, and staying upright from morning to sunset sounds Herculean.
But Ocean smiles.
Doesn't have to coax her lips into it. They just kind of curl themselves that way, weak and slow, a little unintentional, but blinking up at their five faces, so sure.
"I…can't believe you all would do that," Ocean says, despite it all. "You—you shouldn't have."
Ricky's head tips. "Well, we wanted to."
Constance's eyes shine behind her frames, close. "And we did."
They did.
"Enough!" whoops Misha. "Time to get party started!"
They do.
The St. Cassian Chamber Choir is thereby jammed inside Mr. Blackwood's spluttering SUV from the '80s. As it happens, however, six people, one car, and two rows does not equal neither safety nor comfort. Constance is driving, Penny is lawlessly perched on Ricky's lap in the passenger's side seat, and thusly with Misha's bulk and Noel's lankiness, Ocean is sandwiched between the two of them in the back.
"Everyone buckled?" hollers Constance from behind the wheel.
Mixed responses.
"Cool! Aaand, we're off!"
They are.
Connie winds the choking old Nissan down the secluded, snow-crusted gravel of the O'Connell Rosenberg residence, and towards the first mystery destination. With a slick smile, she clicks the radio on, crackling as it is, to the only oldies station in a hundred-kilometer radius—Ocean's favorite. Chatter drums up among the unsafely-packed seats, which Ocean might have dug up a complaint about if there was any capacity to.
Instead, as everyone casually babbles away, she focuses on nodding at the right intervals and squeezing arms tightly enough around her midriff so maybe it'll stop shaking.
"Hey," Misha suddenly says, after chipping in to a conversation regarding the most and least "banging" Catholic Christmas hymns.
It's accompanied quickly by an elbow to the arm, the universal indication of you, yes you. Ocean jolts up at him. "Hi," she blurts, "hey— can I help you?"
"What you shivering for?" Misha's eyes sweep her up and down. "Is not arctic expedition."
Of course, he'd think so. Defying laws of thermodynamics, the man is donning nothing but basketball shorts and a parka.
Ocean's lips splutter for the appropriate answer. "Yes, but it is winter in northeastern Saskatchewan," they manage to retort, eventually.
He looks at her like she instead just suggested he go ahead and bungee jump to Saturn. "This is nothing!" Misha proclaims, hands thrown up.
"For once, she's got a point, Eminem."
Their heads swivel in tandem to Noel who, on her left, is cocooned in enough layers that the percentage of his bare skin visible is less than ten. Similarly, for the first time in a thousand millennia, Ocean would like to thank him, profusely. Maybe when—if—she's alive by the end of today. "I can't feel my fucking fingers," he adds.
Misha merely pshaws, sits back in his seat with one leg slung over the other. "You two do not last one day in Ukraine."
It's at this moment that out the front window, getting larger is the Mega Mall. Constance starts pulling into a parking space. "I know you've been needing some new perfume," she says over her shoulder, spinning the wheel, "and, you love that one spot at the mall, sooo…we're gonna snort some scents!"
Ocean's nose wrinkles in the rear view mirror.
"I mean. Check out some perfume!"
Everyone clambers out of the SUV and inside Uranium City Mega Mall.
Under any other circumstances, on any other occasion, it would all be great. Just as the six of them waltz into the open-concept arch of the entrance, Ocean does like the local Scents-a-Lot—establishment name notwithstanding. Of course, Constance took note of the offhanded comment Ocean made a handful of weeks ago, when the bottle of lavender-vanilla on the nightstand had a quarter left swirling in the bottom, today conveniently down to its last drops. It's almost obscenely thoughtful, uncomfortably wonderful, horrifyingly—
Oh, God.
She sets one foot across the threshold, and true to name, there are a Lot of Scents.
On any other occasion, the fact this establishment is living up to its title wouldn't be an issue in the least.
But unfortunately, today what slipped the mind is the pivotal detail that death is here.
"Smells like woman," announces Misha, loudly, twisting around one shoulder to gander at the walls of fragrance like it's the product of a foreign nation.
Ricky wheels up behind. "Surprised you'd know."
Misha whirls a hundred and eighty degrees. His mouth pops open, affronted.
"Got 'em."
The rest of them flock inside after and the aforementioned walls upon walls of fragrances are colliding. Every scent sears her esophagus, redoubles the headache that's gone from throbbing to raging, sufficiently waters her eyes enough to blur vision but there's no leaving.
"Ready to find one you like?"
Ocean snaps up, rapidly swipes at her face with a sleeve. Constance is grinning back.
Right. Find one she likes. Then they can promptly depart from the Scent Minefield.
"Totally," she says, as wobble-free as she can make it.
And makes a beeline for the clearance section.
As everyone else mills about, corking open bottles to smell and subsequently make either vaguely impressed or blatantly disgusted expressions, Ocean darts straight for the back wall, as she does every six months or so. They'll always shove the biggest value bottle of her patented lavender-vanilla (floral enough to mask the rank of earth, sweet enough to do it pleasantly) on the shelf half-off and she'll tutor for a week or two in preparation to afford it.
Ocean rounds the bend, past the soaps scented like vague concepts like Pleasant Dreams and Joyful Celebrations and the whole shop has been woefully rearranged, yellow tags in all their glory gone from the back. She suppresses a groan out loud.
Spinning a hundred and eighty degrees—and shaking away the brief spell of dizziness that entails—she's about to redouble the search when—
"Ocean."
She freezes. Blinks up, accordingly.
It's Penny. "Come here," she barks without any chivalry, then trawls her by the arm in the opposite direction.
"What— where are— Penny, Penny, hey—"
Independent of Ocean's questions/comments/concerns, Penny finally lets go, before a Noel, with arms crossed.
"Smell this," she orders.
Ocean blinks. "I—"
Before there's much of anything to be said about it, Penny flicks the stopper off a bottle labeled something equally abstract—breezes or hopes or something—and shoves it under her nose. There's no choice but to inhale.
It's, frankly, assaulting. Maybe the worst thing anyone has ever intentionally made since the invention of the unicycle. It's an Olympic endeavor to suppress a fit of coughs, which Ocean somehow manages, only without the vindicating delight of a gold medal to go with it. Peering at the bottle, if only to find the name of that which has irreparably changed her olfactory senses for the worse, it reads Hopes on the Wind.
What does that even mean?
"Oh," is all Ocean can possibly choke, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. "W-wow— um…"
"See?" says Penny, hands on hips, looking tickled with herself. "I have a knack for peoples' scent vibes." What is that?
Noel makes some dissatisfied click with his tongue. "Oh, puh-lease. You wouldn't know her scent vibe if it hit you over the head with a frying pan."
He produces another vial—Orange and Sweet Pea—and who on Earth thought it was a good idea to mix those two things. As he begins to wave it before her, Ocean teeters on the cliff's edge of whatever is between wheezing and crying and—
"What-up."
The three of them whirl around.
Ricky's wheeling up the aisle, wearing a gentle grin. "You guys find anything—" He stops typing.
He blinks at the scene, Orange and Sweet Pea inches from her nose. Then, like a guardian angel, pushes forward, shooing the two of them back, away. "Whoa," says Ricky, "okay, you look like you've snorted a little too much scent."
Orange and Sweet Pea mercifully retreats in Noel's hand, and Ocean endeavors not to heave with relief. "Oh, shit," he says, guilty.
Penny startles. "Shit," she agrees. "Sorry."
"I'm fine," Ocean bursts out, unconvincingly nasal. "Everything's fine. I'm not—snorting—this smells great!" she tacks on, for reassurance.
Ricky arches a brow, lamentably unreassured.
Then something touches her shoulder.
Ocean very nearly shrieks, whips around, but it's Constance. "Hey," she says, peering at the label of a golden-tagged bottle, "is this the one you like?"
Lavender Vanilla - 50% OFF!
The shriek almost turns to a weep. "Yes," she says, graciously taking it as Connie holds it out, a little proud. "That's the one."
"I'll buy it," Penny and Noel rush to say in perfect unison, looking terribly sheepish.
Slowly, their heads creak to face one another.
They both ferry Lavender Vanilla to the counter, split the cost, and hand it to her with remorse.
Everyone departs from the local Scents-a-Lot.
The six of them pack back into Mr. Blackwood's Nissan like sardines, and in the same instant Ocean's seat belt clicks, they're trucking close, closer to the outskirts of downtown.
"You're probably wondering where to next," calls Penny, from where she's balanced precariously on Ricky's lap. In truth, Ocean was, indeed, wondering. "Aren't you?"
She clears the frog from her throat. "Totally."
"Cool. Just checking. Well, it's"—the lot of them begin drum-rolling on their laps—save Constance, who knocks her fingers against the steering wheel—"the arcade!"
"Now, I know what you're gonna say," hollers Connie over the seat back. "It probably has health code violations."
Ricky raises his AAC. "And half the games are permanently 'temporarily out of order.'"
"And they don't steam their carpet from the '80s," chips in Noel.
"And it's staffed by that creepy old guy who lives in a shack on Nuclear," reminds Penny.
Misha suddenly sits forward in his seat and pumps two fists in the air. "But you like to win!" he thunders with gusto.
This is true.
On the rare occasions there was extra gas in someone's car, several loonies in another's pocket, and absolutely nothing else to do within a fifty-kilometer radius, Ocean has, indeed, enjoyed the arcade and does, without a doubt, like to win.
But as they flood out the car and through the single glass door on the right because the one on the left's been jammed since the place opened, Hades.
It's the Abyss: Colors. Noise. Flashing lights, grinning mascots (in this case, a caribou with too many human teeth). The delightful aroma of grease and health code violations; ungroomed carpet with its abstract kaleidoscope of shapes from the '80s; sound bites imploring one to PLAY NOW! and it's all so much.
No.
Ocean grits her own set of non-caribou teeth. It's just enough. It's all fun. It's going to be. They all planned this. It has to be.
Or else—
"Guess what?"
Ocean jumps, looks up and to the left at Penny, flanking Misha's shoulder. "What?" she tries not to croak.
Penny smiles, knowing. "Bonus: We're only playing the games you're annoyingly good at."
Ocean tries for a smile back that doesn't look as weak as it feels.
Ricky cranks his volume enough to deafen the creepy old guy behind the counter, who exchanges several fistfuls of loonies for tokens what looks like unhappily.
"LET'S. GET. GAMING."
They do.
Everyone flocks from machine to machine, splitting then reconvening, teaming up then in cutthroat competition, hooting and hollering then booing and raspberry-blowing and Ocean tries. Endeavors her darndest to keep up, force the numbers on the screen to stop splitting into double, take control of her leaden limbs long enough to lob skee balls and slam on the gas in Mario Kart.
She loses.
All of it. Doesn't even manage to get to the cherry part of Pac-Man, goes zero for three against Misha at the half-functioning air hockey table, miserably can put up even less of a fight than usual versus Ricky in Galaga.
Finally, the St. Cassian Chamber Choir ushers her towards one last fateful machine.
Once, at the end of exam season, Ocean received her first ever B-plus on a pre-calculus multiple-choice. Intended to joyfully celebrate the end of yet another destitute year of Catholic education, the six of them shipped off to this very arcade. Five were there for fun.
One came seeking revenge.
Ocean proceeded to blow off steam on this very machine until the screen pronounced an all-time number-one record, for which Noel quickly punched in a four-letter moniker and memorialized forever.
"Whack-a-Mole," everyone echoes, almost in reverence.
Noel does the honor of plunking a token in the slot.
The lights weakly wink to life. The audio is horrifically distorted, paint on the Moles' heads chipped from so much furious Whacking that they stare back with white, sightless eyes. Ocean glares back.
She takes a bracing breath, removes the hammer from the hole.
She's got to win.
And whacks.
For sixty straight seconds, Ocean lightens her own head with how ferociously the hammer of divine Whack is brought down upon the heads of a herd of paint-chipped, smug-looking, highly unfortunate plastic Moles.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
She can all but feel the Choir's eyes ping-ponging around each chunk of the board, flitting left, right, up at the screen, down at her and the board, making various incomprehensible noises of assorted encouragement and dismay.
THREE…TWO…ONE.
The warped, jaunty little tune fizzles out. The Moles, traumatized as they must be, retreat.
The final score flashes onscreen.
TOTAL: 202,674 pts.!
"Oh," intones the entire St. Cassian Chamber Choir.
It flickers to the leaderboard. The numbers and letters all look like Egyptian hieroglyphics.
RANK - NAME - SCORE
1ST - SAT-N - 1,389,475,145
"You got beat," snickers Penny, initially with the cadence of a joke that suddenly falls to something troubled, "by you."
All of their heads swivel this way.
The hammer starts to slip in Ocean's grip, handle now anointed with sweat as it is. "Off my game," her voice cracks, before she can plaster it together. She clears the little fissure from her throat. "Everyone knows all the greats make mistakes. I mean, even Margaret Thatcher proposed a poll tax!" She tacks on a laugh, for emphasis. Pushes her lips in a smile. "Still plenty of fun, even without the winning."
The five of them wonder at her, for a harrowing minute.
"No winning?" clarifies Misha, as if she just announced she were an alien from Mars.
Ocean smiles a second longer.
Mercifully, they pack back in the car without another word about it.
As Constance pulls out of the lot, Noel's barking directions from the back seat. Mile by mile, Mr. Blackwood's hacking and coughing SUV shuttles them all further, further away from town. The dilapidated Welcome to Uranium City! Home is Where the Mine is sign flies behind, out of view.
A pit gradually carves itself in Ocean's gut and she wishes it would just put the spoon away. But every bump in the road rolls a wave of nausea over every inside, skin begins to uncomfortably dribble with sweat beneath the insulation of her parka which does nothing to chase the chills, brain less and less capable of cobbling together a coherent thought by the minute.
Almost—almost—a turn around slips from her lips, excused by the fact she's just had too much fun and it's been great and enough and they really shouldn't have.
But then: "Stop, stop, wait— turn here!"
Constance swerves. Everyone whooaaas to the left as the car skews right, down a snow-chocked path that really doesn't look an awful lot like a path at all, and for a just a split second in time Ocean's vision threatens to static out.
The aeons-old wheels skid beneath the ice, and then they stop. She heaves in a breath, blinks once—not dead.
"We're here," announces Noel.
And there's no choice but to burst out of the car.
As Ocean shuffles behind, arms wound around the circumference of her waist in any attempt to keep it still, Misha's head is stuffed in the trunk. He ransacks several bags' worth of—something, handing them off to everyone; produces what looks like a walker, which Ricky trades his chair for. Her teeth hinge on her lip, to keep it from chattering.
"Wh—what," she dares to ask, has to steady that sentence, "what's—"
But right then, Noel bounds through the trees, shoves back a cluster of white birch, and with arm brandished, answers: "Ice skating."
Lake Athabasca, frozen over in its entirety, seems to stretch in endless directions. Frosty fog blears over the surface, swirling and howling in patterns, with the skid marks and curlicues carved into the ice betraying a few brave souls' past skating ventures. Or, now that she considers it, the Choir's test run.
"I'm letting my ego take a hit," Noel announces. Not like he hasn't in the past: Ocean's always naturally excelled at the whole thing, skating loops and twirling jumps while he's hugged the wall—or the ice. He proclaimed he'd never forgive her in junior high, when he was trying to learn to impress some greasy-looking guy on the hockey team and she'd done nothing but skate smug circles around him. But, it seems: "For your birthday's sake. I will not mention the Incident," he solemnly swears.
Truly, a holiday miracle.
But, fortunately for him, today his ego's staying intact.
The only bruising done here today will be to hers—and, also, to the rest of every soon-to-be dysfunctional bone in her body.
As Ocean's blades coax to the ice, everything is awful.
Constance has managed to glide forward on two feet for the first time, face alight with pride. Misha repeatedly slips and falls trying to mirror some obscure hockey move the Maple Leafs probably did on TV once, but looks to be enjoying himself nonetheless. Penny's swiveling backwards to keep in conversation with Ricky, who's cruising his walker along the ice like it's another sport entirely. Even Noel, somehow, is skating competently, pushing side to side and looping around and around like he's been training in secret specifically to outdo her after the Hockey Boy Incident.
Ocean, safely, is not.
With no walls in sight, it's uphill just to stand, let alone skate. To remove the arms currently conserving every joule of heat around her torso (wait—is it hot or is it cold) sounds like wishing for death, and so balancing properly is a pipe dream. Shivering, sweating hands pulled to her chest, she's skidding along the ice like a deer with arthritis, the ice and the frost and the fog and the guilt and the cold gnawing every inside all the way out.
She manages to stick upright, if lopsided, long enough to smile and laugh as everyone mucks about on the ice. They joke and jest with her, too kind, glad. Ocean tries to be. She does. Is.
But everything's a little dizzy, and faint, and weird. Something's telling her ice probably isn't supposed to be at a thirty degree angle, like it currently appears to be. Her breath starts to come in bursts, little white puffs in a Saskatchewan winter. She shivers. It's cold.
It's tired.
Everyone's off trying to learn to twirl. There's a sudden crunch and scratch of blades. She doesn't realize she's been gliding aimlessly frontward, chin to her chest, eyes fluttered shut, until: "Satan."
Ocean jumps.
Noel. Skating right there, lips downturned, face almost disturbingly gentle, like it's not supposed to look like that.
He opens his mouth, to say something. She's sure of it. Why aren't you being insufferable, what happened to skating laps around us—maybe even, the dreadful, dire, grievous, hey, are you okay.
Then his eyes go wide.
Ocean's narrow in tandem, thrown, but in the same instant before a word can leave his lips, a spatula flips her.
At one moment, Ocean is standing, skates on the ice, as any sane person would/should. At the next, her back is where her feet should be.
The wind kicks straight from her. Her legs flail, wildly, until they stick in the air before crashing, spectacularly, back down to the floor, and her nose faces the sky.
Unequivocally, everything feels upside-down, inside-out, like every muscle was just clocked simultaneously with the World's Coldest Sledgehammer. A wave of relentless shivers wracks every inch of her, and she'd surely like to get up. She would. But nothing moves, and then there comes that horrific, unbidden fist, familiarly squeezing the back of her throat.
Crap on a stick.
Immediately, Noel's face blots out the sun. "Oh, my God."
Four other sets of blades scraping furiously across the ice sounds, right by her ear. Noel reaches out a fast hand, and somehow, Ocean takes it, though he grunts when he ends up hoisting what must be the entirety of her body weight.
All at once, everyone is watching, worried. Her face threatens to twist, legs threaten to give, but she swallows all of it. Everything.
Noel's mouth opens to ask the dreadful, dire, grievous thing.
"Crack in the ice!" Ocean bursts out before he can, showing some teeth. "That's all. I mean," she chuffs out, laughing, breathless, "even the Maple Leafs can't overcome physics. Am I right?"
They're all quiet. Penny starts mumbling. "Especially the Maple Leafs…"
Ocean gives a hearty thumbs-up. It shakes, subtly.
Everyone stares, for a minute more. She sweats—maybe only half from the nerves.
"Maybe we should call it here," Constance finally suggests, grin halfway to her eyes.
They do.
It's back inside Mr. Blackwood's asthmatic Nissan, and the ride is gentler. Softer, almost; if everyone's boisterous laughter and foul mouths on the way here were at an eight before, they've dimmed to a mellow five, now.
For whatever reason, that guts the pit in her an inch deeper.
The minutes liquefy together. By the time the car rasps to a stop, it's in the back lot of the Blackwood Café. Spilling out of the seats, creaking up the stairs, and finally hovering on the landing while Constance jiggles her key in the lock, everyone is all knowing, anticipatory smiles.
Though it nearly fails, Ocean reflects one back at them. Because they shouldn't have, but they did.
The door cracks open. The St. Cassian Chamber Choir usher her to be the first to slip through.
Pop.
"Happy birthday, Ocean!"
The Blackwoods, dripping in streamers, stand in the foyer, grins bright enough to power the sun. Balloons crowd the ceiling, snacks decorate every available flat surface, garlands and banners and even a hand-drawn card from Constance's little brother, who hugs her wobbling knees and doesn't let go until he's pried from them.
She thanks them, profusely, of course, even though the whole thing's something of a blur of kaleidoscopic color and blinding smiles and constricting, trademark bear hugs.
Everybody starts to mill about the place, swiping tortilla chips in homemade salsa and vegetables in ranch, chittering amongst themselves. It's woozy. Ocean totters to the wall and glues to it, watching, all of what might be the most unreasonably amazing people on this planet Earth, all chocked into one room, all for her. Her head spins.
"Hey."
Ocean starts, certainly not for the first time today. Constance appears, mound of chips on a paper, birthday-themed plate. She's frowning softly—well, she might be. She's at a bit of an angle right now, so it's hard to tell, but Ocean focuses on her anyway. "Hi," she says, forming lips in a smile, for good measure.
Connie doesn't mirror one back. "Are you feeling okay?" she asks, the dreaded, grievous thing before Ocean can do very much about it. "You know, you've been a tiny bit—off, all day. Is, is all of this…" She suddenly creases with worry. "Did we do too much?"
"No!" blurts Ocean, instantaneously. The volume makes her head briefly light. "I mean, yes—rather, no, no— not too much, and feeling fine," she babbles, assures her. "Everything's fine. I'm okay." Almost like a mantra, to remind herself.
It's pathetically flimsy even to her own ears.
"Look, I've known you for, like, my whole life," Connie starts to say, tugging at a curl, "and, I know you usually like something more low-key. But, you know. They all just, kinda wanted to show you…" She grows soft, sweet. Looks at Ocean in a way that even through the mangled maze of her brain is filled with so much—too much— "We love you. And, truthfully, me, too. So, thanks for humoring us."
Well, we wanted to.
I'll buy it.
You like to win!
I'm letting my ego take a hit.
We love you.
Ocean blinks.
They love her. They love her. They shouldn't have, but they did. She should have, once, but she didn't. Never went through enough trouble for much of anyone.
Everything's mounting. The world's gone on spinning.
"—'s up? Hey, Oce. Ocean."
She snaps back into existence.
Connie's voice, her face, fades in. She looks worried. Fudge in the factory. "Are you sure you're alright?" she's asking. "Oh. Hey, c'mere for a sec. You look a little—"
Her hand lifts to touch her forehead, and Ocean has to duck.
"The lighting," she spills out, because she has to. "'s just the lighting. I'm all good."
Constance looks harder, brow furrowed with fret.
"I promise," adds Ocean, and it's awful. Lying, straight to her best-friend-who-loves-her's face is awful, but she'd understand. She's all good.
She has to be.
At this moment, Constance's eyes happen to flit to the clock.
They widen, subtly. "I'll be back," she tells her.
And she disappears down the steps.
In this window, with Constance gone and the Choir-Blackwood amalgamation carrying on with their mingling, Ocean flees. She rounds the corner, trips down the hall, and bolts the bathroom door behind, legs all but failing her down on the toilet seat.
The fact this is gross doesn't even hit. Her breath is too short for it to matter. Ocean heaves to catch it, bent in half, the tile on the floor swirling into one giant mess, freckles weeping with sweat and trembling with shivers all in one.
Almost there. She's almost successfully had the most pleasantly undeserved day of her life, all thanks to the St. Cassian Chamber Choir. There's only a little slice of it left to go. She'll get through it, if it's the last thing she does, because what kind of person shouldn't, wouldn't. Couldn't.
We love you.
They have to know how much she does, too.
When Ocean stumbles back into the kitchen, it's dark.
All at once, eighteen candle flames ignite the room. Eight faces are glowing in a procession, orange and soft, as nestled Constance's careful hands, a great big Blackwood cake is ferried before her.
A song is sung, in perfect unison.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you.
On pitch, all smiles, overwhelmingly sweet. So kind.
So…warm.
Happy birthday, dear Ocean.
Ocean's too warm.
Happy birthday to—
The singing stops.
"Ocean?"
The candles go black.
When the static's gone from her ears and the dark clears from her eyes, there's something cool.
And also a little damp, plastered across her forehead. Something soft beneath. Muffled, mingled voices.
"…believe we're all this dumb…"
"…hey, speak for your…"
"…didn't know it was that…"
"…wouldn't have went and…"
"…was…the whole time…"
Ocean's lids dare to flutter open.
Immediately, Constance's voice cuts through the lot of them. "Shhhhut up, shut up, shut up."
The world's sideways, currently. Ocean tries to turn it right-side up again, top half heaving upright. The coolness on her forehead slides right off and into her two hands: a washcloth.
She blinks around.
Noel, Penny, Ricky, Misha. All on the Blackwood living room loveseats, staring. She jerks to the left.
"Ocean?" murmurs Constance.
They're going to say something.
They're all going to blow up. Yell, maybe—burst into spontaneous tears, even, about the fact this perfect day is all ruined, and how could she be so stupid, and of course she's never done a thing for them in her life and the minute they do a thing for her in theirs it's all a disaster and everything is horrible and why is she still here and go go get out no cake no streamers no singing pack it up buddy you're not Tommy Pickles and it's time to Plant some Seeds.
Then they don't.
"What the fuck," Misha is the first to talk, throwing his hands up. "We think you are dead."
"We did not think that," Noel amends, fast, "but, fuck," he still agrees. "You look like shit, Ocean." Confusingly, it's not said in the derisive sort of way it usually is.
"Are you okay?" says Penny, rug-burning both knees across the Blackwood living room carpet to squint at her funny. "God, dude. We didn't even…" She trails off, doesn't finish that.
Ricky frowns. "You have the complexion of an anemic vampire. No offense," he adds. "We should fix that."
Then Constance, there next to her on the loveseat, has her face creased beyond measure, looking low. "How did I not know?"
Ocean says nothing.
They all blink at her. The St. Cassian Chamber Choir, all downturned lips and wrinkled brows and bodies pitched forward on the carpet, wondering. Waiting. Worried.
She laughs.
Their faces twist, maybe doubly as concerned, now less for her health and more for her sanity but Ocean laughs, shoulders shaking and palms sliding down her cheeks and eyes squinted and everything.
"Well," she manages, lips still curled, "that was silly."
They all but flinch backwards.
Why? "You guys went through all this trouble, and here I am." A chuckle huffs out, a little askew. "I—didn't do it."
A beat.
"What?" the St. Cassian Chamber Choir chorus in unison.
They don't seem to be getting it. "You—you all did this. All for me, even after—you know—and, I couldn't—didn't—keep it together. For one day, for…" She has to swallow the fist in her throat. "You really—shouldn't have."
It squeezes anyway, and Ocean chokes.
"Oh," mutters Noel. "Oh, shit."
Pathetic. Humiliating. The worst, Ocean O'Connell Rosenberg sobs on the best day of her life.
In an instant, they're all crowded on the carpet, one big cluster of Choir. Everyone's saying—something, all muddled together, covering her with care.
"…don't need to…"
"…your birthday…"
"…when you look like you…"
"…shouldn't worry about…"
But it's all soft, it's all sweet, it's all—warm. Too warm.
None of it makes sense.
"I didn't do it," Ocean cries out, and they hush in an instant. "You guys planned, the perfect—Tommy's birthday on the Rugrats," she can't stop, now, babbling, "even though I never—planned a darned thing for you, and—and all I could do was ruin it!"
The breath leaves her and everything tilts to the left a little. Her face falls to her hands, only half-willingly.
The Choir is quiet.
Then: "Are you stupid?"
She trembles up.
"Did you really," says Noel, "really, after the whole damn day, think the plan is what mattered?"
Ocean croaks, but not much decides to come out.
"That was rhetorical," supplies Ricky, helpfully.
Misha shuffles closer, balanced on hands and knees. "You do not ruin shit," he proclaims, in no uncertain terms.
Penny even laughs, a little sad somehow. "Ocean, man, that's not what it's about."
Connie, glassy and subtly sniveling and everything, grazes her fingers across hers, and Ocean lets her. "It's about you," she tells her, heart in her eyes.
"But—but it shouldn't be," Ocean stumbles, getting flimsier. "You shouldn't ha—"
"News flash," cuts in Ricky, volume cranked, "we did."
"Because—and believe me, this is hard to stomach—we wanted to," says Noel.
Misha nods solemnly. "You are weird as fuck, but you suck less now." He receives a deft elbow beneath the table and yelps. "You are weird as fuck, but we like you," he corrects.
"You're trying," urges Penny. "Like, a lot. All the time."
Constance blinks something away before facing her, head-on, and sounds more serious than she might ever have. "You do a lot more for us than you know, Ocean."
Even all the things she'll never know she's done won't be enough to cover everything before.
But it starts to flutter through her. This hesitating, wavering, wondering feeling.
We love you.
"I," she tries, tries to say it, "you guys, I—really…"
Then slumps in half.
A steadying hand flies to her arm, only for the sensation of it to immediately recoil. "Jesus Lord," comes Noel's hiss, "did you come from Hell? You're burning."
"Shivering like arctic expedition," mutters Misha.
The back of Connie's fingers are finally allowed to touch her forehead. "My God," is the breathless verdict. "Were you seriously sick…the whole time?"
Whatever answer Ocean could give is all Scrabble now.
"That was also rhetorical," drones Ricky, softer.
"That's it," announces Penny. "I'm on tea."
The living room's a whirl of movement.
"…blankets…"
"…Tylenol…"
"…reality TV…"
"…my sparkling personality…"
And that's that.
Maybe it's a good thing Ocean has been physically incapable of protesting much more than an incoherent garble.
That week, the entirety of the St. Cassian Chamber Choir and Blackwood family, in collaboration, have her piled high in various plush items of general comfort, mugs of lavender-honey tea, acetaminophen, and Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. It's a week of ceaseless headaches, a body wracked with chills, a mind that's nothing but mush, and generally, laying sideways in Hell.
But it's perfect.
For that week, the majority of Ocean's waking hours are spent with them and there is, truthfully, nothing much better.
Even if it doesn't feel like she's done much to deserve it all, thinks of all the things she would've, could've, should've, for that week, she tries to figure it out. Through the blur of her brain, she tries to grapple for the words, then the tone of them, then the time for them, but though Ocean is good at many things, this has never been one of them.
Hopefully, she thinks as she drifts away on the couch, the din of the Choir's chatter her lullaby, they know, anyway.
She's been asleep for a while, they swear.
But then, softly. Just over the blare of the TV, the pull of a breath.
"I…love you guys."
Everyone grins.