Drown #9: the best laid plans, part 3

December 2085. Justin Kim is 25, Stephanie Nova is 26.

* sensitive content advisory for Drown #9: the best laid plans, parts 1-5


When Justin got Stephanie back and was finally able to look at her in the light, he saw that she was pale in the face, vacant in her eyes, and shaking. His mother didn't even need to ask, she just said, "I'll take Willow up to bed. Come on, Willow. You must be so sleepy."

"We have to go," Stephanie said. "We have to leave tonight and go somewhere he won’t think to look for us."

Justin shook his head. "Not tonight, the roads are too bad. It’s too late. Steph, calm down."

"He’ll come here, he’ll find us here."

"You’re safe."

"We’re not safe. He’s gonna find us and kill us. He won't stop until he gets what he wants or one of us is dead."

"He’s just trying to bully you," Justin said. "He’s not really going to murder anyone. He didn't even try to hit me. It'll be okay. You need to rest now. We’ll think about what else to do in the morning."



"I’m sorry. He kissed me. I didn’t want him to, but I didn’t know how to make him stop and he kissed me. More than one time."

"It's okay, Steffie. You're okay now."

"He was going to keep kissing me. He was gonna— He was gonna— He wasn’t going to let me say no."

"I’ve got you now. He can’t get you now."

"I was so scared."

"I know."

"I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I’m gonna cry now."

"It’s okay, go ahead and cry."


She exploded with sobs then. She buried her face between his shoulder and his neck. He felt her hot breath and tears on his skin, maybe some drool and snot mixed in there, too.

"It's okay, Steffie. I've got you now."

She barely held herself up as her body heaved with sobs, but he pulled her close with one hand and stroked her hair with the other. He knew he never should have left her there. It was a mistake. He failed to protect her so many times. And she told him that she wasn't okay, again and again, in her silent but obvious way.


Even on his wedding day, she tried to tell him. That day had felt weighty with foreboding for as long as he could remember, but it wasn't just because his marriage to Keri was destined to fail. That was the least of it, to be honest. Justin hadn't seen Stephanie since he left her in Three Lakes with Jeremiah. He never thought it would be that long, but it had been more than a year. In that time, her smile had become different. It was slower, weaker, and conflicted. Justin tried to find out what was wrong, but with Jeremiah by her side, she would only say, "I'm fine."

But Justin saw her later, sitting alone for a moment and he knew that she wasn't fine, so he went to her.

"I know what you need," he said.

"What?"

"Cake pops in the kitchen."

"Yes, please," she said.

Jeremiah wouldn't be occupied for long, but Stephanie didn't need long. With a cake pop in her hand that she wasn't eating, she wouldn't tell Justin everything, but she would tell him just enough.

"He thought we should have a baby," she said. "I wasn't even sure about it, but I just said, 'Sure, okay.' To a baby. An actual baby. And now I guess I'm gonna have a baby. Oh god, what did I do?"

"You had sex," he said.

She laughed, but tears overflowed her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

"Steffie, it’ll be okay."

"I don't want to go back there. I want to come home."

"So come home then. Doesn't he want to? Can't you convince him?"

She wiped her eyes with the cake pop still in her hand, knocking frosting into her hair. Justin took back the cake pop and handed her the fancy folded handkerchief from his breast pocket that he didn't know what else it should be for. "In the movies, some guy always has one of these to give to a crying lady."

She laughed and dabbed her eyes with it. He hated to see Stephanie cry, but at the same time, he cherished it. Not because he wanted to see her sad, but because she trusted him with it. It was an uneasy joy and he didn't know what to think of it. His newlywed wife had never cried in front of him before—it was usually the other way around—but he also wondered if maybe Keri never cried at all ever.

"Just cry at him," Justin said. "Does that work on him? Or does that only work on me?"

"I never cry in front of Jeremiah," she said.

Justin felt such gravity in that tiny confession, as if that simple sentence told him much more than she imagined it would. Then all of the loneliness in her smile made sense. It told him all of the truth that she wanted to hide—that she did cry, maybe often, and that she didn’t feel comfortable enough with her husband to let him see that. The person who had vowed to cherish and protect her wasn't doing a good job. She couldn't even cry in front of him. Not ever. Not once. What a lonely life that must have been.

"I’m sorry," she said, folding up the handkerchief and putting it back in his pocket. "Please don’t worry about me at your wedding. I'm fine. It'll be fine."

But no, it wasn't fine. It wouldn't be fine.

Keri found them in the kitchen before Jeremiah did. Justin thought that he would be in trouble for raiding the cake pops which were supposed to be served later, but Keri wasn't mad. "It's our wedding," she said. "We can eat the cake pops if we want to."

Keri ate one, too, and they all laughed together before Jeremiah came back, just the three of them, just like it used to be in high school and college. They were all so naive, desperately trying to believe that it would all just work out fine. Like life was magic and everyone got their fairy tale ending. But sometimes it doesn't work out fine.

He shouldn't have let her go back to Three Lakes with Jeremiah that day. He shouldn't have let her marry him in the first place.


"I did it wrong, Steffie. I'm so sorry. I did it wrong so many times. I'll never leave you again."

"But that's impossible," she said. "How will you go to work?"

"I'll take you with me. I'll hide you under my desk."


She laughed with her eyes squeezed shut and puffy. "Are you watching me cry?"

"No, I'm just watching you. I'm just so glad you're here."

"Okay, but just don't kiss me, because I have snot all over my lips. And I’m sorry, I got snot on your shirt, too."


"I was going to take it off," he said. "Blow your nose on it if you want."

"Eww, that’s gross."

"Or I'll bring you a tissue. We'll get our pajamas on and get in bed. We'll hide under the covers."

"Remember when we were kids," she said, "When we camped out in the woods behind my house, you said that if we slept with our backs to each other we could see in all the directions and the monsters could never get us."

"Nobody will get you tonight."



Stephanie sniffled for a bit longer, but she soon wrapped his arms tight around her belly and leaned her head heavily on his shoulder. Her breathing slowed and calmed, and her nose whistled with each breath.

But Justin couldn't sleep. He stayed awake for hours, listening to every crack of the house, every car tire on the road, every footstep that might belong to a monster. He wondered how many times and how many different ways they could be wrong. Was Jeremiah just a bully, or would one of them end up dead? They had to choose wisely and they couldn't be wrong this time.

—

notes: I wish I had more of my old pictures from TS2, but I only saved the ones that I used for the blog and none of the outtakes. It wasn't until very near the end of my TS2 play that I started saving all of my pictures. 

I actually dreamed about that wedding scene the other night. At the time, I didn't write much about what Justin and Stephanie were doing at the wedding reception, because oddly, most of the pictures I had were of Keri, all of her complaining and drama, or Mariah's drama, or Jeremiah talking about Bella, or everybody else's shenanigans. Hardly any pictures of Justin at all (after the ceremony, at least) or Stephanie, even in the background of other pictures. 

So that's what I'll imagine they were doing while everybody else was busy with their drama. They were hiding in the kitchen, crying and raiding the cake pops.