boxes and squares #5.6: fuck you, thank you

November 2088. Colette Marin is 31, Jordan Graham is 28, Felix and Milo are 9, Maria Boone is 26.

Colette wouldn’t find them a better dad, because dating sucked and she was bad at it. That was what she tried to tell herself, anyway. But, if she really wanted to be honest, she wouldn’t find them a better dad because they adored him to the ends of the earth, and he was coming home, and there was nothing more these boys wanted in the world.

For two days, he wouldn’t answer her phone calls or texts. But at some point he answered the boys, and they filled her in on the news. She didn’t have any way of knowing for how long they knew before her. “Dad is coming home!”

She would never win against that, because their adoration wasn’t up to her. She thought she should have been mad about it, and yet, there was also some relief in losing that battle. It took too long to realize that maybe she never should have been trying to win in the first place.

boxes and squares #5.5: kill the fairytale (2/2)

November 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Maria Boone is 26, Johanna is 4.

content warnings: grief, despair

He went dark when he was upset, like he vanished from the whole world, Maria’s world included. And she craved a text, a note, anything. She could give him space. She wasn’t a clingy girlfriend, except that she yearned for some sort of tether, some connection, and maybe that made her clingy after all. But she didn’t want to nag. She didn’t want to be exactly what he was running from in the first place.

She didn’t need him to tell her that it was Colette on the phone. His whole body announced it with tension and grit. The last she heard of him, his voice boomed with a desperation she’d never heard before. He had already walked away from the campsite and she couldn’t hear his words, only the echo of his pleading on the rocks. Mostly she saw the way he shriveled into himself, growing smaller and smaller, until eventually, he stopped arguing back. Maria didn’t need to hear what Colette said to know it was ugly.

“Is he coming home now?”

“Soon,” Maria told her, which was only a hope, of course. She had no way of knowing where he was or when he was coming home. It had been three hours. The last time this happened, she didn’t hear from him for almost two days. But things were different now, and she couldn’t possibly wait that long before she started to panic. At the same time, she had JoJo to think about so panic wasn’t even an option.

JoJo was too riled up to go to bed, but she had finally agreed to put on her pajamas. She was too riled up to even wait inside. Outside, a sharp chill swept across the north Nevada desert, making clear that it would be December in a matter of days. Maria lit the campfire, and they sat beside it.

boxes and squares #5.5: kill the fairytale (1/2)

November 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Colette Marin is 31, Maria Boone is 26.

26 years ago: Mick is 38, Adelaide is 30, Jordan is 2.

content warnings: implied terminal illness/cancer, verbal abuse, grief, intrusive thoughts, passive suicidal ideation

previously: the promises // you’ve got to do right by those boys // Maria’s flashlight

It was supposed to be such a beautiful life…

boxes and squares #5.4: togetherness

November 2088. Colette Marin is 31, Jordan Graham is 28, Felix and Milo are 9, Maria Boone is 26, Jack Phoenix is 39, Sophie is 65.

“Whoa, look at all the bugs,” Felix said. “Mom, did you bring bug spray?”

“I’m hungry,” Milo whined.

“I told you to eat before we left the hotel. I paid for breakfast at the hotel. I’m not buying breakfast out here because you didn’t eat the breakfast I paid for.”

“Can we play on the playground?”

“We did not fly eight-thousand miles to play on playgrounds. Wow, thirty-dollars a night. I wonder what the ROI is on those?”

Colette got out her phone and browsed a few real estate listings. The apartments were small, but some of them were very stylish. Too colorful for Colette’s tastes, but she knew tourists loved color.

boxes and squares #5.3: hindsight is a bitch (3/3)

November 2088. Colette Marin is 31, Lorraine Marin is 59, Felix and Milo are 9, Gabby Roseland is 16, Sebastian Gilmore is 38. 

previously with Colette's mother: backstory // Mother's Day

content warning: cancer, sims behaving badly, infidelity, little bit spicy, no nudity.

Colette had sworn off dating forever after her last terrible failure. But the line for coffee today was absurdly long, and having no other idle interests than to browse the faces of desperate men, she opened up her dating app. There was something casually entertaining about swiping left, swiping right. Hot or not, like a game. She didn’t plan to connect with any of them. Lately, this app was only full of college boys. The only mature men were bald with beach balls for bellies. Not that a bald head couldn’t be very attractive on the right man, but these men weren’t attractive at all.

The line was still five people deep, all of them moaning about the places they needed to go.

Colette’s phone rang. At a glance, it was her mother, and Colette had no desire to answer it. She probably wanted money, or to turn her alliances against her brothers for some unearned sympathy, or maybe even a kidney. Colette wouldn’t be surprised if that ask came along someday.
There would be some ask involved in this conversation and Colette didn’t have the spirit for it today. She let the call go to voicemail, but her mother didn’t leave one. She called again. Then she called a third time.



Nobody calls three times without leaving a voicemail unless there’s something urgent to say. Oh, damn, it was going to be the kidney, wasn’t it? And there was no way Colette wanted to have that conversation with her mother in a line full of impatient people with nothing better to do but eavesdrop.

Colette let out an anguished sigh and gave up her place in line. She found a quiet corner in the lounge and called her mother back.

boxes and squares #5.3: hindsight is a bitch (2/3)

November 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Maria Boone is 26, Johanna is 4, Jack Phoenix is 39, Nessa is 38, Sophie is 65.

previously: invited to Thanksgiving // marriage is a cage, he said

warnings: just a peek of NSFW at the end 😘

As promised, Jordan brought his girls to San Sequoia to attend Thanksgiving with Jack’s family. “Bring the camper, stay a few days,” Jack told them. “Home on wheels, right? Why not?”

So they did.

“And this is their front yard,” Maria said, amused. “Their front yard is actually the whole San Sequoia Bay.”

“Holy cow,” JoJo shouted. “I see a boat! And another boat. And another boat!”



“How many boats does that make?” Jordan asked her.

“One, two, three!”

“Good, now tell your grandpa you learned math in homeschool.”

boxes and squares #5.3: hindsight is a bitch (1/3)

November 2088. Colette Marin is 31, Audrey Roseland is 48, Vicky Garth is 24, Darwin Hadley is 35, Felix and Milo are 9, Gabby Roseland is 16. 

previously: so, I have been seeing someone… // going on a date with a doctor, she said

optional background music: “fake plastic trees” as covered by Phoebe Bridgers

* warnings: long (as it goes lately...), bad decisions, briefly NSFW: obscured toplessness, spicy memories (text-based), and obscured self-pleasure

The boys were in school for another hour or two, and they had their activities after. Colette had no showings booked, and neither did Audrey. Nobody wanted to buy or sell a house a week before Thanksgiving.

Colette liked this swanky lounge by the water. She liked the smell of new renovation overlying its aged frame. The place served coffees and croissants and an assortment of music. By now, even Colette was tired of pumpkin spice everything, but peppermint wouldn’t be on the menu until after the holiday, so she ordered a frothy plain cappuccino. Audrey took one last pumpkin spice latte in her to-go cup. “Thanksgiving is next week,” she excused herself.

“You do you,” Colette said.

“Friend,” was a loose term for Colette, as in “keep your enemies closer.” But Colette didn’t think of Audrey Roseland as an enemy, either. A competitor, sometimes—there was only so much premium real estate to go around—but they tried not to step on each other’s toes. And that Colette tried at all for this woman probably made her more of a friend than Colette ever had before.

“I really loathe that he’s fucking someone before I am,” Colette confessed.

a little blog-keeping note

Now that all of the “why are you here?” stories are complete and published to this blog, I have moved them to their correct chronological place in the story timeline, so they will work with the blog’s forward navigation. Since this was a prequel story, these chapters belong at the beginning. So they will no longer appear at the top of the blog, if you’re looking for them. They now appear at the beginning of the story, which began back in April of 2023.

No need to scroll back several pages, though. You can find those chapters easily from the round/story index page. Or start with chapter 1 here. 

That’s all, and happy reading!