Rosario Ortiz (reluciente) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2022-03-20 18:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | rosario ortiz |
WHO Rosario
WHEN St Patrick’s Day
WHERE Bushwick
WHAT A vision, part 2
WARNINGS None
It’s Spring Break, which mean classes are out, and it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, which means half the city’s flooded to Fifth Avenue to don Irish cosplay and get plastered. Lyra’s one of them. Somewhere out in the screaming crush, she’s celebrating with Saint Patrick himself: in the selfie she sent a few hours ago, the two of them are grinning wildly, glasses of green beer raised in a toast. Lyra’s in a green buckled top hat and Patrick’s wearing an Irish flag as a cape, and they’ve never looked more like father and daughter. (Rosario, being Rosario, texted back, Look at you getting your Irish on! followed immediately by, Remember food and hydration are your friends! 🌭🥤☘️) Rosario’s not there, of course. Her day’s been spent determinedly powering through her study notes: rewriting, summarising, highlighting, colour-coding. You’re better than him, Estella told her. Your potential shines through the darkness, luminous like Rigel, and anyone who gets in your way should know it. Estella’s not like Apollo. When she says something, she means every word, and the vehemence in these words sent a thrill of goosebumps down Rosario’s arms. She reread them again and again in the depths of a sleepless night, till she felt her resolve harden. Damn right, she decided. Damn right she’s better than him. He thinks she needs to be babied? That she “obviously” needs him, that she’s “struggling” without his bullshit paternal help? She’ll show him. He ain’t seen shit. She barely managed three hours’ sleep before her alarm shrilled at seven, but though she woke bleary-eyed and wrung-out, she hauled herself out of bed with a purpose. You’re better than him. Yeah she is, and she’s not gonna let herself get distracted by his foolishness. He might own the building, but he doesn’t own her. And she’s getting her life back on track, starting with school. Once she’s wrestled her notes into line, Rosario moves onto a practice exam. Midterms were a little shaky, she can’t change that now, but she can sure as hell be ready for finals. She knows how to do this. She’s been to every class, she’s done most of the reading already, it’s just about building that active recall again. Drilling herself on questions till she can smash through an exam booklet without breaking a sweat. And you know what? It actually feels pretty good. She’s stumbling on questions, and her memory falters, and the time on her phone’s racing ahead of her towards zero, but compared to twisting her brain in knots over books on Ancient Greek metaphysics and visions that steal over her in the night and how the hell she’s supposed to explain Apollo’s latest stunt to her mom, this feels like a clean mental workout. Like giving the inside of her skull a thorough scrubbing with sanity bleach. The timer goes off. Rosario stretches, cracks her knuckles and gets up to make a coffee. Lyra’s probably drinking Guinness and howling Irish ballads with Patrick somewhere. Whack for the daddy-oh, there’s whiskey in the jar. She returns with a steaming mug, pulls up the test answers on her laptop and clicks her red pen. Back to work. A couple of swift ticks, a strident cross. She circles the question number, frowns at the words on the screen, then jots a few lines. On to the next one. Tick, cross, cross, tick. She’s in the zone. A car alarm shrieks outside the window, startles her. Her hand jolts— shit— Rosario makes a grab for the cup, too late— Starlight stings her eyes. For an instant, she’s seeing double. Her cup’s toppling, and Crater the Goblet is toppling, and the hot coffee the dark amber liquid is spilling across the page across the sky, sweeping up the words the snakes the words that dissolve into snake-like smudges— Coffee’s dripping onto her lap, stinging hot, but Rosario’s frozen, because there in the centre of the page, a V-shaped red tick that’s also a bird is blurring, thrashing, drowning in the flood. Lyra. She can’t explain where that lancing certainty comes from. There’s nothing to justify it, it’s only ink and paper and coffee that she oughta be mopping up because it’s already seeping into the corners of her perfectly ordered notes, but instead she’s watching herself fumble at her phone with clammy hands. She’s being stupid, superstitious, paranoid, letting the vision from the other night get to her. Not everything’s an omen, and even if it was, she can’t jump to conclusions, it’s irrational. Lyra’s number rings and rings and kicks her to message bank. Stupid. Lyra’s partying, course she ain’t answering her phone. Stop being crazy. Rosario dials again, and again. Patrick isn’t picking up either. Jocelyn. Should she call Jocelyn?! Avery, she doesn’t have his number. Armaan? Thalia? If something’s happened— STOP. In a swell of horror, Rosario throws the phone away from herself and cradles her head in her hands, breathing heavy. Coffee’s soaking the elbows of her sweater, her jeans, her notes; it’s soaking everything, so then why’s she smelling beer and jello shots? Crazy. Crazy, you’re crazy. That’s how she’s gonna sound if she calls Jocelyn babbling about not being able to reach Lyra, on a day Lyra’s practically guaranteed to be unreachable. Shit, worse than that, she’ll be throwing Patrick under the bus, making out like Lyra ain’t safe going to a parade with him when Jocelyn’s already giving him the heavy side-eye. And what’s she thinking, of course Lyra’s safe with Patrick. He’s a goddamn literal saint, how much safer can you get? (But the red-ink bird’s still being dragged under and the Herdsman’s been lost in the writhing procession of snakes and it’s no longer imaginary starlight that’s burning her eyes, she’s crazy she’s crazy she’s crazy.) Somehow, through the haze of panic, Rosario coaxes herself out of the chair. She must’ve done, because at a certain point she finds herself in the kitchen laying out sodden pages on paper towels, the scent of coffee rising sharp and strong. God, it’s such a mess. All her notes. She moves mechanically. She tries not to look down, fearing what she’ll see in the ink bleed. Don’t think about it. Just focus on getting cleaned up. But when the spill’s mopped up and her desk is clear, she’s crawling on hands and knees to retrieve her phone, and she dials again. She keeps calling. She rations them out, one every hour, so’s not to be crazy about it (oh god, she’s being crazy). Sooner or later, Lyra’s gonna look at her phone and see it’s been blowing up, and then Rosario’s gonna get a slurring call at one in the morning with Irish music and roaring laughter in the background. The clock creeps towards one and slips on by. Lying in bed, Rosario digs out the star projector Merlin gave her, practices counted breathing, scrolls through podcasts, but she can’t stop her eyes from flicking back again and again to the slow crawl of minutes. When she finally sleeps, she dreams of thrashing feathers in a dark amber haze. |