Re: antique store: sam & julia
"Is he?" She didn't think of anger and Cisco, of temper flared high and cold. (Julia thought of anger as cold, ice that burned until sensation was lost. Anger wasn't fighting which could be loud and passionate and fun, if you felt like it, like letting steam out. Anger was cold and it was cruel and it could be calculating). "Maybe he changed." She felt for her pockets in the coat that wasn't a Julia-coat, that belonged to no one and didn't fit like it had been made for her. It felt freer that way, less like being held in place.
Julia didn't care if she belonged or not right now. Maybe she would later. Maybe it would become home, a place and a set of lights and a road you woke up to on the shoulder of the highway when someone else was driving, and recognized as a pull across the boundary lines. She remembered cars and streetlights and that sleepy feeling of recognition from being a kid. She hadn't had it in years. Maybe Repose would hold it, but she thought maybe the city would have to let go first.
But Sam thought louder was better. Julia hadn't screamed where anyone could hear, in years. Decades, practically. It was visible and she'd gotten better at being less visible. Her wrists were thin and her eyes didn't catch on your face if you were looking too hard and she found ways to fit in spaces she didn't belong, to go unnoticed. Going unnoticed was better than standing out.
"Next time," she said easily now, combing strands of blond out of her eyes, out of her mouth. "'I'll come see the baby, Cris," it was a promise because she'd said it now. And she could make it, if she felt like it. Julia tested the taste of it, was it a promise or was it easy, without an anchor? Sam was from before, and before felt like sunlight passing over in winter, a reminder. It was a promise.