Even drunk, Felix could recognize his best friend through the throngs of the crowd, bodies pressed tightly together like sardines in a can. The drunker he got, the less it bothered him, how he could feel everyone’s sweat dripping off them, dancing bodies thrashing around like buzzing flies under the influence of the band. He chuckled as she laid her hands on his face, scrunching his nose at her. “You never know, Leo,” he agreed, letting go only to pull her into a sudden, tight hug. Just as quickly as he took hold of her, he let go to groan at her question. “Don’t remind me of Tucson. I’m never going to live it down. It was fine. Sunny. Can’t you see my new tan?” He asked, cupping his face, any change to its color unnoticeable. “I was expecting a little more fanfare upon my return. No marching band, confetti? Harsh, Leo. and here I thought we were friends,” he joked, tugging on her hand, pulling her towards the bar. “The least you can do is take a shot with your poor old friend,” he implored, looking at her with puppy dog eyes.

“Can’t disagree with that,” she sighed, “you never know indeed.” In fact, it was incredibly possible she did have another sibling roaming around somewhere, at least biologically. Leo tended not to dwell on all of that as, if she did, her head would spin, and her stomach would twist and mangle itself into an ugly knot that would take far too long to untangle. And she used to think about it all the time, probably too often, really, when she lay in a far too big bed in a far too big room, not yet used to constant camera flashes through tinted black windows and starched white dresses and red satin ribbons in her hair, not yet understanding why her father only held her hand when someone else was there to take note, to see what a “damn good dad that Lucas Albright is!” Tiny and scared, curled up into a ball under her covers, she would stare out at lights outside her window and wonder who she was, what she was here to do, why everything felt so calculated yet so random. Clearing her throat, she returned from her musings and looked at Felix with a lopsided grin. “You’re simply glowing,” Leo joked. She rolled her eyes before wrinkling her nose and shrugging, “Alright. You know, since it’s ‘the least I can do’ and all.”

She rises like Athena

on a night of victory dancing.

She rises like the blood moon

in a sky of a thousand nebulae bursting.

Adjusting his mask, Felix found it hard to see through the eye holes, the plastic too small for his face. It kept bumping up against his eye lashes, catching them, the boy having to blink furiously and adjust it constantly just so he didn’t crash into anybody. A Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest was the only indicator that he was dressed as Poseidon, the boy’s tradition of half-assing party costumes carrying on. He should have been Dionysus, with all the wine he. had consumed that evening. Every time someone asked him to retell the story of how he ended up in Tucson instead of Tuscany, he downed another glass. Which was happening often. He was taking a sip when she crashed into another body, spilling the wine down the front of his shirt, tumbling backwards until he finally took off his mask in frustration. A grin spread over his features upon spotting Leo in front of him. “Leo-oooooooo,” he sang out like a drunken sailor breaking into a sea shanty, throwing his arms around the girl sloppily. “I missed you! How are you? How’s your sister? You know the uh, the crazy one. Do you have another sister?” He asked, suddenly unable to remember, leaning back and clutching her face in his palms. @leoalcrights​

She had kept to the corners of the room for the majority of the evening, only making polite conversation with those who approached her first and making sure that if she wasn’t at an arms-length distance from people physically, she would be socially. It hadn’t been a difficult task for Leo, avoiding the crowds that night, the mask offering an adequate enough disguise. It sufficiently covered her nose and eyes, anyway. It wasn’t until Felix flung his arm around her and crooned out her name that she realized that perhaps she wasn’t as unrecognizable as she thought. Maybe the height was a dead giveaway or even the hair. Or, maybe the most likely, a best friend was able to spot their counterpart quicker than any other old random. “Jesus, Felix,” Leo huffed, making a noise upon impact. Anyone else would’ve gotten shoved off a la Cher Horowitz. “I’m fine, Darby’s fine; I missed you too,” she sighed, chuckling and feeling slightly guilty for the white lie. She wrinkled her nose as his palms pressed against her cheeks, raising her eyebrows and doing the same to him, mimicking his theatrics. “As far as we know, I do not have another sister. But life is unpredictable, so I’m not putting all my eggs in one basket. Anyway! How was Tucson?”

Seeing Marco felt like seeing a ghostly version of herself. Of the person she had once been, still was, if she chose to give in again to drugs. He had once been her only lifeline. Marco was like eating food that poisoned you slowly. It would keep you alive, but at a cost. She wrapped her robe tighter around her body, protectively, crossing her arms, still feeling her hands shaking from the shock to her system. “I… I’m done with all that, I swear. Like, I didn’t know he was coming. I didn’t ask him to. I haven’t been doing that shit with him, I swear,” she blubbered out desperately, sniffing once, voice rising to a higher tone. er appearance probably wasn’t helping her case. She had been up most of the night working, barely sleeping, her hour of slumber interrupted by the rap on her window. Under her eyes was an almost ghastly shade of blue, eyes themselves bloodshot. “No, no I’m not back to all that! Leo, I’m sober. I wouldn’t do that. Fuck -” she exclaimed, rubbing a palm across her face, heart still pounding, wondering if Marco would be back for more. “He just wanted money, I swear. I don’t even know how he got here, why he’s in Vermont,” she rambled out, tripping over her own words, trying to explain the surprise of her situation. She stepped forward, grasping onto Leo’s shoulders. “Please believe me.”

Leo stood there, suddenly all the more aware of her own body, her own mannerisms, who she turned into when she got angry, who she was currently turning into. Her throat went dry as angry words crawled up like bile, threatening to spill out onto the floor if she didn’t swallow it all back down. How many times had Leo stared at her sister, unsure of what to say, where to begin, how to express herself? It seemed she never knew how to do that; articulate how she truly felt because it would lead to a cracked image of who she was thought to be, an ugly smearing of red paint on a masterpiece that had taken years of just sitting still, doing as she was told, to perfect. But Leo genuinely wasn’t sure she believed Darby. “Seriously?” she asked, and it hardly sounded like a question. “You’re telling me he really had no one else? And that’s why he came out to fucking Vermont?” Bullshit. That was the initial thought that came to Leo’s mind, a thought she realized as dismissive and perhaps cruel, but alas. “I don’t know, Darby,” she muttered, crossing her arms. “Dad would fucking kill you if he knew you were talking to him again, you know that? Like, he’d probably be even more pissed about you doing drugs with him than if you just… did them at all.”

Hands pushing against the small of Marco’s back, Darby was still trying to process everything that had happened since he first rapped on her window that morning. Her breath had caught in her chest upon seeing his brown, beady eyes staring back at her after she held her cellphone light up to the foggy pane, finding a face she was used to only seeing in his dank, basement level New York apartment. Marco had once been her best friend by default. The only person willing to let her crash on his floor when er hair smelled of her own vomit, both of them chewing through adderall pills for days on end. Lucas Albright had even gone so far as to file a restraining order against the boy after he assisted Darby pilfer through their father’s study, finding a Rolex watch to pawn so Marco could buy them both more coke. Darby herself had even ceased all contact with him after a particularly bad drug experience, one that she was still convinced was Marc’s fault. The result of cocaine cut with something else. Resulting in a hospital trip that led to her first rehab stay. She was equally shocked that the boy had set foot outside of Manhattan. “Darbs, I just need a little cash. Something to get well,” he had pleaded with her, his eyes practically casing her room for anything he could slip into his pocket on the way out. now she was unceremoniously kicking him out, hair still wild from sleep. “Just… just get out, okay? She said exhaustedly, pressing a crisp twenty into his palm, bribery to get him out of her home. Marco blubbered on, apologizing, then blaming. “Jesus, twenty fucking dollars? That’s all an Albright can give me. You’re a shitty fucking friend, Darby,” he spat out, the girl wincing and shutting the door on his face. Pausing for a second, she turned around, surprised to see her sister standing behind her. she looked caught, like a mouse in a glue trap. “Hi, um… this isn’t what it looks like, I promise. I didn’t ask him to come here.” @leoalcrights​

Red. That’s the color Leo would have seen had she not just torn herself from a deep sleep, all her grogginess still hindering her vision despite glasses being perched on the bridge of her nose. Instead, she stood behind her sister, a mess of fear and confusion, and the ghostly traces of anger her father had instilled in her by example swirling around her stomach like a dangerous concoction of pills and alcohol her mother would’ve relished. Marco. The name rang in her head like the wails of an ambulance bustling down a busy street, eager for obstacles to get out of the way, having to be patient when patience was the last thing to be. She had seen him only a few times, and his name was one that was seldom -- if ever -- spoken in the Albright household, and it was one she hadn’t heard in what felt like ages. And what she did know of him and his name, his ratlike face, his recklessness and blatant disregard of her sister’s wellbeing, she loathed. Leo watched in horror as the scene went on, almost unsure if this was a nightmare that just felt a little too close to real life, but no; it was real life that felt a little too close to a nightmare. Her face turned hot as her ears took in his voice uttering the girls’ last name, a name she suddenly felt very protective of, and her nails dug into her palm, anger held in balled fists. And then, just like that, like nothing had happened, Marco was shoved out the door, and Leo was facing Darby head-on. Her sister’s weak explanation saw a cynical scoff coming from Leo, and she crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes as she shook her head. “I thought you -- I thought you were done with all that. Aren’t you?” she spat quietly, her brow furrowing. “I mean -- what the fuck, Darby? Are you fucking, like, back to all this now? Huh?”

Strewn across the bottom of the stairs that led to the rooms in the villa, Leo would have no way of knowing how long he’d been lying there, time moving at a snails pace and simultaneously going far too fast for his liking. He’d been drinking heavily all day before deciding splitting a bottle of absinthe with Romy would be a good idea - apparently, he hadn’t been able to make it to his room before eventually just crashing on the stairs. The only reason he’d woke up in the first place was when someone had obviously been doing their best to tiptoe around him, but it’d been enough to cause him to groan anyway, smacking his lips together obnoxiously as he aggressively rubbed his eyes, “Fuuuuuck me - my neck what the fuck -,” It took a while for Leo to register the face in front of him - the moment he did, it was clear, eyes blinking wildly as he practically croaked out, “Albright!” Apparently, he was still just as drunk as when he’d fallen asleep, “Yeesh, didn’t mean t’get so sloppy in front of ya,” They hadn’t been together in the first place, “Ever tried absinthe? Wish I had some still, I’d let ya try. Makes you see fairies and shit - y’know, you kinda look like a fairy. Maybe it’s working. Hey, what time is it? When’d I fall asleep? Wanna go find some wine somewhere? I usually can’t stand the shit but this, like, pure Italian wine bullshit is, like, true. Pretty good.” @leoalcrights​

She stood at the bottom of the staircase for maybe a minute, eyeing Leo -- Fowler, that is -- before deciding what move to make. Leo tried to stifle a laugh as she recalled the classic nursery story, the one about not being able to go under or over a bear, having to go around it in order to not disturb the beast’s peace. Finally beginning to tiptoe around the blond boy, she jumped when he suddenly came to life a la Frankenstein’s monster. She shrugged as Fowler apologized, still going to walk around him before wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. “Uh, no, can’t say I have,” she sighed before his comment about fairies, and her likeness to them saw her raising her eyebrows, nodding slowly as she quickly realized Fowler wasn’t just drunk -- he was hammered. Beginning to refuse the offer, Leo stopped herself before really considering the offer. She had no plans for the rest of the day; something at least interesting could come out of the escapade. Shrugging, she padded back down the stairs, looking at him before shrugging and nodding. “Okay.”

Everything looks like a painting around her, which is typical for Tuscany, but the state of Jade’s mind has everything melting like a distorted fabrication, a hazy daydream. She is in her underwear and oversized, billowing dress in front of a lake, high as a kite, and the sun is going down. Jade understands that she would most likely be better off having dinner with everyone else at the villa but she certainly didn’t anticipate her transcendence beyond sobriety that evening. She was floating and she wanted everyone around her to know. By these standards, this is confined to the lake and the grass and the sunset and her. Or so she thinks. A voice interrupts the humid air along with a footstep in the dirt. She hears someone ask what she’s doing but she’s already midriff deep. She turns around to meet the stranger and smiles. “Sheeeeesh,” Jade murmurs. “Just a river nymph trying to wash up around here, don’t mind me. Can’t a bitch get some privacy? Paint me like one of your Renaissance girls while you’re at it.” @yatesstarters​

A golden light was washing over the city, all the locals and tourists practically swimming in a gilded bath of gooey glow. The sun’s rays, glossy against a lake lined with children and elders alike, illuminated clear waters, and in its reflection, Leo saw a faraway version of herself, one that she almost didn’t recognize. A distorted picture of her with dark curls haphazardly pulled back, reddened cheeks, a bruised knee she earned when she knelt to the ground too quickly to capture a moment so Kairotic it was almost funny. Leo cocked her head to the side and let her shoulders fall, the strap of her dress crawling down her arm with the motion and, unlike what she would’ve done back in Vermont, let it remain there for just a second longer before she pulled it up again. Shaking her head and letting her gaze wander upward, the pitter-patter of soles belonging to dirtied Converse were muffled by the grass before Leo crouched down again, camera held to her eye as she grinned lopsidedly at an old couple sharing raspberry and mango gelato. She clicked the button quickly, the shutter going off before she pulled back and a familiar face -- Jade, to be exact -- caught her eye. “What?” Leo asked plainly, her brow wrinkling. “I didn’t say anything. A kid is crying over there, though; you probably thought he was talking to you or something.” She scuffed the heel of the sneaker into the grass before chuckling. “I can only take your picture, sorry, but I’d hate to, you know, intrude. Also, don’t call yourself a ‘river nymph’;  that takes the whole manic-pixie-dream-girl thing to, like, another entirely gross level -- unless that’s what you want.”

i've been running around in circles

pretending to be myself

why would somebody do this on purpose

when they could do something else?

“Ummm, Vin Diesel thought shaving his hair off was a bad idea, too? Now he’s, like, a bald icon. Balcon. Like, everyone knows he’s bald. He struts around, reflecting the sun. It’s his thing. He’s the bald guy in a tank top who drives fast cars. Can you even imagine him with a full head of hair? That’s the bad idea, Leo. That sounds tragic.” Lana, in reality, had no idea about the thought process that went into Vin Diesel’s hairdo, or rather lack thereof. Regardless, she said it with conviction like she said most things. Passion dripping with every step like a sponge that needed wringing. “He’s our age,” Lana pointed out, finger extended, no care paid to the fact that the man seemed to notice – rather than turn sheepish, she flashed a smile and earned one back. “I mean, he isn’t,” was delivered with another equally shameless point, “but maybe they’re gonna do, like, a whole show, later on, where they feed him to the sharks. Does Tuscany have sharks?” Certainly not in lakes, which is where they were currently floating. Lana lost sight of her question almost as soon as she’d asked it, plucking at two champagne flutes that swooped by on a tray. “Jackpot! God, I’m so thirsty,” she blabbed, holding up a finger in light of Leo’s concerns, having passed her a glass, and proceeding to consecutively gulp the entirety of her own in one. Hardly civilised, but. She let out a breath once she’d finished. “What’s off about it? I mean, look, Leo. There’s even shrimp,” she gestured off in the distance, vaguely at a table of appetisers. “I’m not, like, crazy about shrimp or whatever, personally, but… A big win for any Happy Feet 2 fans. They’re, like, a criminally forgotten demographic, Leo. Don’t be part of the problem. Seriously.”

“Oh, really?” Leo indulged, quirking a brow at Lana with an expression equal parts confusion and playfulness. “Source? ‘Cause I find that a little hard to believe. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that man had any hair in the first place. Feel like he just came out of the womb ready to do some hypermasculine activities and, in turn, just never grew any hair. But hey, what do I know?” She was rambling, and not just to return to Lana’s jubilant manner, but because she was nervous. It was a habit she had difficulty breaking; as soon as the familiar tug of nerves hatched in the pit of her stomach, her mouth went off like a top spinning on its point -- fast and with no sign of stopping. It compensated for her typically equanimous, reserved manner. The sole of her Converse tapped the deck of the boat with tiny little thuds, thankfully drowned out by the ensemble of voices and clanging of silverware around them, intertwined with bass pumping out of massive speakers. “No, this is weird, Lana,” she huffed, eyeing a shorter woman in a purple dress who was shooting coquettish glances to a much younger man, “like, that woman over there has to be, like, at least in her forties. Maybe even older. And she’s flirting with that guy.” Leo cringed at the sight before quickly downing the champagne in hopes it would dull her nerves. “Shrimp can give you E. Coli,” she refuted, “so. Yeah.” Shaking her head, she spun around to face Lana, narrowing her eyes. “Who even told you about this anyway?”

“So, how exactly does this work?” Leo asked, sliding into a straw chair as she eyed a menu all written in words, while beautiful, entirely foreign to her. She was sitting across from Hugo, peering at him from over the table d'hôte before quirking a brow. “Do you know any Italian?” Leo certainly did not. All she had up her sleeve was limited knowledge of French and even then, it had been years since she’d really practiced the language. “Whatever. I’m ready to eat my weight in carbs. Oh, and drink it in wine.” @hugorafferty​

With every step further down the cobblestone streets, Vinnie feels more invigorated than the last. She loves this: not being confined by the claustrophobic atmosphere of small town Vermont, surrounded by people who speak loudly and with their hands, her mind loose from the restraints of academia. It’s almost like she’s in Brooklyn again, except without the baggage. And it’s exhilarating. She feels like maybe if she jumped in the air she might be in a freeze frame like a High School Musical movie poster and suddenly she is picking up her pace, can feel her hair whip against her cheeks. It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t care. Her body is an excited bundled of nerves on the edge of an explosion. It’s a good kind of explosion, though, not the usual destructive anger that’s been biting at her ankles recently. Instead, she feels that if she blew up right now her insides would not be blood and guts but streamers and confetti. The thought of it makes her snort. She jumps midway in the air now, turning her head back to look at Leo, who trails some steps behind. “I want a fuckin’ cool shot of me in the air. Or a slow-mo video. With Mambo Italiano playing menacingly in the background.” Her step is quicker now, and she is basically skipping, thought it’s a bit more forceful than a lighthearted skip— she’s basically catapulting herself into the air. She jumps again. “Ay, mambo!” @leoalcrights​

“I don’t think I’m good enough to do that,” Leo laughed, wrinkling her nose as her brows knit together in a sympathetic and slightly embarrassed frown. The sun was beginning to set, a golden cast washing over the city and its inhabitants with a glow that felt almost religious. Turning her head to get a better grip on her surroundings, Leo quickly found herself eyeing a mangy stray, an old white dog with fur too matted for her to surely make out the breed. It was trotting along the cobblestone path, either forging a way for itself or maybe looking for a home. She remembered when she felt like that, all tiny and small and not yet having a place to call her own. The thought caused her stomach to lurch, and she narrowed her eyes, lifting the back of her hand towards the sun to shield her face from the light. The dog, though, finally lay down as he tilted his head towards the sun, its rays blanketing its ratty coat, and for a moment, it almost looked beautiful. Quickly crouching down to her knees, she brought the camera -- an old film thing she had been gifted for her past birthday -- to her eyes, quickly snapped the shot, and hopped back up again, jogging to catch up to Vinnie. “Jesus, how do you have the energy of, like, a ten-year-old? I’m ready to pass out just watching you.”

“I feel like this is a bad idea.” Leo was staring back at the dock, watching the tiny pier shrink in size as they moved further and further from the shore, the waves lapping against the side of the yacht mimicking the flips of her stomach. She was standing next to Lana amongst a sea of Italians as foreign music blared through speakers, combatting shouted words of a language she didn’t know, and sweaty bodies pressed up against each other. “Are you sure these people are, like, our age?” It was true that Leo knew little of what Lana had up her sleeve and still agreed to join her on the excursion, which was probably her first mistake. What she did know was that it was supposedly just a night with some rich kids from around the area, nothing more and nothing less… This felt like a little more. “Seriously, something feels… off.” @lanajvmeson​​

She suddenly felt very small, the target of Leo’s rage, feeling the girl’s irritation hitting her in waves even from across the room. She had been thoughtless when she gave the pills to Selene. A transaction like many she had done before. The past few years had been spent in survival mode, constantly licking her wounds and shadowboxing with unseen opponents of her addiction. Now Selene had been dragged into the rig with her. “I-I don’t know,” she admitted, fingernails digging into her palm, the other still clutching at the pages of her book. “I’m sorry, I was’t thinking,” she protested in a hurried voice, biting the inside of her cheek after she spoke. “I really didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.” Her mind tried not to drift to all the nooks of her room where there might still be pills hidden, stashed away by her high self in case she ever needed them. “You believe that, right?”

She was gnawing at the inside of her cheek, the soft tissue tearing, and a familiar metallic taste leaked all over her tongue, saturating her tastebuds. Well, that’s not good enough. That was what Leo wanted to say. It was something cold and biting and inarguable. It was something her father would have said. So she didn’t. Instead, a massive sigh left her, and she put her head in her hands like her thoughts were weighing so heavy in her brain she couldn’t possibly bear the weight. “Obviously,” Leo muttered, finally picking her head up and crossing her arms. “Darby, it doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean for anything bad to happen -- it still could have happened.” She did believe her sister, but that was unimportant. “You have to start thinking. Like, I get it, it’s tough, but… Fuck, you just… You can’t be so careless now. You know that, right?”