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"Uh, yeah," she replied, in a tone that said if anyone other than you was asking, I would have said duh.

"Oh that's..." For a moment, she felt incredibly stupid. "Was she the first girl you've ever kissed? Wait, was that your first kiss? Oh my god, how was it?"

"I'm gonna start calling you Aunt Questions," she said, deflecting, but she didn't lean away when Vivian grabbed her with her free arm, pulled her in for a sideways hug as they walked, and kissed the top of her head. "Jeez."

"Seriously though," she said, and she could see her cheeks pressing up into her field of view in such a way that she knew she was beaming. "How was it?"

"I don't know," Tiffany said, sort of aggressively. "It was a kiss, alright?"

"So wait," she said, as they stepped off the grass and onto the pavement of the parking lot. "Are you... into girls?"

Tiffany gave a shoulder slump that sent off signal flares for her, so she stopped walking, dropped down to one knee, and put down her guitar. Still, Tiffany wouldn't quite look her in the eye.

"I dunno," she said, eventually. "Maybe. I really like hanging out with Lizzy."

"What did Lizzy think?"

"She was into it," her niece said, evasively, and the specific emphasis on the word she said a lot.

"But not you?"

"I don't know," Tiffany said, again, even more irritatedly. "It was a kiss. It was fine. Can we not?"

"Alright," she said, holding up her hands in surrender. "I won't push. I'm glad you told me, and... and I'm glad you felt like you could tell me. I couldn't tell your Grandmother anything when I was figuring things out, and I think I'd had, like, four girlfriends before she figured it out on her own."

"Could you tell Granddad?" At this, finally, Tiffany was looking up at her. Carefully gauging her reaction.

"In hindsight? Maybe? I didn't, but... I think now, maybe I could have. Did you tell your Mom or Dad yet?"

Tiffany shook her head. "It just happened today. At the end of French class."

"It's okay if you don't," Vivian said, carefully, "but do you think you will?"

Tiffany shrugged and shook her head and nodded, kind of all at once. "If they ask, I'm not gonna lie."

"I'll tell you this," Vivian said, grabbing each of her niece's wrists. "Your Dad knew I was gay before I did."

"Did you talk to him?"

Those five words landed like a nuclear bomb. "No. I wish I had, but... No."

"Why not?"

Despite her best intentions, what came out was the truth. "It was a different time. Your dad made jokes like every other boy did. Him... being my twin... didn't change that I was... that being gay was a joke. He's different now. He tried to change his tune after a little while, but I never really let him back in. Not until my accident." Then, after a long breath, she added, "I had a lot going on then. I was fighting with your Grandmom a lot, and coming out, and smoking a lot of weed, and staying out late, and skipping school, and... I was rebelling in every direction. All that... It affected how much I talked to your dad, who was Mom's favorite. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

"Okay, I guess I won't be a hammer," Tiffany said, and the following smirk cracked the tension and got her to laugh.

Tiffany and Delia were really the only people who could get her to laugh.

Out of nowhere, Tiffany said, "Are you gonna wear a tux?"

Vivian almost swallowed her tongue.

"I bet you'd totally rock a tux."

"I hadn't really thought about it," she replied, which was true. It had been a few days since she proposed, during which time Delia and Vivian had been having marathon, near-constant sex. For the most part Vivian could keep up with Delia, but it had been a long time since Vivian had spent an entire weekend in bed. It wasn't until that exact moment that Vivian realized she hadn't called her brother to tell him.

Either Delia had, or else Tiffany had found out on Facebook.

"We haven't set a date yet," she said, which was not an answer. "I hadn't really thought about it yet." Nothing that Vivian had thought about in the previous seventy-two hours was kosher to share with her thirteen year old niece, so instead she said, "I bet I could wear a tux, though."

"Do you think... Do you think I could wear one too?"

"Yeah, I..."

Deep in the recesses of Vivian's brain, she began two parallel-but-interrelated thought processes. In between Yeah, I and think so, Vivian realized that what she was actually, probably, being asked was if Tiffany could be in her bridal party. This brought up some very uncomfortable thoughts she'd been trying to avoid, in that Vivian didn't really have any friends of her own except for Tiffany and (to a lesser extent) her sister, Ashley.

The second thought was more complex. Tiffany was two steps ahead of Vivian, and already preparing to mimic her wedding apparel when even Vivian wasn't sure what she would wear. Tiffany was kissing girls despite maybe not necessarily being into girls (if Vivian had read between like lines correctly). She'd dyed her hair black, just like Vivian's. She was dressing more like her. She was learning guitar.

This was a quagmire. It felt an awful lot like one of her blindspots, and, as with her blindspots, the first thing she did was try to fight down the panic. Despite each of these little moves feeling flattering in isolation, Vivian was not okay with watching someone follow her down a path she wouldn't wish on anyone. At the same time, she was pretty sure that coming right out and saying so would come across to a teenager as hypocritical chastisement, and that would jeopardize all kinds of things.

Nobody could burn a bridge quite like a frustrated teenage girl.

"...think so." Then she added, "We'll see. There's a lot of things that have to happen before I start thinking about who's gonna be in my wolf pack."

Tiffany grinned, threw back her head, and let out a loud, long howl, and Vivian took the opportunity to sneak in closer and give her a big hug. She was a smart, independent girl, bordering on becoming her own young woman, and Vivian wanted to be there for that. She wanted to be there for the things her family had missed when Vivian was a smart, independent girl bordering on becoming her own young woman.

She hugged the absolute crap out of that little girl.

As the two of them stood up, guitars in hand, the doors were opening at the front of the dance studio on the other side of the parking lot. Ashley, Vivian's other niece, came swooping and maybe pirouette-ing toward her. Vivian wasn't up on her ballet terms. It was definitely some kind of dance move.

"Aunt Vee," she cried, at the top of her lungs, with the same gusto that she did everything, "I gave them one of your songs!"

As this understated truckload of a statement crashed into her, and Vivian tried to grapple first with intellectual property rights and copyrights, and then backtracked when she realized that Ashley was still only ten and probably didn't mean it that way, she noticed that one of the dance instructors had followed Ashley into the lot. She looked to her for clarification.

"Hi," said her teacher, a dark skinned woman with a flat top so crisp one might lose a finger on the edge.

"Aunt Vee, this is Ms. Walker."

"Nice to meet you," the woman said, amiably. "Little Ash here has been telling us all about you."

"How was class today?" Vivian said, giving her a flat look.

"It was fine," her one remaining blonde niece said, urgently, "but listen! I played one of your songs for them, and they want to use it!"

The instructor, Ms. Walker, was nodding. "My partner and I both liked it, and when we played it for our producer—"

"That's her sister," Ashley added, helpfully.

"Yes, Kendra is my sister," Ms. Walker said, smiling patiently, "and she thinks that... what was it called again?"

"Paradox!"

"She thinks that'd make good outro music for us. Like, it'd play over credits. We make choreographed videos, put 'em up on Tiktok, Insta, Youtube. That kinda thing."

"Which one was Paradox?" Tiffany asked, carefully.

"The one that sounds like Just Shapes and Beats," her sister responded.

At this, Tiffany nodded and looked away.

"Yeah," Vivian said, nodding. "I'll give you permission for that."

"Great. I think we've got your email address on file for picking up Ash here. Do you mind if I give that to Kendra, and she can email you the necessary forms?" Then she added, "Great!" when Vivian nodded. "Great work this week, Ash. See you next week!"

"She has a girlfriend," Ashley said, proudly, as the three of them started toward the bus stop.

***

She saw the headlights coming, and she cried. Hysterically.

***

Vivian stared down at her phone in abject horror, and gracelessly sat back on the landing of the stairs. "No," she said, arguing with the email she'd just received on her phone, "it's tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow," Delia asked, from the kitchen, voice raised just enough to carry through the halls.

Vivian's chest tightened as she followed the link. "I didn't click Wednesday, I clicked Thursday."

"Is this about the surprise?"

"Hang on," she said, as she stepped outside. The gripping feeling worsened when she realized she had five missed calls in the last ten minutes, all from the same number. She'd left her phone on silent again after leaving work, not that it would have mattered.

The tightening turned into a sinking.

"Holistic Healing Spa, this is Anaya."

"Hi," Vivian said, stepping down off the porch to distance herself from the house. "My name is Vivian LeBlanc. I thought I had an appointment for two for tomorrow, but I just got this email?"

"Yeeeah," the woman on the other end said. "The system had you down for today. Did you make the reservation by phone? Did I—"

"No," Vivian said, feeling both increasingly hopeless and desperate, "I made it online."

"Ah, yeah, I'm sorry. The scheduler's pretty good about that kinda stuff."

"Can I reschedule?"

"Well, no," the woman said, slowly. "You can't reschedule. We were here. We need to be paid for our time."

"Of course," Vivian said, hollow-ly.

"I can make another appointment for you, though. I don't have anything tomorrow, but we've got lots of openings next week. What can I put you down for?"

This, Vivian was not prepared for, and she froze as a cascade of bad choices were listed off for her. None of those would work.

"Um, no," she said eventually. "I think I'll need to call back to re... reschedule."

"Okay," the woman said, finally, seemingly, having sensed Vivian's dismay. "Well, thank you for calling us back. I know we tried to reach you a couple times."

"Thanks," Vivian said, as she reached for the red button.

"Everything okay?" Delia called, as Vivian re-entered the house.

She wanted to answer, but it hurt. It hurt, and it sucked, and it felt bad, and so Vivian just sat down on the stairs and ran her nails back through her hair.

Delia came around the corner a moment later, drying her hands on a dish towel, but Vivian didn't notice her until she sat down next to her on the stairs.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Vivian wiped at her eye, trying to avoid the appearance of crying, and shook her head. "I screwed up the surprise," she said. "It was gonna be a two hour massage and a mask, but I... I clicked the wrong day when I set it up."

Little by little, Delia leaned into her from the side.

"I can't afford to do that again. Not right away. It was expensive."

"Awww," Delia said, draping her arm over Vivian's shoulder.

"I used to do shit like this a lot when I was little," she said, thickly. "Lose track of things. Forget. Misremember. Get dates wrong. Come to school unprepared for a test, or whatever. It's happening again."

For a little while Delia just held her, and, for a little while, the feeling that something was slipping away abated.

Eventually, Delia asked, "Did they send you reminders?"

"Yeah," Vivian said. "A whole bunch. I didn't look at them. I knew I had an appointment coming up. I hadn't forgotten. I just fucked up the day."

"You know my memory isn't great," Delia said. "I have to schedule everything on my phone, and double check it."

"I know!" Vivian said, getting even more exasperated. "And it stresses you out! That's why I wanted to do this for you!"

"Aww, babe," she said, kissing the back of Vivian's head. "That was really thoughtful!"

"You're on top of everything! I rely on you so much, and when I try to do something for you... I do this." She gestured, indistinctly, at nothing.

She expected platitudes, that it was fine, although it was not in Delia's nature to say things she didn't mean. She expected unsolicited advice, one weird trick the memory industry doesn't want you to know, although Delia was not in the habit of explaining things to Vivian that Vivian already knew. She expected disaffection, that Delia hadn't known and so wasn't disappointed, but Delia said nothing.

All of those things were things Vivian had been conditioned to expect from others when she screwed things up, and they were all equally awful to hear. She could feel the pull of her old life, claws sinking in, about how much less stressed she was when she never made plans and was just happy to be wherever she was in that moment. No strings, no obligations, no rules.

"I'm sorry," Delia said. It sounded like she was crying, and when Vivian half turned, she saw the tears in Delia's eyes. "I know you're trying."

She could never tell if this was how things were supposed to be, or if she'd just put herself back together wrong, or if, underneath it all, and underneath the effort and the determination, she had always been a waste. It sucked to try and fail. It sucked to make an effort and come up short. It sucked in a way that made not trying at all very appealing...

...except that not trying at all wasn't an option. That wasn't what she wanted for herself. That wasn't what she wanted for Delia. She wanted to try. She wanted to be better.

It didn't make sense to her that Delia was crying with her. It didn't make any sense at all, but she didn't want it to stop. She didn't know how to say any of the things that were moving through her head. All she knew was that it wasn't as bad as it should have been as long as Delia was there with her.

***

Vivian's early childhood was a blur of shared experiences. Her and Darren, Darren and her. Fraternal twins, but identical paths. Sitting on the piano, side by side, playing different components of Für Elise together. Leaping off the dock at the same time, and hitting the lake simultaneously. Identical splashes.

She was ten, going to get two glasses of orange juice because she knew Darren was thirsty too, when she spotted a spelling test Darren did well on magnetted to the fridge. She'd done fine too, but not perfect.

Mom loved perfect.

***

Every Thursday, Vivian played a set at a club in downtown Portland called WOOD. She'd set up her loopers, her synth pad, and her slimkey, and she would make songs on the fly, with periodic input from the crowd, for three hours. At first, it had been something she'd tried to do to push herself, and her creativity, but after two weeks she realized that she would probably never run out of songs. That had been a big moment for her. At a certain point, she started to think about it as merely channeling the moment, and the energy around her, rather than dipping into any kind of finite well of music that existed in her refurbished brainpain.

Most times, Delia came with her, and would sit by the bar pretending to make eyes at her like they were meeting for the first time. It was just the most adorable fucking thing Vivian had ever been a part of. Vivian had found that, if she focused on it, she had a pretty good flirt game. The nights when Delia didn't come were still very lively, and Vivian found that she could fall into her explorations more heavily, crafting trance-like melodies that, as far as she could tell, got about half the club laid on any given night.

She liked having that power. Between her, the alcohol, and the things the clubbers wanted to do anyway, babies got made. Fluids got swapped. She liked casually picking them out as she worked, spotting this couple or that on the dance floor staring a bit more intensely at each other than everyone else around them.

It was in this state of mind, nicely buzzed on a couple rum and cokes and feeling like she owned the room, that Vivian stepped into the back area of the club to catch her breath and came face to face with Lucia Alvarez.

"Viv, hey!" she said, like it hadn't been five years since the two of them had talked one on one. They'd run into each other socially a few times, at festivals mostly, but always with Delia and Helen. Helen didn't like Vivian, and Delia really didn't like Lucia, so their interactions were always brief and polite. And brief. "Awesome show!"

"Uh..." Vivian said, "Wh... uh. Hi. What are..." She quickly looked around, and wasn't sure if she was relieved or not that Lucia's girlfriend was nowhere in sight. "You're here."

Lucia somehow dug her hands even deeper into her pockets than they had been, and gave a tight smile. "Yeah. I didn't catch the whole show, but what I caught was fucking badass."

"Thanks." The moment was so surreal that she wondered if there'd been something in her drink, but she dug the nail of her middle finger into her palm and it hurt just like it was supposed to. Then she said, lamely, "How've you been?" and immediately followed that up by wincing, shaking her head, and grunting. "How've you been. What the fuck."

Then she did the thing she'd wanted to do down in her bones. She wrapped her arms around the much smaller Latina, and hugged her.

"Missed you too," Lucia said, surprising her muchly by hugging her back.

It wasn't a long hug. Vivian's arms were mostly around Lucia's head and shoulders, and Lucia's were around her waist, but it was a full body hug. When they broke apart a couple seconds later, at the approaching sound of one of the club employees coming down the hall toward them, they were both smiling.

"You have a good smile," Vivian blurted.

"The fuck?" Lucia said, laughing, and her smile got even wider.

"You used to scowl a lot more, and when you did smile it was more painted on. Unless we were high."

At this insight, which seemed to surprise Lucia almost as much as it surprised Vivian, because articulating these kinds of things about others was not usually one of her strengths, Lucia slipped her hands back into the pockets of her jeans and fell back on the aw shucks body language she'd had when Vivian first spotted her.

"Sorry," Vivian said, reaching up to scratch at the back of her head to give her hands something to do. "I didn't mean to make that weird."

"It's okay," Lucia said, easily. "And yeah. I do that now."

"Good for you," Vivian said, and she meant it. "You look good."

"Three years sober," Lucia said, with a kind of far-away smile.

She was surprised by the emotional, gut response she had, as she said, "That's awesome! Three years is amazing!"

"Thanks! Yeah!" The shorter woman ran a hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear, and said, "How're you and Delia doing?"

"We're getting married!"

"Fucking badass!" Then she straight up punched Vivian's biceps.

"Yeah!"

"When?"

The smile disappeared as she said, "No fucking clue."

Again, Lucia gave a clear peel of laughter, and it was like the clock was rolling backwards. Towards what, she didn't know.

"This is very new. Last week. I popped the question kinda... kinda spur of the moment. How're you and Helen?"