Algid (#TronnorAU)

Chapter 18: September boys

-"You know she will find out anyway..."

-"You don't know that."

-"Con. It's obvious. I mean..."

-"I know, I know, it's a hopeless cause. Still, if there was a chance to go through it without addressing it, it'd be best."

-"I know you feel that way, Con, but she's our foster mother now, and she probably knows already, and is already planning on what to do on that day..."

-"Well if that is the case, I will tell her that there is no need to do anything."

-"She won't agree to that."

-"Al, please... I don't want..."

Connor raised his head and took a look around the bus, making sure nobody he knew was around to listen, especially not Mikey. Luckily enough, his foster brother was sitting far up ahead with Luke, not paying the slightest bit of attention to Connor and Alexis in the back, and besides them there wasn't anyone else who could be any potential trouble. He leaned his head back down and went back to his whispering conversation with Alexis.

-"... I don't want Grace to do anything else for me, Al. It's too much I owe her already. Too much we owe her."

-"I know, Con, I know...! But...! It's your eighteenth birthday. That is a big deal! You know, there are several countries worldwide that allow people to drink legally starting at eighteen? It's like, their twenty-one!"

Connor shook his head in a frown. He'd had this discussion with Alexis for the entirety of last week. The upcoming Saturday was September twelfth, and that meant that he was turning eighteen years old. For most kids, he'd see why that would be a big deal. But not for him.

Connor didn't celebrate his birthdays. Ever since becoming a foster kid, such things had become luxuries that he could no longer afford. It's amazing how losing your family can change your perspective on that sort of things. The day in which you used to celebrate your life for yet another year, the happiness and joy of being surrounded by those you love, be it blood or water. It all becomes nothing but a brisk reminder of something you lost, something too strong not to long for. Connor hated that feeling. He hated it more than anything in the world.

When he was little, his parents always made him small parties for him and his friends from pre-school and elementary school back in Minnesota. They'd hire a clown, and make a barbecue, and several times they'd take them all to the ranch down Minneapolis Road. Every year Connor would choose a lamb on the ranch, and raise it with the help of his siblings. They would visit the ranch three or four times a week. The sheep sometimes were sent away to another farm, and sometimes they stayed around. Connor loved going to that ranch. He loved being with his family on his birthday, and having warm hot cakes in the mornings and then going to the park with changing color leaves on the afternoons. He had loved all of that.

Now it only killed to remember it.

Alexis was different than Connor in that sense. She had never had someone to celebrate her birthdays with. She had never lost anyone. All her life, she had been alone. That part of her story was always the saddest to tell. Until she met Connor, and the two of them stuck together since. Before that, birthdays were just another date in the calendar to Alexis. But ever since she had someone to share it with, and someone to be happy to do so, she had learned to embrace it.

And like that, the two of them had become the only people in each other's lives that mattered when it came to birthdays, and Christmas and every other holiday. Connor would save up for months so that when June came around, he'd be able to afford a cake for Alexis. Not a tiny one, vanilla flavor with pink strawberry frosting. It was her favorite. And every year before September, Alexis did her best to take out Connor to a new Café Shop she would spend weeks looking for in the town they were staying at the time. They never stayed in the same place for two years straight, so there was always somewhere new. The intimate space and the warm lattes during fall were one of the few things Connor still enjoyed out of September. Other than that, he never asked for anything else on his birthday. And neither did her.