This issue has a curated playlist that accompanies the visual experience of the magazine. Please scan the code in the Spotify app for a full sensory Strike experience.
This issue started with an apple. It first grew soft and mealy, then began to decay, embellishing itself with blemishes and mold, until it became completely unrecognizable from its original purity. Now what’s left of the rotten apple are just its seeds, which hold promise for growth and flourishing once more. What happens when we challenge our perception of things once beautiful, now tainted by time, deemed as rotten? This is Issue 08.
In this issue, we examine the ways decay permeates the everyday—in our relationships, in our heads, and of course, in our fridges. Even amongst the mold and cobwebs, let this issue serve as a reminder that there is beauty within the rot, and the rotten itself may be a work of art.
Thank you to our wonderful exec team and our brilliant staff. What you are about to read is a culmination of the hard work of many, and we are lucky to have such a creative and passionate group of people as collaborators and friends. It has truly been a great joy. When things get rotten, we are glad to have you all by our side.
Please enjoy Strike 08: Rotten.
Strike Out, Elena and Bailey
Strike St. Louis Editors-In-Chief
STAFF LIST
editors-in-chief
Elena Egge & Bailey Herman
creative director
Trey Hepp
art directors
Christine Jung & Katie Zhu
assistant editor-in-chief
Ange Muyumba
assistant creative director
Peyton Moore
assistant art director
Chandra Phenpimon advisor
Lily Pecoriello
12 08 26 38 52 64
EXPIRATION DATES SPOILED ROTTEN BED ROT
ROTTEN LUCK (UN)DEAD LOVE
Expiration Dates
SHOOT DIRECTOR
Margo Ogrosky
DESIGN
Madison Wang LEAD
Grace Chung
Ava Jones
Christine Jung
Evelyn Lee
HAIR & MAKEUP
Scarlet Reo
Olivia Slemmer
Chin Tial
FASHION DESIGNER
Peyton Moore
FEATURING
Olivia Slemmer
Grace Sugrue
Anthony Vidal
Alexa Wells
Nathan Yarbrough
STYLING
Sooah Lee
Aaliya Malhotra
PHOTOGRAPHY
Zoe Pessin
Dominique Reinhart
Margo Ogrosky
WRITING
Kyra Sorkin
Audrey Langston-Wiebe
REGIMES OF RACIAL SEGREGATION WERE NOT DISESTABLISHED BECAUSE OF THE WORK OF LEADERS AND PRESIDENTS AND LEGISLATORS, BUT RATHER BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT ORDINARY PEOPLE ADOPTED A CRITICAL STANCE IN THE WAY IN WHICH THEY PERCEIVED THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO REALITY.
–Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
1
STILL, I ROT
BY AUDREY LANGSTON-WIEBE
I ONCE STOOD TALL FLESH TIGHT AND FIRM, LIKE FRUIT BEFORE THE BRUISE.
THE ROT WAS SLOW, IT CREPT IN SILENCE. NO ONE SAW IT HAPPEN.
IT WAS A QUIET DECAY. MY SKIN BEGAN TO SOFTEN, AND SOON, IT YIELDED TO THE INEVITABLE.
NOW, I AM GONE. GONE, BUT STILL HERE. HOLDING THE SHAPE OF WHAT I ONCE WAS.
The Restorative Justice Movement Center (RJM) was founded by Amber Harris and DeAndre Harris-Bey, and RJM plays an integral role in the lives of the community members it serves. Learn more about the movement at http://rjmstl.org.
THE EXPIRING FACADE OF EQUALITY
By Kyra Sorkin
Sometimes, there is a moment when reality begins to overtake naiveté, when action has no point but to prevail. And though, within myself, I can’t pinpoint the exact instance when this shift became tangible, I can remember the first time I realized things weren’t broken in St. Louis, in America, and beyond them; that they were functioning exactly as planned.
Almost three years ago, I was helping weed the community garden on a small patch of land across from the Restorative Justice Movement Center, where I would later work, in a North St. Louis neighborhood called the Ville. A freshly nineteen-year-old white girl from the East Coast, I volunteered here because of an academic interest in criminal justice reform and a desire to explore the parts of the city that fall outside of WashU’s seemingly self-fulfilling bubble they told us about so extensively in freshman orientation. It was at this community center where I would soon learn, from its founders1 and its patrons, the long history behind why mini-marts, liquor stores, and convenience shops appear when Google searching “supermarkets near me” in this zip code. How because of that lack of healthy food, combined with systematic government neglect of the opioid epidemic, heart disease and diabetes are so prevalent that the average life expectancy2 is 67 years old, while residents of Clayton can expect to live to the age of 85. What a privilege it is to not know until it is suddenly in front of your eyes; to not have to face The System’s vitriol yet, not until you want to. And yet, what a privilege it is to be cognizant of it.
For the past few decades, the phenomenon of a low-income, urban area where accessing affordable, fresh food is difficult has been referred to as a “food desert.” Yet, in recent years, a more apt term has been adopted: “food apartheid.” As the word “apartheid,” rather than the naturally occurring “desert,” suggests, St. Louis’s geographic landscape is a man-made manipulation of the environment designed to serve certain communities and fail others; in particular, Black St. Louisans who live in parts of the city deemed undesirable and unsafe. As anyone familiar with the infamous Delmar Divide could tell you, St. Louis City and County are, in effect, segregated on ethnic lines. North of this invisible, painfully tangible boundary line, predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city stretch for miles without a single full-service grocery store. South and west of the boundary line, supermarkets cluster in primarily white, affluent areas, their parking lots full of cars. Here in the Ville, this Divide can explain, but cannot erase, the abandoned lots and patches of grass you can see on almost every street instead of restaurants and coffee shops. But, 60 years after the Civil Rights Act, how has
THERE WAS A TIME BEFORE THE ROT WASN'T THERE?
I CAN'T REMEMBER MUCH OF ANYTHING NOW.
THE MIRROR SHOWS SOMEBODY WHOLE, WHOLE IN PLACES I CAN NO LONGER FEEL,
I REMEMBER FEELING THE WARMTH OF THE SUN ON MY SKIN.
program poverty thresholds, while only 51% of the County’s food insecure population does (https://map.feedingamerica.org/county/2018/overall/missouri/county/st-louis-county). As of 2022, the poverty rate in St. Louis City was 20.2% (https:// datausa.io/profile/geo/st-louis-city-mo): double the national average (https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-283.html#:~:text=Official%20Poverty%20Measure%3A,and%20Table%20A%2D1).
6 61.8% of the “Hazardous” neighborhoods are non-white, contrasted by 28.1% of the “Best” neighborhoods (https://reports.mysidewalk.com/59cc324517).
The roots of this crisis run deep into St. Louis’s soil, fertilized by decades of redlining, white flight3, disinvestment in public infrastructure, and systemic racism as a social determinant of health. The same policies that carved up the city with highways and segregated its schools also determined who would have easy access to fresh food and who wouldn’t. It’s no coincidence that the areas marked “Hazardous” on redlining maps from the 1930s4 align almost perfectly with today’s sites of food apartheid5 and that those areas are the ones where we see the biggest racial disparities6 in quality and length of life.7
It may be particularly striking in St. Louis, but this city’s food access disparities reflect a wider issue in the United States8, and more broadly, in the world it dominates. In our country, somewhere between 30 and 40% of our food supply (valued at hundreds of billions of dollars9) goes to waste every year. Meanwhile, 47 million Americans10 remain food insecure. Restrictive access to food, like that of what we see in St. Louis and nationally, is a tool used by our government to humiliate and weaken those who have the nerve to need it.
WHEN I COULD FEEL ONCE... BUT NO LONGER, I CAN'T. EACH DAY IS SHORTER THAN THE LAST, EACH BREATH IS A LITTLE LESS
YOU ONCE CALLED ME RIPE. I WAS, WASN'T I? BUT NOW, I AM SOMETHING ELSE.
I THINK... MAYBE MY MEMORY HAS GONE SOFT.
Though racialized food insecurity data can try to explain what keeps this food apartheid intact and why we must abolish it, statistics cannot possibly convey the exhaustion of spending two hours on three different buses just to reach a grocery store, only to be limited in what you can carry home. They can’t express the frustration of knowing that fresh, healthy food exists just a few miles away, but might as well be on another planet. And they cannot remove St. Louis from solidarity with collective struggles for freedom across the globe.
Food apartheid does not exist in a vacuum; apartheid, by nature, is all-consuming, and it only takes so long for the facade of equality under it to reach its expiration date. After Mike Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was murdered by a St. Louis County police officer in 2014, the protests that ensued in Ferguson and greater St. Louis were met with militaristic state violence11, including tear gas, rubber bullets, and police carrying M4 assault rifles. The Ferguson Uprising, as it is now known, along with its response, sparked national outrage that led the Black Lives Matter Movement to gain traction nationally12, raising consciousness of the interconnected struggles of Black communities across America and their fraught relationships with local police, and more broadly, who, and what, systematically, law enforcement exists to protect. And yet, that was not all Ferguson did. Activists across the globe fostered a new sense of international solidarity, one that has de-essentialized race itself and that has clarified how the racial dynamics in every society, whether ruled by apartheid in law or in practice, are merely hierarchies of power. In just one especially potent link of this cross-cultural solidarity, Palestinian-American journalist Mariam Barghouti
tweeted, “always make sure to run against the wind/to keep calm when you’re teargassed, the pain will pass, don’t rub your eyes! #Ferguson Solidarity”13. Twitter exchanges like this one also revealed that the same American brand of tear gas that was used on protesters in Ferguson is also frequently used by Israeli forces on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank14, and it was also used by Egyptian forces on the 2011 nonviolent protests in Tahrir Square15. As the late Palestinian-St. Louisan Bassem Masri wrote in 2014, “Until all our children are safe, we will continue to fight for our rights in Palestine and in Ferguson. Our goal is to dismantle apartheid regimes wherever they exist. That is the most important link between Palestine and Ferguson, and it is the link that will make both struggles stronger”16.
And yet, in the face of nearly a hundred years of insidious oppression hardening the asphalt of North St. Louis, beautiful grassroots movements are blooming to mitigate food apartheid, from Ferguson to the Greater Ville. On a sunny Saturday morning, I stand in a food space that can be described as nothing short of liberatory, one that is completely antithetical to the supposed “dangers” of this neighborhood that I was warned about in college freshman orientation. Seeds are being planted in the community garden while bags of free groceries, secured by a local nonprofit called All Hands On Deck: STL17, are placed on an array of tables for anyone who needs it to take. I find myself becoming increasingly aware of how much of an outsider I am, how I could not possibly understand how deeply the government has failed this community. And, yet, I am welcomed with open arms, and solidarity prevails over the powers that have tried to separate us.
THE FRUITNESS TURNS BROWN; ITS SWEETNESS SPOILS. THE CLOCK TICKS,
16 All Hands On Deck: St. Louis’s website: https://allhandsondeckstl.org/
AND WE MUST COMMIT
THERE IS NO PULSE, NO WEIGHT...
NO-
I AM ALREADY GONE.
Directors
Spoi z
Tirza Elliott
Violet DeLuca
led z
Design
Photography
Hair&Makeup
by Sadie Rosen
StickyFingers
Customers began to stare. The quiet murmur of the candy shop gave way to the sound of two hands rummaging in plastic bins. Then came the chewing. Or was it slurping? Bite after bite, her unapologetic chomp grew wetter, sloppier. There she stood in her stiletto heels, unabashedly indulging while robbing the candy store of both its sweet treats and its dignity.
Walking slowly down the line of brightly colored candy bins, she popped blues and yellows, and reds into her mouth. She didn’t savor the candy so much as devour it, letting pieces fall from her lips as she stuffed in more. Oblivious to her gathering audience, the woman in stilettos leaned over a bin of rainbow gummy worms and,
with an exaggerated flourish, scooped a greedy handful. “You’ve got to try these,” she coughed at the couple, hesitantly browsing the chocolate section nearby. The couple glanced at each other, then back at her, unsure how to respond, finally ducking their heads and walking swiftly out of the store. The woman shrugged, seeming both amused and disappointed by their reaction. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed a crisp fifty-dollar bill toward the cashier, barely waiting to see if it landed. And then she was off—strutting right out of that candy store.
Little Levi stood in the corner of the shop, watching this ordeal as his mother fussed over a display of candied almonds.
Biteafter z
Bite
,He couldn’t shake the image of the woman, how she consumed candy as if there were no rules or consequences. He looked around the shop, scanning the colorful bins filled with sweets. The shop still buzzed with murmurs about this mysterious prima donna, and it was then that Levi took his chance. If she could ignore the rules with such confidence, why couldn’t he? He scooped up a few sour gummies, the kind that made his cheeks pucker just thinking about them and stuffed them into his cargo shorts. Next were the gummy bears, sour belts, and chocolate-covered pretzels, filling up his pockets until they bulged like small balloons. But once the thrill of taking was over, the candy became an afterthought, forgotten until his mother found a rotten surprise in the laundry days later.
Meanwhile, through the window, customers continued to watch the aftermath of the
high-heeled woman’s gluttony unfold. They watched as she pulled her soft curls back, leaned over, and retched violently. Her body convulsed, and a thick, colorful stream of half-chewed candy and syrupy sludge spilled onto the pavement; the oncevibrant rainbow of candies, inviting like party balloons moments ago, had dissolved into an after-party mess of brownish chunks. A mother shielded her child’s eyes in horror, an older man muttered something about shame, and a teenage girl hid behind her phone screen—sure that “Candy Lady Loses It” would be viral by dinnertime. With a final shuddering cough, Ms. Beauregarde looked at her reflection in the shop window, wiped her mouth, ensuring not to smudge her meticulously applied crimson lipstick, and strutted away—leaving behind the eye-watering stench of sweetness turned sour.
Candy Lady
Loses It
shoot coordinator
Lé-Anne Johnson
photography
Lé-Anne Johnson
Lakshmi Mulgund
hair & makeup
Julia Mills
Nadia Watson
styling
Soobin Ahn
Nora Bare
Faheem Rahman
writing Katie Holland
design
Alan Moon LEAD
Lydia Park
Katie Zhu
videographer
Jason Esclamada
featuring Gabriel Ceguerra
That night I had a
I hadn’t had one in weeks.
But that night I skipped smoking, having drank enough already to fall asleep, and I was once again taken into the night. Yes, that night I had a dream, and I knew it was a dream because I left the house to go to campus with my jeans uncuffed, my hems dragging the pavement, collecting water. As the wetness of my loose pant legs slapped at the dry skin crouching in the creases of my ankles,
the sky seemed to broaden out over the neighborhood’s houses, flattening them out if only to heighten itself even more. Grey mist – and its consequent coolness – forced my already flared nostrils out. I remember thinking, very seriously to myself, that the front of my head was beginning to hurt from the air’s insistency at entering my sinuses.
I slept that night in a black tank top. My boxers were blue and green plaid, fraying, and upsetting to own. I don’t want to tell you how they smell; I want you to think highly of me. One of us should. I wore those same boxers beneath my uncuffed jeans with no socks or shoes.
The funny thing, really, is that I had spilled coffee on that exact set of pajamas Wednesday morning: it was forming a crust. I wore it like someone wears a stamp from the club to class on Monday. Something’s wrong with the car but it’s still starting.
Anyway what’s funny is that it was totally missing in my dream. As I walked down the street I looked up at the few surviving stars in that flat, broad, wonderful sky; that flat merciless sky big enough for someone to say they’re going to be an astronaut and big enough for that
same person to melt into a couch until its cushions have teeth – a green furry rotten mouth – without anyone noticing.
I arrived at Mudd Field staring up at the sky, transported without my noticing, which only arrived when I looked down at my feet. They were like foreign objects, or I guess particularly like having two plasticky beige baguettes fused to my feet with white ankle socks stretched flatly across l ike sausage casings. I’d never wear white ankle socks out of fear of getting heel blisters but I was, after all, shoeless and dreaming. There I stood in the center of Mudd Field, the dewy mud of the purgatory between night and true morning seeped into the pads of my feet until my bones trickled with shivers.
There I laid in a restless knot across the bottom half of my bed,
k reeching ing
to be lifted for the first time in hours or maybe days at this point.
The chill that confuses night with day is wracking my wasting body. My body that wastes with me shakes from the neck right there in Mudd Field. My sociolgy professor is coming. I see her from across the yellowing stretch of grass, of dream, that was supposed to keep me from this.
This yellowing air rests its always resting head in my stalling, sleeping nostrils as the crumbs in my living tomb prick at the horizon of my shoulders. It’s a bodily experience that grates at pride. I imagine my sociology class seeing me with specks of hardened Nutter-Butter and hot Cheeto particles clinging to the already sticking-shut corners of my mouth.
The corners of my mouth spread wide and upward like a clothing line pulled taut by a mother’s expectation. She –the professor – stands in front of me in that way thin, tall beautiful women do, like a horse waiting for you to get on so it can start bucking. With her silvering hair sewn neatly in a bun at the base of her rotting skull, her eyes surprise me. Their dark green glistening with the power of a whetstone, never a knife, leans into mine with an unprecedented pity. The disgust breaches my body before I know I feel it, and when my eyes drop to my feet, my socks are gone. The soft mud fills in under my arches, trapping me in the horrifying rush of being publicly stripped.
The soft mud of well-oiled dandruff courses from the roots of my hair to form a field ripe for planting; I don’t see it because I won’t lift my head but the flakes tickle my earlobes in a reminder I do not need.
I can’t think of a reason for having missed the past five classes but my unforgiving dream floats my eyes up from my feet. As the bricks fall from my neck and my gaze floats up my body, I notice the coffee crust splays itself across my chest again. I look into the eyes of the thing in front of me –it’s no longer the professor but a dummy with shifting features. Its eyes pass through yellow as they darken into my mother’s or brother’s; its body and hair pivot from my
economics TA to that one Corner 17 barista to my latest Tinder match. He’s less good looking in real life and I’m less normal. The bodies and noses flip like a slot machine. My vision dislocates itself as I peer into left eyes turned on their sides and detached upper lips. The fear of losing my footing mounts until my body slackens against the restfully chilling ground.
My body slackens against the stickily hot bottom sheet of my mattress.
I’m awake.
Zero Sugar Monsters and Hostess wrappers from the Shell down the street litter the top half of my spongy bed; I used to get free sodas there before the grave dug into my skin tone and the flat ness of my hair rooted itself in these eyes. I’m out of breath from my dream and the wetness of my uncuffed jeans still tickle at the dry patches riddling my dusty skin, but when I kick off the twisted sheet it’s only a half-gone Smart Water dribbling from its lopsided cap.
My hands unplug my phone.
My eyes lift to the screen and I take care not to dream for months.
Saivee
styling
Shira
Hana
ROTTEN WHAT THE FUCK.
LUCK
IT FOLLOWS ME, AND WHISPERS DOUBT.
It follows me, So fickle and small.
Always watching my next move, Planning to make it all fall. Its short stature, And golden eyes, Swirl dark as dawn, And the approaching night. It lingers long, And whispers doubt. Always ruffling my hair, Leaving weary sighs and cries all about. It’s best friends with my lost lovers, Filling my heart with sudden grief.
A LOVER LOST
It finds its way in evanescent things—
A lover lost, a bird with clipped wings.
A job declined, a bridge ablaze,
A golden chance lost in the haze.
It sulks in the silence,
Waiting for my misstep.
Giggling when my phone dies,
Or when I mistype a text.
Taking triumphs in my failures.
My frustration boils.
A BIRD WITH CLIPPED WINGS
For why can I not escape this
Waking up on the wrong side of the bed, Losing my keys in a rush, With shadowed hand, it twists the knife, The dreams I’ve sown, the threads of life. It moves unseen yet close behind, Guiding fate with acts unkind. For luck is fickle, fleeting fast— A fleeting storm that cannot last. Through every loss, each bitter quip, We learn to rise when luck runs out.
THE DREAMS I’VE SOWN
THE THREADS OF LIFE
AND EVENTUALLY
Our hearts can fly, To take in the lovely skies. For rotten luck does not always win. I still rise despite its pull, Through luck grew stale, through losses full. For every bruise, we find repair, In broken dreams, resolve laid bare.
Shoot Director
Amaris Ninah
Nina Rosell
Design
Christine Jung
Sophie Lee
Illustration
Michaela Sewell
Styling
Kailey Garcia
Asia Turner
Hair&Makeup
Julia Mills
Olivia Selden
Olivia Slemmer
Featuring Maria Brooks
Tatum Goforth
Videography
Ashley Kim
Photography
Anabelle Baum
Genevieve Larson Writier
Grace Malley
FashionDesigner
Maxine Roeder
Black is the Color I Like Most
Purple
Discolored are the hands of the fading
Red
Pulsating, pushing, pumping
Black
Fear not into the good night
Purple
Begging, is the sign of true undying emotion
Fury, hatred, anger arises like steam
Red
Her rosy cheeks, her nail polish, her once lush lips
The beauty weary
Black
The deep void remaining, empty
The spot of a once profound love
Purple
Popping veins mark the face
Flowers, petals, marks, life
Fade
Red
A frame with her image displayed on the coffee table
Red peppers, for her favorite meal
The color spilled over the bathroom floor
Black
Meeting place
Angelic sounds echo
Together
Voids
By Grace Malley
Unflinching, Ruben stares into Lola’s eyes. His dark, forest-like gaze pierces her soul—frozen in time. Lola, transforming into a small ball of energy, zips around the neurons in Ruben’s brain, sparking connections and serving others. She is searching for him. Hoping for him. Wanting for him to still be there.
April 2009, A typical Chicago coffee shop at lunchtime
Barista
Double expresso for Ruben.
Lola
Reuben, like the sandwich?
Ruben
Believe it or not, that’s the first time anyone’s ever asked me that.
Lola
Really? I suspect you’re lying.
Ruben
Good thing I don’t lie.
Barista
Caramel latte with almond milk for Lola.
Ruben Classic.
Lola
I hate when they expose you like that.
Ruben
I find it rather amusing.
Lola
Of course you do—you and your double expresso.
December 2012, Seattle
The tips of Ruben’s fingers begin to turn purple. Lola takes a deep breath, gathering warmth, then exhales a faint cloud of smoke. She rubs her hands together briskly, then cups Ruben’s hands between hers, right hand over left, creating a capsule of warmth. His limp fingers remained purple.
December 2009, United Terminal, Chicago O’Hare AIrport
Lola
Did you really need to print everything out?
Ruben
I like having everything handy.
Ruben flips through a pile of paper outlining the trip’s itinerary
Lola
Isn’t that what phones are for?
Ruben
I’m not that technologically advanced.
Lola
You and your ways.
Ruben
My mom was just meticulous about paper and order.
Lola Gosh.
Ruben
She was the type to bring a full itinerary folder to the airport—for a domestic flight. She packed my school lunches until 12th grade.
Lola
No way. And did you eat them?
Ruben
I couldn’t resist. She knows how to make a mean Reuben sandwich.
Lola smirked.
Lola
Good morning
Ruben slowly opens his eyes
Lola rolled over to her left side, facing Ruben Ruben
Good morning, Mrs. Smith.
Lola
I like the ring of Mrs. Smith. It comes off the tongue so smoothly. So what should we do together on this fine day?
Ruben
My thought is to lay here and watch you all day, only if you’ll allow me.
Lola
Well of course, only if you’ll grant me the courtesy to do the same.
May 2011, Seattle:
The Newlywed’s Bed
Ruben
Amazing, we have a plan.
Lola
But before we start this plan of ours, I need a double espresso.
Lola rolls to the edge of the bed, flips her feet to the floor and gets up. She walks across the wooden floor, making her way into the hallway leading into the kitchen. There she directs her attention to the coffee machine. She smiles, compressing the expresso into the Portafilter basket. Ruben comes from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist.
Ruben
What would I have done without coffee?
Lola
What do you mean?
Lola
Ruben
Without it, I wouldn’t have run into you at that little shop in Chicago.
Then I guess I have to thank coffee—very much.
Ruben
And why’s that?
Lola
Because without it, I wouldn’t have stood a chance at catching you
Ruben
Well, thank God for coffee.
He places his hand on her cheek, gently turning her face to the side, and kisses her. Lola smiles and wiggles herself out of his arms.
Lola
Now, let me make the coffee—you!!
Ruben’s Cousin
JanuarySeattle,2013,Ruben’s Funeral
I am so sorry for this terrible loss. There was nothing you could have done. You just need time to heal, darling.
Lola
There was something I could have done. I shouldn’t have brought him there. I thought it was going to be fun.
Ruben’s Cousin
You can’t predict the future. How were you supposed to know not to go there?
I should have been less reckless, less fun, less... me.
Ruben’s Cousin
Don’t ever say that. Honey, you need time—time to heal. I promise, you’ll be okay.
Lola
What a stupid idea. Why did I ever think ice skating would be fun on a frozen pond? And now—now—
Lola starts tapping her foot and shaking her wrist uncontrollably.
Lola
Now he’s dead, and all I have are these memories, repeating over and over and over in my head.
Ruben’s Cousin
Then he’ll always be with you, honey, in your memories. Right here in your heart. Nothing will ever replace the place he holds there.
Lola
Thank you. I believe you, but I need to leave. I can’t wear black anymore. I need a coffee.
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