Survival Of The Fittest

((Michael Goldstein: Pregame Start))

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Inhale and take in the still morning air, flavoured by freshly mown grass and the tiniest hint of chill in the air.

Normally Michael would be bemoaning the still air, hoping for a breeze to fan his sweating body as he ran through the sleepy suburb, but it was a pleasant temperature for a change. It was still winter, even if Las Vegas didn’t really get much of one. He’d always wondered what it was like, throwing snowballs at one another and building a snowman. It was something he’d always longed for as a kid, some freak weather forecast that gave them enough snow to enjoy. They got a little a couple of years ago, but it was nothing like his dreams.

David actually had snow! He’d sent a couple of pictures of himself and a couple guys from his unit making snow angels on the tarmac before it got cleared so people could drive around or move the equipment. He sounded like a little kid again, and it made Michael happy. It brought back fond memories of watching whatever his big brother did like it was the most interesting thing in the world, cheering whenever he hit a home run in baseball or getting mad at him when David beat him in MLB. Simpler times where home didn’t feel a little hostile.

His watch beeped, but Michael ignored it. His parents knew he liked to go running in the early morning, so if they wanted to talk to him they had to wait. This was like a pressure valve for stress. If things got too bad, he could always run away from them (and then come back later, obviously. Just a funny way to word it.)

Kind of why he was out here today, actually. His dad had called up one of his friends and was talking about stuff when he made a couple of snide remarks, about how he was proud of David for following his dreams while pointedly ignoring how he was doing the same.

It was the little things like that. They’d gotten past being snappy at each other, but there was still the sense of hostility in the air, this unease that could be cut with a knife whenever they interacted. Michael had learned that making a big deal out of it would just be used against him, brought up later to demonstrate how immature he was or something, so he bit his tongue. It was more productive to just get his frustrations out another way. Feet against the tarmac, bat hitting ball, even bitching about it to the old timers at the home.

His watch beeped at him again.

“Ugh, what the hell is it-” Michael grumped, slowing down and leaning against a lamppost as he checked what it was. It wasn’t a text like he was expecting. Instead, his fitness tracker was telling him he’d hit his goal for the day. Normally what he did was get three-fourths done and then get the other quarter done on the walk home to shower, but he must have just been lost in his head. Well, it didn’t hurt to get a little extra done. He could just go easy the rest of the day.

Or hmmm.

There was a McDonalds nearby.

And Michael did enjoy a sausage McMuffin.

And he hadn’t had breakfast.

---

Michael could never get used to the self-serve kiosks. There was always something wrong with them. The receipt didn’t print because there was no paper, there was some dead space on the screen or dead pixels, they were coated in spit and grease and who knows what else. So if there wasn’t much of a queue, he’d go over to the counter that still did orders and order face-to-face. Maybe there was more chance of an error, a little bit longer of a wait, but it just felt more natural to tell someone your order rather than tap on a machine.

This time, there wasn’t anyone at that counter. Hopefully they hadn't started phasing that out. Maybe they were just short-staffed, but the result was that he had to order on a machine that looked like it’d been through a food war and of course it didn’t have any paper, so he had to memorise the number that flashed on the screen. Thirty-nine. Thirty-nine. Thirty-nine. It was so much easier when you actually had a damn receipt.

Hands in his pockets, repeating thirty-nine over and over again in his head, Michael sauntered over to the queue of people also waiting for their food. This was a pretty regular haunt for the kids of Meadowbrook, so maybe he'd run into someone he knew but he also needed to remember that number otherwise he’d just wasted seven bucks. So, hopefully this would be an in-and-out thing.

Thirty-nine.

Two clients, one down in Silver Springs, one deeper into the city closer to the Strip. The Car Doctors didn't really do mobile services on demand but it was possible to book one of them to drop by the house or wherever for a bit extra. She was really proud of herself. The jobs on the road were all her, no supervision, and whenever Mom and Dad gave her the thumbs up to take them for the day... she'd almost cried the first few times. She was, like, good enough. Really becoming a pro in her own right.

Since the first client wasn't until close to noon she was actually hitting up the gyms at school first. Cardio plus back and core. Baseball season was days away and there were new routines to turn from an art into a science. Had to make sure she was in top form by the time the first games started!

Thus she was: jogging pants, double sports bra-ed up, black cotton long sleeve button up with enough oilcoolantantifreezedifferentialbrakefluid stains and splatters to be hung up in a modern art museum, bit-too-large black denim jacket because it was chilly. A perfect combo of work out then work for money clothes. She normally didn't really wear hats but she'd seen one of Dad's lying out on the couch and had decided to yoink it for the day. Store colors, red and gray, Car Doctors in black print, the store's cartoony car logo that was actually a 1997 Ford Tarus LX if you looked at the shape of the radiator grille.

The car Mom had been driving when she'd first met Dad.

Her hair looked weird all exploding out of her hat. She was sure Joanne or Sylvie or Vivian or anyone else would have told her to give up on it, especially Joanne in an especially cuss-y way.

---

[Clarissa Shoemaker, Pregame Thread 3]

Clarissa entered the Meadowbook McDonald's- 12 Honeydew Blvd, Meadowbrook 89531- with a casual and intentful stride for the pickup window.

She had the app because McDonald's was one of the only places outside of home and the school cafeteria on spicy chicken sandwich day that she was willing to eat at without a friend making her do it. Normally her breakfast was her daily grilled cheeses but Mom and Dad had been sleeping in and rather than making it herself Clarissa had been in a rare mood for the two egg McMuffin three hash brown that was always her order when she happened to want McDonalds at breakfast time.

Thirty-one was already up to order. Clarissa softly hummed Chappell Roan to herself as she picked up the bag.

Out of the corner of her eye, a familiar face. She turned. Paused for a moment as she matched face to name to memories. Clarissa the dumb faced horse, blinking a single time vacantly, and then...

"Michael, hey!" It wasn't a large store so she only said it loud enough to be heard as she breezed by the others in the queue to his position. Like many others in Red Rock, Michael G was friend shaped. He was on baseball, so, she was literally going to work out that day because of him indirectly. By default as one of her beloved baseball boys he was a designated Hot Guy, though like she'd never really felt butterflies the same way she had for Claude or Johnny. He was a very cool dude. Gave back to his community, which, <3.

"A good morning to you, my good sir." Yes she was talking like an idiot on purpose. Other people did it too! She facetiously curtsied with her non-existent skirt as she fell by him in line. "Morning run?"

One of the older ladies at the home was one of those new-age hippy types, the kind who'd probably still be going to Burning Man if she didn't have heart problems. In between her fantastical stories of doing LSD and ayahuasca or being at Stonewall when they rioted (which didn't really make sense because like, Stonewall was in the 90s he thought and this lady was 90 herself. Mind you, she did seem like the kind of woman who would be at a riot in her 60s) she'd warned him about the powers of manifestation. If you're really desperately hoping for something bad to not happen to you, to the point where it takes up your mindset, it will happen to you. And with a "Michael, hey!" it did happen.

Not that he hated to see Clarissa. She was fun to talk to in baseball downtime, waiting for his turn at bat or for the other team to get on the field. Pretty nice girl overall. He sometimes got ribbed a little by his teammates for it, teasing about how interested he was in talking to her, but it wasn't like that. Michael was pretty sure she wasn't interested in romance anyway.

Thirty-nine.

"Good morning to you too, my fine lady." Michael did a little bow in response, beaming as he straightened back up. "Yeah, morning run. Thought I'd swing by and get all the calories I burnt back. Guessing you're, uh, doing Car Doctor stuff?" She'd mentioned to him a couple of times that she was doing some light work with the family business in addition to her cheerleading duties, which was pretty impressive to balance learning about the guts of an engine to executing all those complex routines.

It was pretty evident that she was doing car duties too, with her wearing the most stained shirt he'd ever seen in his life. Made him feel a little better about the fact his own getup was sweaty as hell - baggy blue t-shirt he stole from David and some cargo shorts because he thought it would be warmer than it actually was. A chilly day in Las Vegas was anomalous, but the run had kept him warm.

"What'd you get? I'm just waiting for, uh," Michael glanced over at the screen with the order numbers but there was no thirty-nine, "my McMuffin. Thirty-nine."

Michael was the one Clarissa tended to chat up the most, roooooughly. The fairly picturesque image of a bunch of cheer girls leaning over the dugout fence talking to the boys— and Candy— during intermission, so on. Johnny had Joanne, Claude had Sylvie, Marino was... he came on a bit strong.

Whatever they talked about he ended up coming off as very knowledgable and passionate about it. Even... politics, ugh. She'd nod along because she didn't really know what they were talking about. He made it pretty digestible and not exhausting to listen to. She'd also started getting curious about the first aid thing. It sounded like something worth learning at some point.

She giggled, feeling the mild burn from her cheeks flushing a bit red like always happened when she laughed. Ahh, how she loved stupid bits like overly formal greetings.

"Yeah! Driving out to two different clients today." The queue shifted a little little bit, in the way where it was difficult to tell if it was actually someone getting their order or not. "Someone down in Winchester's '08 Sentra has been having overheats and I'm thinking it's-"

Clarissa full on stopped like she'd been slapped in the face mid-sentence. Glanced down at the floor for a moment, embarassed. It was probably safe for her to continue in Michael's company, but. Doing that thing she did where she rambled about cars for like five minutes straight was always more than a bit embarassing in most non-Raya company.

"Thirty-nine," she repeated with a nod, looking back up at frien.

"But yeah, I'm also going to be hitting the gym at school before I head out." She fumbled with the bag a bit, awkwardly silent but not really noticing it. Stupid McDonald's takeaway bags were like gold vaults. She had just enough IDGAF about her nails even though she'd touched up the polish recently that she didn't mind blunting one to rip the top of the bag open. She held the bag up, open side at him. "Two of these," the McMuffins, "three of these," the hash browns.

"First baseball games are next week, right? Gosh, how are you feeling about?"

Michael snickered along. Clarissa was fun to talk to. Talking was kind of their thing, almost. Michael would let her ramble on about cars, even if he didn't really know the difference between a carburetor and a cappuccino, and sometimes she'd let him bitch about politics if he hadn't had the presence of mind to rant about it somewhere else instead. He had the feeling that would become a lot more common in the coming days and weeks, given who was now in office. Ugh. Clarissa seemed like someone who was tuned out on politics, so he didn't want to burden her with it as well.

Telling stories of the hijinks his brother sometimes gets up to at his base was a little more preferable.

"Sounds like a fun day. I need to learn how to drive at some point, it's always on my mind but I just... I keep putting it off, I dunno why." Michael shrugged. He wasn't the kind of person who really wanted to drive, but they lived in car-centric HQ, Nevada, also known as Meadowbrook. Plus, Michael didn't want to break Clarissa's poor little heart if he told her that he wasn't a fan of the idea of driving, given it kept her fed and clothed. It was a dirty secret he'd forever be ashamed of and take to the grave, eternally regretting his dislike for cars.

"If I ever need to get whatever I get tuned up or fixed or something, at least I know where to take it, eh?" Little pep talk to get her over the embarassment. He smiled reassuringly before glancing over at the queue and the little number monitor. It had went up a couple of numbers. Twenties and thirties mixed with forties and some of those weirdly long numbers with letters.

Michael nodded approvingly at her order. He preferred something smaller after a run, but he probably would have had something similar if he hadn't just ran roughly... seven, eight kilometres plus walking home. He wanted to keep his breakfast in his stomach, thank you very much

"Oh, uh... Honestly? I'm looking forwards to getting back at it but they kinda blend into one another after a while. There's a point where I catch myself thinking that I can't wait for it to be over, all the little scrapes and bangs and bruises, and then the season's over and I'm thinking that I can't wait to be all beat up again, hah." It was a weird little cycle. There was nothing like feeling the crack of a solid hit reverberate up his arm, tossing the bat to the side and running like the Grim Reaper himself was behind you. Or the rush of a home run.

He had no idea how the big league players did 152 games. It was nuts.

"So, uh, what were you saying about that... Sentra, was it? Overheating issue?" It was interesting to get a glimpse into the world of engines and gasoline and belts. She wanted to be a Car Doctor, he wanted to be a People Doctor.

Clarissa had been happy in a very nebulous way, a smile-shaped outline, pure vibes, but the very moment Michael had brought up the very combination of words that implied that he'd learn to drive some day— and that was definitely what he was talking about, she double checked it in her archive of stuff people talked about that she could remember— she was very present. Not exactly getting closer, but she suddenly did seem to encroach on his personal space with her aura, if nothing else.

Eyes lit up like the Christmas trees they all had definitely put away weeks ago.

"If you ever need to learn, I would love love love to teach you! Hit me up. Anytime." Insta FB iMessage. He could call if he wanted. He could drop by her apartment unannounced and knock. She'd be there until he had his license and wouldn't dare quit on him a moment too soon.

That was probably all impossible to transmit entierly through the wide smile in her gaze but by god was she trying.

Okay, she backed off a bit. Dialed the intensity down before she exploded a peaceful suburb with her sheer hype.

"I feel that with cheer, yeah." It was like Michael said. Love of the game, but also god it was exhausting. The soreness that healed the moment she got off the sidelines became the soreness that she would grumble and grouse through as she did her hours on the weekend. "It's like, I want to be here but also, everything hurts, but also also, I'd hate not being here. Missing my friends, missing all the awesome feelings that come when you get a stunt... or, like, equivalent baseball term." Clarissa giggled, momentarily imagining the baseball boys trying a pyramid or tumble lines.

"Hit a run, perfect slide. I totally know what I'm talking about."

Clarissa was holding up well enough so far for the year. Still felt limber and young. Coach would say it was fortunate they'd only ever had one serious injury among the cheerleaders of their grade.

One too many. Clarissa did not like remembering it.

"You were looking at schools abroad, right?" Clarissa had remembered Michael bringing up something like that, maybe in the general vicinity of him saying Canon sucked dick, which. Yeah Clarissa kinda saw it nowadays. Ever since the... election, however many years ago that had been. So many of her friends agreed on the general idea of Canon being The Worst that she wondered why exactly her parents liked him so much.

"Do you think they'll have baseball teams wherever you might end up?"

And, oh. Huh, the invite to talk about her predictions of what she was going to see when she got to that home in Winchester. 703 Beryl Creek Lane. God. Whenever it was anyone except Raya Clarissa felt like it wasn't something they really wanted to hear? At least in her short history on this earth. But Michael did always seem, like, genuinely interested. Thinking emoji... maybe she could open the valve on the rant... just a bit...

39 popped up, next to a 702B and 21 somehow appearing way after when it logically should have.

"Thirty-nine!" Clarissa helpfully pointed.

"Do you want to sit down to eat, maybe? I'm not in any rush if you wanna chat more." She kinda hoped he did. She hadn't been expecting to run into anyone until she got to school. One of those coinky-dinks that made life a bit more fun. And stressful. Bit of both. Depended on who she ran into, really.

Yep, and there it was. The second Michael brought up the very idea of learning to drive, Clarissa was practically about to explode with excitement, eyes lighting up like stars. It was kinda cute. Driving fell into that sort of nebulous thing that he knew he'd have to do, something that was boring and dull but had to be done as part of being a responsible adult like taxes or going to bed early. But, he was pretty sure that she could make it fun between chatting his ear off about the history of the V8 engine or something like that.

"Yeah, I'll hit you up whenever I get to it." Michael nodded with a smile. He needed to scrape the money together for lessons and all that - although he was pretty sure Clarissa would do it pro bono out of sheer excitement - and figure out some other stuff, but it was on his mind a little bit more now. Although maybe he'll end up somewhere with a functioning public transport system or a walkable city. Alas, Las Vegas was not a fifteen minute city, unless you were in the Strip. Then it was fifteen minutes to losing all of your money or getting blackout drunk.

"I guess the equivalent would be, yeah, getting a good hit and bounce of the ball so you can get a double or even triple. Depends on the stunt you're comparing." Some of the things that the cheerleaders did would probably make Michael tear or sprain something. It was pretty impressive to see what they could do with a completely different set of skills from baseball. He couldn't do a pyramid or... anything cheerleading, really, but he couldn't imagine the cheerleaders playing baseball, either. Sylvie would probably get doinked in the face with a ball. The momentary idea of the cheerleaders lining up to hit while Michael and Johnny and all the rest did stunts in the background made him chuckle.

Michael tilted his head for a second, glancing over at the screen. "Uh, probably? Unless I end up going to Japan or the Dominican Republic - which isn't likely - it's not gonna be like, this massive presence that the MLB is over here, but there's a ton of Americans everywhere. There'll be some recreational team somewhere that I'll be able to hop into. Still not sure if I'll be going anywhere, though." He loved this country, and as shit as things were... he didn't wanna just pack up and leave unless there was no other option. But at the same time, things were only gonna get worse.

He had all the time in the world to think about it. He'd fired a few applications off in the States, so if any of his alternative countries didn't want him he could still fall back to them. He was pretty sure there were a couple of programs in Israel that helped the diaspora study at universities there and subsidised stuff, but it's not like things were any better over there. And also Hebrew was tough. The UK or Canada seemed like the most obvious choices. Close to the US so he could fly over to see family and he didn't have to learn another language. Plenty of time to think about it.

In fact, he was thinking about it so much that without Clarissa he probably would have missed number 39 showing up.

"Oh, uh, y-yeah. I've not got much else planned today." Normally after these big runs Michael had to take a little breather, watch something on Netflix or do some studying. Sometimes he'd head to school and practice some swinging, fire up the pitching machine, but with his long exercise maybe he could take it slow today. He scooted through the crowd to retrieve his wonderful treasure and returned.

"Alright then, my fine lady, lead the way so we can feast on our delectable meal." A little giggle escaped his lips as Michael took a light bow.

That dorky little bit earned a giggle back, louder, the sort of laugh that was a half hiccup.

"Yes, my lord." She did a... flourish? Something fancy looking with a spin and a twirl that people in the era of castles and dragons would have done. "Let us- ppffahaha- saunter forth," she managed to spit out while trying to swallow air down the wrong pipe. Gahahhaahaha, etc.

It took taking a table and taking a long moment to remember how to breathe properly before she could stop smiling like an idiot. Deep breath. Clear the brain fuzzies and the red face.

"The triple is where you can clear three bases, right? So like waaay out to a spot where the other team can't easily get the ball back for a tag out."

Clarissa started to chomp at a hash brown. Really chomp. She was mindful to chew and swallow and not talk in between, but she was apparently quite the magician in terms of making food vanish in the blink of an eye. Residencies on the Strip could never!

"There's some stunt equivalents. Like, Sylvie Joanne Lightning and I can pull off this really clean double down. It's throwing Sylvie up for two flips then we catch her like this," her hands parallel to the table surface, "then pretty much the next second we put her," and her hand flipped ninety degrees, "standing, we lower her halfway and she cartwheels off. And it doesn't sound like a lot but it's all super fast, like," snap snap snap. "There is no squat in the world that's as hard because all the load is all at once in an instant, right? Also also Sylvie is a genius. She lands super light."

Clarissa had looked pretty happy with herself, describing her contributions to the stunt, but at no moment in the spiel did she smile louder or prouder than describing Sylvie. Friend! Et cetera.

"Not that she's the only one. I was Ingrid's— Ingrid M's— base for one of our football routines last semester and she can do, like, the most pixel perfect handstand dismounts, and... Gosh. All the other girls are just really fucking talented. I love them all!"

She needed to hug them all more. A lot more.

Before May came around and most of them would be gone.

She paused, the lovey-dovey sisterhood smile stagnating. As anything else that existed in the well of gravity, the high of her mood eventually had to come down to earth.

"Bit of a hard question, maybe," and Clarissa was sure the answer would be a) harder and b) short circuit her brain, "but what's the calculation there, I guess? Staying here versus going? Like how bad would it have to get under Canon for leaving to be the best option?"

She thought back to Insta posts she'd read from Chappell Roan, the person she trusted most to know what was going on in all of existence. That was only kind of a joke. Some of Chappell's posts were the sort that had made her wonder just what her parents were doing, supporting Canon when their own flesh and blood was outly gay. Maybe that was why her big bro hadn't visited at all last year. She really did not like the thought of that.

"Is being queer dangerous now? You think?" Not like Raya hadn't said that a thousand different times, but, Clarissa wondered if Michael would have a calmer take that didn't make her feel like she was going to die the seventh day after hearing it like that one movie with the creepy long haired ghost girl. "I trust your opinion on this one," she offered softly, leaning in a bit closer over the dusting of fried potato crumbs she'd left on the table in her ravenous frenzy. "If that's okay."

Michael giggled along as she led the two to one of the free tables, probably eliciting a couple of weird looks along the way. Or maybe that was a little dramatic, a few friends snickering at some inside joke as they took a table didn’t seem like a rare thing at McDonalds.

It was kinda fun that all it took was a little faux-fancy talk and she was giggling and spluttering.

“Yeah, uh, triple’s when you get three bases without someone on the field messing up and dropping the ball or some mistake. Usually you need it to bounce in juuuuust the right way or get a really clean hit that puts it way in the back. Funny thing is it’s probably harder than a home run. All you gotta do for that is just hit the ball really hard and get it in the stands.” Baseball was one of his favourite topics with Clarissa. She knew enough about it that it wasn’t something he needed to explain the basics about and given she was there anyway as part of cheerleading duties, she was always eager to listen.

Slowly eating his McMuffin, Michael listened patiently. Cheerleading, on the other hand, was something a little foreign to him. He saw the cheerleaders doing their thing during the games and it looked impressive but the exact details and names of their little stunts eluded him. An explanation was nice. Made him feel a little more invested in what they were doing if he knew the details and how precise it all had to be. "It probably helps that Sylvie is like, really small. She lands light because, you know, she is super light." He contributed to the conversation between bites. There was definitely a comradry in baseball team, but he almost envied the cheerleaders. It seemed really tight-knit, judging by Clarissa's big grin when she was talking about Sylvie and the rest.

And then back to reality.

"Honestly? I don't... I don't know. This is just a whole unprecedented thing. I mean, you hear about that Project 2025 shit the Republicans wanna pull, how they wanna ban abortion and trans people from joining the military and... I guess I don't know if I can put a finger on what exactly it would be. What the 'get out' point would be." There were a million different options, each worse than the last. Dictatorship, putting people into camps, civil war, a million different ideas that Michael couldn't even begin to think of. He just hoped that when the time came, when that little part of his brain would light up with the realisation that it was time to go, that there'd still be an option to get out. Liberal, Jewish, unashamedly Democrat and pro civil rights? Odds were a little stacked against him.

"He's not even in office yet," give it about a week or so and he would be, "but I think... trans people are probably gonna take the brunt of it to be blunt? I mean, I dunno if you saw that they/them advert, the one where Canon accuses D'Cruz of caring more about 'they/them' than you, but it seemed like a pretty vocal part of his campaign. Gay people, uh, it depends I guess. I like to think marriage and all that stuff is engrained enough that you can't pull away from that without some serious reprisal, but maybe I'm just being optimistic. Or hell, maybe he'll be too busy doing podcasts to give a shit about any of this." Michael cracked a weary, yet trying to be reassuring, smile. He didn't wanna spoil the mood.

"Hmmm," thinking emoji, as Clarissa sorted through the trove of baseball info she had managed to awkwardly cram into the wrinkle folds of her brain like how a lot of kids' folders and binders had papers sticking out at all angles. Most of that info sounded like Michael's voice.

"Sooooo like. We're one of the best teams in NIAA baseball, right?" If that wasn't just a line Johnny liked to pull on the girls once a month. "So like, is it possible you guys hit triples more often than average for a team at the high school level? Since most other teams like Liberty," a curse upon the Patriots!! though mostly just in the fun rivals curse kind of way, "would have worse pitchers with slower throws you guys can get better hits on. And not, like, slower in the way where they have those cool tricky pitches you showed me that one time. Slow in the way where they suck and we stomp them."

Clarissa after all, as all good cheerleaders, had to dunk on the enemy!!

"Oh, and like. Sylvie being light as a doll is part of it, yeah! But she's still-"

And whoops Clarissa almost said a best friend's weight out loud in America units, which would have been the ultimate fumble of all time that would have earned her a rightful gilloutine-ing in the form of Sylvie drop kicking her.

"Liiiight," she barely saved in time, her eyes showing the 'oh god I almost fucked that up' no white all pupil startle very plainly. "She's light but she's still like, a full size human," kind of full size, "we have to catch without breaking or spraining something or dropping her. So, we need to be strong, and she needs to be strong. It's a lot of-"

And here without preamble Clarissa stood-scooted out of her bench and grabbed at the hem of her shirt and lifted it enough to show that, yes, she definitely put in her work at the gym with an abdomen defined enough to low key grate her own grilled cheeses on. She casually flexed to the effect of chiaroscuro, then casually slammed her own fist into the muscle to show that there was a puddle of a ripple at most. Body control. And she wasn't even close to being the most skilled person on the Rattlers varsity cheer division.

She in no way noticed the awkward lingering gaze or two she got from passerby dudes, and she stayed not noticing because she was in the Zone— not the Auto Zone, though she was oftentimes there as well— and her exposition continued apace as she sat down as suddenly as she'd stood, shirt awkwardly flopping back into place as she forgot to do it herself:

"Because moving even an inch when you didn't intend to, as a flyer, or as a base or spotter, likely means the whole stunt falls apart. Or like, that's an exaggeration, but Coach has always emphasized that idea. Half stability half practice, and the stunt does itself for you."

A while after this outburst, and with Clarissa working on her first McMuffin with the same fiber optic speeds as she had the hash brown, she looked a bit upset. Not Michael's fault, obviously, but Clarissa tended to wear her emotions as easily and proudly as she wore other stupid looking things like her dad's hats. She chewed on what Michael had said far slower than her actual food. A long moment of silence followed.

Banning abortion was a bit abstract to her, all honesty. She knew it was wrong but she couldn't conceive it in her mind's eye, the horrors. Not the way her brain worked, anyways. Something something first hand experience. But hurting trans people? Going after gay marriage? That was about people she knew. Friends. Her own damn brother.

"My dad was talking about that advert," Clarissa said with the smile evaporated from her voice. It was a monotone, a rumble deeper into her throat than her already more androgynously pitched than average voice. "He said it spoke to him. I didn't get it."

A sigh.

"What really gets me is how unfair it is. That someone like me is randomly safer just because I'm white and because I can stick to dating guys if I have to. It's unfair." A sigh. "America is all of our homes, isn't it? Why should some of us have to feel so unsafe. It's..."

She'd already said unfair, whoops. She shrugged and quieted for a moment as she continued to process, robotically eating all the while.