Prop Crafting at the Con

Prologue

AVA

Twelve years of treasured memories are about to go up in flames, and I, for one, cannot wait to watch them burn. I should mail the ashes to my dad. With any luck he’d choke on them.

“Ava?” My mom pokes her head out the back sliding door, eyes bleary and squinting like a mole emerging from the soil.

“Did you move the—oh!” She shuffles out onto the deck, an empty wine bottle dangling from her fingertips.

Her once-lustrous blonde hair, a shade lighter than my own, is matted against one side of her waxen face.

Dark circles ring her dull blue eyes—eyes that immediately lock on to the row of crimson merlots lined neatly on the curved stone ledge behind me.

“What on earth are you doing? Do you have any idea how much those cost?”

I am well aware of what these bottles have cost.

Empty cupboards.

Dark, silent rooms.

My mother’s health.

My peace of mind.

Prices I’m no longer willing to pay.

“It’s been three months.” I tighten my grip on the lighter, willing some much-needed steel into my voice.

Sweat drips down the back of my tank top, nerves pinging about my stomach like caffeinated bees, but it’s too late to turn back now.

My cheating father may have moved across the country to be with his so-called soulmate, but my mother is slipping away before my very eyes.

I refuse to lose them both.

“I understand that he hurt you. That what he did—the lying, the sneaking around behind your back—is unforgivable. But he did it, and he’s gone, and I’m still here.

” My voice cracks. “And I need you, the real you, the one you’ve lost at the bottom of all these bottles.

” I look pointedly at the one dangling by her side, and she flushes beneath the amber glow of the porch lights.

I latch on to that guilt, praying my words reach through the fog of depression she’s lost herself in. “Please, Mama. Don’t leave me too.”

She shuffles in place, lifts the empty bottle, and wrings its glass neck.

“I’m not,” she protests. “I’m just…” Her hand flutters in a wave.

“Coping.” She lifts the bottle again, as if forgetting that it’s already empty.

The moment it touches her lips, she drops it back down to her side, her expression crumpling.

“You have no idea how hard it is to start over at my age,” she whispers hoarsely.

“You’re right; I don’t.” I fold my arms over my chest, staring her down.

“But I do know how hard it is to have the father I practically hero-worshipped choose to live with some woman I’ve never even met in an apartment over three thousand miles away.

I know how hard it is to watch my beautiful, vibrant mother fade into a ghost of her former self.

I know how hard it is to sneak money from your purse so I can bike to the store for groceries.

To figure out how to pay bills online with your credit card because I don’t fancy having our electricity cut off.

” I pause, take a breath. “I’m twelve, Mom, and I… I’m scared.”

The bottle slips from my mom’s fingers, clinking against the wood deck. She takes a tremulous step forward, and it’s then that I see the tears streaming down her face. “Ava, sweetheart. I… I didn’t realize, I…” She lets out a choked sob, her voice little more than a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

Tears threaten to spill down my own cheeks, but I stubbornly hold them back.

There will be time for that later, but not now.

Not until I’m done. “Like I said, I get it. I do. But it’s got to stop.

We’re going to dump these bottles in the grass, and then you’re going to find a therapist. And go to, like, AA meetings. Whatever you need to do.”

Mom wipes a hand over her face. “I can do that,” she whispers. Then, lifting her chin. “I will do that.”

“Good.” I hold up the lighter, and a flame flickers to life as I click. “Because at the end of the day, I’m always going to choose you. Always. You got that?”

Mom presses a hand to her heart, sniffs, and ducks her head in a wobbly nod. She walks to the end of the deck, arms wrapping around her waist as she peers out at the loaded firepit. “What’s all this?”

I reach down and pluck a crumpled comic book from the teepee of wood and discarded memories.

“Spider-Girl: Volume One, Legacy. Dad gave it to me for my eighth birthday.” I toss it back on the pile and scoop up a brightly colored magazine with the words Otakus Anonymous splashed across the cover.

“The program guide for the very first convention Dad took me to in Seattle.” Back onto the pyre it goes.

“Basically, everything that reminds me of Dad that’s flammable and won’t kill us from fumes when I light them on fire. ”

“Ava, honey. You don’t need to do this. He’s still your father,” is what Mom says, but I see the way her gaze locks on the firepit, the flicker of anticipation that flashes through her eyes. She wants to erase his presence even more than I do.

“Not anymore, he’s not. He made his choice, now I’m making mine.” No more comics, no more dressing up for conventions, no more anime or fantasy or anything that even hints of his existence. I’m done with it all. The only thing that matters to me now is bringing a smile back to my mom’s face.

I lower the flame until it catches on the corner of a crayon-drawn picture of me and two others standing in front of a space cruiser, blasters in hand as we pose, ready for action. The edges blacken, crumpling inward as the fire slowly engulfs it.

One of these people is dead to me.

The other…

I slip a hand into my pocket, finding the friendship bracelet tucked inside.

Today is the first day it hasn’t graced my wrist since its maker put it on me.

I can’t bring myself to burn it, but I can’t wear it either.

Because Declan Greene, my best friend and kindred nerd spirit since kindergarten, is irrevocably entrenched in the memories I share with my dad.

When I look at him now, all I see are reminders of what I’ve lost.

It’s a pain too strong to bear.

Our friendship is yet another casualty of my father’s selfish whims. A loss I feel acutely, chest aching where Declan has been carved out of it. I don’t want to say goodbye, but I have to. If I don’t, I may never truly move on.