callmeemily | Joel, locked. Dated to [sometime after the cruise]. TW: mentions of death, trauma, also just sad

The cruise had those cheap little pads of paper emblazoned with their logo, and the bottom said come sail with us. Raleigh'd found the pad of paper and a pen, and it'd taken her until the fourth day to actually decide to write the letter. She was sick; the wound in her side had gone bad, and she already was burning up with fever. She'd folded the pages and stuffed them in the pocket of Joel's shirt before she finally let herself take some painkillers, until she spent a majority of her time sleeping, forgetting she'd actually even put the letter there in the first place.

When they landed, when they were in the hospital, the nurse had been helpful. The folded up pieces of paper had somehow fallen on the floor- she'd thought they were trash at first. When she'd scanned the note, thought, it was addressed to Joel, and it was an easy thing to slip them into the pile of clothes that would be going home with him. It looked important, but Joel was sleeping while he was waiting to be released for the day, so she didn't say anything, and just moved on to the next patient.

---

Joel-

I never got the chance to do this, last time. Both last times I guess-- it's weird I managed to come out both those situations alive, and now it's an exploding cruise ship that's the problem, right? Literally stranded on a deserted island?!?!

If you find this before, I'm sorry - i don't want to make it harder for you :( I'm writing it now because I know I'm sick, I know that we're on a tropical island and it's been 4 days and I know what this feels like. I know what's going to happen, and I have to write this before I can't. It's important and you're the only one I can trust with it. I'm trying to make things better. I know if I wrote a letter to spencer, he'd just be more hurt and maybe think i didn't try, and i don't want to disappoint him like that, ok?

I know what's going to happen, and I'm okay with it. I mean, I'd rather it not, but when I die, having it so I'm not alone, so I know that there's people who care about me, that means everything. You and Spencer did that. You gave me this safe space so that I could branch out, make more friends, that I could make connections w people. You've always been so unbelievably kind to me (both of you!) and it changed everything. I'm proud of who I am, and I'm not afraid anymore the way i was, and I need you to know you did that for me, and helped me be better.

Spencer told me you were getting married (!!!!) I'm so happy for you, I'm so totally happy you figured it out. I want you to be happy, to live bright amazing lives w each other, and maybe have a couple of kids. I promise, if there's any sort of anything after this, I'm going to be watching out for you and for them, okay? :))) You're both such strong, loving men that I have no idea how everything lined up so I'm your friend. I found family in you both, I'm one of the luckiest people I know because of it.

There's nothing anybody could have done. I think it's an important thing to remember, ok? This isn't anybody's fault 'cept whoever blew up the ship, and maybe mine. It's okay if you hate me for a while for this, as long as it's not forever :)

There's a couple things that I would appreciate it if you could do for me. I know it's super awkward to write all this down and then ask you for some favors, but if I'm going to ask it might as well be now, right?

- make sure Coop and Fabrice are okay (we're friends, and they tried to help w my side, and I don't want them to feel bad)
- please write my mom. i'm so sorry to leave you with this, can't tell you how much, but just tell her i love her and it's okay. I don't even know if it's the correct address anymore, but Emily Harper, 14 Bluebottle Rd, Clearbrook TN 37885
- remember that I love you and Spencer both. i know it maybe seems like it doesn't matter now, but it does.
- sometime, go somewhere sunny and read the secret garden, ok? :) and think of me, if that's not a super weird thing to want.

that's it. I'm going to start hitting up coop for that vicodin he found, so don't worry, it was okay in the end.

I love you a lot.

Raleigh

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a thing, maybe, what they do. That they go and sit on Spencer's porch, and Raleigh's curled up beside him, her head on his shoulder with the box of cookies in his lap.

She's just there to be there, the same way that they were when they'd been on the island, when she'd talked about the bakery she's wanted to open. She says something about it now, her voice low and rough from crying.

"I want to find that space for the bakery - soon. I'm- I'm just done, working for a place that treats me like crap." She paused. "I really- I really would like your help." She doesn't ask for help, much. It was really difficult for her, because she felt like it was hard to tell if people really did want to help, but... as far as she could tell, Joel did. "If you're not busy? We could maybe look for places the next day you have off?"

"Any time," he says and he's genuinely pleased to hear her talking about it again. It isn't that he thought she'd give up on it, but he knows how hard it is to come back from things sometimes. That the time on the island had been hard on everyone, but perhaps harder on Raleigh than most, and Joel knows it isn't always easy to go right back into a regular life when something like that happens. He'd tried after the lighthouse, he'd tried to have his store open, to be normal and okay, but in the end he'd gotten drunk while sitting on the couch, sad that he wasn't with Spencer.

If she's talking about it, though, he's going to take that as a good sign and he stuffs half a cookie in his mouth, nodding the entire time.

"I can close the store for an afternoon, maybe when my leg is a little better. We can walk and check out some places. There are some nice ones near the boardwalk with... like you said, there are big windows. They'd get lots of sun." Siren Cove is a tourist town and there are businesses that just can't make it. He hates seeing their places near the boardwalk empty. "The rent is cheaper there than it is right on the boardwalk, so you're getting location and value. Things further away from the tourist areas will be less expensive, but you won't get the same foot traffic."

She's actually got a different sort of problem, which is why she's talking about the bakery. She doesn't want to go back to work. She doesn't want to go back to the place that takes advantage of her, that leaves her with no hope for getting ahead because she's trapped. She can't stay there, she just can't, and that's why she's got to move forward.

So it's the bakery. Her bakery, somehow, even though that thought is terrifying. "If it's close to Crossroads, I'm happy." She doesn't even hesitate before making the pronouncement. She wants this to be close to him, because of a lot of reasons - the biggest one being that they're family, that he's helping her so much, and she just-- she wants to be near him. She already knows that there's things they can do to help each other, if they're both running businesses, and it's such a weird thought.

"I sort of can't believe I'm actually- I mean. It's going to be a thing. A place, that's mine." And she couldn't have done it without him, she knows it.

"It will," Joel says, finishing his cookie. "It's... it's not easy. Running a business." He thinks she knows that, he thinks she knows just how much work is really involved, that she's not going into it blind, but even with a good idea of what it takes, he thinks there's always a learning curve. There are always surprises. She'll figure it out as she goes and he's here to answer any questions she has, of course, and she's smart enough to work around problems when they come up.

"But when you get it figured out, it'll feel even better because you're the one who's done it," he continues. "I haven't... I don't try very hard with the store sometimes. Not as hard as I should try, but I've been changing things lately. I'm hoping to buy the property outright in the next few months once I have the down payment I need, but even after eight years running the store on my own, it's still sometimes a surprise."

"I'm a little... okay, I'm a lot scared," she admits quietly as she nibbles on a cookie. Caramel vanilla creme, today. "I mean, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Or like, I mean, I don't know how to run a business. It's just me, you know? So do I like... I don't know, do I just randomly close? Do I still have to go in at three? I don't know." She huffs out a breath.

"It's complicated and scary, but like. Even with buying all the ingrediants and paying rent and insurance and everything, I'm still making way less than I should, and I'm- I mean, it's so not worth me working myself to death at Seaside, you know?"

"It is scary," he agrees, because he remembers how scared he'd been when his father had left the store to him and that had been with months of preparation, his father helping him every step of the way. "But if this is something you want, if Seaside isn't just something to do until you find what you really want to do, then you should do it."

At her questions, though, he shrugs. "There's a lot to consider. I set my own hours and I keep them... well, fairly regularly. I'm the only employee, so I can't have it open ten hours a day every day of the week and it's worked for me so far, but you'll have to consider other things. Will Seaside be a lot of competition? Maybe you should consider opening hours that aren't like theirs. No one can ever get fresh baking in the evening on their way home from work because it's always all gone by mid-morning. Maybe that's your market, I don't know. But the nice thing is that owning your own place means you can find out. If you try certain hours and they don't seem to work, you can change it."

"They were buying their donuts from a factory before I started, i think the main issue is going to be people's habits," she said after a second. "But I'll work on making things really, really good, and hopefully that'll just sort of kick them to the curb?"

She paused. "... I don't even know what it would be like to just like... work normal hours. Well, sort of normal hours, I'd still have really long days, unless I make enough to actually hire somebody."

Which was weird and crazy all on it's own. Hiring someone.

"Holy cow, this is really happening." She took another bite of cookie, just because she needed something to distract her, to be honest. It was a little overwhelming.

Joel knows it's different for him, he doesn't have to be in his store hours before opening just to prepare things. He can order inventory from his bed if he wants, his laptop open on his knees while Spencer reads or sleeps beside him. He used to spend much more time in the store after hours, going through inventory and making decisions, but he's about halfway through having everything recorded in spreadsheets on his laptop and it makes working from home a lot easier.

Raleigh won't have that luxury. What she's taking on is a lot bigger than what Joel does and he knows his advice will only go so far.

"Have you met Lara?" he asks. "Levi's girlfriend?" He knows she knows Levi, but he doesn't know if she's ever met Lara. "She's... brilliant. Where I can't help you, she'd be a great person to ask."

Raleigh just sort of... balks, for the first time. "Maybe," she says after a long second, and he can feel that she's tense, because she hasn't pulled away rom him, but....

She has met Lara.

She's met Lara when she's been courting a breakdown, and Lara oh so helpfully told her that the guy - the guy who helped, he just... he was a Siren, and for some reason, Raleigh just couldn't handle it. Not then.

"We can just... hang out, for now. Cookies. We'll cross all those things when we get there, okay?"

Joel, locked. Dated to [sometime after the cruise]. TW: mentions of death, trauma, also just sad

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