Cleo James
March 02, 2021 6:50 AM
Don't be a stranger (tag Isaac) by Cleo James
OOC: Establishment of their ongoing correspondence pending approval from Isaac's author BIC:
The first letter had been six months after Isaac graduated. It had been a challenge putting quill to paper, both because of the circumstances around how their time at Sonora had ended, but also because it had been far too long a gap; Isaac had done an amazing job at coming through for her, and Cleo was worried that her lack of communication since that point had left him feeling that she didn’t want to keep him in her life. Still, there was only one way to fix all the remaining things that she felt were broken…
Dear Isaac,
I know I probably should have written sooner. I’m sure you remember what seventh year’s like though, and there’s a lot I’ve been having to do on top of that to put myself back together. I wanted to write to let you know that’s actually going okay.
I don’t know whether you really want to be in touch, and if not that’s okay. I know last year can’t have been easy on you either, and I hope I’m not causing any hurt by writing. I’m just acutely aware that your last real impression of me was sobbing in a complete state on a bathroom floor, and that’s not really where I want to leave it – for both your sake, and mine. Most of last year isn’t something I want to dwell on, and honestly so much of it is just a blur. I don’t even know if I managed to tell you thank you, so here it is just in case.
Like I said, I’m doing better. And I hope you’re doing amazingly. I hope healer school’s going well, I hope you have a lovely girlfriend, and I hope you have an amazing life. I hope we can be friends, but even if not, I still wish all those for you.
Cleo.
It was not accurate to say that they’d maintained a steady correspondence since. Cleo had never been the best at letter writing, and there had been so many periods of rapid adjustment, in which it was easy to let the weeks slip by and realise that you hadn’t gone to the bank or washed the bedsheets or any of the other myriad stupid adult things you were now meant to do, let alone written an old friend. But enough letters had trickled back and forth that Isaac knew the important points. He knew about Parker, and the consent campaign at the ball. He knew about Cleo’s discovery of people claiming to be her, and the subsequent connections she had made with some of them. That they were her. Each and every one of them, except their cases had been dismissed even faster than her own. They had flocked to being her because she seemed to be a story that at least some people would be willing to believe…
She wasn’t sure how many switches of job she had kept him up to speed on (’I was going to write to you about how I’m leaving the fundraising department at PHAN, but it suddenly occurs to me that you might not have known I was ever in it? Sorry…) but after a year of finding her feet, jumping between organisations and departments on three-month internships, she’d gotten settled into an admin role at a large women’s rights charity.
She noticed the date because she was writing it at work. September 1st. Which, of course, but her mind of a certain person, and deciding to do it whilst the thought was there, she actually took her lunch break properly for once, and sat in the courtyard of her office, munching a cheese and tomato sandwich and writing a letter.
Dear Isaac,
I could almost swear it’s you that’s dropped the ball this time, however unlikely that seems…Anyway, it’s September 1st, which made me think of you.
Anyway, I don’t have any big news yet but I might do soon. I feel almost nervous writing this at work, like there’s spies lurking in the bushes waiting to see my treachery but I’m thinking of leaving.
This place has been really good for me. I’ve liked being a small fish in a big pond, knowing there’s always someone far, far above me and that I’ll always be told exactly what to do. There’s a safety in that, and in doing admin. The trouble is, with somewhere this big, that it doesn’t always feel like my focus is their focus. That’s fair, they have many, many priorities. But it can feel like the half-veela thing gets lost sometimes, or like I’m competing against other minority women to be the minority that’s getting attention. Very occasionally, people are also jerks, but more than that lots of people just don’t really understand the ways it’s different for me.
Admin just also isn’t policy. I’ve had a couple of chances to help on or take on voluntary research assistant jobs. When I started here, I never thought I was smart enough for something like that, but now I know that isn’t the case. They’re never going to have a full time role for me there though. They’re such a huge organisation, and those roles are always competed for by like 100 people all with college degrees. Also, see above re what their policies are not always being the ones that matter most to me.
I’ve applied to an organisation that’s all veela and part-veela. It sounds so strange coming from me, this idea that I hate my veela side not being noticed and acknowledged, or that I want to surround myself with them. But I think I do. Maybe it wasn’t ever being half-veela that I didn’t like, just being different, or how any of that was dealt with. It’s a smaller organisation, so I’d have to do much more than I do here. But I think I could handle that.
Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for me? Both in case I don’t get it, and in case I do.
Cleo.
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Cleo James
Don't be a stranger (tag Isaac)
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Isaac Song
March 06, 2021 2:31 PM
Staying in touch by Isaac Song
The summer after graduation had been difficult for Isaac. His last memories with Cleo weren’t exactly pleasant, and it was hard to get over someone like her. Luckily, he found solace in his friends. It was his last summer with them before they all went their separate ways for school. He had gotten into a healing program at a magical university in New York, so at the end of summer, he packed his bags and made the move across the country by himself. It was lonely at first, but he quickly made friends and soon forgot all about his woes at Sonora.When he received the first letter from Cleo, Isaac had been pleasantly surprised. Though time and his new girlfriend had healed his heartbreak, he remembered how much their friendship had meant to him, so he wrote her back. And so their spotty correspondence started.
Things with his girlfriend ended after his first year of school, which unintentionally became the catalyst for several other changes. No matter what his parents wanted, Isaac wasn’t happy studying biology and medicinal potions. After doing a little soul-searching and exploration during his usual summer trip to South Korea, he decided to jump into his passion: party planning.
Isaac wrote to Cleo about it when he had the time. He told her about his change in major and how different it was from throwing together a simple holiday party. He wrote about his new friends, his failed relationship, and his classwork. As the year went on, his responses became few and far in between with courses, friends, parties, and part-time jobs taking up his attention. He barely remembered to call his mom once a week and write to his older sister, who was doing some soul-searching of her own.
In his third year, Isaac went to Barcelona to study abroad and intern at a company that specialized in corporate event planning. He had decided that the hospitality industry was his calling, and Isaac was determined to make it happen with the right connections and experiences. The Catalonian city was incredible, and Isaac loved cycling around and exploring Europe on weekend trips.
He made friends quickly, as he usually did wherever he went, who introduced him to locals. Soon, he was busy once again with friends, classes, travels, and his internship. He thought of replying to Cleo and updating her now and then—the last he’d written told her he’d gotten accepted into this internship program—but they were fleeting thoughts quickly forgotten by another responsibility or plan.
By the time he returned to the States in August, Isaac had a gorgeous tan, a Spanish ex-girlfriend, and another internship waiting for him in New York. To say he was happy was an understatement.
Cleo’s letter came as a pleasant surprise, and Isaac felt a little guilty for not remembering to write to her. He was always happy to hear from her, happy to know that she seemed to be doing well and accepting her veela side of her more and more. It couldn’t be easy, and he was proud of her. Immediately after reading, Isaac went to his room and started his response so he wouldn’t forget.
Dear Cleo,
Is it already September? It’s great to hear from you again. Sorry I haven’t written to you all year. I was in Barcelona interning at a corporate event planning company, and I just got back last month. It’s strange coming back after living in Europe for an entire year. I feel like a foreigner in a familiar place, if that makes any sense. I’m still adjusting to cultural differences, but I’m sure I’ll get back to American culture soon enough.
This week, I start my new internship with a wedding planner. The last wedding I attended was my uncle’s, but besides that, I haven’t been to any. It’ll be interesting to see if the wedding industry is just as intense as it’s rumored to be.
Wishing you all the luck with your job search! That organization sounds like a fantastic growth opportunity. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. I’m glad to hear you’ve been enjoying your admin job for the most part, but I hope you find another place that fits you even better and is more aware and supportive of your half-veela side.
I’m in my last year of school, so it’ll be another busy year with my internship and courses. I’ll be applying for jobs in December when my internship ends. I can’t remember if I told you this, but my dream is to be an event coordinator for a high-end hotel. It’s going to take some time getting there, but I hope all of my experiences land me something in that industry.
It’s been a whirlwind so far. Life has been constantly busy these past three years, and I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t find a job after graduation. Keep your fingers crossed for me too. I hope this internship will go well. Maybe by the end of it, I’ll decide I want to be a wedding planner instead! Who knows.
Keep me updated on the job you applied to. Even though I’ve gotten really bad at replying quickly, I always love hearing how you’re doing. It’s amazing thinking of how we’ve come so far from our Sonora days.
Your friend,
Isaac
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Isaac Song
Staying in touch
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Cleo James
March 16, 2021 6:30 AM
I hope so by Cleo James
Sometimes, Cleo wasn't entirely sure what to make of the directions that Isaac's life had taken. She was tangentially aware of ritzy corporate parties, because occasionally people would throw these glittering bashes where the rich could outbid each other on food cooked by famous chefs, or on exclusive once in a lifetime experiences, with the money all going to charity. Bigger charities than the ones she worked for, but she knew of the concept of exclusive and overly-expensive parties. Having grown up in a two bedroom flat above a shop, it was a world that it was impossible to wrap her head around. There was something slightly obscene about spending that much money on eliminating suffering, making it a luxury product to raffle off to the rich. And that was just the charity ones. She was well aware that they were a minority, and that there were people willing to drop what she regarded as serious money on a single meal or a night out just because. They all would have existed in a little bubble that Cleo could have ignored, save to feel vaguely scornful towards or disgusted by, had it not been for Isaac. It was all a bit of a far cry from the person she had thought she knew. The grounded, compassionate boy who had wanted to be a healer. The one who had been interested in getting to know the human side of her. She wasn’t sure whether it meant she was being too judgemental of everyone who moved in those kinds of circles, or whether Isaac had turned into someone else.She tried not to let it bother her too much. For starters, the kind of person Isaac turned into really wasn’t any of her business, or not much of it anyway. It wasn’t like it affected her life the way it would have done if they’d carried on dating. And it wasn’t nice to think snippy thoughts about someone she was supposed to be friends with. She supposed, if she kept on thinking too many of them, it might become the case that they were too different to be friends. The fact that that made her sad let her know she hadn’t reached that point yet (whilst occasionally, unfairly, she knew, making her a little mad at Isaac for not turning out how she had wanted him to). She just had a soft spot for the way he had been, and even if that was over, she supposed she wanted to still be able to care about him…
She had taken some time in answering his letter, deciding to wait until she had something definite to tell him, and so it was about a month later when she sat down to reply, digging out his letter to reminder herself what he’d talked about. On reread, it was better. The sweetness was still there, in between all the details of a world she didn’t understand, and wasn’t sure she really wanted to. Still, she cared about how it treated Isaac, because he still seemed to care so much about everything around him.
Dear Isaac,
I’m not sure I’ve ever ventured far enough away to feel like a stranger coming back. I’m sure that won’t surprise you. I did actually cross several states to go to a work conference last year, and that’s probably far enough for now. I bought a mug and everything, just so you can be sure it was a proper adventure. I know what it’s like to feel out of step, of course, though in a very different way. But once a Pecari, always a Pecari, so I’m sure you’re already bouncing back.
It seems like you already know more about the wedding industry than me. Intense? Aren’t weddings meant to be fun and romantic?
I’d love to hear about Barcelona sometime, either write me a few stories or perhaps we can catch up over a drink. It’s nice to have someone to vicariously adventure through.
It sounds like you’re doing a lot to make yourself stand out, so I hope things go well when you finish studying. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but it sounds like you won’t need too much help from me.
Speaking of drinks, celebrating, jobs etc…. I got the one I told you about! I figured I’d wait to reply to your letter until I actually knew that. It feels very surreal, and a little bit scary, but mostly exciting. I’m currently working my notice, and I’ll start in a couple of weeks.
Take care,
Cleo.
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Cleo James
I hope so
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