Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests (and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare

DAY 7 – Never Shaken

The year is 2016.

APRIL 22, 12:30 PDT.

Olsen Strip Mall in Palo Alto, California. In front of CoffeeHut, a worldwide coffee house chain, two people are quarreling.

One has lemon bits in his hair and the other is crying. That's a bit confusing. So let's start a week prior to the incident.

APRIL 15, 16:25 PDT, FRIDAY

"I have to take Art?" Wally West nearly shouts at his college advisor who winces at the sudden volume. "Dr. Lee," the speedster continues. "I'm a Physics major. Why on earth would I have to take art?!"

"Mr. West," murmurs the weathered Korean professor from his spot in his large leather swivel chair, "Art is the noted to be the least burdening elective and Stanford requires at least 2 credits in an elective for graduation. This is a liberal arts college, after all."

Wally immediately regrets trying to get a liberal arts degree.

But it was his fault. He knows that.

He insisted that he and Artemis attend the same school and Palo Alto had the only college on the West coast that offers majors in Physics for him and Public Policy for her. He insisted that they live as far away from the Happy Harbor and anything dealing with the Justice League as possible. He insisted and he knew.

"I know this is a difficult time for you. And I want to remind you that the possibility of you taking the rest of the year off is completely acceptable considering the circumstances."

Wally glances off to the side, his brows furrowing.

Mrs. Nguyen-Crock informed the school a couple weeks ago about the (supposed) passing of her daughter. The whole Counseling Center chased after Wally until that point. In fact, the lack of a shrink in his advisor's room surprised him.

"No." Wally mutters. "Artemis would have wanted this. And there's only 3 months left. She would've wanted me to finish."

Really meaning, that she (Artemis) wants (present tense) him to graduate no matter what. She made a point of it before she went on her "suicide" mission.

The professor leans over to uncharacteristically place a comforting hand on Wally's shoulder.

Wally cringes on the inside. He hates this.

Thoroughly.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Art's the only requirement I have left?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Is there a quarter class that I can take for that?"

"Hmmm, here's a list of quarters you can take that will satisfy the requirement."

The Physics professor gingerly takes a sheet of paper off of his desk and hands him it to him.

"Thanks, Dr. Lee." Wally says as he takes it and quickly scans over the various courses.

ART 202 Painting. 'No, I can't even finger-paint well.'

ART 204 Community Art. 'The hours conflict. So no.'

ART 307 Survey of Religious Art. 'Hell No.'

"I highly recommend the Photography and Culture class, it's an experimental course," Dr. Lee mutters.

Wally looks down to the 5th listing on the paper. It seems reasonable enough.

'Photography couldn't be that hard. Could it? And who doesn't understand culture?'

"I can do the hours."

"Great. I'll take care of it for you. Will you be fine if you start on Monday?" The professor asks as he swivels his chair towards his desk to handle the logistics on the computer.

Wally releases a slow "Yeah" in response.

APRIL 18, 14:00 PDT, MONDAY

Wally saunters over to the Art Department, not looking forward to the class at all. Actually walking into the room makes the feeling even worse.

Why?

He's the minority. "Minority" meaning that he was the only Caucasian male in the room. Filled with every other race other than his own, the art class of only 12 female students stares him down. He notices another defining characteristic of his new art class.

"Hipsters," he mutters bitterly.

He had hoped those had died out with the fad 3 years ago. 'Great. I should have seen that one coming. It is an art class,' he thinks to himself.

"Wally West?" a demure woman with spectacles and a quirky sweater vest asks. Definitely the prof.

Wally nods.

"Welcome to Photography and Culture!"

"...Thanks."

"Lucky for you, we haven't gone too far in course material and don't worry about making up last month's assignments. We just want this to be a comfortable environment that fosters artistic inspiration and expression," the professor smiles at him.

Wally forces a half-smile back.

"Yeah." He takes a syllabus from her and finds a seat in the back.

The lecture remains interesting enough for a meager span of 7 minutes. Only 73 to go.

Dr. Tanaka, who – not all that surprisingly – is Japanese, divulges a brief history of Hispanic art and its translation into an American context. With a slight and slow accent, she pronounces each English and Spanish word purposefully.

'Why am I here?' Wally moans silently and slouches into the chair almost until his chin is level with desk portion of the chair. Soon those questions turn into 'I am going to die.'

Eternity passes and the clock finally clicks into "3:20."

Everyone rises; the sound of shuffling papers and zipping backpacks overpowers the last couple comments Dr. Tanaka makes on Frida Kahlo.

"Don't forget! You and your partners need to have the rough drafts of your projects turned in by next week!"

Wally pauses as he is about to cross the threshold to his freedom. He spins on his heels and takes a few steps toward the professor.

"There's a partner project?"

"Yes, a fairly big one. One that requires you to use environment as your inspiration! 35% of your grade."

Wally's mouth almost drops to the ground. "But I just –"

"Oh, yes. There is the problem of your partner. Well..."

'It's more of a problem of me actually wanting to do it.' He inwardly groans.

"Oh, I know! I can pair you with my T.A. She's a wonderful girl. Here for graduate studies."

"In art?"

"Oh no, in Communications and something else strange. Criminal Minds was it?"

"Criminal Justice? Criminal Minds was a show that ended a couple years ago. Criminal Justice is a I.S. under Public Policy," Wally noted.

"Oh ho," she laughs slowly and nods just as slowly. "How about I give you her email. Hmm?"

"Sure."

Dr. Tanaka grins at him, her eyes folding into perfect little slits. She hums as she takes out a scrap piece of paper and scribbles down a slur of letters.

'Great.'

DAY 7

'Are you here yet? I'm standing in front of CoffeeHut.' Linda types into her XPhone 9 while tapping her foot impatiently.

The California air swelters around her. She's too used to Midwestern weather. She glances behind her at the CoffeeHut and its glorious air-conditioned rooms behind her. She eyes the poster on its glass walls saying: "Think Coffee & Co. is better? Try an espresso shot for free and figure it out for yourself!"

Then she glances dejectedly at her tumbler that had their competitor's label pasted on it in huge letters.

'It's not my fault I worked at Coffee & Co.' she says to herself as she takes a sip. 'Why am I so concerned about this? I should just go in and sit in the AC. It's a free country...yeah, I'm going to...nooo...I'm not. I'm the type of person who buys fries at a burger joint just to use their bathroom. Ugh, why am I so polite? Why do I have to be Asian in this capacity? Why is it always so hot in California? Summer everyday is fine but gosh the heat is going to kill me before my advisor does.'

She looks down at her tumbler full of Lemon Honey tea. Maybe that was the reason for her heightened temperature. But she could not go without a day without this tea. This tea made her happy. It made life worth living. Whenever she would take one sip of this sweet nectar of life she would feel as though making the decision to TA an art class while taking two graduate courses at Stanford wasn't too horrible of an idea.

"Park?"

Linda spins around to see a familiar face. Her eyes widen. "West?!" She taps the send button.

Wally approaches her with skepticism and forced adherence to the societal convention of making small talk.

"Why are you in California?"

"I'm -," The sound of Wally's text tone interrupts her. She makes the connection as he pulls out his phone. With a humored smile, she extends her hand to him. "I'm your TA, Mr. 'wallman-at-jlu-dot-com'."

Wally half-heartedly returns the humored smile, while trying to forget the fact that he still uses the email address he made in the ninth grade and shakes her hand.

"I didn't give you my name, did I? Ms. 'kyungah-park-at-keynote-dot-com'. Since when do you go by your Korean name?"

"Since I dumped Rick." She explains.

"...Oh."

"Yeah," she chirps.

"How is he?"

Linda shot him a piercing but amused look. "I just informed you that I dumped my now ex-fiancé and 'How is he?' comes out of your mouth?" She takes a sip of her tea and smiles at him sardonically.

"Excuse me for trying to make conversation," Wally retorts angrily and unnecessarily, leaning in for emphasis.

"Well, I see that you haven't outgrown your relapse into immaturity," Linda frowns.

"Well, I can see that you haven't outgrown your I-am-better-than-anyone-and-anything attitude."

She scoffs and takes a sip of her tea. "How Artemis fell for a guy like you, I cannot understand."

"Artemis died." Wally spits back with complete derision.

Linda's face freezes in horror and she faces him with wide eyes.

Her hand quickly goes up to cover her open mouth.

Wally glances away angrily towards the ground, upset that he had to resort to lying to get the upper hand in a juvenile argument.

"West. I - ." Linda stares at him woefully. "I'm sorry. I really am," she continues, "I didn't know and if I did I would not have said that. I really am sorry."

"Sure you are." he says curtly then turns to walk away from her. Obviously, he didn't mean any of that but he wasn't going to forgive her.

She didn't deserve his forgiveness, walking around thinking that she was better than everyone.

He felt horribly justified as he stalked down the sidewalk.

"새끼야!" Wally hears Linda scream from behind him, then felt a thud to the head and lukewarm liquid flowing from his hair.

He paused, having the realization slowly dawn on him that his TA had just thrown her tumbler full of tea at his head.

"She didn't." he tells himself as he touches his hair to make sure.

She did.

He glowers and whips himself around, ready for a verbal and maybe even physical confrontation. But she beats him to it.

"Look here, you arrogant carrot-top! I gave you an olive branch – and I meant it – and you threw it on the ground and spat on it, you 바보."

"I really don't appreciate you using another language to insult me. I actually know some Korean and you-"

"I'M. NOT. DONE. YET."

He quickly becomes silent.

"Frankly, West, I know it's hard but if you think that your girlfriend dying gives you leeway for being an absolute ass – you're wrong."

Wally performs a double take.

"Do you really think that you're the only one who deals with that kind of stuff? You know you aren't and you know what I went through. You…YOU...You didn't have to see her... right in front of you. You didn't have to hold her as she-. F*ck."

Her voice breaks and Wally's pride and soul crumble along with it. She grasps the warm California air with desperate hands and almost instantly, the warm California air becomes frigid.

Linda breathes deeply and perseveres to mutter out the rest of her tirade but all that comes out are brief phrases of utter grief. "I didn't want - Damn it - I thought I was done with this - but her body...her baby… " she stops, unable to say anymore.

She looks up from her grief and glares at him with her dark almond eyes filled with tears. With forced articulation, "You aren't the only one who deals with death. You -,"

She reaches the precipice and it's too much. She breaks again and tears start to flow.

She and Wally stand in a complete stupor, both caught off guard by her crying.

'She didn't even cry at her funeral.' Wally thinks to himself as he quickly and surprisingly (to himself, mostly) wraps his arms around her in an awkward but comforting embrace. The cold air slowly dissipates with the sudden warmth.

He doesn't say anything.

He couldn't. He knew that.

His eyebrows furrow at the thought. No matter how much he justified his actions, he had nothing over Park now with this random confession of hers. He didn't have the right to treat her as rudely as he had.

After all, Artemis was still alive. In fact, everyone he held close was alive and well, despite dancing dangerously close to death. All his problems remained with the living. Linda, on the other hand, dealt with so much death and yet could live life as she has.

"God. This is embarrassing." Linda murmurs as she wipes her tears away with one hand and gently pushes Wally away with the other.

"Park..." he grabs his hair, remembers that it's wet and tries to think of something else to say.

"Please don't say 'I'm sorry'. That's my line." She smiles weakly. "I was being just as rude."

He attempts a smirk. "I was still being an ass."

Then a silence descends upon them and Linda runs her hand through her long dark hair. They both glance to and fro, noticing that they obtained curious glances with his tea hair and her sobbing.

Water. Water.

Wally blushes sheepishly and half-expects Linda to do the same, but instead she glowers at their observers, forcing them to turn their glances elsewhere.

Linda Park does not blush. But she doesn't cry either.

She forcibly rubs the leftover moisture from her eyes and straightens herself out.

"You're not a typical Korean girl, huh?" Wally asks.

Linda then focuses her glower on him, wondering whether or not to disregard his slightly racist and sexist comment. She decides not to open another can of worms and starts walking down the street while stating: "Let's get out of here."

A couple hours later, they sit on a park bench and flip through the photos on Linda's camera.

"That's a good one." Wally comments on the one they took at a nearby Chinese restaurant.

"West." Linda's tone suddenly acquires a seriousness that catches Wally off guard. "Can I ask what happened to her?"

"To who?"

"...Artemis?"

"Oh. Well." Wally huffs. He meets Linda's concerned and confounded gaze as his thoughts scatter. 'Geez. I really don't want to have to lie anymore. Everyone keeps treating me differently and it kills me because she isn't even dead."

"What? Wait... What?!"

His eyes go wide.

"Did I just say that aloud?"

She just blinks.

He blinks back and makes a mental note to work on keeping his mouth shut while also listing the horrible implications of that one little slip-up.

'Try getting out of this one alive, you idiot.' Wally scolds himself. "She's um...ugh." He turns away from her, trying to piece together a believe excuse for his words but he blanks.

"Sh*t." He mumbles out.

"West…"

He doesn't dare look at her, see her judging eyes. But the warm and comforting sensation of her hand appears on his shoulders and he relents.

She gazes into his darkened lime-colored eyes and showed him how serious and sympathetic she was.

"I know that it's hard and I know that you want to keep her alive as much as possible but…" she begins, earnestly.

'She thinks I'm seeing Artemis' ghost. She thinks I'm crazy.' Wally realizes and cannot contain his laughter.

His reaction confuses then peeves Linda who gravely attempted to act as counselor.

But then she realized that such a reaction might mean that Artemis may actually be alive. His statement may not have been a sign of delusion. Her hand retracts from its position on his shoulder.

"Is she really alive?" she asks. Strangely, rather than feeling betrayed by the fact that he lied, Linda feels ecstatic. But more than anything, Linda feels curious.

"…"

"If you can't tell me, that's fine…I just want to help," she says, fairly matter-of-factly.

"I…" He stares off, his heart heavy from thinking about the implications of telling someone, from the previous burden of keeping such a secret, from putting his girlfriend in danger.

But those burdens became too much. He cannot contain them within his deteriorating heart. And he cannot rely on anyone. He was alone.

Even with all his friends and all his allies, Wally knew that he felt so completely alone that it frightened him.

So here he sits on a bench with a person who knows of death, willing to share his burden.

But was he willing to share?

Yes. He wanted to share, desperate even – though he would never admit. He needs to tell someone. He needs a friend to rely on. Not a superhero with ulterior intentions. Not a sidekick with lacking sympathy. Just a friend.

He relents, almost immediately. "You cannot tell anyone," he says.

She nods.

"She was caught up in some supervillian incident and had to be put in the… Witness Protection Program. Had to fake her own death too. I'm the only one who knows."

"Not even her mother knows?" she asks.

"Yeah. And it's killing me. Do you know how awful I felt when I had to tell her?"

"She must have been ruined."

"That's an understatement!" He throws his hands up into the air. "I can't – I can't comfort her with the fact that her daughter is actually alive! I can't contact Artemis to see if she's ok. I can't do anything. I can't even talk to anyone about it!"

"Well, you're talking to me."

Wally stares at her in wonder, a heaviness suddenly released from his downtrodden shoulders.

She simply smiles back and takes his hand. "And no matter how crazy your story is, you can always talk to me."

As the warm California wind whispers around them, a sense of comfort fills him. A sense he had not felt in a long time so he takes her up on that offer.

They exchange phone calls every week or so. Soon enough, they talk to each other every night. They talk about Artemis, about movies, about food, about death, about life.

"Will you be able to sleep?" Linda asks one night as she crawls onto her futon while she balances her phone against her ear with her shoulder.

He just had a breakdown and it took her a good 2 hours to calm him down.

"Maybe. Did you know that I still sleep on my side of the bed?"

"I figured as much."

"I just keep hoping that she'll be there next to me in the morning."

"Yeah. I know what you mean. When Manami…left…I would sit at her kitchen table and just wait for her to appear," she sighs deeply through the phone. "But at least you have the assurance that she's alive and well."

"I guess." 'But not really. Every minute of every hour of every day, she's putting her life in danger to perform a mission that I cannot and will never approve of.

"Park?"

"Hmm?"

He hears her stifled yawn and the click of her lamp shutting off.

"Thank you," he whispers.

"For what?" Another yawn.

"For listening... despite being obviously exhausted."

"I'm not that tired," she lies as she yawns again.

"Sure." He laughs, "You know, I would probably be shipped off to Arkham right now if it weren't for you."

"West, I'm just thankful that you trust me enough to tell me all of this. Besides, it's the least I could do. And, honestly, I still feel indebted to you for punching Randall all those years ago."

He conjures up the image of knocking out the jerk and chuckles softly. "Yeah."

"And have I thanked you enough for setting up that internship with your Aunt?"

"I think so considering that you thank me every time we talk. You know, it really isn't that big of a deal. She was looking for someone to help out at the station while she's on maternity leave."

"Still, your efforts have been greatly appreciated."

Wally snorts.

"West...why do you do that?" she asks, concerned and accusatory.

"Do what?" he asks.

"I know that was involuntary, just now, but why do you always demean yourself?"

Wally feels every muscle in his face fall lax. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you always disregard everything you do. And I don't know why," she stresses her incomprehension. "You have so many talents. You're decent-looking. Heck, you even got an amazing, beautiful, smart, funny, awesome girl like Artemis to fall in love with you...despite," she ends, jokingly.

He cracks a smile. "Despite?" he counters with a laugh, "And are you just saying all that stuff about Artemis because you figured out how similar you guys were, aren't you?"

"No! I wouldn't dare," she jests through the phone. "But we are pretty similar except for the fact that she has a bombshell body. Oh. My. Gosh."

"Yeah, empty bed doesn't help."

She groans.

"You see, West, I can't tell if I should laugh or feel sorry for you."

"I don't know," he sighs, hard. "...both, I guess?"

"Just," she sighs too, "Just live your life to the fullest, you know? And if Art really is your 'spitfire' or whatever term you used, you guys will find a way. Not that I'm one who believes in soul mates and all that crap but yeah."

Wally abstains from saying anything for a moment, simply thinking. "You're really tired, huh?" he mutters.

"Shut up. I'm going to bed."

"Goodnight, Park."

"Mmmm...oh, really quick, do you know a kid named Bart?"

That last phone call ended with Wally fuming about 'spoilers' and telling her that he would call her back.

But he doesn't.

Instead, three weeks later, Artemis calls her with news that Wally had died.