S1 Week 7 Bonus Story: Yellow

A Happy Family Prepares for a New Baby

Welcome to Trainwrecks, a free-to-read fiction serial that follows a group of six Seattle-adjacent friends from the year 2004 to the year 2015. Join Luna Cruz, Sebastian Velasquez, Dimitri and Victoria Hale, Duke Kingston, and Jasmine Nolan as they stumble their way from adolescence to adulthood, falling in love, making mistakes, overcoming their pasts, and staying together through it all.

Friday posts are for paid subscribers. For $5 a month or a discounted rate of $50 a year, readers will get four bonus stories that delve deeper into each individual character’s history or the narrative’s current events. You do not need this content to understand the main story.

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September 1989

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“How come we have a speed limit sign in our house?”

Dimitri waited for his mother to answer. Her eyes were closed, swollen feet propped on the coffee table that had survived the journey from their apartment to their new home. Her hands laid atop her pregnant belly, fingers spread out as if to form a protective cage around Dimitri’s baby sister.

A sister! He was going to meet his sister soon! He couldn’t wait!

A sigh came from his father down the hall. He’d been hard at work painting the nursery since morning. Dimitri had been allowed to help, but after a few swipes of the brush, he’d gotten tired. Painting was not as easy as coloring. And yet, his strong, capable father had worked on, breaking only for lunch. Dimitri wanted to be just like him someday.

All the windows and the screen door were open to let out the paint fumes because they were bad for the baby and bad for his mother’s nausea. A breeze pushed its way through the house, stirring his mother’s hair. She finally opened her eyes and stared at the speed limit sign, which hung on the wall above their large, boxy television. “Notice anything weird about it?” she asked.

Dimitri hopped down from the couch and walked over to inspect the sign. Speed Limit 35. He thought long and hard before he pointed at the three. “It’s upside-down!”

“It sure is.” She patted the space next to her and he came running back to her side. “It used to be outside, y’know, where speed limit signs are supposed to be? I’d pass it all the time on my way to work, and that damn three would just… haunt me. So when your dad wanted to go on a date with me, I told him I’d only do it if he brought me the sign.”