“It’s an apology– kind of. Like the ones actors make when they realise there’s no way they’re not getting cancelled. You can read it now, if you want.”
I shook my head. “I can’t let her have the last word, Cotton. Otherwise, she’d win.” I’d meant that as a joke, but that was answered with another question about how much progress I’d made on finding a therapist.
inworld
he more I think of it, the more our system represents that classic Divine Dichotomy. The Apollonian and the Dionysiac. The Failures and the Abominations, the Readers and the Stories, the Silver and the Gold, the Heart and the Mind.
Champagne would always taste like freedom, like the Tuesdays I spent without April. I opened my eyes and saw Kaspar beside my bed at Ethniu’s, pouring me a glass in a flute. It motioned for me to raise my glass, then it clinked it with his own. “I’ve heard tell that you’ve been liberated from monogamy at last! This calls for a celebration!”
Ash fell silent for a moment. “Who– who else thinks this?” Their tone was accusatory, as if we were all having a laugh at their expense and not terrified they’d end up in a double suicide.
“It’d– uh, be a shorter list of those who don’t think it. And I think that’s limited to–… you and… Maybe, like, his cat.” I don’t try to be a smartass; my dickishness is au natural. “
They opened their laptop, opened a new Word document, and began to type. “[April], If you are reading this, I’m breaking up with you, and blocking you on all accounts.”
That, containing a heavy reference to suicide, caused my mind to fold over in on itself and open up some dark neural pathways that led to only poor decisions. I screenshot this and sent this to Aberle, so that the trauma-induced panic could now bombard the system through two sources,
Aberle, then, out of the worry of his bleeding-heart Cancer Moon, did precisely what I told him we must not do.
He told Ash that March was abusive.
“[Ash] wants to move to the country because they apparently can’t be happy with too many opportunities, buildings, conveniences, or fucking TRANS RIGHTS around them.”
Xanthe and I had quarreled about this, recently. Indignant and possibly more than a little self-pitying, they had snapped, “Oh, so I was basically your stunt double that had nerve endings. Wasn’t that the time Prosper ran me through with a fucking sword?”
I stared at them. “Yes. While I was handling [April] and you were primarily out to get drunk, vent to Cotton, and cheat on [April] with [Avery.]”
Xanthe squinted at me thoughtfully. “You know, comparatively, being stabbed was probably preferable.”
When the most established couple of the house came home, I’d already seen the Facebook posts about the proposal and fawned over them with congratulations and exclamations of adoration. March reacted, predictably, less than ideally. “[Ash], could I talk to you for a second?”
I loved the inworld. I didn’t fully understand it, nor did I interact with anyone as much as watched over them. All of them, Xanthe included, felt at once what I was and what I never could be. Such glorious personalities– a smattering of gods and monsters and both, and I loved them them all.
Living Fiction 