Poking at an old idea for a sapphic romantasy with Regency vibes.
Vinsen had told her to wait for him by the mews.
Liola assumed he’d meant a few minutes. Fine, a quarter of an hour, although in her book that already verged on impolite. But time stretched on and on, the azure summer skies fading into gray with a pink trimming over the horizon, and Vinsen was nowhere in sight.
She considered going back to the house and asking where he was. She considered turning around and walking home. But every time those thoughts sprang up in her mind, they were followed by the image of her mother’s pale, tear-stricken face.
Her family owed too much gold to the Rezenforts, all thanks to her late father’s gambling addiction. They desperately needed a way to soften their wealthy neighbors’ hearts toward them for the debt to be restructured. Perhaps even forgiven, if miracles ever happened. And between Liola, her mother, and her grandmother, they’d been able to come up with one way to achieve that: through Liola charming Vinsen Rezenfort. The heir of the family, the one everyone in this estate doted on.
Now, he had either seen right through her ploy and chose to humiliate her on purpose, or he was simply an inconsiderate oaf. At this point, Liola wasn’t sure what was worse.
She drew a deep breath and nearly choked on the abundance of scents in the air. In isolation, none of them were too bad, not even the musky smell of horse sweat. Most were, in fact, downright pleasant: the sweetness of flowers blooming in the rolling hills past the fence, the freshness of hay, the light bitterness of sun-warmed tree bark. Mixed together, though, they became as overwhelming as her fears and thoughts.
Inside the long wooden building, a horse huffed and neighed. A stableboy hurried past, carrying a bucket of oats. The sky darkened further, and one by one, orbs of magelight sprung up along the length of the high fence—a majestic sight that only served to remind Liola of her precarious situation.
Her family hadn’t been able to afford magical lanterns outside of the house for months now. And they’d been forced to sell all their horses but one.
“Have you ever been to a fairy market?”
The sudden question jolted Liola out of her wallowing. She looked around wildly for its source, half-expecting a magical creature to have made it through the estate’s defenses to taunt her. But nw, the girl who stood in the shadow of a sprawling oak tree was as ordinary as one could be while wearing male riding clothes and boasting a flaming mane of loose, windswept hair that went past her waist. It was the hair that made her so easy to recognize.
Janiz, Lady Rezenfort’s wayward niece who’d come to live here at the start of summer for some obscure keep-it-inside-the-family reason. They’d never been introduced, but Liola had caught glimpses of her. She knew they were of the same age. She’d heard that Janiz kept to herself, disappeared gods knew where for hours on end, and had made it clear she wasn’t interested in any offers of courtship. Once, Liola had tried asking Vinsen about his cousin and the vehement derision in his response was shocking.
She couldn’t deny she’d been intrigued and fascinated by this newcomer for months, and yet she’d done nothing about it. It was, after all, dangerous to indulge in fascination for other girls. Especially in Liola’s present position.
And yet here was Janiz, a vision of freckles and impish dimples, and Liola couldn’t look away.
“I haven’t,” she said after an all too obvious delay and hoped the warmth in her cheeks could be written off as a touch of the setting sun. “Why do you ask, Miss Janiz?”
The girl laughed softly and took a step out of the shadows. “Recognizable, am I?” She traced a fingertip up the bridge of her nose, as though fixing glasses that weren’t there. “Well, see, Miss Liola, I have this annoying habit of filling awkward silences whenever I spot one. And you’ve been standing there quite silently... and quite awkwardly, too, if I may say so.”
“Oh.” Liola knew she should feel embarrassed, but she was too busy getting captivated.
Especially when Janiz ventured even closer.
“I’ve been to several fairy markets,” she confessed in a low voice, eyes sparkling. “Back home in Atissia and here in the hills. I have a tree house just beyond the fence that I’ve built myself, and I store all my purchases there. Would you like to come and see?”
That sounded like a strange offering and a really bad idea. But Liola could see nothing good in hovering about waiting for Vinsen to remember her existence, either. And out of two bad ideas, why not pick the fun one?
“I would be delighted,” she said.
Perhaps through Janiz, she could get into the Rezenforts’ good graces just as well.
A flashback for Champagne Problems. Miq and Elair way before the break-up. Considering what's currently going on in the draft, I should maybe write more flashbacks for them as therapy.
“I’ve decided,” Miqualis announces as he shoulders his way into the room with a soggy cardboard box pressed to his chest, “that if the weather absolutely insists on keeping us hauled up here, we might as well—”
“Get wasted?” Elair quips, coming up to take a peek at the box’s contents. There are a few bottles too many for two people, which makes him suspect that Miq is planning on having friends over. It irks him a little—the fact itself, and how he’s not been consulted on it. He shoves down the feeling.
It’s the end of a long, busy week, and the rainstorm couldn’t have come at a worse time, really. Of course, it’s not like anyone here is physically incapable of going out in spite of all the water hauling down from the skies. There are spells for everything. Protective energy bubbles, better than any umbrella. Except there’s little fun in roaming around the gray, slippery streets even if you stay dry. So the number of students itching with unspent energy in the Academy’s dormitories is on the uptick.
More so, admittedly, in Elair’s dorm where people generally have less coin to throw at their ennui. That’s precisely the reason why Elair is huddled here with Miq. That, and not his recently discovered addiction to his boyfriend’s presence. There is, in fact, no such addiction. Not really. He’s perfectly emotionally independent.
Miq grins, and Elair’s insides melt. “I was going to say, might as well have fun while we’re at it, but yeah.” He sets the box down in the middle of the fluffy white carpet and kicks the door close with the heel of his boot, then draws Elair close. “And I ordered extra, so if anyone decides to come bother us, we can pay them off with a bottle or two of Dom Korund’s finest.”
Oh.
“Won’t you be bored with me as your only company?” Elair asks. His fingers settle comfortably at the nape of Miq’s neck, playing with that one ginger strand that always ends up longer than the rest, even when he’s fresh off a haircut.
Miqualis bends down to steal a regrettably short kiss.
"On the contrary. I think we're in for the best week-end ever."
Tales from the Witch House is one of my oldest stories/settings that keeps growing out of control, changing directions, sprouting new characters and plotlines, and generally being a wild urban fantasy kitchen sink thing that refuses to stick to one shape. Some of the characters keep staying the same though. Like Tim and Leo, my favorite chaotic anxious fuck-ups in love.
The city was creeping up closer and closer to the Witch’s House. It wasn’t so evident if you stuck to the kitchen whose windows faced the desolate closed courtyard, or the living room that had no windows at all. Maybe if Leo was still only an occasional guest in this place, he would be able to pretend that this wasn’t happening. That the House’s borrowed time wasn’t running out. But he was now living under this leaking roof, sharing a room with Tim, and every time he passed the window with its sheer curtains, he caught a glimpse of the street on the other side of the barbed wire fence. What used to be a boring gray patch of asphalt and concrete, a border drawn between the House and the railway track, now brimmed with life. Streetlamps shone brightly through the evening fog, and the buildings were littered with signs for take-out venues, mom-and-pop shops, and other small businesses.
The Witch's House used to be an island drifting off the edge of the world. Now, it felt like a sinking ship about to crash into the shoreline.
Behind Leo’s back, the door hinges screeched. “The new guy is awful,” Tim complained.
Leo smirked, turning away from the window. “You say it about every new person.” It was a relief, really, to get this reminder that their broken boat was still getting new passengers. If the Witch kept letting people in, that could only mean she didn’t expect for the whole project to collapse any moment, right?
“Yes, but this one is particularly awful! He just called Tyssa a ‘buxom babe.’ Who talks like that?”
“The new guy, apparently,” Leo said. He hopped up to sit on the edge of the shabby, scratched desk, squeezing himself between Tim’s laptop and the ancient lamp with its dragonfly-patterned fabric shade. None of the mismatched chairs in the room offered much comfort for his lanky frame. The sunken armchair in the corner was occupied by Tim’s guitar and a stack of laundry they really needed put away.
He supposed he could go plop down on the bed, like Tim just did. Except that was the thing: Tim was already there, stretched over the faded blue comforter, his toes nudging at the low table tucked between the bed and the door, the one with the record player and a stack of dusty vinyls they never played. It would be the easiest thing in the world to come join him, tuck himself against Tim, take a peek at whatever he was scrolling through on his phone, steal a kiss or two.
Get hopelessly late for work as a result.
“I have looked up ‘buxom’ in the dictionary,” Tim proclaimed, “and I have serious suspicions the guy is sexist, stuck-up, and old-fashioned.”
“The way you say it makes the last part sound like the worst of his crimes.”
Tim let out an over-the-top groan. “Love. Please. Take me seriously.”
The endearment made Leo freeze. He dug his fingers into the edge of the desk and forced a smile in place of the real one that had dimmed. “That’s really an impossible request.” He was speaking lightly, right? Just joking around. Tim wasn’t going to notice any weirdness.
Tim tossed the phone on Leo’s pillow and turned to his side, propping himself up on one elbow. “Is something wrong?”
Crap. Why was he getting so perceptive lately? Leo drew a breath. We did promise each other to be honest, he reminded himself. Maybe it was his turn to start.
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing.” Yup. Perfect start there. His suddenly damp palm slid uncomfortably against the unevenly polished wooden surface. “It’s just—I like all the pet names and stuff, all right? But, um. Maybe save this particular one for, for when you really mean it.”
Which was probably never, and he had now successfully stuffed his foot in his mouth again, and Tim was going to—
“But I do love you.”
Leo’s train of thought crushed into a wall of rock-solid confusion.
“You... love me.”
Tim sat up slowly, his brow furrowed. “Well, yeah? I mean, I always have. Like, literally always? From that very first night in the club? Come on, you must know. Everyone knew before I did.”
“I—” But this didn’t make any sense. What did he mean, everyone knew? Yes, of course, now that Leo thought about it, there had been all those jokes. Karolina needling Tim about being oh so smitten, Gella making cutesy faces. Xan’s exaggerated eyerolls. Agnia’s grumbling.
Leo thought those jokes had been at his expense.
“You... didn’t know,” Tim stated. He sounded kind of lost.
“Well, you never said! And the way you were acting around me, up until the last time we got back together—” Leo forced himself to shut up. There was no use rehashing it. Those old hurts were scabbing over just fine. The two of them had sorted it all out, hadn’t they? They were literally living together. He was here to stay. The past didn’t matter.
Tim had the grace to look sheepish. “Well, yeah, I was an ass, I know. But that was precisely because I was trying to come to terms with—ugh. Why am I so bad at this?” He dragged his fingers through his dark hair, and then suddenly, adorably, he was babbling. “Listen, I’m a coward, okay? I met you once, and I couldn’t think of anything else. And then we kept, um, meeting, and every second with you was like stars colliding. Yes, I know! It sounds sappy and stupid! But that’s how it felt. How it still feels. So I chickened out and tried to act like you weren’t important, because at that time, I was still fucked-up. I mean, I’ll probably always be fucked-up, that’s like, my style! But when we met, I still believed wanting something openly was the surest way to never get it. And I’ve never, ever wanted anything the way I want to be with you.”
With a prompt like this, could it be anything other than steampunk?
"Fascinating," the tinkerer murmured, bending low over the desk. She peered at the weird contraption through her thick goggles. "Would you just look at it! Those gears, so perfectly meshed—and the crystal! I've never seen one cut so precisely. I wonder what it might do—"
"Yeah. Sure. Very pretty," Louada said in a flat monotone. She supposed there must have been something impressive about the device, what with how much she'd been paid to retrieve it and the kind of security she'd had to get through. It really was a nice-looking thing, all shine and moving parts. The truth was, though, she had no interest in aethertech. Only in stealing it.
Besides, there were far more enthralling sights in this cluttered workroom. Such as the single thin strand of hair escaping the tight knot at the base of the tinkerer's neck, curling against the spot where her pulse fluttered. Or the way her gray robes hugged every curve of her body. Or those small breathless noises she made whenever she found another exciting thing about her newest toy.
Louada wondered if she could get those noises out of her under different circumstances, as well. What it would take.
"Pretty? Yes, why, I suppose so. The craftsmanship is exquisite! But it's really the functionality that wows me here. Just look at this! It shouldn't be possible for this spring to unfold in both directions, and yet it does. I wonder if this is because of the way the dual magnets are set up. My, I've never seen anything like that!"
Louada cleared her throat. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
The tinkerer looked up. "What? Oh! Sorry, I got carried away—you must be expecting the rest of your reward, right?"
She straightened and took a step away from the table, rummaging through the pockets of her leather apron. Louada moved closer, delicately placed her fingers on top of the other woman's hand.
"You've already paid me in advance, remember? An arm and a leg, too. I don't need any more coins. I do, however, want to remind you that you promised to have dinner with me if I get you that thing."
"Oh." The goggles covered most of the tinkerer's face, yet did little to hide the blush darkening her brown skin. "I thought you were joking. You do that. Sometimes."
Smiling, Louada shook her head. "Never about the important things. So? Dinner?"
One more jolt of electric magic coursed through his body, and he gritted his rattling teeth to keep the groan in. This was nothing compared to the stuff other jailors came up with. Clearly, today's visitor was a rookie. The prince couldn't see his face, but the constant darkness only served to sharpen his hearing. All the signs were there: the labored breathing, the hard swallows, the shuffling of feet as the jailor backed away after every spell.
And then there were the pauses, too, like he had to muster his courage to reapply the magic each time.
"Is this the best you've got?" the prince managed when he was reasonably confident his tongue would obey without stuttering. "I'm getting bored, you know. At least come up with something creative."
"I—I'm sorry." The jailor's voice was barely audible. Had the prince imagined it? Whatever the answer was, a tendril of curiosity rose from somewhere beneath the pain and exhaustion, and he latched on it with every ounce of energy he possessed.
He waited for the jailor to say something else, to do something else. Nothing happened. There was only the heavy, patchy breathing, the kind that suggests the person might be crying—or holding back tears.
How interesting.
"You know," the prince said conversationally, "I don't mean to hog the spotlight, but I think out of the two of us, I’m in a better position to be all upset and weepy. Just saying."
The jailor shifted closer with another shuddery breath and squatted by the prince's side. "You're not going to be here forever," they whispered. Quiet again, so quiet, but the words were real. The prince was sure of that. "I promise. For now... I'm sorry."
Before the prince could properly consider the meaning of this, another weak yet vicious jolt hit his bound wrists, heating the manacles up.
Might be a rough draft of a far future scene for Champagne Problems. I'm not sure how fluffy it is, but compared to what I'm putting these guys through at the current stage of the story, it's definitely fluff.
Elair wasn’t supposed to be here.
He’d had the same feeling before, on each of the previous few occasions Miqualis had brought him home, but never with such persistent intensity. Every sound beyond the heavy oak doors sent ripples of cold down his spine. He kept wondering, irrationally, if Miq had his curtains drawn so tightly to avoid hostile eyes from the outside.
Those previous few times, at least he had been an announced guest. He’d been intimidated by the mansion’s opulence and scrutinized by its owners, but no one had explicitly told him he was unwelcome.
Now, Miq’s family didn’t even know he was here. Even more so, they didn’t know he was once again a part of their son and heir’s life. He felt like a smuggled item hidden at the bottom of a perfectly respectable cutlery drawer. Something illicit and tainted.
The door opened, and Elair staggered back, his eyes darting around the room for a hiding place.
“Relax. It’s just me.” Miqualis smiled, stepping inside with two steaming mugs in his hands. “I thought you’d be more comfortable if we avoided the servants coming in.”
He was, and he wasn’t. “And did your staff see nothing strange about you wishing to handle their tasks yourself? Or that you needed two cups of... whatever that is?”
“They’re perfectly used to my eccentricities,” Miq assured him. His brow creased slightly as he looked Elair over; he stepped closer, pausing only to place the mugs on his desk. “Have you been standing there this whole time?”
Elair tried to will away the self-conscious blush. “I’m quite comfortable standing.” Comfortable was the last thing he felt, though. If it wasn’t for Miq’s presence, he’d be gnawing at his nails. “I’ve been meaning to ask—is your family home now?”
“Lythania is.” Oh no. Not Miq’s sister. During all of their past meetings, she’d looked at Elair like she was politely anticipating him committing a crime—and now look, he’d proven her right! “She is awfully busy, though, so I don’t expect her to show up before supper.” Miq reached out, as if to take Elair by the hand or graze his fingers down his arm. He aborted the motion all too quickly. “Relax, all right? You’re safe here. I’ve got you. Come sit.”
Shoulders tense, Elair followed him to the desk that was as big as some dining tables. He pulled up one of the several chairs—seriously, why did Miq even need so many?—and settled into it. Up close, there could be no doubts about the contents of the mugs. The smell of chocolate tickled at his nostrils, filling his mind with memories of all the best times he’d had over the last few years. The late-night study hours, the walks around wintry street markets, the breezy autumn evenings in that little place by the docks. A string of free, cozy, careless moments. Shared with Miqualis, all of them.
He passed his fingers through the small cloud of steam, focused on the warmth seeping into his skin. His hands always got way too cold when anxiety took hold.
“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked.
“I seriously doubt our cook has poisoned the chocolate.” The mirth in Miq’s expression faded quickly when their eyes met. Elair must be doing a worse job than he thought at hiding his distress. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes, isn’t it? Yes, Lai, I’m sure. You’re perfectly safe here.”
“I was rather thinking about your safety,” Elair pointed out. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have this special power of attracting absolutely wretched situations, and this year, it’s been particularly out of control. So who knows? Maybe if I stick around, one of the Downhill crime rings will storm your property soon. Or there will be a weird magical anomaly. Or your father disowns you.”
Miqualis nodded solemnly, even as his lips twitched. “Perfectly valid concerns. I’m especially excited for the anomaly. Excellent practice for the final exams, wouldn’t it be?”
Elair couldn’t muster the heat for a proper glare, but he did his best. “I’m serious.”
“I know.”
A moment of hesitation, and, for the first time in months, Miq’s hand was on his shoulder, an inch away from his neck, right over that pesky muscle that knotted up whenever Elair’s nerves consumed him.
Elair expected himself to freeze. Instead, he relaxed into the familiarity and the warmth.
“Everything’s going to be fine.” Miq’s voice was scarcely above a whisper. “I’ve got you. Drink your chocolate.”
Another flashback about Miq and Elair from Champagne Problems being sweet together.
“What is this?” Elair asked weakly, his eyes fixed on the outrageous confectionary creation that dominated Miq’s desk. It could be, he supposed, called a cake, if one was seriously into underestimation. He was more inclined to call it a baked tower.
There were four tiers to it, the bottom one made of spongy, syrup-soaked biscuit the color of rust. If he squinted, he saw bits of crushed berries peeking out of the pastry’s pores. Next came a thick layer of airy meringue, rough with handfuls of nuts that contrasted with the gentle swirls of colorful, creamy frosting. The third level, as far as Elair could tell, was mostly some sort of soft whipped cheese, perhaps with crumbled cookies mixed in, and it alone looked like the most divinely delicious thing he’d ever witnessed. At the very top, perched like a regal crown, lay a spiky ball of hard-baked dough that was likely a lot more brittle than it looked and, if he were to make a wild guess, probably contained a lot of filling. The entire arrangement was adorned in intricately crafted flowers that combined sugarwork and real petals dusted with a fine sheen of edible gold.
Elair couldn’t fathom how much effort and skill went into constructing the entire thing. Or how much money.
“You said you were too tired to go out tonight,” Miqualis explained, coming up to pull him into a loose hug from behind. “And I know you always crave something sweet when you’re tired, so I wrote to my family’s chef this morning and asked them to come up with something.”
“But... what’s the occasion?” Elair quickly ran all possible dates through his mind. It was ages until his birthday. There were no successful exams or school projects to celebrate in the middle of the trimester. They didn’t have an anniversary, unless Miqualis attributed some extra special meaning to “eight months, two weeks, and three or four days.”
He felt Miq’s shrug against his back. “You’re too tired to go out and you have a sweet tooth. Isn’t that enough?”
“But. This.” Elair gestured helplessly at the egregious dessert in front of him. “You could have just ordered an apricot pie from the tavern down the street. Or a bar of chocolate.”
“Yes, but you have apricot pie and chocolate bars all the time.”
“Only because you keep geting them for me!”
“Well,” Miq said sensibly, “that’s why I’ve decided to shake things up.” There was a hint of vulnerability in his voice when he added, “Do you... not like it?”
Elair exhaled slowly through his nose. This is why this isn’t going to last, he reminded himself. Because he does stuff like this, as if it is totally normal, and I’m—me.
I’m just me, and I can’t even let him know.
“It’s just too much,” he said. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Why not, though? Listen, the cooks at the estate are bored. My father and sister are away on some boring business trip, and my mother is attending her fourth cousin’s wedding. They’re lonely and lost. I just found an excuse to give them a sense of purpose! And to make you smile, hopefully. Are you smiling?”
“I’m somber as can be,” Elair said, but it was really hard not to grin when he turned his head and met Miq’s eyes. “Thank you. You’re very thoughtful, especially to the cooks. Do you even have a knife in your room, to cut this monstrosity up?”
He was going about this all wrong, wasn’t he? He was supposed to be saying something different, curtailing all those ironic responses that he always fell back on when he was flustered. He was probably hurting Miq’s feelings, he was—
Miqualis grinned back at Elair and leaned in for a quick kiss. “Of course I do. I’m taking Rituals and Sacrifices this year, remember?”
“Oh the gods. Please don’t tell me you’re going to cut the cake with the same blade you used on some poor dead rabbit fetus.”
“It was actually a mummified bullfrog, and I know three different purifying spells.”
“You know what? I’ll just practice conjuration.”
This couldn’t last. Not forever. Not in any conceivable version of the future.
Then again... Elair was literally here to learn how to make impossible things true.
The familiar ringtone I haven't heard in six months rips through the silence of my apartment. Shabby, my ancient cat, twitches an ear in her sleep and stretches, pushing the phone off its usual charging place on the edge of my mattress. On the floor, it continues singing the song of the past, and I should really pick it up—the phone, not the call, any wise person would simply ignore the call—but I'm frozen.
"Meow," Shabby says. Her eyes are still closed, but her annoyance is apparent. I nearly fall out of my desk chair as I scramble up, then down on my knees. I stare at the phone screen. The initial followed by a sparkling heart emoji blinks back at me. I remember changing that heart to a broken one on the evening of our oh so amicable break-up, then deciding I was being too dramatic and refusing to save the change.
The song goes on and on, an old melancholy tune with a trace of hope in it. Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You. What did I ever expect, really, with a song like that to serve as our romantic theme? She all but warned me on the very first night when I heard her sing in that dumb karaoke bar for the first time.
Behind the paper-thin wall, a neighbor coughs. I draw a breath. The last two brain cells I possess vote unanimously for tapping Dismiss, and like the fool that I am, I go for Accept instead.
"Yes?" I've got the perfect excuse for my shaky voice, for how long it's taken me to respond. Just look at the time!
"Hey you." She dares to sound just like herself, like all these months of distance have never happened, and I think I'll never breathe again. Consider me dead. "So what are you doing awake at 3 AM for the fifth night in a row?"
"How do you—"
"I can see you online on Discord. And Facebook. And basically everywhere."
Oh. Right. We're still friends on basically everywhere. Messengers, socials, she's on every contact list I have. I'd lie if I said I don't still waste unreasonable chunks of time just staring at her userpic, the same across all of the Internet. A photo I took with a filter she applied. Except I don't see her online all that often, and when I do, it's always with some stupid red status icon. Busy. Away. Do Not Disturb.
"I ran into your friend Maggie tonight," she continues,as if this was a perfectly normal conversation. "She said you’re dating her brother."
"Uh." That's not quite true. John and I have agreed to go on a date. Next week. It hasn't even happened yet. In truth, I'm not sure I want it to happen. Maybe I will conveniently get sick right around Friday evening. Or there might be a food poisoning. Or a sprained ankle. Normally, I prefer excuses focused on last-minute work projects I couldn't say no to, because I have this stupid conviction it makes me look like a responsible adult. Alas, those don't fly so well on the weekends.
"Don't do that," she says. "I don't want you to."
Such a simple request, worded so confidently, like she has any right whatsoever to dictate what happens in my life. The life she's no longer even a part of.
I can't help but laugh at the sheer audacity. Shabby opens one yellow eye and peers at me in such abject displeasure I am forced to reach out and give her all the pats to compensate for the inconvenience.
In a certain light, her eyes look yellow, too, though they never lost their green. Like an autumn lake with golden leaves floating over murky waters, illuminated by the last rays of sunset.
"So?"
"So?.." I repeat after her.
"You won't do that, right?"
"Darling," and I meant to use her name, I swear I meant to, but the usual endearment flows way too easily of my lips. "I don't think you get a say in what I do or don't do any longer."
"Well, no one else is running an intervention, so I kind of have to!"
"What on earth makes you think I need an intervention?!"
"Duh. You own stupid plan? Come on. You don't even like guys most of the time."
"Some of the time I like them just fine," I counter. "And it's John. He's—he's sweet."
"If you ever liked John that way, you would have both gone for it a long time ago.”
He likes me that way, though. He has for a while. And that's why I should feel guilty for how the chances of me getting food poisoning on Friday are plummeting down. I kind of want to go out with John now. Just to give her an excuse to run more interventions.
This is reckless. Twisted. Not like me at all.
All the things she's always brought out in me.
"You won't go, will you?"
"Why are you up at 3 AM on the weekday stalking my socials?"
