The rest of the week was… strange. I spent less time in my room than ever. Apparently Avery and Jenn watched Star Trek fairly regularly together in the evenings? And they had been doing this even without me there to make fun of it and them? ...You know, in a fun way, not a mean one. Jenn had even started to smile when she saw me, rather than reflexively snarling at me. 

So, you know, strange.

But tonight I had ducked out, making up a weak excuse of needing to work on homework. That got a few raised eyebrows but at least both of them had the decency to pretend to believe me.

Once I was in my room, and this time the door was closed and securely locked, I started up the trojan control program. Cerise was using her computer. At the moment, she wasn’t really doing much, just scrolling through some fanfiction, but either she could read way faster than I could, or she was just skimming, her mind not really focused on the text.

Perfect. It was time for some magic.

GREETINGS, CERISE

She took a moment to respond.

Hey.

And that was it.

I hesitated. That wasn’t quite the response that I expected. It had been a bit since we last talked, but… Okay, maybe she had just been caught off guard?

BEEN DOING ANY NEW DRAWINGS LATELY?
FIND ANY MORE GOOD DRESSES TO SHOW OFF?

I haven’t had the time.

Now I was really worried.

IS SOMETHING THE MATTER?

Just have a lot on my mind. Maybe some things I wanted 
to talk about. And I know you have your own business 
going on, but... I only realized recently that there’s 
no way to talk to you except to wait for you to show
up again. And that can be frustrating.

Shit. I had sort of meant to get in touch with her again more quickly, but after the game night a few days ago and everything that had happened then, I had also been trying to step outside myself a bit. In my head it had made sense that maybe I needed to give Cerise some space. It felt entirely possible that maybe my interactions were holding her back. I mean, it was me after all, and I felt like I tended to poison whatever I touched. 

But what if my hesitance had actually been hurting her instead? What if I was just using excuses to avoid her because I was afraid of screwing things up, even though that screwed things up further?

I took a deep breath. Hold on. I was making this about me and my insecurities again. What did she actually want? To be able to reach me when she needed me. And how could I give that to her?

…That was hard. I couldn’t exactly give out my phone number or an online username that I used, not without potentially compromising my identity. Maybe I could set up some kind of alternate account by which she could contact me? But that’d take some time. Ugh, I really should have thought about that before. In the interim, I couldn’t leave her hanging.

I’M SORRY

It’s fine. I’m fine. It just means that this feels 
a bit one-sided, you know? Maybe that’s how it’s 
supposed to be though.

It doesn’t have to be.

My fingers twitched. I was dying to type something like that. But what would I even mean? What would she perceive about it? All of the meaning and text and subtext got so complicated, and I absolutely didn’t want to say anything that might make her feel weird. 

Ugh. And it did kind of have to be that way, at least for now, right? I had just thought through why that was the case. There had to be a solution here.

GIVE ME SOME TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT
AND MAYBE WE CAN WORK SOMETHING OUT?
YOU KNOW, ABOUT GETTING IN TOUCH WITH ME

Okay.

She still seemed… subdued? Distant? It worried me.

But I knew how to cheer her up.

NOW IT IS TIME ONCE AGAIN FOR MAGIC
ARE YOU PREPARED?

Yes. Absolutely.

Okay. Here we go. I pulled up the notes I had made, compiled after fifteen minutes of digging through a Wikipedia rabbit hole of Greek words and story terms and things, and then another forty-five minutes writing and rewriting and then throwing nearly everything away to just keep it simple.

PARRHESIA: POWER THROUGH SPEAKING TRUTH

FOR THE NEXT MAGIC THAT YOU MUST EMBODY
YOU MUST TELL SOMEONE WHO YOU TRULY ARE

A smile twitched across my lips as I waited for her response.

Oh.

The smile dropped away.

Was that… was that too much? I know this was kind of a big deal. Where do you draw the line between pushing someone to do something good and pushing them too far into something they’re not ready for yet? 

...That’s not rhetorical, I really wish someone would tell me. 

I hurriedly typed more explanation, trying to salvage the situation.

NOT EVERYONE, JUST SOMEONE YOU TRUST
SOMEONE WHO CAN BE SUPPORTIVE
A FRIEND? A FAMILY MEMBER? A THERAPIST?

I… sort of already did.

Oh.

...What?

She couldn’t be talking about me, right? I didn’t count. She told someone? Already?

A friend? Maybe? I don’t know them that well, but... for
whatever reason I felt safe coming out to them. So I did.

WOW
UM
HOW DID THEY RESPOND?

...Good. Supportive.

THAT’S GREAT

It was great. So why did I feel kind of weird about it? Even more than when I was jealous of her progress last time. Now there was someone else involved. Now she didn’t rely on me alone. That was good for her. Maybe it was natural that it was kind of disconcerting for me, but that’s what I expected when I gave her this assignment, right? Plus, she’d be so much better off with other sources of support than me.

And then they asked me out.

My stomach twisted into knots. This was good, I kept telling myself. It’s for the best. Good for her. I’m so happy for her.

I said no.

Oh. My stomach unclenched, and relief washed over me for the briefest moment. Then I remembered the situation, and started hating myself for getting weirdly tangled up in feelings here for no reason. It wasn’t any of my business.

It was just a lot really fast, and there were other things
on my mind too. Like, um, you?

Right. That made sense. It was a weird time to deal with a sudden confession.

Wait.

I read the end of that last message again, as the cursor blinked at me in accusation. Was she saying what I think she was saying? I was on her mind? In this context? Why?

...She shot down her friend, because of me? 

My heart leapt at the thought and then sunk as I thought through the implications. Was I… was I leading her on? She couldn’t actually like me. She didn’t know anything about me. No, I was reading way too much into her words, and she didn’t mean that at all, and oh god I was being shitty and vaguely predatory to even think so…

Nocturnia-- Or, well, I mean, 
I don’t even know your name.

My blood ran cold, as she paused. She was clearly waiting for some response.

MY NAME IS NOCTURNIA, OF COURSE

You know what I mean. Your real name.

Oh. Oh shit. Of course. 

She knew. 

She wasn’t stupid. I knew that. But I wasn’t expecting her to be so direct about it. The pretext of being Nocturnia had always been a convenient but transparent fiction, and I had been sticking with it because it felt safe that way. And she… whatever she was saying, whatever she was feeling was enough for her to puncture that illusion.

How the hell was I supposed to respond? She wanted to know my name? Even if I wanted to, what was I going to tell her? Greg? No fucking way. Just make something up that sounded better? But what? And if I was going to answer her, I wanted to do it seriously.

As I sat there, frozen, she started typing again.

What are we doing here? What are we?

What did she want us to be? What did I want us to be?

...Those were difficult questions to answer. But a cold certainty descended upon me. There was something more obvious: I knew I was garbage.  I could only hurt her. I had to maintain distance, for her sake. 

Look at where my impulses had taken me with the whole thing with Bex. And Bex was at least someone I knew in real life, someone who… okay, Bex was totally out of my league, but at least she was someone who I could actually go on a date with in real life. Someone who could see me and know what they were signing up for. If Cerise knew who I was, what I looked like, she would run the other way. 

I needed to keep this professional. To protect her.

Cerise, I’m your friend
I’m here to help you be who you want to be
That’s all

I chewed on my bottom lip, hating myself as I typed out the last two words. But it was the only thing that made sense.

Oh.
Okay.
...Thank you, then.

God, it felt so shitty though. Even if this was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

I needed a way to get us off the subject, back onto ground where I felt more safe, and less like I was going to throw up. I needed to stop having these feelings. I started typing.

You still owe me a task though
Don’t think you’re getting out of it that easily
Is there someone else you could come out to?
Family? Friends?

My dad wouldn’t understand. At all. He’d... It would
be bad. My sister I’m less sure about. But I do have 
a friend who I could tell. I probably owe him that 
much already.

He’d be on your side?

Almost certainly.

Perfect

I should go. 
I have a lot to think about. Still.
When will I hear from you again?

Soon
I promise

...Okay.

The screen blinked off. A light on the trojan control panel had flicked to red. She had shut down her computer entirely.

I released the breath I had been holding in. I guess it’s not just irrational fear that gets you to put things off because you’re worried they’ll go badly. Because sometimes they go worse than expected, in ways that surprise you. Great. Still…

I didn’t deserve Cerise. And that was fine. I didn’t need to… to date her or whatever. I was better off alone, forever. For the sake of the rest of humanity.

I mean from the beginning, this had been all a joke, right? I was just so good at committing to the bit, to trolling in a way that most internet-dwellers couldn’t even imagine. Maybe I should get back to that initial spirit, to double-down and throw myself into the project and steel myself for what was necessary. Really earn those eventual devastating lols. It might hurt Cerise, but it’d keep me from being hurt.

…but.

...

No.

Even as I said that to myself, I could feel how wrong it was. I didn’t want to do that anymore. Not even as pretend.

I still wanted to keep doing this, but not to troll Cerise. I wanted to support her. Jenn and Avery believed that I could do better, and I could.

And on some level, I knew how to start.

If I wanted to fix this, if I wanted to actually help Cerise, what I could do was stop dancing around it and figure my own shit out. At least enough that I could be more honest with her. I was hiding everything from her, and we both knew it. It was ultimately untenable.

I buried my face in my hands. This was going to suck.