#i did it by complete accident but im still extremely proud of myself

[maraschinotopped]

almost forgot to share this W i got in nights into dreams today

[somedaypast-thesunset]

the thing is .... there is already a distance between us right now which one of us needs to cross in order to meet the other and it has nothing to do with the compromises of what he believes is going on.

the distance is 100% his mental health as well as his maturity. he tried to tell me today that i think im “enlightened” but i am not at all. i’m like really far from enlightened because if i were at all enlightened i would not even struggle as hard as i do on a personal level. what i think i am is several times more mature and 70% of the instances where ive brought up a valid point has been shit on by immaturity. its not just waiting for someone ‘to get better’. its waiting for someone to grow up.

like when i first met him i was really really against polygamy. he wanted to have multiple partners and he sold this as it owuld be a family unit and everyone would live together etc. but he never once presented polygamy as its known to be in sociological terms. to him its on “his terms”. like he can just go out and meet someone and bring them into his family and have the other people just learn to adapt with this new person he wants to have. like we all just live in his world. 

this is not even true polygamy of a like equal mutual respect. like maybe its not for me. i’m lke pretty sure its not for me but i’m not totally sure. as i spend more and more years alone, the idea of having multiple people love you very deeply is attractive but im not sure i want to enter that life. i can barely get one person to love me very deeply enough to spend their life with me. i dont know if i would hold out for two who not only loved me but loved each other as well. 

the thing is though i have like really cloe relationships with everyone. almost all of them are “relationships” without sex. they all bond very close to me, we spend enormous amounts of time together, we depend on one another, we buy each other things, we invite each other into our extended families - like we become so much of each others lives that its almost hard to maintain another relationship seperately without if affecting ours. 

so i cant say that i dont see how this doesnt work. i can see that and i can see myself perhaps coming to this crossroads where maybe i honestly decide i will never ever have children not even by accident and keeping it but i still have this matronly feelings where i want to care and perhaps that care would go towards these other partners. 

thats how i can see it happening. do i think it WILL happen? its kind of unlikely. like 70% unlikely. but fuck man - what if i like, dont date at all? what if i just like hermit myself and hang out in my room and two, three years goes by and for whatever reason it comes up and i just like gave up on normality of life and this is it now. i dont know. right now i honeslty could not tell you if in five years i will be married or sucking dick to smoke weed. i cant even tell you that. 

but i have all of the power of the decision for that. i dont know what ill do but i have the power to decide. no one but me. like i already had a shitty family. and i dont have to accept another one. if i invest my time and love into this family ill only be shit on and dragged along. 

and listen. if youre going to make me apart of your family - if i have no choice because you refuse to let your love for me go then at some point you have to break the toxic cycle of abuse an hurt in a family line. nd for the sake of everyone before him and him and everyone after - the morally right decision is to stop it. its not right to be a third generation alcoholic. its not right to pass on molestation. it is not right to be so disrespectful and manipulative while knowing what youre saying is just bullshit. its just fanatastical bullshit. im sorry that some girl broke your heart so badly that youll never get over her to a point youre willing to pass on that same hurt to everone else you encounter. and then ask me to essentiallly do the same thing. i will be the one responsible member of your fucking family and stop this cycle. or atleast im not going to be apart of it. im not going to take my place in it. 

because my god i am so much better than this. i am bigger than this. i am more selfless and empathetic than this. and you know what? IVE DONE THE MOST AND GOTTEN NOTHING MORE THAN ONCE IN MY LIFE. and im NOT GIVING UP WHO I AM BECAUSE OF PIECES OF SHIT LIKE THIS. 

what i really hate the most about all of this is that it becomes so convoluted in the moment that later on i focus on these really stupid insiginifcant things that trap me in a mindset that any of it matters. 

like right now i’m thinking about the absolute contradiction and hypocrisy he absolutely refuses to address no matter how you approach it. in one breath he says he will have other people he will have other wives he will have a farm and in the next he says he doesnt know what he wants where he will be how he will end up and hes not disappointing me. he wont even see how at this point i dont even have the opportunity to be “a” wife. you cannot whole heartedly tell me a future plan but then tell me you have no future plans. you absolutely do. 

so what happens when he goes away? it takes him less than week on holiday to contact the next bitch consistently so in which way is it working on himself to be exposed to romantic situations you just left because it was all too much. 

i am actually actively working on being a better person even right now. like i want to do a lot of shitty things. i am and have been looking forward to the moment i can actively ignore his calls and messages. which is terrible. thats actually a really shitty thought to have even if the person “deserves” it. its not even like a deserving it retribution thing it should be that i just dont talk to him because i dont want to. not because i get a kick out of ignoring him. i dont want to steal the weed ill likely get from him but the chances of it happening seem higher than they should right now. and i dont want to feel okay about it.

i told him it was wrong to offer to be a credit card for weed while telling me that i needed to support myself.  there was no benefit for him to get me weed and leave and i understand being nice but why put me 400$ in debt before you leave while simultaneously telling me that i shouldve been paying for myself. 

he said it was “different”. i was “doing something for myself now”. as in these shows i started doing to have the money to  move with him but now i cant so i just have money i dont care about and spend on weed because i cant mesh my future goals to the person i wantt o spend my life with. its diferent now despite having always still paid him back but i guess since its not from my benefits its “real money” now. but do you see how im trapped? if i were to take it and not pay him back i’d become just another person who ripped him off. but the thing is i feel i could easily tell him that i care more about my own feelings right now and it makes me feel better to not pay him back. why not? if he can do it? 

he was right though. i afforded myself the ability to be completely cut off from everyone else to think clearly on my own and he doesnt have that. but i did that through trauma and fighting and like a fucking war where i sacrificed damn near everything that meant something to me. and i am thankful and grateful everyday. like i walked into my shitty ass stuffy smelly small ass room and sighed relief. like thank fucking god. thank god i live by myself. thank god i pay for myself. thank god no man is taking money in my name. and in two years without getting what i “wanted” (which was half the easy way out nd half pure love) i didnt just give in or find someone who would give me the easy way out. i strapped on my fucking boots nand trudged the trenches - again. i didnt need to do this. i absolutely in no way needed to do this but i did. 

and i get all the time in the fucking world to think about it. i dont get up for a 9 - 5 and participate in society - i choose how the fuck i want to live and i dont give a fuck if you dont like it because you didnt do what i did to even get here and here is not even fucking luxurious. its not even a real accomplishment to find yourself completely alone. its actually a sign of great stress, great tragedy. 

i told him today my fathers old saying. he would sit on our balcony on the weekends, smoking weed and drinking pepsi and vodka. and these were some of the most beautiful moments and memories i have of my father. honestly. but he would turn to me and say, “i wonder what the poor people are doing.” and id look at him like youre nuts, “we are the poor people, dad.”

but i fucking get it now. i didnt get it back then. i honestly thought my dad was delusional to think this life we lived was anything to gawk at. we lived paycheck to paycheck. we werent like roaches in our place poor but we were extremely tight for money. but this is a man who for 50+ years struggled on the streets and had to build his own life nd his own family and after all of this - after all the drugs and drinking nd partying and women and trauma and abuse and everything in between - he sat on his balcony with his fucking kid smoking his weed drinking his vodka. instead of fighting to live he was just kind of living at that moment. it took him 50 years but he was just living now. and it was better than fighting to live. so it wasnt that he was questioning what literally the “poor” people were doing. they were very much likely doing the same thing. but he didnt have to fight to get that money to get that weed to sit on that balcony and not have a worry. he wasnt worrying about rent. he didnt owrry about food. he was completely utterly content with just not fucking fighting anymore. and the “poor people” were the people poor in soul - those who were still fighting. and sometimes it was said in jest - like he was proud to overcome the struggles and others it was said empathetically like he was reminiscing on those times and really appreciating where he was now. 

and right now i feel i could say “i woner what the poor people are doing”. like my own evaluation on this - i am certainly poor. but my worries are few. ive come to terms for a lot of things.  for me, i’d say this not based in financial cares but that my mental health is not poor. because i fought really hard and sacrificed many things to get this. but i did not shit on other people to do it. i did not take away from other eoples lives and i wasnt a heavy burden. 

and now i have the time to properly look at what the world offers me. i dont have to take things out of desperation because i am not poor in my soul anymore. ive been very poor in the soul before and ive taken things out of desperation - its only been since late last year ive afforded myself moderate “stability”. and i know now the difference between obsessing on something and being focused. i, in fact, spend a lot of time with him as well but im just afforded more time alone. an obsession would carry through and id be thinking about it all the time but i dont. i allow these moments to toore deeply because i am not distracted and i choose not to distract myself with things that dont add to the solution. like im not going to cry and play video games or watch moves or tv shows to “forget about it”. you shouldnt forget about it. you should walk through it and feel it and every lesson it is teaching you. and it really hurts. i dont feel the need to self harm anymore because life honestly hurts enough now. 

he said, “you think youre so enlightened. you need to let go of your ego” i wish i was enlightened. and like the past six months i have been focused on an enligtenment but not to be enlightened. i have no goals of mastering spiritual planes and im not trying to be “beter” than my emotions. i am actually trying to let go of myself to such degrees that i understand the complexeties of emotions and thoughts which i and other people have no control over as human beings. its not me trying to make other people better. no one has to follow my path at all. i feel so assured constantly that what i am finding in my seeking of answers and questions is the right thing. it constantly proves itself to me. i dont need to believe in it anymore - it’s not “faith” or “higher powers”. it’s become nearly a science, as i practice and experiment with putting things out and accepting things in by frequently getting the same results with new thought patterns and concepts. i’m not like “if i think about getting this hard enough it will appear”. its a deeper empathy and understanding of what is happening around me to be able to control my own emotions and thoughts to have a better opportunity to find a sense of my own happiness and not add to the suffering of others. like its really important to me to not add to the suffering but i dont believe either that i have the capacity any longer to help those who are suffering. i am not a guru or spiritual leader, you know? i’m not a real caregiver. not anymore. more so by helping those who are sufferng i make it detrimental to myself which in turn likely adds to the suffering in ways im not seeing outright. 

and my attitude, you know? ive spent much time being severly depressed and i honestly feel maybe constantly a sense of depression so im not like overcome and recovered but it made me extremely negative in ways i can now identify in other people with similar depression issues. and it wasnt that this negativity made it “bad” for anyone else. i wasnt like a wet blanket to a positive experience. it was that my attitude left me wide open to be relatable to other extremely negative people which consistently “proved” how i felt about things to myself. and i would become bonded to extremely negative people that even once i began to see my own negativity, their extreme negativity was keeping me down and forcing me to address things i had already addressed times over with myself. but now i was arguing with a depression wall in someone else and i know what its like to be there and i know its absolutely futile and now i can see why i’m alone. i chose to be depressed. no. no i didnt. i chose to be negative. i didnt choose a depression. a depression is a natural emotion that everyone experiences but i chose to funnel that depression through extreme negativity and pessimisim. aand again because im alreay around people doing the same thing its really like a circle jerk of negativity more so than me personally bringing down someone else. but i chose to be apart of this and i chose to let these people influence my life and my daily thoughts. its not just this relationship - its friends as well. 

you can be depressed but once you become negative, you cant be helped. you have to chose not to be negative not to make yourself change your mind about being depressed. its not “fake it util you make it” its “Fake it to not detriment your recovery”. youre not convincing yourself that things are actually positive. they might actually still be negative. i can walk out my door and 14 shitty things will be there but if i tell someone all 14 shitty things thats the entirety of our fucking conversation and i missed the opportunity to have a real connection deeper than my negativity. 

even right now i decided not to be negative about this seemingly “crazy” act of obsessively focusing on something no one else will care about and being up at 1am typing it all out but i deserve this. i deserve a space with no fucking time limit, no interruptions, no profit on it - i deserve all the hours in the world to express myself because i fucking can. i cant say if anyone in the entire world “deserves” to have another person sit and listen to them ramble endlessly for several hours. but everyone deserves the space to do it even if no one is listening. even if its not an expert with a pad and paper compartmentalizing all your issues. 

its not that i want to be happy, i want to practice being less negative. not even like “be positive”. i would rather say nothing at all than spew negativity. i dont have to be positive but i dont have to be negative either. and this alone will open things up to me and people up to me tht i wasnt able to relate to before because theyre smart enough to stay away from such draining people. which only creates an even better influence in my life. 

i want music back in my life. i lack something when i chose a partner who doesnt have a musical talent of some kind. even if its like a deep love of music itself and they dont play an instrument. but a deep love. i want to dance in the living room. i want to sing at the top of my lungs. and i want to feel secure in doing this because thats who i actually am. its heartbreaking to spend so much time not being who i fully am. its not like im lieing. im just always holding back. i have capabilities but i dont want to share them because of the negativity around me. and its not just like insecurity - i am insecure but being in an environment of negativity only makes being insecure that much worse. i want to stay up until 4am discussing the hilarity of 80s hair metal and the intricacies of the keybords and organs in psychedelic rock and we spend hours back and forth “this is the best song of all time,” and its actually the best songs of all time and not some soundcloud rapper or pop singer. 

i want to wake up in the morning and the first thing he does is play music so i can sing along. i want him to send me songs throughout the day related to things we randomly talk about. i want him to love my love of music so much that i sing to make us happy. 

i want to be number one. everyone else who came before me have no lingering connection or meaning to them, there is no “great love” before me. there is no “if i had a chance,”. i am the number one pick and they wouldnt see themselves with anyone but me in the grand picture. im not expecting their dick to only work for me but i am expecting that i remain their first and foremost romantic thought. i will never be treated based on how someone else treated them. i will be treated exactly the way i deserve based on my actions towards them. i will not have someone treat me based on how they predict the future will happen for them. if i am faithful and loving and i am adding to our lives, i expect no insecurity, no lack of commitment because “some other girl cheated”. i will not be based on women before me. period. 

i want him to have an accepting loving family or no family at all (as cruel as it may sound). i mean fully outright accepting and loving with great support of him and myself and our choices as a couple. if i cant have that i’d rather him have no family at all than be put through the ringer of another two faced mother in law obliging her son to get his dick wet. his lack of family or choice not to be involved with them wont reflect on how i feel about him at all unless the circumstances are outrageous. 

i want money to be setn as a secondary to the relationship and i know this is a lofty want; i may compromise on it because its really hard not to fin someone who doesnt fear money or lack there of. but i want it to be seen as something our unit needs and our unit works on. i dont want to accept gifts or be paid for excessively - even if its offered. of course its on me to decline to set an example. but i dont want to accept them because it sets this precedence of them doing it out of habit and it is less of a unit “lets split a pizza” and more “im always buying dinner”. i dont want a partner who feels its a deal breaker to _not_ get that pizza because i dont have the money or dont want to spend it. they should be okay with going without a luxury for something less luxurious. the experience of life itself and our life together should be way more meaningful than going out for dinner. 

i want them to cook and clean equally as much as i do. no one is a handmaiden to anyone else. i want them to treat me right during sex - i am flexible and moldable, switchable and aim to please more often than not but i have no desire for it. 28 years old, fucked enough - no desire. i want them to know im here for them, i want them to get off on it and use me for it but know im here for them. not because im trying to get something for myself bu because im giving them something i could do without. 

they wont see our time together as time they “waste”. even if we’re laying in bed watchng netflix - they will love it as they love me. all of our time together is an investment into each other as people we love and adore. 

and its not going to be him. and im sad - clearly. im clearly upset. im upset like anyone would be for a break up and the end of something you wanted. of course, he tells me this isnt a break up - only i would consider it as such and would be making that decision. and that we ultimately dont work because he wants his “wives”. but we ultimately dont work because of all of the above that he doesnt begin to meet. maybe a bit of cooking and cleaning - my exs were terrible but its not good enough nor is it equal. he told me he wouldnt stop by here when he had to come back for a wedding in september because he thought any time we spent together here was not worth it. like just having time together itself isnt worth it. i must be giving something to him for him to care. 

i mean i have to really reflect myself on why i stayed with him and why i loved him. i find it very very very hard to describe or explain for all this time and im not sure if i was just hopeless romantic or if i refused to see things for what they were. do i still love him? why? why do i still love him? like im really thinking hard on it because my default response had alwasy been “hes nice to me”. which he is - hes very very very sweet and no one else has treated me with as much kindness as he has just like as a human being. like no one had ever been so affectionate and sweet. but thats not even enough. 

he told me that if / when ive decided to end this that i had to let him know. it was repeated multiple times that i had to let him know. and as i reflect now - it means nothing overall. ive read into thousands of things in my time and led myself in far off fantasy lands to be broken hearted because of my own stupidity. but i question why i have to let him know. why do i have to let him know? he has left the entire province, cut off accessible communication and plans to carry on fucking other people but i ave to let HIM know when i’m done and moved on? why? will you assume differently if i dont tell you otherwise? like do you think we’re “together” - how do you tell someone who youre not in a relationship with that youve moved on from the relationship you dont have? 

you know, its not about convincing myself about anything. i’ve accepted his departure to a point that i am debating on how i want to handle it. i’m not convincing myself that hes staying or come to a grand epiphany. its not going to be a grand epiphany. its goingto be shit that was sitting in front of him the entire time. it is completely asinine and delusional. it’s not like i’m going to go on a date with someone and suddenly decide fuck him never talk to me again - i will become disinterested in him. and he will know ive become disinterested. i wont even be sly about it, lets be real. so you either ignore what im doing up until the very point its crossed the line anyways and youre just getting a fucking random heads up that ive been seeing this person for weeks now or you realize im disinterested and stop communicating with me because its not my obligation to inform you when im going steady with someone else. why would i tell you i no longer am with you in a relationship i was never in with you? i dont have to actually tell you anything at all. 

and having this knowledge does what? how does it affect things for you? why is it something you need to know? you have no plans for me in your future other than “ill spend my life with you... later”. the plans remain exactly the same whether im fucking someone else or not. so why is it important? 

is it control? how can he control me with this information? if i have already disattached to a point i have to inform him of it, he’s become mostly powerless and this is simply knowledge for himself. 

its endearing. he does these endearing little things that make me feel different ways about things and i actually believe him at a face value but my _gut_ tells me something different. its not like im delusionally believing hes going to change his mind and we live happily ever after. from my own experience of him it coul take literally years for him to change his mind about even one part of it - my brain knows this. my gut is saying wow theres so many red flags here pointing towards this being a delusion hes carrying. 

like he is more in love with me than i be with him. he is constantly looking at me just to look at me, is constantly concerned with my well being and will immediately jump to help me if i need it. he has repeated several times that he is completely invested in me as someone in his life and he cannot stand to see me suffer or go without because he only feels good if i’m happy. im contantly asked, “are you a happy girl?” when hes able to buy me food and give me weed and seemingly present all the things i wanted. he calls me everyday, sometimes multiple times a day and then almost assumes outright i will come to his house which mkes me feel weird when theres days where i think maybe i could stay home but i feel wanted and its nice. he tells me that no one has ever treated him as good as i have, that i am constantly on his mind. and yes this comes with his moderate infidelities of which he obvious set up to not be infidelities. ive told him over and over again that when he slept with someone else, we’d “see what would happen” but the implication was that i’d likely no longer be with him and for two years, despite it being there, he chose not to. i dint make him do that. i didnt say like ill destroy you if you sleep with someone else. i just told him wht i would be doing with my own actions based on his actions. and it would be to stop being with him. 

my gut tells me there is both an honesty and dishonesty here. i believe he thinks he is being honest with himself when he says he is making a tough decision to better life for both of us. (of course, of course “what about the multiple wives”) i believe, in his mind, that the only thing that changes between us is the routine. he is not well enough to give security for anything about the future. he is grasping for straws and cannot see any light for all the shit piled on to him. to me, my gut - and my god could i ever be wrong. and ive never been so open and honest about the potential of me having egg on my face. honestly i could be so fucking wrong and it could go so opposite. i dont know. this is just my gut. my gut tells me that hving so much piled on without ever dealing or  making even an effort to see the light has left him in antiquated views - he is not actually anyone right now. he is not himself. he is an amalgamation of all the experiences he had up until now and his current life no longer reflects these ideals he once held in his early 20s but much rides on his ideals. like his whole ego and character rides on these ideals. so he is doing what he has known, what has been built for him by all these other things out of routine and straight out not knowing what the fuck else to do. hes not going to be a pleb but hes not going to live this fantastical life he thought he might at 21. 

i honestly dont believe the mulitple wives thing is the issue between us. there are several severalllll things he has said that really points towards having much deeper commitment issues and insecurities that were never addressed because he has to keep up with this character. it would be just as crazy to say, “im going away to try and rid myself of my multiple wives ideals” 

he said to me, “ive thought about bringing you with me - ive thought about it and was like wel what the fuck will she do once she gets there”, implying i hve no relative work skills to find a job. 

it shouldnt be that. it should be “i thought aout bringing you with me but multiple wives”.  every single thng should come down to “but multiple wives”. all of it. doesnt matter if i have a job or not. what im doing. doesnt matter. mulitple wives.

but here we are. “its not a break up, your only seeing it that way from your perspective and youre welcome to but thats your decision not mine”

“i’m going to spend the rest of my life with you. i have already committed myself to you. whether you are with me or not, i want you to be happy. i want to be with you, this doesnt change.” 

“i need the support. if i were in the military and went away for five months what would you do?”

BUT. MULTIPLE. WIVES. i realize now i am the logical one here. that i am logically chronically bringing up the fact that this brings an end to our relationship because it cannot continue the way it is long distance. and he is the one unwilling to actually let it go. i am almost asking to break up and to have him set a scenario where neither of us have to feel really shitty about it and he will not accept the break up as is. 

but multiple wives?

if i were 24... id put on the blinders. like im trying to tell myself in some way i wouldnt but i absolutely would. i’d be like fuck it im with you lets fucking hash out these however fucking many months cuz im gonna prove my fucking love to you. and id be like a hopeless romantic, completely fucking dedicated with hearts in my eyes like this was all going to work out amazing. 

but im 28 and not naive anymore so im at this crossroads where im being asked to do that but im world wear enough to know that u dont make any promises to someone who cant make them to you. 

but didnt he? through every single fight he has not once told me to leave. he has never told me he doesnt love me. ive literally only been told hes committed to me but because he has contradicted it through other statements and actions ive struggled and i was right to struggle. it would be a struggle. i am the one who brings up the potential of him meeting someone else and like every other possibility i bring up - he agrees it could happen. but i dont think it was necessarily his first thought. 

he said, “i’m not going to communicate with you every two hours like your friend expects her boyfriend to”. i exaggerated it to days and weeks, but we dont speak every two hours now. nor did we when he went away on holidays. when he went away on holidays he rarely was involved in my daily happenings. it is being a military wife but without the fucking pride of your partner saving lives. its like well today he would rather play video games for several hours and jack off than have a decent conversation with me. 

of course - i’m literally putting this on him quite like how he puts it on me tht i would be a bum if i went with him. we become so hurt in these moments that i definitely begin to passive aggressively jab at him which causes him to become defensive. our fights dont start the way they end but theyre stil about the same topic. 

as an experiment, i sort of want to lie to him .. multiple times. like take advantage of this scenario where the chances of breaking their trust is pretty high but the chances of it not working out anyways are probably higher so i could just like.. life experiment. no one will die. i will be a shittier person for it. someone will know im a shitty person. and ill have to live with it. i will have probably deeply hurt them in a way that affects how they act with others later. of course if they find out that is which .. terrible. very terrible. i know right and wrong. 

but id first like to lie about having a job. this would be something id do casually. i wouldnt make ike a huge elaborate lie with characters involved and like storylines of my great success. i would simply say i got a job. and if he asked me about it i would tell him i dont want to talk about it. not because its illicit or anthing, but because its undefining to me. it means nothing and changes absolutely nothing at all. i will seemingly be less available. i will seemingly have “more money”. i would like to see what the response is and the ongoing reaction to it. would he not care at all or would he keep trying to ask me about it? would it change his opinion of me? would i be treated differently? although this is a shitty lie its not that i’m trying to trick him; i would always work to be with him if i were with him. but im not so i dont. sorry not sorry. my benefits affect you not at all and i have a place to live and food to eat so chill?  i just want to know what would change. i wantt o know maybe is it worth it to actually have a job because his attitude changes in such a way that it seems like im stable or secure. if he questioned why it came now  when he was gone... i dont know. i had other opportunities. i dont want to talk about it, it doesnt reflect anything on your life now. 

id then like to lie about seeing other people. play through that scenario. tell him, whether i did or not, that i had been seeing someone for the past few weeks and we’re together now. he’d likely tell me he was happy for me and keep whatever disappointment to himself. id like to, if i had the balls, really lay into it. “i’m not your girl anymore. i’m not your property. i’m just not yours anymore and i’m not going to be shared.” because thats what it is. thats really what it is. i coul sugar coat it, “ive been seeing someone else” but it translates to the fact im not yours anymore. 

of course it’d all be such cruel irony that it comes to be that hes not wht he thought he was and im actually way worse than i thought i was and showed my own ass. i also want to not pay him back the money i currently owe him and whatever i may owe him in the future if he buys me more weed. who knows if he actually will right now. i think if he still does its a sign that i shoulnt be a piece of shit and lie or steal because its a commitment and dedication even with this frustration right now. 

i want to act as though he has already left before he leaves. i dont really want to see him before he leaves. this is my selfish act, i suppose. if youre gone, youre gone. i dont want to play house for three days and smile and wave as you drive away. thats not who i am and i deserve different.  it doesnt correlate with his vision that we’re still together very much but im just so upset and frustrated. and if im not being negatie and i dont have to be positive i want to be nothing at all in his life right now. neither negative or positive. im not going to support you the way you want on this so im not going to be there for it and make it harder on you. 

im actually pretty stoked not to see his mother anymore. honestly. shes very two faced to me now and ive lost any respect i had left for her. ive found it hard to treat her nicely and she is a reminder of a part of society that im not a fan of and wont be involved with. not only has he been detrimental, but she has been as well - telling me to my face outright that i had no friends outside of her son when i had a dozen more i saw regularly. thats not support or care or lifting someone up in any way. this is belittle and degrading them until they “break” and “come to your side”. i really appreciated that she was willing to “take me in” for what its worth but it was never anything that wouldve catapulted me to any where from where i am. but they felt they had given sooo much help to me nd that it all should be life changing because i have dinner with them. 

i am not even anxious or sad about the time im about to spend alone. and its going to be alot of time. im going to be too bitter for the first bit to be proactive in much of anything and i will take the time to be bitter. but ive learned to fill my days and as he fades more into the distance i think i will itch for something - anything - to look for in my future and ill make something for myself. 

[linssikeittomies]

Apocalypse. In 50 Years. Chapter 1: Virgin Allison

I’m lucky. Always have been. Me, my parents, their parents, and their parents as far back as we can remember have always been lucky: none of them have been seriously ill, gotten into a serious accident, or suffered major financial setbacks. We don’t have any hereditary diseases. No one has died before their 80th birthday. There hasn’t been a single divorce.

I had a good upbringing, a stable family situation and a healthy diet. My parents bought me an apartment, I got in to college on my first try, I have hobbies I love and time for them, summer is just around the corner and we’re planning a vacation to Hawaii, everything is great and I should have nothing to worry about.

But every second of the day I feel this anxious tension in my chest.

I always feel like I’m doing something wrong, or I’m supposed to be doing something else. Something is not correct, and I don’t know how to correct it. Something’s expected of me, but I don’t know what. I’ve tried going to church and mosque more, I’ve tried doing more sports, I’ve tried volunteer work, arts, science, philosophy, psychology, travelling, soul searching, nothing works. That nagging feeling just won’t go away! Sometimes it’s right there on the surface, sometimes it sinks to the background, but it’s there every second of the day and my sanity can’t take another month of this feeling! I might be the first person in my family line to have a mental breakdown.

--

There’s some kind of sound… What is that, I don’t like it, I don’t like beeping when it’s so warm. Just let me find that last bunny. It got scared of the sound. Aww, I found it, right on my desk, the alarm…

Oh, the sound was my alarm clock. Damn brilliant, time to wake up already. Whose bright idea was it to force people up before they were ready? The professors can’t like being woken at the ass crack of dawn either. Just stop having morning lectures, people! Nobody wants them! I’m the nicest girl this country has ever seen and I’m getting an impulse to murder a guy. I’ve been getting up at 5:45 the whole week, maybe I should’ve gone the other route and just not slept at all. Would’ve made it easier to drag myself out of my soft, warm, loving bed… I’ve been trying to clean up my language, but I just have to curse some right now. Gives me enough anger to push myself up. Makes me feel bad about myself, too.

The classic white and blue sailor fuku has seen a lot of use this past month, but since it still feels marginally less wrong than all my other clothes, it’ll see a little more. I brush my hair while I wait for the frying pan to heat up enough fry my omelet, then pick at it and end up only eating half. Ughhh, why did I stay up reading that fanfic last night, again? I’ve read it like ten times already, I already know damn well what’s gonna happen! I get so queasy when I’m tired… I should probably pack the rest of this omelet up and take it to school ‘cause I’ll just get hungry an hour later.

I manage to cover the bags under my eyes with make-up, and since for once I was smart and packed my bag ready last night, I just grab it and get out the door. I’ve barely closed it when my next door neighbor Ricky comes out his. He’s really nice and kinda cute, but his obvious crush on me makes our relationship a little awkward. Not that I don’t reciprocate – he’s easy on the eyes, super cute with all those freckles and dimples and supposedly carefree hair combined with a caring and shy personality. So yeah, I once considered dating him, but the overwhelming sense of WRONG! WRONG! had unfortunately made that impossible. It always flares up particularly bad when something romance-related comes to my mind, maybe I’m just extremely aromantic without realizing it? It seems being friends with him is a-ok, however. And it’s got its perks.

“Oh, morning, Ally. Did you like the cookies I gave you yesterday?” he asks, as if there was ever any doubt. “I think the cinnamon made them a little too Christmassy.”

“Not at all, they were great! I don’t get how you make them soft in the center, whenever I try they just dry up.”

“Might be too much flour”, he theorizes as we go down the stairs. He moves his messenger bag from his free side to between the two us – I’ve noticed he does that a lot, I think it’s some kind of unconscious attempt at putting up a barrier because he feels so self-conscious around me. “Or maybe you keep the oven on for too long. I always turn it off when they’re close to ready.”

I almost ask for a baking lesson, but again the WRONG flares up so I give up on the idea.

“You might be on to something, I’ll try that next time.”

He’s bad with words, so he tries to find something to say but can’t. He scratches his arm absently and opens his mouth only to close it immediately. Our conversations are rarely smooth, and these kinds of pauses are the norm. I don’t mind them that much – no point in saying words solely for the sake of making noise, after all. But Ricky seems to find them incredibly uncomfortable and a sign of failure, so often I just say something completely meaningless to help him out, give him some ideas.

“How’s school been lately?”

Ricky’s a journalism major, and has a huge collection of magazines and newspapers at his place. I wonder why he didn’t go into confectionary since he’s so good at it already. Maybe he prefers to keep it a hobby? Not even with a gun to my head would I animate for a living, even though I spend like 90 percent of my free time staring at anime.

“Nothing special”, he mumbles. “A lot of work… It, uhh, might get a little worse now that my computer broke…”

“Aww crap, I feel for you!”

“Thanks… I… spilled milk on it last night”, he admits embarrassed. He likes drinking milk with cookies, he must’ve been eating those cinnamon cookies while working on something. “It’s probably busted even if I can get it dry.”

“I can lend you my tablet if it’s any help.”

“Thanks, but… all my files were on the hard drive.”

Oh jeez, he didn’t even save the most important ones to a cloud? This guy’s just hopeless. I don’t get how he’s managed to stay alive living on his own for two years. A cute face doesn’t help much with keeping track of bills and switching fuses.

We part ways on the street and I dig out my headphones. My bus route is noisy as hell, thanks to all the “edgy” teens going to high school. For some incomprehensible reason so many of them think it’s entirely necessary to loudly laugh at the worst non-jokes and gossip about this bitch and that bitch and those assholes, while also apparently hating each other judging by the amount insults they throw at each other, but still they hang out together so I guess they really are friends…? I just don’t get them. I was never like that in high school, I actually liked my friends.

Speaking of which, I get a new message from ~BFF~.

Good morning! Saida says, and sends a selfie. Seems she’s been clothes shopping, as I’ve never seen that tunic before. The hijab is old, but it’s draped pretty elaborately. It looks really good on her, red’s really her color, and the tunic’s greenish gray complements it surprisingly well.

Woah nice! Looks great on u (^o^)b

Thanks^^ Took ten tries to drape it good, I’m thinking wearing it like this for the premiere. Only a week from now! SO excited! >o<

Grrrrreat peeps gonna luv it \(^-<)

Keep both thumbs up for me^^

Saida’s an aspiring playwright and works on a lot of amateur productions. This will the first play she wrote completely on her own. I’ve been to a couple of their rehearsals, so I know the story is about a woman whose father is murdered and she vows to catch the perp – but in the process learns that her father was actually a terrible person and was killed in revenge. I didn’t want too many spoilers so I haven’t read the script.

Can we go togthr im so proud of u (/>3>)/

Of course! We’re going for a dinner afterwards so you can come with us too

Aww, I wanted u all to myself orz

If only you were a guy you couldXD Too bad :p

Deciding to tease her about this raises the wrong feeling back to the surface, but the opportunity is just too delicious.

Ill keep that in mind (^3^)b

Oh jeez, in hindsight that was a bad joke (/-_-\)

U get im gonna teez u about this all ur life k:DDDD

In hindsight that was a REALLY bad joke -_- Have fun AT SCHOOL you little devil!>:D

Aww orz

She barely has classes this week, not that it means she actually has less work – just that she’s supposed to working on assignments at home. Unlike me, she’s really diligent and actually does her homework over a few days instead of the previous night.

--

The professor is late, as usual. Students don’t have keys for the classrooms, so we have to wait outside. It can get pretty cramped, especially at places like this: at the end of a narrow hallway, with the smelliest toilet in the building at the other end. Everyone tries their hardest to squeeze out of the way of the stench. At least in the summer it gets a little better – in the winter the pipes get frozen, and when the water doesn’t flow, the smell really starts melting off faces.

I fail at stifling a yawn, and a classmate gives me a sympathetic look. It’s so hard to stay awake when I’m not on the move, any small break just reminds my brain of how tired I am, and then it wants to go back to sleep. It even forgets about the horrible stink floating in the hallway, if only for a moment. When my head drops and I snap back to attention, it suddenly fills my nose again. I’ve repeated the process about five times already.

In fact, I’m right in the process of drifting back to sleep again when I notice her. The pale, young woman dressed all in black, sporting abyssal black hair and glowing, ember-like eyes. She stares at me intently, like a hawk hunting a rabbit, and emanates a malicious aura. Everything about her is… dark, somehow. Like she’s hard to make out, and even the bright lamps seem dimmer around her. She looks human, but in an… elongated way. Her face, her body, and especially her fingers, look a little too long and a little too spindly. She looks like a daddy long legs. I can’t shake the mental image of her creeping up the wall and skittering away in to some slight crack. I’m not used to being nervous – I consider myself a particularly brave person, but this lady is giving me the creeps! I find myself crossing my arms at my chest to get at least some kind of barrier between us, despite her standing several meters away. It’s not far enough. If possible, I would rather put several countries between us – but as it stands, all I have is half a meter of hallway.

Her eyes stare at me unblinkingly as I squeeze closer to the door, their dim glimmer drowning out all other light. I can’t look away – her gaze holds me prisoner, and laughs at my fear.

Then a light weight settles on my shoulder, and her thin lips curve into a sharp, sadistic facsimile of a smile and she whispers

                                                  FOUND YOU

before turning around and walking out. All feelings of dread melt away with her gone, and I turn to look at whoever defended me.

It’s a hand. A translucent, poorly defined, watery hand that peters out of existence at the wrist. Seeing it floods me with tranquility. It twinkles like moonwake and grips my shoulder reassuringly before fading away.

…

Wow, I must be really tired! Guess those five hour nights finally caught up with me! As interesting as this awake-sleeping was, I’d rather not repeat it anytime soon. Or, like, ever. I have got to catch up on sleepy times this weekend.

--

By afternoon I’ve almost forgotten about the creepy lady and disembodied hand. It’s Friday, I’m too excited about finally having the time to finish my Ayato cosplay to think about sleep deprivation hallucination thingies. If I hurry, I should be able to finish the coat, maybe work on the pants some more. I need to get some more glue and find the right kind of buttons, the crafts store is still open so I’ll stop by there before going to my parents’ –

“Hey, Ally!”

A classmate drags me out of my thoughts.

“Ellie decided to throw an impromptu birthday party to herself tomorrow at her place, wanna come with us?” Lisa continues. Bryan is at her side, while Lotte and Yao come up on my right.

“She’s invited a lot of her other friends, too! Place is gonna be crawling with cute chicks!” Brian informs me as he pumps his fists. He then seems to remember he’s talking to a girl. “…Or guys, if that’s your thing”, he adds meekly.

Lisa firmly shakes her head.

“Her place can’t fit more than twenty people, and our class is gonna be at least thirteen of those people.”

“Yeah, the afterparty is what’s filled with hotties!” Lotte pipes in with stars in her eyes. Our class doesn’t actually share a lot of courses, but we try to stay in contact with each other. We have a whatsapp group, and sometimes we plan parties or get-togethers. I try to take part every now and then, but so often everyone just wants to go drinking I don’t see the point in going.

“Don’t worry, Ellie said her place is an alcohol-free zone for tonight because she doesn’t want a repeat of last year!” Lisa assures me. “It’s just gonna be music and games until we go clubbing.”

Ellie is pretty nice, and the only person I kind of consider to be a friend other than Saida. I might make friends easily, but keeping them is a genuine problem. If we hadn’t been neighbors all our lives, I don’t think I would still be friends with even Saida, either. So I’d like to at least try and hold on to Ellie while we’re still in the same school.

“Alright, I’ll be there!”

“WOOOO!!!” Lotte screams and everyone else flinches.

“Jesus Christ Lotte, control yourself!” Yao snaps at her, but of course she doesn’t give a damn. Instead, she starts dancing right there in the hallway and singing some pop song off-key. I know for a fact she’s not drunk because she acts like that even in class, but it’s still almost impossible to believe. Yao grumbles quietly and facepalms in shame before walking off without another word.

“See you tomorrow!” are Lisa’s parting words, and she smiles brightly as she waves bye. Bryan punches her lightly on the shoulder and she silently pumps her fist. They’re so happy that most of the class will be there. We used to this kind of stuff a lot more often in our first year, but then summer break came and everyone drifted apart.

“Wear something nice... but not too nice”, Lotte advises, winking conspicuously. “That’d be a bit too scary.”

“Scary how?” I ask puzzled. She just blows me a kiss before WOOTing again and pseudo-dancing out the door. In a way I almost envy her utter indifference towards social norms, being her must be so freeing. I can’t imagine the tiniest worry ever enters her head. For sure she never feels anything she does is wrong.

I popped in the crafts store on the way to my parents’ – on Friday’s we always have dinner together. This week it was dad’s turn to cook, so I helped him make the asam laksa, after hiding the curry- he always tries to put in too much, and mom’s so white she can barely salt her food.

“Bismillah”, dad and I say.

“God is great, by his hand we are all fed. Amen”, mom and I say.

My parents are great at working around their faiths. They both let the other do their own thing while holding onto their own. They never tried to teach me one faith was wrong. I came to think of God and Allah as different aspects of the same entity, in a way, and had no problems growing up bi-religious. As a child God felt closer, but after graduating middle school I became more drawn to Allah, maybe partly because of Saida. That’s when we really started being good friends, despite being neighbors since birth and always being in the same class. I even wore a hijab for a while, like her, though only for, like, ten months maybe? It wouldn’t have been even that long had my parents not been kind of worried, and had I not been a rebellious little shit. I wanted to make them squirm a bit. Imagine that, an Ally who wasn’t a total goody two shoes.

“We’ve been thinking about getting a dog”, dad tells me. “I think a Maltese would be best, they’re small and playful. A dog should be social and playful, right? Real companions. I have some breeders scouted already.”

He’s super excited about this dog. One might even say suspiciously excited…

“You’re suffering from empty nest syndrome”, I quip and chuckle.

“Nonsense, I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“You never mentioned dogs before Ally moved out, honey”, mom reminds playfully.

“What? Sure I did. The house was just too small.”

Mom rubs her chin mock-thoughtfully.

“The man doth protest too much, methinks.”

“He really doth.”

Dad gets flustered and still tries to claim he’s doing no such thing. Everyone and their grandma knows he has a soft spot for anything cute and fluffy but he still likes to pretend he doesn’t. Oh, that pink teddy bear on that shelf? It was a gift for my wife, she loves things like that. I heard your cat had kittens, can I bring my daughter over to see them? What’s a few mice, they’ll be gone by winter, getting mouse traps is too much hassle.

We had to call an exterminator for the mice. In a few months they had taken over most of the kitchen.

“Well now neither will get to name the puppy.”

Aww, and I was so looking forward to that yappy little shedding machine. I would have named it Fluffy of the Incessant Noise.

“I’m thinking O’Malley. That could then be shortened to either Max or Madsie.”

“He hasn’t been this excited since your youngest cousin was born”, mom says while nudging dad with her elbow. Dad claims the dog would be mostly for mom, so she won’t get lonely while dad’s at work. Mom says Of course, honey, and lets it slide. She has a part-time job, she’s only home alone for nine hours a few days a week.

--

I leave when it starts getting dark outside. I live close to my parents, so I decide to walk home. It’s getting a little chilly outside, but that only means the air is fresh and getting under the warm covers will feel that much better. It’s quiet – oddly quiet, it’s only quarter past eight. Why are all the lights already off? I could get a few people being asleep already, but the whole neighborhood? It’s not a blackout, the streetlights are on. Weird.

I’m starting to get a little nervous. Logically thinking there’s nothing worrying around, but my gut keeps telling me something is wrong more insistently than usually. And it’s a dangerous wrong, not the this-is-not-expected-of-you-wrong.

I pick up my pace a bit, and that’s when the streetlamps start going out, too. Each one I pass under fizzles out after me. The feeling of wrong is replaced by GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!! In a blind panic I start running, but then the lamps start breaking before I even reach them! Hot glass shards rain over me as I’m left in total darkness in a large city that never sleeps!

No, that not entirely correct… There is still one light on. A single streetlamp a dozen meters away illuminates a small patch of sidewalk. Something is standing under it. Some kind of dark creature, with long talons and glinting fangs. I can hear it chuckling darkly… and it charges at me!

On instinct I put up my dukes, only realizing after the fact that it’s probably the one choice even worse than simply running – I’ve never hit anyone in my life and would just break each of my fingers before getting mauled to death… Shit! Okay, okay – but at least this way, I can die on my own terms – bring it on, bitch!

But just as quickly as it attacked, it is defeated. A blindingly bright spear of light shoots down from the sky, piercing the creature’s head clean in the center and nailing it to the asphalt. The resulting shockwave drops me on my ass on the ground. The spear stays standing, unbearably bright to look at but barely illuminating the surroundings at all. And the creature lies there motionless, not bleeding, but it’s so obviously dead I almost want to go up to it and investigate a little. My wrong radar goes off, though, so I give up the idea.

And, well, I wouldn’t have gotten that far anyway, since now a watery, half-there hand fades into view around the hilt of the spear – the same hand from school. This doesn’t feel like a dream, and in a dream I sure wouldn’t wonder if this was all a dream, but I just have to consider the possibility. Because if this is reality, I’ll have to readjust my beliefs on ghosts and I really, really don’t want them to be real!

A faint sound of flutes drifts in as the hand lifts up the spear and offers it to someone invisible. The corpse of the demonic beast quietly crumbles to dust, and all the lights flicker back on. The invisible someone starts forming a body – at first as poorly defined as the watery hand, like a half-remembered memory, but soon solidifying into a slender, paper white arm, alabaster robe, platinum blonde curls… and massive, pure white feathery wings flaring out from this picture perfect woman’s back. A softly glowing halo hums into life above her head as a single, clear ring of a church bell tolls.

If – if this isn’t an angel, nothing is. There I am, on my ass on the pavement before an emissary of God, and I can’t even manage to not gawk at her like some fucking moron!

The angel takes the spear in her hand, the watery hand waves to me and disappears, and still I can’t manage to even close my fucking mouth!

“I take it you are unharmed?” the angel asks me, her voice pure and melodic and all that poetic crap, and all I say is “Praise be to God”, like some generic and zero-thought-process and out-of-habit phrase like that is going to do any good in this situation. THINK OF SOMETHING TO SAY, DAMN YOU BRAIN!

“Get off your ass already!” a new voice huffs and startles me enough to actually make me jump despite not even standing. On my left, there is a lesbian – honestly, that’s what best describes her! She’s wearing red flannel, for fuck’s sake! A super short lesbian, she’s almost a head shorter than even me… What the hell – heck is she doing here? Can’t she see the angel standing right there? Why isn’t she boggled out of her mind at the incredible sight?! It feels so right to be in awe of her – wait… It feels… right? Why… why isn’t anything wrong now? I… This is so confusing. Where did the wrong go?

The angel graciously offers her hand to this idiotic creature, and all I can do is stutter out a simple thank you. Partly it’s my confusion at the inexplicable disappearance of wrong, and partly because she is - and I’m not shitting or embellishing this in the slightest - the most beautiful woman I could have imagined even in my wildest dreams. It’s not just how she looks, it’s also how she feels – and yes, she does look stunning, but she also emanates this aura of peace, reverence and contentment. That aura, combined with her perfectly symmetrical, slim face, large eyes in multiple hues of blue and nearly translucent, evenly toned skin puts Aphrodite, Venus and Istar all to shame.

“Thank you”, I say automatically. The angel smiles and I swear my heart skips like ten beats. Not only is she indescribably beautiful, she’s also insanely tall – I don’t even reach her armpit. As I stare up at her like some love-struck idiot, her face subtly changes – her eyes go from double-lid to monolid, her nose flattens a bit, and her cheekbones travel upwards. She’s turned from completely Caucasian to part East Asian – like me. She skin still stays just as pale, though, it even faintly glows a white light.

“We need to go, asshats!” the lesbian snaps. I reluctantly turn to look at her instead of the wonder in front of me. Her hair is blonde as well, but instead of freely flowing long waves, it’s a straight, long bob and pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes are an even turquoise, and that’s one of the only two things worth mentioning about her looks – she’s impossibly plain. She’s so plain you can’t call her ugly, not even standing next to the angel. The other thing worth mention is that bitch face of epic proportions. How she can be anything but awestruck around the angel is beyond me, but that look makes it pretty clear she despises nothing on this planet as much as she does me.

I thought the angel would be incapable of negative emotions, but even she gives a slight glare at the lesbian, like she’s being inappropriate.

“Yes, it would be best to move on before more demons arrive.”

That thing was really a demon? Not just some monster? Why was it after me? And why am I important to warrant an honest to God angel to save me? Not that I don’t appreciate it, it’s just weird that a nobody like me gets special treatment. My family’s not important, and I’m not even planning a religious career.

The angel and the lesbian start walking towards my place, and I don’t question how they know where I live. I just follow, legs weak, suddenly noticing how funny the short lesbian looks next to the giant angel. As I stifle the chuckle, I realize how rude I’m being, and to a celestial being at that!

“Ah! My name’s Ally binti Badraan! Nice to meet you!”

Both women turn to look at me, but keep walking.

“We knew that”, the angel replies smiling gently. “You may call me Rapture.”

We both look at the lesbian expectantly, and she blanks for a good five seconds. What, doesn’t she know her own name?

“…Meta. Got any smokes?”

Rapture looks like she wants to facepalm, but it wouldn’t fit her image.

“Uhh, sorry, no. I don’t smoke.”

“What are you even good for?” Meta huffs. Excuse me? What the hell kind of manners are those?! She was totally raised in a barn!

“I apologize for my subordinate”, Rapture grumbles. “It may be difficult to believe she is also an angel, but she is capable despite her personality.”

What?! The lesbian is also an angel? But – she’s nothing like Rapture! She seems like the furthest thing from angel excluding demons! Rapture, yeah, she could only be an angel, but you can’t tell me that Plain McBitchy belongs in the same genus!

“I’m here to fight demons, not to baby these bonebags”, Meta comments with a sneer. I decide not to bother with her, and address Rapture.

“So you’re powers, am I correct?”

Rapture smiles so bright I swear the whole street lights up. I hate being a broken record, but she is so beautiful! I might have to look away soon, wouldn’t want my eyes to overload.

“Oh, good to see you have read your Bible! It has been very long since I met a true believer!”

I don’t have the heart to tell her I haven’t even read the whole Bible… I skipped like 70 percent of the Old Testament. I read all the angel stuff on Wikipedia.

Come to think of it, does this prove Christianity to be the only true religion? What am I going to tell dad and Saida?

I’m just about to ask, when the angels – no, I just can’t consider the lesbian an actual angel – suddenly turn invisible. We’re right at the corner of my apartment building, and I hear someone walking towards us. I don’t want to panic, because for sure Rapture wouldn’t have left me to fend for myself if it was a demon, but can you blame me for imagining the worst when I was a second away from death mere minutes ago?

I couldn’t hide behind the dumpster fast enough, and Ricky caught me at a very embarrassing situation.

“Did you drop something?” he asks. I feel my face growing red as I try to nonchalantly brush my clothes clean and look like I didn’t just dive on the ground.

“Oh, yeah, my… thing. Girl thing.”

“I have two sisters, you can say tampon”, he laughs as he throws in his trash. I am so glad he doesn’t realize I made it sound like my tampon just fell out. “Nice evening, right? If it weren’t for the lights, you could see the stars clearly.”

Yeah, the sky is clear and there’s only a light breeze in the air. I look up at the sky, but can only see a few dots here and there. I’ve always wanted to go in the countryside somewhere at night so I could see the starry sky in all its glory. It’s just that driving in complete darkness in a strange place would be a little too scary, and I am not sleeping in a car.

I catch Ricky looking at me with a slight blush on his face, and wait for the wrong to set in to discourage any kind of romantic notion. But it doesn’t come. What happened to it? It always comes at moments like this!

“Um…” Ricky starts, wrings his hands, looks at the ground, looks at me, and starts again. “I – I cooked up something really good, if you’d, maybe, like to come in and, I don’t know, watch some anime?”

Where is that sense of wrong? I feel completely fine with saying yes to this ridiculously obvious date. It’s like it’s suddenly okay to like someone.

I – I kind of want to see what happens. It doesn’t have to lead to anything serious, I can just leave if wrong returns. Claim I didn’t realize this is a date.

I’m gonna do it!

“Yeah, okay! I got some mochi at my place, you liked the green tea ones, right?”

Ricky can’t believe I just said yes. His smile is so wide you could fit a camel in his mouth, despite him clearly trying to play it cool, like he’s a smooth player.

“Those were the kind you got me for Christmas? Where did you buy them?” Aww, he remembered! He hadn’t looked too happy with his first taste of mochi, but I guess they grew on him.

“The Chinese store on West street, they got many kinds.”

“Never thought I’d say I like green tea”, Ricky jokes and stops even trying to hide his joy.

“My favorite is durian, smells horrible but tastes heavenly.”

Does that count as an accidental pun? Rapture and Meta are still around, aren’t they? Just invisible. What’s up with that, anyway?

“Was that the purple one, or –“

Ricky is cut off by Meta suddenly appearing right at his side and making him jump away in surprise.

“Will you two just get ON WITH IT!” she yells exasperated. “I’m TIRED, I need my SMOKES, and I’m not getting EITHER while you two keep standing here FLIRTING WITH EACH OTHER!”

Ricky stares at her in terrified silence, and I can’t think of anything to say either. Meta huffs again – seems to be her thing.

“Do you at least have smokes?”

Ricky shakes his head timidly.

“Well of FUCKING COURSE you don’t! Fucking useless garbage! Thirsty little bitch who probably still wets the bed…”

“What the hell Meta?!” I yell. Yeah, I’m a nice person, but I’m not gonna just stand there while this bitch insults my friend! Angel or not, she needs to show some basic respect! “You can’t just blow up like that! Apologize!”

She stares at me in stunned silence, and I can just hear the Did this bitch honestly-! Uh-huh, you bet your ass I did! “Ricky’s a nice guy, he doesn’t deserve you giving him shit for not enabling your bad habits!”

Uh-oh, bad move. Meta goes from disbelief to fite me! in under a second.

“You realize he probably beats off to you every single night? Nice guys like him watch the most fucked up Asian bondage porn”, Meta shoots, and stomps inside.

“She’s wrong!” Ricky instantly squeaks. “I don’t even watch normal person! I swear! SHE’S LYING!”

…and he escapes. I doubt this date is happening anymore.

When I get inside, Meta is already sprawled out on the couch. Rapture becomes visible the second I close the door. She begins a long, furious rant that same second.

“Meta! Your work ethics are deplorable! We are under strict orders not to show ourselves to normal humans! You mouth off any human you meet and spend your time smoking and rotting your brain with TV and lazing around and drinking and nothing I say ever gets through to you! Get up! What a fine image you are giving your client!”

Rapture is a lot less angelic when she rants at someone she clearly considers beneath her. That feel-good aura is completely gone and her face contorts in inhuman ways. Her voice also is also slowly losing its melodic qualities and turning more and more shrill every ten seconds. And she talks for many ten seconds. Wow, can she flap her lips! She just keeps going and going and going about the innumerable flaws Meta has, while the object of this rant does nothing to hide her prissiness though she never defends herself, either. Guess she’s used to this, and knows the fastest way to get it over with is not to argue. I may not like her, and maybe I do agree with Rapture on many points, but it’s still overkill to put someone down for almost ten minutes.

“Please calm down, Rapture, I’m sure she got the message.”

Despite this being such a meek protest, she actually turns to face me – her eyes have turned black and her face is considerably more angular and sharp than earlier. She returns back to normal in seconds, like she forgot I was here and tries to pretend she didn’t just chew out her partner. Her huge wings knock off two glasses on my table, which thankfully don’t break, and after some deliberation she decides her visage is angelic enough without the wings. She sheds them by letting the feathers fall of in a dramatic cascade. Fortunately they fall through the floor and don’t just pile up for me to clean up.

“I assume you would like an explanation of the situation?” she asks, and I nod. Behind her back Meta rolls her eyes and drops back on the couch. “Your grandchild will be the second coming of the messiah.”

Messiah? As in, Jesus Christ? And his second coming? Woah, seems Christianity is the only religion. Am I gonna have to give up Allah?

“We will stay here to protect you, to ensure the bloodline keeps going.”

“Have you been protecting me my whole life? But – why would you never show yourselves?”

You’d think protecting me was a little easier if I knew what could happen to me. I could, you know, maybe try and prepare, instead of freezing and trying to fistfight a demon. Plus I probably would have gone to church a lot more often. God likes it when people go to church.

“Oh, no, we were assigned to this task today. Powers are much too conspicuous – before this, a guardian angel was more suited to the task. They are everywhere and have very little power, so they do not attract attention. But now that you have been discovered, Satan will do all in his power to break the bloodline. He will do anything to escape judgment.”

She smiles reassuringly, but suddenly her smile doesn’t captivate me like it just minutes before. Yeah, she’s still super beautiful, but hearing her nag so passionately didn’t exactly earn her points in my book.

“Not to worry, we can take anything the enemy throws at you.”

Right, yeah, I guess I should be worried about my own life, now that she mentioned it.

“So Christianity’s God is the only true god?” I blurt out. Rapture smiles brightly, while Meta vigorously shakes her head behind her back.

“So… is He or isn’t He?”

“Of course He is! What else would He be?” Rapture barks.

“He’s so far from the only one he’s not even a decimal”, Meta comments. Rapture shoots her a truly venomous look, and clearly plans to lecture her some more later.

This is all a bit much to take in… I’m the grandmother of Jesus, and angels can’t agree on whether God is the only god or not, and I’m gonna have to tell mom and dad all this craziness… Oh and my life is gonna be in danger basically 24/7 now.

“Okay guys, I need some alone time. Good night, sorry but I only have that one couch… Try and share it or something.”

Rapture lets out an indignant scoff, but I don’t look at her. I just close the bedroom door and fall on the bed. I should do my evening prayers, but what can I even say tonight? Should I pray to both my Gods, or just one? Should I address one to all the possible deities, since Meta said there’s a whole lot? Would just one shared prayer do or am I gonna have to sit here ‘til I faint from hunger?

Eventually I settle on praying to both God and Allah, as I do every evening. I simply pray for guidance. As predicted, Rapture nags at Meta, but at least she’s doing it quietly, and lets me fall asleep.

--

Crumbs… Crumbs everywhere… Poor sandwiches, can’t be easy going to school when you shed all over the floors and eat yourself for lunch, and Ham can’t even find its cow.

“BLESSED SILENCE!”

I hear a confused groan and it takes a few seconds to realize I’m the one who made it. It’s pitch black in my room.

“Sorry, it got a little too quiet”, Meta explains. I groan again. This is just great, she woke up in the fucking dead of night because it was too quiet? That’s the ideal for night!

At least I fall asleep again reasonably quick.