After AnimeCon: Everyone's Up

    “I—” Rebecca blushed. “Sorry, I was totally rambling! I just can go on and on and on—”

    “You already had me at—well, whatever your first few words were,” Brian assured her. “However I can help or be a part of things, count me in. Can’t speak for the girls, but I think they’d all love it, too. Something big and fun to do, to uh, prepare for, look forward to. Like AnimeCon. I’m already gonna be back to work at the packing plant basically fighting to get my job back, so I expect it’ll just be tedious months for me. A big renaissance faire to look forward to with everyone seems like it’d be perfect.”

    “Yeah?” Rebecca asked, tapping out a little dance with her feet. “Really? Because—I was really hoping to get you guys into it. I um, I kept thinking about it! A lot.”

    “About what?” Emily called, peeking her head out from the zipper of the nearby modern tent. “Get us into—Rebecca, we’re trying to get you into the harem. Talk about—”

    “I kissed!” Rebecca blurted out. “We kissed. It—”

    “You what?!” Emily squealed in excitement, yanking the zipper wide so she could clamber out. “What happened—did you get some color? What happened?!”

    “Oh, no, we didn’t—” Rebecca tried to explain. “Not yet! It was just a um, a non-magical kiss.”

    “For now,” Brian added.

    “For now,” Rebecca agreed with a grin, sharing a quick glance with him before turning an exasperated look back towards Emily. “Emily Madison Rivera—where are your pants, young lady?”

    “I’m wearing underwear, geez,” Emily scoffed, shoving her bare feet into her sneakers and almost losing her balance. “And, my middle name isn’t Madison. Madison is my sister’s middle name.”

    “It’s Emily Balls Rivera,” Brian delivered with a straight face. “Trust me.”

    “It is not!” Rebecca stuck out her tongue. “I think I remember it was Madison.”

    “Emily Big ol’ Balls Rivera,” Emily nodded, stumbling their way and then clapping her hands on her hips and looking around. “Emily Balls to the Wall Rivera. Hell yeah, sucka. So, uh. Oi, where’s the loo? Can I go piss on Chloe’s grave? I swear I promised to do that, someday.”

    “We’re in the woods, just pick a direction,” Rebecca advised. “Here, wait. I have wipes.”

    “What were you two talkin’ about getting us into?” Emily asked. “And—you guys made out already?! Like, wow. Whoa. Whew. Why the heck didn’t—”

    “We’ve decided that I’m goin’ to that big renfaire, for sure,” Brian explained. “The uh…”

    “Bear Valley Renaissance Faire,” Rebecca supplied the title. “You went to that one last year, Emily.”

    “Yeah, that one,” Brian said. “Better than just waiting all year for the next AnimeCon to roll around, I figure.”

    “Right, right, awesome!” Emily gave them her signature huge thumbs-up, jerking her elbow out to the side. “Hoped we’d all go. We might havta like, strongarm Kelly into it, though. I couldn’t even get her to wake up the frick up, geez. She’s stubborn sometimes. But, yeah I guess if we trick her into believing it’s a concert or something—”

    “I am awake,” Kelly reported in a gruff tone from the tent. “Emily. If you really love me, you’d go grab my thing of coffee from the car. Please?”

    “Sure thing, babe,” Emily slapped her hands across her thighs. “Uhh. Cold, day-old convenience store coffee, comin’ up. Anything for my big-tiddy bitch.”

    “Emily, language. Oh, and—!” Rebecca stood up. “If Kelly has a thermos or something already—well, we can switch it into mine, I have a thing that’s safe to heat over the fire. I’ll get the fire going again, if everyone’s up. Campfire toast time!”

    “Good morning, everyone!” Stephanie appeared, crawling out from the other tent’s mostly-buttoned opening and giving everyone a sunny smile. “Is… everyone already up?!”

    “Morning!” Emily cheered with a wave as she began to head down the hill towards the vehicles. “Hey. Diggin’ the sex-hair, nice.”

    “I-is it, is it bad?!” Stephanie began to feel towards her tufts of pink which were sticking in every direction. “Oh noooo—!”

    “Morning, Steph,” Kelly grunted. “Morning, Emily.”

    “I’m… also awake already,” Christine called in a small voice from within the cabin. “Whenever someone can, um. Whenever it’s convenient to unlock me from the thing.”

    “Oh, shoot! Right,” Rebecca hurried over. “Sorry, sorry!”

    “Morning, Brian,” Kelly continued. “Morning, Rebecca. Morning, Christine.”

    “Did I, um, did anyone even bring a brush?” Stephanie giggled. “I forgot.”

    “I did,” Kelly groaned. “Emily. Hey, Emily! Someone yell for Emily. Tell her to get my brush, too. And the coffee. And the snacks. Actually. Bring my whole purse? Emily. Emily!”

    “Kelly, are you still in your tent?!” Stephanie laughed.

    “Good morning Christine!” Rebecca lifted the door and then shouldered it open. “Sorry, I was uh, I got to talking, and—”

    “G’morning,” Brian said. “Everyone. Hah…”

* * *

    “How are we feeling today?” Rebecca greeted.

    Christine did her best not to flinch back from the sudden morning light pouring in through the cabin’s door. It was bright today, or perhaps feeling so raw and emotionally ragged over the long night had her more sensitive to it. She blinked up at Rebecca standing in the doorway and felt as though she was seeing the girl with new eyes. In the past weeks she was viewing the girl as her captor, and now she saw her as a steadfast guardian angel, framed in light.

    “Better,” Christine replied, averting her eyes. “And… worse.”

    “Let’s focus on the better, for now,” Rebecca suggested, stepping inside and easing down into a crouch beside her. “Do you need me to unstrap you?”

    “Um,” Christine faltered. “If you can…”

    She wasn’t sure how to articulate that she wanted to remain restrained, or as restrained as possible. The bonds that had chafed and infuriated her so much in the days prior were now something she drew small comfort from. They were familiar, they were symbolic. The straps closed in around her wrist braces were proof to everyone that they were safe from her, that there was less chance she might suddenly revert to Chloe and abuse her freedom to hurt everyone around her.

    Yes. Freedom now frightens me in the same way that captivity did before, Christine thought, watching with dismay as Rebecca tore the tape and began unwinding it from her. What a strange turnaround.

    “How do you feel better?” Rebecca prompted.

    “I… I’m not her, at least,” Christine answered. “I don’t know how to explain it, really.”

    “You feel better not being Chloe?” 

    “Mm-hmm,” Christine nodded, embarrassed.

    With one last tearing noise, Rebecca undid the velcro and pulled away the wrist braces, revealing slender hands. They were pale and lovely in a way that transfixed Christine for a moment—the discoloration and bruising was gone, and they didn’t appear so frail anymore.

    “Well, you look a lot better!” Rebecca took hold of one hand for examination. “Open and close for me?”

    Christine complied, stretching her wrist and splaying her fingers and then closing them into a tight fist.

    “Feels a lot better,” Christine admitted. “I, I guess magic?”

    “Could be,” Rebecca said with good cheer, groping through the shadows to find the other padlock. “We’ll see!”

    The other restriction Christine had grown accustomed to here was the long chain of a bike lock affixed to one of the shack’s support posts—a good portion of the chain was wrapped in plastic tubing, and that section fit neatly around Christine’s waist. It was loose enough that it didn’t pinch or cut into her skin, but she also had no way of pulling it lower down past the width of her hips, and likewise was unable to finagle it up past her shoulders.

    Chloe had tried.

    “It might be magic, it might be, just—you know,” Rebecca fiddled with the combination of the padlock. “I think that, um, as Chloe, you were very… high stress! Wound up, all the time. I know you’d told me you grind your teeth at night, or your jaw would hurt from clenching too hard. I think maybe you were also clenching your fists super tight, and that’s maybe why they were always so sore when you woke up. So achey.”

    “Maybe,” Christine said.

    “Do you need any help getting up?” Rebecca asked as she opened the lock. “Are you ready to go out and sit with everyone?”

    “I’m ready,” Christine said, taking a deep breath. “And, Rebecca?”

    “Hm?”

    “Thank you,” Christine looked up at the girl. “For. For not giving up on me. You were right. I, I was the Chloe of hate. Instead of the Christine of, um. Contrition. Thank you for believing in me, for—for taking care of me.”

    “We’re friends,” Rebecca smiled and gave her a shrug. “C’mon, up up up.”

    With Rebecca’s assistance Christine struggled up to her feet. Physically she felt amazing—better than she remembered feeling in years. Not just refreshed, she felt alert, energized. Exhaustion and weakness had been chased out of her supple limbs by shimmers of cleansing silver, and Christine felt like her limbs were eager to stretch, to prance and bound around the camp. Emotionally, she felt the polar opposite.

    Stepping out through the cabin door and into the camp with everyone made her want to recoil, to hunch her shoulders protectively and hide back within the cabin. Rebecca didn’t allow her to do that, instead standing next to her and fussing with her hair and sweatshirt so that they sat correctly, fixing her collar, smoothing out the wrinkles, and tugging the hem down the whole way.

    Even just seeing Brian made her heart drop right out of her chest and made her want to burst into tears. Christine’d had all night to dwell on everything she had done, and now she had feelings for him that magnified all of the hurt she had piled upon him. He was handsome and strong but she could also see the sheer strain upon him dealing with her last night had been. Not just last night—the Chloe relationship had taken a bitter toll on him, and now all that was left of Chloe was Christine, and Christine had no idea how to even begin making things right.

    “Morning,” Brian said, and the weight of his gaze upon her felt absolutely crushing.

    There was caution in his eyes, but also he looked so tired of her, sick of dealing with her constant nonsense. Although Brian was a deep well of patience, Christine felt like she had squandered an unbelievable amount of it towards pointless bitter ends. She didn’t know how she could ever restore the trust she had taken away from him—or even if she was worthy of trying.

    “G-good morning,” Christine said, trying to force a smile.

    Instead, her eyes began to water with tears.

    “You alright?” Brian asked.

    Her view of him became a wet blur she quickly tried to clear away with her fingertips and then the back of her hand, and Christine made a point to clear her throat so as not to begin to sob. She wasn’t going to break down right now and cry. It wouldn’t be fair to just immediately dump her emotional baggage on him like that. He had asked her if she was alright, but his tone was neutral rather than concerned. Hesitant; distant. Brian was wary of extending himself on her behalf, and looking back now that was a wariness that had formed after almost two long years of Chloe leveraging his own concern for her against him.

    “I’m fine!” Christine was quick to assure him. “I’m fine.”

    Please. Don’t worry about me.

    “It’d be weird if you were fine,” Brian muttered, shaking his head. “After—after all this. After everything. Here, come sit.”

    The log section he was resting on was big enough for two, and he shifted over to one side to offer her space. Christine wanted to panic—she didn’t want to sit so close to him. She didn’t feel ready to be so close to him, close enough for him to fret over, because she didn’t deserve that. She had hurt him and abused his trust and weaponized his trust for her, and while she longed to make it all right somehow, she had not done that yet. Until she had earned something, his care for her made her feel absolutely wretched.

    “I-I can stand,” Christine shook her head. “It’s okay.”

    “Okay,” Brian sounded disappointed, but made no move to push her on the issue. “How are you feeling? I, uh, I don’t just mean that as like, a nicety, or just something to make conversation. How are you feeling? About what’s happened, about how you’ve… changed. About me, having put that on you. The situation. The magic bullshit. The future. I know that’s a lot, and I don’t mean to um, just drop a full out interrogation on you, but—I feel like it’s very important right now that we’re all on the same page with everything and understanding each other so that we can move forward.”

    “Sit with him,” Rebecca insisted, giving Christine a small nudge. “Sit, sit.”

    “I, I uhh—” Christine ambled forward with nervous steps and then carefully sat, perching on the very edge of Brian’s seat so as to give him lots of personal space. 

    “I’m okay. Physically. I feel awful for everything I’ve put you through. I, um,” Christine’s mind whirled with slivers of silver as she tried to answer everything. “I’m not Chloe. The ah, the magic makes me see everything differently. Accurately. It’s like a mirror, like holding up a mirror to my actions. Makes me, uhh. I don’t know how to explain it. Grounds me in reality, instead of—instead of all of the delusions I kept trying to feed.”

    “So—do you feel like it’s helped you? Healed you? Psychologically, I guess?”

    “It hurts—it helps,” Christine struggled to explain. “It’s, hah. Both. It’s very bitter medicine? Seeing what I did to you, it um. It makes me want to just die. I don’t know how to fix things between us, I don’t know what I could ever do to make it right. To even start. I’m. I’m really sorry. Br-Brian, I’m so sorry—!”

    The feelings she’d been trying to suppress burst out in a wash of silver and she started crying, hiding her face in her hands.

    “It was difficult,” Brian admitted. “Especially towards the end there, you got… a little crazy. But, that’s over with, right? That’s not you anymore. Right?”

    “Th-that’s not me,” Christine promised, trying to wipe away her mess of tears and sobbing again. “I-I promise. Brian I promise.”

    “Then, yeah. Let’s put all that behind us,” Brian said, offering her a hand. “Best thing we can do.”

    “I…” Christine stared at it for a long moment before finally slipping her hand into his. It felt good just even holding his hand—it was intimate and comforting in a way she had never appreciated before.

    “Okay.”

    * * *

    “How’s my Stephanie?” Kelly asked, brushing carefully through Stephanie’s pink locks. “You doin’ okay? With everything?”

    “Mostly,” Stephanie hummed. “It’s all just still so… overwhelming.”

    “Sensing everyone’s feelings?”

    The morning air was brisk and fresh out here in the mountains, and the greenery pressing in on both sides of the road was gorgeous. The two had ambled down the tire rut path towards the vehicles together, and now they lingered next to the open passenger’s side door of Brian’s car. They watched in amusement as Emily’s still-clad-just-in-panties butt waggled awkwardly back and forth. The display wasn’t intentional—or at least, probably wasn’t—because there parked in front of them the rear hatch of Rebecca’s car was open. Emily had climbed partway inside there the piles of things stored there and was rummaging for stuff to carry back up to the camp.

    “Yes,” Stephanie quirked her lip. “Brian needs some space, he has this restless feeling. I think he starts to tense up a little when all of us are there, or—not tense, exactly, but he retreats back into himself a little bit. I could, um, I could get away with being a little smothering last night, because it helped take his mind off all that. But, right now he needs some space. I do, too—I just need space from Christine.”

    “That bad, huh?” Kelly chuckled.

    “Self-loathing and guilt and, well, shame,” Stephanie said. “It’s one thing to uh, to I guess objectively understand that that’s how she’s feeling, and it’s another thing to feel it. Like it’s firsthand, almost. It’s all just so… horribly sour and bitter. Awful. I, I don’t think I can stand to be in her presence for long while she’s like this. I had to go give her a hug last night, but it didn’t do much. She needs something substantial like that—but from Brian. And, I’m not sure he’ll be ready for that soon. I can’t sit over there right now with her like that, I-I can only take small doses, maybe? Until we figure out how she can have us on the other side of the mirror from her again. Block out senses with her mirror thing, again. Or, if that’s even possible?”

    “Hope so,” Kelly said, combing through Steph’s hair in slow strokes and then running her fingers through afterwards as if needing to personally ensure the brush was doing its job. “You know, I think her mirror bullshit was what was fucking us up so bad. With my thing, with the Sends. All those iterations. Like, they were never able to get the full picture.”

    “Maybe,” Stephanie made a thoughtful noise. “Hm.”

    “We heard you and Brian boink last night?” Kelly asked.

    “Oh—hah,” Stephanie flushed. “Well, not exactly. I feel bad about it. I was uh, well I want to say I was working at distracting him from everything going on. But, honestly… I just really needed it. I think that helped him, a little. But, mostly it felt like it was for me.”

    “You’re allowed to be a little selfish,” Kelly said.

    “I know,” Stephanie said. “You are, too.”

    “I had some fun with Emily, last night.”

    “But, you’re still feeling frustrated,” Stephanie turned to face Kelly.

    “Nah,” Kelly shook her head. “I’m like, the least involved in all of the Chloe nonsense from last night that has Brian and Emmie both so worked up.”

    “I mean, you didn’t… get off, last night,” Stephanie gave her a shy smile.

    “Not a big deal,” Kelly shrugged. “Like yeah, it’d be nice, but I’m not exactly deprived. We all had mind-blowing sex just last night at the apartment, remember? If it wasn’t for the weird rejuvenation B.S. we wake up to where we feel all great, I’d say I’m not even ready for that kind of sex again. Normally I’d be a little sore, from that kind of sex.”

    “I did wake up feeling clean and… fresh?” Stephanie agreed. “I wonder what the deal is with that? Do we know?”

    “At this point, I’m afraid to question it,” Kelly laughed. “Don’t want to accidentally fuck that up. It wasn’t really like that while Brian was in his spell coma thing. We had to shower and brush our teeth and stuff like peasants again—or at least, I think we did. Hard to say how much of that sort of… groggy sorta bleh feeling was just from how much magic the spell frame thing took out of us. That was fuckin’ draining.”

    “But now, we definitely wake up fresh and full of energy,” Stephanie said. “Don’t we? Did you still need coffee?”

    “Ehhh—” Kelly winced. “Okay, I probably didn’t need it, like I used to. I still want it, though. Feels weird fuckin’ just—what, am I supposed to sit around in the morning without a cup of coffee in my hand? Like some weirdo?”

    “Maybe?” Stephanie locked eyes with her. “I’m not sure. Have you, um. I know you said you used to smoke cigarettes. Have you—?”

    “Oh, nah,” Kelly shook her head. “Can’t, gave ‘em all to Chelsea. Before we left AnimeCon. I probably would have otherwise, just out of habit. Rather than actual uh, actual need. Habits are like that. It’s still honestly kind of weird to me, taking breaks at Dollarydoos and not having them be actual smoke breaks?”

    “I’ve never seen you smoke,” Stephanie admitted. “It’s… hard for me to picture?”

    “Smoking’s sexy,” Kelly shrugged.

    “Hmm,” Stephanie quirked her lip to show her skepticism. “I dunno about that…”

    “What? It is, that’s just fact,” Kelly said. “Ask Brian, sometime.”

    “I will! I think I will. Do you think I should start smoking?”

    “Hah—Stephanie, no,” Kelly shook her head. “Not a chance.”

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