“It is. You make me smile, Morana. Do you even understand how rare that is? When I’m with you, something warm bubbles up in my chest, and it just happens. I’m an entertainer. My coworkers are all professionals in the field of making people happy. Butyouare the one who keeps actually reaching inside my chest and filling me up in ways that matter enough for it to come out.” I sigh. “Really… I work with people who are publicly known asManicPixieBlockBoy, butyou’rethe one who makes me laugh.”
Her wittle nose does its wittle scrunch. “Publiclyis a stretch. Manie doesn’t show his face or reveal personal details about himself.”
I touch our foreheads together. “You’re missing the point.”
“I’m…not.”
“You’re just willfully ignoring it, then?”
“Yeah.”
“I suppose that’s your prerogative.”
She melts against me. “So…I’m funny. Is that enough?”
“Yes, but that’s not all. You’re also smart, witty, creative. You turn life into a game.”
“Yeah, so I’ll actually be inclined to participate. It’s not a quirk. If I didn’t gamify everything…I just…wouldn’t. And I don’t think I’m all that smart. I almost didn’t graduate high school. I almost dropped out and made a case to my parentsabout why I was wasting time and should just go for my GED—all because of…stupid people and the stupid feeling of not wanting to be anywhere near where they might be. The only thing that changed my mind was Maelin getting picked on the very same day my feelings hit a peak. I couldn’t leave her alone there, so I pushed on, but that doesn’t change the fact I let my emotions blow me one way or the other and they’ve yet to hand me an ambition.”
“Who needs ambitions?” I murmur, going drowsy on the sweet scent of her hair.
“Says a man who owns half the internet.”
“I have a couple million followers. That’s hardly half the internet.”
“Five million isn’t acouple.”
“Sigs’s pushing twice that.”
“So you own half, and he owns all. I don’t see your point.”
“My point is, I’m a niche gaming content creator who had that ‘ambition’ shoved down my throat. I had to, from a young age, make a case as a public figure before my parents. It wasn’t about ambition; it was about survival. Which is why I took that year off when they died. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’thaveto do anything. My videos were still bringing in cash. My brothers were still working, and they’d take care of me even if everything dropped off. I had no reason to do anything, and I didn’t want to. Until, one day, I did.”
Soft, she asks, “What was that like?”
I shrug, nestle my nose in her hair. “I just woke up and wanted to create something. It got me out of bed and back in my gaming room. I stood in the doorway for ages, peering in at all the untouched pieces of my past. I wasthirteenwhen I started. I spent five years under their thumbs, having my content curated, my ideas judged, the trends forced on me. It was traumatic to just look at it all and see something I had created against my willoverflowing with support from strangers.” My chest tightens. “I texted Emmet that I didn’t know how to come back. He and Xander had been keeping up with me, checking in, the whole time. They never let me fall off. They spent the entire year inviting me to play off camera, not for content, just to be with them. Emmet told me that I’d never left, so I could just post again and act like nothing had happened. He told me that I was still me, and if I wanted to get back into creating, I could just do it. That made me realize that Iwantedto create things. Stupid things. Nonsensical things. Useless things. If they made people happy, I wanted to do it. So I did.” I exhale, let my eyes close, feel Morana’s warmth. “It wasn’t about ambition anymore. I’ve never had ambition, that was all my parents’. I just wanted to make something, and I got lucky enough that people wanted to watch.”
“I think that’s beautiful,” she murmurs.
“I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re similar. I think you make things because you want to, too. I think you compare yourself to your sister too much because she makes things that can be considered more ‘functional’. I think if you just let yourself look at what you’ve created without thinking how someone could have done it better or made something more of use, you’d see it all in a different light. I like you, Morana, because I think you’re amazing and incredible and I never know what you’re going to come up with next even though I’ve spent months engraving your habits into my brain and can predict some things you’ll do or say before you do or say them. You challenge me. You’re special to me.” I lose my air as I skate my fingers down her back, feeling her through the blankets that separate my touch from her skin. “And to top it all off? You really are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Everything about you…” I murmur, fixated on her warmth, her scent,her nearness, and how…terribly tired I am becoming. “Every…thing…”
Words slip through the cracks of my fingers as the fairy lights beyond my eyelids dim and disappear.
Chapter 15
?
So, I still make impulsive, bad decisions. What of it?
Morana
There’s a chance I’m in love with Kyran.
Ever since last night…when he fell asleep whispering how much he adores me into my hair, then—while asleep—occassionally said,I love you, Morana, while I struggled to reach slumber myself forhours…I’ve been stuck.
I told him that if he made me trust him, I’d fall in love with him.
And last night proved that I trust him more than I thought. Last night proved he doesn’t even need to be conscious to think he loves me. Last night…when he said thatlovingme meant prioritizing what I needed over what he wanted…it broke something inside my chest.
