“I’m grateful I get to spend them with you.”
Her eyes roll. “Pay attention, crow. This is educational. You’re about to witness howrealmen are supposed to act.”
Oh, am I? I didn’t know I wasn’t a real man. See? This is the kind of invaluable knowledge having a girlfriend brings to light.
Obediently, I enjoy more poisoned floor cookies and educate myself, asking important questions along the way likedo I needto teach you sword fighting to be a real man?anddo all real men aspire to commit mass genocide?
She assures me the monsters in the game areevilanddeserve to die.
I argue that they just seem a little misunderstood.
Minutes tick by into hours, yet I persist despite the several poisoned cookies I’ve consumed. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Ithrive.
Azalea is in her element, and it’s beautiful. She’s beautiful. I can’t help myself from wantingthisforever. I want long nights together, talking over nonsense while we continue to survive in spite of the horrors surrounding us,forever.
“You keep staring at me instead of paying attention to the game,” she says, somewhere around eleven o’clock.
“You keep smiling,” I murmur, tired but happy.
Punishing me, she frowns. “Have you learned anything?”
“I need to buy you a sword and locate an evil minority. I’m considering mosquitos.”
She sighs, but then she smiles again. Sweet as the cookies I’ve all but singlehandedly devoured in their entirety, she says, “There’s something really,reallywrong with you.”
“I know that, dove.”
Her gloved hand lifts off the mouse, and she pushes back the pale strands of her hair, revealing the shell of her ear. Coy, she glances my way out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t think the poison worked.”
“Shame, I’m sure. Maybe you forgot to add it.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe they were completely safe all along.”
She mellows, staring at the spare few left. “Maybe.”
Careful and slow, I lift one packaged cookie toward her.
She hesitates.
I say, “I amnevergoing to let anything hurt you.”
“You expect me to believe that when the only thing that has hurt me over the past two years has been—”
“You,” I say, with her.
She freezes, fingers inches from my offering.
Gentle, I murmur, “I’m not the one who lies awake with you all night, beating you up inside. I’d love to be, but I’m not. I think we both know who has hurt you the most these past two years and before them. It’s not easy being your own villain.” I set the cookie in her hand. “It’s more fun to let someone else have a turn.”
Stillness consumes her before she gingerly unwraps the baked good. Her breath catches, but she forces herself to take a bite anyway.
I say, “I love you.”
“Shut up,” she mumbles around the mouthful.
“Pity. You found the one thing I won’t do.” Brushing my fingers through her hair, I kiss her temple. “One more bite for me.”
