Page 52 of Fate Fiction

This woman was notorious for obsessively posting in the Thorndown subreddit, multiple times an hour. The incriminating selfies were what got her permanently banned.

I wanted to scrub myself clean of the years of fandom I’d held. I felt dirty, exposed, even. I bit my lip anxiously, accidentally drawing blood.

Evan was fully enmeshed in the story now, his eyes glazing over. “The traffic cleared, the driver pulled away, but not before the woman tossed a thick envelope into the car. The driver took another turn and drove a few blocks in circles to make sure she wasn’t following us anymore. The envelope was addressed to Sir Erwyn. I was about to open it when the driver told me it could be anthrax or something. I had never thought of that possibility, that someone's obsession with my character—with me—would make them do a thing like that.”

“Did you ever open it?” I asked quietly.

“Curiosity got the best of me,” he said, his cheeks reddening. “It wasn’t poison. It was an incredibly detailed fanfiction depicting Sir Erwyn falling in love with, and having rather violent sex with the woman I’d met.”

This was the closest he’d come to calling me out specifically. I wasn’t this woman, I wasn’t anything like her. Still, there were lines I’d crossed.

How similar were her and I, allowing our fixations to consume hours of time. Was writing good fanfiction any better than writing bad fanfiction? It was all the same to him, and I couldn’t fault him for it. The hidden, shameful parts of me he didn’t see on the surface were no different than her.

“I’m so, so sorry. That’s horrible,” I managed, a thick lump firmly lodged in my throat.

Was I so deranged that I’d do such a thing?

Was he onto me?

Why couldn’t I separate myself from her?

“That’s not the worst of it, the next day I was leaving my apartment to go get a coffee and she was waiting outside, with my exact coffee order. She ran at me, and nearly threw the drink in my face when I refused to take it. I had to call the cops on her and then sit with her on the sidewalk and pretend to be interested so she wouldn’t run off. She was practically foaming at the mouth talking to me, when the cops finally came they determined there were sleeping pills crushed into the drink. A lot of them. She was trying to drug me and who knows what else.”

My veins turned into ice now. The instance was so wild it sounded like it was pulled straight from an episode of “Law & Order,” and Evan had lived it.

“What?” I asked. “Who would do something like that?”

“I don’t know. I had to move. I haven’t really told anyone that it happened, even though it’s been years. I think—I think a part of me wondered if it was all my fault. I was nice to her and it bit me in the ass.”

I shook my head, “no, Evan, of course it’s not your fault. You were a kind person. You did what you thought was best and she…” I paused and squeezed my eyes shut, further forcing separation from her. “She violated your safety.”

I didn’t know this part of the story. No one in the public did.

“I can’t believe that wasn’t a huge news story,” I said, barely above a whisper. I was taking deep breaths, inhaling through my nose, exhaling through my mouth. This illusion of normalcy between us had been rattled, but I’d try to maintain the facade.

His anxiety from recounting the tale seemed to ease, “I didn’t let it be one, I wouldn’t let her name be published in the same headline as mine. I knew it would fuel her fire even more. I had to pay off a few papers and threaten legal action just to keep it on the down low.”

“When did you say this all happened?”

“Right after filming season four.”

I remembered how people commented on his complete change in personality during the promotional cycle for that season. How he seemed “ungrateful” and that he didn’t want anything to do with the show. At the time fans assumed he felt like he was too good for it, but it was the very fandom of the show that nearly killed him.

The thought was horrifying, to be a target for your job alone. I grew defensive, not of myself, but of Evan. He didn’t deserve the vitriol, or the series of events that caused this shift. “How did you not quit the show entirely?”

“I wanted to. To be honest I still want to. But contracts and my agent make it pretty difficult. I’ve been begging them to kill me off so I could get an out.” He said it so surely. These wants had clearly been marinating for some time.

“I don’t fault you.”

Until today I didn’t think that I’d want my favorite show to kill off my favorite character, but I was beginning to like Thorndown and Sir Erwyn less and less with each hour I’d spent with Evan. And not for the reasons I thought I would at the start of the week.

“Anyways,” he slapped his thighs, symbolizing the end of this topic. Forcing himself to shift the tone. “More depressed actor stuff for you, I think we’re around hour forty nine? Have I met my quota for the week?” His voice was strained, but he clearly wanted to shift the conversation away from his own vulnerabilities.

I gave him a wry smile. “I think after hour forty eight we can start counting days instead.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

“And I’m sure you’d be telling Sue and Randy this story if I wasn’t here.” I made sure to give an exaggerated laugh to show I wasn’t downplaying the severity of the story.