Chapter 22
twenty-two
. . .
Sunday, Late February
When the Sword of Thorndown theme song blared from my television, something snapped awake inside me like muscle memory.
I’d tried to avoid the season. Aside from the premiere livestream—which I ended the second Evan walked away from the red carpet interview—I had largely avoided all of Thorndown.
Until tonight, when I found myself watching the finale more or less against my will.
Evan refused to answer any of my countless questions about the bolo tie or its assumed absurdly overt reference to my former screenname, claiming he didn’t know what I was talking about.
He’d say something about his stylist always having outlandish ideas and give me a cheeky wink each time.
I’d given up the fight, letting his comment haunt me.
Falling asleep to the way his face unwound itself from his terse demeanor into a playful smile when he acknowledged it on the red carpet.
I blocked Reddit on my computer and phone so I couldn’t dig through the fan forums and see if anyone else put two and two together.
I muted any phrase relating to him or the show on social media.
He and I went back to our casual, easy friendship, and Thorndown faded into obscurity.
Until he texted me a few days ago asking if I wanted to have a Thorndown watch party for the final episode of the season, and somehow the two things felt weirdly intertwined.
I tried to explain that while I appreciated his attempt at accepting my former interest in the show, I wasn’t watching the new season.
He insisted I did. Begged, actually. He could not convey how important it was for us to watch this episode together.
So here I was, watching last week’s episode in preparation for the new one.
At present, Sir Erwyn was riding his horse through the forest, en route to Edgemore in search of revenge.
I tossed another piece of popcorn into my mouth as I watched Sir Erwyn’s hands grip tighter around the horse’s reins.
Had the show always been this cheesy? My phone vibrated on the coffee table and I reached over to grab it.
Maybe: Evan:
You better be caught up in forty five minutes.
Don’t worry, I'm watching episode nine.
You’re brooding on a horse at present.
Maybe: Evan:
It’s what I do best.
Can we FaceTime later?
I looked down at my shirt that was currently also serving as a napkin. Dots of greasy fingerprints decorated the fabric. What did it matter? Evan didn’t care. He had seen my asshole and my tears, he’d live if he saw my grease stained oversized “Harvard Square Book Fair” t-shirt.
My how times had changed.
Sure.
But you’re not allowed to judge my reactions.
Maybe: Evan:
Have you considered that’s precisely why I want to see your face?
Am I allowed to finish the episode in peace?
Maybe: Evan:
If you insist.
Call me when you’re done.
I smiled at my phone and tossed it onto the cushion next to me, trying to focus on the fictional character Evan McLeod was playing and not the real Evan McLeod living in my phone.
The episode ended on a cliffhanger, as most of them did. The final scene of peril to keep the audience begging for more. As the credits rolled, I clicked on the last FaceTime I’d had with “Maybe: Evan” and stared at myself on my phone screen as a new call began.
Evan’s face appeared and a massive grin spread across his face at the sight of me. He was also lounging on the couch, the only thing I could see were the pillows and cushions behind him. His hair spilled out around him. “You actually finished it?”
I faux crossed my heart, “scout’s honor. I just watched Lady Premble get taken to Edgemore and Sir Erwyn ride off into the woods dramatically. There was a lot of that happening this season, huh?”
“A lot of that happens every season,” he wryly chuckled. “What do you have there?” He nodded towards the bowl laying on the side table behind me.
I picked it up and rattled the crumbs, “salt and vinegar chips. Or the ghosts of them.”
Evan picked up a bag of the same chips that had been apparently laying on the couch next to him. “Also ghosts now. My post show diet has been totally fucked. Now that I don’t have to starve and dehydrate myself to show my abs on camera I’ve been eating like a frat boy.”
“You housed a family-sized platter of nachos last time we were together, does that not count?”
He laughed, “no, it does not. I’m protecting my dignity by not showing you all the takeout containers in my trash bin.” He paused for a second. “Do you have anything going on this weekend?”
Odd question, and odd timing.
“Editing, again. Maybe I’ll leave my house if I can decipher the cryptic comments my editor made for me.”
No one prepared me for the unique experience of having your written work torn to shreds while simultaneously being bolstered as a piece of art.
I’d been no stranger to criticism. Some of the comments people had left on my fanfics cut so deep I was convinced I needed stitches.
Growing up as the big-boned, glasses-wearing, socially awkward with niche interests child of a Westchester housewife had also granted me the privilege of learning exactly what my flaws were at a young age.
My editor was different. While her comments on certain lines or chunks of text could make me feel like I was soaring into the heavens, other comments could yank me back onto the ground just as fast. I’d been questioned about my character’s motivations so many times I wondered if she was actually motivated to do anything at all.
“Ah yes, the big, unmarketable book that you said was complete shit,” Evan teased.
“I think I only said that it sucked. And based on how many comments my editor has I’m starting to think it genuinely does.”
“I highly doubt that,” he laughed.
“East Coast or West Coast?”
He sighed heavily. “East Coast. I’m actually in Boston…Cambridge, specifically.” He sheepishly raked his hand through his hair, his mouth tightened into an apologetic grimace.
I was silent for a few seconds, they dragged out into a lengthy uncomfortable pause. I watched my eyes grow wide and my mouth drop open in the corner of my screen. “You’re here? Right now?”
If I had known he was blocks from me I would have wanted to run to his front door the day he arrived.
I was convincing myself that it had been for the better, for both of us, that we went back to existing in our separate universes. It was healthy that our paths only converged digitally. It was safe in this existence where he still wasn’t tangible.
Evan and I were phone friends, nothing more.
He scratched at his jaw. He was fidgety. He couldn’t stay still. “I should’ve told you I was in town, I didn’t know if you wanted to see me. It’s dumb and selfish—”
“No, no,” I stiffly laughed. “You’re good, I get it, you’re busy.”
“I’m really not,” he cut in. Then why didn’t he call me? Why had he been moving through this city like a ghost? Why was this bothering me so much? “I’ve only been here a day, but I was nervous to reach out. After last time and all, I don’t know if I could handle more—”
“Awkward conversations?”
“It’s easier when it’s on here, when there aren’t other things to think about. Plus, I have to tell you something and I don’t know how,” Evan spoke directly.
My stomach immediately dropped, his tone wasn’t indicative of anything, “what?”
“Do you know what the finale episode is titled?” he asked as I fiddled with a stray thread on the blanket wrapped around me.
“No,” I answered.
“‘Ice on the Turret,’” he stared at me, watching closely for any sort of reaction to the words that slithered out of his mouth like a venomous snake. My blood ran cold.
The bolo tie was more than a nod, it was a warning.
Each word of the title felt like a BB gun bullet into my chest. They shouldn’t have left his lips to begin with and yet they were echoing through my mind now.
I thought I’d freed myself of the curse of my past. Evan and I were good friends.
Sometimes I’d forget that a year ago he was untouchable. I’d forget he was the Evan McLeod.
Evan McLeod who was staring at me at present.
“How do you know about ‘Ice on the Turret’?” I said quietly, like it was still a secret.
The question was rhetorical, of course. It was the most popular piece of fanfiction in the Thorndown fandom.
Even if I hadn’t written it, even if he didn’t find the scraps of it in my cabin that night, he would’ve heard about it peripherally.
“I…read it. In its entirety, well up until you stopped publishing it.”
That was far more than peripheral.
My most vulnerable words, the world within a world I’d built, the dialogue, the SEX. He’d consumed all of it. This was worse than a middle school crush reading my diary.
I felt more exposed than I had ever felt when I was naked in front of him. I’d been ripped open, every piece of red bloody viscera splayed on the blanket splayed across my lap.
“You read my fanfiction? When?” I blabbered, piecing together timelines and focusing on staying upright on a stream of consciousness of what he was trying to say.
“Maybe a few weeks after I left camp.” The thought that I was still on his mind in that way was frightening, what had been his initial motivation to even find it?
How did he find it? I started to feel lightheaded from all the questions and took a few massive sips of water.
“You’re a good writer Dani. A really good writer. ”
I tried clearing my throat, once, twice, three times. Dry air rattled around. “So your secret signal to me was…”
“My not-so-subtle way of telling you that I knew, and when I read it, something changed. I understood it more, I understood you more in a weird way. The way you wrote about Sir Erwyn made me not resent the character for the first time in years. It felt like a gift.”