Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Danny
? Tell my dad to fuck off
The ding! of my phone sounds from the coffee table. I ignore it.
I begged Charlie to take my phone away completely because when I’m at my weakest, I scroll through pictures and videos of Christina, a unique form of torture.
Her beautiful smile filling my screen is at once a massive relief and a knife to the gut.
But Charlie insisted on leaving my phone on and nearby in case of emergencies.
I’ve had it on silent, but Charlie must have turned on the ringer the last time he came through.
Ding. Ding.
I smash a pillow over my face.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
“Shut up,” I mutter, voice raw.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
“What the fuck?”
I throw the pillow and snatch up my illuminated phone that’s blowing up.
Comments are pouring in across my video platforms. Emails. Direct messages. Too quickly for me to even catch what they’re saying. I silence all notifications because they are rapidly hitting the hundreds. What is happening? This level of engagement only happens when I post a new video.
I finally manage enough presence of mind to read one of the notifications: 34 new comments on The Jezebel List.
“Oh my god.” How did this happen? Our latest rough cut of the documentary was getting close, but there was still a ton of work to do. And Charlie’s the only one besides me who has admin access to all of my accounts. Did hackers somehow get the rough cut and post it? Fuck fuck fuck.
I leap to my feet, swaying for a dizzy moment because I haven’t moved or eaten in so long, and dart to Charlie’s office. I fire up his computer and click onto my UNsweet Tea channel.
Except it’s been renamed. Sweet they are all truths of this story, I think.”
She looks into the distance for a moment. When her eyes lock back on the camera, I know she’s looking at me. Not the untold masses watching this video. Me. The love of her life. “But I think the central truth of this story is about home.”
My pulse races and my chest heaves. I can’t gulp down breath fast enough.
“It’s easy to think breaking free and finding home are contradictory truths. But I’ve realized they are one and the same.
“Because true home is acceptance. It cannot abide any fake performances.” Us grinning at each other in the yoga studio, her collapsed into a child’s pose as everyone else hits a warrior pose.
“Home is safety.” Us eating Japanese takeout sitting on the floor around her coffee table.
“Home is fun.” Us kissing at the bar.
“Home is even filthy.” Us giggling sensually against one another’s ears at the adult store.
“Home is being known, and seen, and loved.” Us cozied up during Movie Church, surrounded by found family, and staring at each other instead of the TV.
A tear splashes onto Charlie’s keyboard. I touch my face to confirm the wet there. I haven’t cried until now. The minute Christina left my car, I mostly went numb, only able to experience sharp pangs of pain or concern for her. And now she’s calling me back to life.
From here, the documentary continues similarly to how we originally designed the script.
Yet I sit in rapt fascination for the entire two hours, even during footage I’ve seen a million times.
Because Christina filled in some remaining gaps—she added more footage of the two of us being sweet and silly and passionate, and she rearranged some scenes to align with the new thesis of her introduction.
She’s a brilliant documentarian. And she is larger than life on this screen, like I knew she would be from day one. The world will fall in love with her like I did.
With only a few minutes of video left, the picture returns to Christina on the chaise lounge in her cardigan.
She’s fiddling with a foot-long piece of twine.
“Danny once asked me what I was thinking about during the cord-cutting ritual at that pagan festival where all of this started.” Earlier footage of her standing in front of the vendor table with scissors in hand flashes on the screen.
“I chose a thick piece of twine because it was a big beef that I wanted to sever.” Back to Christina on the chaise lounge, dangling the twine similar to the one in the flashback.
“But I wasn’t severing ties with people or a place or a thing.
I was severing ties with myself. I was severing ties with the previous version of myself whose life was one big performance marred by shame, submission, and self-hate. ”
She twists that twine between her delicate fingers, brow furrowed.
“But I think trying to cut her off was a mistake. She needed to be loved and wrapped up and cared for. She needed to be able to grow and shift and change. Cutting her off just left this hole of never-ending grief and fear. That girl … she’s why I am who I am today.
She’s just as much a part of me as the powerful Jezebel.
“So maybe”—she ties the edges of the twine together—“I need to accept her.” She holds up the circle of twine. “I think that’s the only way to process my lingering grief. As my whole self. I think it’s the only way to go home.”
Charlie’s voice sounds off camera. “And what’s home, Chris?”
Her smile echoes across time and space. “Danny. Danny Reeves is my home.”
Tears are dripping down my face. I’m soaring and crashing all at once, and I just need to hold her. I need to pull her into me so she can feel how she’s my home too.
Her gorgeous smile gives way to a montage of the Danny Boy footage she filmed. Just clip after clip of me folding the couch blankets, or cooking her dinner, or glued to my monitors with big headphones on, all accompanied by her silly little off-camera commentary and laughter as she films:
“Here we have the famous Danny Reeves of UNsweet Tea making the magic happen.”
“Look how gracefully he moves. It’s the yoga, I swear.”
“A maestro in the kitchen, and a maestro in the bedroom. And the studio. And the streets. Wait, why are you so good at everything?”