“I’m happy to have her,” Celeste smiled, and for once there was warmth and sincerity in their voice.It lasted for about three seconds before they flopped sideways over the center armrest, almost managing to knock over their tea.“Ugh, but drunk-me had thebrilliantidea to text her for advice after Ryan and I fought.Now she’s been blowing up my phone every five minutes asking whenI’mgoing to apologize tohim!”
“Sounds like Mémé reallyishis biggest fan,” Marin chuckled.
Celeste covered their face with their fan.“Ever since we were little, she was convinced we were going to end up married.I thought she was going to end my life when we first… broke up?Stopped hanging out?Eff it.I don’t even know what we were back then.She’s gonna beat my ass if we don’t make up.I don’t know what to do, he hasn’t even called or texted since last night.”
They snapped their fan shut, tossing it into the empty seat beside them and taking another violent pull off of their tea.
“Sounds like a lot of pressure from your grandma,” Marin observed.Celeste snorted but didn’t say anything else.
“Have youtriedtalking to Ryan?”Blake hedged.
Celeste threw a dramatic hand into the air.“What’s there to talk about?I got way too drunk, made a fool of myself in front of your friends, and then Ryan and I got in a huge-ass public argument and Ubered home in complete silence.”
“Maybe youshouldtry reaching out,” Marin suggested, glancing at Celeste over his shoulder.
Celeste leaned back into their seat, covering their sunglasses with their forearm.“No.I don’t think that’s a good idea.Whenever I try to reach out to him after a fight, he starts to pull away.Sometimes I feel like I’mpushinghim away…”
They dropped their hand back into their lap before staring straight at Blake in the rearview mirror.“You’re getting your therapy license or whatever, right?Tell me whatever psychology hocus pocus I need to do to get back into his good graces.”
“It’s not mind control!”Blake choked.“Psychic powers are much more in your wheelhouse.”
“Look, asshole: if I could psychically manipulate people into liking me, I’d have a lot more friends.”Celeste scowled, picking up their fan and jabbing the end at him.“And a lot more issues.”
“You don’t have friends from college?”Marin asked, voice tender instead of judgmental.
“…not really,” Celeste admitted, their own voice small.“I joined a co-ed Greek House in sophomore year, but it was mostly for doing community service and throwing ragers—it had the double bonus that I could get smashed on a regular basis while having something that would look good on my admissions for grad school.
“Don’t get me wrong, everyone there was pretty nice.I managed to hang on to Greek Life when I went to UCLA for my MA.I’m still friends with most of them on Instagram and Facebook, and Idoconsider my Big and Little my friends… but they all live down in SoCal and lockdown made traveling hard.”
They shifted a little in their seat, propping up their chin on their hand as they gazed out of the window with a thoughtful scrunch of their eyes.“But everyone else… we all had to go home in spring semester of my senior year because of everything.That was kind of when I realized that everyone had their own lives to get to and I got home and sort of had… nothing.Only a spare room at my grandma’s house.Knowing that, I really didn’t want to come home after my master’s, but I didn’t know what else to do with myself.When I moved home, I got back in touch with Ryan out of desperation forsomesort of familiar contact and we kinda fell back into a relationship.
“Both in high school and in college… I think people mostly hung out with me because I put on airs,” Celeste admitted with a dry laugh.“When you’re a genderqueer, autistic person living in a conservative town, you tend to get ostracized for being sincere.I had to get pulled out of middle school for homeschooling because I started receiving death threats.”
Blake flinched in sympathy.
“Jesus,” Marin whispered, shaking his head.“I’m so sorry.”
“And I assumed the school district did nothing to combat this?”Blake asked with an irritated tap on the steering wheel.He already knew what answer to anticipate: his semester volunteering had shown him how this kind of thing was typically dealt with—by placing the blame on the bullied kid and ignoring the problem until someone ended up hurt or dead.
Celeste threw back their head and laughed.“You would be correct!I really only had Ryan as my one constant.Since I was homeschooled, everyone else I was friends with in high school I met through parkour.There was a bunch of really cool girls in my class—they weren’t really my friends, but they ended up adopting me into the group as a ‘project’.I don’t think they even felt bad for me—it was more like I was a joke to them.
“I didn’t want to keep being the butt of the joke, so I… I copied them.”They shuffled in discomfort.“I started acting like a bitch and suddenly, people flocked to me.But I know Ryan never wanted to be with me because of the airs I put on.That’s part of why I liked him so much—but I feel like he was always really put off that I made that persona for myself.”
“Do you think that’s what drove you two to break up after high school?”Marin asked.Celeste sighed and shrugged.
“I don’t know.We never talked about it,” they said.“We stayed friends for a few months afterwards and he came down to San Luis Obisbo to help me move into my dorm, but after that, things sort of…”
They shrugged again, and the tilt of their mouth demonstrated their pain.“Even then, whenever I tried to reach out, he’d pull away.”
“What kind of stuff did you try to reach out to him about?”Blake asked.
“I’d always ask when he was going to come visit me, or if he wanted to hang out when I was home for breaks,” Celeste explained.“I really enjoy his company and I was super lonely without him.”
“Just out of curiosity: were you forceful about it?”Blake inquired.He could already see the answer materializing in front of him.
Celeste was silent.The car was filled with the sound of them fidgeting with their fan.“I was…reallylonely.I was kind of strong-arming him, if I’m being honest.”
Knew it, Blake thought.
