Spawn of Satan: I hope you are okay…and having a nice time.
Spawn of Satan: That last bit was a lie. I do hope you are okay though
Spawn of Satan: Mortimer + me + movie? Hopefully see you later
I’d usually find this many texts in one go a little overwhelming, but I couldn’t help but grin down at my phone. Between the string of texts and Jude’s jarring new personality development, I felt eternally grateful to have someone like Thallor in my life. To have someone who just seemed togetme.
Maybe I didn’t want to be the jazzed-up, fun version of myself. Maybe I wanted someone who saw me for exactly what I was and liked everything I had to offer. And the more I sat there with Jude, the more I realised that being a fake version of myself was as exhausting as it was degrading. And to be doing it for a man no less?Embarrassing as fuck.
“So, thought about what you are going to do with your degree yet?” Jude yelled into my ear over the music.
“No, I’m not sure yet. Maybe work in a museum,” I shrugged, in case he didn’t hear what I said between the heavy beats and sound of his own voice, “but I’ve always been interested in it. My grandfather worked in a mortuary.”
“A what?”
“A mortuary!”
Jude’s eyes widened as he looked at me. “Like with dead people?”
“Yeah.”
“Why the fuck would anyone choose to do that, seriously? That’s so fucking weird.”
I offered up a weary smile as my only response.
“What about your parents? What do they do?”
Not an odd question. In fact, a perfectly reasonable question, all things considered–especially coming from someone who couldn’t shut up about daddy, or more specifically, daddy’s money. But the question did catch me off guard. Mostly because it was only that I didn’t ever get asked. A privilege afforded to me by only ever spending time with people whoalready knew me. And although I wasn’t afraid to talk about my circumstance, it was going to be with the drunk, asshole version of Jude.
“My grandparents raised me.”
“Why? Are your parents dead or something?”
My heart faltered a little bit. Not because of Jude, who I’d quickly come to learn might be the most insufferable man I’d ever met. But because of his surprising and innate ability to continue making me feel smaller than I already do.
“Yes.”
“So, your parents are both dead, your grandfather worked at a mortuary, and you decided to take a course that’s like eighty percent centered around death.”
“I wouldn’t have put it in such rudimentary terms, but yes.”
“Do you realise your whole life is just death?” Jude’s eyes glistened with a cruel sense of amusement that had my breath hitching in my throat. “I hope you don’t give me bad karma or juju or something.”
My face dropped the same time my stomach did as Jude laughed off his comment and moved on to talking about his own family. But in the aftermath of what he had said, I just sat there in quiet astonishment at the cruelty of his words. At my own stupidity for thinking,he,this man, was anything more than the vile piece of shit that he was. He was like a chameleon, doing well to hide what he’s like under his charming boy-next-door exterior.
But in the ten minutes we had been sitting at this table, he had left no stone unturned. He had spewed everything I had heard since I was little. About my family. That I was the bad omen that had caused my parents’ death. That my grandfather had taken up an unconventional job because it was the only one he could get afterIhad come along. I knew it was all playground bullshit that was meant to leave me strong and resilientlike sticks and stones never could. But after spending my whole life being cast as an outsider, his comment fucking hurt.
“Why did you do Occult Sciences?” I ask him, though I’m not sure why I even bother.
Jude laughed obnoxiously as if recalling some joke that I wasn’t quite aware of. “It was actually just the easiest course to get me on. I’d been kicked off the Economics & Finance for playing a drinking game with some buddies during a lecture.” I watched as Jude took another sip of his drink, his grimace now hidden by his own smug arrogance, before he tipped his glass toward me. “My father said he was going to cut me off if I didn’t clean up my act. Our joint project got him off my case for the rest of the year.”
And there it fucking is.
“Oh,” I stammered, swallowing down my own shock and disappointment before it had a chance to show on my face. “So, are you enjoying the course at all?”
“God, no.” Jude laughed lustily before shaking his head. “It’s all total bullshit, isn’t it? I don’t know how Caldwell even has a job. I’ve heard rumours that he’s part of a cult and just using his tenure-ship as a way to fund whatever Ponzi scheme he’s running.”
From that point onwards, I zoned out, choosing to ignore everything around me as if I was surrounded by a wall of glass–one that could protect me from the outside world and the insufferable date I was having. I mean, it really was going from bad to worse as if that was even possible. The music had gotten louder, as had the anxious thoughts inside my own head.
