We both looked at the calendar and its perfectly blank roster of days.Even my handwritten note to mark the visit had disappeared.
“Alone?”I asked.“No, it’s impossible.”My voice cracked in a blend of frustration and misuse.I turned around back to Aster where he waited.“This is because you made yourself invisible, isn’t it?Maybe you didn’t notice.Maybe they became invisible to you as well.Here, I’ll call my mom.She can back me up.”
Our agreement, Stella,said Aster, and he held up a finger in warning.No calls until the end of summer.I assure you your parents realize you meant no harm in canceling.I gave them a believable excuse.He spoke slowly, enunciating the syllables as if he found pleasure in them, or as if he found pleasure in bringing the fact to light in front of me.He took a sip from his wine while I watched in an uncomfortable silence.Perhaps the intensity is too much for you.Not everyone was cut out to create works of magnificence, you know.If an odd rhyme or limerick would do just as well, or a cheap genre imitation good enough to make it to market, we can change gears…
“No,” I said, and the conviction returned to my voice.“I want to go through with this.I want to write something that will give me a mark in history.I want to last.To be real.”
Real?You don’t even know what nonexistence is like.
“I just don’t understand what happened.Things have been so different since you took me to the wreck...since you first told me I didn’t need to sleep anymore…”
Simple.Aster offered me my glass of wine again, and I took it with eagerness.I altered your consciousness so that you could get the best energy out of the most words possible.I helped you.I want a legacy for you as well, possibly even more than you want it for yourself.I will take your work to its furthest potential.
“Even at the cost of my sanity.”
Aster leaned back and rolled up his sleeves, enjoying the confrontation.What even is sanity, anyway?You and I will succeed at any cost.This will be the greatest thing you’ve ever done.
The wine tasted good, light and fruity, and I was glad he gave it to me.The yellowed light in the living room shimmered as if it were illuminated by candles.I sat back and let the warmth of the wine fill me while I sorted through recent events to the best of my ability.Perhaps none of this was worth trying to understand.“The book is good, you think?”
No one has written a story with that much depth in centuries.You will restore everyone’s faith in humanity, and give them a good story while you’re at it.
“And you’re sure about that?It isn’t just getting to your head?”
His smile was indirect, the shadow of a smile covering his features as his wine glass sparkled in the night.
I shifted forward.Suddenly, as if a storm had lifted, I didn’t want to be angry with Aster anymore.I wanted him to undress me.I wanted this to turn into another of those magical moments between us, the intimacy that Aster promised me would last forever.When he didn’t appear to take the hint, I lowered the sleeve of my shirt around my shoulder.
Aster blinked.And what’s this?
“Just an idea,” I said.“I thought we could have a bit of fun.”
You’ve been worrying about your parents for too long.We need to get back to the book.
“That’s not fair.You said I could have a break.”
That’s what this was: your break.He spoke quickly, impatiently.For the first time I wondered if he had grown tired of me.
I threw my head back.“But I still haven’t recovered from of all this.”I didn’t mean to sound flustered.Suddenly I felt hurt.Embarrassed.Every time I thought I understood what I had with Aster, he changed the rules, and suddenly I landed myself on my own again.
Aster reached forward and corrected my sleeve.His touch was strict, not affectionate.Finish your wine.We still have a lot of writing in front of us.We’re a dynamic duo, remember?We must always stick together.
I shook my head but took another swig regardless.The wine stabilized me like a mild sedative.“I can’t keep up with this,” I stammered.“How much time do we even have left in the summer?”
The calendar still hung on the wall, but looking at it now didn’t help.It showed only the month of July, dates unmarked by my hand.Early July had passed by now, but by how much?How much more time did I have before I’d pack and move out of this place?
I remembered scraps of my writing over the days.It had come not from ideas or intentional design but from consciousness instead, as if my own pulse and breath had been transformed into a kinetic drama searing across the page.This was the strain of passion that would go down in history.This was what the literary world had awaited for generations without relief.
When I walked to the calendar, Aster had followed me, but he didn’t move or speak until I lifted the flap to see the next month.Then he pulled my hand away and caused me to drop it and return to the present.
I promised I’d keep you safe,he said.I promised we’d do this together.What would it take for you to trust me?
“I know I can write the book,” I said.“But it’s taking too much out of me.My parents came here.You might say they didn’t, but I remember their coming clear as day.They parked in the front, and I showed them around, and they left, and the whole thing ended in a flash.”
His pupils dilated, and he lowered his shoulders.I know you’re stressed out.I know you’re not used to attempting anything like this.When I saw you begin to fall apart, I felt it too.I stepped in.I intervened and gave you the kind of reprieve you saw yourself having so that you could work with all the satisfaction of knowing that you never were cut off from your family.
My stomach seized.If I’d had any food in there, I would have thrown it all up.I didn’t know if Aster spoke the truth, or whether I could trust him if he did.After all, I wasn’t the only weak one here.He’d been the one suffering from delusions, the one who kept seeing members of a shadow race he imagined to be chasing him.What if he decided that he couldn’t drown alone—that he needed to pull me down with him to the depths of his own insanity?
Aster raised my hand with the glass and tilted it against my lips.His smile grew more apparent as he forced me to drink it and led me step by step into the living room where the draft waited to be completed.
