Page 136 of Dance of Madness

I scowl at myself in the mirror.

Get a fucking grip.

I don’t know where these fucking nerves are coming from. It’s not like this is a first date. I mean, we’reslightlypast that. We must have had sex about two hundred times, and he’s chased me through the dark on dozens of occasions.

We’ve explored somesuperdark kinks together. So why thefuckam I nervous?

Then I catch my reflection in the glass, and the truth comes bubbling out.

Thisisa first date. Not in the sense that we are strangers looking to see if we have anything in common, but it’s the first time we’re going out as anus.

In public. To a restaurant. Where we’ll eat food, have some drinks, and smile politely. I won't be screaming and whimpering as he chases me through the shadows and then rails the shit out of me.

I mean, that’sgoingto be happening tonight. Just, you know…

Not in the middle of dinner.

With another shaky breath, I turn and let my eyes settle on a book across the room. I walk over and pluck it from the shelf, my pulse thudding a little harder as I sit on the edge of my bed and run my fingers over the worn leather cover.

It’s a first edition ofThe Sorrows of Young Werther.

Really.

Papa found it for me for my birthday three years ago. Not, of course, that he knew its deeper significance, or about my pen pal and everything that came from that. But he did know it wasa favorite book that helped me after mom died, and knew that I collected older editions of it.

So for my nineteenth birthday, he got me a first edition of the book, in German.

It’s one of my most treasured possessions. It’s also where I now keep the letters that my pen pal wrote me all those years ago.

Some of them, tragically, have been lost. But most of them are still here, tucked into the pages of the book that brought us together. Not theexactcopy, obviously. But I feel this first edition does these notes justice as a resting place.

I open to where two of the notes are nestled between the pages. I don’t do this that often, but sometimes, if I’m stressed or worried, reading them can help.

I think tonight warrants a bit of a read.

I smile as I unfold the first one.

Hey,

Okay, first, I’m sorry you didn’t get the part for your graduation performance. That sucks. I won’t insult you by minimizing or downplaying it. I know you’d have made a killer Coppelia.

And yes, we both know I’ve never seen a single ballet, and that I know fuck-all about the role.

But I do know YOU, and I know you’d have nailed it. I’ve obviously never seen you dance. But I know you’re good. Fan-fucking-tastic, actually.

Still…I’m sorry.

But I also want to say something. I probably would’ve punched someone for telling me this when I was your age, but…

It doesn’t matter.

Not in an obnoxious, nihilistic, “nothing matters” edgy emo way. More like… You’re a speck. I’m a speck. Our entire lives are a blip inside a blip. The Earth doesn’t give a shit if you get that promotion, or that role, or that date.

That might sound pretty bleak. But try to think of it as a positive.

I used to lose my SHIT when things went bad. Like, I went full-on psycho. But now, I just think about things like the sun being the size of 1.3 million —fucking million— Earths. Tectonic plate shifts. Erosion. Hurricanes. Floods.

No matter what happens to you or me, the Earth will keep spinning through space. To me, that’s comforting. Not nihilistic. Freeing. I think about how one day, we’ll all just be bones—or nothing. And then I breathe.

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