Page 50 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

“I already hate it.”

“We’ve not been able to get Xios to come to movie night. Do you think you could work some soulmate magic and convince him that watching a movie at Willow’s, surrounded by friends, snacks, and comfort items, is an excellent thing to do? Right now, the only friend excursions I know he entertains are meeting Sephin at Cael’s and making spreadsheets together.”

“You are joking.”

“I have never seen him so proud of something than when he showed me a spreadsheet he made where, when you enter a number in one cell, the rest auto-fill in a ripple, then color-code into a rainbow. The spreadsheet organized absolutely no information. Its sole purpose was to insert that number and watch it turn pretty colors.”

I daresay I would die first before finding joy in such an activity. “How exactly are we similar again?”

“The existential dread, mostly.”

Girlie didn’t even hesitate.

Sighing dismally, I mutter, “Can I go home now?” I want to cuddle my baby and complain into his sweet baby smell. Also, Alexios has been texting me the most unhinged updates all day, taking full advantage of his ability to lie in text.

It’s been sweet, in its own way, since he knows I’m nervous about being gone for so long.

Still.

MessagingI’m teaching Ash tax fraudin the middle of my day was an interesting choice to make.

I did laugh; I will admit.

Though, to be fair, I also teared up a little.Iwant to be the stay-at-home parent teaching my baby tax fraud, dang it.

Not that Alexios is Ash’s parent in any shape or form…butstill.

Baby.

My baby.

“Are you caught up on journals?” Kassandra, the killer of dreams, asks.

I roll myself over and pout at the modest stack. “What isno?”

“I could be convinced to finish them for you, if you can convince Xios to come to movie night.”

Isblackmaila faerie trait? Or do I just not know how to pick the kinds of people I surround myself with? “Sorry, we’re busy,” I say, doodling a little picture beside a grade at the top of the page in Andromeda’s journal. She’s drawn a terrifying monster for me. So I give her a sweet little cow. With a top hat. Who is best friends with whatever in the world she has plucked from my nightmares.Hopefullynot literally, given that she and her father can traverse through sleeping minds.

If I ever come into my full faeness…and I really can hijack the powers of those around me…I’m sure Andromeda would be happy to take me nightmare trotting. That would be so cool.

It’s actually such a shame I’m so attached to humanity.

“Busy doing what?” Kassandra asks.

That is an excellent question. “Contemplating that existential dread you mentioned earlier together. Date night, you know how it is.”

“Sounds like you’re free.”

Must I employ the full breadth of my humanity and come up with areallie? Probably. It’s not like I can agree to movie night. Who would watch Ash?

That said, I hatereallying.

Sure, I have a preference for lying if it’s funny, but if it’s not a joke? Well. There’s a whole commandment about that, isn’t there?

AThou Shaltis not something I tend to mess with, when I can help it. Sometimes, you’re alone on the subway, and a creepy guy asks if you are, indeed, alone on the subway, and you have to saynopewith all the energy ofGod said he’d be with me always, so I am absolutelynotalone.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

---