"Emma."
Emma didn't respond. How could she? She was utterly lost in thought while she pushed her salad around endlessly in its bowl. "Emma?" Now she looked up, her thoughts ended by the voice speaking to her. She glanced across the table to Darren's mother, Patricia, who was sitting there in a nice suit, eating her own salad. Emma glanced to her side and saw Darren, and now she remembered where she was and what they were doing. Lunch. Wedding preparations. Right. "Yeah?" Emma asked, finally responding. "Have you picked out a dress yet?" Pat asked, and Emma shook her head. "No, I actually haven't even been trying any on," she replied, "There's so many things to take care of, and with fluctuating body weight, I figure it's best to wait until the last minute to find something so it will still fit when the day comes, you know? You never know if you're gonna gain a few pounds or lose a few pounds in between the decision and the day proper." "Smart," Pat said, nodding, spearing a cherry tomato from her bowl and popping it into her mouth, chewing as she added, "And what about invitations?" "We've found someone, but we haven't gotten it started," Emma said, grabbing her glass from the table and taking a long sip, "But it'll be something fairly courteous but also nonchalant. I don't wanna force people to feel like they have to come if they're uncomfortable or whatever. Besides, I'd prefer a smaller wedding anyway." "What are they gonna say?" Pat asked, looking between her son and Emma. "Uh, I don't know, something along the lines of 'You're cordially invited to attend the blessed wedding of Mr. Darren Demures and his future wife, Mrs. Emma Baker. This event-" "Wait wait wait, you're not taking his last name?" Pat asked, waving her hand, stopping Emma in her tracks. "Uh...I mean, semantics but we won't be married yet when they are sent out so not only would it be incorrect to say it but also, no, I'm not," she replied, "Is...is that a problem? I just...it's not the 50s anymore, I like my identity, I don't wanna change my name." "That doesn't bother you?" Pat asked, now turning her attention to Darren, who merely shrugged. "I could care less. I'm just happy to be getting married to her at all," he said, spinning his cane around by the handle upright, smiling. "Well...I guess you have a point," Pat said, "but I just feel like you're making things weird for other people down the line, not to mention your children. Whose last name will they be under?" "Whichever they want, I guess," Emma said, shrugging. Patricia sighed, shook her head and went back to stabbing at her salad. Emma had disappointed her, but what else was new. Emma was used to disappointing mothers. After all, lord knows she'd disappointed her own time and time again, so why stop a hobby this late in the game she thought. Darren leaned over and kissed the side of Emma's head, and she blushed. He knew how to make her feel better, certainly. But it was only short term. She felt so uncomfortable. She wanted to complain. She wanted to talk to Shane. *** "You want me to help you cheat on a test?" Gus asked, sounding incredulous. "Is that so wrong?" Mel asked, biting her lip as the two of them walked through the little garden area at the mental home. "I just...the whole point is you're supposed to be doing the work, getting better through your own efforts, you know? If I help you with this, you'll be bypassing some of that and it won't be the same." Melanie sighed and played with her long braided ponytail. "The thing is, Gus, they...they want me to explain who I am," Melanie said, "they want me to explain myself, my interests and personality and whatnot through standardized testing. It's an essay test, basically. But I just...when you haven't lived most of your life as yourself, how do you explain yourself to someone else, does that make sense?" "Far more sense than it should, actually," Gus said, sitting down on a nearby bench, Mel seating herself beside him as he sighed and ran a hand through his black hair; he asked, "you could just write about the person you'd like to become but phrase it as the person you are now. You'll be her someday anyway, so it wouldn't really be lying." Melanie nodded and looked at a few women passing by them. She looked down at her nails and she felt her eyes watering a little. "but what if i don't?" she asked quietly. "What if you don't what?" Gus asked. "What if I never become that person? What if I'm just too sick to get better?" Gus smiled weakly and put his arm around her, pulling her to him and hugging her. "Hey, I got news for you, you're already leagues better your highness, alright? So stop it with that mopey attitude," he said, "You will continue to get better just like you're going to ace this test no matter what, and I'm gonna help you. We're gonna create a profile of the kind of person you wanna become and pass it off as the person you have become already. That'll prove to them their efforts in you are paying off." Melanie giggled and hugged Gus back. She really didn't know where she'd be without him, all she knew was that it'd be somewhere way worse than a mental home, and she was eternally grateful for his friendship as a result. *** "She was upset you didn't wanna take his last name?" Shane asked, raising his coffee cup to his lips and sipping, "What is this, the 50s?" "That's what I said!" Emma said loudly, the both of them laughing. After lunch with Darren's mother, Emma had called Shane and asked if he wanted to meet for a bit. She told Darren she was meeting someone from the school to discuss the curriculum (what curriculum, she asked herself, she teaches elementary school for god sakes, she was nothing more than a glorified babysitter to most parents), but really she went to the tucked away diner that she and Shane had been frequenting as of late. "I just...I don't wanna give up my identity, you know? I've worked hard to become the person I am and even harder to like the person I became and I feel like losing my last name would erase some of that. Doesn't mean I love Darren any less or anything. Is that stupid or selfish? I mean he doesn't seem to care one way or the other, so." "If he doesn't care than yeah, neither should you. And it's not stupid or selfish, everything you said was totally spot on," Shane said. "Amazing you're related to Melanie, considering how...insightful you are," Emma said, "Oof, that came out wrong, I'm sorry." Shane threw his head back and laughed. "No, no it's fine! Lord knows it is hard to believe we're related, but I was always a few years older than her, and we never really seemed like siblings, so," Shane said, "but she's doing really well now, she's very clear headed and it's good to see. I'm starting to see the family resemblance myself for once, which is nice but also strange." "You ever think about getting married?" Emma asked. "I..." Shane looked out the window, like he was avoiding the question, and then said, "I don't think I believe enough in marriage after seeing my family fall apart. Not because my parents were bad for eachother, because they weren't, they were best friends. But watching my father die and watching my mother grieve for him...I could never put someone through that. The risk isn't worth the reward in my book. That doesn't mean I don't date or whatever, but I just feel like that's too heady a commitment to burden someone with, you know?" "That makes total sense," Emma said, "I don't wanna have kids mainly because I didn't prevent my little sister from killing herself. Seems we both failed little sisters in a way." Shane nodded, stirring the coffee in his cup with the little plastic stirrer as he watched it swirl, then too a sip and spoke again. "The thing is, my sister's still here, yours isn't. There's no way of changing what happened with you, and that has to hurt so much more," Shane said, "But me? I get to watch my sister get better, and I feel incredibly grateful for that after so many years of wishing I could see just that thing happen." Emma wanted to kiss him. She hated herself for it, and she didn't even really have a clear understanding as to why she felt this way. She loved Darren to death, she was going to marry him. But...Shane understood her in a way that Darren never could, she felt, and for that alone she felt an intense attraction to him. "...would you ever want children?" Emma asked, and Shane hesitated again before answering. "I like the idea of leaving a part of me behind, sure, creating a new person that the world could enjoy, but it's scary," Shane said, "So who knows if it'll ever happen. I wasn't very good at being a brother, so why should I believe I'd be any better at being a father?" Emma could see Shane was hurting. She could tell from the way his eyes moved that he wanted to talk about it more, but she didn't want to push it, so instead she said nothing. She picked up her fork and start cutting into her piece of pie they'd ordered, eating a few bites before setting her fork back down and looking back at him. "I think you're a very good man," she said firmly, "and any woman, wife or daughter, would be lucky to have you." Shane smiled. "Thank you," he said, "And I think you'll make a terrific bride, Emma Baker." They each grabbed their coffee cups and clinked their glasses together, laughing as they did so. It wasn't much, but it was enough of a respite from her everyday life, and she appreciated that. *** Melanie and Gus were seated in her room with a pad of paper and some pens, trying to come up with a personality that Melanie would want to have. Gus was sitting on a chair while Melanie laid on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Gus crossed his legs, tapped the pen on the pad and sighed. "Come on, your highness, we don't got much time to work this thing out," he said, "We need something now. Think about the people you like the most, the women you most admire, and what traits you'd like to take from them and make your own. That's what a lot of personality is anyway, just stealing things you like about other people and turning them into things you like about yourself." "I like how understanding my mom is," Melanie said, "She fought so hard for me when I was a kid, and that in turn makes me wanna fight so hard for the people I care about. Or maybe Bea. She doesn't care what anyone thinks about her, and she does whatever she wants. She's the coolest person we know. I wanna have that level of confidence." "My girlfriend is pretty rad," Gus said, chuckling as he scribbled all this down quickly on the pad. "Emma," Mel said, catching Gus's attention, his head snapping back up. "What about her?" he asked. "She's..." Melanie was lost for words. She knew what she liked about Emma, she just didn't know how to say it out loud. "She's so..." Her mind went blank again. A few moments passed and then it hit her. "She's so sure of who she is and sticks to her beliefs. That isn't the same as Bea, either. Bea just doesn't care what others think about her. But Emma...she knows what she believes in, and she sticks to that, and that...god that's admirable. I wanna be like that," Melanie said, looking up and seeing Gus writing on the pad as she climbed off the bed and walked around behind him, looking at what was written down. "Those are all good," Gus said, "I think we have a pretty solid foundation for a personality here, honestly." "What is that?" Melanie asked, pointing to the pad as Gus lowered his voice. "That's a doodle of me as a cowboy," he said. *** "I hope that didn't upset you too much," Darren said, sitting at the kitchen table prying open the pizza box as Emma brought them each a beer from the fridge. "Naw, I understand where your mom's coming from," she said, sitting down across from him as he pulled out a slice and plopped it on the paper plate in front of him. Emma opened the beers and slid one across the table to him as she added, "Honestly, she's from a generation where that's what they did, so it's totally understandable for her to expect that to continue, and for many women it does. That's fine. That's their choice. I just don't wanna do it." "I know your reasons, I understand, and frankly like I said I could care less," Darren said, grabbing and tearing open a cheese packet, sprinkling it on top of the pizza as he said, "I don't want some weird ownership bullshit, you know? I think that was a thing because women were supposed to be the 'property' of their husband, and you're not my property." Emma smiled as she sipped her beer, then grabbed a slice from the box for herself as Darren bit into his pizza and chewed. She loved how understanding and forward thinking Darren was. That was perhaps the thing she liked most about him. They felt like true equals, and she felt incredibly lucky to have a man that confident in himself to not feel as though he were being overshadowed by his girlfriend, or now, fiance. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she wished she could be having this conversation with Shane instead. Something about the way he understood her, on a fundamental level that Darren didn't seem to, really tugged at her. Emma shook her head and tried to ignore it, focusing instead on dinner. "Besides, my mom isn't one to talk about the sanctity of marriage," Darren said, "Not when my father turned out to be such a bastard." "Amen, man," Emma said. *** Melanie was sitting in her room, on her bed, looking at the book Darren had given her when the door opened and a male nurse let Gus into the room. He shut the door once Gus was inside, and Gus slid his hands into his pockets as he sat at the desk chair. "So?" he asked, "How'd it go?" The 'test' Mel was meant to take to gauge her personality had been a few days ago by now, and she had taken everything she and Gus had come up with and used it to create, what he'd said, a foundation for herself. Melanie sighed, put the book down to her side and looked up at him. "Uh oh," Gus said, "That doesn't sound good." "It went fine," Mel said, "but...afterwards I did question whether that was the right thing to do. I mean, shouldn't I try to create something for myself instead of stealing traits from other people?" Gus turned the desk chair around and sat in it backwards, looking at her as he cleared his throat. "Let me tell you something," he said. "What are you, a cool pastoral counselor?" "Shut up and listen," he said, "When I was a kid, there was this older kid at my school. His name was Jose. Jose was a handful of years older than me, but we saw eachother around school quite a bit to the point where we became friendly towards one another. Jose was cool. Jose wasn't ashamed for the stuff he liked and that was important because the stuff he liked wasn't inherently 'manly' and, I don't know how to put this but in Mexican culture we've got a huge toxic masculinity problem, so that was very brave of him. In turn, that made me not worry about the things I liked. That's all we are, as human beings, Mel, are amalgamations of the people who most like or who have the most profound impact on us. Those are what make us us." Melanie chewed her lip and thought about his. Gus was right, she couldn't deny it, but she still wanted to create her own persona. A real persona. Not a fairytale one. "I suppose it's true," she said softly, "...is that why you wanted to be a cowboy?" "Hey, don't bring Rootin' Tootin' Roundup Gus into this, this is about you," he said, the both of them laughing now. Melanie had picked things out from the women she knew and admired, but in reality, the one person she admired most was Gus. The ability to make her laugh when she felt her worst was a trait she really wanted to make her own, and she knew he'd be flattered at that. Sure, the women were important. But it was Gus who had had the most profound impact. She'd never him that though, it'd embarrass him too much, and she figured when she wanted to embarrass him, she'd wait until they were in a more public situation with people knew. Not because it was a mean thing to do, but because she knew he'd find the humor in it. He had been her jester, after all.
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Royally Screwed follows 24 year old Melanie Irres, an average young woman...who legitimately believes she's a princess. Archives
July 2023
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