"I just don't understand," Melanie said as she and Lisa sat at a small coffee shop, sipping their drinks and sharing a few pastries; she added after chewing, "Why would I want to give up me medications and go back to how I felt before when how I felt before was awful? I mean, sure, I don't feel great now either, but like...it just seems counterproductive is all."
"Taking some pills and talking about your feelings is counterproductive. They call living your fantasies 'allowing mental illness to fester' but nothing is festering. Everyone lives in a fantasy! In one way or another, we're all making our lives up. Social media itself is a perfect example of attempting to be the ideal version of yourself, even though you know as soon as the makeup comes off and the filters go away you can't stand how you look in the mirror," Lisa replied, "Because reality is subjective to whoever's experiencing it." "That just sounds like an excuse to continue being ill," Melanie mumbled, stuffing a bear claw in her mouth. "Okay, let me phrase it like this, then...if society is as accepting as they are these days, why can't you just be a princess? Even if we actually weren't, which we are, why can't we just be them in day to day life? People can transition genders now, people can be proud of their body types, so why can't we just be who we want to be...who we know we are?" Lisa had a good point, and one that Melanie struggled to refute. Just then she looked up and saw Gus standing at their table. She smiled at him as he folded his arms. "Heya," she said, "This is Lisa, she's from group." "Hi, I'm Gus," he said, without extending an arm to shake her hand, "So you two having a little group session of your own, or?" "Just girl talk," Mel said, "You know, periods, babies, vacuums, stuff like that." "Oh, gross, vacuums," Gus replied, making her chuckle, "Well when you get back to the apartment, I need to talk to you." Melanie nodded, agreeing to this, and then watched Gus walked away. Lisa gave him a skeptical eye as he headed out the front door of the small coffee shop, and then turned her attention back to Melanie. "Seems like he isn't fond of your so called 'delusions'," Lisa said, picking up a donut hole and popping it in her mouth. "Gus? Lord knows Gus is the only one who told me it was okay to be who I am, he wouldn't lead me astray..." Melanie remarked, glancing back towards the door and smiling softly, "...he's my esquire." *** "It's like he isn't even considering my feelings on the matter," Emma said, stabbing at her lunch as she and Mel sat together in the cafeteria; Melanie was eating a sandwich and listening to Emma talk about Darren, concerned, but also somewhat jealous. "How so?" "You know what it's like not to be listened to. You spent a good few months not being heard," Emma said, and this caught Mel off guard, as she hadn't expected this level of honesty between them; she nodded, indicating Emma could continue, which she did, adding, "It's infuriating. It's my body, but he's the one who apparently gets the say over what we put in it, even if I want nothing put in it? That doesn't sound like equality to me." "So you're telling me isn't a prince charming?" Mel asked, smirking, even making Emma smile a little. Ever since Mel had been on her meds, she'd been responding to conversation like an actual human, instead of someone pretending to be human, and Emma appreciated having a real female friend around. "I don't know," Emma said, exhaling, "He is, he really is, and I don't want to stop him from having a family if that's what he actually wants from life. Lord knows there's plenty of women out there who'd die to have a man who actually wants children." "And you feel guilty?" "I don't know. I don't think I owe anything to the 'sisterhood' or whatever to turn my man loose to the right woman who'd want him, but I don't want to keep him from being happy, like I said," Emma said. Just as Emma finished her sentence, another woman pulled a chair out beside Mel and set their paper bag down on the table. She had short orange hair and was wearing a polo and jeans. She opened her bag and pulled out a small plastic container with a fork. "What're we talking about?" she asked. "Men," Emma said flatly. "Oh," Rachel said, digging into her food, "Sorry, no opinion." "If your partner wanted to have a baby, but you didn't, would you stay with them and have them possibly resent you or let them leave so they can have what they want?" Emma asked, and Rachel sighed, leaning back in her chair, stirring the contents of her lunch. "I think," she said, "and this is totally just off the top of my head, don't ever tell Melissa I said this, but...I think I'd stay with them. I know that's selfish as fuck, but, like...how lucky am I gonna get to find someone who understands me the same way she does? Then again the dating pool for lesbians is a lot smaller than it is for straight people, so perhaps my reasoning makes sense." Emma hadn't thought about it like that. Darren did understand her in a way nobody else ever had, and likely, ever would. She glanced to Mel, who was stuffing her sandwich in her face, chewing noisily. Emma smiled, watching this display; ever gloriously out of sync Melanie. "What would you do? I mean, if you were romantically entangled," Emma asked, and this made Melanie raise an eyebrow. "I...I don't know," she said softly, putting her sandwich down and wiping her hands on her pants, her voice getting low, "I...I've never...um..." She lowered her eyes to the sandwich on the table and didn't say anything further, which Emma didn't understand. Thankfully Rachel knew immediately what the insinuation was, her mouth slightly agape. "You've never been with anyone?" she asked, "Aren't you, like, in your thirties?" "So? Does age have something to do with it? Is it weird, to like...not have done something by now? I mean, the occasion just never came up, I guess," Melanie said, her voice sounding far more real than it ever had before to Emma in this very moment, "I don't even know..." A pause, as Rachel and Emma waited with baited breath for the end of that sentence. "Yes?" Rachel asked. "I don't know," Melanie said, opting instead not to finish but adding, "I guess I...can't say it's never come up, it's more like, nobody has ever really been interested, and I thought I wanted a prince charming so badly but, do I?" Now this was something that took Emma by surprise. She'd never once questioned the fact that Melanie herself may not even know her own sexuality. Melanie folded her arms on the table and looked at her nails. Rachel rubbed her back, letting her know this was something she could figure out on her own at her own pace, and that that was okay, and that was nice, but...she still didn't say anything else for the remainder of the day. *** "Oh yeah princess, you got real big dyke energy," Bea said, making Gus cackle as Melanie paced in front of them on the couch. Bea was sitting, Gus was laying, his head in her lap. "I'm being serious!" Melanie said, sounding annoyed now, "All those storybooks my father read me, it was all...you know, femininity and princesses and happily ever after but..." She stopped as Gus sat up and looked at Melanie who now sat on his coffee table and looked at her feet. "What if," she started, her voice cracking, "What if none of it's true, you know? The medication has made me realize it was all a lie, and if it's all a lie then perhaps who I thought I was was a lie too, and...and if that's the case then...what if I'm one of those people doesn't get a happily ever after?" "Are you implying that women who don't like men aren't entitled to happiness and love?" Bea asked, and Melanie shrugged, trying not to cry. Bea saw her eyes soften with tears, and she reached across the gap, putting her hand on Melanie's knee, adding, "Honey, hey...I'm sorry, that came off as rude. Um, look, everyone deserves to be loved okay? Even if it's not what your storybooks taught you. Think of all your personal problems in therapy as dragons that need to be slain." "But what if they're just a Hydra?" Melanie asked, tears falling down her face now. "What do you mean?" Gus asked, now sitting fully up, completely concerned. "She knows what I mean," Mel said, nodding at Bea, who nodded in understanding as Melanie looked at Gus and explained, "What if all my problems are just a Hydra? It's a...a type of Dragon, one that has multiple heads, and whenever you cut one off, another comes out, and you can never win. What if that's my mental state? What if being unwell really was what was well for me, because it allowed me to not focus on all the problems I have otherwise? I lived in fantasy, sure, but at least I was happy. Now I live in reality and I'm miserable. At least before I never had to question who I liked...who I am...I spent so long imagining I was someone else that I'm in my thirties and I...I don't know who I am." "A lot of people don't, Mel," Gus said, "But you're alright, you got us. You have more than a lot of people have, which is a support system. Take as long as you need to to find yourself, okay?" Bea smiled and kissed him on the cheek as Melanie stood up and grabbed her jacket off the rack by Gus's door. "Where you going, your highness?" Gus asked as she pulled her jacket over her blouse and zipped it up. "I need to talk to someone who'd understand," she said, exiting the room and into the hallway. As she stumbled into the hall, she glanced at Allen's door, considering for a moment the advice of a father like figure, but instead she headed down the stairs and out of the complex towards her destination. *** "What are you doing here?" Lisa asked as she pulled her apartment door open. Melanie pushed her way inside and breathed into her hands, trying to warm herself back up. "You want some tea or something?" Lisa asked. "Yes please," Melanie said, her teeth chattering; as she watched Lisa head to the kitchen, she stood in the living room and asked, "You know what it's like to believe in something that isn't real, or other people tell you isn't real anyway. But, like you told me the other day that now everyone is performative, that everyone can call themselves whatever they want, they can change genders, they can...whatever. But the difference is that those people aren't sick, or at least that part of them isn't a manifestation of their illness if they are. But we're sick. We know we're sick." "Did you seriously just come over here to psychoanalyze a conversation we had like 3 days ago?" Lisa asked, dunking a tea bag into a mug and walking steadily back into the living room. "No I...I just...maybe you're right," Melanie said, surprising her as she continued, "Like, maybe we can just be whoever we want to, and there's nothing wrong with that, so long as we aren't hurting anyone, you know? And that goes for anybody. People who believe in religion, whatever. So long as they don't use said belief as source of power over another, then what is the harm?" "Exactly my point," Lisa said. "Are you..." Mel started, trailing off before mustering the courage back up, "Where do you stand? If we're talking storybook romance, and...and happily ever after, did you wait for a prince charming too?" "I waited for anyone," Lisa said, setting the mug down on the counter and walking to Melanie, taking her hands in her own and rubbing them, warming them up more and smiling at her, saying, "Who are you waiting for, princess?" "I...I don't know." Lisa smirked as she turned and walked back to get the mug, as Melanie unzipped her jacket and let it drape over a nearby chair. Lisa handed Melanie the mug, and she took a few long sips, warming her insides back up from the frost outside. Lisa stood, arms crossed, watching her drink, smiling the whole time. "You know how the prince knew Cinderella was his one and only? He kept going around and around, putting this glass slipper on her foot until he found the woman it fit. Doesn't that sound exhausting? Most people see it as romantic, like, how far one would go to find the right person, instead of admitting that there is no 'right' person, and that sometimes you need to just pick a girl and sweep her off her feet." Melanie blushed, as Lisa approached her, taking the mug back in her hands and setting it down on the nearby desk. "Aren't you tired of going to the ball only to dance alone?" she asked, running her hands up Mel's arms, making her shiver as she leaned up to match Mel's height, one of her hands finding its way to the back of her neck, "There's no happily ever after, princess, there's only moderately alright now." With that, she kissed her. Melanie had never been kissed before, by anyone, and didn't really know what to do, but she also didn't fight it, and it certainly didn't feel wrong. She put her hands on Lisa's hips, only to have Lisa hold her hands a moment later, still kissing her, making her sit down on the coffee table. Melanie tried to catch her breath as Lisa sat beside her. Melanie looked anywhere but directly at her, unsure of how her embarrassment by her naivety would come across, but Lisa just chuckled. "I've never...done anything, with anyone, ever," Melanie said. "We're not doing anything now," Lisa said, laughing, squeezing her hand, "but I'm not going to make you do something you don't want to." Melanie stood up and started pacing. She grabbed the mug and continued drinking her tea before finally finishing it, setting the mug down and looking back at Lisa. "Can we just...can we just lie on the couch, and can you just...hold me?" she asked. "Yeah, we can do that," Lisa said. She laid on the couch and waited for Melanie to climb on so she could spoon her. Once they'd assumed the comfortable position, Melanie shut her eyes and sighed. She hadn't been held like this since she was a child, since her father used to hold her after nightmares, and it felt so good to be held by someone again. "When I was a little girl" she said, holding tightly to Lisa's hands, "my father used to take me to this park, and we'd used to toss quarters into a well because he told me that if I did, my wishes would come true. I think he wanted me to see the world as being more magical than it actually is. I don't blame him for that. But I knew it wasn't true once he was gone, and I spent so many quarters on that well wishing for him to come back." "I'm so sorry," Lisa said quietly, pushing her face into the back of Melanie's neck, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. "...thanks for making me not feel crazy," Melanie whispered. "Anytime princess," Lisa mumbled. *** Darren was laying on the bed, reading a book, when Emma came in from the bathroom in her t-shirt and panties, blowdrying her hair. She stopped and looked at herself in the vanity mirror, thinking about what Rachel had said earlier as her eyes scanned up across the glass to watch Darren in its reflection. She smiled to herself. They were young. They still had time. No decision had to be made right now, and right now all that mattered was being together and making more memories, just in case they one day had nothing other than memories to look back on. She turned and headed to the bed, crawling onto it and laying her head on his shoulder, making him chuckle and stroke her hair with his free hand. "Hey," he said, "What are you doing?" "Just...being here," she said. Across town, Gus and Bea were watching shitty old horror movies on the television, having ordered in a lot of chicken wings and pizza. Bea was somewhat buzzed but not outright drunk, and Gus, as usual, hadn't had a drink all night. He'd really been trying hard, especially since being with her, and he appreciated that she didn't push him to partake in drinking alcoholic beverages with her. He was laying his head in her lap again, as her fingertips traced the curls of his bangs and his oversized glasses. "You know this used to be my fantasy as a teenager," Gus said, "Cute drunk girl, chicken wings, bad film." "Boy you had high hopes for the future," Bea said, making him laugh hard. "...Melanie's become friends with this girl from group, and I don't...I don't know that she's a very good influence on her," Gus said, "I'm worried." "We'll worry about it tomorrow," Beatrice said, "We deserve a night off." "Yeah, I guess so," Gus said, sighing and kissing her hand, making her giggle. She stood up and headed to the bedroom, giving him a look that clearly meant it was in his best interest to follow her. He stood up and followed as she pulled her shirt off in the hall, but he stopped and looked back at his front door. He hadn't heard her come home. He sighed. He knew he had to let it go. She was an adult. A sick adult, but an adult nonetheless, and while it was fine to worry, ultimately he had his own life to live. She'd be fine. She always was, after all, it seemed. After all... ...princesses always get happy endings.
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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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