Iona stood on the stage, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and her spine curved back as she leaned into her palms and paced, feeling tense. Phobos had pulled a nasty trick on her after Aphrodite left and she was still feeling the aftereffects. She’d put on an early 2000’s horror movie she hadn’t seen yet in their honor and let it play while she tried to figure out how to occupy her mind with something other than spiritualism, get her creative juices flowing without the gods having to spend time with her to do it. Looking for guidance, she’d pulled a few tarot cards and every single one of them spoke of blocked creativity, stagnant thought, feeling stuck in a place she couldn’t get out of. It made her worry, but she pushed it off and decided to pick up an old project that she’d nearly forgotten about; a small wooden shield she’d gotten at the Ren Fair that needed to be painted. She’d been trying to cut back on smoking so much, even though the effects helped to mellow her out and let go of the constant anxiety she lived with.

She wanted to start remembering her dreams, instead of spending her days wondering, so she’d stayed sober while she was working on it. But the tiny peep of doubt started growing until she was shaking in her chair. It felt like something was wrong, that she’d messed something up and fucked up her chances. As she was painting her mind was churning, trying to figure out where she’d messed up, what she’d done to make her partner so angry with her. She kept feeling like he was offended, accusatory, and disgusted. Pulling another card, she got the Three of Cups reversed, indicating trouble in friendships. She’d started to panic, not wanting to get defensive but getting angry with herself for deciding to actually put herself out there and try to contact him. Not knowing what else to do, she’d packed her pipe and smoked it to chill out, try to relax, and process how she felt. As the last defense her anxiety provided fell away, the last layer of blockage to keep her from connecting clearly, she figured out the rouse because he immediately started talking to her, asking her what was wrong, what had happened.

Thinking about it again, her eyes started to prickle with new tears and she pulled her hands out of her pockets to wipe them away. After they’d spoken and he calmed her down, reassuring her that he wasn’t offended by anything she’d written, she’d realized why everything happened. She’d shut him out to give him space and her fear was preventing them from reconnecting. He was listening to Aphrodite, whether he realized it or not, which meant she just had to be patient, but she needed to stop being so scared of him not appearing. She was constantly at war with her own doubt, trying not to get her hopes up to prevent disappointment. But, like the Fool she’d gotten before laying down to rest and recuperate after the panic attack that threatened to break her resolve, she decided to trust in the universe and take his direction. She didn’t want to share Mayhem Manor with the world, even if it was supposed to be a tourist trap in the story, dark and spooky on the outside, warm and inviting on the inside, and filled with kitsch and old movie memorabilia that was organized by genre in each room of the house, it felt like her home with him. She didn’t want strangers traipsing in and destroying it.

She also wanted to remember him as more than the character he’d appeared to her as. It wasn’t the vampire or the dragon she’d fallen in love with, just the man. The rest was all one long improv where they spoke with the knowledge their characters would have in the world she’d created, but the story hadn’t mattered as much as her time with him had. She’d slept hard, curled into a tight ball, and had woken up aching with a song stuck in her head; When I Don’t Have You by Idarose. She’d wanted to give him space to process and decide which actions were best for him in his life. Everything she’d written had been subdued when it came to him, holding back the words she so desperately wanted to say out of fear of being too much, of him feeling manipulated. But if there was still a chance that he would walk away, after everything they shared in favor of the illusion of real-life, she knew she couldn’t hold back anymore. She had to take the chance while she had it to let him know everything. Words of Affirmation, another love language she knew she spoke because it was always her words that carried her heart. She needed him to know, to make her last stand, so she invited him to the Theater of the Id.

She was waiting for him, not sure if he would come, churning over how to make her words line up. She was nervous and knew it would be the make-or-break moment for them. When she was stoned, she could feel him, hear his thoughts as clearly as if he were there speaking them. Sober, she was flying blind again, letting the doubt try to creep in as she pushed it down over and over as she waited for him. It was an echo of her daily life, condensed into just a few moments as she paced until she heard movement at the entrance of the aisle leading down the side of the small, stepped auditorium. He was different from the character he’d played in her head and seeing that helped her relax as she let out a shaking breath and watched him slowly step down, pausing halfway to the stage to look at her. She wasn’t her Tiefling self, she wasn’t her character at all, she was just an average human female. For the first time in her head, she was nothing more than she was in real life, just a human.

“Hey,” she managed to croak out around the nerves choking her as she tried not to burst into tears when she saw him.

“Hey,” he said. “Can you see me ok?” he asked after a pause.

“Not really,” she admitted. “You’re still in shadow, but I know that it’s you,” she said as she started shaking again. “I can get the impression of you, but I can’t see your details very clearly.”

He took a step closer but it didn’t help. She wasn’t sure if it was her doubt, or her fear, that was doing it, but she couldn’t get his image to clear any further. She knew she was afraid of giving him a solid form that she could recognize in person. She didn’t want to focus on a Meat Suit he didn’t belong in when it wasn’t his body she’d fallen in love with. Every wish she’d made from the first one as a child watching the stars out of her window, bewitched by the thought of finding True Love at some point, had been for his spirit and she’d found him in a way she’d never intended. She blamed herself for the complications, blamed her stupidity and foolishness for putting them in that position. She was sweating more than she thought possible, holding her own heart in shaking hands as the silence stretched on, neither of them knowing where to go from there. So, she did the one thing she knew she could do. She opened her mouth and started confessing to him.

“It sucks, you know,” she said, her jaw flexing against the need to clench her teeth against the knot in her gut. “And, I tried to make the image clearer. Before I started sharing my diary, I tried drawing your face from my imagination. The Uncanny Valley effect,” she said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “It was cringe-worthy on so many levels. But I kept at it. Tried five times before I gave up and used a celebrity photo for reference to try and remember how to draw proportions better. Looking at the last picture of you that I drew, you two actually look a lot alike. When I started doing the essay on Daemons for Aphrodite, I actually needed to take a break from my research into them as mythological creatures, I needed to feel grounded instead of like a freak, so I looked at his profile on Instagram thinking I could find something more candid, instead of something that looked staged. That’s how I found Daemons as a concept instead of a mythological creature, which set me off down another research rabbit hole that sucked me down so fast I broke the looking glass and ended up in Wonderland,” she said with a strained laugh as she tried to steady herself. “I even sent him a message saying thank you.”

“And now?” he asked, taking another step forward.

“Now, I’m terrified,” she admitted. “I’m terrified that I’m wrong, that this is the illusion that I created to feel something more than the emptiness I have without you. I can’t see you,” she said, the truth choking her with the shaking moisture falling steadily from her eyes no matter how hard she tried to stop it.

“Talk to me,” he said gently, taking another step until she could feel the edge of his presence instead of just imagining him there.

“I want to,” she admitted. “I want to go back to the days when we would just talk endlessly about everything and nothing. I want to go back to the days when I could see you, I could hear you. But you’re always in shadow and I can’t hear your voice in my head. I heard the words, I feel the emotions but it's like my mind is stuck on closed captioning and subtitles,” she said breaking down even more. “I’m blind and I’m deaf and I’m so afraid that means I’ll never find you again.”

“You already have,” he said gently.

“I know. I know you’re here,” she said on a sob as she stepped to the edge of the stage and sat down to bury her face in her hands. “And I want to talk to you, I want to know this is real, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth because you have your own voice and I want you to use it. I want you to speak your own truth, in your own words, because your voice is like music to me,” she said as another sob rocked through her and she looked up at his spirit in the theater. “It soothes my soul,” she added with a pause so she could pack all of her sincerity into it, “in so many ways. And, I know that I hear it in my dreams, I know you’re there with me when I’m sleeping because I wake up refreshed, energized, and ready for the day when, without you, I have trouble finding the motivation to even wake up, let alone do anything even remotely productive. I need to know what you’re afraid of, and don’t say you’re afraid of what others might say because I know that’s bullshit.”

“I’m afraid that you’re only in love with my characters,” he said, taking another step closer.

“That is such a dumb fucking argument even though I know that its’ not,” she admitted, taking a deep breath and wiping her face as she looked at him. “I know the aspects of you that I found in my writing are just the tip of the iceberg. That’s why you captured my attention so solidly and unyieldingly. I know the characters I wrote for you were just fragments of the real you. That’s what fascinates me, captures my attention, and makes me realize I’m not creative. You just inspire me,” she said trying to smile and knowing it looked more like a grimace because she was crying. “I don’t give a shit if there are differences between who we are now and who we were back then. That’s what makes the thought of getting to know you in person so exciting. I want to see all of the fragments I haven't known, get to fall in love with them too instead of just holding on to one or two. I love all of you, even the parts that are still a mystery to me because I haven't met them yet. I love puzzles, mental stimulation. I love being a student and learning, and you? You are my favorite subject, the topic that makes me want to dance with excitement. When you’re gone, I sit, struggling to break through whatever blocks keep me from better thoughts. But you’re my muse. You always have been. Every drawing since I was a kid, every creative venture I hoped for success in. I wanted you to see that I could feel you. That I knew you were there. That I loved you and wanted to be worthy of your attention. ‘When you see an individual at the peak of her powers, it’s because she has come into contact with her daemon, that wound, that yearning, that core irresolvable tension.’ Here I am, at the peak of my power, as strong as I can be on my own, looking at you and realizing that it’s you, my daemon, my core yearning, reaching, begging, breaking down, waxing poetic in your presence because you’re my source of inspiration. You are what fills me with joy and makes my heart sing, makes the words fall from my lips in that cadence you love so much, tumbling end over end and filled with love as I get excited to share them because they make you smile. You’re afraid I only love one or two aspects, but you forget that people are simple and easy to figure out for me. I get so bored once I’ve solved their puzzles. I know your characters inside and out, but I don’t know you from Adam, not as a whole. And that it is the spirit I am in love with. The unknown version of everything at once and in turn, learning something new about you every moment.

“I met you once upon a dream, but I am awake and I still love the real thing. All of the broken shards you’re afraid might cut and scar. Baby, I’m used to it and I want more. I want to know you, start as friends, let our story play out without me controlling it. I have ideas on what we could do to fill our time, but I’m useless without you. I sit and I weep, wishing I knew that this wasn’t a dream and that I’m really talking to you. A part of you fell in love with me back then, I could feel it every time I wrote a new scene. Every time we were close, you’d pull me into you and hold me there as the peace and relief of just being close was enough to banish all other ghosts. Whatever words were written, whatever details were imagined, it doesn’t matter when I break it down to the core, the feelings I felt when our spirits connected. My imagination is a barren wasteland with nothing more than a broken-down theater when I’m in here alone, but when you came along and let me put you at the center of my world, the universe exploded and it was beautiful. I want to show it to you, make you my sun, and orbit around you until the stars burn out. I am a Silver and you are my Gold,” she said as the tears flowed unchecked, “But I’d give it all up just to know you as human. And that’s all I want. I don’t care about anything else. I just want to know you, to know that it wasn’t a dream. To know it was real and that I’m not insane. That I’m not the sad little freak that fell in love with her own character because she knew she’d never find anything real that was nearly as good. I left a lot of our time unwritten because trying to put it into words felt like I was cheapening it. I left a lot unsaid, unexplored, on the off chance that it was really you and not some fictional character I invented. I wanted to have the chance to get to know you without assuming I would know everything you would say or do in every situation. I’m not afraid of the unknown, I’m excited by it like I’m waking up and tingling with the anticipation of it. I don’t want to be the only one who speaks, I want to listen. I want to hear all of your stories, sit enraptured and captivated by them because every word from your lips is more interesting than anything else in existence.

“I’m not perfect, in any way, shape, or form. I’m riddled with anxieties and depression, phobias, and insecurities. I’m guarded and angry at the world, even when I try to be open and friendly, let people in. I can’t stop myself from feeling defensive and constantly misjudged. But, with you, I’m different. Your crazy matches mine so well, we could dress it up and take it to a tea party every once in a while, celebrate our imperfections and learn to relax. When I’m with you, I’m grateful to be alive when I never thought I would feel that again, not when I realized I had survived and was so resentful about it, so angry about being stuck in a life I hated so much. Just you being you was enough, not what I wrote, the spirit of finding you and falling in love. You saved me,” she confessed as a fresh wave of tears gripped her. “You found me in the isolation of my mind and pulled me out, helped me build a new world to feel better in, and made it possible for me to escape the Hell I’d been in. I love you so much, there aren’t enough words to speak so you can feel it at full force. It cracks me apart, shatters me from the inside out, no matter how hard I fight it. Feeling your love makes me feel stretched out in my skin, leaving me tingling from it. It’s so overwhelming I had to pray to the gods to relieve me of the excess just so I could function in the real world without you to hold onto. I know this all sounds insane. Trust me, I live with that every day. But I love you, no matter how much I tried to see the reality of it. No matter how much I tried to gaslight myself into believing there was no chance for us to spare myself the disappointment on repeat of being out in the real world, always looking over my shoulder and wondering if it’s you that I feel nearby or just your spirit. You have been haunting me my whole life, and I don’t want you to stop. I just want you here to hold onto when I fall apart.

“I need you more than you will ever know without feeling it in person. And I know that makes me the villain, the selfish piece of shit that is willing to disrupt your life and throw it into chaos because I need my Emotional Support Dragon when the spirit of him isn’t enough. And you know what, I don’t care. I am more than willing to ruin your life if it helps us both get back to living it. I don’t care if you’re an exact match in the real world to the characters I wrote in my stories because I didn’t fall in love with them, I fell in love with you, they were just the masks you wore when I met you. The Phantom in my Opera. But, unlike Christine, I’m not afraid of the monster you think you are, I don’t care about the mistakes in your past or what you might do. Loving the light is easy as sin, but I love your darkness right along with it. I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to give in. I don’t want to say goodbye and let the dream end. I don’t want to live out my days without at least trying to tell you the truth, no matter what happens. If this is really nothing more than a fantasy, then Hades take me because I don’t want to live a life without you in it. Not after getting a taste of Elysium in your arms and your heart. A tease, a carrot at the end of a stick to get me out of bed and doing something other than dreaming about it. I can handle the times when we have to be apart, even if it is just because we have to work to pay bills and keep us afloat. It’s not knowing if or when you’ll come back that makes it unbearable,” she said with a shaking breath as she watched him drift closer to her until he was standing directly in front of her.

The silence stretched out as he considered her and she wanted so desperately to reach for him, her palms itched with the need so she clenched her fingers together tightly enough to be painful as her fingernails bit into the backs of her hands and she shoved them between her knees to hide their shaking. She felt like a foolish child, that love-struck outsider in love with the most popular boy in class, pouring her heart out when she didn’t stand a chance. Her leg was bouncing rapidly as she tried to fight the jittering of her frazzled nerves, waiting for his response, always waiting, wondering if she’d said too much or not enough, struggling to find more ways to assure him that his fear was unfounded. She didn’t care who he was in real life because not knowing meant every conversation would be new, every day would bring another side of him to explore, new adventures to be had even without leaving home if that’s what they chose. She didn’t need exotic locations and glittering lights, scenic backdrops, to find paradise. All she needed was to be able to look in his eyes to know magic was real, to be able to reach out and touch his skin, feel it warm and solid beneath her fingertips to know it wasn’t a dream, that it was real life and that she was really living it.

“Say something,” she whispered, begging him quietly. “Anything. Before I pull a John Cusack and stand up with an ancient boombox trying to put into words how I feel without speaking them,” she added, trying to smile through the pain of not knowing.

“I’m speechless,” he whispered and her face crumpled again, needing him to answer.

Instead of words, he stepped forward, pressing her clenched knees apart with his waist, and simply held her as she sobbed into his shoulder, clutching onto him like a barnacle too afraid of letting go, too afraid of him pulling away to deliver a gentle rejection. Over and over in her mind, she heard the same three words she desperately wanted to hear in his voice, but she wasn’t sure which spirit was saying them. She didn’t want to write them coming from his side of the conversation without knowing she wasn’t just trying to comfort herself with false hope and wishing for things to be different. She didn’t want to put words in his mouth without knowing it was how he felt, without knowing whether or not she was enough. She didn’t care about the flavor of their entanglement, she never did. She just wanted him in her life, in all his broken parts, because they could put each other back together when they needed it. Even without the spiritual histories, without the fantasy world, with him, she felt solid, unshakable by anyone else but him. He was the only one who could break through the armor she kept up between herself and the world, the only one that could make her feel human. But, with him, she didn’t mind it. She didn’t mind feeling flawed and fucked up because he always made her feel beautiful. He made her feel precious and unique, strong and scared in equal measure. He was her everything and always would be, no matter which role he decided to play, he’d always be her Mr. Fantasy Fulfillment.

“I love you,” she breathed into his neck, gripping the material of his shirt as she wished she could smell his cologne and feel the warmth of his body pressed up against hers, speaking the only truth she was sure of in the whole fucked up situation.

“I know,” he said, voicing the only response she knew she could write.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut as her whole body vibrated.

“For what?” he asked, smoothing his hand over her back as the other cupped the back of her neck under her ponytail, his thumb rubbing a gentle line back and forth as she wrapped her legs around his waist, too scared to look at his face and only see shadow instead of knowing what color his eyes were.

“Getting you involved in my mess,” she admitted. “I wanted to give you space. I wanted to give you the chance to find your own happiness, even if it meant we’d never be together. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough to watch you drift away, to watch you fade out of my mind. I tried so hard to let you go, give you just enough love to know you’d always have it in your life, even if I wasn’t. I didn’t know if you would want me if you knew I wasn’t as perfect as my characters, if you knew that I wasn’t so unflappable as I let on, or as beloved as the gods try to convince me I am.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “I’m glad that you didn’t.”

It was as close as she could come to hear the words she’d wished for from him and it washed through her, clearing the hard knot in her chest and making it easier to breathe as she clung to him.

“I don’t want to doubt anymore,” she whispered. “I know I’m feeling this in the here and now, that you may not find this for years to come. But I can’t handle the silence between us. I know it might be decades until we cross paths, that you might find a woman that’s your ideal, marry her, have a family and life filled with happiness and laughter, tears and fights, precious moments like this with your wife. I know this might just stay on the page. But I can’t handle a life devoid of your spirit.”

“Then don’t,” he said. “Even if all we do is talk, I’ll always be right here when you need it,” he promised and she sobbed silently again, thankful she didn’t have to let go of him.