A White Rabbit in Summer

Conflagration

March 20 (still)

Mom wasn't happy. She was happy to see me back but upset that I left without telling her face to face. She says I don't trust her. Maybe I don't. She wanted to know the truth, I told her that I couldn't tell her the truth, but then Finn did. He just opened his mouth and told her everything. He left out all the specifics of our adventures and didn't talk about my motivations, but he told her that I wasn't her daughter, that the sixteen-year-old girl she buried was never going to come back. Mom was practically catatonic, she stared at the wall the entire time Finn filled her in.

I touched her shoulder and she looked me in the eye and asked, "are you a prostitute?"

I just sighed and told her I was. Mom didn't really talk much after that. I told her we'd be in my room. Finn thinks that my mom will be okay. He wants me to go to the police now, but I can't. I know once we kill Detective Slauson, we're gonna have to leave this world. I'm not ready to say goodbye to world B. Aden said he was gonna find Bily and talk to her. Finn didn't tell me where he was going, but he left the house. They want us to move tomorrow morning. Aden acted like he'd make me.

I keep thinking about saying goodbye to world B. It was so kind to me, so accepting. The people in this world were nicer to me then mine ever were. Baden and Bily really loved Bolly. She was more open with them and they respected her for it. So why did she kill herself? After all this time, I can't answer that simple question. If I'm really going to say goodbye to this world, I need to read her diary.

---

I killed Bolly.

I thought it didn't matter. The Magicals told me that time is endless and infinite. I thought this world would simply exist because it had to. It wasn't like that. Bolly heard us. She heard us talking to her and scrying for another world. She felt a magical pull to think about the Rainbow Warriors and share my dream of moving to live in the Magical Castle. Every time I went into the mirror to dream of other worlds, the magic reached across the multiverse and filled her head with the same dreams. I wanted her to be just like me without the wand and key but the only way for her to be that close to me, was if she had the exact same experiences.

I reached out through the mirror and imprinted my experiences onto her psyche. While her childhood was fine, high school was a nightmare. The more I stared longingly into the rainbow of time, the more she lost touch with reality. Again and again she talked about "magical dreams" haunting her. She'd be outside trying to live a normal life and then suddenly she'd get visions of me entering the Magical Castle, or share my vision of other worlds.

Her last entry simply said, "I hope this will bring me there."

"This" had to have been suicide, and "there" was undeniably the Magical Castle. She believed they were calling to her. She was consumed with the thought of living in a paradise eternal that she'd seen in half finished dreams and waking hallucinations; visions that my intervention placed into her mind. If I never looked for this world, she would still be alive.

How many lives have I touched by peering through the prism of possibilities? How much of the multiverse have I changed by asking it to find another world?

What have I done?

March 21

I was upset so I went to see Baden. I walked all the way to his house before I texted him. I didn't know if he was even home. I kept thinking about how he was probably with Bily, or Fifi, or maybe he'd moved on to find another girl altogether, but he was home. He came to the door and showed me in. It was almost ten o'clock, but he didn't even ask a single question. He gave me a quick hug and showed me in. His parents weren't downstairs, and I couldn't hear them except for a TV in the master bedroom. Baden had me wait at the top of the stairs. He walked down the hall, the flashing frantic lights of the commercials cast sinister and flattering lights on him one after another.

Baden closed the door to the master bedroom with caution and pity. He was thoughtful and worried. His face was scruffy with stubble, but it was far from a beard. His hair was an unflattering flat mess. When he showed me into his room, I could only really see his white straight teeth against the darkness of the hallway. I entered first. His room was a bit of a sty. I walked in and collected his homework to put it on the floor.

He took his time closing the door, rotating the knob expertly to muffle the noise. He took me into his arms. I could hear him sniffing my hair. I felt every exhale and sigh on my neck. His hands were tender. His arms gripped me with a desperation I matched. He smelled of sweat and worry and I sucked it in. Up close the stink of him was more intoxicating than noxious, like a fly resting on the lip of a pitcher plant. I ran my hands under his shirt and stepped into that trap.

Every attempt he made to speak, I silenced him with a kiss. Slow, half kisses that took his bottom lip into mine. When I released his lips our eyes met. Trepidation shifted over those gorgeous dark pools. I eased those worries away with a gentle kneading of his flesh, as my fingers trespassed fabric hems, denim stitched, and taboo elastic. He touched me tenderly, afraid to scare me away, but unable to stop himself from feeling the heat of my skin.

I was all fire. Saliva from his kisses melted to steam. His skin was dry tinder and I spread across with the hunger of a flame, one that is never satiated. I met the wind of his breath with licking tendrils full of need. I seared my name onto his lips and scarred his flesh with the shape of me. I consumed him fully and he crackled and broke to my inferno.

My conflagration burned away his hesitation and worries. He was made to bear my passion and it became us. We were united in our lust and all attempts to utter a word the other smothered with their lips. No requests were given but no needs were left unsatiated. He put everything he was into our coupling and I scratched our commitment onto his back. Denied of the ability to express our love with words we forced it out of our bodies.

He was sweaty and magnificent after the fact. I'd never seen a more beautiful man, nor a more honest expression. I told him, "say it."

He eagerly replied, "I love you."

When I asked him to say it again, he did so with a kiss. I asked this task of him again and again until somehow we'd switched roles and I confessed my undying love for a man that I couldn't truly name. All I knew was that he was Jad. He was what my heart longed for and I couldn't deny it anymore. I loved him with everything I was and we fell asleep comparing each other to perfect sunsets and undying cosmos.

Did I use him? I don't know. In the moment, all I could think about was him and how I wanted our coupling with all of my soul. I went to him hoping to talk to him, but once I was there, all I could think about was how much I wanted him. He'll call me tomorrow, or this morning I should say. I'm going to have to explain that I'm leaving and that last night was goodbye, but I don't regret it. I don't regret what we shared. Since that first day we made out, I wanted him to take me as his lover. Now that we have, I want it to happen all over again.

How can I leave someone that loves me like that?

Do I really care about sex more than my friends and family?

Will I still feel this way when I wake?

If I do, maybe I'm just a bad person; maybe I always have been.