Page 26 of Nine-Tenths
I hyperventilate instead of sleep, so when I get back to the café on day seven—finally open again, Min-Soo on the counter shadowed by some new kid named Rajish, me in the back putting the new roaster through its paces and hating every second of it because it's a machine, it's not him —I look like ass-on-a-cracker when I get papped.
Yeah, you heard me.
Fucking papped .
As in, some of those princess-killing, celebrity-chasing, danger-creating photogs have caught wind of something, and decided to take five-hundred horrible, unflattering photos of me trying to shoulder my way through the crowd of trend-chasers outside the café when I try to leave the café at noon.
I scramble back into Beanevolence, bombarded by lots of noise I can't separate out as individual phrases in my sleep-deprived state, but know aren’t polite.
Not a single one of those pictures is anything I'd want my mother to see.
So of course, some chucklefuck tracks down her home address, and shows up on her front doorstep at just after noon, brandishing his camera and asking for a comment. Mum has the good sense to slam the door in his face and draw every curtain.
By the end of the day, my misery has been reduced to a string of pithy hashtags.
#Alvalin, #FairyTailEnded, and a few more not fit for print.
I’m holed up in the café kitchen, pacing in tight circles while Stu gives me the play-by-play of Gem on the lawn with a shovel, playing whack-a-mole with expensive telephoto lenses.
Hadi and I sneak out the back way, to where Min-soo has her car parked at the bottom of the ravine, and I spend the night on Hadi's sofa. I don't get any sleep.
I just lay there and call Dav. Call again. And again.
The voicemail is full by dawn.
"Just tell me you're okay," I say, in the last message I can leave. "That's all I want. Please."
It isn't until the next morning, stuck in Hadi's apartment with nothing better to do, that I learn why the paps even give a shit about me.
It's not the trendy coffee—and thank fuck it hasn't gotten out that it was dragon-roasted, despite all the Influencers complaining about the change in recipe.
It's the fact that almost no one in the Royal-Watching community has seen Dav, (who turns out to be the fucking Marquess of Niagara, what the fuck ) in literal decades.
And then he pops up working in some random coffee shop and just as suddenly vanishes again, which is the icing on their invasive cake.
It's on the goddamned news .
I turn on the TV to pass the time, and the first thing I see is that photo of Dav and me walking on the sidewalk in the sun.
It's… gross.
They have no right taking those pictures where we’re happy, and distorting it into something cruel and selfish. That smile is mine. It was for me.
And it's dumb, but you know what upsets me the most? The news tells me his age. I had enjoyed our game of guess-and-deflect. I wanted to learn from Dav himself, because he trusted me with the information, because he wanted to celebrate with me. And some newsreader just blurts it out.
Like it isn't a treasure.
Like it isn’t something I was trying to earn .
"Our top celebrity story tonight is still the brief appearance of the two-hundred and sixty-seven year old Alva George Tudor, Marquess of Niagara. The Marquess vanished from public life in 1921—"
Born in 1758.
Two hundred and sixty-seven.
And now I can't unknow it.
That moment of intimate confession was stolen from me.
I hate them. I hate myself, and this worry, and this grief so fucking much, that I'm up off the sofa and down at the front door of Hadi's apartment building before I understand what I mean to do.
"He's missing!" I screech at the assembled mass of paps scrambling over the lawn in front of her apartment building. How did they even know I was here? I must look like shit: hair unwashed, scruff no longer artful, bruises under my eyes and tear-tracks on my cheeks. I don’t care.
The crowd strains forward to jam their phones in my face.
"Do you idiots not get that? The Lieutenant Governor came and took him away ! "
Someone shouts, "Oh sure!" and they explode into uproarious laughter.
"Everyone knows you can't make a dragon do anything!"
"Was it you who broke it off?" someone shouts, and I stand there, gawping, as they barrage me with obscene, personal, terrible questions: What did I do to make Dav leave? Have Dav and I ever fucked while he was in dragonshape? Who takes it up the ass? Why was I forcing Dav to work in a coffee shop?
"He was a volunteer," I say. "We didn't break up."
Didn’t we? I press my hand against my pocket, push the pin into my hip.
He'd been so scared.
"They kidnapped him ," I shout over the noise. "I haven't heard from him in a week! He would never worry me like this, he must be somewhere, being held against his will, or… or… ordered to… I don't know. Isn't that the story, here?"
Laughter again.
Another piece of the puzzle clicks into place.
The media tells us what we're supposed to think about dragons. They share—or don't share—information with the public. And they're not listening . They don’t believe me. They don't give a shit. I need someone to give a shit.
I run back inside and grab my phone.
# MarquessNiagara is a trending topic, so I send out: #MarquessNiagara was taken by Lt. Gov. Simcoe against his will. He is missing.
The message takes forever to upload and then… blips out of existence.
"No," I whisper.
I'm the #MarquessNiagara’s boyfriend. We didn't break up. He was forcefully removed from the café by dragons.
Uploading… gone.
" No ," I howl, furious.
Hello new followers! I'm Colin, and I studied Sustainable Tourism and Biodiverse Winemaking. Remember to take only pictures and leave only memories when you visit our beautiful Garden City!
Uploading… posted.
I work at @Beanevolence and the #MarquessNiagara was our volunteer bean-roaster while our kitchen was being renovated.
Uploading. Gone.
I look forward to sharing how you can promote #SustainableTourism in your own city.
Posted.
Help me. They took him, and I don't know where he is, and I'm afraid they'll hurt him. Help me, please.
Account suspended for 24 hours.