Brunch

The phone buzzes on her small kitchen table—a kitchen table that didn't exist yesterday, made of actual wood instead of cinder blocks and plywood. Delilah jumps, her hand still resting on the waist of the chastity belt. She suddenly releases her grip, and the expensive piece of equipment clatters to the floor.

Delilah stares at the screen. Sebastian. Farm raised, dramatic, pop-culture-obsessed Sebastian who dragged her to that party last night. She types back with shaking thumbs.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.

Delilah sets the phone down. Her hands tremble.

She looks at the belt. The design is just subtle enough to fit under standard day clothes without issue, but any closer examination—even the smallest extra look—and it would be as obvious as the abandoned bullet factory off the side of Interstate 87. The idea of getting caught is…

No. She can't think like that. She needs to get out of her own head. Needs normal clothes. Needs to pretend, just for a few hours, that she is still a free woman in a world that recognizes freedom. She can rule-lawyer her own story if she wants to. The locket is GPS and audio. Her Phantom Lover can hear what is going on and see where she is, but that seems to be it. So she decides to follow the SUNY motto "Fake it till you make it" and make it sound like she is putting the belt on. She shakes the belt, rattling the metal, and adds the sound of dropping it again for good measure. She wants it to be realistic.

"Who made these things anyway," she says, adding dialogue to the scene, her writer side coming out.

"Oww." Adding pain makes the scene feel real to her and hopefully to whoever is on the other end. This is believable.

Then she moves to get dressed. The dresser drawers are full. Not just full, but organized. Panties in one drawer, bras in another, socks folded in thirds like in a department store display. The clothes are hers—her style, black and gray and layers—but new. Unworn. Tags still attached to a pair of jeans that actually fit.

She pulls on underwear—cotton bikini briefs, black with a lace waistband—and nearly weeps with relief. Then jeans, a charcoal turtleneck, her combat boots (but these have no holes; the leather is polished, the soles intact). She looks in the mirror by the door.

Same Delilah. Same pale skin, same dark hair she cut herself with kitchen scissors last month, same nose ring, same tired eyes. But the clothes fit better. The apartment doesn't smell like mold.

Her phone buzzes again.

Delilah grabs her coat—the good coat, the one with lining that actually keeps out wind—and pauses at the door. She needs to check something first. Needs to know how deep this goes.

She opens her laptop. It is the same laptop—the same cracked-screen Chromebook she bought refurbished for $200, a broken but solid machine with a sticker of the Eiffel Tower on the lid. She opens the home screen and clicks through the folders she knows by heart.

The hard drive loads. The Phantom Lover: A Novel by D.C. Ember.

Her story. Her pseudonym. The chapters are all there—the worldbuilding, the scenes she wrote at 3 AM while crying and aroused and hating herself. But the text on the page that once served to put color in her cheeks now serves to put a cold sweat on her brow. Everything in the box is there, down to the amount of coffee in each jar. Delilah slams the laptop shut like Samara is reaching out of the screen.

She stands in her apartment—her nice apartment, with food in the fridge and heat that works—and feels the weight of creation settle on her shoulders. She did this. Somehow, in her drunken stupor, in her loneliness, in her desperate wish for a world where her shameful desires were sanctioned, were seen and accepted—she rewrote reality.

And she is the only one who knows.

The walk to Main Street is surreal.

Delilah knows this route. She has walked it a hundred times—past the vape shop where Raven works, past the video store that closed in 2009, past Pete's Mystic Shop on the corner with its dusty window display of tarot cards and crystals.

But the video store isn't closed. The sign reads "Videoland—VHS • DVD • Blu-ray." A sandwich board outside advertises a sale on Disney Black Diamond editions. Through the window, Delilah sees Raven herself—pale as ever, black lipstick, septum ring—organizing shelves of thick blocky tapes. In her story she threw the survival of the video store in as her own personal Easter egg. Before he disappeared, her uncle would take her to a store that specialized in Japanese imports. It was on its last leg, but everyone there was really friendly. He would rent these DVDs where guys in brightly dressed outfits rode around on motorcycles and fought rubber-suited monsters. She didn't understand at the time, but Uncle Darius was much more fun to be around, less strict than her dad, and didn't walk around with the word "no" waiting in his mouth. Apparently the video store not only survived the streaming wars but beat out the vape shop for student dollars.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing," she wonders aloud.

Raven looks up. Waves. Delilah waves back, numb.

Pete's shop is different too. The windows are cleaner. The sign is new—"Third Eye Books & Curiosities." Through the glass, she sees Pete behind the counter, but he looks... younger? Or just less tired. He is meditating, she realizes. Cross-legged on a cushion behind the register, eyes closed, hands in his lap. He was always going on about reality being something like consensus. She almost goes in.

She keeps walking.

Café Orson is new. It was a Dunkin' Donuts yesterday—sticky floors, fluorescent lights, college kids buying $5 lattes with their parents' credit cards. Now it is... French. Actual French, with wrought-iron chairs and chalkboard menus and an espresso machine that looks like it costs more than her old car. Of course, a great many things cost more than—

Sebastian sits at a corner table, sunglasses on despite the overcast day, nursing a cup of something black and smoking a cigarette that he definitely isn't supposed to be smoking indoors.

"Finally," he groans as she approaches. "I have been suffering for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of existential agony while you primped and preened."

"I don't primp," Delilah says, sliding into the chair across from him. "I don't even own a hairbrush."

"Today you do." Sebastian squints at her over his sunglasses. "You look... different. Good different. Did you finally sleep with someone who knows what they're doing?"

Delilah feels her face flush. "I just slept well. New mattress."

"Ah." He sips his coffee, winces. "So. Last night. You disappeared. I looked for you—checked the bathrooms, checked the backyard where they were doing the bonfire. Nothing. Then I find out from Marcus that you left with Bradley?" He lowers his voice to a scandalized whisper. "Bradley, Delilah. He has the emotional depth of a puddle and probably the STIs to match."

"I needed a ride."

"You needed therapy." He flags down the waitress—a college-aged girl with a nose stud and an apron that reads "Kiss the Barista." "Two of the full English, please. And more coffee. Lakes of coffee. Oceans."

The waitress nods, scribbling. "Anything for you, miss?"

"Just coffee," Delilah says. "Black."

"And a side of dignity," Sebastian adds. "She's fresh out."

When the waitress leaves, Delilah leans forward. "Sebastian. I need to ask you something weird."

"Weirder than your cactus confession? Because I heard about that, by the way. Marcus said you were talking to the hallway plant for twenty minutes about your sexual preferences. Very avant-garde, very performance art."

"Do you remember..." Delilah hesitates. How to phrase this? "Do you remember the world being different? Like, yesterday? Before the party?"

Sebastian removes his sunglasses. His eyes are bloodshot but alert. "Different how?"

"Like..." She gestures vaguely. "I don't know, just different."

Sebastian stares at her. Then he laughs—loud, genuine, the kind of laugh that makes other tables look over. "Oh, mon dieu. You did drop acid. I knew it. I told you not to let Riley pour you that drink—she's studying chemistry for fun, and that doesn't lead anywhere good."

"I'm serious."

"Delilah." He reaches across the table and takes her hand. His palm is warm, familiar. He squeezes her fingers. "Are you feeling alright? Did something happen last night? Did Bradley—"

"No." She pulls her hand back. "No, he didn't—he just dropped me off. I walked home. I went to sleep. And when I woke up..."

She stops. Sebastian is looking at her with genuine concern now, the kind of concern that precedes calls to campus health services and well-meaning interventions.

"I had a weird dream," she lies. "Very vivid. Like the world was... crappier. Boring. Just regular late-stage capitalism and student debt."

"Sounds like the nightmare we live every day," Sebastian says, relieved. "Thank god you woke up to our beautiful dystopia." He spreads his hands wide. "Where would I be without the social contract? Why, you Americans might enjoy public transportation—or worse, publicly funded healthcare." He is trying to cheer her up. For all his faults, she can always count on him to make her smile.

"I know," Delilah says quietly. "I know."

The food arrives—eggs and beans and toast for Sebastian, just coffee for her. She watches him eat, watches him suffer through his hangover with theatrical groans, and tries to reconcile this Sebastian, that there is still such a thing as normal.

"Hey," Sebastian says through a mouthful of toast. "Speaking of which—did you hear about the new initiative? Campus is doing some big project. Mental health awareness or some such."

Delilah's coffee cup freezes halfway to her lips.

"Stress test, blood pressure, blood donations, getting the counselors from the health center out in front of the student body." He shrugs. "It seems nice, but you know how it is: no follow-through."

"Next week," Delilah repeats.

"Tuesday through Thursday. They're setting up in the Student Union." He looks at her, head tilted. "You should do it. You're always so... tense. So controlled. Maybe you'd benefit from talking with a professional."

"I don't know," she says.

Sebastian reaches across the table again, but this time he doesn't take her hand. He just touches her wrist, gentle, grounding.

"Delilah. Look at me."

She looks.

"Whatever happened last night—whatever Bradley did or didn't do, whatever you drank or smoked or dreamed—you're here now. You're safe. And if you need to talk to someone..." He pulls out his phone and types something. It buzzes. "That's my therapist's number. She's very good. Very discreet. You remember when Dr. Smith from the history department thought I was manic depressive…"

She cuts him off right there. The embarrassing memories come flooding back—in detail: the giraffe, the police, the stage, all of it. "Yep, we don't need to retread that."

Delilah looks at the number. Dr. Ellie Miller, Licensed Psychologist.

"Thanks," she whispers.

"Don't mention it." He goes back to his eggs. "Now. Tell me about the cactus. Marcus said you mentioned tentacles?"

They talk for an hour. Normal talk—classes, professors, the price of coffee, whether Dominique is actually dating Riley or just using her for her psychic abilities.

"She's not psychic," Sebastian scoffs. "She's just observant. She guessed my mother was dead because I never mention her and I wear black on Sundays. Hardly supernatural."

Delilah laughs when she is supposed to. Nods at the right times. Inside, she is screaming.

When they leave the café, Sebastian hugs her—tight, brotherly, smelling like aftershave and cigarettes. "Take care of yourself, emo girl. And call that therapist. Seriously."

"I will," she lies.

She watches him walk away, toward campus, toward his life in this world that makes sense to him. A world he's always known. A world where Delilah Crowley is just a slightly depressed finance student with a dark fashion sense, not the architect of reality itself.

She stands on the corner of Main and Elm, watching the traffic. A car goes by—electric, silent—and in the back seat, she sees a woman in a business suit, collar visible above her blouse, typing on a laptop while her husband? boss? drives.

Delilah realizes she is touching her own neck. Feeling for a collar that isn't there. Wondering what it would feel like if it were.

Her phone buzzes.

She looks up at the sky. Gray, overcast, typical February. No sign of the mysterious event that remade everything. No cosmic explanation. Just her, standing on a street corner in a world of her own creation, wearing normal clothes and normal underwear, pretending to be normal.

She is trapped in her own fantasy. And the worst part—the truly terrifying part—is that even if she wanted to escape, where would she go? The whole country has probably been rewritten. The whole world, probably.

Delilah walks home. Past Raven's video store, past Pete's mystic shop, past Jerry's house with its new fence. Jerry sits on his porch, watching her. He sees Delilah and waves—the same Jerry who wanted to start an HOA, who clashed with that old bat Mrs. Baker, who disapproved of everything. Now he is sitting on a patio chair in his yard with a smile on his face.

"Beautiful day!" he calls out.

"Yeah," Delilah says. "Beautiful."

She climbs the stairs to Room 4B. Unlocks her door. Steps into her apartment—the nice apartment, the comfortable apartment, the apartment that exists because she willed it into being with her loneliness and her desires.

She thinks of her story, of D.C. Ember's protagonist, who found happiness because she was brave enough to admit what she wanted.

"Happy birthday to me," she whispers to the empty room.

Outside, the world she created keeps turning. And somewhere, in the distance, a bell is ringing—not for her, not yet, but soon. Soon.