Assuming Lavinia was merely shy and uncomfortable exposing her nakedness by candlelight, he snuffed out the flame of the pottery lamp by the bed.
He didn’t understand how she interpreted that gesture. Of course he didn’t.
He hadn’t spent a lifetime being sneered at for his plainness. His own father hadn’t deemed him ugly as Medusa and laughed uproariously at the cleverness of his own wit. No one had told Aeneas that any woman who’d deign to marry him would insist on darkness for the bedding, to better hide his homeliness.
Lavinia, however, had suffered those indignities, those wounds, and at the snuffing of the lamp, she froze and began to weep in the darkness of their bedroom. At his next touch, she ran, hiding herself away from his imagined scorn and disgust in order to rebuild her emotional walls.
When Aeneas finally located her again, sitting under an olive tree, drenched by a summer storm, he found a wife transformed. No longer wary and willing, but icy and disdainful.
He knew he’d erred somehow, but he had no idea how, and Lavinia wouldn’t say.
“I’m sorry,” he told her helplessly, but he couldn’t explain for what.
Lavinia simply turned her back and walked away from him.
The story ended there.
April’s phone rang as she was still mopping her own tears, and she didn’t bother to answer. She’d changed her number several days ago, so it probably wasn’t someone calling to ask about Marcus anymore, but the thought of talking to her mother—the person most likely to call—right now nauseated her.
What the gorgeously written, depressing-as-fuck story might impart about BAWN’s state of mind, she didn’t know. At the moment, oddly enough, she didn’t care.
“No Less a Man” might have been written by her former online friend, the object of her unrequited pining, but it reminded her of another man entirely.
Marcus.
Marcus, who’d burst into her life by defending her against bullies, ones who’d targeted her for her size. No one, not a soul, would have thought any less of him for ignoring the thread, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d called her gorgeous and asked her out. Held her hand. Put his hot mouth on her neck as she shivered in pleasure and sucked until a bruise bloomed on the spot.
Marcus, who hadn’t said a word about what she’d ordered and eaten during their two meals together. Even trusted friends often teased her about the amount of sugar she stirred into her coffee, but he hadn’t blinked, much less chided her.
Marcus, the man she’d cut off before he could finish speaking, the man she hadn’t bothered to interrogate further before declaring him canceled, the man who’d watched her with such confused hurt on his solemn face as they sat in silence in the back seat of that cab.
Early in her friendship with BAWN, when they’d worked together for the first time on one of his fics, he’d struggled with Lavinia’s motivations during an emotionally fraught scene. Eventually, April had broken it down for him in the simplest possible terms.
She has trust issues, she’d told BAWN. Major trust issues. They’re going to color all her reactions to Aeneas, even though she’s trying her best to be fair to him.
Shit, he’d responded. I can’t believe I didn’t realize that before. Of course she has trust issues. THANK YOU. This really helps.
Intending no harm, people often blundered.
Sometimes they blundered because their personal histories hadn’t taught them to be sensitive to certain issues. And sometimes they blundered because—
Sometimes they blundered because they had trust issues. Major trust issues.
Dammit. No wonder she was part of the Lavineas fandom. Marcus probably didn’t want to hear from her. But before she dismissed him as fool’s gold, she needed to be sure, absolutely sure, she was right. She needed to try, at least one more time.
Chest tight with nerves, her breaths shallow and rapid, she opened Twitter. To her relief, he hadn’t unfollowed or blocked her. Their discussion-in-progress remained on the screen, waiting for her to continue the conversation.
So she did.
Hi, Marcus. I’ve been thinking about your invitation to the gym. Honestly, I’m not much for working out. Is that okay with you? Also, if you’re still interested in getting together again, do you have an alternate suggestion?
His response arrived within minutes, and her eyes prickled again upon reading it.
Happy tears, this time.
If you don’t like working out, we won’t work out together. No worries. I would love to see you again. How about I come to SF next weekend and take you to my favorite doughnut shop from when I was a kid? Or, better yet, why don’t we check out various doughnut shops around your new place and rank them in order of deliciousness?
She could honestly say she’d never heard a better date idea in her fucking life.
Gold. She’d almost tossed aside gold and called it pyrite.
I can’t wait. I’m sorry. I—
She wasn’t ready to share the details of her personal history yet, but he deserved an apology and some sort of explanation, however insufficient.
I’m sorry. I had a lot on my mind the other day, she eventually typed.
No worries, he wrote again. So I’ll see you on Saturday?
She touched a forefinger to the faded bruise at the base of her neck, breathless once more. Now for entirely different—entirely better—reasons.
Just try and avoid me, she told him. XOXO.
Lavineas Server DMs, Nine Months Ago
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: After watching tonight’s episode, I keep thinking: What a waste.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: What we saw is a waste of the raw material provided by the books. It’s a waste of truly amazing actors and crew. And it’s a waste of the opportunity to tell the kind of story I
Book!AeneasWouldNever: What kind of story?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Ulsie?
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Summer Diaz is so talented. She’s also gorgeous.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Yes. Both of those.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m sensing a “but” in there somewhere.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Lavinia is supposed to be ugly. Not just plain, or dressed in unflattering clothing. UGLY.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: This is true, at least in Wade’s books.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That’s the fundamental beauty of the Lavineas relationship, BAWN.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: She’s a woman who’s been insulted and devalued her whole life because of how she looks, even though she’s smart and brave and kind. Then Aeneas comes along, and he has his own baggage, but he sees her. He SEES her. He recognizes that everyone considers her ugly, but
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: He sees her value. He grows to love her and desire her, even as she learns to trust him. Which is hard for her, but she does it, because she loves him too.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That’s the crux of the Lavineas story. As much as I adore Summer Diaz in the role, I can’t help but think casting her was a fucking waste of a meaningful story that people needed to see on their television screens.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I understand what you mean. I’m not sure any other actor could embody Lavinia’s intelligence and determination quite so well, but—yes. You’re right. It’s yet more potential wasted.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I imagine the actors see all that too. Even Summer herself.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Aeneas’s story . . . I just
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I just have the feeling the heart of his story will be destroyed too. A man questioning his relationship to the values he’s been taught by his parents and making his way in the world. Finding his own moral code. Falling in love and learning to value both himself and that love more than his past and the duties imposed on him by others.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That’s a lovely way to put it.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: And in the final season, the showrunners will lay all that to waste. It’s going to hurt, Ulsie. The way it plays out will hurt me, and it’ll hurt you too. I’m so sorry.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I mean, that’s what I guess will happen.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: But the Lavineas relationship is always there on the page, if not on the television screen. And I’m always here too, on your computer screen. Anytime you need me.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m not sure I deserve a friend like you, BAWN.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: You don’t. You deserve so much more.
14
“I’M NOT ENTIRELY CERTAIN THE WORLD NEEDED A COCROFFINUT.” April popped the last bite into her mouth, sugar crystals sparkling on her lips. “However, I can now feel individual electrons orbiting the nucleus of every atom in my body. If that was the creator’s intent, mission accomplished.”
Marcus had to laugh, despite his preoccupation with her mouth. “I love it when you talk science-y to me.”
She smiled at him, freckled cheeks pink in the sun, and God, he’d never been happier to ignore Alex’s advice and his own best judgment. Never.
When she’d written him Monday evening, apparently willing to let him emerge from the hole he’d inadvertently dug for himself, he hadn’t hesitated or thought twice. Not given the misery of their days without contact.
The absence of April in his life had hollowed out each and every day. For an hour or two at a time, maybe, he could distract himself from that emptiness. With writing, with reading the scripts his agent sent, with binge-watching British baking shows alongside Alex. But in the end, there he was, always, alone in his echoing LA home. Lonely. Missing a dear friend and—more. Whatever else they were becoming together before he’d tripped one of her personal land mines.
So, yeah. Good judgment be damned. Despite all the complications of the situation, any chance to be with April, he’d take.
“Funny you should say that. The people at my new job have a group T-shirt, I found out this week.” With a careless sweep, she brushed crumbs off her chest and onto the sidewalk, where curious birds were edging closer. “It says Talk Dirt-y to Me.”
Apparently science people enjoyed puns too. Good to know. “Nice.”