When I was taken, it was supposed to be a compliment. I awoke in the cushiest of rooms, on a single twin bed, with more pillows than space to breathe. As I shifted awake, the mattress swayed—it was piled high over many mattresses. Hundreds in fact. I froze and clung tight to the edges until the swaying steadied. The mattresses all moved as one. They must have all been glued together, sewn together, or had a built-in mechanism that kept them from fully toppling.  

Congratulations, Essie! You have been admired, the ceiling said in big bold letters. I grimaced as I tried to get up without falling down to a bloody mess stories below. It was a magnificently high room, I realized, narrow as the walls were. The ceilings with their optimistic letters loomed and buzzed above me still, and echoes abounded. I did not know where the cameras were, as I couldn’t see any—they must have been tiny, and many, and everywhere.  

Into the Sunset was a chance to be chosen, abducted, and go on a most amazing fairytale date with your secret admirer who nominated you, and thought of you while arranging everything to woo you and romance you. 

How thoughtful. 

The show was a hit among our retro-fairytale-crazed society. There were so many girls who would kill to be in my place.

Now you know the rules, said a voice programmed to speak directly into my ear. They no doubt edit the same voice over the footage livestreaming all over. Predictive live editing saved people a lot of time so they could make hundreds of episodes in a snap. No one can be forced to see anyone they don’t want to. We’re a progressive fairytale here, you can always leave after you’ve been taken. You have a minute to declare whether you accept or reject the invitation. If you say yes, you get to take a chance and see what this person who’s fallen in love with you will do for you, and take the magic carpet ride to see if this is your prince. And even then, you always get to say no and opt out, no hard feelings. We know sometimes you’re just in the wrong tale. 

I looked around for any doors, windows, other screens, or exits. Nothing came into view. Even as a guest, it turned out, I couldn’t skip the intro—nothing else would appear until they finished explaining all the rules even though we apparently all knew it. It was always the most draining part of the show, the unskippable repeated intros. 

OR, the voice continued, Sleeping Beauty wants to sleep on this more? You can even say no here and now. No worries. We can end the story differently and send for a magic carriage—here it sounded like where the voiceover host would wink at the audience and laugh—to send you home before the clock strikes twelve. The choice is ALWAYS up to you. So what’ll it be? Will you be our guest, or return to Never-land?

A holographic projection, at last, lit up in front of me, so vivid save for the glitches that made me feel as if I were trapped in a snowglobe made up of the internet. 

YES or NO buzzed into existence in front of me, two giant, bold, glaring options. I noticed the way one glowed brighter, as if calling to me, the golden, beautiful, right answer. After all, I had gotten this far, being admired. Many girls would kill to get this far, to be nominated and taken away. Wouldn’t they? But I didn’t remember what I did to deserve getting this far. I furrowed my brow, trying to recall how I got here. But the silence pressed from all around, and I could hear the agonizing whine of technology threading into my ears alone. My eyes caught a new blue glow further in the background: a digital clock counting down. In a blink of an eye, it reformed into a glowing, floating pink rose beneath a bell jar to blend back into the fairytale setting. A single rose petal wilted away.

“Well,” I said, finding my voice at last, surprised at how crisp and clear it cut through the room, “it would be much easier if I could see who it was.” I blushed, feeling sheepish for having that be my first words on live television. 

A collective groan resounded, a sound effect made up of recordings from people who were enthused in real time. I hadn’t realized the guest could always hear the viewers from home.

“It’s not about judging by appearance, my dear heart,” tutted a laughing voice, a woman voicing a holographic fairy godmother, hovering on the side of the projection, with repeated movements on a loop to match her improvised live voice acting. The fairy godmother had big hair and a sparkling blue dress. “It’s about getting to know who they are on the inside,” the old fairy gushed. An audience track of awwww’s echoed behind. Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw a tiny glowing yellow sparkle signal the audience to react together at the same time. I had never paid close enough attention when I watched in passing at home. “The choice is completely in your hands, dear, of course. It’s up to you whether you want to get to know him.” 

“You sure like to assume I’m straight,” I chuckled sardonically, before I could stop myself, knowing it would be repeated on screens everywhere. Shit. You’re not at home anymore, Essie. How did you say that so easily? Wait a second, didn’t you just have this convo last night—?

“Well…” the fairy godmother paused, then pulled a scroll out of nowhere. “I have on record here that you are…” She squinted at the paper. “…demisexual?”

On record?? Oh right…they always did announce things like that ever since they wanted to brag a diverse list of identities; I had always thought the guests volunteered that information, though—before I could think further, I flinched at a high pitch apparently only I could hear.   

“Well…sure, yeah,” I said, a little too quickly to ward off that terrible whine of silence, “which means—”

“Oh!” the fairy godmother laughed and shook her head. “Of course, darling. I think you’ll find this show is most welcoming and accepting of that. Why, you aren’t expected to get into bed on the first date with a beast you just met. We don’t do that here.” 

I coughed, looking away, only to remember there was no away, wondering if the hundreds of hidden cameras would hide my reddening face somehow. I noticed how the high pitch sound at least softened, though, once there was talking. The pitch blended into muted string music in the background. 

“Why, I think you’ll find this is most suited to your preferences,” the fairy godmother went on in a jovial manner. “There isn’t any wild pressure that the one who nominated you is THE ONE for you, nor that any hasty decisions about physical closeness is set up like other shows. We want authenticity, the way love is supposed to be, we only want to help along what’s natural. You have someone wooing you, you actually get to know of it, you call the shots whether you want to proceed, and the dates are all catered to you free, as an offering to you to see if it pleases you. This show will not force you to rush into marriage at first sight, after all!” the fairy godmother chuckled, waving a star-tipped wand out of nowhere. “This show is only about lovely dates, and romance, and imagination. Dates are for getting to know one another first. Isn’t that what your type is all about?” 

“Well, actually, I—”

“You’ll get to take it slower, too. People love a slow-burn romance all the more! You’ll get a few episodes just to be friends before you get to the romantic dating part. We’ll even clarify it for you and emphasize he is not your boyfriend yet. And he doesn’t have to be! But just know that we respect all sexualities, including slow sexualities. No skin off our nose, people like getting drawn in a few extra episodes, and besides, what a wonderful chance to represent! You could inspire us, educate us! All this means, darling, if you so choose this, is you have someone willing to get to know you first, romance before the sex, friends before the romance. You have someone willing to wait for you. Think of the opportunities!” 

“Actually, I—”

“If you choose this, I mean,” the fairy godmother chuckled nervously. “Woo I’m just getting excited just thinking about it! But that’s only because I see such charming potential down this path. You two would look beautiful together, if I do say so myself. And whatever you decide will be good!” 

I waited to see if she was done. 

“Also, you are very brave to come out in public,” the fairy godmother added. 

“I was kidnapped, I—” Then I blushed. “Oh. Thanks.” 

The fairy godmother blinked. “Now, the choice is all yours,” she said patiently, though I could tell through her looking back up out at her surroundings as if to give a look to the camera, that I was running out of time. My eyes flickered back to where I saw the holographic wilting rose. It replaced with a painting of the sun setting into the sea, frothy white seafoam glistening. 

I struggled to remember the last thing I remembered before I woke up to hidden cameras, but I could make out a haze of vibes, as if the night before were a dream. Yes, I could remember now. All I wanted the day before was to just go home, wake up in my own bed with my comfy stuffed animals, on my own time, and hear my mom making breakfast. I tried to rack my brain for how recently I saw my mom, what kind of conversation we had had, wondering if she were in on this “surprise,” if she were watching right now. A low dread of betrayal threatened to rise from my stomach, but I pushed it down trying to remember to be grateful. I had woken up in a world of fantasy, made of love and manufactured magic. She might have even been the one who whispered to them of my demisexuality to ensure they catered to my preferences because they would get nothing from me otherwise. And no one gets a chance to be a princess on TV and throws it all away, especially if it’s the ticket to finding a match. I thought about what I might regret for the rest of my life: just not taking a chance. Someone actually fell in love with me, and thought of me, and only me, and the least I could do was give him a chance. It’d be so humiliating for him to be rejected on TV, and I’d spend the rest of my days wondering what could have been, if I never found someone who’d pursue me ever again. It’s a compliment to be pursued, I had to remind myself. 

The high technological whine wove through my ears, through my brain again.

“Yes, I’ll go out with him,” I said, feeling my voice speak of its own accord. 

Confetti and party music blasted in a flurry through the room. 

“Now, can someone help get me down from here?” I tried to shout above the noise, my voice competing, muted against the music.

* * *

I couldn’t stop thinking about the beds piled high, all those mattresses piled up like some kid’s hyper-excited, brightly colored obstacle course at a gymnasium. Except much cleaner, softer, and fluffier. This was intentionally pampering, and the beds had at least been comfortable enough that I had actually slept the night before. I wondered why, though. What was the purpose of having so many beds? Was that what I was going to have to sleep on every night while I stayed here being recorded to give them a show? Was I going to have to be lifted onto the pile of mattresses by crane every night, get a claw machine to lower me down every time I just needed to go to the bathroom? But music hummed over the scene now, pulling me back to the present. 

So…here goes nothing, it’d be time to meet him. The mysterious secret admirer, the prince, the pursuer, the really extra man. 

When the curtains parted and a spotlight fell to reveal him, the first thing I felt was a grounding flicker of relief that there was now a human face to put to the mysterious entity. A human person, limited to one presence, instead of an omnipotent master of control behind the screens. I felt an overwhelming relief that he was my age, that he must have been someone who admired me at a distance from school, rather than a complete stranger. And he didn’t glitch, so this wasn’t a hologram like the fairy godmother was. 

He was strawberry blonde, fairly fit, but not intimidating, as he was even about my size, only a few inches taller. His hair was curled and wild. He had green eyes and lovely black-framed glasses. His complexion was amazing, his face symmetrical. His eyes were framed perfectly. He looked like a kind of character on TV you could trust to be patient and intellectual. His smile was shy. But what a pretense, I mean, shy people don’t decide to go on reality TV to ask their crush out. 

I remembered we were only here because he had a crush on me. I felt my face waver behind the forced smile. Thoughts of memes made of people on reality TV shows pretending to be happy or shocked, flooded my brain. I winced, trying to hide my face behind a well-timed moment to fly my hands to my face. People could see right through a fake smile, right? There had been so many pictures I’d cringe to be tagged in, my smile wavering in that one second when the picture was taken, my eyebrows turning unsure of when I’d hear the click, a thought making itself known in my eyes. One wrong un-smiling moment, and I’d never live it down.

“Hi,” I said, dumbly, still processing the person. 

“Hi,” he said, dumbly, shrugging, laughing as he approached me. It occurred to me to wonder how he had gotten the money to film asking his crush out on live television. Was I willing to trade privacy for comfortable money? “I, um, brought you a gift. Hope you like it.” 

Oh shit, was I going to have to open presents on live television? How much did the predictive editing edit out if I reacted too awkwardly? 

“You don’t have to open it right away,” he said hastily, the moment I took the fancy paper bag from him. 

Open it, said a voice in my head. Or at least, programmed to vibrate into my head. You get points for opening it, audiences love this part. The presence of a pastel, well decorated set of four walls, and the absence of a visible camera crew, gave us the illusion of privacy, but I could still hear music playing over us, ever so slightly, and the automated voice in my head did not match my preferred voice settings. But there I was, on the spot.   

I had to remind myself this was nothing, I wasn’t fighting for my life or starving at home, nor expected to fight anything to the death to survive. This was not hard. This was not a struggle. I was just a girl, standing in front of a boy, being offered a present I may or may not like, with either an opportunity for love, or an opportunity for a laugh. I was a fairytale princess being offered gifts for my hand. People would kill to be in my place.  

I could always say no. I could stop at any point.

Everyone was watching. I had to see what happens next.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the bag delicately. I wondered why it was so hidden. I thought about the usual: flowers, chocolates, promises. Jewelry, little silver bands or charms that I just never really got into. Jewelry, like a dog collar, or a promise ring, something shiny that bound you to them (though I’m sure bondage was for a different channel). I wondered what my mom would think, if she were watching, if she only knew. She used to date someone who would get upset if she went too long without wearing the jewelry he spent so much on to surprise her with, despite her allergies. I had learned love was expensive. That we had the easier job, that we were already bought with a price, that all we had to do was receive. All we had to do was be loved. 

I prepared myself to smile no matter what, to say thank you no matter what. I’d done it before, after all. 

Inside the paper bag I saw a burst of beautiful color, an array of shimmering colors. Boxes even prettier than boxes of chocolates. My eyes lit up, suddenly, with the beauty of something colorful that was solid, tangible, shiny in my hand. 

“You got me books?” 

“Yeah! I mean, I don’t know what you’ve read already, or how much time you have or anything. But I thought it’d be a lot more personal and nicer than flowers or chocolates.” 

Holy crap, it could not be this easy. Anyone in the world could like books, and I still didn’t know if I liked these books. But books must have been a green flag—he was pro-literacy, then, and had an imagination, and encouraged reading. We had a shared interest, and it could expand into other things. We already had something we could do in the same room together. This was a good thing, then, surely.  

All I had to do was play along. Then I’d get to keep the gifts, and might get something more out of it. What were a few fun dates—all expenses paid—with prizes for being charmed? 

“Holy shit, thank you,” I said. I was relieved to have an excuse to keep staring at the books, feeling their gleaming covers, smelling fresh pages, reading their little blurbs and synopses. He would wait. 

Science fiction, fantasy, and horror. How could he have known? 

Because he’s a nerd. Come on, Essie, those are whole-ass genres, easy guess. / Yeah, but the horror’s a surprise.

“Have you read them before?” I asked. “Do you know what they’re like?” I held judgment carefully in my hand. 

“Yeah! Well, I’ve read the first one, the stars one. I couldn’t put it down. The second one with the hearts, I just heard good things about, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. The third one, I just came across at random at the store, but not gonna lie, it was purely because the cover is pretty.” 

I laughed. “Yeah, I know what they say about not judging a book by its cover, but—”

“But let’s be honest, that’s what we do,” he finished. 

I turned the book over in my hands again, watching the colors of the cover gleam, the title strike boldly, the reviews shine. I could live with pretty covers of a book. And this was only the beginning, you were supposed to read before you judged, right? 

“So, I know we have an agenda for the day. What’s for lunch?” I asked. Right on cue, projections of swans flew overhead as if to deliver us our picnic.

* * *

It was almost too perfect, the way he knew how to set up just the perfect picnic. We went out to a beautiful hilltop scene, there was rolling green grass everywhere, the spark of colors and flowers, a bridge over water near a lake. We rowed on a lake, too, with the cleanest bluest rippling stream I had ever been one. Dang it, somehow he knew. Boat rides were some of my favorite things. The beautiful swans swam nearby as if to join us, and they paired up perfectly, their necks near entwining, their beaks side by side. I turned away from the sight now, my face no doubt turning red, noticing the pressure to get closer. A chill of a breeze ruffled through my light shawl, light dress, no doubt trying to push me to huddle closer, but I resisted. I loved the scenery at first sight because that was all there was to know, the sight. With people, it was different. I still didn’t know him.

I glanced at him, trying to pay attention to how symmetrical he looked, trying to remember the show wouldn’t have aired him if he weren’t considered handsome. And he didn’t look bad. I looked back out to the scenery, the swans, the ducks, the lake, the willow tree, the music. 

I started to dread what nighttime would be like already, if there’d be some sort of grand golden ballroom dance with huge windows overlooking stars, a walk into a garden replete with muses and Greek myth statues in beautiful poses, or a magic carpet ride around the world. I couldn’t even imagine pushing him off the magic carpet ride to take it for my own to escape like I had planned. He was too kind to deserve that so soon. 

Pull yourself together Essie, you’re starting to live in it already. You can’t fly away using their props. 

I glanced back, catching him staring at me up and down. When he didn’t even try to look away, I did, tensing throughout my body. I calmed myself with enjoying the way the light rippled in the water. 

I played along, through those very nighttime scenes. Because the scenery was perfect, the night skies were gloriously perfect and even nostalgic, complete with fireflies from before they went extinct; the gifts were perfect, tangible books, and we were getting along, so I suppose the connection would be perfect. Maybe it could be in time. But the thing is, I felt like the settings were all illusions. What was I going to do when the wooing dates were over and we were supposed to live ordinary days trying to keep each other from being bored? Or maybe that was when it got better, when things felt deeper and more real instead of so heightened and attentive. 

And maybe I wasn’t giving relationships enough credit. Maybe it’s more than people keeping each other from being bored.

If you like him back, you’re already more than halfway there, the voice in my head nudged.

Maybe the guy should have been my ideal person. He knew what I wanted, and he was kind, smart, taking things slow by willing to wait, into the same interests as I was. I felt like I still wanted to know him after the show was all said and done. He felt like someone I’d still want to call up to go to the park with anytime, or catch up on life with, or exchange favorite books with. We could talk about those books as we read through them together. We could talk about those constellations, or those birds we saw. I genuinely enjoyed conversation so far, as we exchanged stories of what the different sceneries reminded us of our lives. 

All the right pieces were there. And yet. And yet. And yet. 

We were sitting too close too soon for my taste. And the thought of calling it dating didn’t feel right. The thought of contact like this turning into hugs, turning into caresses; eye contact a second too long turning into kisses, just to fill in the whine of silence; and eventually, if I ever needed comforting, hugs turning into sex, sweetness turning into matrimony. It felt so wrong in my head. I couldn’t place why. It wouldn’t be so bad, being loved by someone I shared so much with. And I did identify as demisexual, as attraction to characters I saw on TV only clicked once I knew their actual character and felt an emotional connection. Then the physicality came, if at all, just a small amount really, just that little spark like that high you get from caffeine or your favorite throwback song coming on the radio. But then it also kind always kind of faded away, into the background, and I would be perfectly happy watching characters kiss each other as a story separate from me, instead of wishing that were me. And the reality was, everything that should have been perfect, was not. I couldn’t imagine it. When the music and coaching voice in my head faded away, my brain squicked. I came up blank. None of the reactions that should have come up at this point in the relationship were happening. Nothing. We’d done the grand romantic dates, and there was so much more staring required than necessary. We’d done the “you have one thing in common” conversation, but I wondered what else there was, desperate to fill in the silence. And we had chosen the longer route, the twenty episodes package instead of ten. We were still going to run out of time, that digital rose wilting, the digital hourglass running out, the digital sun setting into the sea.

And I hated the idea of waking up to find him taking up my space next to me. I hated the idea of merging and never having privacy again.

I could have gone along with it. Maybe I would just take an extra long time at it; they had already accepted that I would need an emotional connection first before I’d feel...open. But it didn’t feel fair to him. He was so sincere, it deserved reciprocation that already existed. And every day closer to what was supposed to be a grand finale, the music pitched and sped up ever so slightly, as if some invisible orchestra had been bribed to rush us.  

But I did care about him. He seemed heartfelt and sweet and he tried. And I don’t easily say I want to be friends with someone—I wanted to get emotionally closer in time; I just didn’t see it turning out in that font. I thought of mixed orientation marriages. I had read my share of testimonies from gay men and women who would not neglect they had a friendship, but it was not the same tune as marriage. They even still wanted to share a lifetime together, but was not sexual or romantic. It wasn’t less than, but it was different. The definition of romance would be more blurred for us, because most people define it as “someone you still want to see the rest of your life.” But I still want to see many people the rest of my life. 

We had only just begun to get to know each other, and Mom was at least right about me making friends to get myself out there, but I felt like we needed an opportunity without all the world watching, without this genre writing out our timeline. I couldn’t see that kind of future, but I could see us being friends, if given the chance. 

Even bisexual people aren’t attracted to every single person of all genders, after all. So maybe demisexual people didn’t have to marry their best friends. 

I really wished it were easier. All the right pieces were there, and I knew everyone liked how we looked apparently, but I knew marriage would be miserable somehow. It just wouldn’t feel right. I loved acting, but not this kind. 

And I was going to have to tell him somehow, while the show was reaching its scripted climax of happily ever after. 

And if I said no, reality awaited outside. I would have to be knocked out, sent back outside to a cruel world desperate for love, and always wonder what could have been if I had just waited longer. The high pitch in the background wouldn’t be so bad with all this other music to play over it; out there, there was no music left. But even more so than that, I would regret it. He would be sad, and everyone would sympathize with him, cuz that’s how the story goes. The broken up with always gets the sympathy, not deserving that lack of relationship. Everyone would have seen and captured and memed how I so cruelly rejected the sweetheart. 

I gave him a chance, and now I was stuck in a deeper pit with that chance going on forever. But the show did have to move forward. What was I going to do? 

* * *

The moment I prepared to talk to him, I could already see the way he died in his eyes, before the head tilted and the smile dropped. I knew this was the moment of confession that everyone was waiting for, I knew what everyone wanted to hear, how everyone’s rooting for someone to just choose being happy, is that so bad?   

Either way I could be happy. So the moment I told him, I split in half.

Half #1: 

I told him I fell in love with him, too, convincing myself it was a delayed truth, a prediction of the future. I nodded along to everything he said, all the excitement in his eyes, decided I could live for someone else. His smile was so bright, so charming. He was so elated he couldn’t even see that I had split myself in half, that he was only seeing a façade, and had he looked behind me he would have seen my brain short-circuiting, skin off my back, a disappearance. 

The show cheered me on, and you could hear the audiences everywhere tuning in, sending audio-recorded reactions and everyone being so happy. Digital hearts flying everywhere. Flower petals by the dozen. Even the scenery around me became a haze of heavenly clouds, and sculptures of Greek myths lifted their heads from sensual poses to sing to us. It wouldn’t be so bad, choosing happiness. 

They said they wouldn’t arrange the marriage, but they were now so moved that they did. With a shimmering bridal gown and charming suit and tie, we were no longer part of Into the Sunset but moved onto their spinoff show Sweet Dreams. I heard rumors of how yet another show was in the works following the children of true love, but they whispered that to accommodate my “demi-ability,” whatever that means, that didn’t have to come until later. I tried to say that’s not a thing, but sweet nostalgic music played again, and if I wanted to hear that again, I knew what to do.  

We were lifted up, and laid down on that mattress piled up super high, together. It was a lot softer and cushier now, but no longer swayed. It felt reinforced, solid beneath us.  

They were watching. They would always be watching. That’s the catch, and we knew it. We were living life in a movie. It’s a dream movie that everyone wants, and we would always be acting, following the script, always here. Making people happy.  

It wouldn’t be so bad, choosing happiness. 

Half #2: 

He melted right before my eyes. 

One minute he was smiling at me, the light in his perfectly framed eyes dying the moment the words registered. “I…I think you’re great, and I do want to see you again, which is why I’m actually really nervous bringing this up because I don’t want things to end. But I don’t think it’s going to work out romantically…I don’t think I see you that way.” I quickly tried to save it, coming just short of apologizing, and stopping myself. Tried to say, “I’m sorry” and bit it back to try to otherwise with “I do think there’s someone out there for you,” but there was nothing that was stopping it, nothing to stop that unfaltering smile from collapsing. His entire face started drooping and I thought he was having a stroke and panicked, but no one was doing anything. No one was stopping him. His face was falling apart, his skin sagging and turning to liquid. 

Liquid. He was slowly turning to liquid. Why? 

You said the wrong thing. You said the wrong thing. You said the wrong thing. 

I tried to gather him back up to one piece again but he was just melting like candle wax. I thought people weren’t supposed to melt until there was romance. 

You’ll regret it. You’ll regret it. You’ll regret it. 

“Help! Somebody help!” I screamed, reaching out to gather him in my arms, put him back together, return things to the way they were before. Why couldn’t things remain the same in a moment, forever, like an illustrated scene? Why did we always have to move from one thing to “more,” to where we are doomed to separate?

No one responded to my pleas, but I could hear my own voice echoing, I could hear how the walls surrounded me. I didn’t remember the room being this small, the walls seemed so much closer, everything so much more constricted. The technological whine was at an all time high, sharp and piercing, then overwhelming and droning.

Was no one on the show going to help?? I turned all around trying to find the hidden cameras and frantically wave to them. “Let us out, let us out of here, get him some help!” I turned to the walls, one brick after another, with hands dripping with hot wax. To anyone just tuning in on the show, it would look like I was dripping with gore. He was wax, and yet he had internal organs like a human. His blood was quite literally putty in my hands, as much as I tried to save him. I ran back to him desperately, and I saw his flickering eyes follow me before jerking back to staring into space, pretending not to see me. So he was still conscious. Why didn’t he say anything?

I felt forced to hold his face in my hands because he was fucking falling apart and dying. I whipped my head around frantically to see if anyone would pop up, that stupid holographic fairy godmother, a hidden tech member replacing a prop, a floating candlestick, anything. There was no fourth wall, there was nothing there. There was only a holographic rose wilting, a painting of a sunset actually setting into the sea, the gonging strike of a clock being pushed at higher speed towards midnight.  

Oh what have you done, you’ve gone and broken his heart, after all he did for you! 

He didn’t do anything but put me in this simulation! I wanted to cry out. 

He loved you so much he was willing to die for you. But not be friends with me. But not live to be friends with me. 

I ran through my memory of watching bad television shows and remembered the way calling people just friends was betrayal, euphemism. Then I ran through my fairy tale media memories, the beast dying with unmirrored love, the mermaid disintegrating into a froth of forgotten seafoam upon her crush’s wedding day, the frog being devoured alive in nature if he does not have his first violent lover’s spat with a princess. 

But I also think of the others. The winged siblings undone by a spoken word, the sleeping beauty’s mind assumed to be empty but body resusable in bed, the swan maidens singing final songs as they explode in wistful feathers and hollow bones in the sky, ruined by a fantasy that did not work out because a prince loves another version, not the true version. 

So here I am, and which version am I? My head spins with bright media behind my eyes, so vivid and flashy and cutting into my vision. The inside of my head, my ears throb with loud interrupting media from within, earworms all a-tangle and short-circuiting. I wonder if they had implanted them as I slept, to help romanticize the time I spent here. Now it’s overloading me all at once, from within. I can’t even tell which thoughts are original and my own, and which were pre-edited, pre-mixed, pre-produced. 

And suddenly I’m Beauty reaching for a candle in the darkness, and everything around me is alive and watching, but in anguish and melting away.  

And suddenly I’m a prince, frantic to find my foundling, my friend, to tell her good news, waking to a dagger dropped on the ground, watching in horror at the froth of seafoam from a silent suicidal beloved, who had resisted temptation to kill me.  

And suddenly I’m Cinderella, who only wanted a night off. I’m Thumbelina, who’s used up her free passes to say no when she meets someone her kind, her size. I’m the princess and the frog, but everyone’s a frog. I’m every princess that’s ever been knocked unconscious and woken to years passed and prizes birthed and young marriage and young death. 

The walls are now closer than before, I know it. The room is rectangular, an empty stage, a black box, the interior of an old television set before flat screens. I am small, shrunken like drugged Alice, and I am living in the screen and mass-produced and I am only image, and I can be put away, and I can be edited, and I can be copied all the more into people’s minds. I have free will, but I have chosen wrong, and I am the failed simulation, but I don’t think I was always simulation, I think they turned me into one slowly over time. I think with each day I spent here, each day I bided my time to think about it, with the information they extracted from me, I was being prepared to live in it. The choice was mine, but it wasn’t about whether or not I’d be here. The choice was mine whether to enjoy it. 

We’re being crunched and I’m screaming out at all the walls, wondering where the hell everyone who always was watching and always interfering went. I suddenly realize I don’t remember seeing a crew, a director, a host, human faces, at least not today. I don’t know if they’re all watching silently, or all changing the channel leaving me here in the dark. Or worse, what if there was no one watching or editing or directing anymore because it was all technology talking to each other, scrapping drafts with still existing minds in them? 

The room is tight as an elevator now. My voice, however, no longer echoes. I scream again and again, and it’s as if a volume button has been played over me, and I’m coming out muted. 

I can’t tell if I’m a copy of an original, or if this is the fantasy they’ve inserted into my very real brain to scare me in case things go wrong. I am conscious, though, I must be, I have all these memories and all this will, and for me to do Something Wrong, I must have had a choice. 

I look to where the candle wax melted, all over the floor, all over my dress, my legs, my arms, my hands. I try to pry off all the dried wax, try to figure out what the hell is going on. More fairy tales blip by my brain in a stunning montage. A girl talking to her grandma who was a wolf all along. A girl engaged to a man she had seen the night before, now cooking dinner made from the dismembered girls who’d rejected him before. A girl married to a man with a castle like the beast’s, with a secret room she must never see, all the women who came before hanging like portraits, their blood carpeting the floor like this wax. 

They were who they were all along. Speaking the truth has nothing to do with effecting it. 

I imagine the viewers have abandoned this project, this simulation, this what-have-you that I’m living. They’ve messed up the poor boy, too, they’ve abandoned him to melt away onscreen when no one’s watching. He has believed the lie that it was all or nothing. He has believed the lie that friendship is violence and starvation, so I have denied and starved him, and for that I am damned. No fairy godmother appears twice, no wisdom is coming to the rescue. 

Then everything all around me flickers. Simulated sunlight, rain, greenery, hills. Romantic sceneries of before. A wonderland unfolding before me, a fantastic view of a castle beyond, a luminous array of mushrooms and flowers towering over me, everything popping up like a house of cards, then breathed to life. 

We apologize for the inconvenience. It seems we have hit some technical difficulties. 

“You lied to us,” I say, thankful to hear my voice return to me like normal. How long has it been now? It felt like lifetimes have passed. “You said if I said no, we’d be free to go. You said you don’t force anything. Well now he’s a fragile puddle and I’m a hologram. What did you do to us?” 

Your love is important to us. The words are free for you to say, in your own time, in your own way. 

“The word I said was no,” I say. 

…Are you sure? Did you mean to say something so harsh? 

“I said I wanted to be friends!”

But he was so nice! It does not compute. 

“Of course it doesn’t,” I mutter. I reach to gather the poor boy up from the ground, but my hands feel nothing but cold ground. The wax has been cleaned away, and I am alone. 

Are you sure you wish to hurt him like this?

I stifle a wail. Then I remember no one seems to be listening anyway, so I let out a scream. I release all of that sense of dread to compete with that technological whine in the so-called silence all around. Did he die because of me? Did he need me to save him? 

Then I tense up, shaking, infuriated. No, they failed him, too. 

No, he chose this dichotomy. Suddenly I’m burning with anger that his fragility may also be a projection, used to scare me. I wonder if he knows his image is being used in such a grotesque way, to dramatize his rejection. Isn’t it humiliating?  

“It’s not my fault he chose to gamble on a kidnapping show.” 

A pause. They’re probably talking behind the scenes. Then: I understand. The choice is yours to leave. You will be transported to what we imagine your life was like before, fantasy nowhere to be found. You will be given privacy. 

“What do you mean?” I say. “Just return me home to where you kidnapped me from.” 

The scene around me changes, and pixels flicker and images changes until right before me is my bedroom, at home. I reach out to touch it, stroke the sheets between my fingers, and it feels so soft, so real. I hug myself, can still feel the rise and fall of my chest, my heart beating speedily, the suffocation of warmth and sweat dripping past my brow. But I can see the little AI glitches in shape, the way things from around the room appear enmeshed into the sheets, the way the bed looks woven in with hands from my Labyrinth poster, the way the blankets are warped with so many folds of smiles and teeth.  

“Not a copy of my home. Take me back to my real home,” I say. 

We are reproducing everything we can with the highest quality from your life before. 

“No! I don’t want to be in your system anymore. Just take me out of this and return me to my REAL home.” 

We boast our highest realistic quality…he might even be your friend then. 

“I WANT TO GO HOME. I want to hug my REAL mom. I want to see my REAL friends. I want to go to REAL school and REAL church and REAL festivals. I want people who chose the REAL me. I never agreed to be in his fantasy.” 

“The real you has already been returned.” 

“…What?” 

“The real you has already been returned. You are a copied consciousness with shared memories as the original. You’re a human starfish.” 

“No! I am ME.” I’m pacing, panicking, feeling like an idiot. My memories are too vivid, the texture of everything is too really felt, my sense of soul is still here, and I test my free will several time with absurd, abrupt movements, like a child trying to trick her reflection into moving differently than predicted. 

“You were you,” the voice agrees, almost. “You were together, whole once. You just diverge paths as you make a choice. The real-er you, the one that loves, in most physical form, is returned.” 

Then for a brief moment, I see a reflection in the window. I come closer, peer at it, and I can almost see another version of me. Another me, pixelated, then enhanced; projected, and gifted. The guy I had just been panicking about accidentally murdering with my friendship is there, alive and human, and he is holding her hand, and she is tilting her head and gazing at him in adoration. He grabs her[/my] face and kisses her. 

I can’t look. I scream so much, I hear nothing anymore, my scream is just the real default silence. 

Another version of me. Another half of me. If you can ignore the extra shoulder and missing rib, she looks the part and she is in love with him, and she didn’t break his heart. Her heart looks like tumor on her arm, actually, a blistering egg cooked over easy, ready to be pricked under the skin. But she moves, and the glitches disappear. She turns profile, and I wonder if she only does so obediently, to hide glitching skeletal cheekbones. I wonder if, from this angle, she has another side to her at all. If there is anything internal at all, if there is even a heart or just the three-dimensional appearance of one, close to bursting. She’s dressed in glamorous gothic sexy black at the blink of an eye. Then dressed in frilly fancy white, trying on fairytale wedding gowns already, I see. It’s muffled, but I catch a few words that can’t be real: friendzone…love won out…everyone…right person…demi-ability.

“That’s not a thing,” I mutter. 

But if she goes with him, she still can’t help that she will break another heart. And another, and another. Every girl will have to say no to someone sometime, even when they say yes, it’s a million other noes. Every newly created life lives because a thousand other possibilities have to make way. 

He’s been gifted a souvenir copy of me. I wonder if this Essie even has real thoughts and feelings like a person, like a relationship is supposed to have. Like we were supposed to have, though when I rack my brain for what conversations we even had, my mind comes up blank. I wonder if he even heard or remembers the interests I shared, either. Or if it was all for show. My earlier embarrassment at having dropped that I was demisexual on live television feels so ridiculous in comparison now. It was probably already predictively censored out in real time, or mis-explained as playing hard-to-get. He probably never even heard me talking about myself and my experience, or else how could he fall for this false version? How could he not have tested her, found out something was off? People have always told me they married their best friend, but could best friends refuse to know so much about each other?

Greek myth statues start singing all around her, before returning to tortured poses from tragic scenes. 

I turn back to my room, dizzy and sick. If I feel sick, I must be real. Everything all around me still feels real, but I don’t know what’s real anymore. 

He is free to fantasize, and I am the lucky half that is free to see things how they are. 

It was only a matter of chance which version of me became who I am now, which version of me is trapped. I was the unlucky chance, and all I’ll ever be is a leftover simulated dream, probably kept conscious so as not to break any ethical laws against murder. The show boasts respecting choice, after all. Would even Mom know, would my friends watching at home know, that I am here, in the deleted scenes? Would they choose only to see the half that went to heaven, that chose love? 

Outside my window, there is a flickering image of a rocking-horsefly. It smiles with full sets of human teeth, and its hooves has polydactal fingers underneath.

Even if everything is a virtual hallucination at this point and I am never waking up, I am making what I can out of this. I open the window all the way, and leap out on the rocking horse, watching the light catch on its beautifully delicate wings. 

I yank the reins and ride off into the sunset. Screw this, even if this is all I turn out to be. Even if death is just one last dream into the sunset. If they get a fantasy custom me, I get a fantasy custom everyone else and everything else. 

I’m gonna romanticize it.