Quoted By:
You might've heard this from Charlotte. You didn't grasp it, though. Five years. Five motherfucking— you weren't <span class="mu-i">underwater</span> five years ago. You didn't know Ellery. Five years ago he would've been in his twenties, and now he's— he's— he's fucking pushing 40? He's pushing 40. He has been on fucking dream-vacation-exile for longer than you dated. He dated— he fucked some random woman, some dream-woman, for longer than you dated.
And he still rambles about <span class="mu-i">you.</span>
*
You lose it. This is your most coherent explanation for what happens. The guy bites his tongue in half and you <span class="mu-i">lose it,</span> really, truly lose it: you may as well be 16 and screaming at your dad, it's that impotent, that childish, that completely and totally unjustified. You are up in Pat's face for some reason and yelling for some reason at her. Something about her aiding and abetting that motherfucker. Something else about her letting you go RIGHT NOW so you can go fucking kill him, you mean kill him, you're not fucking exaggerating. Maybe you threaten Pat too. You don't know. Your rational faculties were ambushed and overrun, is your post facto explanation. Your earthquake warning was shut down right before the Big One. Whatever. It's humiliating.
Much like your dad, actually, Pat appears more baffled than intimidated. In retrospect this is a good thing; in the moment this only encourages you to escalate. You are <span class="mu-i">right</span> in Pat's face. You want badly to hurt something. Your right hand is flexing and distending in unusual ways. You need a <span class="mu-i">weapon,</span> is what you need, can't hurt anything worth a damn in this goddamn body alone, you need— you need—
>[Pat didn't like that.]
Pat's pistol is pressed against your forehead before you can coax a spear out of your dry impliable hand. "Madrigal," she says. "Let's not?"
You stare as if through a fog.
"I recommend you back off."
Red-hot inspiration strikes you. "That's not going to fucking do anything!" you say. "A gun? What the fuck is a gun going to— I don't have any blood, do I? I don't have organs? So what the fuck is this? Are you trying to fucking bluff me? Newsflash, I'm not a fucking—"
"It's not that kind of gun," Pat says, and places her finger on the trigger. "Are you going to stop and sit down?"
You laugh crazily. "Why the fuck WOULD I? Do you think I'm fucking stupid? I think you think I'm fucking stupid, and that's why—"
Pat squirts you in the forehead with a stream of water, which <span class="mu-i">does</span> succeed in snapping you from your fugue. "Uhhh," you say. "Did you— did you get the wrong—?"
She squirts you again implacably. The water only trickles down a little before stopping— absorbed into your skin, you guess. Weird. You feel largely confused and wet. "I think you got the wrong...?"
She shakes the gun and squirts you again, square in the face. A great unsteadiness strikes you, your legs wobble under your weight, and you spill onto the ground and lose consciousness.
(2/3)
