Chapter 22: Pancakes and Pretending
The smell of burnt toast snapped her back. Cody was waving smoke away from the toaster, laughing at himself.
“Think I got distracted by your... concentration,” he said, scraping black crumbs into the sink. “You were miles away. Cool miles, though. You’ve got that plotting face on. New character idea?”
Emily blinked. Her coffee was cold. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He slid a plate of slightly-charred toast and scrambled eggs across the breakfast bar to her. “You’ve been real quiet since you got back from Sarah’s last night. Game run late?”
The image flashed, unbidden: Sarah’s smudged mascara, the wet, rhythmic sound, Mark’s eyes locking onto hers from across the room. His voice, low and clear, cutting through the gagging. You wish your sweet little Emily was here, don’t you? Want her to sit that pretty cunt right on your face while you choke on me?
“Yeah,” Emily said, her voice strangely even. She picked up a fork. “The session went... deeper than expected. Mark really pushes the envelope.”
“That’s his thing, right?” Cody sat opposite her, digging into his own food. “You always say he’s a great DM. Makes it feel real.”
You want her to fill up your other hole, Sarah? Want me to watch you take her?
“He does,” Emily whispered. She felt a flush creep up her neck, a heat that had nothing to do with the coffee she was reheating in the microwave. It was shame. And something else, thick and restless, coiling in her gut.
Cody nodded, chewing. “Cool. I’m glad you’re into it. It’s a good outlet for you.” He said it like it was a creative writing class. She watched the easy movement of his jaw, the simple pleasure he took in the food. He was so solid, so here, in this sunny kitchen. He existed in a world where toast was just toast.
Her world had splintered. The pieces wouldn’t fit back together the old way.
She spent the day in a fog. Cody went to the gym. She told him she had studying to do. Instead, she sat on their bed, laptop open on a blank document, and stared at the wall. The common room played on a loop behind her eyes. Not just the act—the atmosphere. The charged silence before she’d opened the door. The possessive grip of Mark’s hand. The total, wrecked surrender in Sarah’s posture. It wasn’t just obscene. It was a language. A brutal, honest conversation she hadn’t known how to speak.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Sarah.
Sarah: Hey. You bolted last night before post-game debrief. Everything ok?
Emily’s thumbs hovered. What could she say? I saw everything. I heard everything. I stood there and I watched and I didn’t leave.
She typed, deleted, typed again.
Emily: Yeah, sorry. Got a weird headache. You?
The three dots appeared immediately. Bounced. Stopped. Started again.
Sarah: I’m good. Really good. The session was… intense. Mark went off-script. In a major way. I think it unlocked something for my character.
Emily’s breath hitched. For your character.
Emily: Yeah. I bet.
Sarah: We should talk about it. Your character has major potential to dive into that narrative too. If you’re ready.
Emily closed her eyes. The coiling thing in her stomach tightened. It was anticipation.
Emily: I’m interested.
She sent it before she could rethink. The admission hung in the digital air, terrifying and true.
When Cody came back, smelling of soap and sweat, she was cleaning. A frenetic, needless tidying of the already-cluttered apartment. She was stacking the manga by the couch, her hands trembling slightly as she organized them by genre.
“Whoa, did I miss a tornado or did you get possessed by the spirit of Marie Kondo?” He grinned, dropping his gym bag.
“Just felt like it,” she said, not meeting his eyes. She could feel him looking at her, sensing the off rhythm in the room.
He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and kissed the side of her neck. His skin was damp, cool. “You seem tense. That headache still around?”
She leaned back into him. The solid, reliable comfort of him. She tried to melt into it, to let it absorb the static in her veins. For a second, it almost worked.
Then his hand slid up, under her t-shirt, splayed warm and familiar on her stomach. And her mind supplied a different touch. A different possessiveness. The memory of Mark’s smirk was a physical brand.
She stiffened. Just a fraction. A tiny, involuntary flinch.
Cody felt it. He stopped, his hand stilling. “Hey,” he said softly, turning her around. “Seriously. What’s up? Did something happen?”
His eyes were full of open, guileless concern. It was like looking into the sun after being in a dark room for too long. It hurt.
She crafted a smile. It felt thin on her face. “No. Nothing happened. I’m just in my head. About… the game. Class. Too much to do.”
He searched her face, and she saw the moment he decided to believe her. The moment he chose the simple, sane explanation. Relief smoothed his features. “Well,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Don’t think too hard. It’s supposed to be fun, right?”
“Right,” she echoed.
He headed for the shower, whistling. Emily stood amidst the newly ordered stacks of books, the cleaned coffee table. The apartment was neat. Quiet. Everything was in its place.
Except her.
The phone buzzed again in her pocket. She didn’t need to look to know it was Sarah. The pull was magnetic, a low hum in her bones that drowned out the whistling from the bathroom, the normalcy of the evening settling around her. The chapter of her life that existed before that doorway was closing, the pages sticking together, impossible to re-read. A new one was starting, written in a script she was only just beginning to decipher, and the first word was a confession she’d already typed out loud.
A new one was starting, written in a script she was only just beginning to decipher, and the first word was a confession she’d already typed out loud. The phone was a live wire in her hand. She pulled it out.
Sarah: So let’s talk. My place? Cody’s at the gym for a while, right?
Emily stared at the words, her throat tight. Sarah’s perception was always this unnerving, a quiet understanding that bypassed all the usual defenses. She typed a reply, her thumbs clumsy.
Emily: He just got back. Showering. I can come after.
The response was instantaneous.
Sarah: Perfect. See you soon.
The water shut off in the bathroom. Emily shoved the phone into her pocket just as Cody emerged, a towel around his waist, his hair damp. “You okay out here? You look like you’re planning a heist.”
She forced a laugh. It sounded thin. “Just thinking I might head over to Sarah’s for a bit. To, you know, actually debrief about the game. We didn’t get to last night.”
“Cool,” he said, ruffling his hair with another towel. He seemed genuinely pleased, and the ease of it sliced through her. “Tell her I said hey. And ask her when our campaign is finally starting. I’ve got my half-orc barbarian ready to rage.”
“I will,” Emily said, already grabbing her hoodie. She kissed him quickly, a brush of lips that felt like a lie of omission, and slipped out the door.
The walk to Sarah’s apartment was only ten minutes, but each step felt weighted. The autumn air was crisp, cutting through the fog in her head. She replayed the text. ‘I’m interested.’ What did that even mean? Interested in the narrative? In the game?
Or in the stark, grimy truth of what she’d witnessed?
Sarah’s building was an old brick walk-up. Emily took the stairs slowly, her heartbeat a dull drum in her ears. She reached the familiar door, scuffed with stickers for bands she didn’t know. Before she could knock, it swung open.
Sarah stood there, no makeup, her pink hair piled in a messy bun. She wore oversized sweatpants and a faded t-shirt for a decades-old anime. She looked soft, ordinary. Nothing like the kneeling figure from her memory.
“Hey,” Sarah said, her voice warm. She stepped aside. “Get in here. I just made terrible instant coffee if you want some.”
The normalcy was disorienting. Emily stepped into the cluttered, cozy living room, a smaller, brighter version of the common room. Manga were stacked neatly on shelves, not strewn on the floor. A single D&D manual lay open on the coffee table beside a laptop.
“So,” Sarah said from the tiny kitchen nook, the sound of a microwave humming. “You bolted.”
Emily perched on the edge of the sofa. “Headache,” she repeated her weak excuse, feeling transparent.
“Sure.” Sarah brought over two mugs, handing one to Emily. She sat cross-legged in the armchair opposite, blowing on her drink. Her eyes, sharp and perceptive, didn’t leave Emily’s face. “Look, Em. The game got… visceral last night. Mark’s scenarios do that. They’re designed to strip things down. To make a character’s desires… tangible.”
Emily held the hot mug, letting the heat sting her palms. “It wasn’t just the game, though. Was it?”
The room went very quiet. Sarah took a slow sip, then set her mug down with a soft click. “You saw us.”
The directness was a punch to the chest. All the layered pretense, the silent wondering, collapsed under the weight of those three words. Emily could only nod, her gaze dropping to the steam rising from her coffee.
“I thought you might have,” Sarah continued, her voice losing its lighthearted edge, becoming thoughtful. “The door creaks. I was… occupied. But Mark went very still. Then he started talking. Really talking.”
You wish your sweet little Emily was here, don’t you?
The words hung in the air between them, spoken without being said aloud. Emily felt a flush burn from her chest to her cheeks. “Why?” The question escaped, raw and quiet.
Sarah studied her, tilting her head. “Because it was true in the moment. And because,” she leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur, “I think a part of you is curious about why it didn’t disgust you. Why you stayed and listened.”
Emily’s breath caught. Sarah had parsed the unspoken fragments of her guilt with terrifying accuracy. It wasn’t the act that haunted her; it was her own frozen fascination, the part of her that had been riveted, not repelled.
“I don’t know what I want,” Emily whispered, the admission finally voiced to the only person who wouldn’t misunderstand it.
“That’s the best place to start,” Sarah said, a genuine smile touching her lips. She reached for her laptop. “Forget what you think you should want. Let’s talk about what your character wants. Sometimes, it’s easier to map the unexplored territory on paper first.”
She turned the screen towards Emily. It displayed a new character sheet, mostly blank. But at the top, a name was already typed in elegant script: Ember. Emily’s proposed new character, a sorceress shrouded in mysterious origins.
“Ember has power,” Sarah said, her fingers tapping the keys. “But it’s wild. It comes from a source she doesn’t fully understand. It frightens her. It also, secretly, thrills her.” She looked up, her eyes locking with Emily’s. “Sound familiar? So, here’s the question. In our next session, Ember discovers a hidden ritual chamber. She finds her companion, Vex, my dark cleric, in a… compromising situation of magical persuasion. What does Ember do?”
Sarah’s gaze was steady, inviting, a clear bridge built between the pixelated fantasy on the screen and the raw, graphic memory they now shared. This was the talk. This was the debrief. It was all right here, cloaked in the safe language of dice rolls and narrative arcs.
Emily looked at the blank sheet, the cursor blinking beside ‘Character Motivations.’ She thought of the common room’s dim light, the possessive growl, the wet sounds she could still somehow hear. She thought of Cody’s warm, oblivious hands on her stomach.
She took a slow breath, the coils in her gut tightening into something like resolve.
“She steps into the chamber,” Emily said, her voice firmer now. “And she closes the door behind her.”