Page 91 of Stags

Maibell blinked, her ears pointing straight in the air. “Okay, let me get this straight. You ran into Stockton this weekend. And you want my blessing to, like, go after him? Because I don’t think he would be attracted to you, no offense. And if it seemed like he was flirting with you, you know, he was probably just being nice, and I’m not sure if you have enough experience with men to really understand that kind of thing. Haven’t you, like, never had a boyfriend? Aren’t you, like, a virgin?”

Rora squared her shoulders. Well, Maibell was being rude, but Rora was here, doing a morally questionable thing, really. Maibell probably was feeling negative emotions about this entire thing, and she might lash out in various ways at Rora. Rora sort of deserved it. She would just take it and not comment. “Um, wow.” She put her hands palms down on the table. “So, your blessing would be great, but it’s not like that, exactly. I’m not asking permission. It’s more that I wanted you to know that we were going to go forward with it, before we, um, went forward with it. I told him I needed to talk to you first. It seemed like the right thing to do, for you to get the information from me, instead of seeing us together or hearing about it secondhand. I get that, um, that it’s not cool, but I feel like Stockton and I have a connection that is too intense for me to not pursue. I’m sorry if it hurts you, however. If you’re angry or you don’t want to be friends, that would be understandable. I really don’t want this to come between us, though, if that’s possible.”

Maibell took a drink of her coffee. She was quiet for a long time, seemingly processing.

Rora wanted to jump in and say more things, but she could sense that adding more words was not actually going to make the situation better. She waited.

“Well,” said Maibell finally, “I guess I really fucked with his self-esteem or something, and now he’s just dating someone who he doesn’t think will sleep with someone else.”

Rora flinched. “Okay. That’s… I guess I deserve that.” She bowed her head. “It just happened,” she told the table. “We did try not to—”

“Oh, moon and sun, you hooked up with him!”

“Just kissing, and we stopped,” said Rora. “I said I needed to talk to you first.”

“Wow, what do you want? A medal? Like, whatever, Rora, that does not make it okay.”

“I guess I know that,” said Rora, nodding. “It’s only, you broke up with him, and you and me, we’re not really that close of friends, so—”

“We really aren’t,” said Maibell. “In fact, I don’t think we’re friends at all anymore.” She swept up from the table.

Rora flinched again. “Okay,” she breathed.

“He’s just banking on the fact that you’re too fat for anyone else to want to fuck,” said Maibell to her, her voice sickly sweet in opposition to her words. “This is a phase for him, mark my words. I hope you don’t get hurt.”

Rora’s nostrils flared. Despite everything, tears came to her eyes. This was the reason why people tended not to do the right thing, wasn’t it? You tended not to get rewarded for it. It would have been so much easier not to have given Maibell this heads up.

Maibell’s gaze met hers, and Rora realized the other doe’s eyes were shining, too.

Rora’s lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry. It just happened. I didn’t mean to do it.”

Maibell’s face twitched. “Well, youwon’tcheat on him, though.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not because no one else will want me,” Rora said, through clenched teeth. She knew now that was simply not true.

Maibell’s lower lip trembled, too. “I didn’t mean to do it, either, you know. It just happened for me, too. If he… if that’s how it was with him and you, you ask him if he can stop acting like he’s so morally fucking superior to me?”

“Maibell—”

“I’m sorry,” said Maibell. “I’m sorry I said… I have to go.” She dashed at tears that were spilling out onto her cheeks, and then she fled the coffee shop.

Rora sat back down heavily after that, sniffling a little. Well. It was done, anyway.

She sent a text to Stockton to tell him that.

How’d it go?

Kind of rough,she texted back.She was more upset than I thought.

Really? I don’t even get that. I don’t think she cares about me at all anymore.

She said to tell you that she didn’t mean to cheat on you, and that if we couldn’t control ourselves, you should stop thinking of yourself as “morally fucking superior.” That’s a direct quote.

There was a long pause.

Three dots came up, and he typed.

And typed.

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