Page 56 of Lovesick Titan

A week ago, Danny had been avoiding Mal because he wanted to end things and finally confess his plan. So much had happened in seven days. Danny had no lover, no job, and no idea what would come next. But at least Mal and the people of his neighborhood would be safe.

He had walked every street he could think of yesterday, entered every business that had seen him, to make sure IA would hit a dead end if they ended up there. It helped, that small but significant task. Some of the emptiness inside of Danny had filled with relief and maybe even a little peace. For now. He couldn’t think of it as lasting forever, but ‘for now’ was good enough.

The ache in his chest still seemed so large, and maybe it would never go away, but it was more manageable when he stopped thinking so big—about saving the city from Ludgate, about getting ‘better’ like some nebulous, impossible goal. Instead he’d taken yesterday to think of only one thing: deflecting blame around the comms from Prometheus onto Zeus.

Small goals, small achievements, that was easier. Andre called it ‘gamification for life’. It provided a sense of accomplishment even if the ends and the means were small. Eat his allotted meals and snacks to make sure he got a full 5,000 calories. Sleep eight hours but not more. Help John clean the house—after Andre set up the Miasma Maker to block reflections. Don’t sit on his bed and stare at the mirrors for hours on end, even if they were fogged over now.

If he felt like he was slipping, like it was all too much again, like he couldn’t breathe or feel or maybe he just wanted to hit something—tell someone. Even if that was as simple as saying, “It’s really bad right now.”

Today, while Danny’s days were limited, not knowing where the IA case would turn next, his goal was equally simple: have lunch with Stella. The slightly larger, more difficult part was…

Tell Stella everything he’d told Lynn.

Danny knew he didn’t need to telleveryone. He hadn’t told his dad, not about what had crossed his mind with the pills before he discovered they were placebos, but they’d talked about everything else, including what happened the night his mother died and why Mal hadn’t shown up as backup. He didn’t know if he’d ever tell his dad that sometimes he thought about ending it, but Stella needed to know.

Walking into Pronto, something so familiar to him, he caught that wonderful smell of coffee beans in the air, and his stomach rumbled. Thoughts of the shop’s sandwich menu and a largeLiquid Lightningreminded him that the little things could be enough, day by day, as long as he did his best not to get overwhelmed.

“Danny!” Stella waved him over to a table in the corner. She’d taken an extra-long lunch today so they could take their time.

It was easier explaining things to her than it had been with Lynn because the burden was already shared. “I feel like I finally have a plan,” Danny said, holding her hand across the table, their lunches eaten, coffees refilled but getting cool again. “Andre wants to program one of the tablets for me so I can keep a journal. And so he can literally gamify my life with daily goals. Like…a Tetris piece drops whenever I get a good night sleep or remember to snack between meals or tell someone if it’s been a bad day, and by the end of the week, I’ll have a mosaic or something.” He chuckled, and Stella chuckled with him as she rubbed her thumb along the top of his hand.

When Danny looked into her eyes, they were so warm, so understanding. That pitying smile was firmly in place, but he knew it only meant that she loved him and was worried about him. “You still look pretty miserable, Danny,” she said, then grimaced for having admitted that.

Danny laughed and sniffled at the same time. “I am, but not trying to do this on my own or having only one person I can bear my soul to…it helps. Though it makes me feel stupid for keeping it all in for so long.” Pulling from her grasp, he reached for his coffee to take another lukewarm sip.

“Danny…”

“I know it’s not stupid,” he spoke into the cup, “it’s…normal. I’mnormalfor feeling like this. And as awful as that is, it also kind of helps? It doesn’t feel like the same weight when other people are carrying it with me. I still feel that emptiness… But for the first time since all the way back with Rick, I don’t want to just accept that like penance.”

Regarding him with the same critical eye that made her such a good social worker, Stella asked, “Then why aren’t you fighting the IA case?”

“That’s different,” Danny glowered.

“How?”

“Becausethatguilt I earned. And I know that sounds like the same thing, but I did break the law.”

“True,” Stella agreed, “and maybe not for all the right reasons, but do you thinkChobelongs in prison?”

“Of course not,” Danny answered without pause. “For what? For punishment? Prison should be about rehabilitation, and he doesn’t need that either. He’s not a bad man. He helps people more than he hurts. And I know that’s not fair, it’s not how the world works—”

“I get it, Danny,” Stella broke in, her sympathetic stare shrouded in serious purpose. “So, tell me. Do you think you should go to jail just because you don’t wanthimto? I know this isn’t how the world works, but nothing about you is how the world works. You’re Zeus,” she said in a whisper barely loud enough for Danny to hear, let alone any patrons. “You want to do good by someone who does good by others because to you it’s the right thing. That’s wonderful. It’s part of why I love you. But you said you weren’t sitting by and accepting penance anymore, so if that isn’t what this is, what is it?”

Danny stared at his coffee. There were no words he could use to answer her. He didn’t want to die for his sins anymore—at least, most of the time he didn’t—but someone had to pay for what happened, and Danny wouldn’t let that be Mal.

“Maybe the only person who needs to pay is Ludgate,” Stella said, jarring Danny from his thoughts and making him wonder if he’dsaid some of that out loud. “But until such a time comes…you need a break. Meaning,Iam paying for the movie and there is nothing you can do about it.”

“Movie?” Danny sat up straighter. “Don’t you have to go back to work?”

“I may have fibbed when I said I took a long lunch. More like the rest of the afternoon. Movie skip day?” The playful edge to her voice immediately brought Danny back to high school.

He’d had a particularly rough day with a bully near the end of Freshman year, so Stella had taken him aside and instead of telling the teachers or calling home, they’d ditched school for the movie theater instead. They’d gotten in so much trouble, though Danny’s parents were more forgiving once he and Stella explained the reason. Movie skip day had become tradition after that, at least once a year.

They’d done it a few times in college too, despite not going to the same school, and even as adults, though not in recent memory. Not last year. Maybe not the year before that either. Today felt like it needed to make up for every time they’d missed the opportunity to play hooky for the right reasons.

“I’m thinking animated or a horror movie,” Stella said as she downed the last of her coffee. “And you can have Milk Duds, but I get Buncha Crunch with the popcorn.”

“We just ate lunch.” Danny scrambled out of his stool to follow her.

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