Chapter Text
The sharp smoke of marijuana hit her lungs. She tried to steady her breath, letting the substance into her bloodstream, into her brain. She let out a big cough, and another, and another, and soon she was doubled over, head whirling.
“Woah, woah, slow down,” Katai said smiling, nabbing the joint from her fingers and taking a long puff. “Been a while, huh?”
Brittany grabbed the back of her chair, waiting for the spasms to subside. When they did, she found her hand reaching for the joint again. This time, she breathed the fumes in slowly, letting it permeate her.
Time seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time. She found herself smiling without knowing why.
“You know, it’s hard for me to remember the details of that time with Corey.” She said.
“Whaddayamean?” Katai replied, words coming out with white smoke.
“The memories kind of all… blur together. He smoked almost every day, and it would make him impatient or moody sometimes. I think I smoked more when I was with him than I realized. It was easier to do all the camera stuff with him when I was high.”
“Was that a bad thing?”
“I think so. After I left, my mind sort of just… cleared. I couldn’t remember what was so fucking important about Mars Argo that I let myself put up with his bullshit.”
Brittany heard the words coming out of her mouth, and was alarmed by how aggressive she sounded. She didn’t mean to pack so much vitriol into those words. The weed was doing something to her, loosening her tongue, as well as something deep in her chest.
Katai sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner, Brit.”
She smiled and shook her head. “No one could’ve known. I didn’t even realize how bad it was myself. He had a way of convincing me that things were my fault.”
“Well, that I am familiar with.” Katai gave her a knowing smile. All the times that Corey blamed technical difficulties on him, even after finding out it was due to some mistake Corey had made.
When the pizza arrived, Brittany inhaled it. Her mouth chewed and chewed and she ate three, then four, then five slices. Her stomach started to hurt, but her mouth craved the warm cheese and tomato sauce.
“I think I need to lie down,” she said, leaving Katai to finish the rest of his share, as she fell back onto the couch.
She felt a heavy rainy wetness in her chest, a deep grief and sadness, but she could not seem to let it out. She took deep breaths, and thought back to her meeting with Moriah.
Could Corey be treating her just as badly? Or even worse? Moriah’s big eyes blinked at her, her nervous smile dancing through Brittany’s mind.
She saw the eye of the camera again, the dark void staring at her, but next to her was not Corey, but Poppy, looking at her with a blank, sterile smile. “Hi, I’m Poppy.”
Her mind floated gently in the clouds as the sentence replayed itself over and over in her mind.
“Hi, I’m Poppy.”
Poppy’s face was inches from Brittany’s, and she stared at her as if she was a mirror. Her lips moved to form the sentence again, almost brushing against Brittany’s own mouth.
“Hi, I’m Poppy.”
“No, you’re not.”