I don’t listen to it.

I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want to face my life. I think about going to Subtropical and just doing readings, but Bo might be working. I think about going to Mirror Box, but I don’t want to see Cinnamon.

So I call Thomas.

“Young Oedipus,” Thomas answers. “Or Oedipaa.”

“Oedipus slept with his mother, not his brother,” I say. “And if you’re looking for the female version, it’s Electra not Oedipa, dumbass.” I only just learned of Jung’s Electra complex while researching my hellish conundrum, but lecturing Thomas makes me feel slightly better.

“Got it, Electra,” he says. “What can I do you for?”

“We’re not fucking,” I say, then think Electra might make a good stage name.

“Of course not,” he says. “As we aren’t siblings.”

“Fuck you.”

“You said that wasn’t allowed.”

“I can’t be alone right now,” I say.

“Me neither,” he says.

“What should we do?” I ask.

Lydia paws my lap.

“I’ll just come get you now and let’s both brainstorm,” he says.

“Okay.”

I try to keep my brain occupied on menial tasks while I wait for Thomas. I wash my face, brush my teeth, feed Lydia. I put on my dress, take off my dress—because it smells. I put on my red Juicy tracksuit, the only one that doesn’t smell. I put on that Arctic Monkeys song that was popular when I moved to LA. I used to play it at the coffee shop I worked at when I first moved here. I had a British coworker whom I fucked sometimes. He was pale and thin with black hair, kind of like … never mind. He said the Arctic Monkeys were the second coming of the Beatles, and my other coworker—a communist—said British people said that about every band. It all felt so cool. I was eighteen and working in Hollywood with a British person and a communist.

This was before LA started to get depressing.

I eat a piece of turkey with the fridge open, soothed by the sounds of my own chewing and the hum of the fridge and from staring at the light inside until I see colors.

When Thomas still isn’t here, I open Exalted on my phone. I have a bunch of notifications, which is the norm since Stella Shadid reposted me. I glance at my DMs. There is a fresh one from someone with a blue check—Stella Shadid herself. I open it:

Hi girl! I’m f’ing obsessed with your account … it makes me lmfao constantly. Can you do my reading? In person? Can you come to Malibu? Like today? Haha.

The message ends with five butterfly emojis.

Thomas honks his horn.

I grab my keys and put my phone in the pocket of my sweatshirt.

“Electraaaa,” he calls out the window as soon as I’m outside.