Back Exalted
Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. Part 1
  3. DAWN.
  4. EMILY.
  5. DAWN.
  6. EMILY.
  7. DAWN.
  8. EMILY.
  9. DAWN.
  10. EMILY.
  11. DAWN.
  12. EMILY.
  13. DAWN.
  14. EMILY.
  15. DAWN.
  16. EMILY.
  17. DAWN.
  18. EMILY.
  19. DAWN.
  20. EMILY.
  21. DAWN.
  22. Part II
  23. EMILY.
  24. DAWN.
  25. EMILY.
  26. DAWN.
  27. EMILY.
  28. DAWN.
  29. EMILY.
  30. DAWN.
  31. EMILY.
  32. DAWN.
  33. EMILY.
  34. DAWN.
  35. EMILY.
  36. DAWN.
  37. EMILY.
  38. DAWN.
  39. EMILY.
  40. Part III
  41. EMILY.
  42. DAWN.
  43. EMILY.
  44. DAWN.
  45. EMILY.
  46. DAWN.
  47. EMILY.
  48. DAWN.
  49. EMILY.
  50. DAWN.
  51. EMILY.
  52. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  53. Back Cover

“You are magnetic, powerful, and probably psychic,” I say. I tell all water signs they are psychic. Really, everyone is psychic. It’s just a matter of whether you can tap into it. I tell everyone that they have some trait that all humans have. The key is to be specific but also to leave wiggle room in case they’re difficult and want to argue (Aquarians).

Cinnamon nods. “I knew my ex-boyfriend was cheating on me,” she says. “I had no official evidence”—she looks at the dancer onstage, then back at me—”but I knew.”

“People cannot lie to us,” I say. I think about how Thomas tells me he only has eyes for me when there is another woman’s underwear in his bed stand. Expensive underwear that I typically steal.

“Yeah,” Cinnamon says. She sips a caramel-colored drink. Red lights hit her cheekbones, and she suddenly looks more severe, less doughy. She grins at a patron, and her gap tooth looks elegant, not juvenile like I previously thought. I wonder if explaining Cinnamon’s Scorpio stellium alters my perception of her. My brain is always vacillating between contradictory judgments. It’s the Scorpio-Gemini interplay. Or I am just bipolar. Maybe I’ve been using astrology to explain away my bipolar disorder. If I could still afford my therapist, I would ask her about this big theory.

“Gemini moon suggests genius intellect,” I say. I recall all the times my parents have brought up my perfect test scores as evidence of my ruined potential and squeeze my drink in my hands.

Cinnamon sips her drink, nods, flashes her gap tooth. “I’m really smart,” she says.

I am seeing Cinnamon in a different light. She probably is smart. She definitely makes more money than me. My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Thomas.

I had fun being your boyfriend tonight.

I groan and put the phone back in my pocket. I recall the night’s big reveal, that he is friends with Beau. And Beau is a coke dealer. Or was a coke dealer.

Beau had looked right into my eyes.

“People probably fall in love with you all the time,” I say to Cinnamon.

She nods, twirling a pigtail in between her fingers. “It’s stressful,” she says. “I want people to stay away from me.”

I suddenly feel close to her. The song changes to Radiohead. Tonight I impressed my dad and saw Beau. Who cares that he once dealt coke ironically? Hazel dealt coke at The New School. It’s an ironic rich-person thing. Everything is all good. Famous Libra model Stella Shadid tagged me in another Instagram story. My followers are climbing by the second. Editors are crawling into my inbox, begging me to assign astrological placements to holiday movies, foods, activities, wedding destinations. Whatever.