On my break, I smoke a cigarette and scroll through Exalted. Sometimes I like to scroll way back, to years ago. I’m currently in 2017, where there is a post called “Signs from Gayest to Least Gay, and Why.” I click through it.

Leo (flamboyant diva)

Libra (princess & patron of the arts)

Cancer (hysterical crisis queen)

Taurus (U-Haul lesbian)

Pisces (weepy alcoholic)

Gemini (chaotic bisexual)

Aquarius (fairy)

Virgo (hiding something)

Scorpio (hiding more)

Aries (gay rage)

Sagittarius (horny enough for anything)

Capricorn (straight)

Each is accompanied by some funny pop-culture image. I normally would laugh, but today I just feel sad. I am the gayest sign. I’m sick of being gay. Being gay has ruined my life. I had so much power over men. With women, I have nothing. I mostly just frighten them.

I put my phone down and inhale deeply, scanning the plaza for something to distract me. I am shocked to see a familiar figure—a figure I will never forget—roughly twenty yards away. He is holding a briefcase and disappears into the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

It’s Bo’s father.

EMILY.

In my apartment that night I attach my projector to my laptop. I used to screen films on my ceiling all the time, in my early twenties, my cinephile days. Cronenberg, Lynch, Kubrick, Herzog. And, of course, anything starring Winona.

By my mid-twenties, I mostly used the projector to watch The Bachelor. I had an obsessive phase with it. I suppose it became an object of my OCD. Whether I auditioned to be on the show is neither here nor there.

In my late twenties, I’ve used the projector only once, and it was to project Beau’s birth chart onto the ceiling. It was the best sleep I’d had in years.

I fill a plate with two slices of turkey, ten saltines, and two scoops of peanut butter. I put some Gatorade on ice. And I start screening Inborn.

I am lucky to be a little buzzed while watching my first critically exalted film in years. The lingering alcohol quells the jealous rage bubbling up as the opening credits roll. I am dying to see my name in those credits, to be watching them in a theater, surrounded by people who know I am the star.

I eat a slice of turkey to calm down and try to keep watching. As I continue to chew, a repetitive and mindless action, I find myself relaxing into the narrative. Soon, I’m not thinking at all. I’m just watching and being horrified.

This movie is really fucking good. I am impressed by Thomas’s choice for our lie, and I am amazed my dad believes Nico Nadler would cast me in a film.

As I fall asleep, I imagine myself on a panel at Sundance, being asked questions about my artistic process. I imagine charming the audience. And then I am unconscious.

DAWN.