“What?” Damien’s eyebrows scrunched. “No. Why would you think that?”

“If it doesn’t matter if you remember, but it does that I do…”

“Oh,” he said, catching up, “no, no—I just meant with your dad. I don’t want to show you anything, it’s not…” He sighed again. “Iwantyoutochangesomething.”

He said it all like that—in a rush, one big exhale. Like he was embarrassed. I think I even noticed some color on his cheeks, which, wow, I really did NOT think Damien could blush.

“What?”

He sighed again, shuffling on the bench like he couldn’t get comfortable.

“I want you to change something,” he repeated, slower this time. “In my dream.”

“Okay…” I said, still trying to figure out where this was going.

“I keep having this … this nightmare.” He was steadfastly staring into the middle distance, his arms crossed over his chest like a plate of armor. “Ever since I left the AM, every single night and it’s…”

At least I had an explanation for why he looked more and more worn every day.

“You want me to change it,” I finished for him.

“Do you think you could do that?” His shoulders relaxed like even the possibility of it was a huge relief.

“I mean … I think so? But…”

“What?” He turned to me, slinging his arm over the back of the bench and leaning in.

“I don’t know if it would change forever,” I told him. “I don’t know if what I do in the dreamworld … sticks.”

“Do you want to find out?”

01-31-2017, morningwaffles, text post

Someone please hop in my in-box and tell me that my girlfriend hanging out with people other than me is actually completely normal, even if she didn’t have many (or really, any) friends up until a few weeks ago and that her having a new friend she won’t tell me much about is good actually! and she’s definitely not cheating on me.

Because, like, I haven’t talked to her outside of a few texts in three days and she was away for the first few weeks of this year and then was over all the time and extremely doting and wonderful and now I see her, like, once a week and I’m not saying that I’m panicking, but I’m panicking.

FEBRUARY 1ST, 2017

Damien’s head is an absolute mess.