Some mornings start with a sharp and sudden shock. A moment where eyes burst open and context pushes through the cracks of my mind like an insistent leak.

Those are the mornings where I am disorientated and start to find my footing as the day goes on.

Some mornings begin in a gradient. I stumble about half-awake until I get coffee and I’ve got half a foot in my dreams and half a foot in reality. If I think anything in that transitional phase it all gets swallowed when the kiss of morning’s first coffee washes it away.

Some beautiful mornings are what I’d imagine normal people have. An alarm goes, I know where I am, I know when I am and I know who I am. I’m blessed to say I have more of those than my dramatic ass tends to give any credit for.

No one focuses on the normalcy. If everything works as it should then I scarcely have reason to jot it in this journal. I often wonder how healthy it is to ignore that which I perceive as normal and constantly highlight the abnormalities. Yet still. I can communicate “I had a nice rest and woke up smoothly” and be understood. Effort is required to communicate the things which are not commonly shared experiences.

For every beautiful morning there’s the antithesis. Rare though they are, they do happen.

Mornings where the buzz of the alarm is a jackhammer to my skull. Where the disorientation and confusion have me and hold tight. I usually know where I am. I usually know when I am. I never know who I am. Not really. The context packets I rely upon are gone and replaced with an unfiltered variant. Emotions flood against me and I cannot make out their shape or source. It feels like my entire brain has been put in a blender and shoved into a static storm.

Elements of that state differ from time to time. Sometimes I feel the storm happening inside while on the outside I am stoic and disconnected from the maelstrom. Sometimes I am unable to manage a single coherent thought and find myself tripping on even the most simple task.

But the 6 second song-loop is always there.

The songs aren’t important. But the endless repetition of the same line over and over and over and over just drones endlessly and drives me insane.

Days like this are days I cannot achieve trance. I also have no desire to induce them. If for that and no other reason, these are days where I am Bell. Though Belladonna, the messed up and incoherent mess would likely be a more accurate assessment.

I knew the moment I woke up that it was going to be one of those days.

Memories of the prior night were mired in static. It was Friday the previous day and so there must have been a date. It was likely a good experience. Static days aren’t caused, as far as I can tell, they just happen and it looked like I’d won that unlucky lottery that day.

The song was Wannabe by the Spice Girls, by the way. Imagine going through an entire day with “Now here’s the story from A to Z if you wanna get with me you gotta listen carefully” repeating in your head ad nauseam for all your waking hours.

It gets old fast.

—

Belladonna held the control button and made a display of hitting the up arrow key as many times as she could until the text had all been highlighted and hit the delete button with a grunt.

“Why the fuck do we write like someone else is reading?!” she grumbled to herself.

There was no response, though there was plenty of noise. Her head was killing her. She’d already taken ibuprofen and was hoping it would kick in soon.

ourexprobablyhasourgoogledocspasswordsandisreadingeverythingyouwriteyou’rewritingtoheraren’tyouhowvainareyoutothinktheycarewhydoyouthinkyou’rethecenteroftheuniverseyoustuckupselfishprickfuckshoulderpainisabitchnoonecaresweneedmorecoffeewanttothrowupshutupshutupshutupdeletethewholejournalstoptypingnoonecaresnoonecaresHERE’STHESTORYFROMATOZfuckthere’sapicnictodaydidwepayourphonebillwhatdayisitisn’ttheresomethingweneedtodo

She slammed back a gulp of coffee and focused on the bitter taste. She dug her hands into the coffee cup and focused on the lingering warmth. Her eyes skimmed over the language on the front. Cafe Du Monde.

thevacationwetookandshewastherewithustherewerepowderedbeignetstheplacesmelledofthecolorgreenATOZATOZATOZATOZshutupshutupshutup

Belladonna squeezed the mug harder. Focusing on the color. Yellow. Sickening yellow. Minion’s yellow. Taking a moment she paused and let her eyes linger. Black heaphones. Red mouse mat. Aqua colored wet-wipes container.

She focused her breathing and did it the way she was taught. Four seconds in. Hold for four. Exhale for four.

She let it happen. Slipping her eyes closed and focusing on the warmth of the coffee mug. Returning it to her lips again for that sharp fog cutting taste.

Behind her eyelids she could see empty streets frozen in time. She always saw that behind her eyelids. The location wasn’t always the same but it was always a free roaming disembodied view of a location, stuck forever in a certain era. There was no ability to control it, no option to focus on details and certainly no way to stop it. There were just roads and parks and museums in her brain all of the time. It had been this way for decades.

Another sturdy exhale and she brought her fingers back down to the keys to type in place of the deleted journal.

Having a rough brain day. Song is looping. Static inside me. Box breathing and sharp senses aren’t helping. Will try a scalding hot shower and self-isolate until the picnic.

She tabbed away from the journal to her IM client. Short, succinct and unemotional journals were easier to read back and far better than nothing at all.

A little green circle confirmed that Madison was awake and active in her corner of the world.

Belladonna’s fingers lingered over the keyboard. She was paralyzed. Several different messages and approaches wanted to pour from her fingers at once. Her heart was screaming, wanting to just cling to Madison and keep her still and present. Her mind was screaming justifications for why “I don’t want to bother you” needed an essay sized clarification.

All she could manage was a simple letter.

Before adjusting her status to Do Not Disturb.

-

“!?” Belladonna squeaked out, blinking. Someone was addressing her. She could feel eyes on her.

Her eyes felt like they were outside of her head. She reeled them back inwards and tried to gain her train of thought back. It had just been broken and the static was overpowering.

The day had evaporated too fast. Somehow it was already late evening. She’d been present and participating with the family festivities. But there was simply too much information. Too many variables. Too many people moving around. The air was too hot and the setting sun was too bright. There were ants and flies in motion. The wind was making the blanket move. Four different conversations were playing out in unison and each interjection was getting louder than the last. There were planes in the sky roaring. Cars a street or two away distantly cruising by. Leaves rustling. The Earth felt dry on her butt and the filth of dirt on her skirt was starting to itch into her skin. The Spice Girls continued their assault. Her brain was panicking and she did not know why. There was no cause for panic.

“Sweetie?” Dove said, reaching over to touch her forearm. Belladonna recoiled sharply at the touch, “Sweetie, do you need to go back?”

Belladonna looked between Dove and her recoiled hand, processing the action after the fact. Dove’s eyes betrayed a sadness at her chosen withdrawing and that emotion invaded Belladonna and cut into her stomach. There was a lot of emotion flying around and the kinetic conversation was slowing down as other members of the family had noticed this interaction.

Belladonna’s emotions were in an explosive free fall. Feeling everything. Conjuring worst case scenarios. Trying to word answers or explanations. To beg for help. To scream out in agony. To do something. Anything.

“...!” her voice croaked, stuck in her throat and unable to communicate anything. The inexplicable panic surged and she wanted more than anything to shout out in frustration but the emotions were not connected to the body. The thoughts weren’t either. Everything was broken and the worst part about it was there was no coherent reason. It just hurt.

Dove saw all this and more in Belladonna’s face and gave a diplomatic nod before turning to the gathered crowd, “Everyone. Don’t pay any attention. Bell just needs to go inside now.”, her voice was kind and commanding.

Belladonna could do nothing more than thank her with an expression. Words were not going to come. Not right now. Dove was understanding, though. It was one of the many reasons Belladonna unanimously loved her. She just hoped that when she wasn’t broken like this that she could offer even a remote shade of this to her family in return.

Taking the offered escape, Belladonna retreated to her room and crashed back into her desk chair and let the overwhelming emotions cascade and bleed out in sharp sobs.

Despite it all Belladonna hated being alone. Sometimes it felt necessary to prevent other people’s emotions and over-stimulation from crippling her, as it had done before, but solitude did not stop the static nor did it silence the maelstrom of thoughts that stabbed at her from within. Sharp and emotional shards of fully formed ideas persecuting every present, past and even future action. Context packets bundled together so tightly that it was impossible to process anything more than a hostile barrage.

She pulled up her Discord window and sat staring at Madison’s IM window for so long that she desynchronized from the world. Voices demanded to know why she was like this to a backing of Scary Spice’s assertive lyrics.

Her fingers plunked clumsily on keys again and again and again.

“Hey th

“You aro

“Checking i

Every failure was like a punch to the gut. Frustration gripped and was amplified by a complete lack of understanding as to why something as simple as reaching out was impossible.

Her fingers tapped away a few more attempts before she finally let out a cry of frustration that scraped her throat raw. Tears streamed down her face at the futility of it all. The sobs dried into weak whimpers of agony.

There was no need for this. She knew it. It was stupid, senseless and without any direct cause. Yet it was happening all the same. It felt like barbed wire being pressed into her stomach. She wanted to stab herself with a pen, smash the keyboard, pull her spine out of her skin. Anything to just stop the agony she was experiencing or vent the pressure in her skull.

Belladonna’s fingers returned to the keyboard, a weak sob pouring out of her from sheer relief that Madison had given her an opening of any kind.

Her mind began to race again but was silenced by a quick confirmation that KeladryMindle is typing…

The call took a few seconds to put on. Belladonna left her camera off, not wanting to feel the emotional weight of Madison’s reaction to her puffy tear-stained eyes.

Luck would have it that Madison intuited the same in reverse and the only image that appeared was the title screen of a retro-adventure game.

“Hey…” Madison’s gentle voice came through the headphones.

Belladonna tried to squeak a reply but her throat would not reply. Instead she moused down to put a red X on her microphone icon.

“It’s okay. No need to say anything. I’ll just play a little. You don’t have to interact. I’m here.”

The game began and as it did Belladonna settled back and just accepted the ambience into her personal bubble. The static and rampaging emotions were still there but the headphones felt like a shield and the comfort of distant, quiet gameplay provided a buffer between internal and external.

“Saph is out until late so we can keep this going as long as you need. I don’t have any chores. Just so long as I eat something. I think we both learned our lesson back at the con.” Madison’s voice was even and positive, “I can’t believe it’s already been a few months… time really flies.”

Typing felt a little easier this way. Her voice was still lost but her fingers were working better by the moment.

“Mhmm!” Madison chirped, pausing a second to read the reply, “Though more than just the last few months. You’ve always been a good person on my radar.”

Belladonna just paused, unsure how to process that statement.

“Back on IRC, I mean. How has it been 10 years already?!” her game character casually launched into a flurry of attacks against an armored lizard as she exclaimed, “But you were Good People back then and you haven’t given me reason to think otherwise.”

“There were some dumb idiots… and I wish they weren’t dumb but…” she let the sentiment hang in a pregnant pause that filled essays of unspoken context, “but you were there. And Saph. And a bunch of other people who I’m really fond of.”

“I am so gosh darned lucky…” Madison all but swooned, “Saph and I could have missed one another. We almost did. I was getting a lot of attention back then and had some bad connections so I was a little shielded. I don’t even know if I’d have given Saph a chance if a friend hadn’t convinced me to talk with him.”

“Oh so much! But no one told me to speak to you. Do you remember why I reached out to you?”

Belladonna hesitated, her eyes squinting. Any other day she may have been able to think back to the old forum community and the old video chat. Her brain was too fried to concentrate.

“It was your screen name.” the video game character stopped moving, as Madison’s serene voice continued its point, “Brainerd.”

“I’m glad you did go by Brainerd, though. I don’t know movies, Fargo doesn’t mean anything to me, but the town was a stop on a family road trip once and the name stood out to me. You were so nice though, so I kept talking. But the name is what helped me find you.”

Belladonna’s head buzzed. Context flooded in between the cracks of emotion, Spice Girls and exhaustion.

Prior to transition she had gone by her legal name. Her birth name. A slice of evidence and sorry irony that a closeted transwoman would bury deep into her false identity to prevent actualizing as her true self. Something about that sentiment felt bitterly relevant in this interaction, though she couldn’t put her finger on what.

She did not want to think about being Ben. It hurt to think about being Ben.

“You were one of Dove’s people though. Dove means a lot to me. She told me when you moved up to live with her. I remember she called you Belladonna and I didn’t know who that was and she asked if I had ever interacted with Brainerd and then I was like ‘Oh! I like that person!’”

Typing was getting easier. Her brain was still on fire but it was possible to focus now.

“Of course. I told you. I was fond of you, even back then.”

Conversing like this was taking a toll on Belladonna’s headache and the bright light of the monitor was likely not helping. She grabbed a pillow and placed it over her eyes and tried to relax her eyelids so the pain would dampen.

Madison took the prolonged space of time without typing to mean she should keep playing and fill the dead air.

“You know, a friend at work told me something today that I just can’t stop thinking about…” she mused, “he said I’d been glowing since my little vacation. I told him I reconnected with an old friend. Saph sees it too. How ‘smitten’ I am? He told me that he’s seen me like this before. When I get infatuated. I’m like “Why does everyone know before me?!”” she giggled to herself, maneuvering her character to search for hidden treasure in an empty room, “But I know he’s right… I’ve really enjoyed our time since the event and I hope you know that.”

The words hung in the air, Madison may have looked to her screen to see if BellC is Typing… she was not. Not yet.

Belladonna was hugging the pillow across her body. Tears stung her eyes and she trembled. Emotion was so much right now. But it was not bad. Just a lot.

“And if it helps you… Notice me hold your hand. You can just hold on and squeeze it. I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere unless you want to. We can end the call at any time. But as long as you want me with you, I’m here.”

As the gaming continued topics slid back and forth. Reminiscing about old members of the community, about how she had to juggle her online time back then as she was in college and had many obligations and an ever presence roommate, about the early days of her love with Saph and the telltale signs of when she was smitten.

Every animated word glowed in the darkness behind Belladonna’s pillow, she could see the rosy cheeks and broad smile of the woman she was rapidly falling in love with.

She was falling in love with…

Even with the maelstrom of thoughts, emotions, memories and chaos that was the beehive of her mind, the sheer safety and security of that sentiment peeled through the mist undeterred. It had been true for a while now.

But here, in the dark and solitude of her room, in a time and space where she could not handle even her family being close, there was nothing but safety radiating as she listened to Madison’s bright and undemanding appeals to the silence.

After a boss battle and a little excursion hunting for collectables, Madison paused, when she spoke again her voice was quiet, patient and caring “Checking in. Are you still wanting to share space? You don’t have to say anything, I know, but I just wanted to check in and see you’re not just hanging out for my sake.”

Belladonna pushed the pillow aside and reached out for her keyboard.

“Okay then… just checking.”

“You’re sure? Your typing style is all over the place.”

“I notice. The little differences. The way sweetling can’t keep a thought away from her fingers and types before she can finish thinking it. The flirty word choice when Miss Donna is trying to get me to keysmash. The careful consideration Bell uses when being careful to clearly communicate what she really means. I notice. Today I can’t pin it down at all.”

“Blended? I don’t think I’ve heard you use that word…”

“Does it always make you go non-verbal like this?”

“It happens a lot?”

“Oh no… sympathy. That sounds horrible.”

“You never need to apologize…” Madison said, kindly, “I just care about you.”

Belladonna pulled herself closer to her keyboard and drew herself to height. Deep breath in, count to four, deep breath out, count to four. Squeeze fist closed, put all pressure into the fist, release.

Again.

Again.

Then she began typing.

But above all else from a personal perspective? You make me feel safe. You reward openness and honesty and match my emotional intimacy in all its extremity. You acknowledged, learned and accepted me and my dumb brain things. I don't act this open around people... I want to, but I am flooded with doubt internal and external. With you? It’s easy. I don’t doubt if I’m putting on a stupid act for attention. I just feel sane.

I love you. We love you.

She sat with it for a moment and the panic that such a confession would expose was not in the wording or the sentiment but purely in the fact that it had been typed.

She quickly moused over the icon for her microphone and unmuted.

“I mean it…” she said with a scratchy, raw voice, “I do. I love you.”

“Oh…” Madison’s voice rang out over the call, utterly unguarded and pure emotion poured into a single syllable.

The game character began their idle animation as the weight of the moment set in.

“I… I have no words! You took them!” Madison fumbled, trying to process the confession and the context it was given within.

“...I told you about how other people notice when I’m smitten, didn’t I?”

“Uh-huh…” Belladonna mumbled back, still working her strength back.

“I knew I was in love with Saph when I realized that I’d been humming a certain song for a while… a song I associated with him.” she smiled fondly as she recalled the blissful memory, “I’ve had another song in my head for a while now. One that reminds me of that red bead I gave you back on that first night.”

She softly broke into a hum and allowed her voice to break out into a song. It was not the first time she had sung for Belladonna in any of her facets, but this time it was not just a performance, it was the presentation of a song, laying it out with the very firm and clear sentiment.

She was singing a reciprocation of love.

Every lyric had been transformed to suit the needs of their relationship. The heart given from singer to listener in prose could now be viewed in no way other than the heart shaped piece of plastic that had begun their relationship.

Every line was a promise of trust, of commitment, of unity.

The song lasted only a few minutes and yet the world had changed entirely between the first line sung and the last.

“...I love you.” she affirmed, as if the song itself had not said so loud enough for a lifetime of certainty.

“I think I’ve known since I heard that song again and realized how much it reminded me of you.”

On her side of the screen, Belladonna just held a hand to her heart and let her eyes stream tears. Her heart was overwhelmed. There was no softening it. Even still, this was among the greatest moments of her life.

“...oh…!” Bell echoed, breaking down into laughter and sobs at the same time. “Love…”

She let her emotions tumble out of her a moment before securing herself enough to splutter, “Notice me wrap my arms around you. Notice me hold you.”

Madison held her arms around herself and just focused on the hypnotic sensation of their connection in spite of the distance.

“Notice me cuddle you back.” she responded.

The night continued with a serene sense of connection. Bell’s voice had returned to her and she eagerly chatted back and forth as Madison continued exploring dungeons and pillaging for collectables.

As would often happen between them time evaporated and soon enough Saph had returned and with assurances Bell was feeling better and would be alright, Madison signed off for the night.

“...huh…”

Bell sighed to the emptiness of her room, tabbing back to her journal. She opened a new window and pulled YouTube to search for a studio recording of Madison’s confession song. She put it on repeat and let it fill her headphones.

“Guess we don’t have to worry about Spice Girls anymore…” she mused to herself, as the new song bounced around inside her head.

Mixed bag of a day.

On one hand, was blended as fuck. Had a meltdown. Canceled on the family picnic (need to make that up to them later) and feel like crap.

On the other…

She loves me. I love her. We said it. We said it. No, more than that. She sang it…

As the romantic music pronouncing the offering of a heart filled her ears and her fingers rattled across keys, Bell felt her heartbeat strong in her chest.

She was in love.