he was invisible. Simultaneously outside and within his longtime community. Observing. Taking comfort from his friends, even from a desolate distance.
New threads had popped up along with those new photos of his date with April. New DM notifications too—including one from Ulsie, which couldn’t be right.
He blinked at the screen. Squinted. Clicked after a few moments, his heart rate soaring to uncomfortable levels.
No, he wasn’t imagining things. She’d written him in the last few minutes, even though he’d said he would be out of touch indefinitely, even though he’d hurt her with his obvious falsehood.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I know you said you were going to be off on a job where you couldn’t get online, but I wanted to let you know something.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: In case that wasn’t entirely true, in case maybe your offline trip had something to do with my dating Marcus Caster-Rupp: we’re not dating anymore.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Which is a stupid thing to tell you, since you didn’t want to meet me in person, even if I canceled my second date with him. So this was pointless.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m sorry. My head is a mess right now, and I wasn’t thinking. I won’t bother you again.
We’re not dating anymore. I won’t bother you again.
Well, that was confirmation he’d neither wanted nor needed.
He wasn’t getting a third date with April. He wasn’t even certain she’d write to Book!AeneasWouldNever after he returned from his fake trip, unless he agreed to meet her in person. Which he couldn’t. In theory, he could probably make up some story about why they couldn’t meet, come up with some plausible explanation about agoraphobia or whatever, but he didn’t want to lie to her yet again.
Yeah, he was fucked, and hurting, and he had no idea what—if anything—he could say in response to her messages. If her head was a mess, his was too. He needed time.
Accordingly, he said nothing. Even if part of him desperately wanted to ask what had gone wrong on her second date.
Shoulders slumped, he navigated back to the main list of threads.
A new topic had appeared. One started by April, entitled A Big Fat Shame. When he clicked, her post appeared, and it filled his entire monitor.
It was eloquent. It was heartfelt. It was direct.
It was also an answer to the question he hadn’t been enough of an asshole to ask.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’ve wanted to talk about this issue for years now, but I wasn’t sure how to begin the conversation. I’ve been especially nervous because the people in this community—all of you—mean so much to me, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings or alienate any of you. But the simple truth is that some of you have hurt MY feelings, albeit inadvertently, just as I’m sure I’ve done the same to some or all of you without understanding how. (If so, please tell me. I want to know and do better.)
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: So here’s the thing: I’m fat. Very fat, in fact. Not chubby or merely curvy. FAT. A good part of the reason I was originally drawn to this particular OTP was, I think, for that reason. Lavinia’s story resonated with me. Her character isn’t fat in either book!canon or show!canon, but in book!canon, as you know, she’s described as unattractive in terms of conventional beauty. Several of Aeneas’s men even call her ugly. As we’ve discussed many times, the choice of Summer Diaz—who’s gorgeous even without makeup and in dull, unflattering clothing—to play Lavinia undercut the resonance of that story line, but echoes of it are still there in the show, even so.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I think I desperately needed to read and watch the story of how a woman most considered homely or downright hideous could earn respect, admiration, desire, and eventually love from the man she desired and loved herself. (Aeneas, of course.) I needed to witness how her character, her choices, and her words would come to mean more to him, in the end, than whether the rest of the world would call her pretty.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I wanted that because of my family history. I wanted that because of my personal and romantic history too. I can’t tell you how many times a date, or a boyfriend, or someone I considered a friend, has shamed me for my size. Sometimes they do so directly, but more often in ways I’m sure they consider subtle or don’t consider at all. They do it by urging me