But Monday. Sunday was for self-care. Monday was for...dealing with what I’d done. Good plan.
* * *
The problem with putting something off is that most things you postpone don’t get easier the longer you go without doing them.
Case in point: Monday morning, sitting in the fish bowl, drinking coffee and staring into space. Monday afternoon, me in the fish bowl, still staring into space like the good little permanent employee I was.
Monday at quitting time, sitting in my car, trying to decide what to do.
For six weeks I’d gotten out of work on Monday and driven to Sidney’s apartment to film The Love Study. I wondered how many more weeks it would take before I no longer instinctively wanted to drive to their place on Mondays after work. Anyway, I should probably call them tomorrow. When they didn’t have a show to shoot.
The show only took twenty minutes. Thirty if you add in all the after-show stuff.
Maybe they’d be too tired after the show to talk to me.
No, that was illogical.
Maybe they wouldn’t want to talk to me at all, which was possible, and I would accept it. Might even be relieved.
There was always tomorrow...
Which was what I’d said yesterday. I should have called them yesterday after my day of self-care. That would have been super clever.
I could wait until next weekend and do a whole other day of self-care, which was probably a good habit to get into anyway, and call them then?
This seemed like a fresh and innovative idea until I realized it was a great big ball of anxiety and procrastination wrapped up with a TREAT YOURSELF bow.
I should do it today. If I was going to. And Mase would ask. So would Mia.
The show was about to start, because I’d been sitting in my car for the entire time it would have taken me to drive over there. Wow. Really good time management, Dec. Pro shit.
I pulled up Your Spinster Uncle on my phone (I was already subscribed) and waited for the notification of the livestream. When it pinged, I clicked.
Sidney looked good. Not good as in well rested or anything (and I bet there was a vegetable graveyard in their fridge) but good to me. I liked to see them.
“Welcome to Your Spinster Uncle. I’m your spinster uncle Sidney, and we’re working through some Q and A backlog, so let’s get to it. As always, you can message the message number while we’re live, or you can call in.”
It had been weeks since I’d seen an episode of their show, so maybe I was making it up, but it sure seemed like they weren’t bringing the same level of energy they usually did. They sounded a little monotone. Not quite bored. Maybe numb?
Other than looking tired, though, they were in a typical Spinster Uncle outfit. Their hair was pulled back in a ponytail and they were wearing a black T-shirt with their rainbow choker. I bit my lip, looking at their neck, thinking about kissing them.
Would trade sex monkey services for forgiveness. Hands down. Would volunteer sex monkey services free of charge.
I watched as they worked their way through a few emailed questions and a text message. They were really good at the whole advice-giving thing, which I’d weirdly never considered until that exact moment, despite the fact that they’d given me legit advice a few times in the beginning of The Love Study, and all of it had been good.
My chest ached, thinking about that. Simpler times. We were so much more innocent then...or no. But I hadn’t felt any pressure and I was a lot more fun when I didn’t feel pressured to conform to some kind of mold.
The whole point of The Love Study was figuring out what I wanted, and then when I finally got it, I somehow fucked it up. Except what I’d wanted was to spend time with Sidney, not necessarily to become one half of a couple. I didn’t even understand what that meant, and I wanted to talk to Sidney about it because they were the person I could talk to about relationship models and how they applied to real life.
They took a call from someone sounding young who asked if Sidney’s parents were divorced because the caller’s parents were getting divorced and they were really sad.
“Divorce is hard in a lot of ways, especially on kids.” Sidney’s voice was low, careful now. They were looking right into the camera. “I think it’s sometimes helpful if you think of what you’re feeling as grief. Your family will change now, and that can be scary. You have a right to mourn for how things used to be. Do you have access to a counselor? Maybe at school? It helps to talk things out sometimes, if you find a person you can trust.”
The caller could maybe talk to the school counselor (aww, this kid had to be young, that was middle school or high school lingo). Sidney rattled off a few websites and hotline numbers and kept the caller on for a few more minutes, their voices fading into the background while I sat in my car in a parking lot watching a tiny screen.
I had the worst idea.
The very worst.
It was so bad it might...curve back around to being good?
Or if not good, acceptable?
I could call in.
I needed advice, after all. And Your Spinster Uncle was an advice show. I checked the time. If I was gonna do this, I’d have to do it now.
They didn’t publicize the phone number on YouTube (“That way lies madness and perverts—not the good kind,” they’d explained when I asked), but I knew where to find it.
Was I doing this?
Would they be mad if I did? I mean, it might not be fair? But the last time I’d needed advice about them I’d asked them on the show, and they’d said it was a one on the not-messed-up side of the scale. They’d even said that being live let them think more clearly, so...maybe it was okay?
Or maybe I was just trying to justify doing a horrible thing.
Except Sidney wanted me to trust them. And I did.
I dialed the number.
They’d gone back to the email questions, but wrapped up and connected a call. My call? My heart was pounding. I heard a couple of clicks on the line.
“Hi, this is Sidney. How can the Your Spinster Uncle community help you today?”
“Omigod. Um.” I cringed. “Um.”
On YouTube, their face changed. They leaned toward the mic. “Declan?”
“I’m sorry. I mean, for everything, but mostly for being too chickenshit to call you like a normal person.”
“You are calling me. We’re literally on the phone.” I thought, just maybe, they wanted to smile.
“The thing is, I need advice again.”
“That’s what we’re here for. Right, commenters?”
Holy shit, the commenters. I was on my phone so I couldn’t look. “Um, so. So I sorta... I fucked up.”