Page 110 of The Fake Divination Offense
A storage closet, an exit, and the bathroom are back here. I choose the bathroom first.
The restaurant’s fairly nice and the small room reflects that, white marble on the floor and halfway up the walls. Bel’s crouchedin the far corner by the stalls, curled in a ball, arms around his knees, head buried in his lap.
The rest of the room is empty, so I let the door swing shut behind me and lock it.
Bel doesn’t look up. Not as I approach and kneel next to him. Not as I put my hand on his wild pink curls and tug gently.
“Let me die of humiliation in peace,” he moans into his legs. “Just make sure the cultists don’t get my remains, okay? On principle.”
“Don’t even joke about that. Look at me.”
He lets me pull his head back. He touched up his makeup after the game, smoky liner and black mascara and more of that pink gloss on his lips. I know now that the gold glitter across his face is from him not putting his illusion spray on as strong as he should, so parts of his real skin shine through.
I swipe my thumb under one teary eye.
If anyone ever stood up to my mom that way, I thought I’d be most worried about the fallout.
But there’s only one thing pulsing in my mind.
“I love you, too,” I tell him.
Bel wheezes. “What?”
“I don’t know why I haven’t said it yet. I accepted it as truth so easily. But.” I cup his cheek. “I love you.”
“Y-you love me?”
“I do.”
He sputters a half-bitten-off sob. “I can’t believe you’re telling me in abathroom.”
I grin and drop my hand to his knee. “It’s kind of fitting for us. Our first date happened because I stalked you.”
“And kidnapped me.”
“I won’t admit to that.”
Bel laughs, dimples popping, and he scrubs the back of his hand against his cheek.
He settles, blinking wet eyes up at me. “I’m not sorry for what I said to your mom.”
“I don’t expect you to be.” My gaze lowers from him, unseeing on the floor. “I was going to renounce Urzoth. The day of that meeting with Roesia and Reverend Drach? I was supposed to meet with Roesia and tell her that I wasn’t going to have Urzoth as my patron god anymore.”
Bel moans softly. “And instead you got sucked into embodying him even more.”
“No.” I pin him with a look, letting all my certainty well up and out and into him. “No, I chose to be withyou. Because I think I knew even then that you’d be important to me. All this time, when I’ve had to put on a front about Urzoth—I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been choosingus. Only I’m realizing that lying about Urzoth, while something I can compartmentalize, is still giving the wrong message to the world.”
“If you want to renounce him,” Bel says, “I support you. Completely. I want you to be happy. Fuck hiding behind him—I want you to be free, Orok.”
I kiss him, needing a taste. He chirps, but relents immediately, and whines when I pull back.
“It’s not that easy, sweetheart,” I whisper. “It’s like the cultists. Both are problems that require more finesse to get out of than I’d originally hoped. But that’s okay. We’ll figure everything out, and as we do, we’ll be together. That’s all I care about. Being with you.”
Bel slams his eyes shut, exhaling hard. “You can’t talk like this when we have to go back out and finish lunch with your parents.”
“We’re not finishing lunch with my parents.”
His eyes snap open. “We’re not?”
