“I am not crazy, my reality is just different than yours” 

-Lewis Carroll


“I can’t believe what you did to me!” she barked in disgust, slamming the door shut.

“I didn’t do anything to you,” I retorted, startled by her anger.

“You stole it from me!” she spat

“I didn’t steal anything from you!” I barked letting my blood boil “Because I can’t steal something that isn’t yours!” I shouted with clenched fists

“I wanted Mad Man first!”

“He’s a person, not an object. You can’t ask for him!” the indignation in my voice crossed a line into madness “And for the LAST time, his name isn’t ‘Mad Man’ it’s Sebastian!”

“It’s typical of you” she attacked, deploying her arsenal of venom as she filed her claws “wanting to have everything that’s mine, you’ve always been envious of me, always!”

“Envious?” I asked perplexed, adopting an upright, almost unearthly posture “Of you?” I spat “You spend all day talking about all the guys you want to go out with because it gives you a sense of security to know that you can have whoever you want whenever you want…!”

“That’s not…!”

“Shut up, I’m talking!” I cut her words with boiling lava “I don’t envy you because everything I get, everything I want I have because I work to get it and if Sebastian likes me it’s because of me and not because of you, because even though you want to convince yourself otherwise, there is someone in this world who wouldn’t put you above everything, who doesn’t follow you blindly, who isn’t a bloody lapdog!” I expelled the last word like a machine gun straight to her heart “Do you know why they call you the queen of hearts?” I asked, turning to her with a speed, a strength, a bravery I had only developed in my mind “it’s not because everyone falls in love with you, sister. It’s because you give your heart to everyone, and mum was right when she said that no one wants to show off what everyone else can have, and let’s be honest… everyone can have you.”

“I can’t believe you’re telling me that…” she whispered with tears in her eyes “You’re my sister…”

“Am I?” I asked sarcastically “I thought I was just a wraith.”

...

“I knew I’d find you here,” a voice, his voice.

“There are no more places to look,” I shrugged, inhaling the sweet smell of the night.

Sebastian sat down next to me with both legs dangling over the edge of the building with a ravishing elegance, he seemed to be afraid of nothing.

“Aren’t you afraid of falling?” he asked leaning closer.

“Yes, but I choose to believe that if I do fall the pain won’t reach me,” I smiled ruefully, “You’re not afraid of anything?” I asked in a whisper, smoothing my coat of arms.

“Sometimes,” he shrugged, “sometimes I do.”

“What are you afraid of?” I asked with terrified vulnerability

“I’m afraid of the voices,” he replied, lighting a pencil of anguish between his lips, “I’m afraid of the voices in my head.”

“What do they say to you?” I asked

“That you’re not real,” he stammered, “that nothing I see or feel is real.”

“I’m real,” I clarified confidently, “if I wasn’t real I couldn’t do this,” I smiled, kissing his cheek lightly, “or this,” I moved my lips to his nose with a softness that seemed to want to melt me.

“You’re real,” he whispered, breathing unevenly.

“Maybe it’s you who isn’t real,” I joked feeling like a moth drawn to his presence.

“If that were true, I couldn’t do this,” he replied, taking my chin and depositing the most rapturous, bittersweet kiss ever, “and I love doing it.”

“And you love doing it?” I smiled happily

“I love it” he smiled bringing our foreheads together like an eternal pact in the moonlight “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of disappearing” I answered honestly “I’m afraid of disappearing, of passing through this world without leaving a trace, of becoming just another name.”

“You could never be just another name,” he smiled, caressing my cheek, “I believe in you.”

“Only the believers will be saved from the destruction of this world, the rest will end up drowning in this reality, consumed by their own ordinariness and blinded by their prejudices,” I whispered with my eyes closed.

“You are too peculiar, Mirana Lefevre.”

“And you are too mad, Sebastian Dubois.”

“Grenville,” he corrected immediately, “I use my mother’s surname.”

“Why?” I asked

“Because my father never introduced me as his son, I’m here because I have no close relatives”.

“He did you a favour,” I confessed, holding his hand on my cheek, “Grenville sounds much, much better.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” I replied, “besides, you do have a close relative.”

“My brother…”

“Not your brother, me” I cut him off with a look that I would always describe as ‘pure love’, an immensely pure love. I had never known love, until he came along. “Because you’re mine,” I laughed sweetly, “now that I have you, I won’t let go of you.”

“No, angel?” he asked

“Never.”