Chapter 16

December 15th, 2024, 10:00 am, Brooklyn, New York, Nymphia's apartment

(NYMPHIA'S PERSPECTIVE)

I head into my bathroom and rub away sleep from my eyes. Even though it was a month ago now since I left Boston, I still think about the situation every day. How I could've done better. How I should've not overreacted like that. How the constant feeling of regret still follows me even when I'm on stage, walking through my apartment's parking garage, doing interviews with article outlets, when I close my door to my bedroom and go to bed, and even when I'm just sitting in my apartment, watching people walk down the sidewalk from above. But at a specific time of day, once a week, whether I'm in a crowded room that no one can fully notice my emotions correctly or a room all by myself. I still feel the sad love inside of me. Even though I'm mad and regretting what I did, I just can't help but remember the fact that Plane's the love of my life. I still haven't talked to him since November and it hurts me so much. I feel like a bitchy burden every time I think about it, but there's so much I wish that he would do.

I wish he wasn't so afraid to express love. I wish he would figure out how to tell people about love. I wish he would call me and tell me how he feels, whether it's good or bad, I doesn't matter, I just wanna hear him. I wish I wasn't so sensitive about it, but I knew if I ignored it I would've lost my mind.

I go into the shower to wash myself since I'm going to lunch with my friends and I needed to anyway. While I'm washing myself, I remember how Plane would hold me and it's making me feel love sick. I know it's basically all gone and there's still something I can't do, apologize, that's the one thing that's holding me back. Part of me is telling me I don't need to, that it's his fault for all of this. But there's another part of me that's telling me it's my fault, that I overreacted and I shouldn't have left that night. Even though I was fine with it at the airport, waiting for my flight back home, even though I screamed at him for 10 minutes before I left, even though I left.

I finish getting ready and head out the door. I'm in the uber, silent as a barn animal at night. I can't stand the feeling like I'm on a stage and everybody in the crowd is trying to dig their nails into my skin that I call my regret so they can see how I feel. It's not like anybody really knows what happened, but it feels like everyone knows.

I get there and my drag sisters and daughters are all sitting there. I sit down and act like everything is alright, but I can tell Bagel isn't fooled by my acting. It's not like I'm very good at it though, but somehow my other sisters and daughters aren't asking questions. I hate it. I honestly hate it so much. I hate that I have to fake and pretend everything when all I want to do is leave. This whole lunch thing would've been way better if I wasn't in the state of mind that I am right now. I know Bagel is just waiting till we get back to our apartment so she can ask me what's going on. I'm not having that much fun.

We leave and get back to our apartment. It's 5:00 pm now because we also went to one of my drag sister's house and baked cookies there. The sun is already setting, which adds a nice sunset outside. I walk into my room and lay down on my bed. I scroll on my phone until I see Bagel in my room. Bagel sits on the side of my bed, being careful to not sit on my feet.

"Hey." Bagel says.

"Hey." I reply back. I feel almost telepathic because I just know where this conversation is headed.

"How are you doing?" She asks.

"Fine." I respond. Im not sure if I want to tell Bagel about this. At the end of the day she's not my relationship counselor, she's just my drag daughter.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Bagel creeps up close to me to whisper.

"Sure, but not here." I say not looking at her.

"Let's go up to the rooftop." Bagel says, standing up.

We stand up and leave to the rooftop. When we get to the rooftop, the sky is purple and orange. I love when it gets like this, so that boosted my mood a bit. We sit down on these deck couches and there's fairy lights above us. Right as we're both finally sat, Bagel starts.

"So what happened?" Bagel asks. This is my first time to tell someone what happened, how I feel, and how this endless maze of questions has been ruining my life.

"So you know how I was in Boston, staying at Plane's house.." I start. Bagel nods back.

"..well we went over to Atlas's house for dinner and after when we were cleaning up and Binx and Atlas were away, we got into a fight about something he said at dinner." I explained.

"What did he say?" Bagel asks.

I take a deep breath before saying what happened.

"Well Binx asked what we were and Plane said "we're not together it's casual" ... so yeah." I replied.

"But you guys are together..right?" Bagel says back.

"Yeah, well at least that's what I thought we were. I loved him. I loved him so much and I felt like I got nothing back." I said holding back tears.

There was a brief pause between what I said and what Bagel started to say.

"Here's how I think about it.." Bagel started.

"I think....you need to understand and find love and if Plane is the one you love, then you should talk to her and understand her. My point is that you guys should have communication, which I'm not saying that you don't have. But especially if you have romantic feelings towards each other." Bagel said.

I nod my head so she knows that I'm listening.

"I know that everyone you've told your relationship problems to has told you about communication, but it is really important." Bagel ended.

"Yeah and I mean... here's the thing. It's not that me and Plane will act like we're fine when we're not, instead we just fall out of contact especially when we're apart. I've been thinking of ways to try to improve our communication and relationship issues, but it's hard when we're not talking and I don't know how to bring it up when we're not fighting." I replied honestly.

"Just try and find time for that conversation because trust me when you finally get over that hill, everything will run smoother." Bagel says.

"Yeah and I hate to bring these things up to you because since you're my drag daughter, because I feel like I'm the only one who should be teaching you." I say back.

"But here's the thing, we should be teaching each other. Have you taught me more than I have to you in my opinion, yes. But that what kids and parents in average families do to." Bagel says.

"Yeah and just to add onto that. Our drag family is a second family. The reason why our drag family is a family is because we all came from families who misunderstood most of our art at first. So then we formed this family with all of our creativity and made a masterpiece of human artistry. We represent the human-made art sub category in the genre of art. Overtime some of our families became more understanding and accepting and some of them stayed the same, but we all gave them the art that represented us the best." I reply.

Bagel takes a bit to respond.

"That's really inspiring." She replies quietly.

"Well I couldn't have done that without being sober." I laugh.

Bagel and I laugh for ten minutes until we finally calm down.

I check my phone and it's 6:00 pm.

"Let's go back." I say.

"Alright well let's go meemaw." Bagel replies while getting up from the couch.

"DONT CALL ME MEEMAW!" I yell while laughing.

Song of the chapter: Old money by Lana del ray

Thank you guys for all the support and I'm sorry for the long wait but as I mention in many chapters, school gets in the way of things so it can mess up how often I update. Also just wanna give a quick shoutout to TiffanyKey1 for adding my story to one of her lists! But before I end this off I want to share some thoughts and words on a certain subject that has became well known this past week in the RPDR community.

As many of us know. The Vivienne has recently passed away from undisclosed reasons. Just to share a little background information on me. I really got into drag race and the fandom when All stars 7 was announced/ premiering. I saw the lineup of queens for that season and something about Vivienne really stuck out to me. She was the first winner of drag race uk and for her to go on all stars even though she was all the way across seas was so incredible to me. She was representing uk drag on American television. She gave us a look at drag in the uk by her performance, runways, and overall talent. I remember seeing her as a unique character in the show and although she wasn't exactly my cup of tea, I still had a large amount of respect for her. I remember the night I discovered her passing. It was nine something pm and I was searching for something completely different on the Google app  on my phone, but then I saw the words "The Vivienne dead at 32" on my screen and I was in complete shock. At first I didn't believe it, but when I dug further, I found out it was unfortunately true. So many thoughts were racing through my head such as "How does her family feel?" and "How does her fellow Drag race uk + All stars 7 co-stars feel about it". I'm gonna be completely honest with you guys. I cried that night. Something about an important representation of your community being gone really strucks lighting in the deepest holes in ur heart. One thing I want to say before I end this off is to please give Vivienne's family and friends some time for this and to not ask much about it on social media. As that as we know can led to even more pain that before. But otherwise that concludes my statement.

That's all I have for this chapter. Thank you and goodbye!