The Interview

Chapter Six

It was only a few minutes past nine, hardly more than half an hour after she'd first woken up, but Glinda already felt as though she'd been footslogging to the Deadly Desert and back. Alone and in the relative safety of her own room, Glinda found that she had no more energy left to spend on useless acts of bravado, as no one was present to witness them. It was only her left now to notice the tears that were running freely down her cheeks and chin, only her who would hear the quiet sobs, stifled by her pillow. As proud as she would have been if she could have later said that Korrell's words had not cut deep enough to wound her, she had already lost the strength to even pretend.

Perhaps, she had sheltered herself too much. Perhaps, if she'd talked to more people about her sexuality (or lack thereof), she'd have had a broader range of experiences and already learnt by now how to deal with negative responses, built up her immunity so to speak. Of course, she'd always taken a chance by wearing her ring, but it was a calculated risk, for she knew quite well, that only few outside the ace community knew about its meaning. She could barely have been more unfortunate to find one of those rare examples in someone as hostile as Korrell.

When her tears slowly began to dry up, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her sight was blurry and her eyes felt raw and puffy. She was glad there was no mirror around to show her just how terrible she looked. Her head was almost empty now, heavy with exhaustion rather than thoughts, and like a lifeless doll, she stared blankly at the white wall opposite the window.

Eventually, she realised that her hands were less idle than the remainder of her body. Her fingers were playing with the little black ring on her right hand, twisting it back and forth, circling the delicate rose ornaments. She paused, then pulled it off her middle finger and held it up for closer inspection. She had to blink a couple of times for her eyes to adjust their focus to the small object. Fiyero had offered to buy it for her, around the time of their break-up. In the end, she'd paid for it herself though, arguing that it was up to her to buy accessories meant to be worn as a form of self-expression. It hadn't been too expensive anyway.

With one swift motion, she snatched the ring with her free hand and closed her fist around it. She jumped off the bed and rushed to her dresser, pulling open one of her messiest drawers. She dug a small hole between the scarves and gloves and winter hats and chucked the ring inside, covering it immediately and pushing the drawer shut with a bang. She wouldn't take any more risks for now and who knew; maybe she was no longer in need of that ring. Maybe someone who passed so beautifully as an ordinary cis het shouldn't try to draw such attention anyway.

In an attempt to distract herself, Glinda grabbed her phone and her ear buds from the desk. She found herself some good music and went through her social media accounts, checking for updates. At first that seemed like a good idea, since none of them were dedicated or even mentioned her ace identity. They were just about a somewhat short, but pretty, blonde girl in her mid-twenties with a keen interest in fashion - and architecture, but that was only apparent from that one side blog she'd never told her friends about. The longer she browsed through her profiles, however, scrolling past the more or less staged pictures of herself, the stronger her new conviction became that Korrell had been right to some extent.

With every post she read, with every picture she found, Glinda believed more and more that, although there were plenty of aces who truly deserved their place among other kinds of queer folks, she herself might not be one of them. She looked and behaved exactly like any other heterosexual girl she knew. She was even planning on marrying a successful, wealthy, sporty male and having his children, with the expressed goal to make her parents believe she was exactly the daughter they had always hoped for. How would her closeted, but advantaged life-style ever compare to the hardships other, openly asexual, members of the community might endure along the way?