Coming back to Harold and Eva with this chapter felt like walking into a scene that has quietly slipped its mask.
What begins as improvisation and playfulness tilts so cleanly into revelation that it’s hard to see the seam—until Eva’s “your curiosity is flaying me alive” makes it impossible to ignore that the frame stopped holding. I love how you let care and intrusion sit in the same gesture here: Harold’s urge to “go deeper” is both devotion and self-rescue, and the scene only works because the text allows both truths to stand.
The mirrored quiet afterward—her letter, his Dunbar poem—lands less like aftermath and more like a kind of double confession, each of them alone with the awareness that visibility can heal and wound in the same movement.
So intense, yes? This was such a hard chapter to write, the transitions are subtle and I'm not convinced I nailed them. Trimming is the worst. There is just so much I want to say, and I am not experienced enough to say it well with fewer words. I do not envy people who edit for a living, it is a tough job.
Yes! It is a blessing to be *cared about* enough by another, for one's actions before the other to "break into" an argument of this kind. The worst thing to experience from life isn't misunderstanding or imperfect communicational compatibility — it is irrelevancy.
Reading it, this didn't even feel like an argument. It felt more like two people mutually restating — and updating — their premises.
Perhaps Harold IS GUILTY of wishing to *fix her*. But at least, he should allow Eva some agency in defining the version of herself that he is attempting to fix, rather than going exclusively with his own raw, unchecked impressions. Now he has more information about what may be broken, and may proceed with the task more attentively.
Great chapter, by the way, Demetria! Even by the high standards you've set with the previous ones.
this chapter made me feel like I’d tumbled into a secret playground full of invisible wires and sparks, and I couldn’t stop giggling while tiptoeing between them~! Every slap, whisper, and gasp felt like a mischievous poke straight to my chest, making me squeak and bounce in my chair. I peeked around corners in my head, wide-eyed and wobbly, imagining the firelight and silk and leather like it was the most thrilling game I’d ever snuck into. By the end, I was dizzy, giggling, and clutching my imaginary rope, totally caught in the fun-chaos whirlwind of it all~
Words turning into pictures in my mind. Intense, real emotion writ large. I loved it, because I thought I knew where it was going then you took it completely the opposite way.
Coming back to Harold and Eva with this chapter felt like walking into a scene that has quietly slipped its mask.
What begins as improvisation and playfulness tilts so cleanly into revelation that it’s hard to see the seam—until Eva’s “your curiosity is flaying me alive” makes it impossible to ignore that the frame stopped holding. I love how you let care and intrusion sit in the same gesture here: Harold’s urge to “go deeper” is both devotion and self-rescue, and the scene only works because the text allows both truths to stand.
The mirrored quiet afterward—her letter, his Dunbar poem—lands less like aftermath and more like a kind of double confession, each of them alone with the awareness that visibility can heal and wound in the same movement.
This hurt in exactly the way it needed to.
🙏 ouffff intense this chapter. Thank you
So intense, yes? This was such a hard chapter to write, the transitions are subtle and I'm not convinced I nailed them. Trimming is the worst. There is just so much I want to say, and I am not experienced enough to say it well with fewer words. I do not envy people who edit for a living, it is a tough job.
I just loved it that way, it felt real to me, not easy to get the mood of an argument and the tension after.
I have to let you know, that all of it, I just couldn’t stop reading, ahahah, such good writing of argument!
Very relatable Demetria. You know I wish I could have that kind of argument in my life?
That is right!
I am happy I don’t have to edit you, I would not be able to take anything out of anything you write…
thank God you are on substack! Ahhahha!
Yes! It is a blessing to be *cared about* enough by another, for one's actions before the other to "break into" an argument of this kind. The worst thing to experience from life isn't misunderstanding or imperfect communicational compatibility — it is irrelevancy.
Reading it, this didn't even feel like an argument. It felt more like two people mutually restating — and updating — their premises.
Perhaps Harold IS GUILTY of wishing to *fix her*. But at least, he should allow Eva some agency in defining the version of herself that he is attempting to fix, rather than going exclusively with his own raw, unchecked impressions. Now he has more information about what may be broken, and may proceed with the task more attentively.
Great chapter, by the way, Demetria! Even by the high standards you've set with the previous ones.
this chapter made me feel like I’d tumbled into a secret playground full of invisible wires and sparks, and I couldn’t stop giggling while tiptoeing between them~! Every slap, whisper, and gasp felt like a mischievous poke straight to my chest, making me squeak and bounce in my chair. I peeked around corners in my head, wide-eyed and wobbly, imagining the firelight and silk and leather like it was the most thrilling game I’d ever snuck into. By the end, I was dizzy, giggling, and clutching my imaginary rope, totally caught in the fun-chaos whirlwind of it all~
Words turning into pictures in my mind. Intense, real emotion writ large. I loved it, because I thought I knew where it was going then you took it completely the opposite way.