“Fine, yes, I’m deflecting. And yes, it’s still hard to see him on magazine covers. I still… love him. I think I’ll always love him.” He sets down the stim toy so he can take the cup of tea Alex passes him. He wraps his fingers around the warm mug.
“If you still love him, why aren’t you with him?”
“Because love isn’t enough!” He doesn’t mean to yell, but Alex, used to his outbursts of emotion, barely flinches. “Love does not conquer all. Charlie was our star. I was his producer. Even if everything hadn’t gone to shit with Maureen, we never could’ve been seen together in public. It was stupid to think our story was going to end any other way, and I hope, after the show is over, I’ll finally feel like I made the right choice.”
Alex takes a sip of their tea. “In leaving?”
“I mean, I know I made the right choice. I chose me,” he says, retreading a conversation they’ve had a dozen times across this office. “I couldn’t work for a show that treated people that way any longer. I couldn’t watch Maureen Scott force”—he almost works up the nerve to say his name and swerves at the last second—“her fictional ending. Ever After is problematic, and I had to leave to get healthy. And I am healthier.”
He really is. He didn’t even realize how unhealthy he was until he started digging into all the things he’d been ignoring. His depression, yes, but also his dreams of writing, which he pushed aside for the show. His fundamental belief that his existence wasn’t worthy of the spotlight. His dependency on alcohol to numb his emotions when things got hard. His need to please others above pleasing himself. His chronic fear of letting anyone see anything but Fun Dev. The quiet resentment he carried toward his parents for trying so hard to understand, but never understanding.
But he’s here, confronting those things. He’s completely sober, for the time being, anyway. He takes meds for the depression, and he’s focusing on his own career, and he’s doing the hard work to learn to love himself. He knows it’s hard work he will probably have to do for the rest of his life. None of that could have happened if he’d stayed enmeshed in the show.
“I know you think a full Ever After blackout wasn’t the best way to cope, but I don’t think I would be doing this well if I’d spent the past nine weeks watching him fall in love with Daphne Reynolds on a wine tram.”
Alex steeples their fingers beneath their chin. Dev has this theory that his therapist is a secret member of the Fairy-Tale Family; whenever Dev mentions a plot detail about the show, their upper lip twitches. Of course, if they are watching Ever After week to week, they would never mention it.
“When the season is finally over, I think I’ll be ready to move back to LA and be able to move on entirely from this whole part of my life.”
“Do you think not really knowing what happens on the season makes it harder for you to move forward?”
“Nope.” He shrugs. “I know what happens. I lived it.”
Alex doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, both of them sipping their tea and staring out the window. It’s starting to rain. “Do you think you’ll be ready to start dating again then, too?”
He takes three deep breaths and taps his fingers against the ceramic mug in the familiar pattern he can’t seem to unlearn. “I… I don’t know. I think maybe my ideas about love have been all wrong.”
“How do you mean?”
“Fairy tales aren’t real. Happily ever afters aren’t real. I’ve been clinging to these false romantic ideals—these heteronormative romantic ideals about marriage and monogamy and domesticity—my entire life, and maybe it’s time I stop basing my ideas about love on these fabricated narratives. I’m happy now. I’m healthy. I’ve signed with an agent for my script. I’m pursuing my goals. Why have I let the world convince me I’m not enough without romance?”