Thursday, November 24th

66.)

"What do you mean?" Becky whined, slumping down into the sofa. Blossom was finishing up some last-minute sorority stuff, but most of the house had left on Wednesday evening after classes. "I figured we could get dinner or something tonight, or do some movies. Now you tell me you're busy?"

"I'm sorry babes; it was last minute, and it's important to me." Blossom was talking while signing off on some party proposal plans, and she wasn't looking up from the paperwork.

Becky sulked, glaring at Blossom, who was paying very little attention to her. Then she sat up in a bit of a huff.

"Is it that girl?" she asked pointedly. "Are you seriously going to spend your whole vacation with her?"

"If it was a sorority girl that I wanted to spend the entire weekend debaucherously fucking, you wouldn't see it as a bad thing. Or if it was some guy."

Becky didn't really have a good argument for that. The truth was, Blossom was right. If it was some hook-up, it wouldn't matter. But this other girl was different.

"Whatever," Becky said sharply. "Pardon me for giving a fuck about you. Since this girl clearly can't think about anything but herself."

"Absolutely." Blossom agreed without a hesitation. "She is extraordinarily self-centered, but not in the way you think. And I'm helping her with that."

"Or, you know, she could just get therapy like a normal person? Instead of relying on someone she's been talking to for like a month?" Becky wasn't happy, that much was clear. But Blossom's flippancy was just doing more to piss her off. So Becky got up from the couch and walked to the end of the room.

"See you when you get back," Becky said coldly. "Or maybe not, who knows." And then she left.

There was absolutely the potential for things to blow up, and Blossom knew that. In a different headspace she'd have marched after Becky and asked her who the fuck she thought she was to speak to her that way.

Today, Becky's drama wasn't worth engaging in.

And after the weekend, neither of them would mention it anyway.

***

The car ride was awkward. I thought everything would go back to normal with Blossom, but sitting in her passenger seat just reminded me of the last time I was in it. And the time before that, on the way back from the beach house. I had been thinking of ways to make things up to Blossom, but it was hard for me to find the courage to talk.

"So what's with all the tarot stuff?" Blossom asked. "Keep in mind, I know nothing about tarot."

She was talking about Academy Works. At the start of every story was an epigraph - a quote - almost always attributed to the Source, and each one involved the names of tarot cards. I guess ten minutes without much more than a "hey" and a "how are you" was a bit too long. I sighed and tried to settle into our usual routine.

"Truth be told, I don't know a lot about it either. I have like five tabs open on my browser about card meanings and stuff. I'm trying to stay consistent."

"That's cool. People online are coming up with theories about them, but they seem too convoluted to me. I think that's the fun with all the fortune-telling stuff; people like to see what they wanna see."

Blossom wasn't trying to be cold or distant; she was frustrated with Becky, and she was still trying to figure out the best way to help Amy.

"That's true," I said thoughtfully. It was a little meta, but the idea of using the tarot cards as a way for the readers to try to also predict the future was a cool parallel.

"The tarot stuff is supposed to be kind of like a prophecy," I explained. "Like, the Source knows what to expect. But it's worded in a way that's very open to interpretation. And the way they get interpreted leads to the actions that create the prophecy anyway, like circular logic. Fatalism, Newcomb's paradox, all that."

"So the future is predetermined?" Blossom asked, trying to keep up.

"The future is predetermined to the degree of what the Source knows, but infallible knowledge isn't infinite knowledge. Some things are predetermined, and some things aren't."

"The epigraphs..." Blossom started.

"Are predetermined," I finished.

Blossom actually pulled over her car onto the shoulder of the freeway and took a deep breath, putting her hands together.

"…what does that mean? Is this why A has The Preamble and not The Source?"

"Uh..." I pointed to the road, but Blossom interrupted me.

"No, I can't focus on this and driving!"

"Okay?" This was the first time she needed to pull off the road. I shook my head and tried to think about her question. The epigraph in Academy A wasn't like the others: it was attributed to The Preamble. It sounded more like a story than it did a prophecy.

"I guess, in a way... yeah, Academy A is a little less predetermined than the others. Or, I guess it has less to do with the predetermined parts and more to do with the parts that aren't?"

Blossom just stared at me and I felt some heat on my cheeks.

"This is way too abstract," I said dismissively. "None of it really matters. It's just thematic."

"It all matters, cupcake. It's like every single ingredient you bake into it makes it more than the sum of its parts." Blossom hoped the baking analogy was both accurate and also suitable for the situation.

"Well I mean, none of this is necessary information to figure out all the mysteries. This is just background 'author' info. Like, even though the epigraphs are canon, they don't appear before each story in some canon order. I'm cherry-picking, selecting Source quotes that align with the paired story. Like, Academy I is about the Magician. Academy B is about the Fool. Academy A is only different because this moment isn't as predetermined as the others. There's no epigraph that fits because there's no future written here."

"Okay, so the billion dollar question is this: why is it not as predetermined as the others? What's different? Are we past the ability for the Source to know the outcome? Ahhh, I have so many questions, Amy!"

I smiled brightly and dumbly, like I didn't already have all the answers. It was so gratifying to hear Blossom talk about my stories, especially when it came to theory crafting.

"Well, I think this is a big turning point for the story," I admitted. "I think the first four stories set up the characters and subplots. I think this is the first big decision the Academy is going to make. This is where the future gets decided."

"So it's like the point in Series of Unfortunate events where the formula breaks and the kids strike off on their own; no more Mr. Poe to fail to help them, just the kids on the lam - a word which here means 'running away from incompetent adults'… or something. I don't know. Gosh, okay. I am so excited because this really is the first moment we have the impression that The Source is powerful but not all-powerful, which now makes me rethink the motivations of everything."

"It's good for what it's good for," I hand-waved. "But if everything was fate, then the Academy wouldn't be trying so hard to do something would they?"

"Good point..." Blossom mused. "Oh, so what's the Chariot? Why do they need Ai to find it?" The Chariot was mentioned in the first story, in Ai's file. Not much else was known about it.

"Oh, well..." I tried to think about what I read online. "I think the Chariot tarot card is like... motivation. It's like, the thing that spurs us into action. It's also one of the three cards in the final spread. They need that one and two others. The Chariot was going to be an object originally, but I made it a person instead."

"Amy, you have no idea how cool I think that is. And I also think maybe that the people in charge might be less determined to control, and maybe more interested in preventing someone else being in control. Like raising a superhero baby; you're less powerful than they are, but if you raise them right? They'll never think to test that."

Blossom put her car back in gear and began to pull back out onto the freeway.

"That... is a very insightful comment," I commended as we pulled back onto the freeway.

It seemed the Academy talk did the trick. The tension was broken between us and we were more comfortable talking about other things. We were halfway to the beach house when I brought up last time:

"I still wanna do it, you know. The, um... scene. Thing. If you wanted to?"

"I've been thinking about it on and off since last time, and I'm pretty excited." Blossom grinned coyly and looked over her shoulder at the girl in the passenger seat.

"You'll need to be in a skirt," I said confidently. "It needs the school-uniform vibe." I knew Blossom had gotten new diapers for us, but I couldn't remember if she got clothes for the scene. The whole weekend felt like a sickly blur.

"Mhm, I brought some outfits: sexy school girl, normal school girl, a cheer uniform from 12th grade, some cute pajamas…"

Blossom always packed well for the weekends, mostly because she dressed like every outfit she wore was potentially going to be on Instagram or a magazine cover. It was no real surprise that she'd elected to be prepared.

"So then... you're still in?"

"Of course," Blossom said with a smile.

"Okay then."

So we're doing this.