Star Shipped

He’s counting binge reading romance novels as radical self care.

Simon tries to remember where he’s supposed to put his hands, what a normal facial expression feels like, how to cosplay as a functional person.

People always say that there’s no point to worrying, but it isn’t true: one real advantage to comprehensive, thorough worrying is that you rarely get blindsided by a disaster you haven’t already considered. That doesn’t make it easier, but it takes the sharp new edge off and makes the problem into something worn in and familiar.

It's okay to need things. It's okay to need more than other people do.' And that would come as a surprise to his therapist, who's been trying to get Simon to accept that about himself for years.

I don’t want to go out for dinner with friends from college or people I worked with ten years ago. I want to have dinner with you.

He’s near enough to feel Charlie smile. “Simon, I’m kissing you because I ran out of reasons not to.

Charlie says nothing. Neither does Simon. Simon wonders if social anxiety can actually kill a person.

Simon stays perfectly still, like he’s hiding from a Tyrannosaurus rex and not the existence of social norms. Then Simon remembers his manners. Or at least one manner. “Thank you for inviting

Simon claps his hands together. “What a fun conversation this is. We should do it more often.

I mean,” Charlie says, “you’re stressing everyone out. I’ve worked with you long enough to know this is just your usual C-minus personality, but they think you’re mad at them.” He flicks a glance at the empty circle of space surrounding them. The crew has cleared a blast radius. “Maybe if everyone settles the fuck down, we can get out of here before midnight.” “That has nothing to do with me,” Simon says. “Maybe they’re afraid you’re going to dump coffee on them.” This is probably unfair, because it’s been years since the coffee incident, but nobody’s ever accused Simon of letting go of things too easily.

He’s operating on the theory that if he avoids every migraine trigger in existence

You realize that fucking someone once doesn’t mean they have a permanent subscription.” “I know!” “It isn’t like tenure.