And here we are, at the end of what I thought would just be a simple oneshot, now a little novella I'm glad I wrote! It's been a lot of fun, getting back into writing more consistently, and to have all these ideas actually manifesting online for everyone to read.
Please enjoy the last chapter!
Think I Wanna Twist the Plot This Time
"I thought if everything was new, I could disappear from my own life."
—"Maradona" The Chainsmokers
Despite being hit with such excessive tiredness so late in the evening, somehow Barbie blinks awake just as dawn threatens to creep through the curtains. Realistically, she's probably only gotten a few hours of sleep, but she supposes her circadian rhythm is so set her body just knows when she's supposed to get up.
Or maybe it just knows she needs to get the heck out of here before Oppenheimer wakes up and then she's really trapped with little leeway into making a clean getaway back home.
But it's not too terrible if she relaxes here for another moment, right? Take in his heavy, deep breathing since he's still out like a light, his absolutely peaceful expression. Honestly, this is probably the first time he's looked perfectly content, like for once, the entirety of the universe isn't burdening his mind. His beautiful lips part slightly, and he's not snoring, but from this close she can hear each breath, still feel the rise and fall of his chest since their hands are still intertwined. His bony shoulder has somehow made a wonderfully comfortable pillow; his limp arm circling her shoulders is assuring and warm.
Her eyes trace his profile as they're adjusted to the dark, his dry skin, those gaunt cheekbones. Images she wants seared into her head, feelings she won't soon forget if she's lying in bed sometime later, reminiscing. Barbie sighs into his neck, curls up closer to Oppenheimer one more time before she's forced to part.
In that moment she fantasizes about sticking around as if there won't be any consequences. He'll probably wake by blinking those gorgeous blue eyes (eyes she won't get to see again, sadly), exhale and wish her good morning. She'll kiss him in return and ignore their morning breath because she'll still be too tired and content to part from him. As promised, he'll phone for breakfast and she'll eat her waffle with a grateful smile, light streaming into the room by that point of morning, probably wearing just his shirt again. She wonders what he might eat—he seems like the type to just survive off of black coffee, cigarettes, and vibes. Maybe after breakfast they'll have a round of morning sex, if they're up for it. And then, after that…
Well, that's just the thing. She can't see anything past the morning for them. She can't even comprehend a way for them to properly say goodbye, because it's just easier this way, to act like she's just a fleeting moment in his life.
That's enough for her to sigh, to finally start to part from Oppenheimer as stealthily as she can muster. Barbie starts with the most difficult part: taking her fingers from his, just one at a time. She hitches her breath as he turns his head; what if he wakes sometime during this? What's her excuse? She's just using the bathroom again and he should just go back to sleep? What if he's still up after that and she's dressed?
Well, the only thing she can do is just cross that bridge if she comes to it. For now, he still hasn't really stirred, and as she pulls his hand from hers, it's like she's officially closed the chapter on this adventure. It gets easier to move away after that, refraining from every temptation to give one last squeeze to his arm, or kiss to his cheek. Once she's moved away enough, she sits up, places her toes on the floor.
Barbie sneaks around the room like that, on her tiptoes like she's still a doll and this is just natural, even though she's just doing everything in her power to remain as quiet as possible. In the dark, she can barely tell what's hers and what's his from the piles on the floor, but she's pretty sure by feeling the material what's her blouse, her knickers, her skirt. She sneaks to her coat, just to find her phone in her pocket and look at the time. 5:21. She doesn't turn on the light to the bathroom until the door's closed and releases a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
How is it she looks even better than when he first ravaged her? It's the first thought that crosses her mind when she glances at herself in the mirror, messy hair and tired bags under her eyes and all. Maybe it's because now she's relaxed into her marks, worn this new skin with confidence. If only she could keepsake more than just memories.
Well—she did bring her phone in here.
Oh, gosh, she's never done anything like this before. Then again, before now, she'd never gone up to someone's hotel room and slept with them. Besides, her phone is hers. No one else is ever going to look through it.
Before she can talk herself out of it, Barbie opens up her camera and gives a demure smile to the mirror, snapping that picture. It's not the best, but all she needs is just to look back and remember how much change someone can go through over the course of a night. And in the end, now that she loves herself more, isn't that a good thing?
Barbie gets herself ready after that, washing her face gently with the bar soap by the sink, finally finding the toothpaste so she can give her teeth a quick clean with her finger, brushing her hair as best she can so it's at least semi-presentable. It's a little harder getting dressed in garments she's not used to—it's one thing to try and remember how Oppenheimer took each piece off her body, but to put them back on seems darn near impossible.
Somehow she's able to wrangle her stockings up her thighs high enough to clip the garter belt to them, fumbling with her nails the entire time. And then she has to undo them once she remembers the knickers are supposed to go on before she clips the belt, and in that moment Barbie vows to basically wear the rest of her life in jeans and leggings. If she wasn't so keenly aware that Oppenheimer is asleep just beyond the door, she would have screamed in frustration by now.
Her determination at least allows her to eventually dress completely, even if her slip is a little off and she's sure she's made the hook on her bra one size too loose. As long as she's presentable enough to walk across the street, that's all that matters.
Barbie re-enters the room back on her toes, making sure to shut the light off before she opens the door. There's at least a dim light creeping in through the window, enough for her to navigate without reaching around or tripping over anything. But she stops dead in her tracks when she glances to her right, sees Oppenheimer still sound asleep. She quietly taps her phone against her palm, contemplates.
That's wrong, isn't it? It's one thing if she has the confidence to take a picture of herself, and has complete autonomy over that decision. True, he'll never see it—no one else will, as a matter of fact. But the more she mulls over it, what it would mean if she just snaps the most innocuous picture of him just for herself, the more her stomach turns. Barbie bites her lip, wishes she could just leave him with a parting kiss to his cheek or a hand through his hair. But any move she makes could risk waking him, and she can't take that chance, not when her modern tech and family and jeans are calling her back home.
As she drops her phone back into the pocket of her coat, her fingers brush a tube of lipstick, which Barbie's assuming is actually her lip balm transformed for the time. On the coffee table near that vase of flowers she noticed upon entry are a notepad and pen, stationery boasting The Palace's letterhead. She feels an awful drop in her stomach thinking about leaving without an explanation, but a little note might ease that pain a little bit. So she quickly pats her lips with that vintage tube of pink, picks up the pen, and writes something short and sweet:
"Oppie,
Can't wait to see the brilliant things you'll accomplish in the future.
Yours,
Barbie"
Next to her name, Barbie places a strategic kiss on the paper and places her note next to the vase. The bouquet he bought for whoever he originally planned on bringing up here boasts a few pink roses among the lilies and freesias. And if she's going to take a little memento from this night, one single rose shouldn't hurt anyone.
Barbie fights every urge to look back at Oppenheimer because she knows getting back to bed is almost too tempting, even now that she's dressed; instead, she focuses on scooping her heels from the floor and grabbing her coat. She places the stem of the rose in her lips as she slowly unlocks the door and turns the knob, like when she has to get up in the middle of the night at home and do the same thing so she's not disturbing Sasha. She keeps up the stealth act as she creeps into the hallway, opening up the door just enough for her to step out in her stockings, holding her breath until she shuts it behind her.
She doesn't strap on her heels until she's called for the elevator, once she's sure there's absolutely no way anyone can hear her down the hall. And silly as it is, Barbie can hear her heart pounding again in her ears until she steps into the elevator and the doors close, as if somehow in that time Oppenheimer could have possibly gotten up and dressed in an attempt to flag her down on her way out. She pulls on her coat, makes sure her phone is still there and she hasn't forgotten anything else as she makes her slow descent back to the lobby.
Once she steps out, Barbie realizes she's staring right at the intricate patterns on the carpeted ground, trying to make herself seem as inconspicuous as possible. Not that many people are up at this time, but she's sure the employees can make the assumption about what's happened when they see a disheveled woman leaving their hotel in the early hours of the morning. She at least allows herself one more look at the lobby, at its comfy, inviting chairs and warm lighting, and thinks that maybe she'll come back here one day, in her own time.
Daylight looks as if it's about to break as Barbie steps out, hugging her coat closer to her chest. That's the one thing about San Francisco she remembers: its unrelenting cold in the morning, how it seeps through every layer of clothing right to the bone. The foggy marine layer is still present, almost like out of those old black and white movies with which she's just getting acquainted. Maybe that's why she can't bring herself to ever leave LA; the weather anywhere else would be too unbearable. She finally looks up to retrace her steps back to her horse, seeing The Dawn Club's neon lights now turned off. So she heads toward that, remembers the streets as the only thing she can hear is the rapid clicking of her heels on the concrete. She can feel the pinch of her shoes at the balls of her feet, that unfortunate stipulation of being human that still makes her a little nostalgic for her doll days.
It's nice to know, though, that even as a human, she still has some roots in the magic of Barbie Land, since there's her horse, just patiently waiting in the shadows. Barbie sighs, rushes to her by patting her nose. "It's been a long night, I'm sorry," she says lowly, her voice dry from these being her first spoken words of the morning.
With that, she mounts the carriage and starts her way back home. But not without looking back at the Palace Hotel just one last time, speculating which window she looked out of just a few hours ago. Barbie turns back to the rose still in her hand, taking in its floral scent with a bit of a smile.
Before long the road becomes paved in that pink brick, San Francisco of the 40s melting away as she now goes forward through time, thinking about her family, about home. Her clothes start to change into more familiar pieces, but every time they transform, they're a little off, a little disheveled with how haphazardly she put herself together this morning: a button undone on a blouse, a leg warmer scrunched around her ankles. There's nothing more she wants to do than to wrap herself in her blankets back home, nap for a few hours, and take a shower.
Ugh, she probably smells. Barbie dips her head to sniff the inside of her arm, but instead of her nose twitching, she… kind of likes it. She's lingering with perfume and him, and she can't explain it, but there's the cigarettes, the musk, and she's right back in the room with Oppenheimer. She can feel her lips curling back up at the thought, her fun little secret.
Once Barbie sees she's transformed back into her jeans and bomber jacket, she sighs, gently bringing her horse to a stop. There are her pink Birkenstocks, her softest t-shirt. Her lipstick has changed back into simple lip balm, and hopefully she never has to see another garter belt again. Of course, she has to do the final leg back to the Real World, and dons her neon skates, placing her rose back in her mouth as she laces them up.
It all feels routine, going back home this way, but with everything that's happened, it's a little different, too. It's this odd, internal juxtaposition as she instinctively blades toward the beach, but with the realization that her body somehow feels more human, more flawed and marred and wonderful. Barbie plays with the rose in her hands as she skates absently, knowing she's going to put it in a vase and when she wakes up next, she'll see it and remind herself just how real this all was.
When she gets to Venice, and the plastics of Barbie Land become the concrete (and other plastics) of Los Angeles, the sun is starting to creep up behind the buildings. But it's not reflecting on the waters, on the calm waves that immediately soothe her as she brakes up against an unoccupied bench to change her shoes. The sky becomes a little pink; the cotton candy clouds reflect that light, and the water is still dark as ever. Even this early, the most committed surfers are out on the waves in their wetsuits, beating the day trippers and snagging the closest parking spots.
Barbie pulls her phone from her pocket to check the time and her signal. 6:42. It's the day after. And her signal is back so she can make a call or go online. She knows she told Ryan she would just call an Uber, but… after the night she's had, she kind of just wants to see her family instead without the awkward silence a stranger has to offer. They should be up now, Gloria and Ryan getting ready for work, and Sasha getting ready for school. Barbie is usually up by this time, too, but it's to prep for discussion later in the day, or work if that's what she's scheduled.
She calls Gloria, fiddling with her rose in her free hand.
Gloria picks up after the second ring, her voice a little hurried. "Oh, hey Barbie, what's up? Ryan mentioned you might be taking an Uber back home?"
"I, uh… I changed my mind about that," she says meekly, biting her lip. "Do you think you could pick me up instead?"
"Yeah, of course, hon," Gloria answers immediately. It sounds like she's already trying to rush out the door now. "You're on the way to Sasha's school, so I'll grab you just before dropping her off—in fact, we're already on our way out. Just send me your location and I'll call you when we're close, okay?"
"Okay." It just sounds good to hear Gloria's voice. And she honestly can't wait to hear what sassy quips Sasha has in store today. It's a little strange, having this conversation and going back to her life as if something huge didn't just happen to her—but at least now she knows what sex is, has had her fun, no strings attached fling. More questions for Dr. Cohen, when Barbie sees her again. "I'll see you soon."
"We'll see you soon, love you!" Barbie hears Sasha saying the same thing in the background, and she smiles as they hang up. As promised, the first thing she does is turn her location on for Gloria, and within minutes Gloria shares her route over. This early, they'll be here in no time, just before the rush hour starts.
Barbie decides to watch the surfers in the sunrise, knowing that the only place open right now is a coffee shop a block or two over. She's never been here when Venice isn't teeming with life, with skaters in the park, or folding tables set up along the strip of people selling knockoff designer goods. The metal doors of kitschy souvenir shops are still closed, and other than the occasional runner getting in their morning workout, hardly a soul in sight. She buries her nose back in her stolen flower and appreciates the weather as it's so much nicer out here with the cool sea breeze. Cool enough to keep her jacket on, but comfortable enough to not be shivering.
She supposes she could be doing a lot of things while she's waiting: go for a walk, check her e-mails from the night before, do a Google search and see if Oppenheimer achieved everything he wanted to in life. But something that's still separating Barbie from the average, modern Angelino is her need for occasional silence, the chance to think about the wonderful people passing her by as they run, or the surfers a mile away, having a blast even as they wipe out into the waves and bob to the surface once again. She likes wondering where they're going after, or what brings them out here in the first place—more often than not, her perceptions of others are usually positive. Sasha called her an "old soul" for that, but it seemed more like a playful jab than her usual insults.
Maybe it's because she's still so tired from her lack of sleep, or maybe time just has its funny way of slipping when she lets her eyes glaze over as the sands get brighter, but before long, she feels her phone vibrating as Gloria calls to say they're close. Barbie starts toward the street, under the bold sign boasting what beach she's on. She looks down briefly, and flushes when she notices that underneath her unzipped jacket, in between her neck and the hem of her shirt, the marks Oppenheimer left her with are still highly visible. Quickly she zips her bomber jacket up all the way to her neck, fluffs her hair in front of her shoulders as she notices the familiar blue Chevy pull up the street. Hopefully that's enough cover. When Gloria brakes, Sasha gets out of the front seat, her morning Frappuccino and double bacon croissant sandwich in hand as she heads to the back.
"Hey, Barbie," she greets, and they give their usual quick half hug and smooch on the cheek before they settle into the car, a morning routine they've fallen into for a year now.
"Hi, hon," says Gloria, reaching over the dash for the same peck on the cheek. Barbie buckles up, sighing into the heated seat. "We got your usual at Starbucks."
"Aw, you guys are the best." Barbie grins, taking her vanilla oat milk latte from the cup holder. They're off after that, heading toward Sasha's school. Ah, nice and warm and subtly sweet. It's a classic drink for a reason, and oat milk is just so superior.
"So, did one of the Barbies or Kens give you that rose?" Gloria asks, smiling at her as they approach a red light.
Oh, right. They thought she went to Barbie Land. She decides she should at least come clean about the first part of her evening; they deserve that much. "I, um… I actually didn't go to Barbie Land last night," she confesses, looking straight out the windshield instead of at Gloria.
"What?" they both exclaim, and Gloria turns down the volume on the radio.
"Barbie, you know it can be dangerous at night sometimes out here alone." Oh, she's not really looking for a lecture so early, but she gets why Gloria's motherly instinct is kicking in. "Why didn't you at least text us that you were headed somewhere different?"
"I kind of couldn't?" Barbie explains, or rather, tries to. But Sasha and Gloria at least understand the magic of traveling between realms, so maybe it won't sound so ridiculous.
"You didn't have any signal?" Gloria guesses.
"You were pulled into a secret cult and the rose is your initiation card?" Sasha jokes, and Barbie can just feel her smirk at the back of her head.
"Sasha," Gloria warns, and then falls silent, waiting for her explanation.
"I didn't have signal," she starts slowly, "because I decided to go back in time instead?"
"What?" they exclaim again, and Barbie feels Gloria brake the car harder than usual at their next red light.
"How?"
"When?"
"Did anyone know you were from the future?"
"Did you do something crazy and like try and kill Columbus?"
"Uh…" They're bombarding her with questions she isn't sure how to answer. Maybe it's best to just tell the story? "I saw a horse and carriage on the way to Barbie Land and took that instead. Weird Barbie told me it could take me anywhere and anyplace in time if I just thought about it, and I thought about our trip to San Francisco last summer, and Sasha's World War II project, and… that's just where I ended up for the night," she explains quickly, keeping her shoulders at a shrug. "In 1942."
"So… like theoretically, I could take this horse and carriage back in time and just off Hitler as a baby?" Sasha asks, and honestly, Barbie's not sure if that's a joke.
"Sasha, you will do no such thing—no changing the course of history with the Barbie method of time travel… which is not a sentence I thought I'd ever say in my life." Gloria shakes her head, still trying to process what Barbie just told her. "Okay, okay… so time travel is real through Barbie Land. But we're all still here, so clearly you didn't do anything too crazy. I'm still a little worried about how you spent an entire evening in the 40s."
"Mom, Barbie's a grown woman; you still infantilize her sometimes," Sasha points out. "She's still here with us in one piece, and I'm sure she had fun."
Gloria sighs, her stance relaxing at the wheel. "You're right, you're right… Did you, though? Have fun, I mean? And… you were safe, right?"
"I did, and I was," Barbie laughs, twirling the rose in her free hand. "I went to a jazz club and talked and danced with a… very charming physicist." Yes, talked and danced. That's all true. And they did talk most of the night, in between everything else. "I got the rose from him."
"Oh?" Now that's piqued their interest.
"Someone famous?" Sasha asks, and through the rear-view mirror, Barbie can see her incline in her seat.
"Um… is Robert Oppenheimer famous now?"
Sasha snort laughs at that, putting a hand in front of her mouth. Barbie flushes; was she supposed to know who he was beforehand?
"Sasha!" Gloria warns again, but it sounds like she's holding back a chuckle or something, too.
"Sorry, Mom, I know Barbie probably has no idea, but like… J. Robert Oppenheimer? As in, like… the guy who invented the atomic bomb?"
"The…" Barbie trails off, remembering how the war ends again, in that fire and destruction. He made that? Was that the project he was talking about, drawing him away? Is he really the one responsible for killing so many innocent people? She feels her stomach sink to her feet and her throat go dry. "We didn't talk about anything like that because the war was still going on…"
"No, and why would you?" Gloria shoots Sasha one more warning glance. "I'm sure you had a nice time."
"I mean… we did talk about the war for a bit, but mostly about how he sent funds to Germany to get some Jewish colleagues out—you know, since he's also Jewish…" Well, maybe she should have done that crash course Google search, after all.
"Hey, if you talked like all night, surely you got something else interesting out of him," Sasha presses, and at least she's getting more into the conversation without looking to make fun of her.
"Um…" What else can she say that has nothing to do with their more romantic part of the evening? "He mentioned hosting union rallies at Berkeley and how his brother and some close friends of his were Communists—but I guess not in the way the government thinks of Communists?" That should probably get Sasha interested.
"Damn, that's actually kind of based for a white man in the 40s," Sasha replies, actually sounding impressed. "Not that I want to change my current project, but hopefully whoever writes about him brings all that up. Or maybe I will during questions."
They're pulling up to Davy Crockett Middle School now, slowly making it up to the drop off zone. "Okay, we are so not done talking about this," Sasha says as she gathers her backpack. "Especially about the time travel stuff."
"Don't get any funny ideas!" Gloria calls as Sasha opens the door. "I'll come pick you up after school."
"Okay, love you!" Sasha slams the door shut in that teenage way that's a little too harsh.
"Love you!" Barbie and Gloria call back, both of them watching to make sure Sasha makes it inside the gates of the school, walking up to meet her friends before homeroom. They don't move out until a faculty member is literally shouting at them to keep going, and a car honks behind them.
Even as they're leaving, Barbie still notices Gloria looking out the rearview mirror just to make sure Sasha's safe inside school. "Today's my work from home, but do you have school today?" she asks, finally making the turn back onto the street.
"Discussion at noon but that's it," Barbie murmurs, taking another sip of her coffee. Not that she's prepared much for it, but she might get away with sitting in the back and contributing the bare minimum. Just for today. Usually she's the first one to speak up, to say her piece, but she doubts she'll be in that mindset in a few hours.
She thinks about one more thing she needs to do, though, before they can head home. "Do you think we can stop at CVS first?"
"Yeah, sure." Gloria can so effortlessly drive and talk at the same time—hopefully Barbie gets to be that good at it when she learns. "So… J. Robert Oppenheimer, huh? What's he like? I think I just have the footnotes knowledge most people have, just that he's the guy who headed the project that built the first atomic bomb, but nothing about the man himself."
Apparently that's his legacy and pretty much the only thing history has watered him down to over eighty years down the line. It's even stranger, since clearly she met him before such an infamous invention. Barbie doesn't want it to taint everything she's learned from talking to him, but that hindsight starts to seep into her head, planting a seed that's threatening to grow. She instead starts to focus on the positive, the little things she noticed that really drew her to him. "He's so… interesting," she prefaces, keeping her eyes on her rose. "The way he speaks, it's like he won't until he finds the right words to say. And they're so detailed, and intricate, and he doesn't speak like anyone else I've ever heard before. Everything he says sounds deliberate, and calculated. Like… we talked about New Mexico, and he made it seem like the most beautiful place in the entire world."
"Uh-huh." Gloria nods along, but she's staying relatively quiet, just letting Barbie continue.
Because now that she's started, she doesn't want to stop describing her night. "I think what I enjoyed so much was that he didn't just care about what I looked like. He saw me, and he was interested in what I had to then sometimes, he'll stare off into the distance, and it looks like he's just thinking about the entirety of the universe. You can just see it in his eyes, which are so intense. And he seems to wear it all on his shoulders."
"And you said you danced?" Barbie sees that Gloria's got her eyes focused on the road, but she seems to be listening pretty intently. "Is he any good at that?"
"Oh, he's terrible!" Thinking back to how she had to practically pull him onto the dance floor has Barbie chuckling. "But I love the way humans dance. It's flawed, but when everyone's having a good time, it doesn't matter."
Gloria just hums, and her eyes or body language don't tell Barbie anything. Usually they can read each other pretty well, but right now, Barbie can't gauge a thing. Is she judging her? Concerned for her? Excited about what happened?
"Is there anything else you want to tell me, hon?"
She could come clean. Sasha's not in the car anymore. They could have an honest conversation about sex and hopefully Gloria won't come down too hard on her. But Barbie shakes her head, takes another sip of her latte. "Nope."
"Okay." And that's how they leave it for now. Gloria turns the music up a bit, a nice pop number that has Barbie reflecting on how much everything has changed in the past 82 years, and again at the things Oppenheimer never got to experience. She yawns, and it's huge and totally unflattering. Even with some caffeine running in her system she can't wait to crawl back into bed for a few hours, before leaving to brave the Bruin campus.
They turn into the plaza, and just as Gloria is about to park, her phone starts going off. "Oh, crap, that's work," she utters, sighing heavily. "It should only take a minute."
"That's okay, I know what I'm getting," Barbie assures, unbuckling. She keeps the rose on her seat for now. "I won't be too long."
"Oh—alright, then. I'll be right here." Gloria doesn't answer her phone until Barbie gets out of the car and shuts the door, and she can tell when that smile is fake. She usually reserves it for Aaron Dickerson, now that he's been promoted up to the top.
Barbie shoves her hands into her jacket pockets as she enters CVS, greeted by the whoosh of automatic doors. Unlike the warm, inviting lighting of the Palace Hotel, the florescent lights hit her like what she imagines a hangover to feel like—overbearing, too much, artificial, her head beating to adjust and her eyes squinting. Given how early it is, it's practically bare bones in its staffing, with just one person working the register up front and a few scant patrons roaming about the aisles, dragging their feet along with little purpose.
Unlike them, though, Barbie has a destination, and makes her way to the far left of the store to the food aisle. She pulls out a chilled water bottle from the long row of fridges, rolls it around in her hands and exhales. Something about the cool plastic on her palms is anchoring her back down to the present, as she strides to the back.
The good thing abut being here at this time is that no one's really scrambling to the pharmacy, so she's beckoned to the counter quickly. Barbie thinks she's seen this pharmacist before when helping Ryan pick up prescriptions, a woman a little older than Gloria with jaded eyes, and a mouth that probably used to smile a lot more than it does now. But this person seems pleased enough to be working early, at least. She approaches the counter, still juggling with her water bottle.
"How can I help you today?" the pharmacist asks, like she's speaking from a script.
Barbie just flashes her brightest grin, hoping that's good enough for an icebreaker. "I'm here for Plan B."
I hate to say it, but I was planning on ending this story on that line from the beginning, heh.
Also, I'm not sure if this is the end of Barbie and Oppie's fling-I actually do have more ideas for them, but has the Barbenheimer craze worn off on the internet? And if not, would any of you be interested in me exploring more from this weird universe I've started writing? Or maybe I'll just write it anyway for my own sanity, who knows.
But, you know, letting me know helps, too. Interacting with you all has honestly been the highlight of my year.
As always, reviews and favorites are greatly appreciated!