Chapter Text
It was only supposed to be a shiny new toy meant to distract her from the thick, swampy fog of heartbreak.
She likes watching the little start-up animation when she presses the app’s button on her screen. Those hypnotic orange, green, and blue circles merging together to form a white one before she’s brought to her Letterboxd homepage. She’s had an account for almost one week, and already, it feels like the most precious thing in her life.
Because when an anxious woman in her early 20s goes through a break up, attaching herself like a leech to some other interesting thing to pour all of her attention into feels like the most crucial act in the world. A life raft thrown to her in the treacherous waters caused by her shitty boyfriend leaving her.
This will not become an addiction, Lexi tells herself, drilling the mantra into her head. Marathoning copious amounts of movies until my eyes shrivel up into prunes and writing several novel-length reviews about them on Letterboxd will not become an addiction. This will be fun.
Even Artemis has noticed the drastic drop in her aura. He climbs into bed with her at night when he typically assumes his place on the floor or the couch in the living room, curling beside Lexi’s head with his motor-like purr loud in her ear. The cat follows closely on her heels to the kitchen each morning and doesn’t start his day by begging her for food like he normally would. Artemis sits on the counter, watching her with wide yellow eyes as she forces herself to make a depression cup of tea or a depression non-breakfast consisting of peanut butter straight out of the jar.
Lexi’s tiny grey housemate is looking out for her, and she doesn’t have the energy to fully appreciate it.
These self-pitying movie binges aren’t a new thing for her. She remembers the day she finally came to the bitter, bleak conclusion that her dad wasn’t coming home at age 13 and glued herself to the family sofa, making her way through Sofia Coppola’s entire filmography before divulging into anything else she could find. Suze had just about scraped her with a shovel off of the cushions and shoved real food down her throat after the first few days.
Then, there was the time she and Rue had a week-long fight—rather, Rue was ignoring all of her attempts to reach out and avoiding her in the hallways at school—after the first time Lexi had walked in on her friend snorting something she couldn’t quite see in the bathroom at a party in sophomore year.
That time, it had been romantic comedies. Not for any metaphorical reason, because how one could make a metaphor out of rom coms and your relationship with your best friend withering before your very eyes was unbeknownst to Lexi. Still, watching Sandra Bullock stumble naked into an equally naked Ryan Reynolds’s arms was a better thing to think about than the image of Rue darting away with a flash of guilt in her eyes.
And now, pathetic 24-year-old Lexi has been crying about her pathetic ex-boyfriend for nearly three weeks, and the pressure on her heart has shifted from a painful throbbing to a hefty, solid numbness.
Tucker hadn’t even paid that much attention to her in their brief stint of a relationship, as Cassie and Maddy pointed out to her on a number of occasions, and their initial spark of excitement pretty much fizzled out immediately after they began dating six months ago.
But being left by someone whom you quickly realized didn’t want you all that much in the first place despite all your attempts to make it work? It’s the kind of ache that comes with humiliation, too. Extra salt continuously sprinkled into an already bloodied, gaping wound.
The only natural conclusion was to document her erratic thoughts on movies she’s already seen dozens of times. Movies are portals, gateways into other worlds where Lexi does not have to think about being herself; where life is a little brighter and idealistic even when they end in tragedy. Because that kind of tragedy is fictional, and the curtains are drawn at the conclusion. Unlike her kind of hurt, real and raw and very tangible in the world she’s trapped in.
At least in this way, she’ll be a published writer. Not in any official way, and not with much merit. But still. Any exposure helps, as the editors who’d rejected her countless times would say.
She has exactly two followers, and follows exactly two people, Jules and Ethan, who are a lot less enthusiastic and in-depth than her. Ethan goes for the “short and succinct but still informative” route, while Jules opts for snarky one-liners, or sometimes just a star rating and nothing else.
Lexi’s certain her friends must think her sanity is slipping down the drain every time they see the colossal manuscripts she posts daily, taking up the length of their entire phone screens and not at all coherent in the slightest sense.
Tucker always told her he’d “get to it in a bit” anytime she shared the newest chunk of her play with him, the one she’s been working on steadily for years but never talked much about around her friends.
He never did get around to it. And Letterboxd is not much different—talking to a brick wall or screaming her opinions into the void—but logging a meaningless movie review feels a whole lot fucking better than being ignored by her boyfriend. Now ex-boyfriend.
Stand By Me is on the roster tonight. A childhood favourite of Lexi’s, now being watched with her face planted into the cushions of her sofa and Artemis swatting at the strings of her hoodie dangling over the side of it. She’s seen it enough times to not have to completely pay attention to what’s happening, but her eyes are locked onto the TV screen. She has to physically remind herself to blink in her mindless transfixion.
Ben E. King’s comforting croon fills the room as the credits roll, and she doesn’t realize she’s crying until Artemis leaps on the couch and begins lapping at her damp cheeks.
“Ew,” she mutters, gently nudging him away from her face but offering a massage behind his ears to make up for it.
She reaches for her phone, credits still unwinding down the screen, and gets to work on crafting her latest flop.
The film’s closing line is her opening one. "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"
After multiple unhinged, bloated paragraphs containing her whirring thoughts on a movie that came out decades ago, she ends her poorly constructed mini essay that sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the other reviews with literal sore thumbs, cramped from tapping at her keyboard.
There’s a sadness in revisiting a prominent movie from your childhood, Lexi writes in her closing paragraph. But then again, isn’t that what nostalgia is? A rose-colored ache that looks great in photographs, but stings when you get too close to it in real life. Stand By Me understands and captures that feeling perfectly.
I never discovered a dead body with my friends growing up, but I do remember the times I thought a relationship would stick forever, the unbreakable bond that inevitably grows away as you grow up. And God, do I miss that, pain and all.
“Stupid,” she exhales under her breath, rating the movie a perfect five stars and hitting Save.
It’s user lexxihwrd’s seventeenth review in six days—apparently another Lexi Howard already beat her to claiming the simpler moniker of lexihoward, and she hates the way the double X’s make it vaguely resemble a porn star’s name, but whatever. Her new fascination with Letterboxd is only a means to get rid of the bad thoughts in her brain, after all. It’s not like she’s taking it seriously.
To her surprise, a notification pops across her screen ten minutes later. Someone other than Jules and Ethan has liked her fresh Stand By Me review.
Intrigue grabs a hold of Lexi’s validation-staved mind, and she curiously investigates the mysterious liker. It’s come from a user named fezco_ , accompanied by an avatar of Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos. She used a real photo of herself on her profile, although it was one taken at a distance where her face isn’t clearly visible, holding a sparkler in her childhood home’s backyard at a barbeque last summer. It was the cooler option to make your display picture a photo of a movie character or a cartoon if you were a true cinephile, she quickly came to learn.
But like most of her life, she’s never been one to be on the cool side. She cringes internally at the woe-is-me-ness of it all and banishes the thought by stalking the mysterious liker’s profile.
This person only has 21 followers, which isn’t much in the grand scheme of social media—but they also have 80 reviews, 450 films added to their watchlist, and 373 likes. They’re relatively consistent and frequent with their reviews, too.
watching movies might be the only thing i’m good at, is all that’s written in the bio, drawing a little exhale of a laugh out of her nostrils.
The last movie fezco_ logged also happened to be Stand By Me —left mere minutes after hers, in fact. She can see that they’ve rated this film before—both times winning a perfect 5 stars, just like hers—but this is the first time they’ve written a review to accompany those stars.
classic. goated. never gets old no matter how many times i watch it. i used to watch this growin up with my grandma and lil bro and it makes me miss her every time. and the song? shit goes hard
The small twitch at the corner of her mouth isn’t enough to constitute a smile, but a wave of lightness passes through her from reading the heartfelt blurb. She leaves a like of her own, right back at them.
And then, one by one, notification after notification begins appearing at the top of her screen.
A like on her review of Lady Bird.
A like on her review of The Graduate.
And Moonlight. And Brokeback Mountain. And Little Women (1994). And Train to Busan. And Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And Chungking Express.
Soon, a good majority of her reviews have been liked by fezco_, and the icing on the cake comes in the form of a follow.
Normally, this many notifications in a row would put Lexi off. She can practically hear Maddy talking in her ear, warning her about how creepy and desperate it is for someone to browse through one of her online profiles and unabashedly like all of her old content.
But this is Letterboxd, not Instagram—no one knows who she is on this platform, where people come to write either too serious or completely unserious movie reviews. There’s no DMing feature, no way for someone to comment on her appearance or send her unsolicited dick pics.
A random stranger just liked several of her infinitely long pieces of writing, a facet of her life she doesn’t receive much praise on. The emotions going through her head are that of flattery instead of uneasiness.
Lexi taps on their profile again and observes the four films occupying their Favorites spaces— Scarface, Goodfellas, Stand By Me, and unexpectedly, the Cowboy Bebop movie.
It’s ridiculously easy to be judgmental of a person’s taste in cinema when it’s presented so plainly without any other context, but Lexi doesn’t find herself cringing at this selection—all of them are typically associated with being boys club movies, and though she hasn’t seen Scarface or Cowboy Bebop, the other two are boys club movies with flair. She can only assume the other ones are similar.
The image of someone vaguely male-shaped can’t help but enter her head, but she tries to dispel it. Women can like grimey mafia and crime movies about groups of men in beautiful suits doing heinous things, too.
She looks at her own top 4— Atonement, Little Women (1994), Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, and coincidentally, also Stand By Me. She wonders how she comes across to others stumbling by her profile, if she seems like an interesting person they’re dying to get to know or an incredibly basic, faux-artistic girl from a California suburb with predictable taste.
However she may appear to others, this person doesn’t seem to mind either way. Lexi shakes her head, snapping herself out of whatever weird thought path she was about to go down. This person was just being nice. Maybe they were one of those spree-likers who felt the need to be polite and give the rest of her dumb reviews attention because they liked one. Maybe they slipped and liked 14 of her 17 reviews in succession by accident.
But as Lexi moves from the couch to her bed that night, bundled up in her softest blankets that she’s been crying herself to sleep in since Tucker dumped her, she scrolls through fezco_’s past reviews. Her face is illuminated by the dull glow of her phone, stinging her eyes in near darkness. For the first time in weeks, Lexi is able to effectively focus on something other than thoughts of Tucker, which inevitably creep their way into the back of her mind, overstepping her futile attempts to silence them with movie marathons.
The Shining
(Four and-a-half stars)
scarier when i watched it as a kid but damn. the score fucks, puts me in a trance. shelley duvall can pull some scary ass faces
Carrie
(Four stars)
never went to any school dances but now i’m glad i didn’t. she bodied it tho
Grease
(Three stars)
not as crazy about this one as lots of people are but the whip is sick and i fuck with some of the music. travolta’s lowkey insane for this one
Goodfellas
(Five stars)
no words needed. fuckin GOAT. citizen kane of mafia movies (yeah i said it, over the godfather, even tho that’s a banger too.) scorcese at his best
A little sentimental, a little funny, maybe even unintentionally so, and enthusiastic. A huge contrast to Lexi’s reviews on the length side of things, but fezco_’s profile is pleasant to scroll through, like they’re offering tiny snippets of their cinematic library.
Lexi becomes fezco_’s 22nd follower. She turns off her phone and even gets a few hours of sleep in before her restless broken heart wakes her up, leaving her to toss and turn in her bed for hours until the sun rises.
It goes on like that for a week straight.
Back and forth, Lexi and the stranger exchange Letterboxd likes. The grown up version of passing notes back and forth in class, only Lexi has no idea what the person she’s trading notes with looks like. A vaguely unofficial image of Paulie Walnuts conjures in her mind, quickly dispelling from her mind every time with an incredulous giggle.
Realistically, the user behind the apparatus of fezco_ could very well be some weird old man with a kink for blowing his load to long, unintelligible chunks of writing.
But she isn’t even trying to hold the truth of the matter back from herself—validation feels good. It’s dopamine injected straight into her veins, spreading through her body and warming her cold, on-the-verge-of-death heart. Sometimes Ethan or Jules will like her reviews, but it’s this anonymous film lover who’s always consistent, always the first to read and to click the little heart underneath the text during the many times she posts throughout the day.
So she enjoys the rush of flattery when a person who doesn’t know her personally is praising her writing in the form of meaningless social media reactions. Sue her. If being terminally online in order to ignore heartache isn’t the point of it all, what is?
Maddy and Cassie come over one night with fresh groceries and take out for dinner, a happy compromise between getting her out of the apartment to breathe fresh air into her lungs for longer than the time it takes to retrieve the mail and allowing her to fester in her misery.
They’re lounging in front of the TV, cracking open fortune cookies and watching Casino. “Ugh, she’s my fucking favourite,” Maddy says when Sharon Stone makes her first. They’ve picked it mostly because it’s always Maddy’s first choice on movie nights, but also because it has the messy, explosive deterioration of a failed relationship that Lexi would rather subject herself to than some bullshit epic romance.
“We know,” Cassie laughs. “You say that every time.”
“I wanna be her.”
“She has a terrible marriage and runs off with a con guy.”
“And? She looked hot doing it.”
Lexi tunes out their banter into the background as she scrolls through her phone. Her heart pathetically skips a beat when she’s notified that fezco_ has left a recent review of Little Women (1994), a movie Lexi would and could charge into battle for.
Little Women
(Four stars)
never seen this one before but i get the hype now. kinda makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. amy was a bit messy tho
Would it be the craziest thought in the world if she came to her own conclusion that her new internet secret admirer wrote a review of this exact movie in hopes that she’d see it? Lexi understands that delusion can sometimes be a natural byproduct of stress and heartache, but this conspiracy is a new low for her.
“What’re you smiling at?”
Maddy’s voice cuts through her dreamlike haze. “Nothing.”
Both girls look at her suspiciously, taking in her guarded posture, knees folded to her chest and nose buried in her phone. “You’re not texting Tucker, are you?” Cassie asks.
And just like that, Lexi’s heart comes crashing down to earth like a meteor. “No.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Good,” Maddy says. “You were making googly eyes. We got scared for a sec that it was him.”
Lexi scoffs. “I didn’t have googly eyes.”
“You one hundred percent did, bitch.”
“Tucker isn’t…I mean, he hasn’t called or texted or anything since—yeah.” Lexi trails off lamely, too much of a coward to voice what they already know. Her sister rubs a hand comfortingly over her knee. Artemis joins them, hopping up and sprawling in Cassie’s lap.
“He sucked, anyway,” she says, rubbing the cat across his furry belly. “Like, literally, he was no fun at all. We didn’t wanna tell you when you were still together, but he was a fucking bore.”
“Yep,” Maddy agrees, dramatically popping the P. “And this is coming from this bitch, the queen of picking ‘em good.”
“Ex-queen,” Cassie corrects with a manicured finger in the air. “I could say the same about you, miss.”
“Yeah, yeah, we all pick terrible men.” Maddy rolls her liner-sharp eyes. “It’s like a right of passage. You have to date shitty people so you know exactly what you don’t want in the future. He sort of did you a favour, Lex.”
“You won’t feel so shitty about it all soon,” Cassie assures with a smile. “Just wait and see. Promise.”
The lump that’s been slowly forming in Lexi’s throat makes it difficult for her to speak. “But what if that’s just a straight out lie? What if I don’t feel better any time soon and I’m doomed to be fucking pathetic for eternity because I can’t forget a guy who doesn’t want me?”
“Babe.” Maddy offers an empathetic sigh, one that’s gentle with her, but is equally about to drop a harsh truth on her. “You know you didn’t even like him that much either. You know that. You’re just sad because getting dumped fuckin’ sucks—and I mean, understandably so.”
“Right.” She keeps it curt, because the idea of delving into yet another tedious conversation about Tucker makes her want to pluck her eyelashes out one by one. “I don’t know. I’m just tired, I guess. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’d feel better if I could, I think.”
“Are you back at work?” Cassie asks.
“I have been since Monday.” Running secretarial duties at the East Highland local theatre and occasionally getting to write blog posts about the upcoming or mid-season shows on their website isn’t Lexi’s dream job, but they’d at least been kind about letting her take a few extra sick days off, even as their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was right around the corner.
“It’s Friday,” Maddy remarks. “Damn. You can’t be losing sleep over a dumbass like this.”
“It’s not exactly like I have say in the matter,” Lexi responds, tight-lipped.
“Yeah, I know that.” The raven haired girl pulls out her phone and begins typing. “But you can try and help yourself. Smoke weed or take edibles or something. That’s literally how I get to sleep every single night.”
“Weed makes me-”
“That was when you were 13.” Her phone buzzes with a text from Maddy, a link to an address attached. “You’re all grown up now, Lex. And besides, you’d just be taking it to go to sleep.”
“What’s this?”
“Maddy’s dealer,” Cassie chuckles.
The other girl flips the bird with a long french manicured nail. “Shut up, it is not. It’s this weed shop I go to. Swear on my life by it. Their shit is so good.”
Lexi groans. “But dispensaries are so fucking pretentious. I don’t want to be sold a singular $30 joint by some guy who wears flip flops with jeans.”
That gets a laugh out of her sister, and she’s pleased to know she hasn’t lost her sense of humour after the last few dismal weeks she’s had. “It’s not like that, I promise,” Maddy affirms. “I wouldn’t be recommending them if they were. And a dispensary is a different thing. This place is a super small shop, very DIY feeling. Only like, three people work there, I’m pretty sure. And it’s not so bad on the price side either.”
“Can’t you just be a darling, dear friend and give me some of your edibles as a post-break up gift?” Lexi asks with her best moony eyes.
“Oh, my sweet, sweet girl,” Maddy sighs, cupping Lexi’s face in her hand. “What’s mine is yours, but what knocks me the fuck out at the end of the day is exclusively mine.”
“Okay, fair.”
“I have joints, if you wanna try,” Cassie says. “But I know you don’t like smoking so much, so you might wanna start with edibles.”
“But also, be very fucking careful with edibles,” Maddy warns. “Too much can catapult you into outer fuckin’ space.”
“So many rules,” Lexi mumbles into her knees. “I don’t wanna do it anymore. Nevermind.”
“Get out of the house, girl.” Maddy’s tone is stern. “You owe it to yourself. No more wallowing away on your couch. Have a weed excursion.”
“Fine, alright. I’ll think about it.”
Cassie lolls her head onto her sister’s shoulder, trying to peer at her phone. “You didn’t say what you were smiling about earlier.”
“Nothing.” Lexi clicks her phone off, switching the screen to black. “I was reading something. Just this dumb joke someone from work sent me.”
After the girls hug her tight and depart for the night, Lexi composes her needlessly long review of Casino.
Crime is glamorous in a neon-lit Las Vegas. It feels like a beautiful fever dream — until it doesn’t anymore. Scorcese does here what he’s most masterful at: luring you in with hedonistic visuals and compelling characters, seducing you with vices you know you shouldn’t want as much as you do. Money, sex, mansions as tall as skyscrapers. Greed and self-destruction has never looked so decadent.
She’s in the middle of brushing her teeth when her phone lights up, and she nearly swallows the minty froth in her mouth by accident at what appears across her screen. fezco_ has not only liked her review of Casino, but they’ve also left a comment.
fezco_
hi, you don’t know me but just wanted to say your shit is crazy good. like really great writing. i love this movie and i feel like i watched it again just by reading this. keep reviewing 👍
It turns out, she hasn’t yet run out of tears to cry, because happy ones begin to well up in her eyes. It looks idiotic to cry over one polite compliment, but for the first time in a depressingly long time, Lexi doesn’t feel idiotic.
lexxihwrd
that’s insanely kind, thank you for saying that! :)
And then, because she’s feeling especially bold and not like a total piece of shit tonight, she holds her toothbrush between her teeth as she types out a comment of her own on fezco_’s log of Little Women.
lexxihwrd
i’m a little sad a 5th star is missing here, but now you know the joyful pain of watching little women. (and as much as i understand amy, i concur about her messiness.)
In any other situation, Lexi would be mortified about speaking to someone like this. The inherent cringe that comes with being an overthinker would spread through her like a virus, effectively silencing her blabbering. But here, her little Letterboxd acquaintance approves of it—welcomes it, even.
She manages to get about two hours of sleep in before Artemis wakes her up by kneading biscuits on her stomach, but those two short, blissful hours are heavenly.
Lexi enters into a 21st century paradox—she, a woman in her mid 20s, has ceased using social media in the aftermath of a break up, and is simultaneously the most glued to her phone she’s ever been in her adult life.
She makes the decision to remove Instagram from her apps and puts all of her text conversations except for work contacts on silent. Whatever backlog of notifications or cobwebs she’ll have to deal with later are worth it to make room for some quiet in her head. She wants to rid that sense of urgency instilled within her that the importance of making herself readily available for anyone at the drop of a hat is vital.
At the same time, her obsession with Letterboxd kicks into overdrive, and there isn’t a moment at work, at home, or in her bed that isn’t spent flipping through movie posters and reading paragraphs of reviews.
Perhaps it isn’t the healthiest alternative. An old therapist she used to see would’ve told her that hobbies and new interests were good, but they could also burn bright and fast, fizzling out to nothing and leaving her with the same level of sadness she’d started out with. But Lexi doesn’t have the energy to care. It beats drinking herself sick and calling Tucker ten times in a row, leaving drunken messages on his voicemail.
Maddy had been correct, like she normally was about other people’s love lives. It wasn’t really Tucker she missed, as much as her heart was tricking her into believing that. It was something greater, hungrier. The need to fulfill and to be fulfilled.
But she knows in her soul that this also isn’t all it is, either, because reading fezco_’s reviews and his comments on her own are genuinely the brightest part of her day. She has no clue if it’s possible to cultivate an authentic online friendship this way when she knows virtually nothing about them besides their cinematic taste.
And she is hyper aware it sounds utterly insane, and her brain is doing that thing where it makes a bigger deal out of something than it actually is like it always does, and this strange little dynamic has only been going on for close to two weeks, practically nothing in the timeline of her life.
And above all, it makes Lexi happy. So happy that the grey clouds hanging over her head are starting to part, letting room for faint rays of light to pass through. And she isn’t in the position to be letting slivers of happiness pass her by.
Lexi responds to fezco_’s comment on her review of Heathers in the middle of filing theatre archive paperwork away into metal desk drawers.
fezco_
cool movie and review. might sound dumb for saying i’m not sure what “campy macabre” means but it sounds real smart
lexxihwrd
not dumb at all! it basically means death and murder: but make it silly and ridiculous. i think veronica sawyer would appreciate my wordage :)
She leaves him one of her own on his review of 2001: A Space Odyssey , one hand typing on her phone and the other haphazardly pouring water into Artemis’s drinking bowl.
lexxihwrd
is it crazy to admit i’ve only ever made it halfway through this one? thanks for the reminder to finish it.
fezco_
oh word? maybe it’s kinda crazy since it’s such a classic, but i forgive you. dw i won’t post any spoilers until you’re caught up
And then, theirs on her review of Pride and Prejudice (2005) as she’s bundled in her bedsheets, bathed in the pale light of her phone.
fezco_
haven’t seen this one yet but damn, you make the old english shit and the way they talk all fancy and complicated easy to understand
lexxihwrd
i’m flattered :’) it’s much easier to understand in context when you’re watching it play out instead of talking about it in the most boring way possible in a high school english class though. i swear!
And then, hers on fezco_’s review of American Psycho as she checks her phone with bleary eyes first thing in the morning.
lexxihwrd
i need to come out and say it. this is one of my favorite comedies of all time
fezco_
lol, same here. the business card scene has me rolling every time
It’s shocking how easy it all is. It’s fun and intriguing and somehow the most listened to Lexi has felt all year, including her entire relationship with Tucker.
A hollow well of sadness and disappointment expands in her chest when she comes to this realization. The guy she’s been wallowing over for weeks isn’t doing the same over her, and something as simple as a few kind and vaguely flirtatious comments from a person she doesn’t know are enough to fill that void. She understands she may never be looked at as a prize to be won or a huge loss in an ex-lover’s life.
Stop crying about it, she scolds herself, zoning out at the wet tiles stamped with swirls of her hair in the shower. You should know your role by now. You have flings and meaningless sex, and you pine for people who don’t even see you, and you work on your dumb play until you eventually get it published or the world ends before you get a chance to. Who cares about a minor break up?
But then she remembers what Maddy said about Tucker. She thinks of all the times Cassie was just about ready to fling herself off a cliff because this break up and this heartbreak was going to be the one to make her stop believing in love for good now, only for her to grow on to become Lexi’s favourite version of her older sister to date. She thinks of Rue getting sober and going out to get breakfast for dinner with her, like they used to have at sleepovers a lifetime ago.
And for a brief moment, she’s okay. Things get bad in order to not get so bad again. The opposite happens, sure; a cycle of feeling shitty and eventually laughing at how pathetic you thought your past self looked for feeling shitty. Life goes on, and Lexi is still sad about it, but she can be sad with little pockets of acceptance, of joy, scattered along the way.
The sleep situation must be solved or Lexi is going to ram her head through drywall.
She still isn’t sleeping properly. It’s a miracle nobody at work has caught her nodding off at her desk or commenting about the way her speech is slurring when she has to speak more than a few words at a time.
lexi:
what should i get from your special weed shop to help me sleep?
maddy:
i’ll send u a link to what i get, but ask the guys who work there
my shit might be too strong for you
love u tho 💜💜💜
Sleep is the goal, not a cannabis-induced nightmare, so she heeds her friend’s advice and decides to interrogate whichever poor employee is going to have to help her find weed that won’t cause her to tear her insides out.
The shop is called East Highland Smoke. A simple, unassuming, and unpretentious name that’s only about a 15 minute drive from her place. It’s a small square of a store, wedged between a Mom and Pop shawarma restaurant and a dentist’s office, a hilarious layout for a person having a day that would require this specific sequence of stores.
Besides work and going out to the grocery store or to get the mail in her pajama bottoms, it’s the first time Lexi is leaving the house to do something specifically for herself in weeks. She’s even swiped on some mascara for the momentous occasion.
The tiny bell at the top of the door jingles when she enters. It doesn’t smell like a weed hotbox inside, which was perhaps a naive assumption on her part. But it’s humble and quaint, shelves lined behind the front desk with various packets and jars, and a soft lo-fi rap song that she doesn’t recognize playing in the background.
The first thing she really takes notice of, though, is the guy standing behind the desk, leaning over a laptop with one of his elbows propped up on the surface of the counter. There’s no one else in the store, and he’s got AirPods in his ears and a fixated expression on his face. A shaved head and a trimmed beard, a neatly rolled joint perched behind his ear, a slouchy long sleeve polo—they couldn’t have picked a more suitable looking guy to work at a place like this.
It’s a bit mean and judgy, Lexi thinks. But the dude isn’t an ugly stoner by any means, so shaming the guy’s appearance isn’t a thought that entered her head.
He’s typing on the keyboard and doesn’t look up when she approaches the counter. Being assertive is arguably her least favourite activity, so she lamely decides to take another step closer and pray the guy notices before she’s swallowed alive by awkwardness.
When he finally does, she then has to take a step back when two vivid blue eyes framed by the most obnoxiously long and charming lashes she’s ever seen are looking back at her like spotlights, and Jesus Christ, did they pick the prettiest guy who had a shift today and put him in the window to attract customers on purpose?
“Shit, sorry,” he murmurs, pulling out one of the Airpods. “My bad. How you doin’?”
And the guy’s got a low, rumbly drawl that sounds like he could be narrating one of those ASMR YouTube channels Lexi seldomly indulges in? Yeah. This has to be some kind of marketing ploy.
“Hi,” Lexi greets, cringing internally at the formal wave of her hand she gives him. “Um, I’m good. How’re you?”
He smiles a little at that, like it’s not something he gets asked every day. “Can’t complain. What can I help you with?”
“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure,” she laughs, looking at the floor to give herself a break from his holy-shit-they’re-beautiful-why-are-they-so-beautiful eyes. “I don’t really smoke much. Or at all, really. But I’m in desperate need of a sleep remedy, and my friend recommended this place to me. So…I guess, like, whatever you think can knock me out without making me get scared is what I’m looking for.”
The guy chuckles, not unkindly, and the soft sound makes her stomach do a baby summersault. “Yeah, no problem. That’s what I’m here for.”
She nods, clasping her hands behind her like she’s some childish school girl. “You don’t gotta smoke if that’s not what you’re into,” the guy tells her. “You ever try edibles?”
“No. I’ve always been too nervous. I know that sounds lame, but I hear they can be dangerous when you have too much.”
“Nah, not lame at all,” he says. “You ain’t wrong. Shit can get crazy real fast when you’re ingesting THC and you don’t know how much to have. Still happens to me from time to time, if I’m bein’ honest.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He smirks, and it should certainly not have as much of an affect on her as it does. “Is that surprising?”
“Oh, no,” she corrects, waving a hand to emphasize. “I just—I don’t know anything about weed. I trust your judgment. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.”
The guy laughs again and nudges his laptop away a little, tilting the screen at a diagonal in her direction. “No need to shut up. And you’re right to trust my judgment. I gotchu.”
He asks her a few more questions about what she’s looking for, and she informs him thoroughly: a smooth, deep sleep where she can turn her brain off from paranoia and stress. They both quickly come to the conclusion that while she isn’t opposed to smoking, eating an edible sounds a lot easier than potentially hacking up a lung from coughing before she’s supposed to be relaxing into sleep, so he settles on looking for an option she can consume.
“I can recommend 5 milligrams of a nice indica to get you started,” he says. “Some people like 10 milligrams in one sitting, but it can be a bit much if you just startin’ out. You can always take more later if you don’t feel anything after a while.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” she nods. “Would it be too much if I took one every night?”
“Not at all. I’m literally on a light high like, most of the time I’m awake.” He pauses and glances down at his feet, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. The movement shifts the links of the gold chain around his neck, and Lexi swallows.
“It ain’t as unprofessional as it sounds,” he laughs shyly. “I swear.”
“I believe you,” Lexi grins. “My life would probably be a lot less stressful if I could tolerate doing that every day. I’m jealous.”
“Nah, don’t be. I’m usually good about it, but it can get me into trouble sometimes,” he winks. “I’m sure you more on top of your shit than I am.”
It’s a beautiful lie to believe, but for some reason she can’t pin down, it sounds like a fact coming out of his mouth.
“I can grab a few options for you,” he tells her. “Lemme go to the back for a minute.”
He disappears through the door to the back room, and she has a moment to take notice of how much lighter she’s feeling. Maybe it’s a secondhand high from all of the different THC and CBD products stacked on the walls, or maybe it’s the reminder that there are other people in the world that she can have pleasant interactions with instead of condemning herself to her living room sofa.
Or, maybe it’s the fact that her heart leaps into her throat and almost comes spilling out of her mouth when she catches a glimpse at the guy’s laptop screen.
Because on it is a Letterboxd page. And at the top of the screen, above the drop down menu where the cursor is hovering over, reads the username fezco_.
Lexi blinks once. Twice. Three times to ensure she’s reading it correctly, that not a single letter is out of place or it says something else entirely.
There’s no fucking way.
No fucking way it can be him. Kismet, cosmic shit like this didn’t happen except for the movies that she wrote reviews the size of dissertations about. How could it be him? Not only in her state, but in her hometown? In the vicinity of where she lives?
Her heart races like a Jackrabbit, and enough heat has flooded to her cheeks to warm the entire room. Her insides are pulling apart and coming back together like the string in a game of cat’s cradle, but not in a bad way. It’s more like she’s at the highest peak of a rollercoaster, about to soar through the air and plunge down to earth.
The guy returns behind the counter and places a few small plastic packets on the table, but he freezes when he sees the bewildered look on her face.
"You good?” he asks. “It seems like a lot, I know, but I’ll help you narrow it d-”
“What’s your name?” Lexi blurts.
“Uh, I’m Fez.”
“Fez as in Fezco?”
It’s his turn to blink silently. “Um. Yeah. Did I mention that earlier?”
She’s unable to stop herself from vomiting up her incessant questions. “Are you Fezco on Letterboxd? Like, ‘fezco’ with an underscore?” She makes air quotes with her fingers when she says his name.
Surely, she must be freaking him out by how deranged she looks and sounds, but he nods once, giving her suspicious side eyes. “Who’s asking?”
“Lexi,” she tells him, and voicing her own name to this man aloud feels like she’s revealing a grand secret. “I’m Lexi Howard. On Letterboxd. We’ve been commenting on each other’s stuff.”
He doesn’t say anything, and she almost chokes to death at the idea of this not being the person she thinks, but another quick glance at his computer confirms it, and she points at the screen. “It is you! You’ve got the Sopranos profile picture!”
“Woah, wait,” he breathes. “Hold on. This fuckin’ for real?”
Her phone is being whipped out of her pocket in an instant. Lexi opens the app and clicks on her profile, turning the screen around and holding herself back from shoving it in his face. “This is me. I’m Lexi—not legally spelled with two X’s in real life. But it’s me.”
The guy—Fezco, to which she’s surprised is an actual name—lingers on her screen, slowly recognizing the username, the profile picture in the little circle, the most recent movies she left reviews on. He shakes his head back and forth like he’s waking himself up from a dream.
“No fuckin’ shit.” He barks out a shuddery laugh. “Holy sh—Lexi. Lexi Howard.”
Her own name being repeated back to her has never sounded so amazing.
“Hi,” she half-whispers. “I, um-”
“You’re like, crazy fuckin’ cool,” he interupts. “Like, seriously. You make reviewin’ movies seem like a damn art, girl.”
Her cheeks are blushing so furiously that she can practically see the shade of red radiating off of them in her peripheral vision. “Oh, I, uh—I don’t know. I don’t really think that.”
“C’mon, you know I already think so,” he beams, warm and excited. “Don’t doubt yourself. I can vouch for you.”
“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I, like, can’t believe you’re a real person, but more than that, I’m so glad you’re not a creepy old man who was trying to get my phone number or Instagram through Letterboxd somehow.”
He laughs, which makes her laugh too. “Nah. Sorry if I came off like that-”
“You didn’t,” she affirms, placing a palm on the desk in front of them and shivering when his eyes fall to it. “You’re sweet to leave me all those nice comments about my lousy writing. And you’re fun to talk to.”
She’s thankful she isn’t the only one looking visibly flustered. “Shit, thank you. I mean, I just—really like reading your shit. You’ve got a way with words. Takes me on a real journey like I’m watchin’ the movie all over again. I was like, no way there’s someone this smart and cool on Letterboxd.”
It’s like being hit square in the chest over and over with a fluffy blanket and an explosion of cartoon hearts and stars and blue birds are circling around her head. Had she completely forgotten what it felt like to be appreciated?
“Stop,” she laughs, trying to cover up some of the breathiness in her voice.
“I mean it,” he tells her. His sincerity is so strong that it should be its own strain of THC on the wall behind him. “Really.”
Her fingers curl on the desk around nothing, like she’s searching for something to grab onto in case she floats away in this moment, and the smile on her face is so wide that it hurts. “Thank you, Fezco. I love reading your reviews, too.”
He scoffs. “Ain’t nothin’ compared to your stuff.”
“I mean it,” she mimics him with a sly grin. “Who else is going to share my love for American Psycho as a favourite comedy?”
It’s a miracle that the shop continues to go undisturbed by new customers as they go back and forth expressing how crazy it is for them to have accidentally met in person for what feels like 20 minutes. She tells Fezco that she imagined him more to look like Paulie Walnuts even though she wasn’t sure of his gender, getting a nice, hearty laugh out of him that makes her toes curl in her shoes. He tells her he binge-read all of her reviews the way one binge-watches reality TV shows when he first stumbled across her Stand By Me write-up.
“It’s one of my favourites,” he says. “Seen that film like, 50 times.”
“Have you really?” she squeaks, not caring enough to be embarrassed about the way her voice lifts up. “So have I. I watched it all the time with my sister when we were little.”
“Yeah? I should watch some of your other favourites. You seem like you got good taste.”
She scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “It’s all girly romance and coming of age stuff.”
“So? Nothin’ wrong with that,” he says earnestly. “I like my crime dramas and neo-noirs. Everybody got they passions.”
To be reassured and affirmed is a sensation that spreads through her bloodstream like morphine. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess I should watch some of your favourites, too.”
Fezco grins at her, battling his stupidly gorgeous eyelashes at her and almost causing a gust of wind. “I’d like that.”
They eventually remember what she’s here for, and Fezco helps her choose a couple of squares of chocolate infused with 5 milligrams of a strain of indica ornately named Blue Moon. She picks it over the orange-scented gummies and the minty hard candies because “chocolate is more fun to eat before bed,” a sentiment which he agrees with wholeheartedly.
“There,” he says, printing her receipt and shoving it into a plastic white bag along with her goodies. “Should help with the sleeping, but if it doesn’t, you can always come back and we can troubleshoot.”
Something tells her this definitely won’t be the last time she’s going to be in this room with him. “I will. But if they do knock me out tonight, I’ll leave you the most beautiful, lengthy review on Yelp. And don’t worry, I won’t tell your boss you were browsing Letterboxd on the job.”
“I own the place,” he says.
She’s dumbfounded once again. “Oh. Nevermind, then. Sorry.”
He quickly corrects himself with a warm smile. “But hey, I appreciate you not rattin’ me out anyway. You seem real loyal. I, uh—I like that.”
Lexi has to remove her hands off of the counter and pin them to her sides to conceal how grossly clammy her palms have become. Plastic bag around her wrist and her new edibles to experiment with paid for, she’s caught in a haze of lavender clouds, so different from the grey fog that’s been plaguing her for far too long.
“Thank you for your help, Fezco,” she says. “I feel a lot more relieved now.”
“You can call me Fez, y’know,” he answers. “I mean, Fezco’s fine, too. Whatever you want. Just lettin’ you know you have options.”
Whatever you want sticks to her ribs, thick and viscous like honey. “Fez. Got it. No underscore.”
He chuckles. “Yeah. And Lexi, only one X.”
A looney smile right back at him. “That’s right.”
“Hope to see you soon, Lexi with one X. Come back any time. I’ll catch you on Letterboxd.”
“Yeah,” she breathes. “Bye, Fez.”
It isn’t until she’s pulling out of her parking spot a few blocks away from the shop that she realizes she hasn’t asked for his phone number or any of his socials.
“Fuck me all the way up,” she mutters under her breath. She’s about to wedge herself back into her spot and go sprinting back into the store like an idiot when the receipt poking out of the bag sitting in the passenger’s seat catches her eye. Lexi slides it out, turning it around on its blank side to see ten little numbers scrawled in blue ink, plus a note written below it.
Maybe you could watch Goodfellas and let me know your thoughts?
-Fez
She lets out the most shrill, disgustingly girlish laugh and does not stop smiling the entire drive home.
Shoes are kicked off, her bag of edibles are tossed to the kitchen counter, startling Artemis and turning him into a spiky ball of fuzz, and Lexi is belly flopping onto her bed the minute she walks through her door.
lexi:
i’ve actually seen goodfellas, but scarface and the cowboy bebop movie are mysteries to me
care to tell me why they made your top 4?
this is lexi, by the way :)
A reply graces her screen less than 20 minutes later.
fezco:
anime might not be everyone’s jam, so i get that
but scarface? oh man that’s a killer one, lexi
i’m dying to talk about it with you
And she is, too.