Consequences Chapter 20 is now out! This is the last chapter of the story, and definitively closes the book on Adam and Nicole’s journey. I doubt I’ll ever directly address them again, except as references or side characters in another’s story. This blog goes into spoilers largely about the format of the chapter more than anything else, but, to some people, spoilers are spoilers.

Everyone could have seen the ending coming, and I grappled with what I was going to portray. As heartless as this story’s creation can seem, one thing I did not want to do was live out the exact moment Nicole’s fate was definitively sealed. That seemed too callous and uncalled for. I wanted enough time to pass that normalcy was pretended in the surrounding atmosphere, but not enough time for healing to have truly begun. I think looking into how Adam was holding on a few weeks afterwards would have had more possibilities than the chaos of “the next day” anyways.

I don’t think I’m that good with endings. Some of my shorter stories have really bad endings if I’m looking at them critically. The only endings I’m really satisfied with are Breathe (another horribly disturbing story), And Ophelia Blinked (a very experimental and critically poorly received story), and The Good The Bad and the Molly (which had a nice ending but arguably an ending Aaron did not morally deserve). Every other ending I’m pretty shaky with. This ending is no exception.

The trouble is, Adam is not in a good state for very understandable reasons, and he’s the protagonist. While I’ve gone through significant grief before, I’m lucky enough to say it’s been some years since I felt it to that palpable an extent, so I worry that some of my words ring hollow. I also worry that the chapter is largely just brooding, but I don’t regret writing it that way. This is Adam’s life so soon after losing Nicole. This is what he’s reduced to. It may not be a swashbuckling adventure, but it is more ‘real.’ I frequently struggle balancing “interesting” and “realistic,” and in this chapter I clearly chose a side.

One thing was a deliberate decision, and if you noticed and thought it was intentional, hats off to you for being clever: no cuts. No time skips. You have to live through the whole grueling day with no breaks just as Adam does. The reader can skip ahead past the grieving points and “get to the good stuff” (another criticism of Molly’s story I have for myself), but Adam can’t. He has to just live and cope, day by day, and for one day, I wanted you to experience the agony and the ecstasy (much more the former than the latter) of Adam’s daily life. No doubt he’ll get better, but these were, at the end of the story, the consequences. Not of his own actions, but consequences nonetheless.

A reader very thoughtfully worried out loud in comment form that they were worried that the title would convey to an audience that what happens is a result of Adam’s actions, and I can understand that. It’s definitely not my intent, and it’s more of a comment on how actions lead to outcomes in general with no regard for our desires. Hence a large theme of the story being Adam falsely being under the impression he can change things when he can’t. If I had been more literalistic instead of flowery and dramatic, maybe I would have called the story “Outcomes,” but it sounds too clinical and nerdy. I mean, for heaven’s sake, the prequel is literally called “Being More Social.” Sometimes I’m as subtle as a brick.

I don’t really want to address the elephant in the room in this blog and discuss the actual content of the chapter or addressing Nicole’s character in any way. Frankly, I’m too emotionally drained at the moment to directly address it, but I will make an effort soon. I hope you enjoyed the story. If you did and you want to discuss it with like-minded people on Discord, click the button below to be taken to the server. I’m trying to be more active on there now and a good few people are posting every few days. I’m truly blessed to have such a wonderful community as this one. I’ll talk to you all next week.

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