So this guy and I have been talking for about three weeks. The first couple weeks that we started talking, he was a perfect gentleman. He took me out on dates and paid for every single date, Wouldn’t let me touch the car door etc. Very chivalrous guy.
After he showed a pattern of being very chivalrous and romantic, I decided to show him some reciprocity, and I invited him over to my apartment where I provided a meal and refreshments and we watched a show together. I did this just to show him that I liked him and to reward his generosity towards me. I also wanted to show him that I was appreciative of the times where he took me out and never once asked me to pay. Sometimes women use guys for free food and I just wanted to show him that that’s not the reason I was continuing to see him and that I actually enjoyed his company.
After this, we got into the habit of hanging out at my apartment together. He started coming over more and things progressed between us physically. We haven’t had sex, but we definitely fooled around a little bit if you know what I mean.
Anyways, fast-forward to this week. Because he noticed that chipotle was one of my favorite places to eat, when we first started talking he told me that if I was ever craving chipotle that he’s got me and I just have to let him know. So I figured that I would take him up on that because I had a bunch of meal prep in my fridge that I just really wasn’t excited about, so I figured I would just ask.
So I called him, and I asked him if he could cash app me for some chipotle, and he had a super odd reaction and basically told me that it was wild of me to ask him to cash app me for chipotle. I asked him why this was wild. He said that he was open to buying me food if we were on a date or if he was physically present, but that he wasn’t comfortable just sending me money for food. I was genuinely confused on what the difference would be in terms of paying for food for me when he’s physically there vs giving me money for the same food?
I say this because there have been times where we were at the gym together and when we finished working out and we both drove to chipotle and he paid. So I didn’t understand why giving me the money and me picking it up for myself was so drastically different. I also knew that he was busy so I didn’t want him to have to go and physically pick it up. That’s why I just asked him to cash app me.
Anyways, here’s where I feel like I personally messed up and I feel like I could’ve phrased it a lot better so I definitely do acknowledge that but basically when I saw how he reacted, I said something along the lines of “it’s wild of me to request you to cash app me for chipotle but it’s not wild of you to ask me to get on my knees and…….” ( You can use your imagination lol )
But yeah, basically he got super upset and felt like I was throwing that in his face and we’re currently not talking anymore because I said that. I do feel like I could’ve phrased it a lot better. I guess what I was trying to say in a roundabout way was that if we have been being intimate (to a certain extent) and I’ve been giving you access to my body (to a certain extent) why is it wild or weird for me to ask you to cash app me for food? Why would you make me feel weird about that? I definitely do take accountability for the way that I went about communicating that though I didn’t necessarily have to use that specific instance of intimacy between us to make that point.

Heyy good day, hope you’re having a great one!
I’m a 24yo M Brazilian, living in Brisbane. I want to meet new people, chat and send memes. I love anime, games and to go fishing!!
I listen to MCR and Disturbed most of the time, but I’m keen to try new genres hahah
Feel free to DM me, I love to talk and spend quality time together lol 😊
If you are not from AU that’s okay, just send me a message and we can hang out online!! XD

I’ve been in about 5 serious romantic relationships since early high school and I’ve initiated the breakup in all of them. Is it weird to not really feel bad about each one?
The last two really stand out to me. The first one lasted a year, we fell in love and out of nowhere intimacy died 3 months in. I need to feel physical intimacy to really feel loved so after trying for 9 months I dumped him. He was crushed, but i didn’t really cry or feel much regret for the situation. Of course I felt bad for him and wasn’t ruthless or mean when I broke up with him, I just didn’t really feel loved myself and didn’t want to feel like a roommate. I was mostly just relieved I could put mental energy into myself.
2 months ago I met this amazing man. He’s my type, romantic, good career, we can talk about everything and anything, i’ve never been able to talk to someone so genuine in my life. I don’t really believe in soulmates, but he’s pretty close to one. Today he told me he’s not really willing to be long distance, and i broke things off with him because i need to stay and take care of my family. He was destroyed, but I can’t help but feel indifference towards the whole situation. My friends told me this is sorta weird behavior, is this wrong?
I feel bad when I hurt people, but I don’t feel hurt myself when this happens. I’m not depressed, I don’t have this indifference towards anything else really, only when we break up. I just think there’s plenty of fish in the sea and if this one didn’t work out, it is what it is. I have a very active life, good job, and hobbies I pursue every day, but i’m not too busy so they get in the way of relationships. i have a lot of free time. Is this a symptom of something? should i stop this? i dont really know how
tl;dr i don’t really feel sad after breakups i just think there’s more people out there and i move on practically the moment it happens is that weird?

Forgot to put in title, its a PC game but i played on laptop
My Brother and I used to play a game where you spawn underwater in a tiny base. the goal is to expand your base and build weapons. you have to farm potatoes for food and use metal mines for resources.
from memory theres not too many creatures, just a couple sharks, jellyfish and regular fish too. ive been trying to find this game for ages and cant find it.
its a 3d, adventure, horror, survival game and im pretty sure it started with an F or something maybe free or fall. only 1 word name. that game was my childhood tyia

I’ve been in about 5 serious romantic relationships since early high school and I’ve initiated the breakup in all of them. Is it weird to not really feel bad about each one?
The last two really stand out to me. The first one lasted a year, we fell in love and out of nowhere intimacy died 3 months in. I need to feel physical intimacy to really feel loved so after trying for 9 months I dumped him. He was crushed, but i didn’t really cry or feel much regret for the situation. Of course I felt bad for him and wasn’t ruthless or mean when I broke up with him, I just didn’t really feel loved myself and didn’t want to feel like a roommate. I was mostly just relieved I could put mental energy into myself.
2 months ago I met this amazing man. He’s my type, romantic, good career, we can talk about everything and anything, i’ve never been able to talk to someone so genuine in my life. I don’t really believe in soulmates, but he’s pretty close to one. Today he told me he’s not really willing to be long distance, and i broke things off with him because i need to stay and take care of my family. He was destroyed, but I can’t help but feel indifference towards the whole situation. My friends told me this is sorta weird behavior, is this wrong?
I feel bad when I hurt people, but I don’t feel hurt myself when this happens. I’m not depressed, I don’t have this indifference towards anything else really, only when we break up. I just think there’s plenty of fish in the sea and if this one didn’t work out, it is what it is. I have a very active life, good job, and hobbies I pursue every day, but i’m not too busy so they get in the way of relationships. i have a lot of free time. Is this a symptom of something? should i stop this? i dont really know how

I've reduced my budget around $800. I added em all up, around $821.93 no graphic cards yet because the 6700 xt ran out of stock lol. thoughts on the build?

I’ve (24F) been in about 5 serious romantic relationships since early high school and I’ve initiated the breakup in all of them. Is it weird to not really feel bad about each one?
The last two really stand out to me. The first one lasted a year, we fell in love and out of nowhere intimacy died 3 months in. I need to feel physical intimacy to really feel loved so after trying for 9 months I dumped him. He was crushed, but i didn’t really cry or feel much regret for the situation. Of course I felt bad for him and wasn’t ruthless or mean when I broke up with him, I just didn’t really feel loved myself and didn’t want to feel like a roommate. I was mostly just relieved I could put mental energy into myself.
2 months ago I met this amazing man. He’s my type, romantic, good career, we can talk about everything and anything, i’ve never been able to talk to someone so genuine in my life. I don’t really believe in soulmates, but he’s pretty close to one. Today he told me he’s not really willing to be long distance, and i broke things off with him because i need to stay and take care of my family. He was destroyed, but I can’t help but feel indifference towards the whole situation. My friends told me this is sorta weird behavior, is this wrong?
I feel bad when I hurt people, but I don’t feel hurt myself when this happens. I’m not depressed, I don’t have this indifference towards anything else really, only when we break up. I just think there’s plenty of fish in the sea and if this one didn’t work out, it is what it is. I have a very active life, good job, and hobbies I pursue every day, but i’m not too busy so they get in the way of relationships. i have a lot of free time. Is this a symptom of something? should i stop this? i dont really know how

Hi everyone, so basically I made an app and wanted to share it and get some thoughts, feedback, etc. (Jump to Summary if you don’t want to hear the whole story lol)
Have you ever played FishBowl?
Well, the most boring and time consuming part is writing the words or prompts on a lot of pieces of paper even if you get the help of all participants, then some get repeated, then you have to fold them, you waste paper, etc. Get my point?
I know this because I love to play the game with my family and friends and this is the thing that stopped us from playing it more often .
I looked for apps out there but you have to buy every theme pack, and once you buy it words are very limited and get repeated 😓
So I made this app for personal use and then thought on uploading it to the AppStore
If you want to try it is download free with a 2 week trial for all themes (I had to cause it uses AI and have to pay it somehow if it gets downloads, sorry >.<)
In Summary the app:

• iOS App for FishBowl game
  
• Uses AI so you can personalize some specific years for movies, shows, etc. and also according to your country.
  
• Keeps scores of each team
  
• Always new words thanks to AI so games feel fresher and as unrepeated words as possible (AI is still improving)
  
• Instructions included for those who haven’t play it
  
• You won’t pay for each theme pack or something like that, like so many other apps, but it does require subscription to cover AI costs
  

Anyway, as I said, it was at first for personal use but thought “Why not?”. Still if it starts working and getting downloads any request here or in the AppStore comments about themes or functionalities I’ll try to add them on future updates.
Hope it’s useful for someone, and any feedback is welcomed :)
Link [here](https://apps.apple.com/app/the-fishbowl-game/id6484067588)

First / Previous
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Suzanne thought it was absolutely brilliant of me to put books on a flash drive for Sun. She explained that Sun wasn’t as sophant (her word, not mine) as she might seem, more of a repository of information, but she was fairly intelligent. It was how she was able to connect Andrew being in pain to the fact that I was friends with Andrew, and that I would want to know that he was in trouble. Apparently some of Sun’s species had given some ‘wisdom’ to others in the past and it had made its way into mythology.
The key fact was that she was not smart enough to protect herself and her kind from the clever, organized poachers. With that information in mind, it was fascinating for me to think of how Sun took in and organized what she learned. It was almost as if she was a walking, talking library.
On the topic of tours, my first one went wonderfully, and I’m almost hoping Suzanne lets me do more of them. I know not all the tourists are going to be as awesome as these people were, but Suzanne gave me a lot of slack when it comes to dealing with them. She actually said that being a smartass is not grounds for dismissal, and that if I’m sarcastic or facetious to guests who are being ‘daft’ and they complain, she really doesn’t care. Is this the perfect job for me or what?
There were four guests in this party, two adults who were sisters and two children of one of the women, brothers aged thirteen and seventeen. The tour was a birthday gift for the older of the boys from his aunt, since apparently he was passionate about animal protection and conservation.
When they arrived at the front gate, I was sitting at Andrew’s desk, going over the booklet of information one last time. When the visitors pressed the button that sounded the alert buzzer, I tucked away in a drawer and let them in. I did have a cheat sheet with information about the animals on my phone just in case, a brief notation of each of them and which enclosure they were in, but I really didn’t need to use it.
Exiting through the front door, I saw them walk up the path toward me. “Hi, I’m Ripley,” I said, holding out a hand toward the woman closest to me.
She shook it firmly. “I’m Denise. This is my sister Carla and my nephews, Wesley and Jason,” she said, motioning to each of them in turn.
“I heard it’s your birthday,” I said to Wesley, giving him a smile. “You’re interested in animal conversation?”
“Back where we live, yeah,” he said, nodding. “The animals that you’ve got here are incredible. I can’t wait to see them.”
“Well, I can’t wait to show them to you,” I said. “Right this way.”
I led them on the path around the building, toward enclosure one. Despite the horrific memories of the animal killing Stanley’s friends, I knew it was just an animal, and I had to push past my feelings on what had happened. Keeping a small smile on my face, I motioned to the enclosure. “Fiercely territorial and amazing hunters, despite their large size, they’re arboreal and known to dart from tree to tree with barely a sound. This is one of only about two thousand left in existence.”
“Two thousand, three hundred and fifty six at last count,” spoke Wesley, his eyes on the trees.
I blinked, surprised and impressed. “Well that was fantastic. Do you plan on stealing my job when you graduate?”
Wesley looked at me with a grin. “Nah, everyone knows Suzanne only offers humans this gig. And I want to help animals like this one get off the endangered species list. The zoos are great for awareness and fundraising, but then the money has to go somewhere. I want to be doing the real work.”
“That’s really great,” I told him. “I wish you all the best in that career path.” At that, we saw the animal climb down from the tree, wandering a few yards from the tree line. This was because 90% of the time, when humans were at their enclosure and making noise, whether it was speaking to each other or calling out to the animal, it was someone bringing them prey to eat. Or, in my case, enrichment toys to play with.
“Whoa,” Wesley whispered.
“How close can we get?” spoke up Jason.
“The warding starts at the fence,” I told him with a small gesture. “So, just there.”
Both boys wandered closer and I glanced at their parents. It seemed that Suzanne’s zoo had a serious reputation for high quality invisible walls, because they didn’t look worried in the slightest about the boys being hurt or killed.
“They prefer dense forest as their home and have been known to make their nests in trees up to twenty meter in the air,” I continued. “And when hunting, they’ve been seen dropping eight meters straight down. They have incredibly dense yet flexible musculature, which allows them to tackle their prey without injuring themselves.”
There was more information about the animal that I continued to rattle off, though Wesley chimed in at certain points with the info I was about to convey. That was highly entertaining and very cool. When I’d been in school, I’d never met anyone who had my level of passion about endangered animals. I wondered if things were better where these folks came from, but realized that considering there were so few of these animals left, I guessed not.
The animal paced a little bit, seemingly waiting to see if we were the kind of humans that came bearing food, before deciding we weren’t and climbing back up into the trees as easily as I would climb some stairs.
As we moved onto enclosure two, Jason spoke up. “Are there any animals here we can touch or feed or something?”
I sighed inwardly before slowing to a stop. “Well, can you show me your hands?” Jason looked bemused, holding out his hands. “I mean…they both look like they’re in great shape. You can stand to lose one.”
The two women chuckled and Wesley smirked as Jason shoved his hands into his pockets. “Very funny.”
Grinning, I started walking again. “The animals here are all carnivores and all predators. You get to see them, but that’s it.”
“Alright.”
When we reached enclosure two, I started on my next spiel. “We’ve got three reanimated dead in this enclosure,” I spoke. They were just coming out from the trees as we arrived, presumably having heard our approach. “Marissa, Connor, and Bradley. They were donated by families who knew where they would be exhibited. Their next of kin, whoever they are, can’t stand the idea of putting them down. But we need to make sure they don’t have access to corpses, because one of them plus one corpse equals two of them.”
“They eat flesh though, don’t they?” Wesley asked.
I nodded. “Oh, yeah, but it’s from bodies that have already been dismembered. There’s no chance of them being affected by the transformation because it’s all parts.”
“Oh, got it.”
The creatures with blueish-white skin had superhuman strength, which is why they qualified for the security of Suzanne’s zoo. They also were likely the source of any Earth tales of people being brought back to life as zombies, specifically draugr, according to my research. They smelled like rotting flesh, so even as I kept talking about them and giving a background to the people they used to be, we were quick to move on once Wesley had gotten a good, long look at them.
“Enclosure four’s animal is a vampiric spirit. He’s a small, hairy humanoid creature with pointed ears. He wears a hat, and if he somehow loses it, he freaks out,” I said.
“They eat horses,” Wesley noted. “Also anything that gives them the chance to sit on it, usually catching them by surprise while they’re sleeping.”
The creature came out from the brush, giving us a suspicious look. He wasn’t in his humanoid form though; for some reason, he’d chosen to shapeshift to a dog.
I nodded. “Yep, indeed. Once the prey is dead, then he’ll eat it, and he has a voracious appetite. We have two wolves and two bears in the forest, which is one of the reasons I’ve got some self-defense items,” I said, patting my belt where my pepper spray (rated for bear) and my taser. “But the wards keep them out of this area of the zoo, so it’s really not much of a worry. It’s also a known shapeshifter, preferring the form of a dog, as you can see, as well as a cat, a snake, or even white butterflies, though the last one is rare.”
“The white butterflies are supposed to be a sign of good luck,” Wesley said, glancing to me. “Too bad we got the dog.”
“Yeah, otherwise you might be able to talk your mom into getting scratch-offs on your way home, huh?”
Wesley smirked at me.
The next enclosure was Spike, and he was waiting for us, dripping wet from having just emerged from the lake. I gave the introductory information about him, which included his propensity for eating animal eyes, nails, and teeth. “Recently, I’ve given him some enrichment activities, and I learned he likes artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts,” I said, taking a bag out from my cargo shorts. “Wesley, do you want to toss this bag into the enclosure?”
The boy’s eyes widened and he nodded excitedly. He took a look into the paper bag before wrapping down the top to make sure nothing would fly out. Then he chucked it underhand past the fence. It landed a few yards from Spike, who waddled over to it quickly and tearing the bag open, spilling out the prizes inside. As the animal ate the pecans and hazelnuts, Wesley asked, “How’d you figure out he likes those?”
“It’s not all about taste,” I told him. “It’s mainly the difficulty of getting them out of the shells. He’s used to having to work for the parts of his prey he likes the most, so this mimics that activity, and he enjoys the process. I tried a bunch of different foods to find a few he liked.”
“Cool,” Wesley murmured, staring at him.
We watched Spike eat until he’d finished and then he went back into the woods, leaving us to move onto enclosure five. Japanese camellia were plentiful here, a type of pink flower, and that was because they grew anywhere near one of his species made their den. “This girl spends most of her time in the lake also,” I said, as the creature made its way toward the fence separating us from it. “But as you can see, she’s just as curious as the rest about what we’re doing here and whether we have food for her. She eats fish mostly, but she also regularly gets live prey.”
This creature was a spider-like monster, having six legs with long claws on each, and the head of an ox with two sharp horns. She was capable of shapeshifting to look like a human, but I guessed that she wasn’t fond of it, since I hadn’t yet seen her in that form.
“She prefers the easy way of catching prey, so to speak, by hiding in the lake and pouncing when something comes for a drink of water,” I explained. “Apparently humans are some of her favorite prey. She has an advantage of being able to spit poison, which often hits her prey in the eyes. But it’s usually used in defense rather than offense, since it secretes a limited amount.”
“What kind of animal would even go after something like this?” Jason asked, staring at her.
“Never discount one of its own species when you’re thinking about what might attack an animal,” I replied. “There are places that are breeding all of the animals here, but competition for mates is common. That means an advantage in a fight, like poison or venom, can make or break who the winner is.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“It can’t spit past the warding, right?” Carla suddenly asked.
“Oh, no,” I assured her. “We’re fine. The wards wouldn’t let anything cross over.” She nodded, appeased.
The animal in enclosure six was the ginormous seal-hippo, Fiona, and she was looking at us as if she was imagining sprinkling us with herbs and spices and stuffing us in an oven. “This girl is one animal I’m going to work on enrichment activities for next,” I told them. “She prefers to feed on crayfish, though she’s happy to eat any humans that wander into her territory. She’ll even make a sound like a baby crying to reel us in. I’ve heard it a bunch of times.”
“Can you get her to make the sound?” Jason asked, perking up.
I grinned. “Not on command, sorry.”
“What enrichment are you thinking of trying?” Wesley asked.
“Possibly food placed in puzzle feeders,” I told him, “since she has claws that are pretty dexterous. Maybe a piñata made out of newspaper with flour inside, or a scarecrow that mimics a human.”
“Awesome,” he muttered.
After a little more educational tidbits, we moved onto Yui’s enclosure. “What is that?” Wesley asked, smiling.
“I got Yui the closest thing I could to a ping-pong ball,” I replied. “She quite likes it.”
“That’s so funny,” he said as she came out of the trees in her spider form. “I mean, the idea of her being a bloodthirsty hunter who seduces men to their deaths and eats them alive, but then on the other hand, she likes playing with something like this.”
“It is a little funny,” I agreed. “But when it comes down to it, all the animals here enjoy activities besides hunting.”
“She can shapeshift to look human, right?” asked Jason, trying to be casual about knowing something factual like his nerdy brother.
I nodded. “She looks like a woman from a region of Earth called Japan. And she’ll use strategies like holding out a hand to shake to get you closer. She tried that on me when I first got here but, as you can see,” I said, holding up my hands and waving them, “I didn’t fall for it.”
The boys both laughed as they got closer to the fence, watching her slowly pace near the trees.
Next was Sun, but she didn’t make an appearance as I spoke about her species. “Well…unfortunately we can’t guarantee that every animal comes out to say hi,” I sighed. “But…oh wait, here she is.”
The green lion with several horns and many eyes along her flank came out from the forest. “Hello,” she spoke.
“Hi, Sun,” I replied. “We have visitors.”
“What’s that?” Wesley asked suddenly, pointing at the small plastic bag that was still where I’d left it.
“Oh! That is Sun’s enrichment,” I said with a smile. “I put dozens of books on a flash drive and found that she can read them just like she’d read a shelf of books.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve read about anyone trying that before. That’s really cool.”
“The books are new and interesting,” Sun spoke, drawing our attention. “I’m grateful for them.”
I nodded to her. “You’re quite welcome.”
The next animal, unfortunately, wasn’t there, and we waited around for ten minutes as we discussed him. He was large and reptile-like with red eyes, with its hind legs and tail making him look vaguely like a kangaroo. Then, enclosure ten was a terrifyingly disturbing creature, the not-a-centaur with no skin, that I’d only seen a few times while walking my route. It gave a good demonstration of its ferocity, showing its sharp teeth and snapping at us a few times.
“I’m thinking of trying salt licks and other horse enrichment like a big bouncy ball,” I told Wesley, whose eyebrows went up at that. “Maybe give him more things to forage like scattered grains or a box filled with pinecones and seeds. Foraging is a huge part of a horse’s life in the wild, and humans have to do a lot of activities like that to keep pet horses busy. Of course, he also loves the little salt-water lake that was built for him.”
We spent some time looking at the animal before moving past our last stop, the empty enclosure of the animal was stolen. Carla glanced at me with a sad smile, knowing what had happened, it seemed. I gave her a nod as we continued on our way, walking into the office. “So, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves!” I said with a smile.
“That was the coolest birthday present I’ve ever gotten,” Wesley said, looking to Denise. “Thanks so much, seriously.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said with a nod. “I’d never been here before, and knew I’d find it fascinating. Thank you for the educational aspect,” Denise said, glancing at me. “I learned quite a lot.”
“Happy to hear it,” I said, returning the nod.
As I escorted the guests out of the zoo and locked the door behind them, I reflected on how much I’d changed. The first time I’d seen Yui’s tarantula form, I’d nearly passed out from fear. Now here I was, walking tourists around like it was no big deal. Humans really can adapt to anything, it seems.
That afternoon, Suzanne had texted me that she was coming by after my shift, and I met her in Andrew’s office, shutting the door to the security room behind me. “How’s Andrew?” I asked first thing.
“He’s doing well,” she said with a wide smile. “Back on non-hospital food. He’s allowed to order food on his phone, and to hear it from him, that’s the best news he’d received in a long time.”
I chuckled. “I guess some clichés are true for a reason.”
“Indeed.” She took a breath. “All right. Ripley…I would like to discuss something with you.”
My face went slack at the serious tone in her voice. “I’m not… Am I being fired?”
“What? No!” she exclaimed. Then she chuckled softly. “No, it’s nothing like that. Just, here, let’s have a seat.” Suzanne walked over to the couch and sat at one end, and I took the other. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve kept from you, that I wanted to keep from you until you found your sea legs here.”
“Well…I have,” I said with a nod. “So, what is it?”
Suzanne took a breath. “I knew your mother.”
The words hung in the air for a moment before making their way to my ears. It was a perfectly logical sentence, and yet it didn’t make any sense. “What?” I finally managed.
“When you graduated college, I decided to move the zoo from Italy to within driving distance of your home,” she said softly. “Near enough to your town that you’d see the advert. We ignored any other applicants and I hoped you’d apply. Actually, I expected you’d apply. Not just for the money, but considering the field you wanted to go into. As soon as I’d found out your major, I knew.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, holding up a hand. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “How do you know Patricia?”
“She owned the zoo before I did,” Susan explained. “Fourteen years ago…she was working to track an injured animal that we could bring into the zoo and she was killed by poachers.”
My heart calcified in my chest and a lump lodged in my throat. As my breaths became shaky, I stared at her in shock. “She…she’s really dead?”
“You suspected?” she asked softly.
“It…” I swallowed hard. “We had her declared legally dead after…I don’t know, seven years I think. My dad wanted to go after her for child support, but the police said…they said they couldn’t find…” Tears came to my eyes and I blinked them back before I met Suzanne’s gaze. “She owned the zoo?”
Suzanne nodded. “It was her baby, you’d say. When Patricia passed, I inherited it, which we’d discussed beforehand, a legal just-in-case that I never expected her to need. I’m under the impression that you were told she went to Africa for her photography career, but she was in fact going to remote areas back in my home world almost every time.”
“But I-I saw the photos,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “You’re telling me she put on a show of getting pictures that someone else took for us to see every time she visited? Did my dad even know?”
“I suppose that’s an accurate way to put it, putting on a show. And no, your father was never told. It’s not the way of things to tell humans unless it’s necessary. I won’t bore you with the details, but us and humans, we’re distant relatives, so we can still have children. But it wasn’t planned. Your mother fell in love with your father despite herself; she hadn’t meant to find love. Then she became pregnant with you and…well, the rest is history.”
“I think she had a different definition of love than the one I have,” I said tightly. “You’d think she’d have put her survival as more of a priority. Put being with the man she ‘loved’ as a priority. Her kids needed her. I needed her. She signed up when she became a mom. She could’ve screwed up all the time but she couldn’t even manage that one job: be there. When I was in the hospital, I kept thinking, ‘Where is she?’ and now you’re telling me that she put these animals above being there for her kids, and this whole time she’s been dead.”
“The hospital?” she asked, furrowing her brows.
“Never mind,” I said tersely, averting my gaze.
Suzanne hesitated before she nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for your loss, and not just for her death, Ripley,” she told me. “Patricia was…well, a ‘free spirit’ would be putting it gently. She always assumed the world would be there for her whenever she needed it.”
Staring at her for a long moment, I shook my head. “Why? Why come here and hire me?”
“I thought that would be obvious,” she said, smiling. “Your mother was so passionate about this place and once I found out your college major, I figured you would be as well.”
“Did you know that I hate her?” At that, Suzanne’s expression froze on the edge of shock. “She…she left us,” I whispered. “Didn’t tell us who she was or what she really did for a living and gave us no closure. And even when she was here, it was just visiting. Her real home was her work. She could give me all the presents she wanted, but even when she was here, half the time she was still on her computer doing work. It’s not like that stereotype of never making it to my tennis practice or something; it’s that it always felt like she was only partially here, even when I was sitting next to her. I don’t even know if I appreciate her turning me into a wildlife fanatic because it…it…makes me feel like I’m close to her in a way that’s just infuriating. She loved the animals more than she loved us.”
“Oh, Ripley-”
“Don’t,” I said, shoving myself to my feet. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she said quietly. I pursed my lips. “I was going to say that I’m sorry that was the case. Your mother was…flawed, just like any other person. She had two loves in this world: her family and her work. And often, her work overcame her, her zeal for environmentalism getting in the way of being a good mum. She left your father trying to fill the role of two parents, holding your family together. You and your brother and your father, you all deserved better than that.”
My lower lip quivered but I bit down on it hard. It would’ve been a lot easier for me if she’d been speaking from a place of clueless reassurance about all this. But everything she said was making sense and that meant I didn’t have someone in front of me to be angry with.
“Why didn’t you tell me when Andrew hired me?” I sighed, sitting back down on the couch.
“Well, like I said, I wanted you to find your sea legs,” she said with a small smile. “I didn’t want the truth affecting whether or not you wanted to work here, whether you wanted to stay here after finding out about what the animals are. It would’ve complicated things, the emotions you’ll have to work through now that you know the truth. Whether or not you decide to give another tour, you also know what they’re like. That’s the benchmark I wanted you to reach before you found out about who you are.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who I-” My face went slack. “Wait.”
Suzanne nodded slowly. “You’re only half human. Your brother too.”
The room seemed to tilt on an axis for a moment. “That means I’m also half…what?”
“We call ourselves Eldritch, these days,” she replied.
My eyes bugged out. “What?” I exclaimed. “So you’re all, like, gods or something?”
Suzanne burst out laughing. “Oh no, goodness, no,” she chuckled. “It’s just a word. We live in a very different world from this one, and a few generations ago we discovered the word and it made its way into our lexicon. But it does mean you can see all the animals. Indeed you did, on the tour you gave.”
“Wait, no, I had the glasses that…” I stopped. “Did those glasses do anything?”
She gave a sly smile and shook her head. “Not a thing. You made incredibly quick progress, and then when it came time for the tour, all you needed was to expect to see the animals, and you did.”
Genetics. That’s what Andrew had said during our interview, that part of how many animals you could see was determined by genetics. I guess having a mother who was originally from the other dimension gave me all the genes I needed to see everything here. “Could I…visit your world?” I asked tentatively. “You said that my mom took photos of the animals there. Could I…” My voice trailed off, not even sure if or how I wanted to finish that sentence.
“Those who are half human, especially those who are raised on Earth, don’t come visit,” she said gently. “I could show you some photos of other animals, and I could loan you as many books as you’d like, but it’s simply not a place where you’d be safe.”
“Oh,” I said, leaning into the couch cushion as I pictured the animals in the zoo. “Yeah, actually that…makes sense.” I paused. “So, what now?”
“It’s up to you,” she said. “I wanted to wait until I was sure you were comfortable with your position here, and then put the ball in your court. And so it is. What do you want to do now?”
What did I want to do? It wasn’t that difficult a question, just a deep, serious one.
I wanted to thrive, as the animals did. This is my enrichment now, working at an incredible, wonderful, terrifying zoo. The experience so far hasn’t been perfect, and I know there are risks, but life isn’t about staying safe. It’s about learning new things and making a difference in the world. And, if you’re lucky, having a job that’s something really special.
​
THE END
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