Fruit Fly

From Leo’s perspective, he authors and posts a very short poem online under his alias, @Alias22. The work, titled “TWATS: A POEM” (330), consists of two lines which state that “twats” are everywhere.

On the night of the book launch for Slay, a deeply anxious Mallory hides in a dark storeroom at the Waterstones flagship store. Overwhelmed, she experiences a series of terrifying hallucinations. She imagines that the room is filled with dragons and the slain bodies of men, women, and children. The space becomes a manifestation of literary genres, with personifications of fantasy, self-help, and various reader demographics appearing before her. She realizes that the single thread connecting all these visions is pain.

Her publicist, Meghan, finds her and pulls her out of the room. Mallory meets Alice Fairfax, whom Meghan identifies as the head of Waterstones, who informs her that the storeroom holds bestseller overstock and that Slay has nearly sold out its initial run. Mallory learns that the event is sold out with 200 guests and that she will be interviewed by the acclaimed author P. K. Anderson.

Leo rides a bus to Piccadilly Circus, feeling anxious and twitchy but sober. He clutches his six-month sobriety chip from Narcotics Anonymous, which he keeps in his sock for safekeeping. He reflects on the advice from his sponsor, Debbie, who told him that no one was coming to save him and that he had to build a life for himself. He’s late to Mallory’s event on purpose, wanting only to hear what she has to say and learn how her book ends without being seen. It has been over a year since they last spoke, following a letter she sent him.

Backstage at the Waterstones event, Mallory sees the packed audience, which includes her agent and her mother. Meghan takes a photo of her for Instagram, instructing her to look scared to maintain her “on brand” image of an unassuming author. Just before Mallory goes on stage, Meghan shares that she herself had a difficult time with an emotionally abusive ex and tells Mallory that she’s brave for leaving her own relationship, saying that Mallory’s writing in Slay resonated with her experience. The moment of connection is brief, as Meghan then pushes a stunned Mallory onto the stage to a wave of applause.

Outside the venue, Leo is confronted by a bouncer who tells him that the event is ticketed. Leo shows his ticket and, when challenged, states that the book is about him. Unimpressed, the bouncer directs him to the event.

During the question-and-answer session, Mallory gives rehearsed answers about her inspiration, citing her childhood pain. She’s unnerved when she spots a blonde man in the back of the room who she realizes is Leo, who has dyed his hair and gained weight. Panicked by his presence, she struggles to answer when Anderson asks who the character Liam is based on. P.K. asks if Liam is based on her brother, and Mallory constructs a cover story, claiming that her brother struggled with being gay and with drug addiction and that she wrote the book for him. During the discussion, Mallory accidentally refers to the novel’s characters by their real names, “Leo” and “Mal,” instead of “Liam” and “Mandy.” To cover her mistake, she quickly offers to read an excerpt. When she finishes reading and looks up, Leo is gone.

Outside, Leo is approached by Julian, an editor at the same publishing house that produced Slay. Pretending to have read the book, Leo learns from Julian that the story ends with Liam’s death. Leo is devastated to realize that Mallory killed off his character, effectively erasing him from her life. Stan joins them and mentions that the book secured a $500,000 deal in the United States. Leo introduces himself as Luke, a poet. He recalls how Stan had previously rejected his poetry, which he submitted under a pseudonym, for not being “authentic” enough. From their conversation, Leo understands that the industry is looking for dark, “authentic” stories from underrepresented writers. Stan patronizingly tells him that one day he, too, could be on stage like Mallory.

At a pub after the event, Mallory celebrates with her publishing team but is distracted, asking if anyone saw Leo. No one did, and she begins to doubt if he was really there. Later, in her hotel room, she opens her phone’s notes app and rereads the letter she had composed there a year prior, in which she cut ties with him. The words now make her feel sick, and she deletes the note from the app. During the two-week publicity tour that follows, and even after returning to her new coastal home, she’s haunted by what she believes are ghostly visions of Leo.

Three weeks later, a sober and angry Leo is staying in a hostel on the coast near Mallory’s new home. He has funded the trip by begging outside a luxury store in Crouch End and has been writing at a public library using free computers. Using the pseudonym Luke, he submitted the first three chapters of a book titled The Poet Acts to Stan. In an email, Stan praises the manuscript, a psychological horror story about a man who becomes obsessed with and terrorizes the therapist who abandoned him. Stan encourages “Luke” to make the protagonist a real threat and suggests that the story should end with the therapist’s death, stressing that the market has an appetite for dark stories that feel real. Leo then stands outside Mallory’s coastal home, watching her through the window as she sits at her writing desk with a glass of wine. He thinks of her as his “lead character” as a “new story begins” (366).